Main Street Restaurant and Bar is a great addition to Shuangjing's growing bar and restaurant scence.
They're still positioning themselves as in a soft opening, but this place is well managed, staffed, and executed for a place that's supposedly working out the kinks.
The bar offering is solid. Draft options include a line of Slow Boat brews (at 30 kuai a pint) and there are 60+ bottled beers available according to the menu. The wine offering isn't quite as deep but its still quite solid. Cocktail menu is still being tweaked (was printed on handout paper versus proper menu) but incuded all the standards. I had a perfect martini, which was very well executed. Nice and cold, good mix of vodka to vermouth and served up nicely. Arguably the best martini in Shuangjing, and at 30 kuai, a good value. Also had the slow boat porter, which was good and, again, felt like a deal at 30 kuai.
The menu is pretty ambitious, with a large number of offerings. Bar snacks (like wings, blooming onions, bacon wrapped shrimp, etc), hero sandwiches, burgers, pizza, salads and proper entrees make up an extensive menu. I had the burger, which was cooked perfectly - not dry at all, served with fries and a salad. The Missus had the grilled chicken entree, which was excellent - a huge chicken breast, grilled and served in a mushroom sauce, with a side of bacon mashed potatoes and cole slaw. She loved it.
Service was attentive without being fussy. The owner stopped by to ask how everything was, clearly wanting to get things right.
My only negative comment would be that I find the vibe of Main Street to be confusing. When we came in, at 9ish on a Sunday, it was dimly lit with lots of nightclubby blue mood lighting. It felt way more like an upscale "lounge" than a pub. The well-appointed tables, with nice place-settings, cutlery and bottles of Voss water complimented that image. But the menu is pretty "pub"-ish... or at least portions of it are (again, its huge). And the backroom has a pool table, air hockey, and foosball, which evokes college-campus pub in my head. Perhaps they change lighting and mood depending on day of the week or time of night, which would make total sense to me, but I did struggle in trying to get what the vibe of Main Street is supposed to be. I couldn't decide if I was underdressed (in jeans and a tshirt) or overdressed.
In short, I'll be back, for darn sure, to try more of the menu. There is a better burger in the hood (Plan B - but don't get me wrong, Main St's is a solid competitor), but that chicken was fantastic, and I'd absolutely like to try the heros, apps, and salads.
Kudos to the owner for bringing something interesting to the neighborhood and evolving the scene further.
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