3rd- kincaid's, bloomington
5th- taste of minnesota, st. paul
7th- shelly's restaurant, st. louis park
9th- pizza luce, minneapolis
14th- morelos mex grill, richfield
15th- dino's gyros, shakopee
21st- market bbq, minnetonka
28th- bear rock cafe, eden prairie
29th- dino's gyros, shakopee

3rd- kincaid's, bloomington (c-)

a hard week at work. i wanted someone to cook for me and serve me. i had a $20 gift card they sent in the mail. an early dinner, the collapse at home with a book. sometimes things just go... not as planned. it wasn't bad, per se, but for what these people are charging for stuff, it would be so not worth the money had i had to shell out for the whole shebang.

i get there a bit before 5 pm. they have no tables for one in the restaurant. i am not sure if this is true, or they just don't have tables for one at any time on any saturday ever if you walk in. i am told i can eat in the bar (and they have a no smoking area of the bar, too, which is nice).

so i go in the bar, and start checking out the menus (regular, specials, and bar). a server comes by, i am told of the weekly specials and things that are their house specials/tasty things. a salmon dish that is mention sounds good. i look at all of the menus for it. and look more. they return to the table, and can't find it either on any menu. i never find out what happened to it, alas. anyway, i end up with a chicken dish stuffed with nuts, brie, goat cheese, and spinach. it doesn't say what comes with it, but apparently it's not a salad or soup or anything.

while waiting for dinner, i thought perhaps a hard cider would be good. they don't have any. or hard lemonade, either.

i forgot to follow my rule (steaks, chops, and seafood are the specialties, in the subtitle bit of the name so i should have ordered one of those, mainly something seafood, as i don't eat the other two), so the chicken was not a winner. it came with mixed veg (decent, as those things go), some mashed potatoes that had no taste at all of their own (mushrooms and nuts mixed in from the dinner, though, provided a bit of flavor/texture), and what was pretty much a chicken dish that also had discernible flavors (though the nuts added crunch, that i could taste). it was coated, a la chicken kiev, which added a bit of crunch also. but i couldn't taste any of the cheese, the spinach, the chicken, or the coating. it tasted like nothing. i hate it when that happens. they brought the bread with the meal, and were less than generous (a piece of it, cut in half). the bread was not refilled, the water was refilled once, then left alone.

i get the 'world's smallest sundae' for dessert. sebatian joe's ice cream. tasty, but not with a few ice crystals. real whipped cream, though. nice touch. more nuts, a bit of hot fudge. alas, it was served with a spoon that was (a) not small enough to fit in to the bottom of the sundae glass to get at the lovely melty bit at the bottom and (b) scratched up so it added a texture to the food that was not at all happy.

and lest it be thought that my taste buds are having an off day, i had a few olive samples from an olive bar soon after, and those had flavor. so who knows. i will say they have an interesting in a good way selection of tunes behind the bar. if that counts for something. maybe.

5th- taste of minnesota, st. paul (d)

if i wanted greasy crap on sticks, i go to the state fair, where they do it right, and you don't have to search all over the freaking place to get water. and oh yeah, you can use real money and not tickets, which you mostly end up with leftovers of anyway. yeah, i'm old, old enough to remember when the taste of minnesota had a fair amount of good stuff between the usual crap booths. at least i didn't have to wait in long lines to get crap (you usually have to on the 4th and/or when it's not raining), which made it not completely horrible.

the only thing that looked good was dino's but i thought i would try other things for a change since i tend to go there at least every other week for lunch. i had lackluster fries from some random place, and a chicken sandwich (called a bbq one, but it had no characteristics of bbq food until i dumped bbq sauce on it) from rudolph's, which i've heard has good food at their real restaurant still (it's been ages since i last had it).

minidonuts were sampled, but since they weren't the state fair's tom thumb (crisp and hot and sugary and melt in your mouth happy goodness), they were fried icky things. the gyros my friend got (alas, not from dino's, but from the falfel king) were not that great. and a bit of a ripoff... besides the cost of beer, you had to pay $1 to get a wristband to be allowed to buy it (post-showing of id). i don't drink it myself, but it seemed wrong. beer stands, lemonade stands, all over the place. we saw one with water and pop. and we had to look a while for it. hrm.

maybe i am just in a crappy mood, as i went there to see the violent femmes show, and first of all, i forget sometimes how much outdoor shows bite for short people more so than non-outdoors ones (for some random reason), and the band was extremely lackluster and almost nap-inducing. and stuff. so yeah. go to the festival for fireworks. go to the small stages. get free random crap (razors, what's that have to do with food and outdoor festivals?). avoid most of the food.

7th- shelly's restaurant, st. louis park (d+)

mr. bad restaurant karma had salt for dinner. first, soup that was too salty, followed by salty steak. mrs. bad restaurant karma split the meal with him, went for the salad (not salty at all), and had steak that had less salt. probably he had more of the jus.

me, i had corn chowder featuring potato boulders (apparently they forgot to dice the suckers) that was on the salty side. despite mentioning red peppers as a main ingredient, it had about two smalled diced pieces of it in there. i also had the half crispy duck. it wasn't even half crispy, though was ok. it came with a knife that was not suited for whacking through duck bones, so i did lose manners points trying to eat the sucker. i tried to, it wasn't working. sorry, miss manners.

the twice baked potato seemed to be missing most of the cheese and sour cream (and salt, strangely), the corn with the food was kind of sad. the popovers were... eh. they came with a weirdly sweet butter (honeybutter, i believe) that didn't really go with the meal's tones.

we had what seemed to be a nouveau server, which does not bear well as a general rule. they did try to give mr. bad restaurant karma a free dessert, but he went with the premise that if you didn't like your whole meal at a place, you probably would not enjoy their dessert. i will say that even with a two for one dinner coupon, it was overpriced. i need to go to a good place soon. or even a not bad place. blargh.

