Tum Rup Thai

Visited on Friday, October 10 with Jake and Allison

Erin's Review
Wow, we should have polls more often! We added about 10 more Thai places to our list, so thanks to everyone for the great recommendations! Since the majority (12) voted for us to go to Tum Rup Thai, off we went. I really had no knowledge of what the place was like other than viewing their website, so I went in with an open mind. I believe this restaurant and the whole development in that area of uptown is pretty new, but I'm not certain of that. The restaurant seemed pretty new at least, and had a very good vibe. We didn't have a reservation, but didn't have to wait for a table at 7 on a Friday. I do think I saw a few people waiting, but never for too long. About 20 minutes into our time there, the lights changed to "mood lighting" by dimming significantly. Normally this would be fine, but now the first thought that enters my mind is the fact that it will be THAT much more difficult for me to take photos since I refuse to use my flash! You can still get the idea though, despite the darkness/slight blurriness.

Allison had already ordered the cream cheese puffs, which are a favorite of mine. These were pretty standard and definitely hit the spot because I was starving. It was pretty busy so it did take a little long to get our drink order in. I ended up ordering Goose Island's 312 in memory of our recent trip to Chicago (also with Jake and Allison).

Since I figured the portions would be huge, we decided to just split an appetizer and entree. I'm very glad we did that - an entree would have been WAY too much for just me at least. The fried spring rolls we got were great - they came out piping hot.

I'm glad that one of the comments on our poll suggested the green curry. If it wasn't for this, I probably would have just stuck with my normal order of pad thai but I'm glad I branched out! This curry was DELICIOUS. I loved the sauce and it had a great variety of vegetables. We got chicken but I think shrimp would have been better. We were just feeling a little cheap and didn't want to spring for the extra $3.

There were a number of other dishes that I would have loved to try here, but since we have added so many Thai places, I'm sure I'll get to try them at other places! I enjoyed Tum Rup Thai - the service was pretty good, the restaurant was very well decorated and had a good vibe, and the food was awesome.

Ben's Review
Jake and Allison called us up earlier last week to make plans, so we asked them to join us for Thai food on Friday. The results of our poll directed us to Tum Rup Thai on Lake St. in uptown.

I dropped Erin off at the door and drove around to find a parking spot, not always easy in uptown. I circled around the block and decided to suck it up and park in the lot behind the restaurant, which is a shocking $1.50 per half hour! Erin called while I was parking to say that Tum Rup Thai will validate parking, although we weren't sure of what the specific deal was. (free parking? discounted? we didn't know)

I walked in and Jake, Allison, and Erin were all enjoying an order of cream cheese puffs while Jake suspiciously eyed his Thai bloody mary (he wasn't sure what was in it). I quickly ordered a big bottle of Fat Tire while I scoped out the menu. The restaurant was at capacity - I didn't see an empty table anywhere, but I also didn't see anyone waiting for a spot. I like the interior, it was hip and trendy looking, exactly what I would expect from an uptown restaurant in a newer building.

(Allison approves!)

We ordered some fried spring rolls to share, which were fantastic, while we decided what to have for our entree. I convinced Erin to share a meal with me as we had heard that the portions were more than one person could handle. We took Jess's recommendation and got the green curry with chicken instead of shrimp. Jake and Allison also shared and they got some sort of pad thai with the "not quite melting your face off" heat, Erin and I stuck to whatever the "normal" heat is for our curry.

Our food came out in a reasonable time, with our curry with vegetables and chicken in a bowl, and a plate with white rice covered in a bowl. They also gave us another plate so we could split our food up. One thing that I didn't think of at the time, but there was no fee for splitting a meal like you see in a lot of places. This was really nice given the portions were enormous, if I had ordered the curry by myself I would've easily gotten two meals out of it.

Our curry was excellent, there was a good mixture of vegetables and chicken, and it was spicy enough to be tasty but not uncomfortable. Jake and Allison's pad thai was also enormous and it tasted great as well. Erin couldn't even finish her portion so I got to clean up her leftovers, so we all left full. I love being able to split a $11 item when we go out, it really makes it more affordable.

