date: 2/15/05
location: st. paul
grade: b

or caspers' and runyons' noook, or whatever the real name of the place is. kind of hard to figure out.

anyway. a good place to go (rather than some of the pricier places) if you have an everlasting cold such as the one i have. not that the food is bad, mind you, but it's a very reasonable place to hang, and if you can't taste much of anything, do you really want to drop some mad cash someplace? not so much...

if you go, get a burger (if that fits in with your dietary concerns). doesn't matter what kind , the highly rated juicy lucy, the patty melt special, the whoppingly huge (not part of the real name) lodge burger. it's all good. the chicken, not so much. decent enough. they let me swiss-mushroom it up, though i couldn't taste the mushrooms, though they were there. i saw them. not sure if that's because of lack of working taste buds or they were the kind you can't taste.

however, here they're good with cow. it's members of the family who own runyon's steak place, ciatti's in woodbury, and other places that i can't recall that are up on the cow bits that own this one. the buns are good, too.

get the fries. better if they're warm and long (i got the cold fries, someone else got stubby). not that the onion rings are bad, they're pretty good (perhaps some cornmeal in the batter?) but still, get the fries. a cut above the usual bar food.

the service is spotty. the same server can give both great and spotty service. confusing, but hey, it's a college hangout. the hamline equivalent of the big 10 at the u of m, but tinier. though without subs. crowded. it can get smoky. decent beer selection.