Good Eats: Popeye's & The Tap

You know how sometimes you just get the feeling that you’re not going to like a place? We went to The Tap on Friday, and even though we knew nothing about the place beforehand, we actively skipped over it on our initial walk-by. If you’re familiar with the Faneuil Hall area at all then you’re probably aware of the Union St. strip of bars: The Bell in Hand, Purple Shamrock, etc. Well, we wanted to try somewhere new. So we walked over to Blackstone Grill but there was a musician playing very loudly and we wanted to be able to talk. So we walked over to Hennessy’s which is one bar over from Blackstone Grill. What’s the one bar in between? The Tap. Somehow, without even vocalizing it, we didn’t consider it as an option and just kept walking to Hennessy’s. Anyway, we walked in and they also had a way too loud musician playing. So, we decided to head into The Tap (where there was no music whatsoever).

We got a table right by the window and were nicely secluded. The first sign of trouble was our 13 year old waitress. Legit, she had braces. The second sign of trouble was our food. We ordered something called tap tots as well as their nachos. The tap tots sounded promising -- “Homemade tater tots stuffed with bacon and cheese” -- but they weren’t as good as the description. Then, the nachos came out and there was one layer of cheese over the top row of chips and that was it. Everyone knows nachos are like an iceberg... the majority is beneath the surface; so to ignore them like that is a real no-no. I will never go back there.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we had our first taste of Popeye’s on Saturday. Brig’s friends from Syracuse had been posting on Facebook about the new Popeye’s that had opened up there, so, she wanted to try the one that had recently opened in our neighborhood. It was very clean and bright and the staff was nice and helpful. I got a chicken sandwich (it comes with lettuce, pickles and mayo but I went sans pickles) and it was fantastic. I liked it better than KFC. My only complaint is I didn’t care for the mashed potatoes as much. Next time I’ll try the Cajun fries.