3rd- asian hon, shakopee
5th- vincent a restaurant, minneapolis
7th- edina grill, edina
8th- heartland, st. paul
11th- brit's pub, minneapolis
12th- mission american kitchen, minneaopolis
14th- egg roll king, apple valley
18th- pho 83, shakopee
19th- 20.21, minneapolis
20th- roly poly, eden prairie
24th- panda buffet, st. louis park
26th- harry's food and cocktails, minneapolis and be'wiched, minneapolis
27th- holy land deli (midtown global marketplace), minneapolis
28th- vincent a restaurant, minneapolis
29th- red's savoy pizza (or inn), st. paul
30th- 20.21, minneapolis
3rd- asian hon, shakopee (b-)weird name.
they opened recently near work, and just started the buffet. in their ad, they claim to have all sorts of foods, like chinese, thai, american, and such. the ad states that in their buffet they have sushi. which is also weird. as they don't mention japanese in their ad. and, well, they didn't have it. or on their menu, for that matter.
more weird- i was the only person there eating at 11:30 am, when the buffet opened that day (from what i can tell from the sign on the restaurant, it usually starts at 11 am). there appeared to be only one guy doing front of house and back of house- cooking, serving, cash register, answering phones, etc.
the buffet as filled as i sat, so i kept having to go back to see what was there. most of it's the trad stuff- general tso's chicken, cream cheese puffs, egg rolls, lo mein, stir fried veg, teriyaki chicken, fried and white rice. more weird- the fried rice and lo mein weren't that great. however, the chicken dishes stood out for the lack of cornstarch and pretty good quality chicken. most of the stuff was pretty good. i missed having any sort of soup on the buffet. on a very cold day like today it would've been very nice. maybe it was there later, maybe it was where the sushi was.
some things you don't usually see on the buffet were also there- fried fish, for instance. and what looked to be reese's pieces. i skipped dessert, that's usually the best thing to do with these sorts of things. they always look questionable to me.it would've been nice if the food was placed under the label for it. instead, it was more of a puzzle... the fried fish was under the sign for egg rolls, for instance. however, the chicken wings were under the sign for fried fish. at least you could work out what thing were if you walk around a bit. better than no labels.
i had to ask for duck and mustard sauce, and the mustard was very spicy. condiments weren't out. maybe they come out later. when i left, the person were still filling it up.i'd probably try it again in a while, if they're still open (as i was leaving, two more people came in, that was all), but maybe later in the day, like after noon. though that may be tricky as the buffet doesn't appear to have heating elements in it. shakopee doesn't have so many asian buffets, and the one they have that's farther away isn't as good, i think, though there's more choices. plus it's spendier.
5th- vincent a restaurant, minneapolis (b)
ok, it's a french restaurant. why is joe's potato hot dish on the bar and happy hour menu? how very minnesotan of them, don't cha know. there's still the usual lot, though. i ended up with, of course, the excellent fries, and a blue cheese, chicken, and grapes on flatbread. a good flavor combo, but it should've been more pollack than it was. the grapes seemed to be in a line on the flatbread versus scattered. as we weren't at the bar during the happy hour, service was a bit scattered at times (especially the water refills). at the table, we discussed the price jumps in the original happy hour menu (the burger went up $2, the fries $1).
we had some technical difficulties with dinner and it ended up as kind of disappointing.
if you have multiple discounts, like we did, it would be nice to have that stated on the coupon(s) you send out that you can't use it in conjunction with other offers. (some of the offers edina grill sends out say that, some don't. put it on all of them.)
and i got an apple stem in dessert, an otherwise quite nice warm apple/currant crisp served with cinnamon ice cream. which means there's someone in the kitchen who wasn't being as careful as they should. points off for that. lots of currants and a nice sauce don't make up for that.
actually, it could be multiple people. i ordered seared duck breast (wild acres) with risotto that had duck confit in it and a orange-sherry sauce, supposedly. the sauce was hard to detect. the duck was a bit chewy and a bit more done than the medium-rare i asked for. the risotto was missing some flavor element, it was a bit on the bland side, even with the confit in it, as they used it sparingly. at best, it was ok... but i expected something better.
the portion size seemed kind of skimpy compared with mrs. brk's meatloaf sandwich, which was a big old slice of their wild rice meatloaf split on half on two huge slices of ciabatta bread with roasted red pepper ketsup and crispy onions on top, served with a big heap of fries (or slaw if you want it). she thought it was really good, though the meatloaf seemed to have unannouced items in it (like spinach, she thought it was).
