Parkview Cafe Update

We reviewed Parkview Cafe last month; today I saw an article in the Strib that they have closed their doors:

http://www.startribune.com/17648739.html


They served their last meal in the current location on Sunday. Erin and I are sad because the breakfast was excellent, but we're glad we ended up going there before they shut down.

The article says they have been looking for a new location for the past year and they continue to search, hopefully they can find a location close to us :)

Grumpy's Roseville

Visited on Saturday, April 5th with several other people (Josh's birthday)

Ben's Review
We went to Grumpy's for our friend Josh's birthday and to watch the NCAA tournament games that night. The building that Grumpy's occupies used to be a Majors, before that it was Big City Tavern, and before that it was the KFAN: The Restaurant. Needless to say there's probably some pretty bad karma about the location, we'll see how long Grumpy's can stay open.

The bar doesn't look much different from when I was there last, when it was still Majors. Pretty standard looking suburban bar with a separate room with pool tables, darts, and Golden Tee. Its an enormous building, I'm pretty sure there's a second level but I've never been up there.Grumpy's is a pretty good place to watch sports because they've got a lot of TVs all over the place.

The list of tap beers is great, I was drinking Flat Earth Element 115 that night. You'll recall I tried to enjoy the same beer during a recent outing at Ngon's when I forgot my ID. This time I had my ID and the beer was great; you can't go wrong with local beer on tap in a frosty mug.

I ordered a cheeseburger with pepper jack cheese, bacon, and BBQ sauce with fries, typical bar food. The menu is huge though, and I had trouble deciding they've got several varieties of sandwiches and burgers to choose from.

My burger came out and it was hot and cooked medium, as requested. The fries weren't good, I can't put my finger on exactly what I don't like about the fries at some places, but this was one of those places. I can say that they were really greasy and kind of soggy, very disappointing. The burger was great, albeit a little messy, but that comes with the territory of a BBQ bacon cheeseburger.

UPDATE: After I saw the picture of my burger below, I realized I had mistaken the fries at Grumpy's for another place. I got waffle fries at Grumpy's and they were very good.

Our server was decent, and she didn't have a problem managing the separate tabs for all the groups of people (there were a dozen people or so at any given time).

I don't think I'll be going back to Grumpy's anytime soon for a meal, but I wouldn't be against stopping by for a beer (or six) and catching a football game.

The ratings:

• Service: Service was OK. Sometimes it took our server awhile to check back in for more drinks.
  
• Food: My burger was good, the fries not so much. I also thought Erin's cheese dip was gross.
  
• Drinks: Great tap beer selection and fully stocked bar, I didn't look into happy hour deals.
  
• Ambiance: Not much ambiance to set Grumpy's apart from any other bar in the area.
  
• Price: I think my burger was $8-$9 and the beers were ~$5, right on expectations.
  
• Convenience: Plenty of parking, and only a mile or so north of 36, so its fairly accessible.

Erin's Review

I know some people (namely Bietz) have been disappointed in the lack of any real negative reviews from us. Well, here comes one from me at least. I did not like this place at all. When I first heard that Grumpy's opened a place in Roseville , it just pissed me off. I hated how a fairly cool place in both downtown and Northeast Minneapolis was now occupying an enormous building in the suburbs that had formerly housed a Majors - it just didn't feel right to me. Then, I went to their website and saw that they claim that Grumpy's is the "only real neighborhood joint in the area!" This angered me irrationally. This is a HUGE, very impersonal bar. Not a neighborhood joint.

Anyway, this place is very close to our friends Mindy and Josh's house, so it made sense for Josh to have his birthday gathering there to watch the NCAA games before heading over to their place later at night. I went with low expectations, but I did expect the food to at least be okay. I am not really a picky eater, and I usually enjoy bar food a lot. Grumpy's menu is ridiculously large - check it out online. I am always wary of places with this big of menus - it seems to me that if you try to please everyone you end up pleasing no one because nothing is that great.

To start, I ordered the "Gazillion Cheese Dip" - initially I wanted nachos, but Mindy told me that she'd had them before and they weren't that good. I think they might have one too many cheeses in this dip, because they didn't mix that well together. I knew it wasn't a nacho cheese dip, but the dip curdled very quickly - it was okay right away when it came out but after a few minutes it got a little gross. I did really like the parmesan crisps that it came with - they were very good. It also came with chips, which was nice. I like to have options with my dips.

For my meal, I got the Clubhouse, which was not good at all. The bread was WAY too greasy - I could barely hold onto the sandwich. The meats were all slimy and falling off out of the sandwich. I didn't like it at all.

What I did enjoy about Grumpy's was the tater tots. That's all. I would not choose to go back here - if I am for some reason outnumbered or there is another birthday event going on, I'd get some kind of burger with the tater tots because those both seemed to be well received by many.

Deets

Grumpy's Roseville
2801 Snelling Ave North
Roseville, MN

Not recommended - the food and atmosphere are severely lacking. Going for a beer to watch a game would be fine... but really, there are many other places you can do that where you CAN get decent food and a fun atmosphere so why bother.

