I was unsure of what to expect from the Palomino in downtown Minneapolis. I’d heard it was pretty upscale, but that’s never scared me before. I checked out the menu online and it seemed like it had some unique offerings and wasn’t THAT expensive. Despite it being the topic of a controversial yet hilarious Wesley Willis song, Gerd and I decided to check it out.
We headed to the bar when we got there – something we’ve been doing more of lately (I mean eating in bars, not going to them all the time). Kind of like dinner and a show – plus easy access to the drinks… cha-ching! The bar was mable topped and multi level – that’s class. Places for my Asian brother Yao Ming and places for Peter Dinklage – everyone wins. The guy working the bar looked like a leprechaun (having never seen one, I can only assume), which worked out well since gerd has been typo-ing the word “me” instead of “my” in her e-mails recently – and she has red hair – coincidence?... I think not. Heath, the aforementioned leprechaun, was brilliant! Great suggestions and descriptions, the appropriate level of mocking when I asked for a girly drink menu, and catered to us like we were the only ones there. Heath has a pointy beard, that’s the only reason I mention the leprechaun thing. Aside from that, he’s awesome.
Gerd and I had a hankering for an appetizer, so we decided on the gorgonzola cream covered criss-cut fries (invented by Kris Kross). Heath said they were stacked high and then the sauce was poured all over them – gesticulating wildy while giving the description. Like I said, he was awesome. Give this man a raise (or at least another pot o’ gold)!
Gerd got some sort of fancy margarita (served in a martini glass with salt-rim). It was quite tasty. I got something called “White”. My good friend Al would ask, “Why’s it gotta be white?!” I asked the same thing, my friend, I assure you. It was white wine with grand marnier, cranberry juice, maybe some grape juice and garnished with a lychee (the tastiest of the eyeball-shaped fruits – as you all know). I’m going to making 55-gallon drums of this stuff at home in the future, just so you know. It was like amazingly sweet wine/sangria. I could have had 26 of these things, but I kept it toned down – this time…
Gerd went with the Grilled Steak Salad (healthy and meaty) and I went with the Duck Confit Cassoulet (sounds fancy doesn’t it?). The steak salad was awesome. All kinds of greens and hazel nuts and blue cheese, and onion strings. It was really really good. The steak was actual steak and top quality steak at that. Every bite was as good as the next. The duck cassoulet, to my surprise, came in a freaking tagine!!!! Awesome. Picture this: a huge haunch of duck (do ducks have haunches?), a fat smoked lamb sausage, Italian sausage, white beans, taters, and tomato sauce cooked in a tagine. There is no place for you to go wrong. Simply amazing. The duck was perfectly cooked, the taters were fork-ready and silky smooth, the sausages were stellar, and there was a perfect amount of beans. Despite the duck being a high-labor food, this one was worth pulling meat off bones. Totally worth it. It’s going to be difficult NOT to get this the next time we’re at the Palomino. Tagine 2, Chao 0.
Top 5 things about the Palomino
1. Multiple tagine dishes, some not even identified as such
2. Really tasty girly drinks
3. Very attentive staff – mainly Heath in our case
4. Steak was the perfect complementary flavor for the greens and cheese in the salad
5. Duck was perfect as were its friends in the tagine
Bottom 5 things
There seriously aren’t any. We TRIED to come up with some. Parking is good and validate-able, prices were fair for the quality of food, bathrooms were nice, staff was awesome, tolerable number of rich d-bags in the bar area, fast, and classy. We have nothing bad to say about this place. Sorry. We tried.
http://www.palomino.com/index.php?cook=1&locations=Minneapolis
Showing posts with label tagine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tagine. Show all posts
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Salut: Bar Americain – Edina, MN
This one is going to be a long post – I have a lot to say.
Let’s start by saying we’ve wanted to go here for a few months now, so we were really keyed up when we decided on this place. Salut is kind of an American-fare restaurant with a French twist. Inside it looks a bit like a French bistro, with red and white checkered table cloths and upscale without being completely snooty. We always see people sitting on the patio and the place looks packed all the time. We got some reservations and did it up.
As usual, we looked at the menu online, so we knew with about 85% confidence what we would be getting. Of course, the specials sometimes confound that plan, but we’re versatile in most situations (when it comes to food, especially).
