Ichiban Asian Buffet

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

Masu Sushi – Mall of America

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Linda’s Take

The service at this sushi place in the Mall of America is really nice. The atmosphere of the restaurant is pleasing to the eye. I ordered a soup that I have never tried before and I loved it! The sushi we order took a little long to get, but it was soooo worth it. So pleasing to the eye and artful. Also it tasted wonderful and I would love to go back and try something else from their menu. Prices are very fair and I highly recommend go here!

I give it 5 out of 5 pants off! (Jason’s note: It really did knock her pants off!)

Jason’s Take

Ever since I convinced Linda that sushi wasn’t just misplaced bait, we’ve been trying a bunch of different places. Yum.

On this particular date night, our dancing lesson was cancelled, but we were already by the Monster Mall, so into the lion’s den we went. A quick spin through the girly-cowboy-jeans store and then we got dinner.

Masu Sushi is literally a hole-in-the-wall in the third floor food court, but they make some good sushi. I can honestly say it was the first time I’d had raw quail eggs, but I’d eat them again. The rolls were good, and reasonably priced. The saki wasn’t for me. If–like us–you’d never had saki, here’s what you need to know: if you don’t like wine, you won’t like saki.

4 out of 5 pants off

Total Review

4.5 Pants Off

Wildfire

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Linda’s Take

On this date night we decided that we would branch out into Eden Prairie and thought that Wildfire sounded like a good place. It has a great location–being right at Eden Prairie Center Mall–and the reviews said it had a 1940s type atmosphere.

Well, great location, yes…1940s atmosphere, no. Other than pictures on the wall of actors and actresses from the 40s, there is nothing 1940s about it. Looks a lot like Doolittles, however, it’s very warm and inviting.

The food I thought was very good for the price and I like that they serve sides family style, it makes sharing dinner with your love more cuddly. Yes, I’m being mushy.

Specialty drinks are good and about the same price as any restaurant, just remember that they add to your bill in a hurry, but if you’re that gone, who cares!

I would go back to this place again for a dinner for two, you can bring a large family, but I wouldn’t if you are trying to stay on a budget. So in a nutshell, classier atmosphere than Doolittles or a Red Lobster, but about the same price.

I give it 4 out of 5 pants off

Jason’s Take

I was looking for a restaurant in Eden Prairie since we were in the area and I found this place. The reviews were good and the description was intriguing, so we gave it a shot.

For the most part, it was good. The crab cakes were great. The only complaint I had was the salmon. That was rubbery. I’d go back, just for the goat cheese and marinara appetizer.

3 pants off

Total Score: 3.5 out of 5 pants off

Duluth Grill

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Linda’s Take

Duluth Grill, so nice we went there twice!

This place was great to take a family too, or just a great place for two, or even a large group. We stopped in for late lunch / early dinner. There is so much verity on this menu that our entire family found someone each of us would like. Everything is super fresh, they also pick all of their herbs from a garden in the parking lot.

I love the look of this place, they have a little bit of everything from around Duluth. Plus local arts from students that they put up. Portions are hearty at this dinner and prices are fair. The staff is super smiley and treat you well!

We enjoyed this place so much and also liked a lot of the menu items for breakfast, we came back on our way out of town to fill up the family before heading on the two hour ride home. Hey, maybe if the kids are stuffed, they will pass out and sleep most of the way!

Love this place, next time we come up to Duluth, we are bringing the family here again!

I give it 5 out of 5 pants off!

Jason’s Take

This was another stop on the Triple D tour. It was better than I expected. Between our two trips, we had pancakes, burgers, eggs benedict, omelettes, caramel rolls, and locally bottled soda. It was all good.

I’m not generally a fan of bleu cheese, but the bacon-bleu cheese cole saw was fricking awesome. The portions are good. The price is a bit high, but still really damn reasonable. Totally worth the money. I’ll be going again.

