Jason’s Take

On date night last week, we were going to go to the Yardhouse, but found out you really should get a reservation if you’re going there on a Friday night.  So we went to Cooper Irish Pub instead.

Cooper’s is a slight upscale Irish bar.  They serve a variety of beer, and the food’s always good.  We walked in right as a lull hit, because we got seated immediately, but they were crowded 15  minutes later.   Yay, us!

They make a perfect Old Fashioned, if you want to pretend to be a Mad Men hipster.  I did, so they did.  It was good.

We started out with Reuben Rolls, which are reuben guts wrapped in a spring roll and deep fried.  I’ve only recently been able to bring myself to eat sauerkraut, and then only at good restaurants.   This certainly wasn’t a restaurant that made me regret eating kraut.

We followed the rolls with a chicken and hummus wrap with mashed potatoes for me and a vegetarian wild rice burger for Linda.  Both were good.  Cooper’s knocks the mashed potatoes and gravy out of the park.   I like ordering simple things at new restaurants because it’s hard for the chef to hide behind the fancy crap.  It’s a good way to judge the overall quality of a place.  Cooper’s delivers.

For dessert, we had their three-dessert sampler thingy.  I don’t remember what they call it.  We got the deconstructed cheesecake(yum), the bread pudding(yum), and the salted caramel ice cream.  Oh my golly gee, this was good ice cream.  One bite, and I was ready to smoke a cigarette and roll over to fall asleep.   I’ve had sex worse than this ice cream.  Damn.

5 out of 5 pants off, for sure.  Cooper’s is worth visiting.

Linda’s Take

So this evening we were going to try out the Yardhouse, but with over an hour wait we thought there are plenty of other restaurants over at the West End Shops we can try.  The closest was Cooper’s. They got us in right away; the place was busy but not over busy.

They had a good selection of beers on tap, and the menu was pleasing. I loved the look of the place, tons to look at.

We tried an appetizer that had I really liked, Ruben egg-roles I would get those again in a heartbeat. I ordered a veggie burger, and it really tasted good however it fell a part too easy, my sweet potato fries were some of the best I have ever eaten, plus the choices of dipping sauces that I got with it made them 10 times yummier!

The best part of the meal was the desserts, we had a 3 treat trio, and by far for both of us we loved the salted caramel ice cream, however I found out the hard way that ice cream and a few beers don’t sit to well in my tummy. Needless to say that cut or evening a little shorter that what we wanted. So never again will I have the 2 together! Sorry for crashing our date honey, but you are awesome company!

4 out of 5 pants off

 Total Score

4.5 Pants Off!