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bite me: may 2008

 

1st- gyros grill, bloomington
2nd- enjoy, apple valley
3rd- ep vietnamese restaurant, eden prairie
5th- turtle's bar and grill, shakopee
7th- qdoba, st. louis park
8th- toast wine bar and cafe, minneapolis
10th- amazing grace bakery and cafe, duluth
10th- at sara's table chester creek cafe, duluth
11th- hell's kitchen, duluth
22nd- luci ancora, st. paul
23rd- cam ranh bay, eden prairie
26th- manny's tortas, minneapolis
28th- spill the wine, minneapolis
30th- satay 2 go, apple valley


1st- gyros grill, bloomington (b-)

like an alternate world dino's, where there's very loud arabic stations going, there's middle eastern products for sale instead of dino's brand stuff, and it's less... um... tidy? i had, yes, a coupon that i got for $10 off $20 for this place, so mrs. brk and i headed over for dinner. i was going to get the chicken gyro sandwich ($5.99) with fries (1.49), to do a direct dino's comparison but mrs. brk wanted it. hers was as good as dino's edina, but not as good as the one that used to be in shakopee. the sandwich, at any rate, the fries, though hot and fresh, were boring and just ok.

so i went with the vegetarian plate ($7.99), which was stupid of me. because we got an appetizer (the lebanese, $5.99) with hummus, babba gannouj, and two falafel and two pita with some scattered red onion and a couple tomato bits. all good, not great. the vegetarian plate had spanakopita (a bit bitter and undercooked), falafel, hummus, babba gannouj (deja vu!), pita (didn't show up with that), olives (all two of them!), feta cheese (about the same amount as the two olives in size), tabouli (ok), and way undercooked and underseaoned fried potatoes, most of which ended up in the garbage can.

so i ate most of the app, the bits of mrs. brk's dinner she didn't finish, and took my dinner home, minus the random sampling. and the aforementioned potatoes. mrs. brk's was of course much better than mine. i should've stuck it out, and just gotten the same thing. it was a decent deal with the coupon, we did get a lot of food for our money. they also have over the counter deals like $3.99 gyros on tuesdays and thursday. i would say it's not anything i can't get closer to my house for about the same amount of money. (in a place that's... um... more modern).

2nd- enjoy, apple valley (c-)

i didn't.

i did contemplate making that the whole of it, but... nope. anyway. enjoy would like you to put an exclamation mark after it's name, but i shan't, as it's more of a question mark to me. i read several online reviews that had nothing good to say about the service and the food. between seeing the reviews and the menu prices, i refused to go until i had a restaurant.com gift certificate safely in hand, as if it was going to suck, i didn't want it to suck and be super-spendy.

so after being there, i have nothing good to say about the food (out of the whole dinner, the only thing that was not crappy was one of the three kinds of bread. the other two were blah). it was maybe a 'd.' the reviews had it right on that point.

my roasted sweet corn chowder ( 'fresh' corn topped with wild rice fritters) didn't appear to have fresh corn, or roasted corn, or any flavor, for that matter. the texture was not soupy. it was more like a paste. the fritters were cold and had hard inedible bits. bleach. so not worth the $4.95 (or was it $5.95?) for the bowl.

even less worth it was the $10.95 chopped salad (sans applewood smoked bacon). it was supposed to have grilled chicken (if it was grilled first, it was shredded after... and not seasoned at any point), sweet corn (not a lot), gorgonzola (two tiny bits of it, maybe, were in there), avocado (all in all less than a slice), and crispy (well, about half-crispy) wontons tossed in entirely too much sweet and sour dressing. i think it was worse than the soup. both items were so not restaurant quality food, especially given the prices points at this place. or even eat at home quality food.

the crab cakes that the other person had were at best passable. on their web site, it implied that people from maryland gave them mad props... maybe they had never had one before. it wasn't lump crab meat, and they had put so much other stuff in it that it didn't really taste like crab. i did like they only breaded the outside. it had a key lime mustard sauce, and a chile oil (which was surprisingly good with it) to dip into, plus sweet potato shoestrings which were a bit less crisp than they should be. ($11.95). the recommended riesling (dr. l, $7.50 a glass) went well with it.

however, we did have quite good service. weird how that works, no? i'd say service was about at a-, b+ level. that's what brought the grade up a bit. not that i would ever go there to eat again. if they can't do soup and salad, what can they do?

i would say that this place is to apple valley kind of how dangerfield's is to shakopee... a place to eat out when you don't want to leave town, but it's more of a special occasion or you wish to dress up a bit. it may not have the best food ever (well, dangerfield's is way better), it's a nice looking place, we ate in a glass atrium-like part of the building that must be nice when it's not raining and cold (i was freezing through most of dinner). ditto on the patio. but the food doesn't live up to the building.

or the name of the place. ! or no !.

