The Beacon St. Tavern
After a beautiful day out, I returned home to shower and get ready for a date night with Darin. We planned to go to The Beacon Street Tavern which we have been to before but they recently revamped it slightly and I was curious about the changes. One of the reasons I like this place is because of its proximity to our apartment and the fact that they have a patio for outdoor seating. Usually I ALWAYS opt to sit outside but tonight it was so muggy we both agreed that the A/C would feel good. 
The restaurant was quite dark inside which made picture taking difficult. It did have a cozy feeling though with large red couches set up in the middle of the room which I believe were part of their newly launched “Night cap lounge”. The place wasn’t packed but I would call it full which always makes me feel better when I am dining out.
I had checked out the menu prior to our arrival and had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to order but it’s still fun to look. I was really torn between the almond crusted shrimp cake, the curried turkey tips, and the Mediterranean plate. Darin looked at the menu for about 2 seconds and knew exactly what he wanted. This is usually the case and he’s typically patient while I take forever to decide!
One thing that I was quite decisive about was my choice of beer for the evening. I spotted Raspberry Hefeweizen UFO which is one of my favorites! This beer is so fresh and perfectly sweet with the raspberry flavor. It has a slightly pink hue and totally hit the spot on this muggy night. Darin got the old standby, Allagash White.
They brought by a bread basket with 2 pieces of bread. I liked this because when they bring a huge basket with 6 different pieces for two people it often overwhelms me and I want to try each piece. I had a half a piece of one of them with a small smear of butter. It was a pretty dense sourdough and wasn’t my favorite so I am glad I didn’t eat the whole piece.
In the end, the almond crusted shrimp cake won out (this may or may not have been based on the sweet potato fries that come with it!). The shrimp cake turned out to be pretty salty for my taste. I ended up eating most of it though because I was really hungry and the texture of the almond crust was very appealing. I think I prefer crab cakes though! Darin ate the majority of my sweet potato fries which was fine because I really only wanted a few. The shrimp cake was served on a HUGE brioche roll which I didn’t touch. There was a very small serving of napa cabbage slaw which I ate but wasn’t crazy about. It was quite soggy and didn’t taste super fresh.
Darin went with the swordfish. He also thought that it was a little on the salty side but he ate the whole piece too! His was served on a base of vegetables (not sure exactly what they were) and some white beans. The white beans were awesome and I ate those while he was munching on my fries.
All in all it was a very enjoyable meal and nice to get out of the apartment for a night with each other. The menu is loaded with interesting selections so even though this meal wasn’t my favorite, we will give it another shot.
