Twisted Fork Grille

Visited on Sunday, June 3rd

Forgot to take any photos of the outside of the restaurant, so this will have to do

Erin's Review
So, I guess it turns out that having a toddler and an infant really does put a damper on dining out! It also makes finding a babysitter that much harder - I don't even like watching both kids alone, so I can't exactly ask anyone else to do it too often :) I also am not inclined to bring out my DSLR when out with both kids, so these are all iPhone 4s photos. Good enough!

We purchased a 50% off Living Social deal to Twisted Fork Grille before Luke was born, and I was sure we'd have NO problem using it - low and behold, the expiration date quickly approached and we had to squeeze in a visit. A friend had told me that breakfast is the best bet there, so we headed over a week before it expired, despite it being Grand Old Day and thus difficult to find parking. We did have to walk 2 blocks with a 1 million pound carseat and very slow toddler, but I still think it was worth it :)

The restaurant was pretty empty and the ambiance is definitely nothing special. I have driven past this particular establishment probably hundreds of times, and it took a LivingSocial deal to entice me to try it - it just blended in with the Green Mill and didn't seem like anything that would be too great, especially in comparison with far more interesting eateries in the general vicinity. The inside looks pretty much like any generic bar/restaurant. We were told we could sit wherever, and it definitely took far longer than I prefer for anyone to greet us and bring us beverages, especially since we were laden down with children.

The kid options are pretty good - they have a separate kids menu and a coloring sheet along with a package of crayons. The menu options were the usual - kids pancakes, eggs, maybe oatmeal or something like that. I went with pancakes with strawberries for Annie since I knew she'd eat that. The girl definitely has inherited her mom's sweet tooth!

Ben and I commenced our discussion of what to order. The last few times we've been out to breakfast, we've split a sweet and savory dish which worked well. I knew I wanted some form of eggs benedict (we chose the smoked salmon) and had to work to convince Ben to get the cinnamon roll french toast. (my first choice would have been the lemon blueberry pancakes, but Ben does not like "warm fruit" in his breakfast items so I knew that would be a no go) We both love french toast lately, but the toppings (caramel, whipped cream, candied nuts) sounded like a BIT much to both of us. As soon as the waitress said that all the toppings could be brought out on the side, that sealed the deal.

The food took awhile, especially considering Luke was being cranky and Annie kept testing us to see if we REALLY meant "No, you can't sit on the table". Finally, I was able to get Luke to fall asleep on my lap pretty much right as the food arrived - I LOVED that they split our dishes for us, and it was a nice touch that they even went so far as to split the toppings on the side as well - completely unnecessary and resulted in a comical display of dishware. Thankfully Luke was sleeping and isn't in the grabby phase just yet, and Annie was focused on her own meal, since that amount of breakables within reach could have been a disaster!

I enjoyed both dishes more than Ben did, it seems. The only thing that really bugged me was that the poached egg on the salmon benedict wasn't runny at all, which I hate. Especially after the perfectly poached egg at Bon Vie, it was disappointing. However, the hollandaise was delicious!  I loved the french toast, and did end up piling on all the ridiculous sweet toppings. The whipped cream especially was amazing - it appeared to be freshly whipped with some kind of flavoring. SO good.

Sad

This isn't a place I would normally go, but I did like the food and the kids options were pretty good. I'm glad we tried it, but can't say I'm itching to return anytime soon.

Ben's Review
I just looked back and realized that we haven’t posted in over three months! We have gone out to eat in that time, just not new places. We had a LivingSocial deal to Twisted Fork that was going to expire soon, so we made plans to head over for breakfast, thinking that would be the safest time to go out with Annie and Luke.

It turned out to also be Grand Old Day in Saint Paul on that day, so we had to park a couple blocks away on Summit. Luckily we arrived before the parade got underway and things got really crazy.

Twisted Fork wasn’t busy this morning and we had our choice of seats. I opted for a large booth so we could lay Luke down on the bench. We got our menus quickly and I started perusing my options. We had $30 to spend on the groupon and the menu items were hovering in the $10 range, so I wasn’t sure we’d even hit $30.

I was having a really tough time selecting what to get as they have several menu items that sounded excellent: mexican hash, pork shoulder hash, huevos rancheros, smoked salmon eggs benedict, walleye cake benedict, pancakes, and cinnamon roll french toast.