IKEA

Visited on Saturday, March 29th

Ben's Review
Erin convinced me to go to Ikea against my better judgment - Ikea on a Saturday afternoon is hell. On the way there I remembered that Ikea has $0.99 breakfast so I thought at least we could try that out while we were there.

We got there a little before noon and we actually found a parking spot close to the door, amazing, I know.

When you walk in the front door there is a hot dog stand immediately to your left. It was closer to lunch than breakfast, so we decided to go for hot dogs instead of seeking out the cheap breakfast. Besides, it was $2.50 for two dogs, chips, and a soda so this would go down as the cheapest entry for 'we got served' ever. I even opted for just two hot dogs (50 cents each) which brought the grand total to $3.50.

The other patrons at Ikea are mostly in good moods, strangely, it must have been the decent weather. This is usually the reason for having an unpleasant times at fast food locations like this, people acting all bitchy with kids running around screaming and making a mess. Here, people had the kids inside of shopping carts to keep them reined in, and they seemed to enjoy the novelty :)

The guy who dished up the hot dogs stands in front of a huge 'hot dog rotator' like you see at gas stations, only bigger and cleaner. He was working up a good sweat by handing out at least four hot dogs to each person coming through the line, he looked like a real pro and was friendly to boot.

I quickly threw some ketchup on our hot dogs and grabbed some relish packets for me and a diet Pepsi for Erin and made our way to the table. 45 seconds later, we were through eating and moved on to shop through the store.

I think the highlight of the trip for me was hearing several employees speaking a cool sounding Scandinavian language.

Ikea's ratings:

• Service: The food service was quick, two registers and one motivated guy handing out dogs.
  
• Food: Hot dogs - you can't screw them up.
  
• Drinks: Severely lacking here, I thought you could drink beer anywhere in Europe???
  
• Ambiance: This was decent, the mood at Ikea isn't too bad and people are friendly.
  
• Price: The best price you'll ever find.
  
• Convenience: The parking lot here is bigger than any restaurant we'll ever review, but you'll have to venture to the suburbs.

Erin's Review

Unlike Ben, I do believe you can screw up hot dogs. We got some in NYC that were supposed to be "the best" (at Papaya King on the Upper East Side) but they were tiny and nothing special. The hot dogs at Ikea are fine - medium sized and served very hot. Obviously this entry is kind of a joke - we really don't believe that Ikea is fine dining, but it is nice that they have some food options when you are there.

The hot dog/ice cream/cinnamon roll area is right by the entrance so that is where we went - as we were walking through the store, we came to the main restaurant which has a lot more options - including the 99 cent breakfast. Have any of our readers eaten here? If so, please let me know how it is - I'm quite curious. People seemed to be enjoying themselves at any rate. I even saw real plates and silverware.

(the "real" IKEA restaurant)

Deets

IKEA
800 IKEA Way
Bloomington, MN 55425

Recommended ... if you have to go there, might as well get some cheap eats.

Ngon Vietnamese Bistro

Update 11/15/2008: People are coming here searching for "how to pronounce ngon". We've always said it like 'nahn' and we never got weird looks :)

Visited on Wednesday, April 2nd with Kyle, Kate, Nicki, and Alex

Erin's Review
I had heard rave reviews of Ngon from a few different places - my coworker Kelley, the Chowhound boards, and City Pages so I was very excited to try it out. Neither Ben or I have ever had Vietnamese food before so this was something new for us. Because of that, I read up on the place a lot to try to figure out what would be best to order. I had already pretty much made my decision before we even got there.

We went to Ngon kind of late on a Wednesday night, so it was pretty empty - just a few other tables of young hipsters. I was very impressed with the decor of the restaurant - even the outside looks pretty cool. The inside is very pretty - I liked the chair railing on the walls with the darker yellow on the bottom and a more sunny yellow above. There were some cool paintings on the walls, and the light fixtures were very nice as well.

I had heard from Kelley about a Wednesday night "date night" deal which was why we chose to go on a Wednesday - 3 courses and a bottle of wine for 2 people for $50. Nicki and Alex were there before us and had already started to talk to the waitress about that. Maybe one of them can clarify, but it sounds like Ngon is done offering that deal, but the chef was willing to do it this night for us if we wanted. Nicki and Alex chose to do that, but the rest of us did not because there are some menu limitations with the date night. As previously mentioned, I already knew what I wanted and it wasn't included on the date night menu.

For an appetizer, I wanted to try the duck confit - a dish I had never had before so I have nothing to compare this to but it sure seemed great to me! The sauce was delicious - it was in a curry sauce and there were fresh herbs on top of the mixture which was great. I thought it could have come with a few more pieces of bread but I suppose they probably would have given me more if I had asked, which I didn't. The rest of the crowd seemed impressed by this appetizer as well.

