Crave

Erin visited on Sunday, April 13th with Mom

My mom and I wanted to grab some lunch before heading over to Southdale to do a little shopping on Sunday. Neither of us had tried Crave yet, so we decided to go there and wander around the Galleria for awhile before heading over to Southdale.

I had heard that it can get pretty busy at times, so I made a reservation on Open Table for 12:30pm, but it wasn't that full when we got there so this might not be necessary.

The menu at Crave is very large - they really do have something for everyone, which is key in a mall restaurant. Both my mom and I decided to go with the Sunday brunch menu, which was different than what is shown on their website. (As a side note, what is with the trend of annoying music on restaurant websites? I hate it. I hate music on all websites. I hope that trend dies a quick death VERY soon.) There are many more options for brunch on the menu - such as a Minnesota Omelet with duck confit and some other things in it, quiche, and a few other things that I can't remember. They do have eggs benedict here but I decided to get something else for once.

I was deciding between a few things - the salmon omelet, Minnesota omelet, and the quiche - I asked our very friendly waiter for a suggestion, and he recommended the Salmon omelet. He said that the Minnesota omelet sounds better than it actually is, so keep that in mind if you go! My mom also got fresh squeezed orange juice - this was very good, but obviously it had a lot of pulp in it being fresh squeezed.

My omelet was very good - it said it had dill Havarti cheese in it, but I could barely taste that which was disappointing. It was a lighter omelet, and the salmon tasted delicious. I was pleasantly surprised that the omelet came with a side of potatoes and toast - that wasn't specified on the menu and sides were listed separately so I wasn't sure. The potatoes were cut almost too small - I would have liked the cubes to be just a little larger to have more potato and less .... edges, I guess? They were well seasoned and had peppers mixed in too. The bread was nutty and delicious.

My mom had the fried egg on foccacia with bacon and cheese - that looked REALLY good. I had a tiny bite of her bacon and it was great!

Crave also has a full sushi menu - I glanced at it and it seemed pretty expensive, but I'm not sure how much you get. It was a really pretty restaurant for being inside of a mall - they had really cool light fixtures and nice decor. They also had an okay patio - if you are into sitting outside overlooking a parking lot and Southdale.

(Light fixture)


(Patio)

Even though Ben didn't go here with me, I will use his rating scale:

• Service: Excellent - our server was very friendly and attentive.
  
• Food: My omelet was slightly bland but still good, my mom's sandwich seemed great. Very extensive menu.
  
• Drinks: The OJ was good... they have a full bar and a large wine list.
  
• Ambiance: Very nice for a mall restaurant. Even nice for a non-mall restaurant too, I guess.
  
• Price: Both of our meals were approximately $10 so it was right in line with what I expected from a place inside of the Galleria.
  
• Convenience: Lots of parking, near major highways.
  

Deets

Crave
3520 West 70th Street (in the Galleria)
Edina, MN

Recommended if you happen to be in the area. I wouldn't make a special trip or anything.

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.