2nd- snuffy's malt shop, edina
4th- rudolphs, minneapolis
11th- auriga, minneapolis
12th- backyard bar and grill, bloomington
20th- red pepper, richfield
26th- jensen's supper club, eagan
27th- cafe lurcat, minneapolis
2nd- snuffy's malt shop, edina (c)
still about the same. i kind of miss when most things were fresher and seemed to be made there (versus the sysco-like stuff), back when they first opened. c'est la vie. possibly explains why we've not been back for well over a year. the grilled chicken sandwich was chewy, the fries lacked salt (and salt made them just kind of ok...). they would've suffered more had they not been freshly made. the hamburger was good, apparently.
4th- rudolphs, minneapolis (b+)
better than last time, though still a few quirks. part of the better was that instead of getting a platter, which is hard to get all the serving temps right on, we just got dinners. mrs. brk went with ribs, it being a rib place, so she was fine. the fries were good, the toast decent, though salad, both hers and mine, seemed tired. the blue cheese and ranch dressings were quite good though.
i got the herb-encrusted chicken with garlic mashed. the chicken wasn't so much encrusted with herbs, though there were some scattered on. it wasn't bad, just not encrusted with the suckers. the potatoes could use more garlic, but that may be just me, as it so often is. should i have gone with a bbq product? of course. that would have been... logical.
service started out good, but then the people disappeared after the 'how's the food,' so of course i didn't get the water glass refilled for ages. and it's not like it was crowded there.
as much as i love vincent's, i would contemplate having a serious fling with auriga... does that make me a restaurant whore?
the best $11 dinner I’ve had anywhere (tax and tip included). and probably ever will. (we had a $5 gift certificate, 15% off, and had happy hour specials on the wine and pizza). we also got a free dessert. possibly because we were cute, but possibly for other reasons (dishes broken by staff nearby).
we'll start there, shall we? it was a spicy ginger flan... ginger caramel, ginger froth and ginger gel, with white chocolate decorations atop the whole thing. the caramel, froth, and gel made for a tasty broth, it would be good as a beverage with some effervescence. like ginger ale, only good. (i really don't like the fake ginger ale that's readily available in cans.) the flan was creamy and good, and the whole thing artistically plated.
continuting backwards, since i liked it so much the last time, i got the tomato pizza with pecorino, parsley and truffle honey again. not quite as good as last time, but still better than most other pizzas i've eaten. the other person got the shell pea risotto with pecorino, chive flowers and shell pea consommé, which managed to be creamy, filling, yet summery.
both of us started with the sweet corn soup with ricotta soufflé, peekey toe crab and sherry foam. i feel sorry for the people who's job it is to get the corn... essence out without having any solid corn bits in it. that's got to be time consuming, to say the least. whereas i still prefer vincents veloute version, this one was more of a seaside flavor one, courtesy of the crab. lovely. even better to have their good bread to get the bits left in the bowl you'd like to lick up, but can't.
service was pretty impeccible- attentive without being intrusive. we sat in the bar, which is more relaxed and casual than the dining room, but quite a bit darker, with the music louder. the bartender recommended a sparking wine that was on happy hour special when prosecco was ordered, could speak knowledgably about the food, and let's not forget... free dessert.
12th- backyard bar and grill, bloomington (b-)points for fresh cooking. they even make their own gravy (mrs. brk had the quarter roast chicken dinner). alas, the food is kind of seasons to the level of the average age of the patrons (about a good 3 or so decades above my own) so the chicken fajitas i had were kind of boring tasting, spice-wise. decent enough, i suppose. service was ok.
20th- red pepper, richfield (c-)
hey, someone who wasn't me had the brk this time. who would've guessed? well, mrs. brk's was worse than mine, anyway. this time as in 'at a restaurant where i am dining with them' instead of this time as opposed to last time. (i need a nap, thus the confusion for all... had to take the allergy meds before going out to a place that may have msg.)
her chicken with almonds smelled funny, i thought, like unclean laundry or something. it tasted rather like nothing (perhaps it's the cornstarch special 'white sauce'). when she mentioned it was bland and not that good, they said it was the sauce, and that was that.
it takes a lot for her to mention something at a restaurant. i don't think she was thrilled with the reply.
my dinner, the steamed scallops with black bean and ginger sauce over spinach and bean sprouts, was not too bad. the scallops needed a bit more of a trim to get the muscle off one or two of them. the fresh ginger helped a lot.
alas, the appitizer combo we split was chock full of overly deep fried things. four of the five- cream cheese wontons, shrimp toast, chicken wings, and egg roll- were in mr. fryolator way too long. they tasted crunchy, but not like what they were suppposed to. the fifth- the spare rib- was ok, according to mrs. brk.
service, though water glasses were filled at a good clip and such, there were a few tables that sat down after us, even got their apps after us, yet got dinner first, and their dinners were as uncomplicated as ours. hrm. that's not happy.