3rd- ep vietnamese restaurant, eden prairie (c)

average food with average service (ok water refills, but when more people came in, the sole server who was also ringing up to go orders was stretched a bit thin). though since it's in an out of the way location, you can eat near the maul here on a saturday and not have to queue for hours for equally average food. though for a place with 'vietnamese' in the name, it sure seems to have tons of chinese food, and not so much vietnamese. the restaurant itself is a bit neutral, with fresh bamboo arrangements being the main decorating point. it's kind of refreshing.

i had the bbq mock duck rice noodle salad (mock duck with lemongrass that i couldn't taste and onion, bean sprouts, lettuce, cucumber, carrots, not a lot of peanuts and rice noodles) for $8.95. it'd make a nice summer dish, if you added some chili oil or a dab of fish sauce, or something to give it more flavor, plus more peanuts than it had here. it's crisp and has some crunchy bits in it. good mock duck, too. mock quack.

the chicken lo (or low, if you go by the menu, but i wouldn't as my dish has bean prouts....) mein was dark meat and rice noodles, and could've used a lot more soy sauce, fish sauce, some sort of sauce. it was $9.95. very bland.

we had card that gave us $7 off if we bought two entrees. a bit random of a discount, but there you go. and as you may or may not have noticed or some reason i have apparently started to more consistently include prices on the site in reviews. maybe because of the economy sliding downhill, i don't know. it seemed more relevant now.

5th- turtle's bar and grill, shakopee (b-)

fiesta chicken panini (grilled chicken breast, pepper jack, and guacamole on toasted foccacia, sans the bacon) with fries $8.95. the sandwich was tasty, but small, and unevenly distributed on the bread. the fries i wouldn't get again, they were maybe ok.

alfredo florentine pizza (homemade alfredo sauce with garlic, fresh spinach, parmesan and mozzarella cheese), personal size, for $7.95. a good size, and quite tasty, too. i think i liked the combo better than frankie's- more balance in flavors and toppings, even without chicken, but frankie's had way better crust.

service was decent, food was decent (we split lunches half and half). prices are a tad high for some things (almost $2 for pop). i'd probably stop by again for lunch... it's not not too far from where i work. i wonder why it took me almost five years of working down the block for me to get here. maybe most of it was due to the smoking laws... it was kind of nasty when i went in here before (to get to the banquet area in back).

7th- qdoba, st. louis park (c-)

the mango chicken salad i had was not as good as the one mrs. brk had last year in that it didn't taste like mango (the mango salsa put on the salad was light on it). or chicken. it tasted like salad, pretty much. well, lettuce. the cheese and sour cream didn't help. pouring the queso over it helped a bit, oddly, though i usually wouldn't pour melted cheese on salad. it also needed red onion, and either more or different salad dressing. i think it was around $5.50.

mrs. brk's chicken burrito had too much rice compared with everything else (she didn't get beans). the guacamole was good, but a bit cold. i think hers came out to about $5.50, too with the guacamole side. i had coupons for the sides of chips with pretty decent queso. kind of disappointing, though, in general.

8th- toast wine bar and cafe, minneapolis (b-)

once more a pre-dinner show before i headed off to acme comedy club (the robin williams show, just to make all y'all jealous). once more a pizza, this one mushroom, leek, truffle oil, and... i forget what cheese, but there was a lot of cheese. and a lot of mushrooms. both good. however, there was too much leek and not enough truffle oil, so the flavor was a bit too.... leeky overall. on the bland side. not the best 'za i've had there.

as i was a bit peckish, i got two of the crostini. the grilled zucchini and goat cheese was good in an interesting way, but not necessarily something i would order again. the bbq chicken and cole slaw was messy. the chicken was from brasa rotisserie, so it was tasty, but the cole slaw couldn't match it for anything. it didn't quite work. (it needed blue cheese, too.)

the host (one of the owners, perhaps?) is one of the best it town, i think. very nice and gracious. service was also good. they still need coathooks on the bathroom door, though.

