Upon entering the Ada Pour House & Gastropub for the first time, I was overwhelmed not by any culinary aromas but by a tidal wave of periwinkle-blue paint. The Ada Pour House is located in the Ada Hilltop Center on Fulton, easy to drive past without noticing but undeniably convenient. While the wall color does not affect taste, it does set a tone of boldness that is carried through to the food. One scan of the lengthy (yet not overwhelming) menu will reveal that this boldness manifests itself in each dish. While the Pour House provides a sufficiently unique array of entrees to justify going out to eat there, each dish is sprinkled with enough elements of the familiar to put customers at ease and strike notes of remembrance in the taste buds of all eaters, whether adventurous or picky. The Pour House achieves the perfect combination of comfort and excitement by expertly mixing familiar ingredients and dishes with fresh twists.

It is after the excitement of choosing one’s meal that the waiting game begins, and at the Ada Pour House, it’s a long game. While a variety of appetizers are available to keep customers from starving in the interim, the entrees take an excessively long time to arrive at the table. The vegetable quinoa and the roasted brussel sprouts are two such appetizers: perfectly cooked and seasoned, both dishes transform healthy yet not always appealing ingredients into enormously enticing sides through a magic combination of cooking and spices. They counteract some of the pain of boredom and hunger caused by the long wait.

When the entrees themselves finally arrive, customers can count on food that is, at worst, decent, and, at best, heavenly. The wide range of culinary genres spanned by the menu, from sandwiches to pastas to burgers to seafood, makes it difficult to generalize about the quality of the food as a whole. While some entrees fall short of greatness, many achieve and even surpass it, making the long wait worthwhile.

Certain dishes, such as the pesto pasta, are simply average in their taste. While still original and plated with the creativity and attention to detail that is evident in all Pour House dishes, the pasta itself is, in that case, mediocre. The burgers, however, are undeniably exquisite. As a bacon-guacamole burger connoisseur, I can say that the burger I created at the Pour House, topped with cheddar, bacon, and guacamole, was the best one I have ever eaten. Served with some of the best fries I have ever had the pleasure of tasting, the burgers are well worth the wait. Customers looking for a more inventive spin on the traditional hamburger can opt for the “Not Really a Burger,” which replaces the meat with a sweet potato and quinoa patty, or the CB & J Burger, which includes cashew butter and fig jam.

The Ada Pour House is a fantastic addition to the Ada dining scene, adding energy and originality to ordinary entrees. It’s a great place to grab an exciting meal without driving far, dressing up, or paying an exorbitant amount of money. As it’s a fairly new restaurant, hope remains alive that the slow service will be worked out so that customers can take unadulterated pleasure in the food.