7th- emma's restaurant and lounge, minneapolis
8th- vincent a restaurant, minneapolis
15th- the scoreboard, minnetonka
19th-23rd- vegas food, las vegas, nv
28th- pierre's bistro, minneapolis

7th- emma's restaurant and lounge, minneapolis (b-)

as last time i was in, quite a while back, the place overcharged the hell out of me by moving a decimal place in the tip or some such. i am not sure it went back on my card. but my inner cheapass won out, as i had gotten a $25 gift cert for the place for $3 (though you had to spend $10 more plus there's a mandatory 18% tip)... so away mrs. brk and i went.

we were lonely there, most of the time. the three tables (two with two, one with one) that were there when we came left by the end of our apps (it wasn't yet 7 pm, by the way). and it didn't appear anyone was in the bar, either, as the bartender was at the door. i almost felt foolish having made a reservation, but you never know.

we avoided beverages (see the $2.25 can of diet coke). mrs. brk started with a green salad, with a dressing that had a nice amount of vinegar and some nice roasted tomatoes. i started with mussels that had a lemongrass garlic sauce, which were just kind of ok. i prefer the more classic mussels than this, the lemongrass just kind of got in the way, and the sauce wasn't as tasty as a whole. the baguette served with it was nice and crusty, but a bit cold.

for the main course, i got the appetizer pasta, fettucini with roasted shitake mushrooms, bbq onions, and a white wine cream sauce. it's good as a main course, size-wise, if you're getting more than one. the mushrooms were good, the sauce a bit undersalted (a lot of the food had that going for it). it was pretty good. it made me miss the pasta con funghi that i used to get at lido's, though.

mrs. brk went with the beef stew. they said there was one portion left, so i'm guessing they had that left over from the day before or they had a really big, very early dinner rush. it came with carrots, turnips, fennel, and a roasted garlic aioli crositni (though a tiny one of those). the beef was braised in red wine, and there was a lot of it. mrs. brk liked it, but i don't think she found it worth the original price of the meal.

the place seemed cozy (a bit dark, though) in the weather, except for the freezing bathroom. service was average. the server did forget a few details (dressing on the side of the salad, mrs. brk requested... no problem, the reply... so it was served on the salad, not the side).. not impressive, as we were more or less the only people in the place most of the time.

i can't recall the last time that happened during a dinner hour that a place was so empty that didn't fill up in a bit.

8th- vincent a restaurant, minneapolis (b-)

ok, i've already determined that the happy hour, though it does bring in tons of business that may not otherwise be there, has a deleterious impact on the service.

now, i am all about the fries here. wonderful stuff. i try to have them quite often, i know how they taste plain, with bernaise, with ketsup, etc. i know what they go with. and i know how much they cost, both on the regular menu and at happy hour.

alas, the server did not. nor did the computer that calculated the billas they were about a $1 more expensive than on the menu. i had to show them the menu for them to believe me. that's not right.

as i also got my food after someone who ordered about 5 minutes after me (mine would not have taken longer to cook), and had problems getting my check, this made it less than happy here. maybe because of the event at orchestra hall made it even busier than the usual happy hour, maybe as it was not the usual bartender, i don't know.

yes, the fries were good, as was the "seared chicken morsels" in coconut milk with macadamia nuts. but the service... disappointing. the lower grade is for service, as this is far below the standard they set.

15th- the scoreboard, minnetonka (b-)

blah blah blah salad bar, blah blah blah weird soup- ick, blah blah blah ok scalloped potatoes blah blah blah eh service. blah blah blah convenience i guess.

19th-23rd- vegas food, las vegas, nv

spot the lots more than usual typos... let me know when you see one and what it is, s'il tu plait. if the place is graded, it appears after the comments.

february 19

for lunch, we went to a place near where my relatives live, in henderson nv, called the elephant bar. it's a west coast chain (my basic criteria for anyplace i ate here was... was it also in minnesota? if so, not going there), kinda cheesecake factory, only vaguely safari-ish (see: elephants). and the food selection was about what you would expect for such a thing, but in henderson there's not a lot of choices, and this was the best of a short list i was given.

the food was not surprising, and the service was noncaring (aka no water refills no matter what eye contact was given or table placement was made). i had shrimp spring rolls with a 'asian slaw' and served with pistachio and peanut dipping sauces. the peanut sauce was tasty, the slaw ok, but the rolls were sad. not a lot of shrimp, no integrity (lots of falling bits) and it was one of those dishes that tasted like nothing, with a bit of sauce on it. i hate those.

