As you probably know about me now, I trust Yelp pretty strongly. Anything above 4 Stars is bound to be good, save for some small critiques. However, we all have different tastes and preferences, I would trust my fellow Yelpers 95% of the time, but my visit to Purple Patch definitely falls within the 5%.
Me, Gislene, and Juan (an aspiring Yelp Elite!! Go recommend him!) had all had Purple Patch on our list for a long time, its a highly recommended and rated Filipino restaurant in the Mt. Pleasant area of D.C. On the lower level is a bar, with a restaurant on the top level. The space is very trendy and cute, exposed brick, big comfy armchairs for seating, string lights and paper lanterns. I made a reservation, and they had this cute welcome sign on the table when we arrived!
Purple Patch has a very extensive menu, with a long list of small plates and entrees. Fair warning, many of the dishes are beef and pork based – if you are vegetarian/pescatarian etc. I arrived a little later than Gislene and Juan, so while I was looking over the menu, Gislene ordered the cassava cake. This is a bar-shaped c cake made from yucca and coconut milk. It was very pretty, but I wasn’t a fan of the texture, it wasn’t bready and way more moist and sticky. Gislene really liked it, but it wasn’t my thing.
We started off with the Fried Spicy Adobo Wings. Adobo is a traditional filipino cooking method, which involves meat marinated in a sauce. These were very good wings, the flavor was not only present on the outside, but in the meat as well. The aioli on the side was a nice cool component, as well as the papaya salad. Overall, this was definitely a good appetizer, and 10 wings for 8$ was a good deal. I will say, none of us though these wings were actually spicy. I’ve never thought my spice tolerance was all that high, but I expected a little more kick out of this dish.
Next we had both our main course dishes. First was the Pancit Canton with Bok Choy (as opposed to a meat), a flour noodle dish with snap peas, carrots, green beans, and celery. The noodles had a good texture, but honestly, this dish was underwhelming. There wasn’t a lot of spice or flavor to the noodles, I think the noodle-to-vegetable ratio was off, and there was barely any bok choy. The lemon wedges were good to add something exciting to the dish, but that probably shouldn’t have been the main flavor.
The big dish we shared was the Escabeche, a whole fried red snapper. This dish was cool and intriguing, but I didn’t realize how scary a fish’s face could look! The whole fish was served “standing up” on a bed of a ginger soy sauce of sauce and red peppers with white rice. The fish as good quality, soft and tasty, and fun to pull apart together. However, I wasn’t impressed with the flavor profile. There wasn’t much spice to the actual batter and the sauce was more salty than anything else. Gislene noted that the rice tasted like it was microwaved, which I agree with. I will note that both dishes came out lukewarm, which definitely diminished the experience.
If I was going to have anything at Purple Patch, I definitely had to try something with ube, which is PROBABLY their namesake. Ube is purple yam, often used in desserts. We chose the Ube cupcake with Ube ice cream. The cupcake was great, really moist with a beautiful ube frosting on top. I really liked the ice cream as well. Often times when restaurant pastry chefs attempt ice cream, the flavor is too subtle, but I feel the chef did a solid job on this ice cream.
Let me say, i’m no expert on Filipino food, but I think a lot of Purple Patch’s dishes, particularly the entrees, fell flat. There could have been more spice, more flavor, and especially, the entrees should have been served hot and fresh. I feel that the chefs muted the spice to be palatable for the spice-weak instead of staying true to the cuisine, which is pretty disappointing. It is totally possible I ordered the wrong thing, and their traditional pork and beef dishes are probably great. But for my personal diet, I would only go back for the ice cream and wings.
The Bottom Line
The wings and ice cream are solid, but the rest needs a little improvement.
Cone Rating: 3.5 Cones 
Price: $$($) (15-25 per person)
Location: Mt. Pleasant, Washington, D.C.
aditi eats 