Welcome to my “Around Talkeetna” series, Episode One. This is where I will write about, and review, places around our little village. Today’s episode is brought to you by my broken dishwasher. Saturday morning, first thing, my ancient, cheap, POS dishwasher was spewing water all over the floor. I had not yet eaten and was in no mood whatsoever to troubleshoot what was wrong with it. Looking at a kitchen full of dirty dishes, I decreed we would go out to lunch! Talkeetna relies heavily on tourism, and in summertime our little village is hustling and bustling with thousands of people. Every business on Main street is open and there are even a few food trucks. In Winter, this is not the case. Fortunately, our Main street is not full of boarded up buildings in the off-season, like Ketchikan’s downtown for example, but there are only a handful of restaurants that stay open year round. West Rib Pub & Grill is one of them, and that’s where we decided to go today.
In Summer, West Rib has a beautiful terrace that is quite popular with the tourists.
In Winter there are just a few small tables inside the pub, and a larger dining area in what I call “the basement”. Considering the fact that there are nine of us, we have to eat in the basement. I don’t mind this at all, even though the basement has kind of a sad vibe to it; picnic tables covered with plastic table cloth, two large screen televisions, silently showing a boxing match and a basketball match, and for some inexplicable reason there was still a Christmas tree and Christmas decor up on February 1st.
Oh, Christmas tree.. 
Here comes Santa Claus.
The Good:
The minute we walked in, the barkeep/waiter asked John and I if we wanted a beer. Heck yeah, boiiii! It’s Saturday, my dishwasher is broken, and I’m in a pub; of course I want a beer! That was super attentive and just what I needed. Our appetizer, caribou chili nachos, arrived very fast, was visually stunning, and tasty. One portion was also plenty for all nine of us to have a bit of an appetizer.
The Bad:
When our beautiful appetizer arrived, plates to eat it off did not. The poor chef is the one who brought us our appetizer. He was dashing around between the pantry/kitchen in the basement, and the fry shack outside. He looked like a deranged ISIL fighter with a scarf wrapped around his face and dark hoodie. I don’t blame him, having to go in and out of -3 degree Fahrenheit weather. It did kind of make for an odd dining experience. Anyway, when the Chef brought us the nachos, we did not have plates. I had to walk up to the pub side and ask the barkeep/waiter. He plopped a whole stack of small plates down for us. Unfortunately, one of them was quite dirty, which I found out when I started doling them out. Yuck. Holy food poisoning, Batman! I removed the offensive plate and we ate anyway, because damn, I was hungry.
The dirty plate, hiding among his clean brethren.
The Ugly:
Corvus’ caribou burger arrived and was equally visually stunning as the nacho plate. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about my jalapeno popper burger. I had ordered it sans cheese (not for religious reasons or because of lactose intolerance; I just really don’t like cheese on my burgers), but when I looked at my burger, it was clear that there had once been cheese on it, and it had been crudely scraped off. Jesus take the wheel! It’s a good thing I ordered it without cheese simply because of my idiosyncratic tastes, and not because of a lethal allergy.
Sexy burger. 
WTF, bruh, you just scraped the cheese off!
Please don’t get me wrong. I am happy West Rib is open all year. I am happy they are able to accommodate a family of my size. West Rib holds an annual pumpkin carving event in Fall that is one of my family’s favorite traditions. We love them, and will always love them for all of this. There is just a smidge of room for improvement.