We eventually agreed that I would get the smoked salmon eggs benedict and Erin would get the cinnamon roll french toast and we could share them.

We occupied Annie and Luke while we waited for our food; Grand Old Day was getting going outside and Annie enjoyed watching the goings-on. Luke was causing a bit of a stir so between the two of them the food seemed to come out quickly.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had this many dishes on a table for two breakfast orders. Between the split orders they did for us, and all the toppings for the french toast, there was hardly any room for our plates to eat off!

While the menu sounded awesome as I read it, I was a little disappointed in the salmon eggs benedict. I was expecting a single, large piece of salmon, but instead it was more like shredded salmon pieces. The eggs were also overdone and not runny, which was sad.

The french toast was good, but we make better stuff at home. The toppings were certainly good, if you like dessert for breakfast :)

I realized towards the end of the meal that we probably were a little under the $30 we had to spend, so I looked around for something to order. I had overheard someone else order a bloody mary and thought that would be a good way to put us over the top. I hadn’t noticed that there were no bottles of alcohol at the bar, just beer and wine, so the bloody marys were actually made with sake instead of vodka. Not something I would normally try, but what the hell, right? The bloody mary was ok, but I prefer vodka (or gin for that matter), I couldn’t even finish it before we had to head out as we were overstaying our welcome with the kids :)

Service: Service was OK.
Food: The menu has some items that I’d like to try, but the salmon eggs benedict was a little disappointing.
Drinks: Beer and wine, and sake bloody marys :)
Ambiance: Not much ambiance on a Saturday morning, might be a little more hopping in the evening.
Convenience: Off street parking and bus routes.

Bon Vie

Visited on Tuesday, March 13th

Ben's Review
As our first outing with Luke, we obviously went out for Erin to get eggs Benedict, something she was sad to give up during her pregnancy. Erin had heard good things about Bon Vie and since it was in Saint Paul, I agreed to head over while I was off work on paternity leave.

We went to breakfast during the week of oddly warm and sunny March weather in the twin cities and it was awesome. We arrived at Bon Vie around 9am with only a couple tables occupied and a friendly server quickly got us coffee. He was very interested in us having Luke with us, being that he was only a few days old at that point. Luke did well the entire time, just relaxing in his carseat.

The prices at Bon Vie are a little steep. $10 for eggs Benedict is fairly standard, but $9.25 for french toast seems high to me, but I was hankering for some french toast so I went for it.

I’m always surprised by how fast breakfast food comes out, but it makes sense when you figure they have everything prepped back there. Our server returned in what seemed like 4-5 minutes with our food and it looked great. Erin’s eggs did not come with a side ($4.50 for hash browns), and my french toast came with freshly cooked sausage links. My french toast also came with whipped cream (yum), and blueberries, which I quickly pushed aside.

The french toast was indeed excellent, making it nearly worth the $9.25 :) You get three pieces of bread and I could have easily eaten 3-4 more pieces, and I’m not even a breakfast guy. It made me want to go home and look up french toast recipes for home. We both love it though we have never made it at home.

Even though it was a touch pricey, I still think I would go back as the service was top notch and the food was excellent. I also love finding places in Saint Paul to avoid a trip ALL THE WAY to Minneapolis to have breakfast.

Service: Excellent service, our server was genuinely friendly
Food: Our food was great, breakfast is so much better fresh
Drinks: Full selection of coffee drinks, no booze as far as I could tell.
Ambiance: A quiet little cafe, not too many tables, but I bet it can get loud if it’s full.
Convenience: Street parking on Selby usually isn’t an issue, and free, busses available too.

Erin's Review
Back when we started this old blog (over 4 years old now!), I had heard that Bon Vie was regarded by some as the best eggs benedict in the cities. It's kind of shocking that it took me this long to go there, but considering that in the last 3 years, I was pregnant for 1.5 of them and not able to eat eggs benedict due to the undercooked eggs and raw eggs in the hollandaise, I guess it makes sense!

A few times over the course of my pregnancy, we drove by Bon Vie, and I knew I wanted that to be one of the first outings after having Luke. I only managed to wait 1.5 weeks before we took him out - luckily he was a great dining companion and stayed asleep or content the whole time!

I was a bit sad to see that the prices at Bon Vie are on the high side - I just couldn't justify $3 more for a half order of hash browns, although I do love them with eggs benedict to soak up the yolk and hollandaise. This is similar to a few other places where you just get the eggs and nothing else, unless you order it on the side. Obviously eggs benedict is PLENTY filling on it's own, and is probably approximately 1000+ calories the way it is, but a few bites of hash browns are always a welcome addition for me.

