Over the weekend, I finally enjoyed one of my local food-items-of-lust: a Guinness Stout/ espresso/ chocolate milkshake over at Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe. Rudy's took over the venerable Eugene's a few years back, and has turned the space into a retro style (sort-of) punk rock diner.
Food: Good
Atmosphere: Good
Prices: A wee bit expensive, considering that it's diner food. A burger, some pancakes, and the shake were almost $40 with tip. Burger was good, although Rudy's does commit the sin of not using Heinz ketchup.
Anyway, the shake. It was really good, though sadly a 16oz glass is all you get. No tin with the leftover shake or anything. It's mostly sweet, but there is a certain beery bitterness to it that gives it great depth of flavor. It's the kind of thing that's there if you know what you're looking for, but you could probably pass it off as a regular coffee/chocolate shake to someone who didn't know the taste of Guinness. That would be an utter waste of Guinness though, so keep the shake for yourself.
My only suggestion would be to forgo the Hershey's syrup and use some sort of really dark chocolate instead. The stout gives it a deep roasty flavor that would be awesome playing off some dark chocolate notes. Except if they did that, I'd never be able to drive by the restaurant without stopping. Perhaps it's better as-is.