i'm always wary when that happens. there's too many people with allergies and things they're supposed to avoid to not be more thorough when listing ingredients on menus (if you go that way). my risotto had cheese in it, which was nowhere on the menu either.
anyway, the fries were different than what i remembered, a medium cut with enough salt for me. a few were a bit on the crispy side, but they were otherwise quite enjoyable.
service was generally above average, but the server couldn't offer much opinion about the items on the menu. it's a lot more helpful to a diner if the server knows how good things on the menu are rather than just being able to offer how popular they are. popular doesn't always mean good.
but unlike a lot of other places where i got stuff in my food, i'll probably be back. an apple stem in a dish with apples is way less offensive than items that are served with plastic bits in them, no? the server did sound sincere when apologizing. (but didn't offer the dessert for free or anything.)
if this place were closer to my house, i bet i'd bet there a lot more often. especially now that they have the wine bar part, less formal than the dining area. i like how and what lenny russo does.
the menu changes daily. very admirable, except when you happen to see something you want on a day you're not able to go- i saw a duck and cranberry terrine on the menu on thursday. it was gone the next day, but at least it came out as the amuse bouche on saturday. so i did get a taste. i wish i could've had more.
that isn't to say i didn't like my dinner. though usually you can order individual items off the tasting menu on monday-thursday, they understandably had to ask if i could do it on a saturday. since i got the ok, i went with the wisconsin sweet potato gnocchi with carmelized rutabega, winter greens, and hedgehog mushrooms and wisconsin parmesan cheese. a nice mix of seasonal flavors, i just wish i had a few more gnocchi on the plate. i had 6. it would've been slightly easier to eat without the winter greens, too. there's no elegant way to eat those, especially surrounded with chunky food. with it, i had a glass of brut rose champage, which was the least dry they had on the non-dessert drink menu.
both the chevre and cracked pepper roll and the cranberry rye roll served with dinner were good, though the crust is hard to get into. here's a suprise, i preferred the cranberry one. it's served with kickass butter, hope creamery, i believe.
you can all guess what i got for dessert. this one came with whole grain crackers, and a pear preserved fruit chutney, and single source honey. though all i remember of the three cheeses was a nice, medium, not aged wisconsin cheddar they were all pretty good. you get a good amount of cheese, and more than enough crackers, though it's hard to use crackers with the harder cheeses. when paired with a moscato d'asti, that's my idea of a kickass dessert. though i will say i was way tempted by the idea of the concord grape pie with maple syrup praline sauce, pecans, and chantilly cream, even though i tend not to like pie crust. that would've been my second choice. i did not, by the way, get a birthday candle in the cheese.
my dining companion opted for a rich heirloom tomato-cornmeal soup, made rich with mint-scented hope creamery goat-milk butter. the cornmeal was ground finely and didn't get in the way of anything in the soup, like you think it may. it was soup consistency, not polenta. she paired it with the roasted beet salad with red endive and a big woods blue sheep milk cheese from shepard's way farm, toasted pumpkin seeds, and a maple syrup-apple cider vinagrette. it was plated attractively, with the purple beets cut into circles on the bottom, topped with squares of yellow and orange beets, then the endive on top, with the rest of the lot adorning it. it was a surprisingly substantial salad. she paired it with the same champagne.
the only flaw in otherwise kickass service came when the wrong salad was brought to the table, but it was quickly whisked away and replaced by the correct one. the servers work to accomodate the diners. for instance, since we happened to order all vegetarian things, we were asked what protein we ate as the amuse bouche that most tables got was the duck terrine, but if we didn't eat it, we would have gotten a vegetarian one. that's some very high quality service.
i think i can put heartland on my very short list of places i have not been disappointed in. again, i kinda wish it was closer to where i lived and not, as i overheard someone later that day phrase it, the foreign city of st. paul.
