Fred Astaire Dance Studio

Jason’s Take

When we got married half a lifetime ago, we decided to take dancing lessons for the reception. And we rocked it.

A few months ago, Linda found a Groupon for the same studio (Fred Astaire in Eagan), so she signed us up, and we’ve been going every week since.

And we’re still rocking it.

Chad and Beth are our instructors and they are good at what they do. Once you get past the beginner stage, you’ll pick four dances to focus on. Their theory is that it’s as easy to learn 4 dances as it is to learn two, because so many of the steps are similar. We learning the Waltz, Rumba, Swing, and Tango. Just like Gomez and Morticia.

Some guys are going to read this and think they can’t take dance lessons because it’s too girly. All I can say to that is that dancing is foreplay. There ain’t nothing un-manly about foreplay.

And seriously, if you go there, tell them Jason and Linda sent you. You’ll get a discount and we’ll get a free lesson.

5 out of 5 pants off.

Linda’s Take

A few months back, Jason and I were looking to going out on dates to connect with each other. I looked on Groupon and found a beginner group dance class at Fred Astaire Dance Studio. I found some more information about the place and found out that this was where we took dance lessons at before we got married, now in a new location.

I kept this as a total surprise to Jason, not giving any hints as to what we were going to do. When we got there I saw the biggest smile on his face and he was super happy to do this with me again. I felt like I did something right and was also super happy.

After we did our Groupon special–an unlimited month’s worth of beginner group lessons for only $69.00–we decided that we should make this a hobby to get better at. So we signed up for a beginner package deal. Plus, if we had friends to join up for any classes we would get a free class and friends would get a discount on their package classes.

Ballroom dancing is something that you both have to work at, just like a relationship. You have to work together to sync up, and when you do, magic happens!

I have to admit that when we go out dancing at local places, I love being the girl that others girls look at while I’m dancing with Jason and they are thinking, “I wish my boyfriend would learn how to dance with me like that!” Actually Jason is the one who pointed that out to me, when we are dancing I’m totally focusing on him.

5 out of 5 pants off!!!

Total Score

Sushi X

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Linda’s Take

I asked Jason if we could go out for sushi on our date night, I’m really starting to like sushi! He had mentioned Sushi X had moved in really close to us and we said lets give it a go!

At first when we got seated we were a little confused. We ordered the all-you-can-eat sushi bar and nobody explained to us how the menu worked. But after looking puzzled for a bit and trying to figure it out we checked with someone and we were doing it right.

So you place an order of what you want to try, hand it to a waiter and then they make it for you. You have to wait for a little bit, especially if you put in a big order. But then everything is delivered to you and you dig right in.

Some things are better than others, but overall it wasn’t bad. The waitress is pretty good about always filling up your drinks and if there is something you really like, you can just keep ordering more!

So the sushi isn’t the finest, but not awful by any means. And since it’s close to us, I would go again, but next time I’ll do the sushi bar lunch price instead of the dinner price!

3 out of 5 pants off

Jason’s Take

Osaka, one of the nearby Teppanyaki restaurants closed, but I didn’t notice right away. One day, I just happened to see a Sushi X sign in it’s place. Same colors, same decor outside. They really didn’t make a splash moving in.

So we decided to try it.

We walked in, asked for the all-you-can-eat sushi and asked to sit at the bar because it’s fun to watch sushi chefs work. The waitress took our drink order and left us a checklist of food without another word.

Turns out, you put little numbers next to all of the things you want and the waitress will eventually come take it from you to hand it to the sushi chef 2 feet away. There’s a pretty good list of appetizers and soups that are included with the sushi.

Service was slow, but the chefs were nice and threw in some extra when they saw we were waiting. The yummy roll is appropriately named. It was good.

I’d prefer going to Ichiban (downtown, not the crap place on the other end of St. Louis Park), but considering Sushi X is 3 minutes from our house, while Ichiban involves a drive downtown, I can’t complain too hard. It was good food. We left full, but not stuffed, then went dancing.

I give it 3 out of 5 pants off.

Total Score: 3 out of 5 pants off

The Golden Nugget

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Linda’s Take

So we decided to try this little dinner off of Excelsior Blvd called The Golden Nugget after seeing them one weekend on Fox9 news. We brought our girls with us thinking that it would be fun for all. I have to admit that the parking wasn’t the best, but it’s really easy to find this place.