To follow up on the parking situation: we went to Stella's afterwards for a couple drinks (and randomly ran into Erin's sister). When we finally made it back to the car at midnight our bill to leave the parking lot - $13.50. Damn. Just one more reason that I go to uptown so infrequently.

The ratings for Tum Rup Thai:

• Service: Our server was average. Our food came out promptly, but he wasn't engaging and he was definitely hovering when we were about to pay.
  
• Food: Excellent curry and pad thai. I would go back but we now have a bunch of Thai places to go to :)
  
• Drinks: Full bar, just an 'ok' beer selection, in my opinion.
  
• Ambiance: There was a good crowd at Tum Rup Thai that night, it was easy to carry a conversation but it also felt busy.
  
• Price: Our bill was $33 before tip, which I thought was great for a meal with drinks and appetizers.
  
• Convenience: Parking is a pain in the ass, but that's a given in uptown. You could take the bus, but it's not convenient for us.

Deets
Tum Rup Thai
1221 West Lake St
Minneapolis

Highly recommended for atmosphere and food

Check out our poll...

Since we haven't gone anywhere on our list for 2 weeks, our blog is getting a little stale... I think it might be time for a little reader participation. We are going out with our friends Jake and Allison to an as yet to be named Thai restaurant tomorrow night. Which restaurant should we choose? If you pick Sawatdee, please comment with which location you think is best. Also, if there is a great Thai place you'd recommend that isn't on our list (in Minneapolis or St. Paul), please comment with the name and if we haven't already been there, we'll add it to our consideration set :)

Interview

Want to know a little bit more about us? Check out this interview we did with the City Pages food blog, Twin Cities Eater.

Murray's

Visited on Wednesday, September 24th

Ben's Review
Last year for Christmas Erin's parent's gave me a gift card to Murray's in downtown and we thought it would be a good idea to use the gift card for our 3rd anniversary dinner last Wednesday. I had been looking forward to going ever since I had gotten the card, so I was very excited to try what is supposed to be one of the best steaks in the city.

Before our 6:30 reservation we went to Seven Sushi to sit on the rooftop and have a beer. The rooftop view at Seven is pretty cool, I think, even though it's not very tall. Just being three floors up still gives a unique view of the skyline that you don't normally get to see. As far as the bar at Seven, I highly recommend NOT going there for drinks, our two beers came to $12.70, ouch.

We only stayed for one beer since it was getting chilly outside and wandered over to Lyon's Pub next door to Murray's where we killed time at the bar until 6:30. The beers at Lyon's Pub were much better priced, and amazingly they tasted the same :)

Murray's is a short building that is nestled in between two much larger buildings. It seems a little out of place, as if the development of the area over the past decades passed it by. It's a smaller building, and frankly I would even say it's an ugly building after taking a good look at it during the daylight hours. Luckily the interior is much nicer than the outside. As you walk in there is a small bar and lounge area immediately to your left and the dining room goes to the back of the building behind the host. The dining room is kind of weird because there are no windows, which I think is odd for a downtown restaurant. Given that the building is squeezed in between two taller buildings there's really nowhere to put windows anyways, so it makes sense in that regard.

We were seated right away and it was obvious that we didn't need reservations on a Wednesday night as there were several open tables (although maybe they were all reserved as well??). We had scoped out the menu before going and Erin convinced me that we should try the signature dish, the Butter Knife steak for two even though we could get more specific dishes for less money. The Butter Knife steak for two is a 28 oz. sirloin, carved at the table, that comes with a choice of potato and a salad, for $89. I figured by getting individual steaks (I had wanted a tenderloin) and sides we could save $15 or so, but being that it was their signature dish, we thought we'd try it out.

After looking at the menu again, however, I realized they had a similar dish, the Chateaubriand, which is the same as the Butter Knife except that it's a 24 oz. tenderloin and $4 more. This sounded like a great compromise, we'd get a signature dish AND I would get a tenderloin steak - perfect :) We both got Caesar salads and mashed potatoes for our sides and they were happy to throw some garlic cloves in the potatoes.

