The George’s corn chowder served with garlic toast. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
As I waited between courses, a friend casually walked past the restaurant. I tapped on the window and she laughed, and joined me for dinner, just like in restaurant commercials. That’s a neighborhood restaurant.
“We haven’t done a ton of marketing,” Co-owner Brent explained. “It’s been mostly focused on social media and word of mouth. We want to build that clientele first, instead of being the ‘flash in the pan’ and then not be around. We want to really create this Washington Boulevard as the walking neighborhood in North Pasadena.”
The pork chop at The George. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
As regards the menu, Richard said, “The concept of the food is regional American. What we like to do is look at the classic continental staples, but also try to take influences from around the United States, when it comes to how we produce our product. The goal as we continue to develop the menu and add specials, we may add in some wild game, something that’s truly American.”
“We like to keep a streamlined menu,” he continued, “so it’s focused and then we make changes as we need to add specials, but not have a Cheesecake Factory that has 50 pages. We have a small kitchen so we can produce high-quality product within the range of people who want to spend, and can continue to create that neighborhood vibe.”
“Everything we do is scratch kitchen,” said Brent. “Our sauces take 48 hours to make, depending on what it is. And a lot of places don’t have Cornish game, for example. They usually just have a traditional chicken breast. We have the Cornish game hen, which is a nice tender little bird, and our pork chop is excellent, with a nice demi glaze sauce.
On to that menu.
We opted to begin with the Corn Chowder with garlic toast. The recipe calls for fresh grilled corn off the cob, Brent explained, to create the base for the soup, and apparently there is some olive oil involved, some crispy onions, and a variety of spices, but what makes the soup is the chili oil drizzled on top. Talk about comfort food, this is really comfortable food.
Following a tasty course of crispy Brussel sprouts (I know, I know, just try them), our pork chop arrived. As the menu describes it, this is a hefty thick-cut with haricot verts, a blend of wild mushrooms, caramelized cippolini onions, and an agrodolce sauce.
Agrodolce is a sweet and sour Italian sauce with a sticky consistency, usually containing reduced honey or sugar, vinegar, pine nuts, and a mixture of dried fruits and veggies, such as golden raisins, red onion, or currants.
Our delicious pork chop was smothered in all of that, and was a formidable entree. Full disclosure: at least a third of it happily went home with me.
Meanwhile, my friend happily opted to hang around with me for a performance at the Pasadena Playhouse, because we are so Pasadena.
Thus we had to scoot and forgo any of the dessert offerings, but I will venture to say we will likely revisit “The George on Washington” when Cheeseburger Week comes around again in January.
We’ll be in the neighborhood.
The George is at 1615 East Washington Boulevard, Pasadena, CA. (626) 486-2084. www.thegeorgepasadena.com.