11th- brit's pub, minneapolis (c)
pre-pub quiz grub. i split a few appitizers with someone. the artichoke-spinach dip (i've had it before, and it was ok, which is better than a lot of their stuff). it had tons of artichokes that could've stood to be cut a bit so that it would work as dip, a lot of tomatoes, which i couldn't really taste, and a very little bit of spinach and cheese and such. it almost tasted healthy, for what it was. odd.
the calamari was a decent version also. crisp on the outside, some bits were a bit on the chewy side, and the tiny squid-like bits needed to be a bit more apart than they were (some of them were a mass of squid bits). i was somewhat impressed it didn't suck. it right could've, here. it was served with a 'spicy mary rose' sauce, which tasted kind of like ranch dressing. spicy it was not.
the happy-hour prices are a boon. usually the artichoke dip is $12, and the calamari $11, at least on the menu they have posted on the web. they're not worth that. the $5 or so per dish we paid was way more in line.
service was from someone who was snotty, so not much to be said there. plus they had on an excess of scent, which is never pleasant with the whole allergy thing.
12th- mission american kitchen, minneaopolis (b+)
auriga it ain't, obvious, doug flicker in the kitchen or no. not everything is great here. we had many things that were quite good, some even better, some, well, not so much. nothing that i'd call great. but i can't judge mission (i really want to put mission: american kitchen as the name, btw) like it is auriga.
i picked this as my birthday restaurant with mrs. brk (belated). nothing on the entree menu appealed to either of us (and it looks like they add some sort of pork to most entrees, including scallops and poultry). we ended up ordering a bunch of apps. we started with one of the more winning dishes in the lot, truffled cream cheese wontons with malt vinegar dipping sauce. my kind of bar food, really. the random server who brought it over implied they were all that, and they were. they were rich and tasty, and not too much of a good thing.
they were not a bag of chips (or whatever the chips came in), as we didn't order the house-made potato chips. those seemed interesting. we did get the french fries with four sauces, which is a lie. aioli, a sauce. harissa, sure, though it doesn't make a good dipping sauce for fries. ketsup, well, i guess, but i hope it was housemade, as otherwise, no points there. plain sour cream, nope. not a sauce. not buying that. seems lazy, too. were the fries good? above average, maybe about a b+. but those were not four sauces.
mrs. brk opted for the seared scallops with celery root, horseradish, and mustard, in the starter section. this was the not so great dish. only one side seemed seared, and the one i tasted was very cold in the middle. one of the scallops smelled fishy, per mrs. brk.
i got the potted duck with stuffed figs, blood orange marmalade, and olive oil torta (well, crackers). yum. served in a tiny espresso cup with a wee spoon, the duck was good on the torta, and when i ran out of that halfway through, better on the otherwise not that impressive bread. the dish was very well plated, actually, everything was, like the fried shrimp we saw going by in a chinese food container. that part reminded me of auriga. i got the girly starburst martini to go with it, the by the glass menu didn't have much in the way of girly drinks. it was fruity and quietly potent.
on the dessert, apple pithivier (it's a round tart/pie sort of thing), the server let us swap the vanilla ice cream out for the more appealing-sounding pumpkin one (well, to me, at least). it was made with phyllo instead of the usual puff pastry- a good choice for me, as it made it less sweet. it had a bit of cheddar in there too. and no stems. mrs. brk liked it with the caramel and such that decorated the plate. they had a candle stuck to the plate, which added greatly to the platescape (is that a real word? i don't care....). this was mrs. brk's favorite dish. i'm not sure if i liked the duck or the won tons better, they're hard to compare.
they threw that in for free, per rules of birthday-ness in restaurants. that was nice, as more than a few places don't follow thos rules and the desserts here aren't cheap. especially nice as some of the app prices seem a bit spendy, but that's just me. probably in line with similar dishes downtown. i'd have less of a problem paying $13 for a duck app here than anything on brit's starter menu that has similar prices.
service was competant and low key. better than i had hoped for after the run i've had lately. solid would be a good word for it. the server knew both the wine and food menus, which is always good. water was refilled at an ok pace. they were accomodating about the ice cream switch, and brought over a bar drink menu when i couldn't see anything on the wine and beer list. there were some quirks, like servers kept moving the salt and pepper far away where no one at the table can reach them. that was a bit odd. they seated the table across from our booth so they'd stare into the booth. odd. you get offered a black napkin if the white one doesn't suit. odd.
i've not been here before, though i did notice the soundtrack that dara mentioned has been updated and is no longer 50's crooners. the room itself seemed quite dark orange, in a good way, though the bathrooms need a bit of attention (the sinks are nice, but there's some weird rusting going on in the stalls). i would go back for starters, i think. or do starters as a meal again. it's a solid effort. there's lots to like.