I give it 5 out of 5 pants off.

Total Score: 5 out of 5 pants off.

Gannucci’s Italian Market, Duluth, MN

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Linda’s Take

So we took the family up to Duluth, MN for our summer vacation this year. We thought some of the best things to do was to try some food places that were on the Triple D show. Of course I’m talking about Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

Gannucci’s Italian Market

So Jason tried to plan out each day one of the restaurants that we would try out. Some of the restaurants were better for breakfast, and some of them we found out going to be better lunch or dinner.
Jason did a wonderful job of planning out these places I was super psyched about all of it.

So this Italian restaurant we went to I wasn’t sure if the kids were going to like it. You know most of the time kids just want spaghetti or pizza but they heard there was ravioli on the menu and they were stoked. I try to stay away from most Italian food because I want to watch the calories however Jason said that we needed to share a plate of lasagna and my gosh there are honking huge pieces of this stuff.

We also decided to get some sort of sandwich and a split that in half so we had lunch in an Italian restaurant that was cool in decorative in an old building and we shared our lunch and I felt like if we would have gotten spaghetti it would have been Lady and the Tramp all over again.

Both of our girls decided on the ravioli and they told me that I must learn how to make this and become better at cooking ravioli I felt very ashamed.

Our son got a yummy meatball type sandwich that he absolutely loved and if there’s any place in the world he can get a meatball sandwich that’s what he will order. Doesn’t matter if it’s Subway, or the most fanciest Italian restaurant, or your deli sandwich place down the road, I think I’m going to start calling him meatball head.

Not only is this place a restaurant that serves very good Italian food in huge helpings but they sell a lot of their meats and cheeses in a deli format, I think my husband wanted to take a big sausage back to the hotel room.

Prices for this place are pretty average good wholesome Italian food for the price of 8 to $10 per plate not too bad for feeding a family of 5.

I give this place 4 out of 5 pants off

Jason’s Take

On our family vacation this summer, we decided to do the Triple-D tour of Duluth, MN. For the tour, we hit as many restaurants from Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives as we could. We did a pretty good job of it. We only missed one restaurant within 20 miles, and that was in another state. We were planning to go there, but ran out of time.

Our first stop on the tour was Gannucci’s Italian Market. This place totally qualifies as a dive. There mismatched furniture, a one-person bathroom that doesn’t lock, and 30 year old paint on some of the walls. When you first walk in, it looks like a tiny deli counter with a couple of tables. Then they walk you around the corner and you find out there’s an actual restaurant hidden through the doorway. The service was kind of slow, too.

Forget the decor. Forget the service. The food is the star of the show. The girls got the ravioli and loved it. I had the lasagna, and it was better than my mommy used to make. (sorry Ma!) I don’t remember what Linda or the boy had, but they both enjoyed it. (Editor’s Note: I don’t read Linda’s reviews before I write mine. I did share a sandwich with her, but I don’t remember anything about it. Take that for what it’s worth.)

Totally worth going. Four pants off.

Total score: 4 out of 5 pants off

Chevy’s Fresh Mex

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Linda’s Take

Coming back from our dance lesson I had asked Jason if there was a place near us that serves sushi, he said 2 places in the Mall of America do. My feet were aching so I didn’t really want to walk around the mall. But Jason was strongly hinting we should go so I made my way to the off ramp to go to the Monster Mall.

As I made my way to the East parking ramp, we noticed that there was a little Mexican restaurant off to the right hand side. We had seen Chevy’s Fresh Mex before and I had remembered that we had wanted to try it sometime.

Jason said, how does Mexican sound instead? Sounded great to me. It looked as if it was a good time to go as well. Busy but not solid packed.

We got to sit outside, the waitress we had was really nice. I wanted to try a signature drink and I told her what I kinda liked. She suggested prickly pear kinda pink drink. I loved it! I feel stupid that I can’t remember the name of the dam thing. Maybe I good idea, they cost $14.00 a piece.

