Mekong, Where Beer Is The Answer

 Hello Shenanifans! I've been neglectful and have not updated since Thanksgiving, but have been to a couple of good places that I do want to write about! So I'll back track on my beer trail soon and fill in some blanks. Watch for those updates.

I find myself in Richmond, VA right now. We have come down to help my cousin from his surgery this week. He is still in the hospital, and we are hanging at the apartment. 

A couple years ago, Doug did some travel work and found himself here. He stayed at a hotel within walking distance of a Vietnamese restaurant with a brewery. Well. There ya go. He enjoyed his visit so much that he wanted to go back. That's where we ended up last night.

Mekong is indeed for beer lovers, and food lovers as well, I'll say. With an extensive beer menu that spans north to south, styles and flavors, they even brew their own. Doug had wanted to go into the brewery area but they're closed on Mondays, sadly. Well, it isn't like we don't have choices. 

We ordered pan fried dumplings and rocket shrimp wraps for appetizers, and surfed the beer list. I always like to do the locals when I travel, so I got the Space Invaders Hazy IPA from Final Gravity Brewing here in Richmond. Doug got the Animal Balloon SIPA from Hudson Valley. 

Space Invaders is pictured to the left and Animal Balloon on the right in the photo above. They look so wonderfully similar, but taste wildly different. The Space Invaders was nice. Good flavor and mouthfeel, it went down easy for a DIPA. The SIPA tasted like a mimosa, or a spree candy once the hard coating starts melting off when you're sucking on it. Both of them were fantastic. 

 

In a lot of ways it is weird to me to drink fruity sours with the flavors of Vietnamese cooking. They don't really go together. 

But we're here to eat delicious food and drink tasty beer, dagnabbit, and if necessary, rinse between tastes so you can go from a tart cherry to a spicy curry and not get your palette  completely confused. 

We next wandered into two very different looking and tasting beers. 

On the left is the Enga Ikizere from Mast Landing in Maine. A coffee brown ale that was super, very heavy coffee taste and smell. Almost like having that morning coffee for sure. 

I am a huge  fan of Mast Landing because they've been the brewers for Guster's take over of the city of Portland, Maine for the past few years. I'm hoping they'll have yet another concoction mixed up for us in August for the next On the Ocean 2022. 

Doug picked the tart cherry Amarelle from another Maine state brewer, Oxbow Brewing Company. It was very cherry, tart, fantastic. Not as tart and puckery as the Animal Balloon, but a different feel due and flavor due to cherry vs. orange. Really tasty. Good for sipping and talking. 

We enjoyed our dinners with this pair, the Tom So Xao Hanh Gung, which was shrimp and scallops breaded and fried, then glazed with a ginger sauce and scallions, and the Bo Xao Lan, which is beef sauteed with onion and spicy yellow curry sauce, sprinkled with crushed peanut. The curry could have been hotter or spicier, but to be honest, going with a lot of the fruity styles of beer maybe it was better this way. It was a tremendous meal.

Lastly, we had another pair of mismatched looks and tastes but very much a dessert course in and of themselves. 

In the back is the Geisterzug Rhubarb by Freigeist Bierkultur, and in the front a tiny but potent Buntastic by Prairie Artisan Ales. 

The Rhubarb was yet another nice sour, almost like wine or cider. It was delicious, and very flavorful, not that I ever think of rhubarb itself as flavorful. All of my rhubarb experience have usually been in pie, and always better when the pie is made with a mix of rhubarb and something else. But this was good.

Mekong failed me at not actually having carrot cake to serve with the carrot cake beer. That would be a nice coupling. It has a very high ABV, but it's not a face punching hot alcohol forward brew. 

When I held it up to my nose, I honestly could barely detect any aroma to it so I got a little worried it would be a dud. Doug said he got the hints of vanilla but other than that not much. I got nothing. 

But then you sip it and all the flavor is there. Carrot, sugar, vanilla, spices, maybe a hint of coconut, and it's a slice of cake right in your face. I understand the tiny glass because of the ABV but this left me wanting some more.

And a slice of cake. 

As a restaurant, the staff was fantastic. Everyone had on fun shirts that were plays on pop culture references and their motto of beer being the answer. I thought about the Todd Rundgren song of Love is the Answer and sang about beer instead. The Virginia is for Lovers tag gets a nod with Mekong is for Beer Lovers, Run DMC's logo is turned into ANS WER (I didn't want to ask my waiter if I could take his picture. 

I loved their logo on the seats and tables to remind you at every moment that you're in the beer lover's place. A bottle cap edge with the river running through it, as a nod to both Vietnam and the Mekong river and Richmond with the James, both places united by water that divides the land. 

One of my favorite bands, Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, have a song called Mekong about an American serviceman at a bar ordering rounds of Mekongs from the barkeep as he makes friends, and he bemoans that he hasn't seen his girl in 15,000 miles. The refrain goes: 

"And if it's true it's always happy hour here, then if it is I'd like to stay a while. 

As cliche as it may sound I'd like to raise another round,

And if your bottle's empty help yourself to mine. Thank you for your time.

Here's to life." 

It put a smile on my face to look around and see people enjoying themselves so much with friends and food and drink. Here's to life, indeed. The lighting is very bright, the bar is lined with bottles and pulls. Giant TVs were showing car racing and NCAA tourney games at the bar. The place was hopping with families, dates, Moms and Dads with their VCU students, it was a true mix of folks enjoying the food and atmosphere. 

All told this was a fantastic night out. Richmond, you're lucky to have this gem! I'd go back for sure, and recommend others do too!