I ordered a vanilla latte immediately, and it came out quickly - it wasn't as fancy as the one at Victory 44, but was definitely good, if a bit on the sweet side (and if I'm saying that, that really means it's sweet).

Our food came out quickly, and my eggs benedict were all I had dreamed of - the eggs were beautifully poached, and almost tasted creamy. The hollandaise here is a bit thicker, and very lemony. It reminded me of one of our first We Got Served restaurant visits to Al's Breakfast, but definitely a bit fancier with the presentation. I also had a bite of Ben's french toast which was delicious.

I'm glad we finally made it to Bon Vie - it's a cute cafe with a friendly vibe - I'd definitely recommend it for breakfast!

Deets
Bon Vie
518 Selby Ave
St. Paul

Grecco's on the St. Croix

Visited on Saturday, January 7th

Notes from Erin:
When I decided on St. Croix River Inn as the location of our B&B weekend away, I started to be on the lookout for good restaurant options in that area. Only a few days later, a serendipitous LivingSocial deal to Grecco's on the St. Croix popped up in my inbox, so I felt it was fate. Kate assured me that it was a good pick, so I went ahead and bought it and am so glad I did because it was exactly the same as the normal tasting menu, just 50% off - really, can't beat that.

I'm going to format this review in the same way I did for our tasting menu at La Belle Vie - unfortunately I have no details of this tasting menu since I forgot to ask them to write everything down. It seemed that the items we got were not nearly as inventive or unique as La Belle Vie, but the idea is the same as in any tasting menu.

The one overall note I'll make is that the service was odd to me - Ben says he thinks it was great, but I disagree - it seems when you have so many people waiting on you, no one takes any ownership. The courses were also really oddly spaced - there were several times we were sitting there for nearly 20-30 minutes in between courses. It was wonderful to be able to enjoy a leisurely 3 hour meal, of course, but some consistency would have been nice because other courses came out on top of each other. There were also a few times where it was hard to find a server, or water took awhile to come out - I just prefer to have one go-to person at a restaurant versus being waited on by seemingly everyone working.

Notes from Ben:
As part of our weekend at the bed and breakfast in Osceola, Erin had bought a Living Social deal to Grecco’s in St. Croix Falls, about 10 miles away. The deal was a buy-one-get-one deal on their six course chef’s menu, a value of $70, not bad!

We had reservations at 7pm and arrived right on time and were seated immediately. Grecco’s is deceptively large, with several different rooms as you go further back. It looked like there was bar seating in the very back room, but I never went back further to inspect. I liked the separate rooms, each had their own decor and their own vibe. We were seated at the second room in, adjacent to the wine bar in front. It took a little while for our server to stop by, but after that the service was excellent.

We did get some bread quickly, thankfully, because I was starving by that point. I noticed that they had a wine pairing that you could add to the meal for an extra $25. Since we had already paid for our dinners several months ago, I had no problem adding that in, and told Erin “you’re driving home” :).

The server seemed to time the wine a little off from the food. Sometimes I would get the next wine several minutes before the food arrived, and once or twice the food would come out and the wine a few minutes later. It kept me on my toes a bit as I would sometimes get another glass of wine before I had finished the last course. These were full glasses of wine too, so it was definitely worth the $25 in my mind.

Ben: We started off with a spinach salad that was paired with a white zinfandel. I prefer red wines over white and blush wines, but this wine was still good and very cold. The salad was good as well, it came with onions and a red (raspberry?) vinaigrette dressing.

Erin: I thought this salad was nothing special. There was way too much dressing. It seems I'm getting far pickier about the quality of my salads lately. Anyway, I ate it all and it was FINE, I guess, but seemed like an odd choice for a tasting menu.

Ben: The next course was pasta with truffles, mushrooms, and feta cheese paired with a pinot grigio. The pasta was excellent, I could have eaten an entire meal of it. Again, the wine was good and seemed to work well with the pasta, but me not being a wine buff, I just have to go with what they tell me.

Erin: LOVED this pasta - since everything was taking forever, and all I'd had was a little piece of bread and the salad, I devoured this very quickly. Perfectly creamy and flavorful.