grade: c-

for dinner, we went to the fashion show mall across from the hotel, and ended up in the food court. mrs. brk got a nathan's hot dog, which she was into. i went to some greek place or another and had a sad gyro (a few pieces of chicken, spinach and tomato with a bit of plain yogurt, not tzatziki... no onions, which was odd) and average fries. i miss dinos.

grade: d+

the turn down service belgian chocolate was good.

february 20

since we're not big breakfast people, we ate in the room- splitting a monster muffin and a banana.

lunch was back to mr. food court, though much farther away. we had gone to the primm outlets, where they had a williams sonoma outlet i was interested in getting to (interesting, but most things i wanted would've been hard to get back without breaking, and shipping eats away at the savings). i went with a chicken cheesesteak this time, but it was more of a chicken cheesemistake. there was nothing good about it. we split some average fries. mrs. brk and aunt brk split a chili cheeseburger. they enjoyed it.

grade: c-

and then bouchon.

so... i had hoped that keller would triumph over brk.

after we sat, pistachios and baguette and butter were delivered to the table, along with our water. very casual, you don't get a bread plate. very good bread, hard to get the shells off some of the nuts, and the butter was good... though i was surprised i've had better in many places. i expected top quality everything here.

first course... confit de canard with braised mustard greens and fruits moutardes. mrs brk thought it salty, but she ate bits and not the whole. when you got a bite of it all, it balanced more, and i prefer salty, so i enjoyed it. perfect duck- crisp skin, tender inside, the greens were spot on... cooked in butter, so they weren't all bitter and such, but they still had their intense flavor.

main course, mrs. brk went with the tartine du jour, which was roast lamb slices on toasted levain with french fries. good sandwich, it was reported, the best lamb she's had. the fries were not as superlative as vincents. on the fryquest scale, i'd have to rate them lower than vincent, and bar lurcat, and craftsman. that surprised me. i went with the poulet roti with french green lentils, pearl onions, and cause chasseur with mushrooms (i had them leave out the lardons o'bacon), as i figured i could poach some of mrs. brk's fries (with that). ok, wow. a contender for the best chicken ever, so that lived up to the hype. it tasted like essence of chicken, in a good way. the lentils were almost caviar-like in how they kind of popped in your mouth (that make sense to anyone?). very good, lovely.

and then we hit trouble with the cheese plate. who would've guessed? i selected the brillat savarin, the cypress grove mad river roll, and a pt. reyes blue cheese to go with a glass of gewurztraminer ice wine. and all of a sudden, things turned chilly. literally. i took one bite of the brillat savarin, and it was refrigerator cold and it was just not tasty good that way.

i touched the other two cheeses, same thing. that's just bad and wrong. when i bring this up to the server, they had to go ask why.... what the...? why didn't they know? so they trot off, and came back with this... per nevada law,
cheese has to be at 42 degrees or less. ishelvis. so. they take it back.

they ask if i want a replacement dessert, i get the tarte au citron to split. quite nice, and you get a little plate of bonbons with the dessert, too.

alas, when the check came, i was a bit surprised to see that the tarte was still on the bill. now that's not nice, and that so is not good customer service. so now at this point i'm just disappointed in my whole experience, which i was way into until the cheese plate hit.

but wait, there's more. when i spoke to the manager about why the cold cheese (and not angling like i wanted a free dessert, the bill was already paid), they said that no one had ever complained before, and went on to add that most people don't like their cheese room temp. um. i am *so* not buying that line. they obviously didn't care.

the server was knowledgeable, though they seemed a bit new, the water filled properly, and the decor is french bistro copied almost exactly. so. i can't really recommend that you go there, except if you went (whoever you are), you'd probably know to avoid the plate and so therefore have a fine time. but there's a bigass flaw somewhere in your joint if you're trying that cheese line on people.

i would think that anyone who would bother to order the cheese plate knows how it should be. so... just... wtf? i'm left with a bad taste about this place. it just made me sad, having read about keller's other operations and having this kind of experience here. i feel like emailing them and letting them know about this. bad and wrong, it was.

so the grade. i'm not sure, as it was going at about an a until we crash-landed the cheese course and a bad taste was left in my mouth on both the literal and figurative tip. the dismissive way we were treated by the manager and the horrid cold cheese wiped out any possibility i had of giving them an a. do i give them a b? a c? because dammit, they could've handled that so very much better.

grade: i am for once not sure, as you can see. i'd really want to take it down to a c, but that does seem unfair. should i just say b- then? why not.

