24th- d'amico and sons, eden prairie
29th- big bowl, billabong, olive garden, bloomington24th- d'amico and sons, eden prairie (a)
an early dinner, about 5 pm, and most people have cleared out of town for the weekend and the place is emptier than i've seen one of these places in ages. i get a pizza, the neapolitan (aka margherita) one, with mozzarella, basil, and crushed tomato. i order water, but the woman at the counter tells me to help myself to lemonade or a soda. the patio is empty, the lemonade is fresh, and the pizza is very, very good. and yes, i burn the roof of my mouth on it. i just wish the view was not of highway 169 and many, many suvs.
29th- big bowl, edina (b+), billabong (f), olive garden (c), bloomington,
at big bowl for lunch, we get a table on the patio right away, which at noontime at this place is highly unusual on such a nice day. but the wind would wreak havoc on the hair of the good people of edina, i suppose. i have my favorite combo, chix mix. on stix. it's chicken satay, chicken potstickers and peanut noodles over cucumber strips. one of the cucumbers resembles a jellyfish, which, if you're easily amused as i am, is good for the rest of the day. the food is fresh-made, tasty (though the noodles could use some sesame seeds or something for crunch).
later that day, i go for dinner with the 'rents. we attempt to go to billabong, and are shown to a table right away. we decide what we want in about a minute, and shut our menus. we wait, and about three waitstaff pass us by in the five minutes plus we sit there making eye contact with them. we don't even get recognition we are there. when we leave, a waiter asks us if we enjoyed our dinner, we point out something to the effect that it's easier to enjoy it if we could at least order it.
so we go on down to the street to the olive garden. i've not been there in three, four years or so. the salad tastes the same, the breadsticks the same, but the minestrone tastes much worse. but the waiter waits on us, which is a good thing.
© the bent sun as risen