On tap: brews, scotch and ambitious pub grub

Psst! Wanna have some fun with a blonde from Belgium and Three Little Pigs?

Ever experienced Delerium Tremens?

No, this is not a kinky tale of a ménage à trois on a drunken binge. For that sort of thing, turn to the movie reviews.

Three Little Pigs is a triple-pork pizza on the menu at the Barking Dog Alehouse. Leffe Belgium Blonde and Delerium Tremens are from the selection of boutique local brews, cask-conditioned ales and imported beers served at this new Ballard pub opened in November by the father-son team of Jay and Kurt Meacham.

Barking Dog is the Seattle scion of Fred's Rivertown Alehouse, the Meachams' Snohomish pub, renowned for the past decade for its 32 revolving taps and 150 single-malt scotches. Built on the site of the old Seventh Avenue Tavern, a bar that suited the foursquare Ballard of yesteryear, Barking Dog reflects the hipper Ballard of today, attracting patrons as likely to be lugging baby carriers as laptop computers to this Wi-Fi hot spot.

Warm wood and earth tones accent the clean-lined, contemporary space. Front and center is a service bar showcasing the beer taps and wall of scotch. You can eat at the bar or in dining areas flanking it, where there's a choice of booth or banquette, communal or individual tables.

On weekends, dinner guests wait by the door patiently — sometimes for as long as half-an-hour — for their name to be called by friendly, efficient servers.

Once at a table, you won't be rushed, a good thing since both the menu and the drinks list take some time to peruse.

Don't bother with the uninspired wine list; you'll be "hoppier" with a beer (sorry). Each of the 15 local brews, five draft Belgian ales and 17 specialty European bottles are described in helpful, if occasionally florid, detail.

The kitchen pledges allegiance to no particular cuisine; the menu is eclectic and ambitious. On it you'll find lobster bisque, wonton-wrapped pork shumai, Thai seafood cakes, tofu fries and black-bean nachos — and that's just for starters. Evening entrees include buffalo stew, gumbo and steamed mussels, but the core of the menu at both lunch and dinner are sandwiches, salads, pizzas and wraps. On weekend mornings, breakfast is served, from plain old eggs and oatmeal to pancakes spiked with raspberry framboise.

Chef Zeth Nelson thinks globally but shops locally. Sausages come from CasCioppo Brothers nearby. Beef is from Vashon's Misty Isle Farm. Sandwiches are built on breads baked by Ballard's Tall Grass Bakery.

Its marbled rye, charred from the grill, holds a fat and fabulous Reuben ($8.75) stacked with pastrami, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and a house-made Thousand Island sauce. Slices of crusty baguette accessorize crab and artichoke remoulade ($9.50), a dip that's dense with cheese but rather drab.

CasCioppo's spicy andouille sausage links turn up a lot: in the Alehouse Breakfast ($8.95) escorting eggs and country potatoes; at lunch filling the Italian sub ($9.95); and joining bacon and pepperoni on top of the Three Little Pigs pizza ($14.95), accounting for much of that pie's pizzazz. The quality of the meats, anchored with good mozzarella and a potent tomato sauce, almost makes up for the pizza's nondescript crackerlike crust.

In gumbo spiked with porter ale ($11.95), chunks of andouille sausage head an ensemble cast that includes bay shrimp, diced chicken and rice, creating a thick, fragrant, fiery stew. Buffalo stew ($11.25), on the other hand, with lumps of tender meat, lots of gravy and little else, is simply boring.

Porter ale also lends complexity to the meatloaf — moist, subtly spiced beef visibly studded with shallots and sun-dried tomato and swathed in full-bodied mushroom gravy. But it works better as an entree ($11.75) than it does stuffed between a baguette ($8.50), whose rubbery texture suggests the sandwich has been microwaved.

Not so the delicately toasted Macrina brioche buns that hug panko-rolled crispy fried halibut ($8.75) as well as the Alehouse Burger ($8.75), a juicy patty of Misty Isle natural beef.

Sandwiches come with a choice of fries, salad or soup. The virtuous will be happy with their salad; for the rest of us there are thick-cut, crunchy waffle fries that are so good I couldn't bring myself on subsequent visits to try the tofu fries ($1 extra), even in the name of research.

Soups are done with finesse, especially the lobster bisque ($6.95/$3.95), whose intense lobster taste balances its creamy richness. Caesar salad lightly dressed with oil, lemon, anchovy and cheese also achieves a happy equilibrium that isn't the least upset by topping it generously with buttery slices of seared rare yellow-fin tuna ($8.95) — my choice, though you may prefer chicken, bay shrimp or halibut.

For an after-dinner treat, some might fancy bread pudding ($4.50) or a Thomas Kemper root-beer float ($3.50).

Others might consider a shot of well-aged Scotch whisky dessert. With 42 to choose from and little information beyond their age, you may have to rely on the servers' knowledge. Some of them look not much older than the whiskies, but they seem to know Glenfiddich from Glenrothes from Glenmorangie — and even how to pronounce them.

And that's no wee dram of hard-to-find 16-year-old Lagavulin you'll get for $6.50, but a generous measure in a snifter ideal for coddling the esters.

Providence Cicero: providencecicero@aol.com