26th- jensen's supper club, eagan (b+)
trad supper club, all maroon and dark and heavy and such, a la the rat pack era (lots of rat pack music, btw, and martinis galore features). most of the crowd were... well, on the older side of things, as befits the surroundings. it was surprisingly crowded for a wednesday. mrs. brk and i ended up here as we got the $50 gift certificate from dining at 4 tco tuesday restaurants. not a place i would seek out, per se, but better than i expected.
though it didn't start that way. you get a plate of a few veg and thousand island dressing to start, and most of the veg were kind of sad. this was followed by a slightly odd salad of iceberg lettuce, canned mandarin orange slices, and blue cheese in a citrusy vinagrette. it was a lot better than we expected. these all come with dinner, plus a competent rendition of popovers.
it got better from there. the crab cakes we started with, though not as chunky as i like mine, were light and tasty and not all breaded and leaden- that tends to happen a lot with crab cakes the farther you get from the ocean. we ordered just under the line to get some early dinner specials. as befitting the type of place it is, mrs. brk opted for the surf and turf, a petite filet mignon wrapped in bacon and two very small lobster tails. she thought it was the best food she's eaten in ages.
i opted for the parmesan walleye. nice, crunchy outside, tender inside, though not very parmesan. for sides we got the garlic mashed that needed more garlic, and the creamed spinach. both were quite good renditions (minus the whole lack of garlic thing).
service was above average, especially as it got more crowded.
for who they are and what they do, they do mostly pretty well.
27th- cafe lurcat, minneapolis (b-)
hey, another place where the only time i was here i had just the fries (not with that, and it was in the bar, not the restaurant). this time it was full-on dinner. not sure if i would go here for dinner again, though. not that it was bad or horrible things happened, but i think the prices are a bit on the high side, and in my opinion you don't get your best dollar value here for what you get.
if everything here was always superlative and the service impeccible, maybe. vincents, sure, i'd shell out $8.50 for a salad at vincents. more, even. if you pay that much for a salad at vincents, it would be worth it. here, well, not quite. the salad i got was a special, a warm concoction of heirloom tomatoes and fried mozzarella on a thick slice of toast in a vinagrette. quite nice, and summery to boot. but not knock-out wow. kind of like the bread. it was quite good when warm, but when cooled it was decent enough. we didn't quite get enough butter to go around.
anyway, the rest of the starters. the tuna tartare was above average, but a request for more toast took ages and the person was more or less done by the time it got there. the buckwheat crepe with figs, smoked ham, and brie de meaux was too rich for a starter. also rich, but my favorite starter, was the foie gras with roasted peaches. again, quite good, but i wouldn't swear it's $16.50 worth of tasty.
most of us ended up with fishy dinners. sea bass in miso was mine, and for $26 that is exactly what i got. nothing else on the plate. the sea bass was way on the right, and some miso way on rhe left. an expanse of sauce trail in between. it had a tasty char going on, and i did like the flavor combo with the miso. though while eating it, someone asked if it were fishy-tasting. they had been eating there not so long ago, and someone had ordered it, and it was not at all good. now, if you pay $26 for an entree, i think it should always be if not perfect, darned close.
i'll side with the person who ordered the seared ahi with lemon confit and kombu. it was tasty and all, but it was more than seared. they expected it rare with that description, but it was more medium. two people had the salmon with special butter, which was around $18. nice, but not special. a more reasonably priced entree, if that made sense. someone else went with a salad, not fish. i think it was the duck on greens, and it was flavorful, and they did justice to the duck (and it's easy to mess up duck).
an iron horse sparkling wine was ordered- not girly enough for me, but still refreshing (i had only a sip), and a rose, too, which went nicely with everyone's fish.
we didn't order dessert, but i was a bit disappointed when they made no effort to acknowledge the person who was having a birthday that night.
here's the brk moment. no one at the table ordered fries. maybe i was projecting fries, but i didn't order any. but the server brought fries to the table and insisted someone ordered them, and could tell us who did, they said. but apparently they couldn't tell as the info was never offered. and apparently they felt they should still charge us for the fries no one ordered, as it was on the bill. um, yeah, that's wrong. they did take it off when we questioned it.
and i will say one of our party felt sick soon after eating, and the next day i didn't feel at all well myself, stomachwise. it may be something we ate.
service was varied. when we sat down, it took a very long time for someone to come take drink orders. i noticed a few other tables that seemed to be having the same thing happen. but once we did, it got a bit better, though it wasn't completely solid. water was filled quickly most of the time, they set most of the plates down wrong before asking if it was the right one, which made it awkward.
we had a bunch of people who we had to tell to not remove a place setting as the person would be late, often as they had already removed things. i once again had to inquire about the pricing of the specials, and then only got a vague answer (this one is this price, the rest are x to y dollars). not the right answer, sorry. in general, service it wasn't as polished it should be for a restaurant with these price points.
the rooms in the restaurant are handsome. a lot lighter and airier than the loring decor, with some trad touches, and plays nicely on the view of loring park and the carriage rides passing by. personally, i liked the loring funkiness in the decore better, even if it rendered the bathrooms confusing, but that's opinion. the bathrooms here were standard, ok, and such.
so if they had a happy hour in the bar with some specials going in, i would come back. if i wanted a fine dining experience, vincents or auriga or restaurant alma or such are more worthy of my cash. what i experiened at lurcat is the type of experience i can have elsewhere for perhaps half the cost- nicer bistro food in an upscale setting.
maybe that's the point- maybe it's not a restaurant that wants the sort of person i am to patronize the establishment, but people who don't care about perceived value. i'm left feeling ambivalent about it.
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