Cowboy Jack’s, Bloomington

Linda’s Take

Jason had idea to try this place, he had been to one before out in Woodbury, MN and thought I would like it. We invited 2 friends and got there about 8pm.

If you go during dinner time you’re going to be waiting for a while.

I really liked the place, they have free popcorn to snack on while you’re waiting for your table. I thought that was kinda nice. I love the country atmosphere and decor, I’m just a country girl that grew up in the city. The tables are nice and roomie too. That’s always a good thing since Jason is a tall guy. (ed. Big and tall!)

The food is good, it’s wholesome and very tasty. I also like that they have a light area on the menu as well. I like good American food, but I don’t want everything to be a grease bomb.
You have to get the corn bread here! It is the best I have ever had! I ordered a salad and sirloin tips and they were cooked perfect!

Only thing is that I wish is that it would be awesome if they had a dance floor and live music in the late evening! I almost wish I could combine Toby Keith’s and Cowboy Jacks together and this would rock!

I would definitely come back!

4 out of 5 pants off

Jason’s Take

Cowboy Jack’s is a country bar, but the waitresses are less scantily-clad than some other country bars, relatively speaking. Since I don’t go to restaurants look to ogle T&A, that’s not really a disappointment for me.

The biggest disappointment for me is that they have live music almost every night, but no dance floor. That makes me sad, since Toby Keith’s fills up quickly after 10pm.

For an appetizer, we got the jalepeno cheese curds. You can taste the pepper, but there’s really no burn. Cheese curds are good, though. We also got the corn bread skillet, which was yummy, but I went home and figured out how to make it better. I’m not entirely sure why Linda is so in love with their’s.

I got the mushroom and swiss burger, which is kind of my default burger when I go out. It was good, and reasonably priced. The tater tots that came with it were also worth the price of admission.

Good food, good prices. I give it 4 out of 5 pants off.

Total Score

4 out of 5 Pants Off

The Loop, St. Louis Park

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Linda’s Take

One of the new restaurants at the West End Shops in St. Louis Park is The Loop. I’ve driven past it a few time; the outside of the place didn’t look too appealing to me, but Jason really wanted to try the place so we had lunch there.

When I walked in, the staff was really inviting and kind. The place looks really different on the inside. Warm wood tones and big booths along the wall. Kinda country and kinda new age. Different, but nice.

They have a separate & smaller lunch menu from the dinner menu, I like that. Less time searching for what you want.

We ordered a meat platter with toasted flat bread and sauces. High quality meats, pretty tasty. I also ordered a hummus platter, which I’ve never seen on a menu before. This I really liked! It was served with cucumbers, olives, tomatoes, and artichokes all mixed with a Mediterranean style sauce and warm pita bread. Only bummer about this dish was wanting more bread.

I had an apple and cherry salad for the main course. This was really fresh and crisp. I loved all of the different greens in the salad. You can add meat for an additional cost, but I loved it just the way it was.

Jason had a Juicy Loopy, their version of the Juicy Lucy. He said it was good but he liked the Juicy Lucy better.

Oh, my hummus platter came out a little late so the manager came over and gave it to us for free. I thought that was really nice. We never even complained about it at all.
I did like this place, a little pricey, but not by much.

I give it 3 out of 5 pants off

Jason’s Take

There’s one restaurant slot at the West End that just doesn’t have any luck. Every year or two, there’s a new restaurant in there. The current restaurant is The Loop.

We’re on a quest to review all of the restaurants at the West End, so this one had to go on the list, though honestly, judging a book by its cover and being absolutely non-politically correct, I thought it was a gay bar at first glance. If you can ignorantly stereotype what the outside of a gay bar in a nice neighborhood looks like.

Inside, it’s a nice place. The woods are nice, and the bar has phone charging stations every 6 feet, which is pretty sweet.

The staff was nice, but I’m pretty sure our waiter was either new, or will be a former waiter soon. He wasn’t great and the manager knew he wasn’t. She came over to check and make sure that he’d been over to help us.

So, food:

No booze. This was lunch on a work day, so we didn’t drink.

For appetizers, we got the charcuterie board and the hummus plate. The pile of olives and marinated vegetables made the hummus plate totally worth the $11. Good olives. Good hummus. The charcuterie board had some sweet choices, like liver, some fancy bologna-like stuff, and bacon jam. It works well.

Linda has rabbit-food for the main course. I was going to get the Pork Banh Mi sandwich, but they were out of both the chicken liver and the pork pate, so I got the Juicy Loopy instead. That’s a juicy lucy stuffed with bacon, onions, and cheddar. It was good, but the 5-8 Club does juicy lucy’s better. The fries were awesome. More accurately, the garlic and parsley aioli that is served with the fries was phenomenal.

I give it 4 out of 5 pants off.

