The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
You’ll find something to your taste, at Sauced in Lakewood
Value, choice reign at low-key small-plate Lakewood eatery that has impressive selection of largely local beers on draft
In recent months, I’ve certainly been to fancier places. I’ve been to restaurants with at least somewhat better food. I’ve probably enjoyed at least slightly better service. And yet I can’t easily think of a meal out I’ve enjoyed as much as the leisurely Friday evening I just spent at Sauced Taproom & Kitchen in Lakewood. Falling somewhere on the expansive spectrum between a food-focused smallplates restaurant and a dive bar, Sauced proved to be a terrific place to nibble on this, sip on that and hang out with a good friend. Opened nearly a year ago by Brent Pease and Geoff Mathias and sitting in a busy area on Detroit Avenue, Sauced boasts 50 beers on tap — a hugely impressive number of them from Ohio — and myriad munchies. I say “munchies” because there’s nothing on the Sauced menu resembling an entree. Oh, you could try to construct one — broccoli is an available side dish — but, realistically, you’re going to grab a few things from their wide selection of meatballs, pizza slices, wings, empanadas, salads, sliders and fries. After settling in at two seats at the end of the bar, my buddy and I started with the latter, choosing the Stuffed Pepper fries — spuds piled with sausage, mozzarella, colby, green pepper, red pepper, jalapeno and red pepper aioli — over a version called The Marty, with queso, pulled chicken, bacon havarti and ranch. (Like most of the fries, both are $7.) The serving was a bit smaller than I had expected, but the flavors were terrific and the textures helped make this a memorable offering. We made quick work of the contents of the small square plate. My favorite item of the night was from the Sliders section of the menu, the Jerk Chicken ($7) — pulled chicken in jerk sauce with Havarti cheese, pineapple, arugula and garlic aioli in a ciabatta bun. While my pal wasn’t as impressed, I loved the explosion of zesty Caribbean flavor. (Our server, Emily, who took great care of us throughout the evening, had made sure to warn us the pair of small sandwiches would be quite spicy.) My least favorite item of the night was one of the empanadas, which are filled with potato, green and red peppers, jalapenos and onions. We chose the Lamb variety ($6) and went with the recommended sweet chili sauce on top. While the menu says the empanadas are homemade — and I’m certainly not disputing that — ours had that freezer-tofryer feel and was just slathered with the aforementioned sauce. It just didn’t have that hint of sophistication of the other items, and I wouldn’t prioritize getting an empanada on a return visit. Not bad, but not great. If you like chicken wings, however, you may want to prioritize them (five for $6) on a Sauced stop. Considering the name of the place, it should come as no surprise they’re offered with a nice selection of sauce choices, including the Dr. Pepper BBQ sauce you’ll see on the descriptions for this and that on the menu. There’s even a Cereal Crust option, with the wings tossed in various cereals and then given a touch of a maple glaze. That sounded interesting, but the cereal du jour being Fruit Loops scared me away. We went with the Chili Lime and soon were enjoying tasty, perfectly cooked wings. While we passed on the meatballs, dips and salad sections of the menu — salads come in two sizes, and some include one or more meats — I wanted to get a feel for the pizza, with dough made in house. My friend quickly locked onto a slice of the Maria, Maria ($3), which boasts chilaquile sauce, queso fresco, chorizo, tomatoes, verde salsa, cilantro lime sour cream, tortilla strips, while I went with the BBQ Burger ($4), which uses that Dr. Pepper sauce with ground beef, bacon, multiple cheeses and more. We cut off a about a third of each slice for the other person and agreed the BBQ Burger was the tastier of the two. I thought each was drizzled with two much of their respective sauces, mine being a garlic aioli, but given the creativity and the prices of these slices, you can’t complain. And that’s where Sauced really impresses — at the intersection of inventiveness and value. Not counting alcohol, our bill totaled a little more than $35, which felt more than fair considering all the items we tried. It’s hard to imagine anyone not find finding selections to their taste — there’s a simple kids’ menu, too, by the way — but if that’s the case, you also can build your own fries, sliders, pizza slices and salads. During a follow-up phone call, Mathias said the idea for the restaurant was largely inspired by build-your-own type of restaurants where you customize your order with pad and pencil. I just didn’t see the need, but the ability to customize to that degree is appealing, and it should make it easier for vegetarians, vegans and those going gluten-free. I won’t go too much into the beer offerings, but they are many — including several from Masthead Brewing Co., a few miles to the east in downtown Cleveland — and constantly rotating. Over the course of the evening, I was able to try a peanut butter-chocolate stout from a Cleveland brewery and an IPA from an Akron brewer, both beers previously unknown to me. However, I wanted to start with a signature cocktail. While old fashioneds are my go-to drink, their New Fashioned’s use of strawberry scared me away. Instead, I chose the Steam Engine and loved the concoction of Basil Hayden Bourbon, Licor 43, vanilla, lemon and lime and served, like an old fashioned, in a rocks glass with ice. All the nearly 15 cocktails are $7, by the way, another checkmark in the value category for Sauced. Sauced has a big, comfortable space — perhaps too big given all the empty tables on a Friday night. I’d like to see the place stick around for a long time, so I hope more people appreciate what they have to offer.