For my main dish, I ordered the Pho - the waitress was kind enough to tell me how to pronounce it - we had looked it up on the internet before hand because we didn't want to sound like morons :) I think we probably still did - oh well. I got the Pho Dac Biet which is rice noodles with several different kinds of beef - I figured if I was going to try it for the first time I might as well get a variety. ThePho was HUGE - the biggest bowl I have ever seen. When I got it, the noodles were kind of clumped together, but I swished them around with my chopsticks and then it was fine. The broth was delicious and all of the pieces of meat were tender and flavorful. It was pretty cheap compared to other things on the menu ($7.50) and definitely filled me up.

(This came out for Kyle, Kate, and I to have with our soups)

I got the ginger creme brulee for dessert - also good. It seemed to be a pretty average creme brulee to me - just slightly different flavor. I enjoyed it, and after tasting the other desserts I was glad I ordered the way I did, although others thought that the Bread Pudding was the best.

We also tried everyone else's food as well. I had a bit of order envy for what Kate got - I believe it was the Hu Tieu with chicken. Nicki and Alex's date night special food was great as well - the salad had a delicious dressing on it, and the salmon was well prepared. I thought Ben's venison medallions were good as well, but probably a little too expensive. The food at Ngon is beautifully prepared, so I present you with some photos of everyone else's food below. You can click on the individual photo to see what the dish is.

Ngon clearly has a commitment to using local ingredients where possible - they note the farms that their meat comes from on their menu, and have an all Minnesota beer list. They also noted if the wine was prepared in a sustainable manner.

Our waitress was great - she answered our many questions and was very personable. Kate has a shellfish allergy so she was very careful to check with the chef before giving anything to Kate. She did experience an allergic reaction to something but it was probably because she was trying other people's food - don't worry everyone, she's fine now :)

I would love to go back to Ngon to try several of the other more traditional dishes. I think I would not get the entrees just because they are pretty expensive, and would stick to the traditional dishes of Pho, Hu Tieu , Bun (rice salad), and Com Tam (broken rice) when we go back. You can get a very cheap meal here if you stick to those dishes, which are all under $10.

Ben's Review
We got to ride over to Ngon in Kate and Kyle's Matrix, which had remarkable leg room in the back seat. If this were a car review site, I would give them high marks in "you-don't-make-me-feel-trapped" category. We arrived for our 8pm reservations a little late, Nicki and Alex had already arrived and gotten our table.

Erin had already scoped out the menu online, so she knew what she wanted to order, whereas I had procrastinated and not looked at all. On top of that I can never decide what to get anyways, so I was having some trouble. The pork medallions sounded good, as did the venison medallions, but there was also this thing called pho (pronounced "fuh") that is a common Vietnamese food that I figured I should try. Since Erin was getting pho I opted for the venison medallions, which doesn't sound very Vietnamese, but the server claimed it was good.

Ngon has a great bottled beer list, I think every beer on there was from Minnesota; I thought that was cool. They even had the Flat Earth Winter Warlock that I had tried for Brew52 just a few days earlier. I decided on the Flat Earth Element 115, which I asked our server for. In spite of my quickly receding hairline, she asked to see my ID. I fished around in my jacket and to my horror, I couldn't find it. I even went out to the car to see if it had fallen out of my pocket, but no dice - I was not having any alcohol tonight. I told myself that it wasn't so bad, that I could save the $7 the beer cost, but that's just no way to go through life. Everybody knows damn well that any meal goes better with a beer, just not this meal.

(Ben drinking his tea. Also proof of the previously referenced receding hairline)

My venison medallions came out awhile later, which came with a side of cous cous. I was disappointed by the amount of venison, the medallions were half-dollar sized and I got about five of them. For $20 I was hoping for a little more, especially because they tasted great. There was a lemongrass sauce that was drizzled over the venison that was also delicious, I would compare the taste with a Bearnaise sauce but a little sweeter.

I also got to try Erin's pho which was great - and huge. The bowls were the diameter of a basketball and about four inches deep.

Our server was really friendly, especially in light of all our questions about the menu and such. Our end of the bill came to about $60 with tip. This could have been even less though, if I hadn't gotten a $20 meal. In hindsight I should have had an appetizer (perhaps spring rolls?) and some pho. That would have been ~$15 for a better selection of food, in my opinion.

The ratings for Ngon:

• Service: Our server was cool, she joked with us and answered all our questions.
  
• Food: The venison medallions tasted great, the couscous was so so. I liked Erin's pho a lot.
  
• Drinks: Bottled local beer and wine, they had about twenty beers on bottle, so the selection was good.
  
• Ambiance: There was a loud table of obnoxious people who looked very pretentious and trendy. I didn't like them. The restaurant itself is very quaint, and very clean, I was impressed with the restrooms.
  
• Price: My venison was overpriced but the pho runs from $6.50 - $10 which is reasonable.
  
• Convenience: Ngon is located on University & Avon in St. Paul. Plenty of parking around the area.

Deets

Ngon Vietnamese Bistro
799 University Ave
St. Paul, MN

Highly Recommended for the food, atmosphere, and value (if you order wisely)