Ninth
Stop: Fatty
Patty’s
Date: March 8th, 2012
Location: 644 Main Street Covington, KY 41011
Ranking: 32
Robyn was
stoked to finally try out Fatty Patty’s.
Not far from her home and having received lots of positive buzz since
its opening, the restaurant had been on her personal to-do list for a while
now.
Fatty Patty’s
is located in MainStrasse village, right on a corner near Straus Haus, Zola,
and across from Designs by Dana.
We walk by this place all of the time, often together, but still had not
yet managed to cross its threshold.
We grew nervous as we approached and saw a “For Sale” sign facing us
from the Fatty Patty window. Not
to be too concerned, though – apparently they’ve been renting, and the building
owners are looking to sell. This
isn’t a death sentence (yet, we know; but, we’re also hopeful).
The dining room,
which is located towards the back and past a bar-like area, is small and
surprisingly orderly, despite the masses of neatly displayed cartoon and pop
culture memorabilia all over the walls.
It’s actually fairly organized by genre: Snoopy & the Peanuts gang in one corner, the Simpsons in
another, and several shelves of that old BC cartoon, among numerous other
collector’s items. The tables are
adorned with a variety of comic strips (ours was the Garfield table!) and some
have copies of comic strip coffee table books atop them, which you can look at
while you wait for your order if you aren’t already mesmerized by all of the
things hanging from the walls.
After reading
some other internet reviews of Fatty Patty’s, it is clear that they offer quite
a range of menu items. People seem
to be over the moon about their hoagies, sandwiches, and ice cream, but the
real reason for our visit was of course, the pizza! Based on Cincinnati
Magazine’s recommendation, we tried the namesake Fatty Patty pizza, which is a
meat lover’s dream, topped with Italian sausage, ham, bacon, beef, pepperoni,
“red sauce,” and Provolone cheese.
Since we haven’t ventured into the arena of all-meat pizzas, we thought
we’d give it a go. Honestly,
though, neither of us were truly excited about it. We generally like some veggies to mix it up, even if only
carmelized onions.
The crust was
thick and fluffy around the rim, and thin throughout the diameter of the
toppings. Unfortunately, the thin
crust in the middle could not support the weight of all that meat, and had to
be carefully dished out and eaten with a fork. There is no way you are getting the Fatty Patty in your
mouth by hand, no matter how determined.
It seriously falls apart when you remove it from the pan (see picture below). Courtney really wanted to double up the
thin underlying crust and toppings with the hearty outer crust, and tried to
fold hers in half. This did not
work out so well. It should be
pointed out that the crust around the rim was especially aerated, chewy, and
tasty. What Robyn really loved
about the crust was their own specially concocted blend of grated Parmesan cheese
mixed with other herbs/spices that flavors the crust while it cooks. It came out with a charred but
flavorful tinge to it. You can
also find this special blend of cheese on the tables to dispense on your pizza at
your own will, along with the standard red pepper flakes.
Speaking of red
pepper flakes, Robyn was amused by the fact that she felt the need to “liven
up” the flavor of the pizza with some of that red pepper zing. Maybe it was all of those meats
blending together to form one homogenous flavor that she can only describe as
“carnivorous.” Or maybe she felt
the need to include some vague semblance of a vegetable on board this
animalistic voyage. Either way,
red pepper flakes are not a common thing to see on her plate, so as far as her
taste buds are concerned, there had to be a little bit of something missing from this pie.
There are areas
where this pie excelled, however, including the subtle flavoring on the crust
and the seemingly fresh, quality meats that served as our toppings. But, we
both discovered that, when it comes to pizza, we definitely want an abundance
of cheese and sauce. Both of those
ingredients were almost completely masked by the meat toppings, which was a
little disappointing, because it would have been interesting to see how the
Provolone cheese affects the pizza as compared to the traditional flavoring of
mozzarella that we see most often on pizzas.
One of the
other advantages of Fatty Patty’s is the friendly service we received. Our server was really nice, attentive
to our needs, and eager to answer any questions we had. We would love to make
some return visits and sample other pizzas and menu items (the stromboli, in
particular!), and grab some ice cream for dessert.