9th- pizza luce, minneapolis (b)

there, that's less crappy. chicken, feta, onion slice. i like the whole pizzas here better than the slices (i think the slices cool off a bit too quickly or something, are seasoned a bit better, and don't have enough cheese for me... mmmm, cheese) , but the slice does make a nice small meal. this one could've used a bit of a longer saute on the onions, but was tasty enough.

the warehouse district one it was, btw, not the lyn/lake area one. closer to my house, yet somehow i never end up at that one. maybe because the choices downtown compel me to that one, where the choices in lynlake... don't.

14th- morelos mex grill, richfield (b)

good food, but they need to hire another member of the waitstaff, the ones there have too much to do. the nacho chips come with a pico de gallo and a queso, which is a nice touch. i got the special, which was cripy fried torillas filled with mashed potatoes, serrano pepers, and cheese. it came with a few beans and cheese on top, and sour cream, pico de gallo, lettuce, and kickass guacamole on the side. my friend had the chicken quesedilla, which was also quite tasty. and had extra guac. good stuff, that. fresh, too. i am not fond of the overly large charge for a can of pop, which was nearing airport/festival prices. $1.60, or something like that. that is not a happy thing.

15th- dino's gyros, shakopee (b)

last time i said anything about this place, it was because i had something new (the fish sandwich). this time it's for the greek salad. i got mine with chicken gyros on it. most of the time i was eating it i was wishing i had more chicken gyros on it. not that it was bad, it just could have used more of them and a bit less of the lettuce. they were overly generous with the lettuce. the olives, feta, onion, and cuke were good, though the tomatoes were not entirely on the side of good, they were a bit too refridgerated. all and all, above average, but not something i would necessarily get again there. but hey, it's good to try new stuff every now and then.

21st- market bbq, minnetonka (b)

ooh, musical dissonance. patsy cline through most of dinner. as we got the check it segued into la brit. that's bad and wrong. and wrong. and bad.

they changed their menu. it was literally smaller and also had fewer things on it.

something odd... the half chicken dinner was $12.50. if you just wanted half a chicken (no fries or cole slaw) it was $12.95. huh.

apparently i ordered the same thing as i did before, and employed the same strategy. so once again the bbq chicken sandwich got sauce and coleslaw which makes it quite nice.

i will say they take their sandwich descriptions literally. it was a bbq chicken breast on a bun, as the description read... bbq chicken. similarly, the hamburger was just a hamburger, but it did have a lone random slice of pickle on it.

the fries were better than before but still fell in the low average range.

and the coleslaw improved by bounds. and leaps. it was tasty, everything was the same size (not multiple sized bits of things) and they had the dressing spot on so everything wasn't goopy as a lot of the coleslaws are.

and once again, the ribs were excellent, according to reports.

the texas toast, however, was just toast done texas style, if toast can indeed said to be done that way. it wasn't the bigass slices that denotes the toast is texas in nature. and no, i am not as much of a toast freak as i am a french fry freak.

i will say i like dave of famousness's chicken and bbq sauce better, along with the fries. because i can.

28th- bear rock cafe, eden prairie (c-)

if i wanted a sandwich that i order at a counter with chips, i'd go to a deli. if i wanted a cafe, i'd go to... a cafe.

this place is a strangely named sandwich joint where you order at the counter and pick up your own food and bus your own tables. it really sounds like i'd be a chain cafe, but it's like panera with more decor (not better... the antler light fixtures scare me, they have a fireplace with easy chairs in front of it, lots of dark wood... just more). it looks like it's dressed up expecting something that is not going to happen.

i suppose it'd be better for lunch, but the chicken fajita ciabata with a bag of chips was no... all that and a bag of chips. not a great or filling dinner. it's lunch-sized food. even after a quick trip to culvers drive through for frozen custard (yum) didn't make me feel like i had dinner. perhaps some (good) fries would help, but the twiced-baked potato option (hyped in many signs) just seemed odd. the blackend chicken dinner salad was like an oversized side salad with some chicken. no crackers or rolls or anything. i can make better sandwiches than they do out of less. it's not worth driving somewhere to have someone else do it for you.

the food was oddly bland... my sandwich was supposed to have chipotle mayo on it. it tasted like... not a lot of anything, really, on not great bread. all i could focus on is... 'well, at least i'm going to dino's for lunch tomorrow, then i'll get a good sandwich and fries with that...)

not a place i'd go to again. after we had gone in, i remembered i was told that this is the place's vibe, but it was so not on my radar, i totally forgot about it. at least we had a coupon, so the total cost for two was under $8.

as for the name... no clue why they called it that.

note: someone wanted me to add this is a chain.

so i did.

29th- dino's gyros, shakopee (a)

so i go on my every two weeks or so trip, and usually i don't write stuff unless i vary from my usual, and i did again this time, with the chicken, mushroom, and swiss pita (with the usual fries).

what's odd is that a few weeks back, i had some chicken i sliced up and sauteed with some mushrooms, melted some swiss style cheese on it, and stuck it in a pocketless pita. which is what this is, but with onions. maybe i was subtly influened by staring at their menu.

anyway, it's quite good. it's something i'd go for again, unlike the salad above or the fishwich. the onions were done just enough to be crisp, yet not in your face oniony, there was a huge pile o'bird and lots and lots of cheese and mushrooms. and again, fries with that.

and way too much diet pop. that's another story with the moral of "very few people think singing a song about '40 different ways to look at winston churchill' is a good idea." which will remain untold here.