41 George
Lunch & Dinner everyday, open late Fri & Sat
$
After an attempted visit to the food trucks to find nothing but super long lines and vendors quickly running out of food we had street food on the mind and had been hoping to try Patat Spot for quite some time now.
When you first enter the rather cozy restaurant on the busy row of restaurants on George Street, you’ll immediately notice the bright yellow tiles covering the wall and the rich smell of fried food (don’t worry if you don’t get enough of this smell while you’re in the restaurant – it’ll be with you on your clothes all day).
We split the REGULAR FALAFEL ($7.95) and made it a combo for an extra $2.99, which supplemented our meal with PATAT FRIET and a drink. Before we get any further, I’ll steal their description of a falafel: “a Mediterranean spiced chickpea cake inside of fresh whole grained pita bread.” The regular size comes with two patties garnished with tahini sauce. They have a great salad/topping bar packed with extras to garnish your pita just as you like it. Options include Babaganoush, Israeli Couscous Salad, spinach, tabouli, spicy chickpeas, etc. I suggest loading up as much as possible on your plate to try them all. The falafel had an amazing smoky flavor and, although it was fried, wasn’t heavy at all.
The fries are their other specialty and are prepared in the true Dutch/Belgian fashion. They are made from freshly cut potatoes, cooked twice to make the them crunchy while still keeping them thick. The fries are great, but the thing to get most excited about are the dozen-some-odd dipping sauces, ranging from Siracha ketchup to jalapeno cheese to olive oil and capers. We went with the CURRY sauce and INDONESIAN KETCHUP, both of which are made in-house. The curry sauce was pretty good, but a little creamy (probably a mayonnaise base?) for my taste, and the Indonesian ketchup tasted like a saltier version of regular ketchup that had spices mixed in (almost tasted simply like Old Bay to me). So, the two we tried weren’t amazing, but, if anything, it just left me wanting to try others on another visit.
And don’t worry, this just-over-a-year-old restaurant is open late on weekend nights, too if you work up an appetite from doing all those 12-ounce curls.
Tip: they sell $1 mystery beers (although its usually no mystery that the beer will be crappy) and you can make that your drink if you get a combo.
Bottom line: If you don’t leave this place craving those fries worse than Whitney Houston craves craved ’nose candy’ (too soon?) then you must be out of your mind.
