3rd- olive garden, bloomington
6th- loring pasta bar, minneapolis
8th- santorini, st, louis park
10th- buca di beppo, eden prairie
12th- campiello, eden prairie
17th- bloomginton park tavern, bloomington
19th- annie's parlour, minneapolis
20th- wildfire, eden prairie

3rd-olive garden, bloomington (c)

one of those places destined to be average. they used to be more generous with stuff, though. brimming bowls of salad, large baskets of breadsticks, that kind of thing. this time, the salad bowls were maybe a third full (they still brought more if you wanted), there were no crackers for the soup, and someone had to get extra sauce as their pasta was kind of nekkid.

so in the category of 'i don't learn my lesson,' combined with not heeding tony bourdain's advice, plus my not picking the restaurant led to a repeat of the red lobster, at least in the seafood in the pasta department, except the shrimp was not anything to write home about, but the mussels were good. and perhaps someone will realize at these chain restaurants that if you order mussels, you need a place for the shells. unless you want people to throw them on the floor or something. it also needed more sauce. as did the chicken marsala. (well, that also needed to be moist, and the mashed potatoes needed to be less... liquid... ). anyway, since it was frozen first (something must have made the scallops taste like erasers...) i didn't worry too much about the freshness of the seafood.

and i'll remember i said that when i'm regurgutating tomorrow, i'm sure. but i will still be dreaming of pillowy, smooth, almost creamy large scallops. sometimes it's a bitch not to live near the ocean (in more than one way, but that's another story).

6th- loring pasta bar, minneapolis (d)

i really don't want to give it a d. some of the dishes were lovely, like the artichoke dip thing, and the mango tatin. and it's a beautiful room, and many people who work there were perfectly charming, i'm sure.

however, the server was crap (new person on the job, we guessed), and took on average 15-20 minutes to get anything to the table, be it food or beverage, including a cup of coffee and the bread basket. and there was no subtly attracting their attention. even blatant staring didn't work, and when theyfinally did fill the water glass, theyonly did one at the table, though more than one at the table was empty. we had to call them back for the rest (and it was right next to the first empty one. it's one thing if they maybe can't see it... )

foodwise, the calimari was a standard version, served with a spicy aioli, which kind of overwhelmed anything subtle about the dish. the artichoke ramekin was good, but they bread they used to serve it with (and the stuff in the bread basket, for that matter) was kind of middle of the road sesame stuff.

my portobello ravioli, besides being oddly topped with distracting corn salsa, was cold. they said they would replace it, yet the half-eaten ravioli that i had left was still in the mix, so unless i got some half-eaten stuff from the pot.... and the hid it on the bottom of the pile o' ravioli. at least it was then taken off the bill. once microwaved, though, it was tasty (besides the random corn). the other two pastas i tried (roast chicken and artichoke, crab spaghetti) were ok, and ignore the mashed potatoes. the steak was decent enough, i heard.

some kind of chocolate cake with mousse thing with mint ice cream was nothing to write home about, though i liked the ice cream and the tiramisu was entirely lacking in coffee or booze so was more or less worthless. but again, the mango tartin with vanilla ice cream and pear syrup... tasty. and the decor was cool, as was the music... trance (on the sound system) and live french-style accordion and violin.

and all that being said, the dinner wasn't a crappy, horrible time. it all depends on the mood you and the people you're with, i guess, not to take any importance off the need to have competent servers but would i go back? not unless i craved the artichoke ramekin.

and as a side note, when did dinkytown get all family oriented? that's just odd.

8th- santorini, st. louis park (c)

hrm. since it was with the 'rents, not great service is the par. on the table, fruity olive oil. they brought plates with cheese bits, and some random bread that was hard to dip, it was too big to use whole, and too small to break into pieces of usable size. it took a while to get in our order, especially after ordering an app.

we started with the artichoke dip, greek style. semi-greek style. pseudo-greek? anyway, artichoke, cheese, lemon, onion, garlic. it was ok, but the menu said it came with pita crisps, not the pita wedges it came with, and crisps would have been a lot handier to eat the stuff on. not bad, not great. it took a while to get there.

the veggie combo platter was kind of odd. large spanikopita, makes sense, veggie moussaka, ditto. random veggie mix, out of place, angel hair pasta with parsey and butter? weird. mashed potatoes piped into some rosebud looking things? uh... whathuh? not tasty, either. they were some of the most easily moldable taters i've run across in a while, so it was fun to scuplt with them. (someday, perhaps, i will have better table manners...). the veggie mix tasted pretty good (butter'll do that to veg), the spanikopita had weird lemon sauce, the veggie moussaka was too sweet, the pasta ok.

