date: 9/2/08
location: minneapolis
grade: b+ (average), c (me, because of downgrades for stuff in food)

plus

minus

most of the food. starters- the smoked trout appetizer ($7) was plated imaginatively and was interestingly paired with red eye gravy and grits. and also tasted good. the grilled veg salad ($6) with "zucchini, summer squash, grilled onion, throwing star farms ricotta, tarragon and micro greens" was piled attractively on the plate and wasn't overdressed. it tasted grilled, yet fresh. does that make any sense? as for the 'nosh plates,' they were indeed... noshable. the large one ($9) had pork rilettes, another sort of meat i forget, goat cheese, olives, pickled green beans, roasted garlic, nuts, and a bit of very light honey, and not quite enough grilled bread. it's sized for 2-4 to share. i got the small ($7) one is good for 1-2 people, and i asked if the meat could be replaced with cheese. the kitchen was amenable, so i got a trio of cheeses, the goat, some fresh mozzarella (boccini-style), and another one that i forgot, plus the honey, nuts, olives, a few pickles, and not enough grilled bread. we did ask for, and get, more, of the potato bread and baguette. not bad bread, not great bread. good butter, though. main courses- someone had gotten the duck confit with corn cakes for the starter, but three of us got it for the main course. me, i had a bone in mine and thought there was a bit too much duck for the corn cake ratio. plus the duck was a shade tough in bits, given it was supposedly confit. but everyone else loved it so in the plus column it is. me, i thought it was pretty ok. i'm not sure what to list for the price, as on the menu i think it was $9, but we were charged $8. (then again on the online menu, the prices for the nosh plates are $1 cheaper, so there you go). the salmon entree had very good salmon indeed in a lovely sauce ($24). see below for the minuses. the lamb entree ($24) may have changed from the side ingredients listed on the web site, as they had a new menu that started the day we went, but it's listed online with "israeli couscous, fennel, oven dried tomato, roasted corn" and it was greatly enjoyed, and very tender. what i thought was the best entree was the vegetarian one, though, the vegetable en croute ($14) with "quinoa, kale, mushroom, squash, egg, thyme, dill, feta and tomato sauce." to me that was odd, given that i think that quinoa usually tastes and smells a bit like feet (in a bad way) most of the time. they did the dish right, thought. very tasty and bountiful.

the eggplant with the salmon entree. it was bitter and shouldn't have been on the plate. if you ate any with the salmon, it made the salmon taste bad too. bleach. the bone in my duck confit. again, more understandable than a lot of other random bits of plastic or such in the food, but hey, check a bit more carefully. by the way, i had a one in three chance of getting the plate with the bone in it, as there were three plates brought to the table with the same dish (someone else had it as an appetizer). not only did i get the bone, i got it on the first bite. the service. our server didn't like us, or was having a bad day. or something. it felt like they'd rather not have us there. not so much with the hospitality. that sucked. it's not like we under-ordered for our large table, or it was crowded, or we had tons of special requests (one). being told they were out of the corn soup when no one else ordered it before we got there. don't lie to us. either someone didn't make it or it went weird, but it's not like y'all were out. i was so psyched about it. so yeah. disappointing to the extreme. i'd say it had gone off, as we were told quite a bit after we ordered. sigh. interesting, the special app was something that had been on the menu before decor. they have a few large arrangements of dried plant bits (hello, allergies!) and my view was of a very large dark orange painted canvas square. derivitive and uninteresting. and i actually like some other canvas painted squares.