14th- egg roll king, apple valley (b-)
yes, instead of getting asian food with noodles in apple valley, i got... asian food with noodles from someplace else in apple valley. there's not a lot of places in apple valley that aren't chains or sports bars, that's for sure. even fewer tha i can go to dressed in my non-work clothes en route to a massage that i haven't already tried and had bad experiences with. but hey, every once in a while i'll try something that isn't satay 2 go.
the vegetarian egg roll i tried was good, a relief. if you're naming your business after something, it should be good. not greasy, cripsy, nice veg flavor. i figured i should try one with my combo plate. on the plate, for about $5.40, you can get two dishes with white rice, ham fried rice, or lo mein plus green tea.
the lo mein was not the best version every, but the garlic chicken was decent (except for one gristly bite), with fresh veg, not canned. points for that, as that helped the dish a lot. and it had a lot of garlic in it, which i enjoyed. the general tso's chicken was not the cornstarchy sauce-drenched pile of muck it can be, every piece was distinct and flavorful.
it's a counter joint while you're there, they got the food out fast.
still disappointing, mostly because of the crap service. if someone calls in an order and says they will be there at a certain time, don't start making the food when they get there. that just annoyed me. and perhaps if you are out of basic things or decide not to make them that day, you may wish to reconsider how you provision the kitchen and your menu selections. i had to go through a few twists ordering because of this.
my dining companion had chicken pho (albeit with beef broth, see above: provisioning the kitchen), and the chicken is still weird. i got the vermicelli salad with mock duck, which also comes with fried tofu. they forgot the fish sauce, and it was very bland without it (i used some of their hot pepper sauce with it). it was fresh and healthy, sure, boring without the forgotten sauce. i also ordered a side of cream cheese puffs, they were overcooked and didn't have much cheese in them (well, i couldn't taste any, really), and in a very hard to eat shape (purses versus the usual triangle).
so yeah. i don't think it's worth my while to go here again, at least until they get their act together. which may not happen... the grade is partly for the crap experience, but if you don't have the basic things to make what you need to make, and don't send all ingredients along with a take out order, and send out something so overdone as to render it bad... you're not doing very well.
ah, the happy place, one of the few restaurants i've not had brk in ever. this time it was mrs. brk's turn to pick her birthday restaurant (a day early), and she wanted to try the tasting menu in the bar, still the best deal in town, where you get technically four courses of kick-ass cuisine (three from the menu) for $20.21.
for starters, after the 'amuse bouche' of sorts of the szechuan green beans that they send out before the meal (a bit spicy for mrs. brk) the options were a curry shrimp soup or the chinese chicken salad. we both went for the always tasty salad as they had the thai green curry with shrimp, served with jasmine rice, as a main course option (verus pork loin). that would've been rather a lot of curry. well, maybe not, as it's ever so good here. i love the stuff. i polished off mrs. brk's after she had enough.
mrs. brk had a mango puree bellini, which i don't think was quite as sweet as either of us would've liked until the end. the puree is hard to mix with the sparking wine. it went well with all the dinner, with the exception of the green beans, however. especially with the dessert. mrs. brk's was better, but not what she expected. it was called something like an apple roll with cinnamon ice cream, and it turned out to be a deep-fried wonton filled with what i think was sweetened marscapone and had some sort of preserved apple (confit?) in it. it was very state fair, in a good way. put it on a stick, you'd sell millions of 'em. great with the raspberry sauce on that plate, or the cassis on mine. a hit of cinnamon or something on top would've made it even tastier.
i had the pumpkin cheesecake with ginger sorbet. the cake was topped with gingersnap or some sort of ginger... something. i way prefer it to pumpkin pie. very good, but not as powerful as the deep fried cheese goodness (not surprising i would think that, no?).
weird, on our bill it said we had a 'dessert fire,' i wonder what that is. anyway. we had gotten there when they first opened and by the time we left, the place was way more crowded than i had ever seen, thanks to a meeting that let out on the third floor that had a large contingent of people heading one floor down to the place. you could barely get through the bar area.
20th- roly poly, eden prairie (b)
quite decent wrap sandwiches, and i'm not just saying that as i still know the people who own it. for a low-fat, healthy wrap, the buffalo slim (chicken, mushrooms, onion, buffalo sauce, low fat cheddar, with a side of fat free ranch dressing, in a whole wheat torilla, grilled) is quite tasty. mrs. brk liked the roast beef wrap she had (it wasn't anything on the menu per se, we had to customize).
i had a bit of an issue with sandwich integrity, alas, and the sauce kept dripping out. i would've liked it a bit hotter, but i supposed it's a very minnesotan thing not to do so. i do wonder why i don't come here more often... not that it matters, btw, but it was an take-out order (handy to do on the web site, if i may sound like an advert for a moment).
