Visited on Sunday, April 29th
Erin's Review
If it isn't completely obvious, we are definitely losing steam on keeping up this blog. We have long since given up any charade of updating regularly, obviously, and if it were up to Ben, we'd be done with the blog completely. With the last several posts (probably since we had kids), it feels like a burden to him, which isn't worth it.
I have been trying to remember what I originally loved about starting this blog - and for me, it really is just about remembering the experience of going to a new restaurant, and taking photos. I find food absolutely beautiful, and I love taking photos of it, regardless of if it is food that is supposed to be pretty. A
delicious hamburger is just as beautiful to me as a
9 course meal at La Belle Vie (and sometimes a lot more appealing), so it doesn't always need to be fancy food for me to enjoy photographing it. I also love sharing photos. Maybe it's my inherent extroversion coming out, but a photo to me is worth nothing if it's not shared and enjoyed by many people. I don't pretend to be an amazing photographer, but with many of the photos on this blog, I have enjoyed taking them and I want people to enjoy seeing them as well.
When we started this blog, I had absolutely no clue of the food scene that exists in this town, despite growing up here. Because of starting this blog, I grew to love blogging and photography even more, which in turn led to a love of cooking and baking. Typically, I am very much a creature of habit, so I have loved having this blog as a reason to try new foods and restaurants. I also used to love the community that existed in the comments, but that has died off since we do not update regularly - while the blog exists purely for us, part of the joy for me is interacting with people, and hearing back from readers. I love getting emails from readers asking for restaurant suggestions, and knowing that people tried a new place because of our posts.
On that note, we'll still share something when I do remember to bring the nice camera to a new restaurant, but it won't be anything as formal as it has been. We've enjoyed the ride, and hope you've liked reading as well!
Onto our actual dining experience... we haven't had a real date since our last post, about Saffron. It's been awhile! We've been out individually, and for group events - but date nights with just Ben and I haven't been a priority lately. Thanks to the children getting to an easier phase and being pretty good with babysitters, it's easier to leave sometimes now! Because of the beautiful weather this weekend, we initially planned to find a patio - neither of us have been to W.A. Frost, so that seemed like an obvious choice. However, basically the moment we got there, it started sprinkling a bit - it looked short lived, but I wasn't sure - so I told Ben to call
The Bachelor Farmer and see if they had any tables open, which they did! We headed over in that direction and got the last open table.
Neither of us knew anything about The Bachelor Farmer other than it was a pretty hot reservation to get - I'd tried before, weeks in advance, and not been able to get a table ever. Little did we know that they actually don't even take reservations on Sunday nights, and that it's a set Sunday Supper. Kind of a cool situation to happen upon! I also had no clue even of the type of food served - just that it was organic and fancy-ish. Only learned later from my sister that this is actually a Scandinavian restaurant. Kind of a cool story behind this restaurant, but I'm glad I went into it with very few expectations. I loved the ambiance of the restaurant - very casual, and comfortable. The whole place seems almost unfinished, but in an interesting way instead of seeming lazy.
The menu that night looked appealing, but I don't typically enjoy prime rib so I wanted one of the other options. I'm sure the prime rib here would have been a bit different than what I'm used to so I probably should have tried it, but the vegetarian option sounded delicious. I am a sucker for poached eggs on anything! Since there were also eggs on the salad, it was a lot of eggs, but that's fine with me!
The salad was delicious due in large part to the eggs. They offset the bitterness of the dandelion greens nicely. I was starving and wished they would have brought the biscuits that came with the main course with the salad, but oh well. It paired really well with the Riesling I had. On Sundays, you can get a half bottle of wine, and they open the other half of the bottle to the restaurant, so you can try wines that normally aren't served by the glass. I was interested in the Barolo, but was not willing to pay $23 a glass for that ;)
I loved my main course - the eggs were served on some kind of grain-cake thing, with vegetables. I felt pretty healthy, which was good because we were also getting dessert :) Dessert was also delicious - I love chocolate mousse always. The "white chocolate gel" almost tasted like ice cream to me. I would have enjoyed a decaf coffee with this, as usual, but I elected to have a 2nd glass of wine instead. Good choice.
There are a lot of interesting touches to the decor here, as I mentioned above, including the wall of accolades near the restrooms. The check came in a little book where you could write up a review which then gets put on that wall eventually. I also loved the little almond cakes that were sent home with us - Annie enjoyed one the next night!
It was still a beautiful night, so we took a walk around the Warehouse district in search of a place to have a drink. Pretty dead on a Sunday night, but we ended up going up to
Borough and sitting at their bar for a coffee for me and a drink for Ben. That looks like a really fun spot, cool bar in the basement, but it was empty when we were there, but we did run into a friend who had just eaten there and said it was amazing.
Ben's Review
A slight rain kept us away from the W.A Frost patio, so we ended up at The Bachelor Farmer in downtown Minneapolis. They had one booth open, so I snatched it up while Erin took a couple photos outside.
We didn’t realize it, but on Sunday nights The Bachelor Farmer has only a three course set menu available. The main course was prime rib, but they had chicken and vegetarian alternatives. Not being a prime rib fan, I opted for the chicken breast stuffed with duck sausage. The first course was a dandelion green salad with bacon and poached eggs, and for dessert it was chocolate mousse.
I got a sazerac after a few minutes of contemplation as we pondered our meal choices. We made our orders and enjoyed being without kids at a restaurant :)
The salad came out a little while later and we devoured it, as we were both starving. The poached eggs on a salad was a delicious item that I hadn’t tried before and the bacon was obviously great.
Our main course came out not too long after the salad, and included four biscuits cooked in a cast iron skillet with some honey butter. I had been craving a basket of bread so this was a delightful surprise. We had one left, and the server packed it up and even sent the butter home too which was great to find the next day.
My chicken came with fingerling potatoes and roasted brussels sprout. All of it was delicious and perfect in portion size, not grossly indulgent but didn’t leave me hungry. By the time we finished dessert I was indeed full. The chocolate mousse was excellent and I’m not usually too excited by mousse.
Even though we were in the back booth by the kitchen, it was still a pleasant experience. The hosts and servers were all friendly and helpful, a great date night out.
Deets
50 North 2nd Avenue
Minneapolis