Ben: The third course was whitefish over rice paired with a sauvignon blanc. The fish was generously seasoned and delicious. The rice was plain, but with all the flavor from the fish they worked well together.

Erin: The fish was fairly good - I didn't finish it because the dish overall was kind of bland and I wanted to save myself for future courses that might be better. Turned out to be a good decision!

Ben: On the fourth course I finally got a red wine, though I do not recall what kind it was. It was served with seared duck and wild rice. Again, both the food and the wine were fantastic. The serving sizes thus far were also small so while we were having a variety of food and several courses, at no point did I feel painfully full, which was nice.

Erin: The duck was delicious - it was cooked perfectly and was well seasoned. The wild rice I was a little less jazzed about, it was a little too al dente for my tastes. It was fine though, and I think I finished most of it.

(Forgot to take a photo of the wine - imagine a glass of red wine here)

Ben: Next up was beef tenderloin with mashed potatoes and another red wine. I love that there were three meat courses all in a row, yum! The steak was excellent as were the mashed potatoes, it’s pretty hard to go wrong with this, in my book.

Erin: This was probably my favorite course - surprising since I'm not normally a beef person, but I AM a mashed potato person. These mashed potatoes were so good - very rich and creamy.

Ben: I had seen a tres leches cake on the dessert menu, but since we were having a chef’s tasting menu, I was worried that I wouldn’t have any dessert options. I asked our server before the dessert was served if the tres leches cake was available, and she said “yes, I think that’s what they’ve been serving”, so I got very excited.

Then, without another word to us, she brought out the coconut pound cake with a blackberry sauce. Now, this cake was fine, though I’m not much of a dessert person in the first place, but you’d think after I specifically asked for a different dessert, she would have at least mentioned that it wasn’t available. Seriously, I LOVE tres leches cake. Love it. I was sad. And my emotions were running high after six full size glasses of wine.

There were no tears shed and we enjoyed our dessert and the rest of our time at Grecco’s. Overall it was a thoroughly enjoyable dinner that lasted around three hours. Even if we didn’t have a Living Social deal, I would consider doing this again just because it’s rare that you get a dinner experience that lasts that long, it was a lot of fun. If you’re ever looking for a day trip with a long dinner, I definitely recommend the tasting menu at Grecco’s.

Erin: The dessert course was the most... eventful, shall we say. I decided I wanted a decaf coffee with the cake - mostly because I too had been hoping for the chocolate tres leches cake I kept hearing about, so I figured the coffee would make the pound cake a bit more interesting. It took me awhile to find someone to actually order from - and when I did, the bartender brought it out and made some completely strange comment to me after pouring cream into my coffee, saying "Soon you'll be seeing someone else doing this!" and then awkwardly coming back a few seconds later and saying "I meant your child!" Ohh, pregnancy comments. They really are something else. Oh, and the cake was just fine. Nothing great, but it satisfied my need for something sweet. Pretty sure I also had a few cookies when we got back to the B&B as well...

I'm not sure I would have wanted to pay full price for the tasting menu, but for 50% off, it was certainly worth it. The food was all on the range of pretty good to delicious, and it was a really fun experience - it had been probably since our meal at La Belle Vie that we were able to spend that long just enjoying our food and each other's company - overall a great evening!

Ben's ratings:
Service: The service was great and we were waited on by three or four different servers.
Food: Excellent food. Fresh and hot.
Drinks: Since I got the wine pairing I didn’t look into the drink situation much. I believe they have a full bar in the back, not sure what the beer list looks like.
Ambiance: A little subdued when we were there on a Saturday night. Mostly older adults.
Convenience: Again, a little far from the cities.

Deets
Grecco's on the St. Croix (website not functioning - here is the yelp page)
115 N Washington Ave
St. Croix Falls, WI

Tangled Up In Blue

Visited on Friday, January 6th

Ben's Review
Erin and I planned a weekend away before baby #2 arrives, so last weekend we were off to a bed and breakfast in Osceola.

We already had plans for dinner on Saturday night (in the next post), so for Friday night we did some searching around and eventually settled on Tangled Up in Blue Restaurant in Taylors Falls.

A few people had mentioned to us that the decor was............eccentric. As we pulled into the parking lot we were prepared for the worst. Maybe we had oversold the decor in our minds, because while it was a little much, it certainly wasn’t the most awful thing in the world. (Just for an example of the decor, we were seated “at the table under the two sconces”).