I had a question about a menu item, there was a habanero sauce on a enchilada dish that looked appetizing. I’m really liking more and more spicy things to eat lately but I don’t want to burn my tongue off. Jason says it’s my best asset. So our waitress brought out some for me to taste, flavorful and not hot at all, just a little kick.

You get chips and salsa to nibble on but our waitress kept forgetting to bring ours out. She also forgot our water that we asked for during our meals. Pretty girl, but a little forgetful.

When we ordered our meals, they came out with in 8 minutes or so. It seemed really fast, which was nice, and everything on my plate tasted pretty good. I really liked this little yellow corn/rice ball that was on our plates. I have no idea what it was.

For the most part I liked the place, however one of the downsides is that it’s near the airport on the South side of the Moster Mall. So if you sit outside it’s kinda hard to hear people with the planes taking off. But they do karaoke on some nights, however we didn’t stay for that. I’m sure I would have just been hurting everyone’s ears if I were singing. I’m pretty sure Jason was happy that I didn’t want to do karaoke.

This place gets a 3 out of 5 pants off from me.

Jason’s Take

We were on our way home from dance lessons. Date night was canceled because the boy was sick, but we were hungry, dammit. Five minutes north of the dance studio is the Monster Mall, so we thought we’d go there for sushi. Mall sushi is known around the world as the best sushi, after all. Ancient samurai warriors used to head down to the local strip mall after beheading upstart peasants to get the best California rolls known to man.

It’s true, look it up.

As we pulled down the south side of the mall, I saw Chevy’s and immediately decided that tacos sounded better than eel. Ever since the 6th century BC when the Japanese allied with the Visigoths and sailed birch-bark canoes across the Baltic Sea to introduce the tortilla to Mexico, Mexico has made better tacos.

Seriously, when’s the last time you had a good taco at a Japanese restaurant?

Linda didn’t argue, because I only allow her to have opinions that she’s decided I’m allowed to provide for her. She gives me a list of pre-approved opinions every morning. It’s easier that way.

It was about 7:30 on a Friday and they weren’t packed. That’s never a good sign, but they are across the street from a giant freaking mutation of a mall and it meant we got seated right away, so what the heck, right?

Like every Americanized Mexican restaurant since the Aztecs conquered Russia and simultaneously invented almost-ethnic food, they served chips for everyone. The chips clearly didn’t come out of a bag. They came out warm with a glisten of oil clinging to them like butter on a biker magazine cover model. None of the appetizers sounded as good as the picture in my head of a butter-covered model, so we stuck to the chips, which were good.

We ordered drinks. I got a beer, and Linda ordered a prickly pear margarita. I got my beer, but she was delivered an ice cream pail of pink, prickly-pear-and-tequila-flavored deliciousness. If it would have been just a little bit warmer, I think I would have climbed in and had a little swim. It was worth the $14 price tag. 43 shots of tequila, three gallons of pink, and enough pear-flavored something to make it nummy. I’d recommend it.

The food was good too. I got the Mesquite Grilled tacos, one chicken and one steak. They were good, but I’d bet the chicken was cooked by a prep cook at 10AM instead of fresh to order. Still, it was a good mix of ingredients, not a chunk of chicken hiding in three pounds of lettuce. The beans were boring. The little ball of yellow corn thing-that-I-don’t-know-the-name of was incredible. Almost corn bread pudding, almost corn-flavored candy. I probably should have saved it for dessert.

We were too full to actually have dessert, and none of the options were screaming “take me, take me, oh god, take me” so I left them.

I give it 4 out of 5 pants off.

Total Score

3.5 out of 5 Pants Off

Yoga With Cher

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Linda’s Take

Jason had a new idea to have us try a yoga class. I thought this was kinda odd coming from my man. But even know I was shocked at his suggestion, I told him that I know of someone who teaches yoga classes and I would contact her to get more information.