Total Score

3.5 out of 5 Pants Off

Surabhi

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Linda’s Take

Surabhi

Jason and I also wanted to start going to restaurants with different ethnic foods to add some variety to what we eat.

Jason had been to Surabhi before and I was willing to give it a shot.

We ordered a few things off the menu. One of the things I noticed right away, at an Indian restaurant, they have a huge menu, practically everything of every dish you can order. If you have never ordered before from a place like this, I really recommending going with a few people and getting a few things to try.

The food is not ready right away; it takes time, which means they put heart into what they make. However it is really good and tasty.

This is a nice place to go, great for catching up with friends and having pleasant conversation while having good Indian food.

Another thing you can always do is go for their lunch buffet. Sample a bit of everything!

I give this place 3 out of 5 pants off

Jason’s Take

I used to work just down the road from Surabhi…with some Indians. We had lunch at a bunch of different Indian restaurants.

Surabhi is one of the better ones. They’ve got a massive menu, but everything I’ve had is really good.

Don’t go if you’re in a hurry. The food is made to order, which means it’s coming out slow and delicious.

If you’re not familiar with Indian food, go at lunch and enjoy the buffet. I totally recommend the goat curry. And the garlic naan. The naan is worth going all by itself.

I give it 4 out of 5 pants off.

Total Score: 3.5 out of 5 pants off.

Aji Contemporary Japanese

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Linda’s Take

Aji Contemporary Japanese

Jason and I want to try some different sushi restaurants around us, and we want to work our way through the restaurants in Hopkins. We found Aji and thought Hopkins, “Great! It’s nearby and it looked nice, being right on main street.”

All I have to say is, really? This place sucks!

Bad service, the food is not much better than going to any Chinese buffet shushi.

Just don’t go.

1 out of 5 pants off!

Jason’s Take

Ditto.

The service was awful and the food was bland. It’s an all-you-can-eat sushi place and it took at least 15 minutes to place our order. “Yep, we want the sushi” should be a fast order to take.

If you’re considering going to Aji, do yourself a favor and reconsider.

1 out of 5 pants off.

Total score: 1 out of 5 pants off.

Pittsburgh Blue

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Linda’s Take

Pittsburgh Blue is by far one of the best restaurants you can ever go to.

I love eating here!!!!

Now you are going to drop a pretty penny when you go here, but it is sooooo worth it.

First of all, save a few bucks if you want and bypass the drinks, they do a great job with anyone you choose, but you can drop close to $10.00 a drink. DO order any of the steaks! My favorite is the horseradish crusted filet minion. Also the scalloped appetizers are melt in your mouth wonderful!

The best part about this restaurant is the staff. I have never had anything bad to say about the service here. They treat you like you are royalty! I even dropped one of my appetizers and they fixed me one more so I would get exactly what we paid for.

I wouldn’t mind eating here once a month, but of course the budget won’t let us do that. However I think at least 2 or 3 times a year is perfect!

I give this restaurant 5 out of 5 pants off!

Jason’s Take

Pittsburgh Blue has phenomenal food. I’ve been there more times than I can count. It’s pricey, unless you go at happy hour and stick to the happy hour menu, then it’s priced like any regular restaurant.

If you go for dinner and order appetizers, and steaks, and drinks, you’re going to drop a couple of hundred dollars, easy.

But it’s so worth it.

The bacon wrapped scallops are so good, words fail me. I feel like I need to do the walk of shame the morning after I eat them, it is so good.

The french onion soup is also great. It’s served with half an inch of cheese melted over the top. So bad for you. Yum.

You can’t go wrong with any of their steaks. Don’t bother with fish. This is a steak house.

Sides are served family style. I recommend the onion & cheese hashbrowns, the asparagus, the mushrooms, and the mashed potatoes, but not all in the same meal.

For dessert, get the crème brûlée. Trust me. If you’re going to have that anywhere, have it here.

This is the easiest 5 out of 5 pants off I’ve ever given.

Total Score: 5 out of 5 Pants Off

98 Pounds Buffet

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Linda’s Take

Jason has been to 98 Pounds Buffet many times for lunch meetings, and he said that they have a pretty good sushi bar. I wasn’t very hopeful, thinking that it was going to be like most Chinese buffet places, but I was really pleased.

The Chinese food choices are not huge, but they make up for that in quality of the food. Everything tasted really good for a buffet, and I did notice that they changed out the food on a regular basis so that it was fresh.

My favorite was the sushi buffet! Yummy, and delish! I would go back over and over again, a fair price for good quality buffet food.

I give it 4 out of 5 pants off.

Jason’s Take

First off, sushi has to be judged by category:

Sushi restaurants
Buffet sushi
Vending machine sushi
Old bait

98 Pounds Buffet has the best buffet sushi in the state, hands down. While it may not be in competition with Ichiban, it is good and fresh. It’s worth the $11 lunch price just to fill up on sushi.

