Yoga With Cher

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

By Jason Leave a Comment

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

The Loop, St. Louis Park

By Jason Leave a Comment

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

Granite City

By Jason Leave a Comment

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