Rock Bottom boasts bad food, good beer

Pine Avenue is downtown Long Beach's gentrified paradise, with no shortage of upscale restaurants cooking up heaping helpings of yuppie chow and serving up premium-priced grog.   A well-stocked bar is one thing, but the truly bold restaurant will brew up its own libations on site.

Enter Rock Bottom, a small nationwide chain capitalizing on the popularity of microbreweries.

The restaurant's theme is a cross between Southwestern and California gold rush. In other words, if Chili's and Claim Jumper had a love child, it would look something like Rock Bottom.

Both the décor and the food reflect the theme. The restaurant is fairly dark but keeps the chintzy ornaments to a palatable minimum. Rock Bottom's menu lists food commonly found in bar and grills, steakhouses and mid-priced Tex-Mex joints.

Rock Bottom offers beef dishes like the Maui top sirloin (cooked with ginger and pineapple butter) and Texas fire steak (seasoned with "crazy pepper," whatever that may be) and chicken dishes, as well as pastas and whole pizzas cooked in a brick oven. All sound tasty, but these dishes run about $15 per plate. Side orders include vegetables and potatoes or rice.

Slightly more affordable dishes are under the "pub favorites and platters" category, where burgers, enchiladas and ribs are available for around $9 to $12 per meal.

Like all restaurant chains, the food is good but lacks character. There's nothing that would distinguish Rock Bottom from a dinner served at Sizzler or Outback Steakhouse. The overpriced meals do not help.

At least the centerpiece of the restaurant is excellent. Rock Bottom is a competent microbrewer. Along with a bar stocked with America's favorite liquors, Rock Bottom makes six signature beers and one or two "beers du jour." Something unique is the chalkboard listing the brew dates, alcoholic content and specific gravity of the beers served, a sure-fire appeal to the most pedantic of beer connoisseurs.

Not sure on which flavor is appealing? Servers will bring sampling glasses upon request. One of their best beers is Black Seal Stout, which is dark with a sweet hazelnut aroma and a finish that is not the least bit acrid.

Rock Bottom also hosts a happy hour from 4 to 7 p.m., like any decent hooch house worth its weight in hops should, but the atmosphere is very subdued ­ less lively than other restaurants along Pine Avenue. Crowds vary, but the wait for tables is never too long, and the servers are attentive.

A dinner at Rock Bottom is decent at best, underwhelming at worst, but making the specific gravity of beer a matter of public record is a very bold move.