24th- panda buffet, st. louis park (c)
an average chinese food buffet with average service, and, quite inexplicably, sushi. which was also, say it with me... average. there's better places to get this stuff.
26th- harry's food and cocktails, minneapolis (c) and be'wiched, minneapolis (a)
way disappointed in the poutine, or as it's called, the minnesota mess. you'd think a dish made of french fries topped with deep-fried cheese curds (from minnesota cheese), plus wee cornichon slice here and there, with gravy poured atop the whole pile would be right up my alley, no? but the fries were undercooked, the cheese curds not state-fair quality and there weren't many of them. and the whole of the dish was underseasoned. so i was left underwhelmed, especially as the thing is wicked spendy for what you get- so not worth the $10.95 plus tax. even though you can help yourself to crackers and you get some bread and butter pickles.
plus they really need to clean their toilets. they're kinda gross. though the rest of the bathroom was fine. go figure. the rest of the place was old-school with a bit of a twist, but not much.
so then we headed to be'wiched to continue dinner. we split the tuna confit sandwich, which is cooked at low temps for a really long time so that it looks raw and has that nice texture, but it's fully cooked. it's served on focaccia with cucumber, and preserved lemon. we each got two bits of salad on the side- olive, onion, and chickpea, plus a satiny couscous with veg and greens. i also opted for cup of the very nice minestrone. lovely.
i'd be back here, though i wish they had a few more sandwich options. and i always would like an option of fries with my sandwich. plus hey, a pickle wouldn't be out of line with all sandwiches. but these time-consuming things are probably hard to do with their locavore intentions and their house-cured and/or smoked meats. the sandwiches are large, and a bit on the spendy side, but i can buy into it more because of said local sustainable, organic vibe and the hugeness of the sandwiches.
it's a good time of year to eat downtown, between xmas and new year's, very empty. we had good service in both places because of the wide open spaces, but from what i understand that may be atypical at harry's. be'wiched is probably that good every day. i also liked their window-filled, comfortable space.
27th- holy land deli (midtown global marketplace), minneapolis (b)
i had the chicken gyros entree plate, with it i chose fries (instead of rice or hummus) and tahini (instead of cucumber sauce or hot sauce). mrs. brk had the chicken kebob with hummus (best in town?) and cucumber sauce. they both came with pita bread and salad. both were quite good, but mine wasn't in the shape of gyros, or even sliced as the menu implies, but chunks of chicken, which made it harder to eat. the peppers and onions outnumbered the quantity of chicken. fries were average.
her chicken was all tasty and good- grilled and seasoned perfectly. i took her leftovers home, i was that impressed with her chicken. both salads were not tasty or good- sad tomatoes with bitter, ragged, almost sharp lettuce, but at least the yogurt dressing was flavorful and killed some of the bitterness (in the salad. not mine. there's only a few foods that can do that, and most of those involve cheese and/or bread, possibly potatoes, but that's another story...).
they have some good specials, but we had a card and got about $6 off so it was very reasonably priced for the amount of food you get (lots). i'd like to try the buffet there at some point... or at the main location. and maybe try one of their rotisserie chickens. as it was counter service, i can't say much about that, though it did seem to take a long time and people who ordered after us got their food first (hate that).
28th- vincent a restaurant, minneapolis (a-)
i was going to go to nick and eddie, but i didn't feel like shelling out $7 for valet parking or slogging ages from a far-away meter that i didn't have change for, so i just went to my old standby. since i didn't have my gift card with me (d'oh), i hit the bar for dinner. besides the usual kir royale and fries, i went with salt cod brandade which is a salt cod and potato puree with cream, garlic, oil, maybe even a bit of butter. it was served with a nice portion of the baguette. i dipped the baguette in it (i assume that's how one was supposed to eat it, as i had no spoon). hell, i even dunked the fries in, to be slightly redundant. a kickass winter dish, and not at all fishy like you think it may be.
(btw, in case y'all were wonder about the many restaurants at the end of the year here, i was going to go on vacation and had to divert the money to more boring things, so this is kinda in-town vacation).
