Book Club Restaurant
Multi-course dining is back for either takeout or dine-in!
Yes, we get to have Winter Restaurant Week to knock some sense into February! And can I give some love to the orgs who have underwritten RW for our local restaurants: Props to Cargill, Open Table, Society Insurance, Dining Out For Life, and the MN Pork Board.
And this year, play BIZ-INGO with your takeout meals!
Though we are still calling it the #TakeOut2LiftUp edition, you have options. Some restaurants have chosen to offer inside dining, some have opted to do both dine-in and takeout, while some are sticking strictly to takeout. Make sure you check the bottom of the menus listed on the site, it will let you know how to roll. If you're planning on dining in, reservations would be a great thing.
We have so many deals to fit your budget, since when have you been able to snap up a three course dinner for $20? Oh yeah, last Restaurant Week! The Winter edition is usually pretty cozy, so here are the picks that I'm highlighting and saving screen shots of.
NEWBIES:
The Block is one hot neighborhood joint for its corner of St. Louis Park. If on that $25 dinner, I get the Buffalo cauliflower first, I would use it as my healthy balance to get the broasted chicken with mashed potatoes, which finishes nicely with a chocolate shake. Feel free to borrow this logic.
Stretch your legs and take a trip to Farmington for the Bourbon Butcher's sweet deal. If you go for the $15 lunch you can access that pimento cheese stuffed burger, but if you want to hit up the $35 dinner there are hush puppies, fried chicken, and chocolate chess pie waiting for you. And not to mention a bourbon selection that will pop your eyeballs.
Edina Grill and Highland Grill are on board this year, with other siblings from the Blue Plate group. I'm sort of smitten with the steak cobb salad on the $30 dinner. Because I can start with comforting wild rice soup, get my protein/salad on, and then still do that molten brownie for dessert.
Welcome Fhima's to the RW fam! If you're needing a bit of glam after being cooped up for so long, opt in for the $35 dinner that starts with shakshuka, leads to chicken tagine, and ends with baklava in a soaring and gorgeous Minneapolis art deco space.
Mason Jar down in Eagan is offering you a night out with their $25 dinner. But you'll have to choose between tenderloin rigatoni with wild mushrooms, salmon with lobster risotto, and chicken saltimbocca with sage and prosciutto.
Why not SLP's Park Tavern? You can score a $30 dinner, tuck into that short rib entree with garlic cauliflower and beet mash, before maybe tucking into a few frames of bowling?
BEST OF THE REST
If you can't go on Spring Break, you can always go to Baja Haus. The beach party vibes are real in Wayzata, so is the Baja tuna poke and the grilled tuna steak with coconut-lime yuca and salsa fresca on the $35 dinner menu. Hang out or take it to go.
If you are sick of plumbing your fridge for lunch options, you should treat yourself to a trip to Roseville for Baldamar. On the lunch menu, you could choose tomato soup, a flat iron steak with mashed potatoes, and a nip of chocolate flan all made for you for $20. Three course lunch is back!
Or, do that three course $20 lunch atUptown's Barbette. Especially because this is the only place you'll get truffled soft scrambled eggs for lunch, if you can pass up the gruyere-laden Royal with Cheese that is.
Nostalgia may have you in its grips if you go to Birch's on the Lake for the $35 dinner. Supper club wedge salad to start, surf 'n' turf with filet and walleye, then chocolate brownie cheesecake to seal the deal with a view over bucolic Long Lake. You can wear your fancy vintage Mary-Janes.
Broders Pasta Bar might be the play if you have lots of opinions in your house. From 50th & Penn, takeout their $25 three course dinner and you have no less than nine amazing entrees to choose from. You get cacio e pepe, your mom gets carbonara, and the partner gets Bolognese, but someone HAS to get the fettucine alfredo. Because.
It feels like Longfellow's Bungalow Club knows you like to customize. You can either takeout or dine-in for this $35 dinner. And you can choose from three options on each course (I'm mushroom/lentil soup, spiced trout, olive oil cake). And you can choose to make it four courses with a pasta add on for just $10 more. And if you just need a plate with many choices for a custom bite, upgrade with the smorgasbord too.
Copper Hen is hitting me with all the warm and cozy vibes on the $35 dinner on Eat Street. Thinking about the creamy tomato soup to start, but how do you deny a big, warm pretzel with beer cheese sauce? Then I have to battle between baked mac 'n' cheese or that killer butter-crusted chicken pot pie. Though, I am for sure a Champagne cupcake girl. Might have to hit this place twice?
If you're working from home in the Minnetonka area, I'm not sure why you wouldn't get the takeout or dine-in lunch from Jimmy's Kitchen & Bar. For $15 you get a three course meal that includes a salad to start, then any sandwich or burger on the lunch menu, plus a big ol' hunk of bread pudding or fruit cobbler if you want.
The Lexington is a space in St. Paul that I would go and sit inside for, but they'll do your fancy $35 dinner as takeout too. I can't stop thinking about the bacon chowder. I would definitely choose the steak Diane, and would likely upgrade with scallops because I am making neither of those things at home. And then: nobody carrot cakes like The Lex.
Monello had me at carta di musica. The downtown Minneapolis spot has the cracker-like flatbread with roasted squash as the first course in their $35 dinner. And I would choose that torchio with the braised rabbit for entree, because we don't have enough rabbit dishes in this town! There's also a nice vegetarian pasta option. Finish with the chocolate banana crepe cake and you'll forget that you ate microwave popcorn for dinner twice last week out of sheer boredom.
If you play your cards right with LynLake's moto-i lunch menu, you can get braised pork belly and chapa pork ramen for $20.
At Nico's Tacos in Uptown, and the Nico's on Como, you can dip in (literally) to the birria craze that is sweeping the nation. On either the $15 lunch or $25 dinner menus, you can choose as entree the lamb birria served quesataco style, which is like a quesadilla and taco mashup with a lot of great cheese, alongside the birria broth for the dipping.
PLate in Prior Lake is an old pro at Restaurant Week, so you know they are taking your portions and options seriously. You can go strip or filet for the steaks (and you're assured mashed potatoes, squash, or Brussels), you can choose half a rack of ribs (with fries) or salmon (with risotto) and you know you'll be well-fed for your $35 dinner. And if you need need need that 22oz. rib eye that's been aged 50 days, it's just a $15 upgrade.
Feels like maybe beef stroganoff is a mid-winter thing? You can get a goodly plate full at Pub 819 in Hopkins on the $35 dinner. You can also do brisket grilled cheese, or a vegan BBQ sweet potato sandwich if your comfort comes without meat.
There are a few cheeseburgers on these menus, but none really like the Lowertown champion at Saint Dinette. For their $25 dinner offering (runs Th-Su) you get the krinkle kut fries, the elite double cheeseburger, and a root beer float to takeout (and eat in your car if you're being honest).
