#three10

A few months ago I was lucky enough to receive an invite to the private party opening of The Rec Room. I wasn’t free to attend, but Sarah was and she had a lot of good things to say about the finger food they had on offer. We were always likely to go visit and check the place out, but her comments pushed it up the list. When her daughter got a gift card for her birthday, plans were made. Games and food in one place? Oh I am very in.

The restaurant part of the Rec Room is called Three10, and is very large. There’s a ton of room, there’s a fairly large stage at the front of the dining area, and TVs everywhere lend a sports bar feel. Diners are given popcorn to nibble while they wait, a nod to the association with Cineplex just down the hall. The menu is an interesting hodgepodge, with bar food and steaks coexisting. There might be just a little too much on there to inspire confidence in any one item, a fear that sadly ended up being confirmed. 

I opened on the skillet chip stack:  tortillas, 4 cheese blend, beer cheese sauce, jalapeños, green onion, cilantro, salsa, sour cream. It was...fine. I opted against adding the pulled chicken, which was a mistake. The dish definitely needed some more substance to be good. The balance of garnish to chip was off, with too much on the top and not enough between the layers. Very difficult to eat this and get consistent bites, which contributed to the decidedly average overall feeling. 

This monster is the mahalo pizza:  bacon and spam crumble, pineapple, red onion, tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, bbq aioli. I cannot remember being more disappointed with a dish based on the menu description. The bacon was completely overpowered by the spam, to the extent that I wasn’t even sure there was bacon on it. Do you know how hard it is to overpower bacon??? The pineapple was noticeably canned, the bbq “aioli” was just bbq sauce (maybe even store-bough) and the overall combination was just unpleasant. This should have been so good...and wasn’t. 

The meal was at least partially rescued by dessert. I went with the chocolate crunch: dark chocolate custard, cookie crumble, caramel, pretzel bites. I am a sucker for salty-sweet, and pretzel desserts are near the top of my list. The cookies gave a third texture which really elevated the dish. I would go back just for this. As an aside, Sarah and her daughter had the other two desserts on the menu and both were very happy.