the 'rents shared the veal marsala, weird choice at a greek place, but hey. it had better sauce than the marsala at the french restaurant they went to last year, reportedly. perhaps someday they will try it at an italian place. who knows. we're not a family big on logic, sometimes. $3.95 they said was their split charge, which seems high.

they brought a dessert plate for everyone to share. it had a sparkler in it (for the birthday), but i only really wanted the sparkler, really (shiny!). but the baklava was pretty good. my mom enjoyed the chocolate cake a lot. the vanilla ice cream... well, at least they tried with the strawberry sauce. and they didn't charge for the dessert, which was nice.

while there, we saw that guy from the used exercise equipment tv ad they run nowadays in town, we think. he had the same strange hair. apparently it's not just a prop.

10th- buca di beppo, eden prairie (a-)

i've given it an a- and a b+ before. it's usually about the same. sometimes the difference is service, as it was tonight. i will say i don't like their chocolate cakes as much as a lot of their other desserts. garlic mashed, always good. lemon chicken, pretty decent. etc. nothing broke new ground, but it was all pretty darned good.

12th-campiello, eden prairie (b)

it was packed when we went, so we sat in the bar. the pizza was acceptable (i forget the name of it, but is was like a margherita with oregano instead of basil, or something like that). the cannoli (dessert special) was really good. the service was also really good, which is nice for a change. nothing really stood out, and sometimes that's all you want and/or can ask for.

17th- bloomington park tavern (b-)

it's getting to average a c+. it's average food. average service (well, sometimes crappy, but still, going to the place with mr. bad restaurant karma, it's average) and a not so crowded dining area, despite the many cars outside the place.

this time i ventured out of my cod sandwich rut and had a chicken sandwich with mushrooms, cheese, onions, and... stuff. the chicken was pretty good (moist, not rubbery, had no 'freezer' aftertaste, etc.), but the sucker needed some kind of mayo or sauce to make it come together, so i swiped some bbq sauce off of someone's plate, which worked well. the fries were not horrible. the brisket sandwich and chili were a bit spicy, i was told, which is not a bad thing is freezing-ass (or ass-freezing) weather.

and it's always amusing to guess at the random trivia they have on wednesdays.

19th- annie's parlour, minneapolis (a)

grilled cheese, fries, and half a chocolate banana malt. always good to get back to the basics. (and my water glass was never more than half empty... how optimistic.)

20th- wildfire, eden prairie (b)

so it's supposed to be a faux 40's supper club. ignore the premise, it's not carried out in a lot of the details. and let's just say the place is not wheelchair friendly (the tables are of the 'let's see how many people we can pack in here' arrangement), and it needs some noise reduction. but the food ain't too bad, especially for a chain place. if i had to pick a place that does restaurant chains a bit better than your average 'pj o'pootertoot's' (gotta love the ben stiller show... the one from fox back in the day, that is. digression!) it's the lettuce entertain you chain.

they've done big bowl, tucchi bennuch, and other decent places for where they are and stuff. when i have to drag my ass to the place for fun in my life, the maul o'merica, i'd rather eat there than say... fried crap on a stick at minnesota picnic (fried crap on a stick is only good at the minnesota state fair. period. no exceptions. and that's yet another... digression!), horrid mc food, or anything that smacks of eatertainment.

anyway. even with mr. bad restaurant karma with us, nothing was that bad. we had reservations for 7:15, got there a few minutes early, and were seated right away. bread and water was brought to the table as we scanned the menus. we ordered, and the salad got there in a decent amount of time. it was the house salad. it was ok. the main salad bits were nothing to write home about (iceberg, cukes, tomatoes), but the hearts of palm and egg bits were a good touch.

water glasses were refilled at a decent clip (though not as quickly as annie's parlour, see above), the entrees arrived on time. the filet trio was pretty tasty, i was told. i enjoyed the mashed potatoes that came with it (red-skinned) more so than the fries (they rate a c on the fry scale. why the hell are fries with that so hard to make? is it the timing and the scale of the place that are so important? i mean, i know that real potatoes are a pain in the hinder at a restaurant, but still, the fake ones are always crappy.... digression!) with that i had on my plate. the turkey rueben... they get points for the turkey, as it wasn't that processed deli crap, but i was not fond of the bread. i like mine on the darker breads, or failing that, something with a bit of spine to it, not the soft marble rye it was on (and yes, it was toasted). but mr. bad restaurant karma liked it, so he got the rest to take home.

they did give a dessert to the birthday person (a smallish brownie with a smallish scoop of ice cream), and it was free. i think the birthday person liked my birthday dessert better. if you have to eat at eden prairie center, you could do worse. though you could always cross the highway and head to india palace or something, too. or even buca.

 

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