Pat's Tap

I'm forever finding places I'm embarrassed to have never found before. I've been hearing of Pat's Tap for ages and you'd think the fact that the restaurant name is a palindrome would be enough to lure me in sooner. Sucker for word tricks over here. 

Better late than never, and better that my first experience at Pat's be accompanied by a basket of fried pickles.  Lightly battered and served, of course, with ranch dressing, they were the perfect way to kick start a meal after a truly awful workday. I don't think it's legal to eat fried pickles without drinking beer, so I was happy to note a tap list that made the choice a difficult one but and was happy to toast with a pint of Lift Bridge Farm Girl

I made a meal of the appetizer mussels in a white wine broth (Meatless Monday and all). Our waitress was genuinely confused by my not eating meat (okay, I sometimes eat seafood/fish) just one day a week, hence my linking to the wikipedia explanation. The mussels were delicious, the broth perfectly light and savory, I only wished for a bit more bread to soak up that broth-y goodness once I'd killed every last one of those shelled creatures. 

We split a slice of carrot cake to finish off the meal and "split" is really inaccurate.  I think we ate a third of the slice together because it was, literally (and I understand the definition of that word), the size of my face. I took the remainder of the slice home and three days and several small slices later I still have at least two healthy portions left. You could easily split this monster between four people and have some to spare.  And they're not trying to make up for mediocre flavor with sheer size.  This is a fantastic carrot cake, and I am a true connoisseur of this particular dessert as I'm very proud of my own family recipe. Dense but still moist, with a cream cheese frosting that doesn't overpower the carrot cakeyness, you will treasure those leftovers. 

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