The waitress brought us out some crackers with garlic/beet puree. It looked red and scary, but was actually pretty darn good. (I’ve decided I can do beets now, thanks to Dwight Schrute.) It was kind of the like the chef’s special appetizer. It ruled. We also got some French bread (it’s kind of French, remember?) and some super salty butter which I’m a huge fan of (getting huge-er).
Gerd decided on the burger, which we saw made the list of best burgers in Minnesota. It was huge and awesome. All covered with cheese and stuff. Honestly, it’s one the best burgers I’ve ever had. It should be number one on that list from what I’ve seen, but I know the people at Matt’s will put up a fight if I start lobbying for that. Seriously. It was awesome. The fries we’ve also heard about and the waitress recommended us trying them since we hadn’t been here before. They were REALLY good fries. Lightly seasoned and cooked much darker brown than fast food places. Get these fries, people. You’ll thank me for it.
I ended up with the Roasted Chicken Tagine. I discovered the wonders of the tagine this past summer at Williams Sonoma. I saw this triangle shaped pan on the shelf at WS and couldn’t figure out what it was. So I asked (Yes, I’m a guy, but I can still ask for help when I need it – see previous statement about food-related things). The worker told me all about the tagine, I don’t remember any of it, except you cook it with this pyramid shaped lid on it and all the juices run back down the sides and back into the food. You can cook many things at once and they all end up super moist. I was sold. Unfortunately, these things are multiple hundreds of dollars, so the tagine was not sold to ME. (If I find out I can make mac and cheese or bacon in this thing though, I might reconsider…)
Since I saw it on the menu, I went for it. Basically a half chicken with Moroccan spices and couscous. It had to be good right? The server (not our waitress) brought it out and promptly dumped a container of sri racha sauce onto my pants and freaked out. There were all kinds of napkins flying around and apologies. I told her not to worry about it after we got it cleaned up as well as we could. Then she said, “good thing I’m not your waitress,” and walked back into the kitchen. Hilarious. A manager came over to make sure I wasn’t going to stab anyone and gave me a shout pen to help with the stain (they’re in the washing machine right now, so I don’t know if the stain is coming out yet). He also was super apologetic. And our waitress came out and apologized as well. I think we’re good here, folks. It’s fine. Now I have hot pants. No worries.
Back to the tagine-ified chicken. This is a brilliant way to cook chicken. The flavor was awesome. I can’t tell you what Moroccan spices really are, but I know they are good. The couscous absorbed tons of the flavor as well, so the whole thing was awesome. I will stop right here though and tell you about my hatred of high-labor food. I hate to eat things that take longer to dismantle and get ready to eat than they do actually eat. Half-chickens are near the top of the list, as are whole walnuts, oranges (depending on my mood), and fajitas. Only lychees and peanuts are worth me spending any time on. And now, the tagine half-chicken is almost making it into the list. I really loved it, but I need to hire a food servant that will disassemble the chicken for me next time (I wonder if they’d be offended if I asked for chicken strips instead of bone-filled chicken) (I wonder if I could combine the tagine with Popeye’s and melt people’s faces with the awesomeness that would be what I would call – ca-jine [Cajun + tagine]) (I rule).
Bottom line, buy yourself a blast shield for your clothing and go eat here. It’s awesome. It’s slightly pricey, but you really will get what you pay for here. They have a raw bar there also – which is where you can hunt your own oysters (they’re fast critters from what I hear) and slurp them away from the table you’re sitting at.
Top 5 things about Salut
1. Tagine chicken
2. Amazing burger
3. Frites (French fries) ruled
4. Very friendly (and apologetic) staff
5. Beet/Garlic paste
Bottom 5 things
1. High-labor food
2. Spill-y McGee
3. Slightly pricey, especially in today’s economic… blah blah blah
4. It’s usually packed to the gills
5. I should have whipped my pants off after they spilled on me, just to guilt them into a free meal
http://www.salutbaramericain.com
Let’s start by saying we’ve wanted to go here for a few months now, so we were really keyed up when we decided on this place. Salut is kind of an American-fare restaurant with a French twist. Inside it looks a bit like a French bistro, with red and white checkered table cloths and upscale without being completely snooty. We always see people sitting on the patio and the place looks packed all the time. We got some reservations and did it up.