They have an awesome beer selection, and some of the yummiest burgers I have ever see on the menu. However there isn’t much at all on the menu if you are looking to watch your calorie intake.

I had some shrimp tacos and come chicken wild rice soup. The tacos were really yummy, and the soup was made a little different then what I’m used to but really tasty.

Jason had a great looking burger and this thing was huge! Our girls ordered shrimp and a walleye filet and the kids size meals could feed an adult!

Overall the food was great and I saw a flyer that said $5.00 burgers on Sundays! This is a great place to go for a date night for burgers, and I would say an awesome place to go on Sundays with the family!

I give it 5 out of 5 pants off!

Jason’s Take

We saw this place on the news and decided we had to try it. The Chimichurri Burger they made on TV looked fricking awesome. It’s a burger with mortadella ham, chimichurri, Gruyere cheese, arugula, and bone marrow mayo. I love bone marrow mayo.

The burger was ok. It’s supposed to be an award-winning burger–and it was good–but it didn’t knock my pants off.

The kids portions were enormous and cooked really well. I liked the portion sizes for the girls, because that meant I got to try their shrimp and fried walleye too. The walleye was cooked perfectly and the shrimp was great.

I just realized I’m writing this review backwards, but I’m not going to change it up.

For an appetizer, we had cheeseburger wontons, which were phenomenal. If you get it, save the spicy Asian sauce to dip whatever else you get later. Holy Yum, Batman!

Parking sucks. If you’re coming down Excelsior from the west, the only entrance to the lot is well before you can see the restaurant, so you drive past swearing. When you get in, it feels weird. It looks like it should be a dive bar, but it’s way nicer than that, and they have a crap-ton of beer on tap.

Good place, good food, and cheap burgers on Sundays. Totally worth going.

I give it 4 out of 5 pants off.

Total Score:

Minnehaha Park

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Linda’s Take

We needed something to do for a Sunday afternoon, but money can be tight with a family of 5. Jason came up with the idea of going to Minnehaha Falls because our younger kids had never seen it.

Other than a bit of whining about how far we had to walk to the falls from my parking spot the kids. That the falls were really wonderful to watch and they were amazed at what they saw.

We all did a bit of hiking along the river and the kids were asking many questions, we even got a smile out of her teenage son. I think we hiked a total of 3 miles that day, and with all the beauty of the river, I don’t think I even heard one complaint.

My review is that if you want a great place to picnic, or enjoy a walk with the family, friends, or a special someone, this is the place to go. But parking can be a pain.

I give it 4 out of 5 pants off.

Jason’s Take

Lately, we’ve been trying to take the brats out to do something active on the weekends. A couple of weeks ago, we decided the thing to do was go hiking around Minnehaha Falls. You get to see the falls, then you have an option to hike 5-ish miles up one side of the river and down the other. The trails are pretty easy, and there are six (I think) bridges to give you a chance to turn back and walk up a different trail.

It’s nice, it’s close, and it makes me want to pose Linda in sexy outfits on some of the nice stone bridges, just to take photos I can’t post on Facebook.

It’s a good time and definitely worth doing. If you drive past the main parking lot and don’t mind a short walk, there’s a small parking lot that’s usually pretty empty by the lock and dam.

I give it 3 out of 5 pants off.

Total Rating

3.5 Pants Off

French Regional Park

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Linda’s Take

Needed the kiddos to get out of the house and get some exercise, not to mention Jason and I could use some more too. We ended up having an extra kid with us, so we wanted to go somewhere close.

We decided to head to Clifton E. French Regional Park, there is plenty of parking and a great playground for the kids.

We told the kids that we were gonna skip the playground and get some good hiking in. The trails are well maintained and it was nice to walk on the grass instead of something paved. Not as much to look at but plenty of shade on the trails to help cool you down.

After a 2.5 mile hike we surprised the kids by letting them splash around in the lake. The beach was nice and clean and the picnic area looks fun.

I laid out on the beach and got to sun bath, my first time wearing a bikini in public. I think I surprised myself doing that! The kids loved splashing in the water, it was very shallow and great for them to cool off. Plus there was ice cream that you could buy, always a plus.

My review is 5 out of 5 pants off for a great family place to go!

Jason’s Take

Keeping with the idea of making the brats leave the house on the weekends, we went out French Regional Park last weekend. There are 10-ish miles of trails, plus a small, shallow swimming beach, and boat rentals. Linda and I have rented a kayak in the past, but we didn’t do that this time.