The rest of the food is good too. The serving tables are kept at a good temperature, and the food is rotated regularly. Quite honestly, I’ve never eaten anything here that sucks.

I give it 5 out of 5 pants off. Best Chinese buffet around.

Total Score: 4.5 out of 5 Pants Off

Granite City

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Linda’s Take

So one night I wanted to go someplace local but with a menu that we haven’t eaten for awhile.

Don’t get me wrong, you’re going to see more sushi restaurant reviews posted later on, but it’s nice to switch it up once in a while.

So we picked Granite City; they are a chain restaurant, but there are not so many around. That’s because they also brew their own beer right at the restaurant! I thought that was inspiring because they also cook with the beer they brew.

The drinks we had were good, I really liked the one I ordered, I don’t remember the name of it other than it had the word “Monkey” in the name, but it was sweet and fruity, and it gave me a good buzz! That works for me!

I also tried French Onion Soup for the first time, I really liked how they made it, flavorful but not to rich. The appetizer we had really filled me up and it was full of flavor!

For my main dish I ordered the London Broiled steak, it was really tender and good, but not much seasoning with it. However I was so full already I wasn’t sure how many bites I could even take.

All and all this was a place that fit the budget to go out to eat, with better quality food an other chain restaurants.
I would go here again.

I give it 3 out of 5 pants off

Jason’s Take

Granite City is a restaurant and micro-brewery. It is a chain, but not a large chain, and it’s a
local chain.

Given the fact that it’s a microbrewery, they have a biased sense of how great their beer is, and
charge accordingly. It’s not outragious, but the beer isn’t cheap.

We started with the shrimp appetizer, which came with a slaw and was really good.

Next, we had the French Onion soup, because linda had never tried it before and onions are a sharedexperience on a date. You should never let just one person on a date have onions. It was good,but not good enough to knock my pants off.

I had burger X for my main course, which was also good-but-not-great.

For dessert, we had the apple tort-thing. It was an insanely dry puff pastry filled with applefilling that just wasn’t great. Pass on this.

I give it 3 pants off.

Total Score

3 out of 5 Pants Off

Mainstreet Bar & Grill

By Jason Leave a Comment

Linda’s Take

Mainstreet Bar & Grill

So my best friend’s husband was going to celebrate his birthday at Mainstreet’s. I had been to Mainstreet’s many times before but this time, since both Jason and I were going to go, why not write a review!

I like this bar, it is one of the few bars that is great at keeping your drink glass full and just looks like a regular bar, plus they have live music every weekend.

There are some drawbacks to the place.

The food is okay; it’s your typical bar food and nothing I would brag about.
There is a dance floor, however it is on the smaller size so it can fill up quickly. Most of the time the bands are good, they do have some popular regular bands, however the night we both went there the guy sucked!
I guess the biggest drawback is when the band plays you can’t hear anyone that is trying to talk to you. So to wrap it up, great place to go and drink and have fun! Not so good if you want to catch up and talk with friends.

I give it 3 out of 5 pants off.

Jason’s Take

We went to Mainstreet’s Bar in downtown Hopkins for a friend’s birthday party.

We’ve been there before, but have never taken the time to review it.

The place is a dive bar, pure and simple. The food is totally on par with what you’d expect from a dive bar. It’s greasy and really only good when you’ve been drinking. The drinks are cheap and the staff is friendly.

They’ve got live music nearly every night and a decent-but-not-large dance floor.

It doesn’t feel like a meat market, but judging by the number of people I know who’ve gotten lucky by going to Mainstreet’s, it’s not a bad place to go if you’re feeling lonely.

I give it 3 out of 5 pants off.

Total Score:

3 Out of 5 Pants Off

Rodizio

By Jason Leave a Comment

Linda’s Take

For my son’s 15th birthday I suggested to go to Rodizio Grill. My son loves meat and it was a great place for my girls to try some new foods. Jason and I love the meat there as well. We also let my son bring 2 friends, and one of the Dads came and joined us because he is Jason’s best friend, but I think his mouth was watering when we said where we were going.

Originally, Jason and I were going to go here for our wedding anniversary, but one of the girls got really sick and I would have just felt horrible leaving her at home when she wanted mommy to cuddle with her and make her feel better.

I had looked on Groupon and found a deal for Rodizio Grill for dinner for two plus a bottle of wine for $65.00. Not a bad deal since dinner for one is $35.00. I must say that my son was pleased to go there. His favorite type of restaurant is anything that is all you can eat, and he loved the all you can eat meat!

The salad bar there is good, nothing that I think that really screams “OMG, you have to try this!”, but everything is tasty. All of the meat is mouthwatering! I think the biggest hit was the bacon wrapped turkey, and the grilled pineapple. I believe that one of my daughters had 4 helpings of this!