The restaurant is rather small and is handled, seemingly, by one server with help from the cooks, so it took a few minutes for us to get water and drink orders. The bottled beer list is rather small and I started with a Samuel Adams.

We were both starving when we had arrived so we quickly ordered the crab cake appetizer while we decided on our entrees. Several of the entrees choices sounded good, but I was sold on the beef Wellington as I had just seen a friend of mine having some leftovers at lunch, and was intrigued.

Our crab cakes came our after we had ordered and they were piping hot and delicious, served with some greens and tartar sauce. We devoured them quickly due to our hunger. I don’t know if I was influenced by how hungry I was, but they were some of the best crab cakes I’ve ever had.

My beef Wellington came out awhile later, reinforcing that it was probably freshly made. I ordered a Fat Tire to go along with the steak. The steak came with sides of asparagus and au gratin style potatoes. As an aside, for some reason asparagus is the vegetable that I always notice being served ridiculously out of season. It’s winter and there’s no way that asparagus was grown anywhere near Taylors Falls. It’s ok to use seasonal vegetables, people shouldn’t expect asparagus in the winter.

The beef Wellington was excellent, as I had imagined it would be. It seemed a little different than the example I had seen a few weeks ago, but it was awesome nonetheless. The mix of the flaky pastry with the steak was delicious and everything was hot and fresh.

Erin was scanning the dessert menu as we finished, but decided instead to grab some ice cream on the way back to our bed and breakfast (and some whiskey for me, thanks Wisconsin gas stations!) and enjoy our lovely suite.

Service: The service was very casual and friendly, almost like you were a guest in their home.
Food: The food was fantastic.
Drinks: Decent wine list, but very small (four, I think) beer list. No cocktails.
Ambiance: Small, cozy restaurant, but it wasn’t close to full when we were there.
Convenience: A bit of a drive from the city. I don’t think Metro Transit makes it out there.

Erin's Review
After telling a few friends that we were headed to the St. Croix Falls to stay at a B&B for the weekend, we got a few recommendations for Tangled Up In Blue... but were warned about the decor (I also was particularly fond of the URL). I'm really not sure what I expected, but I think it was along the lines of scarves hanging from the ceilings, lots of mirrors, maybe some bells hanging from the chairs. Something completely over the top, that's for sure. What we happened upon was tame by comparison, but I guess could still seem to be a bit much, especially considering the glitter on the table. To those friends who recommended the place - was the decor "worse" when you went?

We actually were originally going to try out a pizza place in Dresser, but as we approached, it was super bright with about 100 small children running about inside. Not something we wanted to see after leaving our still a little sick (first ear infection - great timing!) Annie with the grandparents. I'm definitely glad we went the extra few miles to go to Tangled Up In Blue - the atmosphere was much better suited to what we wanted our weekend to be - quiet and calm.

Because, as Ben mentioned, we were absolutely starving by this point, we quickly ordered an appetizer. I ate a bit less than half because I wanted to save some room in my limited stomach area for my main dish - I decided to get just soup and salad and to try some of Ben's beef wellington, mostly because he was concerned about the cost of the meal. I was battling a cold and couldn't taste much anyway so didn't want to waste a ton of money on a huge entree I wouldn't be able to taste or eat all of anyway.

I had the house salad and a tomato soup. I liked the soup, but I swear there was some mention of pasta being in the soup on the menu (which isn't updated on the website) - tortellini or something, but that was nowhere to be found in the soup. It had chunks of green pepper and tomato in it, and was very creamy... but no pasta. Oh well, it was good, and soup is easy to eat when you're stuffed up so it hit the spot.

The salad was pretty meh - there wasn't quite enough dressing and the chunks of blue cheese were not flavorful at all, and I felt there should have been more cheese overall.

I did look at the dessert options, but was glad I passed on them to just enjoy some ice cream by the fireplace at our B&B - it gave me some time to actually want to eat again too. Tangled Up In Blue is definitely a good option in this area - although I liked our next meal more (Grecco's) - but if you are looking for 2 nicer dinners for a weekend trip, these 2 seem like the best choices in the area. I noticed they won some award "restaurant worth the drive" several years ago, and that might be a BIT of a stretch since there are far better restaurants in the Twin Cities, but if you are already in or near Taylor's Falls - it's a great option.

Deets
Tangled Up In Blue
425 Bench Street
Taylor's Falls, MN