Tabu Lounge & Sports Bar, 200 S. 12th St., has a winning Gayborhood location, an excellent vibe and an attentive staff. However, the menu has some challenges to overcome before it can fully live up to its potential.
Tabu does a great job with traditional bar fare. The crab-cake sliders ($8.95) with Louisiana mayonnaise had a great flavor and consistency that even crab snobs from Maryland couldn’t fault.
And we could eat Tabu’s wings (10 for $7.95) all day, every day. Every flavor the bar offers is excellent, from the safe-but-savory bourbon-glazed wings to varying degrees of hot buffalo-style wings, all of which compliment how crispy and well cooked the juicy wings are.
The baked macaroni and cheese ($8.95) hit all the right comfort-food spots. We were initially worried about the peas, thrown into the mix with bacon, but the dish was tasty and solid.
The hangar steak sandwich ($8.95) is a nice-enough alternative to a hamburger, with tender beef and caramelized onion on a baguette.
Some of the dishes disappointed, not because they were bad, but because a quick trip to the spice rack would have gone a long way.
The Cajun-battered cauliflower ($5.95) was a prime example. Putting “Cajun batter fried” in front of anything raises hopes and expectations that whatever healthy morsels underneath will be magically transformed into something decadent. Instead, we were instantly transported back to a time when we were threatened with no dessert to finish our veggies. The big portions of cauliflower fought the batter every step of the way, to the point that even the spicy Parmesan dipping sauce couldn’t rescue it.
Likewise, the freshness of the fish tacos ($9.95) with corn salsa was undermined by a severe lack of spice or lime. A dish that simple could have easily been among the best selections of the night, but it just fell short.
Tabu won us over with dessert, which was a white-chocolate raspberry cheesecake. It was so good that it made us suspicious. (It wasn’t made in-house.) Tabu did a bang-up job on presentation. Let’s hope they keep the secret of where they buy, lest we go right to the source to buy whole cheesecakes.
Stay focused on the basic bar grub and the action on the abundant flatscreens and you won’t be disappointed.
Larry Nichols can be reached at [email protected].