date: 5/11/04
location: minneapolis
grade: b-

pardon me, do you have any grey poupon?

yes, we were going to go to 3 muses, but their place was closed due to a family emergency, so we wandered down the block and ended up at the herkimer, mainly because no one had been there yet (and we weren't in the mood for falefel).

their whole thing is that it's like a pub, only different. so it's like bar food, but not. my theory was to stick with vaguely bar foodian things, so i had the mushroom sandwich and fries with that. they do have grey poupon besides the regular yellow mustard, which is a nice gesture. the fries were quite good, though the chipotle mayo that comes with the big old serving platter of them wasn't quite right.

the sandwich at first wasn't too great, but after i had eaten the first half and got to the second half, the juices had time to make the bread all saturated, and that helped a lot. oddly, there were mushrooms pieces, not one big one. points off for that.

the thai lettuce wraps didn't make the grade. the peanut sauce was off, and the chicken tasted like something out a bag (those things where you can get those pre-formed chicken cubes). this is why i went for more traditional food.

the setting was... odd. we thought the building was some kind of car repair type place in it's past life, and that ends up with a loud kind of din. between that and the tons of smoke (ok for a bar, but not really the atmosphere i want my dinner in), the extreme lack of light, and random bursts of music, it's not such a great setting. the service was on the good side, but a bit rushed at times and a bit slow at others- the main courses were brought to the table with due haste, but the later-ordered side of fries took a lot longer. water refills were timely.

a decent enough neighborhood joint.

© The bent sun as risen