As usual, we looked at the menu online, so we knew with about 85% confidence what we would be getting. Of course, the specials sometimes confound that plan, but we’re versatile in most situations (when it comes to food, especially).
The waitress brought us out some crackers with garlic/beet puree. It looked red and scary, but was actually pretty darn good. (I’ve decided I can do beets now, thanks to Dwight Schrute.) It was kind of the like the chef’s special appetizer. It ruled. We also got some French bread (it’s kind of French, remember?) and some super salty butter which I’m a huge fan of (getting huge-er).
Gerd decided on the burger, which we saw made the list of best burgers in Minnesota. It was huge and awesome. All covered with cheese and stuff. Honestly, it’s one the best burgers I’ve ever had. It should be number one on that list from what I’ve seen, but I know the people at Matt’s will put up a fight if I start lobbying for that. Seriously. It was awesome. The fries we’ve also heard about and the waitress recommended us trying them since we hadn’t been here before. They were REALLY good fries. Lightly seasoned and cooked much darker brown than fast food places. Get these fries, people. You’ll thank me for it.
I ended up with the Roasted Chicken Tagine. I discovered the wonders of the tagine this past summer at Williams Sonoma. I saw this triangle shaped pan on the shelf at WS and couldn’t figure out what it was. So I asked (Yes, I’m a guy, but I can still ask for help when I need it – see previous statement about food-related things). The worker told me all about the tagine, I don’t remember any of it, except you cook it with this pyramid shaped lid on it and all the juices run back down the sides and back into the food. You can cook many things at once and they all end up super moist. I was sold. Unfortunately, these things are multiple hundreds of dollars, so the tagine was not sold to ME. (If I find out I can make mac and cheese or bacon in this thing though, I might reconsider…)
Since I saw it on the menu, I went for it. Basically a half chicken with Moroccan spices and couscous. It had to be good right? The server (not our waitress) brought it out and promptly dumped a container of sri racha sauce onto my pants and freaked out. There were all kinds of napkins flying around and apologies. I told her not to worry about it after we got it cleaned up as well as we could. Then she said, “good thing I’m not your waitress,” and walked back into the kitchen. Hilarious. A manager came over to make sure I wasn’t going to stab anyone and gave me a shout pen to help with the stain (they’re in the washing machine right now, so I don’t know if the stain is coming out yet). He also was super apologetic. And our waitress came out and apologized as well. I think we’re good here, folks. It’s fine. Now I have hot pants. No worries.
Back to the tagine-ified chicken. This is a brilliant way to cook chicken. The flavor was awesome. I can’t tell you what Moroccan spices really are, but I know they are good. The couscous absorbed tons of the flavor as well, so the whole thing was awesome. I will stop right here though and tell you about my hatred of high-labor food. I hate to eat things that take longer to dismantle and get ready to eat than they do actually eat. Half-chickens are near the top of the list, as are whole walnuts, oranges (depending on my mood), and fajitas. Only lychees and peanuts are worth me spending any time on. And now, the tagine half-chicken is almost making it into the list. I really loved it, but I need to hire a food servant that will disassemble the chicken for me next time (I wonder if they’d be offended if I asked for chicken strips instead of bone-filled chicken) (I wonder if I could combine the tagine with Popeye’s and melt people’s faces with the awesomeness that would be what I would call – ca-jine [Cajun + tagine]) (I rule).
Bottom line, buy yourself a blast shield for your clothing and go eat here. It’s awesome. It’s slightly pricey, but you really will get what you pay for here. They have a raw bar there also – which is where you can hunt your own oysters (they’re fast critters from what I hear) and slurp them away from the table you’re sitting at.
Top 5 things about Salut
1. Tagine chicken
2. Amazing burger
3. Frites (French fries) ruled
4. Very friendly (and apologetic) staff
5. Beet/Garlic paste
Bottom 5 things
1. High-labor food
2. Spill-y McGee
3. Slightly pricey, especially in today’s economic… blah blah blah
4. It’s usually packed to the gills
5. I should have whipped my pants off after they spilled on me, just to guilt them into a free meal
http://www.salutbaramericain.com
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