Also it was “Wild Game” month for October. One of the meats to try was going to be rattle snake, however they were out. The manager did come and talk with us and understood that we really wanted to try this, so he was so kind that he gave us a card for a free order of the rattlesnake meat when they get it in, and gave our kids free deserts! Now that is really wanting some happy costumers!

By the way, the deserts were so yummy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my youngest daughter shovel down chocolate cake that fast ever, and I could have eaten what Jason got for a whole month and not get tired of it! Plus for one of their deserts, anyone who orders it, all proceeds go to help for breast cancer research since this month is breast cancer awareness month.

I will be going here again!

5 out of 5 pants off

Jason’s Take

I’ve been to Rodizio a few time. Good meat, in unlimited quantities. Who wouldn’t like it?

Except for vegetarians, of course. They’ll hate this place.

Our default plan for birthday celebrations is to let the kid in question pick a restaurant and invite a friend. It’s generally cheaper than a party, and always cheaper than an event-type party.

This year, we let the boy invite two friends, and one of the friend’s dad is one of my closest friends, so I asked him to join us. That made eight of us.

When you get there, you have two options. You can enjoy the full experience, or just get the salad bar, which is the cheaper option, but who goes to a Brazilian steakhouse for salad? Silly stuff.

They’ll put a little hourglass-looking thing on the table. If the green side is up, guys with meat on skewers come to the table and offer to carve off a piece for you. If the red side is up, they let you take a break. If you knock it over, the waitress will bring over the dessert tray. Simple and elegant.

I strongly recommend you eat the parmesan-encrusted pork and the bacon-wrapped turkey. The red meats are, surprisingly, not my favorites.

Never, ever turn down the grilled pineapple. Holy cow, it’s good! The sugars carmelize on the outside and it tastes like candy.

For dessert, I had the pudim de leite, which is a creamy caramal flan. I have no idea what flan is, but it felt and tasted like a very light cheesecake covered in an orgasmic caramel sauce.

Did I really just use “orgasmic” to describe a sauce? Musta been good.

It’s a great restaurant, but the real question is whether it compares well with Fogo de Ciao.

Rodizio is cheaper and more convenient than going downtown. Fogo crowds in the tables to pack the place, but has a slightly better selection of meat and a much bigger salad bar(yes, I always visit the salad bar, just not heavily).

So yes, it does compare favorably. I’m there more than I’m at Fogo. Fogo has a better meat selection, so I can’t give it 5 pants off.

I give Rodizio 4 pants off out of 5.

Total Score 4.5 Pants Off

Streetz American Grill

By Jason 1 Comment

Jason’s Take

Streetz American Grill is on the way to our dancing lessons, so we saw the place being built and drove past for a few months after they opened. From the outside, it looked slightly upscale, so we decided to try it without doing any research. Walking up the sidewalk, we looked in through the window, and thought it was Burger King. We almost turned around and left. Date night dinners aren’t about fast food. Just as we were turning around, a couple who had overheard our conversation told us it was good food and that they came once a week. Apparently, for some, date night dinners are about fast food.

We went in. After all, what kind of fast food place serves beer?

There’s a counter to place your order, then you get a number to put on your table. I wanted to try a variety of stuff, so we ordered more food that we were planning to eat. Between the two of us, we got a cheeseburger, a gyro, poutine, chipotle & salsa fries, and the Philly cheesesteak salad with chicken.

The burger could have been served in any school cafeteria in the country. It wasn’t bad, exactly, but it clearly came frozen after being pressed from the least favorable parts of a very bland cow. The pita for the gyro had more in common with cardboard than flatbread. It was actually stiff and crumbly. The gyro meat was pretty good, though. The poutine–never get poutine at a fast food joint–tasted like nothing but salt. Seriously, it’s fries smothered in gravy, bacon, and cheese curds. How can you get that wrong? Answer: make a dish full of awesome taste like salt. The salsa for the chipotle & salsa fries was sour cream floating in salsa water and the the chipotle seasoning on the fries was red salt, which was ok, because the industrial yellow goo they called cheese sauce was really just a clever way to liquify more salt.

The salad was good, though. If you go there, totally get the salad.

I give it 1 out of 5 pants off.

Linda’s Take

On our way out to our dance lesson I noticed a new place in Bloomington called Streetz and it looked like a place to get a good burger.

We decided to try it.

From the outside it looks like a sit down restaurant, but when you go in, it’s kinda like a 50’s dinner / street vendor place. They have a interesting variety of street vendor food as well. It reminded me of Fuddruckers but with a different menu items.

We got a few things to try. I loved salad that I got and the gyro was okay, however all of the fries were just too greasy. I think that this place is a great to take the family out for a better than fast food dinner, but it’s not too far off of fast food. I would not go again for a date night.

I give it 2 out of 5 pants off

Total Score

1.5 Pants Off