10th- amazing grace bakery and cafe, duluth (a)

i'd come back here again. the sandwiches are huge, on bread they make there, and tasty. mrs. brk and i split a chicken salad (tender chicken, not in chunks, but large shreds so you know it came from a roasted bird) in just enough mayo with nice seasoning with tomato, lettuce, and provolone on a delicious feta, sun-dried tomato, and spinach bread. the sandwiches are as big as your head.

we also got a bowl of the potato-cheese soup. it wasn't floury at all. many cheese soups are. it could've used some finer dicing in my opinion, and a tad more salt. and no carrots. but those are personal preferences. it seems like it belongs near the campus there versus in the heart of the tourist area, though... very hippie vibe. it was about $11 for the divided soup and sandwich.

10th- at sara's table chester creek cafe, duluth (c)

it sounded promising, kind of like french meadow, only without a bakery. local, organic. neighborhood cafe sort of digs. alas, their cooking isn't quite up to par.

mrs. brk's burger ($8.75) was completely unseasoned. the fries were a mess, they looked brown, but had the consistency of boiled potatoes- weird, limp, mushy. had they been mine, i would've sent them back. she opted for mushrooms on hers for $.50 more, but there were not so many. not worth the extra cash for what you got, even if it was only $.50

the daily pizza i had ($11) had a dijon sauce (pardon me, do you have any grey poupon?) with brie, parmesan, mission figs, and artichoke hearts. and rosemary. more than one large branch of rosemary, with so much wood attached that i am very surprised did not catch fire in the oven. there was no excuse or apology for these large, inedible bits of stuff on the food. bad. very bad. shame, as the pizza had a nice, crispy crust, and when they managed to get the toppings (also cut in too large of chunks) near each other, it wasn't half bad. the wine i got with it (dr. l riesling, though at $8, $.50 more than at enjoy, above) went well.

service was half-assed. the server seemed to not want to be there and would've been more suited to a different job, perhaps one where they didn't have to wait on people.

11th- hell's kitchen, duluth (c-)

so since we were in duluth, it was mother's day, and i remembered mom liked her hell's kitchen mother's day experience in minneapolis a few year's back, why not go here, i thought.... even i, who has even worst brunch restaurant karma than my usual restaurant karma, should be ok.

stupid me (rule #1!).

mrs. brk had the american-style breakfast ($9.95), with nice eggs, one slice toast, hashbrowns, and nicely seasoned bison sausage. and homemade ketsup. plus their nice homemade peanut butter. a bit spendy, but it is all free-range, etc. though we both missed the free champagne they handed out at the minneapolis one. the kitchen did a literally 'happy mother's day' shout-out though.

i had huevos rancheros ($9.95). cold ones. you'd think my food would be warm, it takes longer to put together, but nope. cold. and when i asked for it to be reheated, there was no offer to remake it. not a good sign. so my eggs dried out on the edges under the heat source. at least my sour cream didn't curdle. it was spicy, but there were no specific flavor notes other than spicy.

but for some reason there was some fried egg on the back of my tortilla. the flip side, where there's supposed to be nothing between it and the plate. the egg in the huevos was scrambled. the line i was given when i inquired about it was that it was part of the scrambled egg that didn't get done. um. then it would've been on the top. with the rest of the egg. and not fried. i'm just hoping that it wasn't egg white on my plate that was slimy before it got heated. (or no one spit in my food as i sent it back to be heated... ).

our server was unprofessional. they mumbled a lot. not just our table had problem understanding their mumble, we heard other tables go through the same frequent 'what?' when ordering. speak up, please. it's your job to be clear about the menu.

a lot worse, though, was the borderline nasty-sounding crack about how much coffee ($1.95 per person, so why the hell not get my money's worth?) i was drinking. um. no. bad and wrong. if they were trying to be funny, it just so didn't work. and hey, guess who's the person leaving the tip?

though the decor looks kind of the same (though it's more red), the patrons are different than the minneapolis ones... let's just say way less diverse, and much more touristy (not out of place at nearby grandma's, let's say). it was disappointing. but brunch, i should've known. maybe had i ordered something more lunch-like it would've sucked a bit less for me. the grade is pulled up a bit in deference to mom on mother's day.

22nd- luci ancora, st. paul (a)

time has certainly improved luci, or perhaps it works a lot better if you don't go on a weekend with a large group of people, as i did last time. or both. some of the changes they made was the source of their bread (formerly in-house, now from st. agnes), and using a few more local sources than i remember for the food. though hey, i still dislike their window treatments. the rest of the place looks good.

they put thought into things here. it's very detail oriented. if you're at a two-top table, you get small salt and pepper shakers, so they won't take up as much real estate as the four-tops or larger. when mrs. brk and i split the large insalata cesare (romaine and croutons, with an interestingly garlicky anchovy buttermilk dressing that didn't overwhelm the salad- the small runs i think $3.95, the large $6.95 though i can't say for sure on the price) they served it on two plates vs. bringing one to the table so we can toss our salad all over (ahem.... yeah). they seated people as they came in at least one table away from other tables (until they ran out of room to do that). thoughtful.

