Top of the Hill Restaurant & Brewery

07/24/11

Top of The Hill is Bottom of The Barrel

by truth in dining triangle at Citysearch

You know its very disappointing to go to a place that others have said was great. It reminds me to wait for my own experience and then I would not be so let down.

Top of the Hill is anything but. I have read several of the other reviews and clearly there are some good attributes, or at least one or two. Yes the view is great. The atmosphere is casual. The brew room is fairly impressive. That is where the attributes end.

Let’s get down to the real reason anyone goes to a restaurant. It's good food. TOTH may have a couple of things going on in the kitchen, but it's not a great chef and staff. That's the sort of thing you expect at a fast food joint, but not at a place like TOTH.

Where to start, it's hard, there are so many wrong things and so few good.

The Caesar Salad is so dull that anyone could duplicate it with a bowl full of damp romaine. A great Caesar is tart and crispy and is a meld of a few really great ingredients. It's too bad this staff is unable to do so. A great Caesar is simple to make. They failed.

The Pork Chop! Alas the pork chop! A good pork chop cooked correctly should be a meld of nicely browned almost crispy outside and just so lightly pink inside. I could have seen this in the pork I was served, but was unable to enjoy it. First, the pie of black beans looked just that way, a cow pie although slightly on the greenish side. The mound of avocado salsa on top ruined the taste of the pork. One must remember that what the food looks like is so very important to what you are eating. The menu described the pork chop as thick cut. Well, I could not read through it, but you could use it to shim up a wobble table.

The grit cakes along with shrimp did not look appetizing at all. The sauce was certainly not what one would expect. It was very thin, almost like milk just out of the bottle. The shrimp were salty. The grit cakes might have been good, but after soaking up the thin sauce, they were nothing more than wet toast.

The jambalaya didn't look remotely appetizing. If you can't make it great, don't make it. Jambalaya takes a deft taste to bring the ingredients together. And by the way, toasted French bread is not crostini. It's toasted French bread.

The only high point to the evening was green salad. It was simple. It was tasty. It was made with enough thought to not overextend ones cooking ability. Any 10 year old can do this though.

Anyone that pays upwards of $15.00 to $18.00 for per plate should be expecting a lot more experience and skill coming out of the kitchen.

As to the service, the server was okay, a bit inattentive at times, and she didn't have "it". You could tell she didn’t really like the food. The hostess staff was okay. But they were all overdressed, all accept for the young lady that was wearing her nighty!

One more thing, any so called high end restaurant manager that walks around with his sleeves half rolled up and clearly has not idea of how to interact with the customers’ needs to work someplace else. He could wash dishes!

Don't waste your time and money at Top of The Hill.

03/10/11

Food is overrated, drinks are great

by heintzel at Citysearch

When you go to TopO, you are paying for the location. The food is average but very over priced. The bar scene is fun and the bartenders are very knowledgable. They only have their brew of beer which is sometimes disappointing because I sure do love Bud Light. Their White and Blueberry wheat beers are good but I don't like any of the others. Their French Onion Soup is awesome

02/26/11

Hit or Miss

by brandigirl2005 at Citysearch

The beer was good but a bit pricey. The food seems to be hit or miss. I've been there several times and in general have enjoyed it.

03/24/10

So many things were bad.

by adougla1 at Citysearch

My husband, my daughter, and I went to this restaurant expecting a normal casual dining experience. We are not at all picky about food and are not demanding customers. No one came to our table for 10 to 15 minutes so we had to ask the hostess to send us our server. When our server finally brought us our drinks, I received a coke instead of the diet coke I had ordered (and with no straw). This is a totally human mistake and it wouldn't have bothered me if it it weren't for the fact that it took ages for our server to get back to the table. When she did, she stated that my coke was indeed a diet coke and that she would bring me a replacement just to appease me. Again. No straw, but at least it was a diet coke. When our food came, mine was fine, but my husband's chicken sandwich was raw. Now he's the type of man who would eat a raw chicken sandwich if it weren't really, really raw. Anyhow, I was finished with my meal by the time the server came back to check on us. By then we had to leave, so my husband never got to eat anything at all. Also, our outdoor seating might as well have been indoors since we were tucked in an awkward corner with no view. Also, there is no kids menu and no crayons for entertaining the little ones.

• Cons: Extremely slow service and undercooked food.

12/03/09

The place people love to hate?

by durhamresident at Citysearch

Reading through these reviews reminded me that TOTH is the place CHers love to hate. They all seem to think it's unimaginative to go there, but I must say, it's a great place to take a friend visiting town for the 1st time. I've found that the specials are somewhat touch & go, but most of the ones I've had have been great. Personal favorites include the fried chicken plate, the Baja Chicken Salad, the Old Well White, & the Sweet Potato Cheese Fries. Great place to hang out w/ friends, creative entries.

• Pros: good food, great location, neat atmosphere
• Cons: parking, crowds