Readers' Choice: St. Patrick's Day in Darien

Saturday marks St. Patrick’s Day 2012, and many of us will celebrate by heading to parades, catching up with friends, enjoying Irish music and dancing and celebrating with our neighbors through church-organized and other community events.

Those of us planning to head out likely have our “go-to” spots, so for this week’s Darien Patch Readers’ Choice contest we’re asking for your recommendations:

What’s your favorite place to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day?

What makes it special? Why do you enjoy it?

As with each Readers’ Choice contest, Patch will factor in a combination of poll votes (to help us narrow down the decision), comments and most important, ratings and reviews in the Patch Places directory, in determining winners. The best ratings and reviews say specificly why the place is so good for St. Patrick's Day and give us details.

Below you’ll find a starter list that we’re asking you to help us to flesh out—as well as a poll whose choices we’ll update as we get feedback from you. 

Please which places are missing from the list and why they're the best—we'll add them to the poll and create a new Patch Places listing for them. If you own or operate an establishment of any kind that doesn't appear as a Patch Places listing on Darien Patch, email David Gurliacci at darien@patch.com. If you do see your business listed and want to , by all means go for it and let me know if you have any questions (also consider !)

Before we get to our list and poll, just a note that here in Fairfield County we have five large parades—in Bridgeport, Danbury, Greenwich and Stamford—and here are some details about those parades:

• Bridgeport: 12 p.m. Friday, parade starts on Broad Street

• Greenwich: 2 p.m. Sunday, March 25; starts at

• Danbury: 2 p.m. Sunday, starts at

• Stamford: 12 p.m. Saturday, starts on North Street at Summer

Any kids wearing green on St. Patrick's Day can if they're with a paying adult.

Here's our starter list for Darien Readers’ Choice: Places to Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day (tell us what we’re missing as soon as you can so we can get it in the poll soonest):

• —22 Center St. ("St. Patrick's Weekend specials start Friday night with corned beef and cabbage, shepherds pie fish and chips cheddar and guinness soup, beers will include smithwicks irish ale, guinness, black lager guinness, bass ale
  on draft we have captain lawrence pale ale, landshark, stella magic hat vinyl and miller light we have feckin irish whiskey for the irish coffees and cheryl is making irish soda bread make reservations for Backstreet this weekend and the patio is open."—from Backstreet's Facebook page)

• —1340 Post Rd.—("Come Join us for Corned Beef and Cabbage on March 17th. Everyone's a little Irish on St. Patrick's Day!"—from the website.)

• —10 Center St.—("Chef Nick is even getting into the spirit with corned beef sliders, fish and chips, and more!"—from the website)

• —25 Tokeneke Rd.

• —972 Post Rd.—("This St. Patrick's Day, join us as The Goose goes green for a day. Come celebrate with Guinness Draught & Jameson's Irish Whiskey Specials served alongside your favorite Irish Classics from the kitchen. The band starts at 9:30, but the fun begins long before then. Get here early and stay late as The Goose is the only place to be. Reservations are always recommended: 203-656-2600."—from the website)

• —14 Grove St.—"This St Patrick’s Day, let the leprechaun lead you to the “pot-o-fondue” at The Melting Pot! During this special holiday, we will offer special Irish-inspired fondue dishes and also serve Guinness and Irish coffee."—from the website)

• —416 Post Rd.

• —1020 Post Rd.

• —205 Noroton Ave.—