4th- spice thai cuisine, savage
13th- fat nat's eggs, new hope
16th- eden avenue grill, edina
18th- mexican buffet (cactus grill), savage
23rd- szechuan star, edina
25th- mexican buffet (cactus grill), savage
31st- pizzaria uno, edina

4th- spice thai cuisine, savage (b-)

apparently the equivalent of dino's when i work in shakopee, this is my savage (mn, that is) standby. went with the tamarind chicken, i prefer their pad thai. and the cream cheese puffs were a lot better warm. though if you are in a hurry, get take out as service is slow. (we didn't make our alloted half-hour for lunch, that's for sure.) though you may want to get take out as they have a card for that, buy x number of takeout meals, get one free. not a bad deal, especially if you go for the specials. while there, also tried the tom yum soup, which is nice, with large chunks of mushroom and chicken. i think we'll go someplace else next week, though. not that this isn't good, but... do i at least get points for going for something new?

13th- fat nat's eggs, new hope (a-)

there's something seussian about the name of this place.

anyway, it's a pretty good breakfast joint in the old school, al's sense of the word. though it's not quite as good as that, mostly because there's not quite enough grease, it tastes too healthy.

though maybe that's just what i ordered, the el jefe without the chorizo, which is an omelette with cheese, homemade salsa, and black beans. comes with toast. i also got fries with that, american fries. those were extra, but the cost wasn't obscene for extra stuff, as it can be in some places. they were $1.00.

mrs. bad restaurant karma ordered a cheese omelette with something and forgot to say she wanted the extra on the side. it was generously stuffed, though.

prices are reasonable, the atmosphere is also very old school, with counter service, and servers with personality (in a good way, that is). other dishes people were getting looked tasty. they do a breakfast and lunch trade. they were fairly busy this morning, but everything was super-efficient. i'd like to try a more basic mushroom/cheese omelette to see how they do with that.

16th- eden avenue grill, edina (b)

another place the smoking ban had no impact on that i could see. for a tuesday, they were pretty swamped. lots of older people here, which is easy to understand, given the location. it's a tco tuesday restaurant, and if i am not mistaken this is my fourth, so i should be getting my gift certificate soon.

good deal, eat at four restaurants that belong to their organization on a tuesday, and you get a free $50 gift certificate to one of the restaurants. though it could be any of them... and they've a wide span, with la belle vie and solera on one end, and the longfellow/edina/highland grill on the other (neither are bad, but just to show they have a wide range of prices). go look 'em up. it's worth it, and most of the places on the list are all the way mad, all the way hyped.

so very crowded, very loud. i've not been here in years, since it was called the pantry. wonder why. anyway, another place where the service would have been better had they more people working. overworked servers, on the next geraldo. mrs. brk got the grilled rachel. wasn't too thrilling, just ok, as it went for deli turkey over roast. the cole slaw also ok, ditto on the fries with that.

taco salad with chicken was my choice. and unlike pretty much every taco salad i have eaten (with or without chicken... i can't live... with or without chicken... er... where was i... got stuck in a moment there... ok, i'll stop now.... ), after i ate this i felt that i had eaten something healthy. they used chips instead of a shell, a lot of lettuce (romaine), a grilled and seasoned chicken breast, black olives, tomatoes, cheese, onion, with salsa, guacamole, and sour cream on the side. they could have used a lot more of everything else that wasn't lettuce in the salad, but on the whole it was fresh tasting and above average, if only for the novelty value. weird, eh? it was more of a salad in the taco style than what is thought of as a 'taco salad.'

18th- mexican buffet (cactus grill), savage (b-)

this place is probably officially called the cactus grill, but you have to look really hard to find that out. they have it in letters that are very very tiny. however, the letters referring to it as the mexican buffet are huge. if they wanted me to call it cactus grill mexican buffet, they would have made it much easier to see.

most of the time i was there, the spanish speakers outnumbered the english speakers, which is usually a good sign in a mexican restauarnt. but i think they spiced things down for the residents of savage. i tried three kinds of chicken dish and 4 kinds of salsa, plus some other stuff, and none of it left any kind of heat.

