date: 10/26/04
location: minneapolis
grade: c-

it's probably not a good thing when the one thing that really stands out about a restaurant are the restrooms.

but they were really really nice bathrooms. floor to ceiling doors, one of the rooms within the room had a highchair if you bring in a kid with you, and they gave you real cloth washclothes to dry your hands. large mirrors, magnifying mirrors, it was almost splendid in scale.

so let's move to the service, though i'd rather not. there were a few things spilled by the server, which can be par for the course. however, the behavior can not. one should not speak to adult customers if they were children, and not particularly bright children at that. food ordered for the apps and the meal came at random times... some people got two dishes before others got one.

so i'd grade the service somewhere around a d, in general. though i will say
they did fill water glasses.

how about the ambience. well, they vaguely try to emulate a diner, i think? or maybe a 40's retro thing? it kind of looks supper-clubby, but the things on the walls don't really match the decor. and for a downtown place that seems like coworker groups would gather at for a post-work happy hour, they don't seem able to accomodate many large groups (4 people or fewer per party seems to be their comfort zone... but they could have been hiding tables someplace...). to get to said fab restroom, if you're seated on one side of the restaurant, you have to go through the area where the servers pick up the food and do the bills and such, which is a bit odd. well, maybe more than a bit.

the menu shows similar conflicts of interest. some of it was trad comfort food, full dinners with the sides and such, a hamburger, chili, a chicken sandwich. the rest was more updated food, such as the rare ahi tuna with ginger small plate (pretty decent), the seafood 'roast' (actually a soup.... also pretty decent), and lobster corn dogs with wasabi mayo (better than you think, they had a nice flavor but could have used a lot more lobster taste. perhaps if they didn't cut the lobster so finely? anyway.... someone did expect lobster tacos, as the person who owns this used to own the pickled parrot, but no such luck. i think this is their replacement in spirit, maybe.).

dishes with fish worked out well. the more trad foods, like soup and salad, were less good. and for all the menu diversity, there wasn't a lot to chose from in each category... there's only one kind of hamburger, one kind of chicken sandwich, hne kind of soup per day...etc. good bread was served with the meal, along with the cracker basket, but the butter served with the bread was larger than the loaf itself. it didn't seem adequate for 4. the salad dressings were lovely and seemed homemade.

but the fries. as fry crazy as i am, my research pointed to potentially really good fries. boy, was i disappointed. the first one seemed ok, but after the second one, it tasted like the potato used was way past it's freshness date. it wasn't the seasoning mix throwing it off, it was the potato. bye bye fries.

and the prices. no matter how big the cup, $6 seems a lot to pay for a cup of soup, unless the cup is one of those bowl-sized ones. especially since a bowl costs $7. most app prices start at $8, sandwiches are $12-18 or so (with fries), and most dinners in the $20 range. it didn't seem you get you money's worth. though you do get a cookie (warm but not squishy) and a lollipop at the end of your meal. a fun touch.

when i walked out of the place, i was full, yet didn't feel satisfied.