Ciao Bella

Jason’s Take

This week, it was my turn to pick a restaurant for date night. Don’t tell Linda, but I only made our reservations to Ciao Bella about 20 minutes before we left for our dance lesson. Love Yelp and OpenTable for finding a restaurant and making reservations.

Love. It.

So Ciao Bella is a nice Italian restaurant that happens to have some sushi options, which is weird. But, being an Italian joint, you’ll find lots of the expected pizza, pasta, and seafood.

As you walk in, you definitely notice the smell of fish, but that fades as soon as you get past the bar area. Once into the restaurant proper, it starts smelling good. They’ve got an open–and sprawling–floor plan, so the place is noisy. It’s not great for quiet, intimate conversations.

The drinks were reasonably priced, but not cheap. My cocktails ran $7.75 each, while Linda’s wine cost $10 per glass.

The food was good. The unlimited stream of bread that’s the staple of Italian restaurants everywhere in the Midwest was excellent.

We followed that up with seared wasabi scallops. Totally reccomend. I could have left happy after filling up on scallops and bread.

For our main course, I had the seafood linguini, which was done very well. Good food. Linda had the halibut special. Her fish was kind of dry, but was an otherwise excellent dish.

Dessert was the budino, which is a molten chocolate cake with vanilla gelato. It’s good, but very rich. We didn’t finish it.

All in all, a good place to get a bite, especially if you want to impress a date without worrying about making up deep conversation.

I give it 4 out of 5 pants off.

Linda’s Take

I had no idea where we were going to go to dinner this evening. I asked Jason to surprise me and pick a place, while I tried to look very nice for him. We walked into Ciao Bella, it looked really fancy. I was pleased with Jason’s choice.

I tried a wine that I liked (Moscato). I’m not a wine drinker at all, but thought what the hell. Not bad but a little pricey at $10.00 a glass. But then again, I don’t know what a good price is for wine.

We ordered some wasabi scallops, they were oh-so-good.

Jason ordered a sea food pasta, and I tried halibut for the first time. Kind of a dry dish, but I guess it’s supposed to be. Still tasted great.

This was a really nice place, the staff is really kind, and they always fill your water glass prompt and give you really good fresh bread.

I give it 4 out of 5 pants off

Total Score: 4 out of 5 pants off!

Pittsburgh Blue

By Jason Leave a Comment

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

Cooper Irish Pub

By Jason Leave a Comment

Jason’s Take

On date night last week, we were going to go to the Yardhouse, but found out you really should get a reservation if you’re going there on a Friday night. So we went to Cooper Irish Pub instead.

Cooper’s is a slight upscale Irish bar. They serve a variety of beer, and the food’s always good. We walked in right as a lull hit, because we got seated immediately, but they were crowded 15 minutes later. Yay, us!

They make a perfect Old Fashioned, if you want to pretend to be a Mad Men hipster. I did, so they did. It was good.

We started out with Reuben Rolls, which are reuben guts wrapped in a spring roll and deep fried. I’ve only recently been able to bring myself to eat sauerkraut, and then only at good restaurants. This certainly wasn’t a restaurant that made me regret eating kraut.

We followed the rolls with a chicken and hummus wrap with mashed potatoes for me and a vegetarian wild rice burger for Linda. Both were good. Cooper’s knocks the mashed potatoes and gravy out of the park. I like ordering simple things at new restaurants because it’s hard for the chef to hide behind the fancy crap. It’s a good way to judge the overall quality of a place. Cooper’s delivers.

For dessert, we had their three-dessert sampler thingy. I don’t remember what they call it. We got the deconstructed cheesecake(yum), the bread pudding(yum), and the salted caramel ice cream. Oh my golly gee, this was good ice cream. One bite, and I was ready to smoke a cigarette and roll over to fall asleep. I’ve had sex worse than this ice cream. Damn.

5 out of 5 pants off, for sure. Cooper’s is worth visiting.

Linda’s Take

So this evening we were going to try out the Yardhouse, but with over an hour wait we thought there are plenty of other restaurants over at the West End Shops we can try. The closest was Cooper’s. They got us in right away; the place was busy but not over busy.

They had a good selection of beers on tap, and the menu was pleasing. I loved the look of the place, tons to look at.

We tried an appetizer that had I really liked, Ruben egg-roles I would get those again in a heartbeat. I ordered a veggie burger, and it really tasted good however it fell a part too easy, my sweet potato fries were some of the best I have ever eaten, plus the choices of dipping sauces that I got with it made them 10 times yummier!

The best part of the meal was the desserts, we had a 3 treat trio, and by far for both of us we loved the salted caramel ice cream, however I found out the hard way that ice cream and a few beers don’t sit to well in my tummy. Needless to say that cut or evening a little shorter that what we wanted. So never again will I have the 2 together! Sorry for crashing our date honey, but you are awesome company!

4 out of 5 pants off

Total Score

4.5 Pants Off!

Bonefish Grill

By Jason Leave a Comment

Linda’s Take

Bonefish Grill just opened up in the West End and, judging by the website, the menu looked awesome!

I really wanted to go here. Jason said it looked like a great place to try, so we made reservations one night after our dancing lesson.

I really liked how the inside of the restaurant looked. The staff was really nice and was helpful at suggesting things to try.

I absolutely loved the appetizer that we tried, Bang Bang Shrimp; it’s breaded shrimp with a yummy sauce over a bed of shredded lettuce.

I ordered a filet of trout and they cooked the fish really well. I also ordered some corn chowder soup and that was really yummy.

This place isn’t the best for signature drinks, but if you want a really good place to have seafood, go here. Oh, I almost forgot to say the bread was die for!

I would go back there to just eat the bread, the shrimp appetizer, and the corn chowder soup.

By the way, they forgot to bring out my soup with my meal, so they decided not to even charge us for it. I thought that was a really nice touch.

I will say that this place is on the fancy side, so if you want to impress someone without breaking your budget, this is the place to go.

I give this place 5 out of 5 pants off

Jason’s Take

Linda and I spend a lot of time in the West End development in St. Louis Park, so we were excited to see a new restaurant opening up there.

Bonefish Grill looks a bit on the fancy side, but doesn’t get all the way over into pretentious, which is nice. All told, we spent $93, which included four drinks.

We started out with the Bang Bang Shrimp on the waitress’s suggestion, and it was oh-my-god good.

I followed that up with the Ahi Tuna Steak, with mango salsa, which was good. I really like mangoes.

The bread was phenomenal. I’d go there just to eat Bang Bang Shrimp and bread.

I give it 5 out of 5 pants off.