We hiked a couple of miles, then headed to the beach. The end of the swimming are is only chest high on the girls, so it was nice to sit down and read a book while they pretended to swim. Linda took the opportunity to get some sun. The trails are mostly undeveloped, but have solar-powered streetlights in places, so late hiking is also a possibility.

I give it 3 pants off.

Total Rating

4 Pants Off

Bubba Gump Shrimp – Mall of America

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Linda’s Take

Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. was nice at the Mall of America. I love the theme of the whole restaurant, but being a seafood restaurant I thought that there would be more variety of seafood entrees to choose from. Just about everything was deep fried.

However, I have to admit that everything tasted really well and was light and tasteful. I thought the prices for everything was a little bit on the pricey side, but you are paying for the theme I guess. I did order two of the special drinks and got take-home glasses which was why the drinks were expensive. I would go back to eat there sometime, overall I had a good time there and the staff was super friendly.

I give it 4 of 5 pants off.

Jason’s Take

There’s shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp,shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. – Bubba, Forrest Gump

That’s the quote from the movie that started the restaurant. The restaurant doesn’t live up to the name. In reality, there’s deep-fried shrimp…and a couple of other things.

Well, when in Rome, right? I didn’t get this slim & sleek physique by avoiding fried food.

We started out with the fried calamari, which was good. It’s easy to make calamari rubbery, and that didn’t happen, though it was a bit under-seasoned. Linda had the chipotle-crusted mahi mahi, which was good.

I had the seafood feast for my main course, and that totally didn’t suck. The seafood feast is fried fish, fried shrimp, fried hushpuppies, and french fries. The fish was super flaky and really good. The hushpuppies won’t make it back to my plate. They were boring to eat. I prefer my food to have its own flavor. If you’ve got to depend on a dipping sauce to make something taste good, you need to revisit your menu.

All in all, it was good, but not out-of-this-world good.

I give it 3 out of 5 pants off.

Total Rating: 3.5 Pants Off

The CSI Experience – Mall of America

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Linda’s Take

So this time I thought that we would try something that was only going to be around for a short time and noticed at MOA they had a CSI hands-on experience going on.

So Jason and I tried it.

I thought the price was ok for doing some science crime stuff, we went in and the tutorial at the beginning said to note everything from the crime seen down, so we both took a lot of notes. Then you go to process the evidence, you don’t process anything. Basically you read through everything and choose the best answer. Anyone with common sense can get the right answers.

In all it was fun, but I feel that the whole thing is geared around someone for the ages of 10 to 15. I wouldn’t spend the money to do it again, however if my 14 year old would like to go, I would bring him.

I give it a 3 out of 5 pants off.

Jason’s Take

Linda’s too generous. It doesn’t require common sense to get the right answers. If you can read the plaques on the wall in the “lab”, you can get it right.

I was hopeful. It was such a fun concept, but it was geared to 8 year olds who want to pretend they are in Mommy’s favorite show, not adults. There’s no puzzle to solve. One of the “labs” involved pushing eight different buttons until you found the one that didn’t turn on a white light. Ooh, orange! I win!

Sad, but I’d take our kids to it and they’d have fun.

2 pants off

Total Rating

2.5 Pants Off

Ichiban Asian Buffet

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Jason’s Take

The normal cycle for a Chinese restaurant runs something like this:

Restaurant opens.
The owners want to build a clientele, so they rock the food. Everything is awesome and the service is great.
The owners realize how slim the margins are when you run a restaurant, so they cut back on the food quality. Egg rolls are bought frozen, and taste suffers.
People quit coming.
Store closes, unless they are primarily a money-laundering operation.

Grand City Buffet in St. Louis Park ran through this cycle in about 6 years. Their replacement, Ichiban Asian Buffet, has skipped step two completely. They did a great remodel and the place looks wonderful. I walked in and saw the giant sushi bar with dedicated sushi chefs and was ready to be wowwed.

Unfortunately, the food doesn’t live up to the classy decor.

The Thai Chicken was good…until I found a feather.

The egg rolls were really good, which is pretty rare at a buffet, and one of my benchmark tests for new Chinese restaurants in general.

The sushi spread was impressive, but it all tasted the same.

I did find out today that cold squid rings are not worth eating, at least not when they are meant to be served warm. Really, the first thing a buffet restaurant needs to do is make sure the steam tables keep the food at a safe temperature.