As we drank our wine the restaurant started to fill up, I was surprised at how busy it was getting for a Wednesday. We tried to guess the occasions that people were out for, it seemed like an equal mix of people out for a reason (like us) and business meals with an expense account.

Our salads came out soon and they were huge salads and pretty good too. It's hard to have a bad Caesar salad, I think, and these ones did the job. A little while later our server wheeled out our steak and potatoes and proceeded to carve the steak right next to our table and serve us up. This steak was the best steak I've ever had. It was done medium, but even Erin thought that it would be better at medium rare. I'm at a loss for words to describe how good it was, it was just delicious, I think I could've eaten the entire thing myself. As it was we kept a lot of it for lunch the next day. I almost feel bad by not talking more about the steak, but there's not much more to say other than it was awesome.

Erin ordered the Chocolate Mousse for dessert and I got a glass of Oban to go along with it. I wasn't hungry for dessert, but when the Chocolate Mousse came out I was inspired to eat more. Along with everything else at Murray's, it was fantastic and the glass of scotch was well poured :)

I feel like I've written a lot, so I just want to recap that I thought this restaurant experience was awesome.

• Service: Wonderful. The servers here are experienced and they provide a seamless dinner, no complaints at all.
  
• Food: Best steak I've ever had. They accommodated the garlic in the potatoes too, which was sweet.
  
• Drinks: Full bar and a pretty big wine list, I think I saw a $900 bottle on there.
  
• Ambiance: Because of the low light and no windows it kind of feels like an "old boys" club. Someone at work commented that it's the kind of place you expect to see Sid Hartman at, I think that captures the ambiance pretty well.
  
• Price: We knew it would be expensive but the tab came to only $150 for everything, which shocked me. I was expecting closer to $200.
  
• Convenience: Not very convenient to get to, but nothing good is ever easy, right?

Erin's Review
Well, Ben pretty much wrote a novel about this experience, so I don't really have much left to say! (edit: uh, after writing my review it seems that I DID in fact have a lot to say... ) I do want to add my extreme shock over the drink prices at Seven too - I got a freaking Miller Lite and it was $6?! We will definitely not be drinking there again! I had read that they had a happy hour - $3 taps. However, there were no tap beers on the rooftop and definitely no specials... if anyone knows where in this large building that this mythical happy hour exists, please comment and let us know!

I have to admit, I was VERY skeptical about Murray's. Sometimes I find the most hyped restaurants to be totally disappointing, so I was fully prepared for the fact that I might not actually think that this meal was anything special. When we walked in and the place smelled and looked vaguely like one of those houses where someone has lived there 50 years and not updated at all... I grew even more apprehensive.

The bread and salad really did nothing to convince me that this would be a great meal. Both were fine, but certainly nothing spectacular. Their garlic bread kind of tasted like popcorn.

The moment I took my first bite of the Chateaubriand was when I finally believed that there is a reason many people think this is the best steakhouse in Minneapolis. This was the best steak I have ever had - it was so tender and perfectly seasoned and cooked. We still have a long ways to go in our tour of all of the great Minneapolis steakhouses, so I cannot claim that this is the best of them all. I have been to Capital Grille a few times and I liked this steak better than the filets I have had there, for whatever that's worth. The mashed potatoes were also wonderful, but would have been pretty bland without the addition of garlic.

I made a conscious effort to not eat too much so I'd have leftovers, but I really wish I had just eaten more that night - this steak definitely does not taste that great the next day. However, I really wanted to get dessert and I knew my stomach needed some room for that. The chocolate mousse that I ordered was awesome - I loved the caramel drizzle on the plate - it made the dessert a little different from how it is normally served.

One more comment about the wine list - their list of bottles is extensive, but as far as I could see, there were no bottles under $36, and the $36 bottles were few and far between - I think I saw maybe 4 or 5. The wines by the glass are much more affordable, with most being under $10.

Deets
Murray's
26 South 6th Street
Minneapolis

Highly recommended for their excellent steak