date: 10/14/08
location: minneapolis
grade: b+ (group grade)

if you eat meat, here you're made. the tasting for two ($60 for it all) is a hell of a deal (especially in these horrid economic times), and you get tons of food for that. if you go for it during half-price wine night on mondays, you can live large on tiny cash. those with other inclinations are still taken care of in the menu, but the deals are less devine.

the two people that split the tasting got a round of mezze first, including giant beans in lemon, dill, and extra virgin olive oil, marinated olives, carrot salad, mirqaz (as spelled on the menu, more commonly spelled merguez) sausage with red peppers, and possibly something else i can't recall. they were full size portions, and most mezze run about $5 or so per plate.

october's main course (they change it monthly) was beef short rib tagine and root vegetables with a small hill of couscous. it was very tender and flavorful, which they paired with a recougne bordeaux superieur ($9 by the glass)...

but hey, enough about meat, let me get to the best part of the meal... dessert. the flight of house-made ice creams and sorbets (rose petal ice cream, blueberry sorbet, a very very passionfruit sorbet, and a spiced chocolate). again i wonder why they don't sell this stuff in pints or quarts or something. i listed them in the order i enjoyed them, but most people loved the truffle-spice background of the chocolate. the passionfruit was a bit too passionfruity. the blueberry tasted like the best of blueberries. i liked the crystalized bits (sugar? ginger?) in the rose petal one.

two of the people split a mezze plate of haloumi cheese with watermelon and basil ($5.50). i've heard of feta and watermelon, which apparently works better than the haloumi did. there were some textural issues between the squeaky cheese and the watermelon, and possibly the grilled heat of the cheese and the cold of the watermelon on a cold, dreary day were not so optimal.

they each got the parisian gnocchi with green apple and oyster mushrooms in almost absent black truffle-taleggio fondue ($18). very nicely done gnocchi (not as good as fugaise...), and the apple really made the dish. it could've used more (any?) of the sauce. one person opted for the recommended l’ardi dolcetto d’aqui ($7 by the glass) with it, and another ordered off the very fun and inventive non-alcoholic beverage menu for some 'sparkling passion,' which i will hasted to add is a drink name, but always good to have with dinner, no? it was a mix of passion fruit, orange and ginger beer (a very reasonable $3.50... most of the non-alcoholic drinks were very reasonable priced, actually).

since i thought it prudent to order at least one thing that wouldn't kill me via cholesterol for dinner, i opted for picked veg ($4) off the mezze part of the menu again, as last time they were really tasty. this time is was carrots, mostly, with a few bits of artichoke, cauliflower and such. still nice, hot, and spicy.

for the 'main course' i went with two smaller plates instead of an entree. the first was the spicy feta dip with pickled hot peppers and sundried tomato ($5) off the mezze menu, which was again heat-forward. i asked for more of the better bread that had been served to us in the basket with the almost but not quite as good as the holy land's hummus- a more focaccia-style one, sliced into pointy slices, versus a round loaf one with a seed crust, both served nice and warm. it went better with the pointy bread. i wonder why there wasn't pita today. but anyway. the spicy feta dip it is more of a sharing thing, perhaps. very tasty. not as good as feta walnut dip (heh), but reminiscent of it- more spice and a bit of tomato, no walnuts. same thing, only different.

the second dish was off the small plates menu-, deviled eggs with preserved tuna, capers, and black olives ($6). what was odd about the dish is that the post-headline ingredients (capers and black olives in the case of the eggs) were both very missing in action on the plate. didn't see or taste them at all. plus the tuna was just piled on top of the eggs, i guess i had pictured all of the above flavors mingling together with the egg yolk and then piped back into the eggs. a bit of a head-scratcher, that one. it wasn't bad, just kind of left you feeling 'is that all there is?' you get three halves, by the way, but lots of tuna on top (which makes it a shade difficult to eat).

this time, the place was a lot more lively than last time- more than half the tables filled. which was good, as we needed the body heat. it was pretty freezing in the place. and a bit dark. very good service (including the water), and the server had a sense of humor (when i specifically asked for more of the pointy bread, it was annouced at the table as 'more pointy bread.' i guess it may have sounded funnier if you were there... ).

if you ever wish to try their late-night happy hour, go soon. it's almost gone. perhaps 112 gets all the business, though saffron also deserves it. i still have to one of the happy hours for the fries with feta fondue tongue-twister of a dish.

and as so not to disappoint a certain segment of my audience, the restrooms were generally up to par, if a bit basic and less decorated, though they need to move the waste basket so you don't have to contort yourself to throw things away. it also seems way too bright in there after the dimness of the main room.

so good service, good prices, good deals, good food. and you can get tco points for it, and if you are lucky enough to score a gift certificate to here during their sales, you can use that, too.