I can’t remember whether it was my sister, NotMomsFavorite, or my niece, Frog, who said they knew people who owned Bennett’s Chop and Rail House in St. Paul. D.Rough and I had been trying to get here to try it out and report back to my family on the dining experience here. We were always a little hesitant to go here because a lot of the places on
OpenTable.com are pretty upscale. For those in the know, OpenTable.com is a great website to book tables at restaurants in big cities without a bunch of hassle. They also give points which you can redeem for food gift certificates – wurd. However, at one point, D.Rough drove past the place and was relieved to find it’s a super casual neighborhood bar with beer banners out front and daily specials in giant letters on canvas signs. Regardless, I booked the dinner on OpenTable.com just so I could get the points.
Upon arrival at Bennett’s, I realized that we were probably the only people who have ever done the online reservation thing here. It’s simply not that kind of place. However, they do class this place up as much as possible by putting paper table cloths on the tables all fancy-style and having giant bottles of wine sitting around the place.
We got seated in the back of the place where it was pretty dark (wait until you see the photos). But what was odd was that people kept staring at us – openly and for long periods. It was a bit unnerving, until we realized we were sitting directly underneath a television showing baseball. Hahahaha. That’s what they were looking at, not us. There are lots of old people in this place and we felt like people’s grandkids (which we ARE technically, just not any of these people’s).
The hostess had given us menus, so we thought we’d find some before-dinner cocktails to start the night right. I was amused to find a “his” and “hers” menu of cocktails. Yeah, this bar/restaurant hails from a time when sexism was expected and completely accepted. All the guy drinks were like liquid cardboard with scotch and whiskey and vermouth, while the ladies menu was filled with cosmopolitans and peach schnapps. Hilarious. Of course, I wanted one of the girliest sounding drinks – the Sunken Treasure (Malibu, Blue Curacao, Midori, and pineapple juice) – and D.Rough decided on a more manly drink than I did – a Lemondrop Martini (Absolut Citron and lemon juice).
When the waitress showed up, she said, “How are you ladies tonight?” After I assured her I wasn’t a lady – apparently it was dark enough that she didn’t see my full beard – she was horrified and apologized over and over. Sadly, I’m used to this mistake and tried to reassure her that it was fine. We all laughed it off – though no one laughed as much as D.Rough. We finally ordered our drinks after we all stopped laughing at me. Of course it was pointed out that I DID order a girly drink…
The drinks took a while to arrive, but we ordered appetizers while we waited. I turned D.Rough on to Poutine a while back and it always sounds good, especially when restaurants do fun things with it. Poutine is a Canadian dish that’s very simple: a pile of French fries, throw on some cheese curds and then cover with gravy. Bennett’s Poutine has a homemade short rib sauce on it and had melted provolone cheese on the fries. This sounded great. And what makes this dish even better is Bennett’s calls them “Hoser Fries” – hahahahah, take off, eh? We ordered some of those, as well.
When the drinks arrived, I was enamored with the color of my drink. Again, I’ll apologize about the low lighting for the camera, but this drink was the color of the fake water at Disney World rides. A stunning blue green that would make any antifreeze jealous. I took a big swig of it and choked it down – it was terrible. Probably the worst girly drink I’ve ever had in my life. I am convinced there wasn’t a drop of pineapple juice in this drink. It was all sickeningly sweet syrupy liqueurs that need some juice to diffuse them. It was like drinking sno-cone syrup straight. Wow Wow Wow. I won’t get this again.
D.Rough had only slightly better luck with her Lemondrop – it was basically straight Citron and VERY vodka-y. I didn’t mind, but yeah, it could have used some more lemon juice if I would have been the one to make it.
We finally decided on our entrees, which wasn’t an easy feat. There are a ton of great sounding items on this menu. Bennett’s is a meat and potatoes place. Nothing too fancy, but you can bet this place does a fantastic steak or seafood. Maybe not French-fancy, but it does have quality cooking and ingredients. And everything comes with potatoes – be ready for that. If we had realized that, we might not have ordered Hoser Fries (but we were glad we did anyway). I got the Creole Meatloaf (comes with mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans) and a bowl of tomato-basil soup and D.Rough got the Little Charlie’s (two sliders with grilled tenderloin medallions, caramelized onions, and horseradish cream sauce)(and yes, they have an apostrophe where they don’t need it – but who’s checking). D.Rough asked for a béarnaise sauce instead of the horseradish sauce since neither of us are fans or horseradish.