All in all, I can’t give it a zero, because the atmosphere is nice and classy. The food was mostly bland or cold, though a few pieces were good.

Jason’s Rating: 1 out of 5, just for the quality remodel. I hope the next owners do something about the food.

Linda’s Take

Today we decided to go on a lunch date and bring our girls with us. I suggested we try a new Chinese buffet that opened about a month ago, thinking that there should be great new food there.

Boy was I wrong!

The place looks wonderful–great atmosphere–but 95% of the food was cold and not very flavorful. Everything looked pleasing to the eye, but not to the taste buds.

However, if you are looking for place to get a cheap lunch for the kids, it will do the trick. They do have a few good looking deserts and all of the fruit looked really fresh.

But I will not be going back to this place, even to take the kids if they are hungry. I would rather wait to get home.

Linda’s Rating: I give this place a 1 out of 5 pants off.
Total Rating

Applebee’s St. Louis Park

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Linda’s Take

After the Big Thrill Factory, we went to Applebee’s in St. Louis Park at the Knollwood location. The restaurant was just redone and is very clean and pleasing to the eye.

I love that drinks are cheap AND good and our friends like to get together there on a regular basis. Service from the waitresses doesn’t always seem to be the most speedy, but it could have been the late hour we were there.

However, we love Dan the bartender man! He always makes sure our drinks were full.

Once our food was ordered it didn’t take long for us to wait for it. We only got some appetizers, everything tasted yummy! However everything didn’t agree with my tummy so well the next day. So, to sum it up, if you eat a lot of quick food, everything is yummy in the tummy; if you don’t, I recommend ordering off the Weight Watchers listed on the menu.

Linda’s Rating: 1 out of 5 pants off

Jason’s Take

We were hungry, it was late, and we had friends at Applebee’s already, so there we went. The booze isn’t watered and Dan makes a great bartender. Our friends were there celebrating a birthday and they offered up plates for the cake.

We got no service from the waitress, but we walked in and were hanging out by the bar with our friends, so it wasn’t a surprise. Dan took care of us all night.

I dig the food. After 9, a good selection of appetizers is half-priced. The wonton tacos are freaking awesome.

Jason’s Rating: 2 out of 5 pants off

Total Rating: 1.5 pants off

Big Thrill Factory

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Linda’s Take

So I had a date night with my hubby and I was looking for something for to do that could make us feel young and fun that we hadn’t done together, yet. I was doing some research on the internet of things to do with your kids to not have them bored out of there minds and came across the Big Thrill Factory at 17585 Minnesota 7, Minnetonka, MN 55345, (952) 698-7700.

Each night they have a special deal going on and the thing that looked the best for our date night was laser tag. I kept it a total surprise from him and later when we got there I found out that his work was planning to do the same thing at their next function. How awesome,! Now he could try it with me first!

Prices are reasonable and other than the fact that we were adults and there were a bunch of preteens running around having fun, we had a great time. Mini golf was fun and the course was interesting
but simple for all ages.The laser tag was fun and the staff tries to even out the teams and keep things fair for all. There are 2 levels and plenty of places to be sneaky.

Linda’s Rating: 3 out of 5 pants off

Jason’s Take

All I knew was that date night was going to be a surprise. I wasn’t too worried, because I knew that she had invited a couple of friends, so it wasn’t going to be anything shocking. No swing clubs or skydiving.

The place is mostly geared to kids. They have a small-ish arcade, a 10-lane bowling alley, mini-golf, some jungle-gym thing that would hurt my knees, and a giant trampoline. They also have a zombie puzzle that give you an hour to solve the puzzle or die. I’m assuming it’s a metaphorical death, but if not, that’s motivation. Next to that is the rope course, bumper cars, and the highlight of our evening, laser tag.

We played a couple of rounds of tag. You get a funky light-up vest with a gun attached. One team goes in first, followed by the other team in about a minute. You get points for shooting your opponents, shooting accurately, and shooting these little targets up on the wall.

If you’re going for date night, I strongly recommend going late. Unfortunately, they are only open until 11. If you go early, you stand a good chance of playing laser tag with a bunch of 10 year old s***s who will follow you around constantly shooting you, so the second your vest reactivates, you’re dead. If they aren’t there, the game is a blast.

They also serve beer.

Jason’s Rating: 3 out of 5 pants off

Total Rating: 3 out of 5 pants off