february 21

hotel breakfast of a very good cheese bagel (kinda large, so it was breakfast and a later snack) and a banana. we hit the venetian to go to the las vegas preview testing center (don't go, i'd say... just the same kind of product testing you can do at a mall near you... the cbs ones seemed they'd be better, but were harder for my aunt to get to as she uses a cane and it was far from the parking garage... mrs. brk did make $5 off cereal testing though).

i wanted to hit the recommended postrio, but as you can tell by the theme, it was food court time again. having learned a lesson on getting sandwiches (a short lesson... don't), i went japanese this time. well, asian of some sort, at wasabi jane's. veggie yakisoba was nice, the chicken skewers with fruit and veg ok but cold, the mixed veg ok and the fried rice dry. the egg roll was odd. not sure why, but it was.

for dessert a bit later, i had a hugeass pretzel (the traditional dessert of asian food everywhere, no?) from new york pretzels, the jalapeno cheese flavor. of course i got the warm cheese on the side, and it actually was cheese, not cheeze. it was buttery goodness. the first food i've had here that i'd recommend. it'd make a good breakfast, actually. or a lunch, maybe with a small side salad.

grade: b- on the lunch, a on the pretzel.

ah, dinner. rosemary's restaurant. they used to be in the rio hotel, apparently. it's a place that's rated highly by many polls, but most tourists don't go because it's several miles off the strip. they miss a lot by not going, that's for sure. especially if they are female and it's wednesday, as everything is 50% off, though some things have surcharges if you get the prix fixe three course dinner, the surcharges are also half off. if you eat in the bar, happy hour prices are also good on drinks, too.

and the deal is excellent on the prix fixe dinner, as it works out to be $25 for three courses then, which is what everyone had. it was mrs. brk, myself, aunt brk and cousin brk. though this experience was totally brk-free. in fact, to
tip my hand, mrs. brk said it was the best dinner she's ever had. so yeah, it's that good.

for starters, two people got salads, which were both good, and the in-house made dressings made a lot of difference. aunt brk got what i had for a main course, more on that later. i got the 'foie gras freudenberger' on orange-scented brioche with mango coulis, sweet onion marmalade, candied hazelnuts, and vanilla bean tossed arugula with a glass of jackson triggs vidal icewine (2004.... love the online menus for the details). and yum. wonderful. the eggy bread, the creamy foie gras, the sweet wine... oh, yes indeed. the wine was a bit spendy per glass, and i have to say i like the gewurztraminer ice wine better, but this did complement all the flavors in the dish. and though usually this dish has a surcharge, the server said they'd not put it in as i was getting two apps instead of an app and a regular main course.

forgot to mention, before the apps, we each got a potato bread roll and a honey pecan roll, both quite good.

cousin brk got the pan roasted sea scallops, which were perfectly done. it came with parsnip potato puree, apple cider beurre blanc, and cripsy fried strips of prosciutto and parsnips. aunt brk ended up with one of the specials, a grilled flank steak. mrs brk got the cripsy-skin striped bass, with a hash of andouille, rock shrimp, and fingerling potatoes, plus hushpuppies. it was with a creole meuniere sauce. they do many creole flavors here, and it works well with the bass. and of course it was also perfectly done.

since i like to see if i'm doing things right, i almost had to get their 'hugo's texas bbq shrimp' as it came with maytag blue cheese slaw. i was glad i did. i was wondering how they got their bbq sauce so creamy, and as it turns out they use... cream. makes sense. (the recipe is on their takeaway menu.) so it was kind of interesting to do that with shrimp then, but it did work well. their slaw uses something other than blue cheese salad dressing for the mix, it almost tasted like a vinaigrette with the blue cheese thrown in. despite the cream, it tasted kind of light.

we all went for dessert on the three course menu. mrs. brk got a fine bread pudding with lots of rum and some coconut sorbet on the side. the sorbet was the best of the ice cream-y type things we all ended up with. aunt brk and i went for the pecan pie, again... yum. very. with whipped cream and maple ice cream. indeed. cousin brk didn't finish her apple tart, but the apple cinnamon ice cream was of course good.

we had some bonbons with the check. like bouchon, only better. service was old school in a good way- they push in your chairs, put your napkin on your lap and fold it when you leave the table momentarily, formally present plates with multiple servers, have great water service. best service in ages. ever? in a very long time, at least.

