date: 3/30/04
location: minneapolis
grade: b+

a nice little vegetarian-based place. with real flowers, which is always a nice touch. some nice people watching can be had.

for starters, we split the mushroom-pistachio pate, served with a cranberry (something) chutney, and a mustard sauce on croutons (or 'toast,' as i like to call what it was served with. but i don't write menus.) very tasty indeed. mmm, mushrooms.

i had the open-faced mock duck tacos. they could have used a bit more cheddar, but were otherwise well seasoned and balanced. i bring up the open-faced thing because the butter knife didn't cut the tortillas well (they were baked, i think) and i had no other utensil to do it with. i don't like to think that much with dinner. anyway, it came with brown rice and a salad ingredients my dinner, and other other dishes sampled (thai chicken curry, cod) were very fresh- cafe brenda does fresh, local, organic ingredients, which usually works out to much tastier food you end up eating.

the only minor issue i had was with the bread basket, which i expected to be a lot better than it was. the breads were ok, but didn't taste earthy enough or something. they didn't match the food, maybe.

service was attentive, and it was nice to see the place fills up later rather than earlier (well, if you can call 7:30-8 pm later), unlike a lot of other restaurnts. (which also means i really really need to get out of the 'burbs more often... but that's another story.) the only other minor issue i had was the odd bathroom placement, which is not in the restaurant, it's outside in the hall.