The Hoser fries arrived and were simply amazing. I wish you could see how awesome they were in the photo – heck, I wish WE could have seen how awesome they looked! Probably one of the better Poutines I’ve ever had. Every place likes to do it a little different, and this place had a great idea with the short rib sauce. The provolone cheese was good cheese as well, not the sliced and processed stuff like American cheese, but the good stuff. Great work on the Hoser Fries, Bennett’s.
My tomato-basil soup arrived and wasn’t at all what I had expected. It looked really good (in the dark), but honestly was just a fancy marinara sauce. I’ve had good tomato-basil soup before that tasted like actual tomatoes and basil, but this ended up being an awesome dip for the fries we had left on the plate without sauce and cheese. EXCELLENT idea, D.Rough! I never would have thought of that, but it honestly was the route to go. Maybe the chef would be offended if he saw it, but who cares, it was delicious.
The food came out (but you can’t see it very well in the light – sorry). It looked awesome. It was brought by our new waiter, since our original waitress handed him off when she went back to man
(or woman) the bar. The wait staff here are awesome folks and tons of fun to have help you.
The Creole Meatloaf was kind of a sausage-y beefy double slab of meaty goodness with some creole sauce on the top. It was really quite good and fork tender. I loved this. The mashed potatoes and beef gravy were good as well. The green beans on the side were super crisp and flavorful. No problems at all with this meal. It says it’s a house specialty on the menu and there is a reason for it. Really good.
D.Rough’s Little Charlie’s were also really good. I didn’t see that they were beef tenderloin medallions, so I thought I was going to get ground beef. But the bite was actually a ton better than I thought it was going to be, especially with the béarnaise sauce on it. Well played on the swap-out, girl. Hers came with - guess what? A choice of potato. She had gone with potatoes au gratin. They were in a ceramic crock and had melted cheese on them. They looked good (especially in the super dim light). She took a bite and burned her mouth. So she let them cool until after her meal. She took another bite and again, seriously hot. I didn’t believe her, so I took a bite and burned my mouth. I took another scoop and blew on them for about 2 or three minutes and THEN they were actually still hot, but cool enough to put in your mouth. I’m not sure what sort of nuclear fission crock Bennett’s uses for its potatoes, but I’m guessing a technology firm could make millions off of insulation made out of the same material. I guess it could have been an asbestos crock, since we could not tell in the dark. Either way, this crock kept everything excruciatingly hot.
The food here, overall, was quite good. Seriously, we were really impressed, but we were also dangerously full. It was a lot of starch and a lot of meat. We were moving pretty slow when the check came around and we had to leave. We had planned on getting dessert someplace afterwards and instead, drove home complaining about how full we were. We totally wussed out.
There were some characters in this place. We sat near a table of little old cute ladies having a birthday party for one of their friend. They were slightly tipsy and giggly, and then they all freaked out that none of them had brought a camera to take pictures of Marge’s birthday. Drunk old ladies are hilarious. Then, there were the cops that were taking the longest dinner break ever. Then, the
Vulcan Krewe showed up as we were getting ready to leave. Bennett’s is supposedly the official drinking establishment of Vulcanus Rex, so it sounds like they start a lot of evenings at Bennett’s before going out and being loud, gropey, and creepy.
Go to Bennett’s.
Top 5 things about Bennett’s Chop and Rail House
1. Creole Meatloaf
2. Hoser Fries (or poutine, for those in the know)
3. Little Charlie’s
4. Super awesome and helpful staff (despite calling me a girl)
5. I think the hostess was amused that we had “reservations” for dinner. I’ll bet they get one reservation a year.
Bottom 5 things
1. Worst girly drink ever – Sunken Treasure
2. Tomato-Basil Soup
3. It’s super dark
4. Nuclear potato crock (might go in the Top 5 if you are a thermal engineer)
5. People staring at us all night while watching television
bennettschopandrailhouse.com
