We quickly perused the wine list and found a suitable bottle for the night. It was a white wine kind of night, so we asked our waitress about a section of the wine list called “Unique White Wines”, hoping for something out of the ordinary and stellar. She thought about it for a second and then told us the wines on that section weren’t all that unique and we should pick another one. I was already glad she was our waitress – we have super good luck with awesome waitresses. Ask for Tina the next time you go back here. She was awesome. We ordered a Pinot Grigio that we kept coming back to when we’d scan the list. The waitress came back after a short while and told us they were out of the one we wanted, but she upgraded us to a nicer bottle which she would give us at the same price as the original one we ordered. Awesome by us. It was Bafi’s San Angelo Pinot Grigio and it was really amazing. We would get this again (many times, in fact) – we asked her if it was her trick to get people hooked on the better more expensive bottles so they’d order that when they returned – she just smiled.
We decided we wanted an appetizer and after some deliberation between salad and crab cakes, we finally decided on the crab cakes. I’m not really a seafood guy, but I can eat a crab cake or two if I have to. D.Rough normally doesn’t like to order nice things that I’m just meh about, but the description of these crab cakes was enough to make me think I’d be more than meh about them. We got them and were surprised when they came out 3 minutes later.
They are filled with fresh mozzarella, red and yellow peppers, with a jalapeno and cayenne citrus sauce. It also had a small “mesculin salad” which was a couple of purple and green leaves that complemented the crab cakes very well. These were the best crab cakes I’ve ever eaten. While I don’t claim to be a connoisseur of seafood or crab cakes, I’ve had a couple of boring ones that didn’t impress me. I was not at all meh about these. They were fantastic, light, and not very fishy at all. Get these.We scanned the menu, but D.Rough was already sure of what she was going to get – the Capesante. It is an appetizer, but enough to fill a person up. That meant I was on my own. I had it narrowed down to three things after about five minutes. I had to choose between Tortellini Prosciutto e Piselli (cheese filled tortellini with ricotta, romano, and parmesan cheese with ham, peas, and alfredo sauce), Filetto di Maiale al Pepe Verde (pork tenderloin wrapped with Italian pancetta, seared with green peppercorn brandy sauce), or Veal alla Capricciosa (breaded veal cutlets, pan seared and served with tomato, mozzarella, and basil). Seriously, one of the toughest decisions in my life – I may have debated longer about this meal than I did moving to Minneapolis.
I did what I usually do in these situations – I let the waitress help me decide. This way, if it sucks, then it’s all their fault and they feel terrible and it ruins their entire night. But generally, they get it right after they talk me through various things. And I knew she’d be up front with me, based on the wine recommendation. She said I should go with the Veal alla Capricciosa. … Which I did.
We didn’t really wait that long for our food to come out. It was an appropriate amount of time. I wasn’t worried about food being microwaved or undercooked, but we weren’t waiting forever, either. Sometimes I worry about that when it’s too fast or too slow. And the best part is it looked amazing.
My veal was actually two large cutlets breaded and covered with the cheese, tomatoes, and basil. It came on some insanely hot plate which was still too hot to touch near the end of the meal. I’m not sure if restaurants in St. Paul are allowed to use asbestos plates, but I’m finding a number of them retain heat for hours. Simply brilliant. The meat was fork tender, but I still used a knife, since I have couth. The edges of the cutlets were perfectly crispy and none of it was greasy or gristly. It was perfect. The cool tomatoes and tasty cheese were a great complement as well. There was a small pile of purple cabbage and some squash-like veggies which were also awesome. I would highly recommend this dish.
D.Rough’s scallops were nothing short of stellar. No wonder she ordered these as a meal and wasn’t intending to share. However, because she’s super nice to me sometimes, she surrendered more than a couple of bites (I’m sure only so I could write an accurate review – thanks, lady). I’m not a seafood person at all, however, I can do things that aren’t terribly fishy, in a pinch. These scallops are wrapped in angel hair pasta and then deep fried and come in a warm pool of lobster sauce and basil oil. Holy balls, Batman, these were amazing! The scallops were firm, but not chewy or tough. The flavor of the deep fried pasta just added to the whole awesome texture and the lobster sauce made everything wonderfully heavy. The bummer was we didn’t have any bread to dip into the lobster sauce goodness. We asked for some and D.Rough mentioned it usually comes out on the table when you start your meal. So they must have forgotten to bring it out. When it came out, I was bummed even more because it’s really light and flaky bread. We sopped up as much of the lobster sauce as we could handle and then dipped the rest in olive oil and balsamic that was already out on the table.
We laughed when we saw some of the waiters dumping people’s remaining water on the plants on the patio, but then we realized it’s a pretty good idea to do so, what with conservation and green-ness and all. Well played, La Grolla. We did it, too!
This dinner was really nice. Much better than I expected it to be. It wasn’t cheap by any stretch (that happens sometimes when you get a bottle of decent wine), but it was worth it. We were both quite full (not bursting full), so we were glad we missed our window of opportunity to go to Café Latte and order cheesecake for dessert – then we would have suffered (it might have been worth it, but we would have suffered, nonetheless).
Top 5 things about La Grolla
1. Capesante (the deep fried sea scallops)
1. Veal alla Capricciosa (they were both number one, honestly)
3. Crab cakes
4. Super awesome waitress and staff
5. Fantastic wine for what we ate and for being outside on the patio
Bottom 5 things
1. It’s pricey if you get a bottle of wine
2. They forgot our table bread (super minor deal, we don’t even care)
3. NOTHING ELSE WAS BAD
4.
5.
www.lagrollastpaul.com
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