the servers knew their stuff, and worked in teams to get it down, but it wasn't all confusion as many bad team service efforts can be. these people had it down. it was impressive. the place is good with detail. all dishes that come out of the kitchen are impressively plated, for instance. silverware is replaced after it is used. they handled the table of ten as expertly as the solo diners.

the rooms are dark and come off as cozy. at least in the main room, not sure how the side rooms look. we had a view of the semi-open kitchen. the only not good thing was the toilets, which seemed like they needed some help. the sinks were noticeably nice installations, which made it weird that the toilets were in the state they were. but hey, if that's the worst thing you can say about the place, well... ya ain't doing too bad.

though the cuisine and such was not the same, somehow it reminded me of auriga.

grade: a+ all the way mad, all the way hyped.

february 22

lunch was back to mr. food court at the fashion show mall, because we're boring (breakfast was a banana, triscuits and some cheese from a can, which was indeed quite a comedown from last night, but hey, cheese in a can is fun. and it wasn't as cheeze as many... low standards for cheese in a can!). i got sushi and some soba from one place, mrs. brk got some grilled chicken and red beans and rice from another. better than most food court offerings, i guess.

grade: c+.

for dinner, we hit the obligatory vegas buffet. in the decade or so since mrs. brk and i were in vegas, the buffet prices have approximately doubled. however, as locals who frequent a certain casino, aunt and cousin brk each had a two for one coupon for the feast buffet at the green valley casino near their dwellings in henderson, so away we went. many local web sites rate the feast buffet at some of the station chain of casinos highly, and this was one of those (otherwise it would be odd that i brought that up, wouldn't it? though since i am on the subject, the wynn buffet, at the hotel we were at, was also highly rated, but also highly spendy... so we skipped that one).

the line there was pretty long... we waited 10 minutes, then realized they had a line for handicapped individuals (and everyone else in their party). since my aunt uses a walker, we headed there and missed a wait of probably another 30 minutes or so. food lines at buffets are long... at the paris las vegas one we saw that morning, there was a huge queue at 10 am or so... then again, that's another top rated one, and is less spendy than the wynn (though more so than the feast).

not sure if they had it every night, but they had hot and cold running crab legs (forgot to do a bad joke alert there for you, sorry), and many people clustered there, where they also had a pile o'shrimp. the legs looked scrawny, but many
people piled plates high there. i did get some shrimp. it was cold, and the cocktail sauce was nice and spicy. i also tried the turkey, which was dry, and the salmon, which turned out to be a winner for everyone- i convinced others to try it and we all agreed it was one of the best things anyone had. they had a creamy dill sauce for it, too. the mashed potatoes were ok, but the pecan mashed sweet potatoes better (though they needed lots of salt, i thought).

the taco bar is something one should skip, the asian foods also, except for maybe the blackened salmon (the noodle dishes and a few chicken dishes were not tasty, and in the lemon chicken the accidentally stuck in a huge hunk of lemon, seeds and all, that was breaded like the chicken.

i was not impressed by most of the soup and salad bar. the caprese style salad had almost sad tomatoes and mozzarella balls that needed lots of salt.; the focaccia was dry and kind of tasteless. the one outstanding thing was the chicken fennel salad.

then i hit dessert. i got a lemon tart, took one bite, and that was all... dry, non lemony, and generally icky. the cheesecake wasn't bad, but wasn't good. (i dumped some strawberry sauce on it and it didn't so much help, or hurt. weird, that). the peanut bar was sweet and crisp. i also had a soft serve sundae where you can dump all sorts of kibbles and bits in it, so i did, and let it get all melty, as i prefer. that was tasty, as it was the real thing, not some ice milk crap.

and yes, it does sound like tons of food, but i pursued my usual buffet strategy of taking maybe a tablespoon of most things that looked like i wanted to try them, as i figure if you hate it or even feel ambivalent about it you don't waste much, and if you don't you can go back for more. that way i can taste lots of things and not feel so very sick. though i was kind of sick after the ice cream so it didn't quite work.

grade: b-

february 23

since we were woken up by construction at the earlyass time of a bit past 6 am, and were ready to go at 7:30 (we had planned to leave for the port of air at 9 am or so) we decided to go out for breakfast i chose hash house a go go, which was down sahara ave, down the same route we took to get to rosemary's. so yeah, it was out of the way, but we had the time.

it kind of reminded me of a cross between the highland grill and french meadow... though it was more barbette in attitude. they do 'farm food on steroids' or something like that. and the food is huge.