29th- red's savoy pizza (or inn), st. paul (c)
how to have a much better experience than i did:
- get take out. waiting 45 minutes for a table and 1.5 hours or so for a pizza is not anyone's idea of fun in a hot, crampled place. plus then you don't have to rely on overextended servers to bring you things.
- don't order more than one topping. the pizzas that have the whole je ne sais quoi thing going for them here are the ones with just pepperoni or sausage or just cheese. i got one with mixed veg, that changes the equasion so that's it's just different. maybe when i reheat the rest i'll dump the veg and see if it's better. the sauce is good, though.
- don't order things that aren't pizza. someone at the table ordered fries to start (as we had await even after getting to the table for the pizza). they were from a bag, and not seasoned.
so the next time i get pizza from here, i will get a plain cheese to go, and call about 2 hours in advance.
probably the best brunch out i've had in years (but i'm too lazy to look). more importantly, it didn't suck, as many in the recent past have so much so that i was thinking of giving it up. so this time i hedged my bets and made the reservation for 11:30 am. so technically, it could be an early lunch.
it's a buffet-style brunch, but you can order some things to brought to your table, like omelets, and today, smoked salmon, salmon roe, scrambled egg and creme freche 'pizzas' with red onion and chive bits. i should've went with the omelet, as the scrambled eggs with plum tomato, salsa like sauce, had been sitting out too long. the pizza was great, i asked for extra, but you also had to scrape the dry scrambled eggs off of it to enjoy it. i was hoping they'd have more of a platter of salmon or such. it was very very good on the pizza, would've been better on a bagel with cream cheese.
instead, the buffet went something like this- breakfasty food: bagels with three kinds of cream cheese (we thought the bagels were from brueggers, but can't verify), waffles (didn't have those), cinnamon raisin french toast (very tasty) with sides of fresh whipped cream, soft butter, strawberries, and warm syrup, poached eggs with hollandaise over a pastrami potato cake (perfect eggs, these, great sauce, but the cake- i took out the pastrami bits- was underseaoned), sausage and bacon (reportedly tasty), smoothies, and granola.
lunch food- chinese chicken salad (still good), roast pork (skipped it), potato puree with truffle oil (i could perhaps bathe in these, supertasty, i just wish i had some chicken with it), green thai curry with jasmine rice (see above, love the stuff, and being able to pick out the mushrooms that i loved, and a few shrimp and avoid most of the bok choi was great. plus it's easier to eat on a plate).
they also had desserts. the wee pecan tarts were lovely, the apple with almond good, but not as good. the raspberry torte was moist and tasty, especially with added whipped cream, the cherry chocolate cake was too dry and not chocalate-tasting, the fresh fruit could've dumped the sourish grapes and cleaned up the pineapple a bit more (i had to slice off nasty bits on about half the pieces i took). i think that's everything, foodwise. i wish they had signs on the very nice chafing dishes (the cream pitcher and sugar bowl were very cool and arty, by the way, speaking of dishes, as were the mimosa glasses), though they did post a menu (in the way of the toaster, but still). with the buffet, you also get either a mimosa, mango bellini, or sparkling wine, plus coffee.
now, a few downsides. the cost is on the spendy side, $28. you get a lot of food for that, and as mentioned, decent chow at that, but it seems somehow extravagant. maybe because i'm a bar menu person here, not a regular restaurant person- from the prices on the regular menu, this is a bargain. mrs. brk and i had a 10% off coupon (it's still on minneapolis.org), and a check from opentable.com to knock the price down to a very reasonable cost per person. we're cheap people. odd that i like eating in spendy places, no? not what i grew up with, that's for sure. it's interesting watching the (mostly moneyed) crowd there.
also, the service was odd. at one point the plates and silverware were cleared from my place, yet i had to ask for replacement silverware. i sat about 5 mintues without it, most of it after asking for a new one. that seems a long time in a small place. i think perhaps the server was not entirely happy with two people at a four top (we asked to be moved after being shown a table right next to the buffet line in a half-empty place... we had a kickass view, by the way...) or something, but other tables near us that had three or four people got better service than we did from the same person. not that ours sucked. and hey... with three beverages, i didn't need as much water attention.
the chairs in the dining area are slightly less uncomfortable than those in the bar, maybe because they're shorter. and please, please, clean the restrooms more often, and fix the doors in there that gap too much, the toilet seats that are coming off, and the bits that have fallen off the wall.
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