So, after the proverbial bad day at work, we went to Pirates Tavern. We'd never been before, indeed, we didn't even know anyone who had been before, and I admit I was rather dubious about the whole thing after looking at their website with the computer-generated babes with special sparkling nips. But still...

We arrive at 6:30ish, and a band is already playing Dead tunes in the loft. Unfortunately, the music is really loud, louder than I want to deal with, so we go and sit on the pleasant covered porch overlooking St Helens Rd.

Our young waiter, with his hair fashioned into two impressive horns, brings us water, and then 24 oz mugs of beer. They have several organics from Roots, as well as Wild Hops and Stone Mill (aka, Budweiser), as well as a number of organic wines, and rum.

While I am a lover of the fake meats, the menu at Pirates Tavern is frightening. It's all about mock this and mock that with pasta or potatoes or white rice. Entrees are $12 - $14, with appetizers about half that (the menu online is not up-to-date). We ordered a taquito appetizer to split, tostadas and mushroom stroganoff.

The taquitos, well, what's not to love? There are 4 of them to the appetizer, crunchy and deepfried, and god-only knows what's inside them. A small serving of pico de gallo and quacamole are along side.

The entrees, unfortunately, were not as good. The tostadas were a huge plate of food, but unfortunately, it was all layered on warmed tortillas. I have to admit, I've never ever had a tostada that wasn't served on a crispy fried tortilla, and honestly, I don't ever want to have one again. The beans were seasoned, but not as tasty as they could be with just a little more seasoning, and the white rice appeared almost instant. The stroganoff was a non-dairy cream sauce on white pasta -- that was fine. Large chunks of some burnt fake meat, god only knows what, dotted the dish. I had been hoping they were seitan, but they sure didn't taste that way.

The entrees come with soup or salad. Today's soup was lentil, and it was fine, though nothing really to write home about. The salad was small, but generous with vegetables, and I appreciated being able to order an unusual dressing without comment.

In the end, our dinner was $50 including tip. Not inexpensive, in other words.