Pat's Tap: Had Me at Mocktails

I have to say it feels weird going into bars (or gastropubs, I guess I should say in this case) these days pregnant. People go to bars to drink. Pregnant women aren’t supposed to drink. So there’s that. And as I stood there waiting for my friends to arrive, I was pretty sure that it was the loud music making my poor 2lb fetus jump around a lot more than usual.

But I got past all of this. As soon as I saw one lovely delightful word on the menu: mocktails.

I’ve talked about mocktails before, as you know. Mocktails have become important to me because I’m craving wine just as much as I used to. Dinners out just aren’t the same with a glass of water. And most places in town completely overlook the mocktail.

So, I ordered my faux margarita and felt like this place was already on the right track with me.

The menu at Pat’s is interesting—lots of traditional bar food kicked up on the quality meter, but lots of wine bar-ish small plates too. This could be a match made in heaven for Zach and I.

There were a ton of small plates that were drawing our attention: Socca Flat Bread with manchego, mushrooms, and arugula on a chickpea crust; a Pretzel with spicy mustard, Goat Cheese Fritters, and Castle Rock Creamery WI Cheese Curds.

 

We ended up splitting the Goat Cheese Fritters, which were perfect. Little fried rounds of oozy goat cheese, topped with tart onions marmalade and sitting on top of a pool of lavender honey. Oh yes.

For my main, I didn’t mess around. I went straight for the Big Cheeseburger. I have a thing for hamburgers these days, and this one didn’t disappoint. It was big and lovely and cheesy and delicious. The bun was so much better than your normal dull bun. The cheese was a big wad of white cheddar, broiled. And then there were perfect pickles on top. And some tomato. Overall, a perfectly balanced burger that came cooked as I had ordered it, so I enjoyed it thoroughly without any concern of passing along undercooked beefy diseases to BGC. (And yes, that could potentially have prevented my full enjoyment of it.)

This is the place we’ll be going to when we want bar food. Because sometimes I crave bar food. But good bar food. And that can be somewhat of an anomaly. This delivers on the craving, but is actually good quality.

Like it.