i ordered off the specials menu, a pecan pumpkin pancake... it was about a foot in diameter. two, three, maybe four people could eat it for breakfast. i ate the middle of it with the real whipped cream, butter, syrup, and some of the house-made mixed berry jam on it. quite good, though i would've liked more pumpkin flavor. mrs. brk got the trad breakfast, with nicely seasoned potatoes, two eggs, tasty rye toast, and fruit, nicely garnished with rosemary. she enjoyed it. both plates were large enough to give someone a concussion if dropped on your head. it's amazing people don't have rsi braces from the plates. we also got coffee, which was not the burnt yuck you get a lot of places... and plenty of refills.

it was a bit spendy (especially for the coffee), but more or less worth it. better than a hotel breakfast, though mrs. brk could've gotten more or less the same thing in a casino place for maybe $2, $3... though in a much smaller quantity. a lot of the menu looked good, especially the scrambles.

grade: b+

for the plane lunch, we got a wolfgang puck to go sandwich to split, the chicken breast with red onion, tomato, lettuce, and vinaigrette on focaccia. it was a good sandwich indeed, but not quite a good $9 sandwich. ah, airport pricing. of couse there's lots of tax on everything, including clothes, as nevada had no income tax, so you end up paying for it with the rest. the meat to bread ration wasn't as high as it should be, running in favor of bread.

grade: b-

 

28th- pierre's bistro, minneapolis (b-)

it's been a while since i've been here, though from what i wrote i may have not intended to go so long between trips. but new restaurants open, and there's always the new thing to try, so... i just didn't, until this week, when a set of circumstances threw me this way again...

(if you care to know the very long and probably a bit boring story of circumstances, read the rest of this paragraph, if not, stop now and go to the next) opentable.com had a list of restaurants that you could get 10 times the number of usual points if you reserved them only during this week- 1000 vs. the usual 100. you need 2000 to get a $20 gift certificate, so it seemed like a good idea to go to one of the places on the list. mrs. brk were going to hit babalu tomorrow for the 1000 points and use a gift certificate from restaurant.com (where you can get a $25 for $10 or less) which we could not get until thursday as they are out for this month. since it will snow massively tomorrow we cancelled that reservation and i just made one at the 1000 point place closest to where i live, pierre's. chez daniel was also a possibility, and did have coupons out there and it's not very far away, but since they served me plastic in my pasta when i last ate there in person (not leftovers) it's one of the places on my 'never again' list.

so back to the food. in general, it still seems odd that the menu isn't more french. mrs. brk's walnut-crusted walleye with beurre blanc had a few french touches, but came off more minnesotan (not surprisingly). it came with rice, which was flavorful, probably cooked in stock, and haricot vert, which had a very italian-seeming tomato sauce on them. she was surprised it wasn't more french, and it wasn't more seasoned, and wasn't, well, a bit better for the $22 price. i agree with that in general, but following the rule of ordering she probably would've been better off with something more originally french (see the rule of ordering, aka stick with what the place is known for).

like the steamed mussels with garlic wine cream that i got that came with a side of pomme frites. (nice transition, no?) a large pile of mussels, with a very tasty broth that was the best thing served to us... the broth, that is. tasty, well seasoned, nice... though i did have to ask for an extra roll for it, the bread plates were removed after the first roll (they serve out of a basket) even though i asked for another. i must've been talking in the voice that is inaudible to humans again.

the frites, again, no vincents. they were ok, but needed salt (no salt shakers at the table). as the frites were served nekkid, and only vincent's can stand to be nekkid, i asked for ketsup, to be told they have none. instead i got a much-preferred dish of aioli (no charge even). so that was a nice touch. the whole of my food seemed more in line with the $21 price than mrs. brk's.

all of her food would've been slightly better had we been able to put salt and/or pepper on them at the table, but such things did not appear at the table. or any table. i wonder why that is, as like the fries that needed ketsup (or aioli), a lot of the food (including the frites, really) could've used more salt and/or pepper.

service was a bit flaky, which was odd, as we were once again on the lonely side. there was one four-top seated as we walked in, they left, and about 10 minutes later another four-top came in, and there was one person at the bar. you'd think given the lack of traffic, we could've gotten a bigger table and had a bit more room, but it wasn't offered and we didn't ask. we were also undercharged on our credit card bill, which we notified the server about.

the room has a lot of french things on the walls, and a fake eiffel tower, for that matter, though the rooms themselves seem oddly not french to me. more franco-american. (insert spaghetti joke here, but maybe it puts the menu in context?)

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