Turns out she is someone who graduated from my school, same class year. And her daughter and our youngest girl were in the same class last school year.

So she offers a beginner yoga class on Sundays starting at 12:30pm for only $12.00 dollars, and also she offers a kids yoga class starting at noon for only $8.00 dollars per child.

I thought wow, something new for the whole family to try. However our teenage son didn’t want to go. No matter how much we tried, yoga isn’t as cool as computer games. She teaches her classes at The Iron Gym in St Louis Park. They have pretty much a full working gym, but none of the high power technology machines. However it’s quiet and that makes it perfect for yoga, because as I found out it’s about a lot of breathing.

I never thought that holding positions and stretches while breathing would make you so sweaty. It’s a workout!

I think we are going to go again, also our girls liked it as well and want to come again too. And we found out that our neighbor would like to check it out!

This is an idea for the whole family to do.
I give it 4 out of 5 pants off!

Jason’s Take

I recently read The First 20 Hours. It’s a book about learning the basics of any skill in…wait for it…20 hours. One of the skills the author documented was yoga. Before reading the book, I’d never given yoga any thought. I’d always mentally dropped into the “chick stuff” category and forgotten about it.

I read the book, and decided to give yoga a shot. I mentioned it to Linda and she said she had a friend who taught. A dozen Facebook messages later, we were signed up and ready to go.

The class is at a gym in a warehouse space on the border of St. Louis Park and Hopkins. It was hot yoga that day, but only because it was almost 100 degrees outside and we were in a warehouse space.

We brought the girls for the kids yoga class immediately before the adult class. They liked in, but our youngest thought it was too hot and the wait for the adult class was too long. I told her to bring a book next time.

Thing I didn’t realize about yoga: It’s a workout. I always pictured it as the thing soccer mommies did instead of something. I was wrong. It’s a solid workout that includes strength and flexibility training. Who doesn’t want to be more flexible? Sex swings are always more fun with high-end acrobatics, right?

Totally worth doing. I give it 4 out of 5 pants off.

Total Score

4 out of 5 Pants Off

Best of India

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Linda’s Take

Well both thought it would be a good idea to expose our kids to different types of ethic foods. The first place that came to my mind was a little hole-in-the-wall place in a strip mall near by called Best of India. I like the idea of the buffet for the kids. That way they can look at the food to see what they want to try, then go back and try something else.

The lunch buffet wasn’t very expensive.

This is a small place. The staff was really nice and asked us a few times if the kids were having fun and liked items they were serving.

Just about everything that I tried was really good. I can’t complain about any of the food to much. Some of it was a little dry, but for the most part the manager made sure everything was fresh on the buffet.

However, the only thing that kinda turned me off to this place is that the buffer was located in the far back kinda in the kitchen/cleaning area,but understand that this is a small place. Also the buffet is very small; not a lot of items to choose from. However, the manager noticed that Jason got a couple of helpings of mango pudding and he said that he made it himself. I have to admit, the mango pudding was very tasty.

Overall I give this place only 2 out of 5 pants off.

I just wasn’t really impressed.

Jason’s Take

I dig Indian food. That probably comes from spending six years working for an Indian immigrant who liked to throw parties at his house and serve Indian food.

I also like forcing my kids to try new food.

That combination led us to Best of India in the TexaTonka neighborhood of St. Louis Park.

The place is small; it probably seats 25 people. With so little room, they set up the buffet in the kitchen, which is weird. And the buffet is small, though the food was good. The naan was great. The mango pudding was wonderful.

Side note: I love mango pudding, and the formerly-best-place-to-get-it started making it out of a box or something nasty, so I hadn’t had any in a while.

The food was good, and cheap. I like that combination. One of my kids was a brat and only ate naan, which was irritating.

No dancing girls, which was expected.

I give it 3 out of 5 pants off.

Total Score

2.5 out of 5 Pants Off