Pat’s Café may not look like much downstairs, but you’ll find fine dining upstairs

By Amy Martin

2008-01-16

Pat’s Meat House. That’s what I like to call Pat’s Café when we drive by. There’s a meat market below the restaurant, and I picture a meat market looking like a meat fridge with giant animal corpses hanging from the ceiling.

I had to go check out this cafe as I assumed we’d be eating sandwiches at a small table between these hanging, swinging corpses. Unappetizing as it sounds, I thought it would be an experience nonetheless.

Of course, I had it all wrong. The café and market are not a meat house in any way (although I’m still going to call it Pat’s Meat House just for fun). The market is a sweet little shop with spices, deli meats, big meats (steaks, sausages, the real meat lovers’ meats), dairy products, produce and more. The café is, well, not exactly a café.

Above the market is a gourmet restaurant. The decor is best described as country European. Everything is wooden, including the shades, and there are lots of plants. The lighting is very dim, creating a warm glow.

They describe the cuisine as Mediterranean, but chef boyfriend says it’s more like Northern Italian. The menu is small, consisting of five appetizers (flatbread, pan-fried raviolis, mussels, duck confit quesadilla and crab cakes), three salads (mixed greens, roasted beet and grilled chicken) and 10 entrées. A lengthy wine list accompanies the menu, and there is a full bar in the back left corner.

I had difficulty choosing an entrée. The choices were cioppino (an Italian seafood stew, $22), braised lamb shank ($20), Guinness meatloaf ($17), inside-out chicken cordon bleu ($19), scallops ($28), manicotti ($16), maple-cured pork chop ($18), salmon filet ($23), haddock ($21) and filet mignon ($33). I sat on the fence between the salmon and the stew. None of the entrées listed side dishes — which are my favorite part of a meal and often a determining factor. I choked and ordered the manicotti. Chef boyfriend ordered the pork.

We were starved and ordered pan-fried raviolis stuffed with smoked chicken, rosemary and goat cheese and covered with apple-bacon reduction ($12) to start. The sauce was incredible. Really delicious. I love sauces and beg chef boyfriend to put them on everything he cooks.

Before our entrées arrived I began wishing I had ordered something else. It turned out that the manicotti was good, but I wished I had been more daring. The boyfriend placed his order after me and was offered a choice of polenta cakes, shiitake risotto or garlic mashed potatoes. I wanted to change my order to a plate of just those sides!

The pork was perfect (just like chef boyfriend makes at home), covered in the same apple sauce as our appetizer and next to a pile of risotto covered with four stalks of asparagus. He was quite happy with his dish and said he’d return if they offered a rotating menu.

We finished our dinners with a dessert coffee. The dessert menu offered five choices and a list of coffees. Skipping over the safe choice — Irish coffee — I ordered the Monk coffee with Frangelico and Creme de Cacao. Oh lord was it ever good!

The experience at Pat’s was much better than I imagined (even without the hanging animal corpses) and we’ll be back for the Sunday brunch, which I’ve heard is fantastic.