they have a variety of pastas you can choose from, and usually kind of one dish from each representative kind (spaghetti, fettucini, something tubular, totally- i still like that joke three years later, ravioli, etc.) and a selection of entrees, though nothing in the entrees was vegetarian-friendly. slightly less thoughtful, but you can get things from the antipasti, antipasto, pasta, and dessert menus.

mrs. brk went with a spaghetti dish with steak, broccoli, cashew nuts, and tossed in olive oil, $12.95 i think on the price (beef with broccoli... sounds familiar). hers could've used a tad more zip (like a bit more from the ground pepper shaker or a dash of salt), but she had no complaints. she also loved, loved, loved the bread... she finished her first piece of bread before *i* did. has that ever happened anywhere to anyone eating with me?

bueller?

bueller?

i opted for a simpler dish of fettuccine, housemade, with a wonderfully tasty truffle reggiano butter with fresh peas, for i think $11.95. they pulled off the near-impossible taste of saucing the pasta just right so it wasn't swimming, yet had enough sauce, and combined it with the also near-impossible task of making a creamy buttery sauce not overwhelm the perfect pasta with heaviness.

the reason why i'm pretty much estimating the prices is that we had a mpr membercard which got us two for one entrees, and so i never saw the prices on the check and can't recall from the menu as i only remember pointless things (as those of you know know me recall. or not. ha. ha.), i should write things down. anyway, the online menu's no help, as it's a sample menu from winter 07, and while i am on the subject, their web site's pretty train-wrecky. they spell the name of the restaurant incorrectly two different ways on it. that's way worse than my typos. i'm not a business that needs to look professional.

we had friendly but not overly so service, my water never made it past half-mast, and we were given as much bread as we wanted to eat with the nice hope creamery butter.

nice.

23rd- cam ranh bay, eden prairie (b)

another supposedly vietnamese restaurant in eden prairie (see above, on the 3rd). oddly, the special of the day was bulgogi (korean) and the menu is also littered with chinese and chinese-american dishes, plus a few of other asian ancestry.

they have a lunch special- for $7.49 (plus tax) you get a cup of soup (tofu sour, which wasn't that sour but pretty good, though the chunks of tomatoes were odd), a appetizer (i opted for the quite decen, above-average cream cheese puffs and those and a light, summery split a mock-duck spring roll that maybe needed a bit more crunch but was fine), rice (boring fried rice that i had, or the white) and an entree (mine was an nicely flavored mock duck curry that if i remember correctly was supposed to be spicy and so was not). you also get a sugar roll (think an oversized donut hole, which i was not fond of and discarded after one bite). the portions weren't huge ones, so you could get through all your food, perhaps, in a lunch.

service was on the slow side (too many large groups of people, not enough servers) and they delivered all four of my courses within minutes, whereas the person i was eating with had their app delivered, and then quite a bit later the entree came along. the place is decorated kind of like the other place. where do people find those odd back-lit pictures, and why are they only in asian restaurants? they had a horrid music selection (think dentist-level, only with the worst songs of the 80's light rock, pretty much). but the food was better than the other eden prairie locale.

26th- manny's tortas, minneapolis (b-) (midtown global market location)

good sandwiches, sure, but tortas? not sure. they didn't use traditional rolls (or they may have used super-sized loaves of bread vs. the rolls... both ends of my sandwich indicated no roll was used). and i always thought these were supposed to be pressed. not pressed a la a panini, but these didn't seem flat at all. they were tasty, a mix of the chicken, cheese (it oddly tasted like swiss), avocado, pickle, mayo, onions, refried beans.... they were supposed to have jalapenos, but i think they were left off.

the sandwich, with chips, was $6.25, but i had a two for one card. the soda was maybe another buck (mad props to them- they had diet sprite... one of the very few places that i've been to that has diet non-caffeinated soda). well worth it for the price, though i think for $6.25 you may be able to eat more interestingly (there, even) at the midtown global market. well, when things are open (it's memorial day today, most places were closed).

28th- spill the wine, minneapolis (d+)

what i liked here:

what i didn't like here:

30th- satay 2 go, apple valley (a-)

after trying some different places in and around apple valley, sometimes you just want to go back to the stuff you know is good. besides the mee goreng, i did get to sample the roti canai, which had a spicy chicken curry soup with some most excellent hot, cripsy, and buttery roti.