then again, maybe i was chosing the wrong things for that. i could not tell, as nothing's labelled. i did ask someone passing by to name the meat in each dish, but then they wandered off. not labelling at a buffet is not the smartest move. i couldn't id some of the items... and really, i wasn't in the mood to try floating things of randomness that perhaps were some kind of vegetable. and frankly, if you're short, it's hard to reach the chips and tortillas on the top of the buffet without spilling things. i refuse to be embarrassed about the premature chip death i caused because if you have a plate in one hand and you are short, getting to those things is tricky.

most of the food was in the ok to pretty good range. though they needed some less finely shredded cheese and their melty cheese should be more hot. and i can see why they would not have guacamole on the buffet, but it's kind of a shame they didn't. the salsa were probably the best thing, especially the pico de gallo at $6.99 for the buffet plus tax (free refills, as far as i can tell...), it's a good deal for lunch. less so for dinner, more so as after you buy seven of them, you get one free. they even had a few dessert items on the buffet, too.

did i eat too much anyway? yes. of course. that's the way it works here in amurica, dammit. did i have dinner, hell no. still full hours later. stupid of me, you betcha. dontchaknow.

i may go again next week with people to see if it's any different. it's kind of sad eating at a buffet by yourself, more so than other types of restaurants. i felt self-concious, which i usually don't eating alone.

23rd- szechuan star, edina (b)

wanted to go someplace i hadn't been in a while, this turned out to be it. and it was a bit better. buffet again, yes, but this time the food was warmer when it got to the table and therefore much improved. the egg drop soup was nice, the hot and sour wasn't so much. cashew chicken didn't have a lot of cashews in it, thus getting around the lack of nut crunchiness (hehhehheh, nuts....).

cream cheese wontons were good, ditto the veggie lo mein, sweet and sour chicken eh, sesame chicken was good in some places and not in others, which was a bit confusing. the shrimp in lobster sauce (disappeared the fastest from the buffet) was also mixed- good shrimp, bad sauce which felt like garlic cornstarch, and the peas and carrots were straight from a pot pie mix.

tapioca pudding, when mixed with the almond cookies, turned out to be a nice texture combo in the whole dessert thing, though it was labelled ranch dressing. or possibly french. hey, most of the labels were right, and at least there were labels so you could kind of tell what things were, unless some places. whatever the orange stuff with cake is, i'd warn people off of. it's scary looking and tastes like lik-em-aid (or is that lick-em-aid? i don't remember, i can't recall...) in orange in a bad way. yish.

the buffet seems kind of spendy for dinner, about $12 (we had a card for money off), but then again i usually don't do a lot of buffets at dinner so it may not be. service was still good. i will say i felt really young in there, i think the dinner crowd is gathered from a lot of the townhouses and condos nearby which attract... an older crowd. what there was, that is, not so much a crowd as a few people here and there.

25th- mexican buffet (cactus grill), savage (b+)

i am generic banana and i'm here to say
you should go eat at the generic buffet...
mexican in style, words are few
but the food it is ok and not quite good for you

they have things to put in salad,
shrimp in pizza pi-ie
fat filled floury cookies
and fake cheese that isn't heated

it is the food in the climate near the equator
so maybe you should take it home
and eat it later

er, anyway it was much better today, what with guac, more chicken items, and i even had a strategy. plus they had a lot of things that were different from last time, including fries with that that were not that bad. i think they will term me 'chick who keeps spilling the chips, though.' we were again the only non-spanish speaking table in the joint. the shrimp pizza was hard to eat, i will say that, and mystery veg remains. ate less today, still feel full, but not icky.

31st- pizzaria uno, edina (b-)

so after reading a book that heavily featured italian food, i was easily led to vaguely italian food. pizza it was, for a change, i don't think i've had pizza here in years. and like many things one hasn't had it years, your memories of it are better than the real thing.

if i recall, the pizzas i liked here were the personal pan ones, and they had a lovely chicken alfredo-type one for a limited time only one summer that was one of the best pizzas i've ever had. the larger deep dish ones here can suffer from mushy crust. which happened today on the wild mushroom and chicken one we had. it was ok, decent enough, but nothing to write home about. and i wished it had a tomato sauce instead of the white that it did. the whole of it was oddly a bit flavorless, requiring red pepper flakes, a bit of salt, and parmesan. i am once again beginning to think my taste buds are dying or something.

service was adequate.

 

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