Restaurant Review Restaurant Week Summer 2012 Edition: FireLake Grill

Every time that restaurant week comes around, Tara and I spend hours researching and debating which restaurants we want to visit. This summer, we had narrowed our lunch restaurant down to a few finalists, and the winner was Fire Lake Grill. While Fire Lake isn't one of the celebrated restaurants in the Twin Cities, it had some great choices on the restaurant week menu.

We visited Fire Lake on a weekday. I got off of work, and we walked over to the Radisson hotel. The host showed us to our table where we were seated in generously-cushioned chairs. When our waitress came, we had to specially request restaurant week menus, but she was happy to provide them.

Restaurant week menu

After a few minutes of pretending to debate what we wanted (we had of course already studied the menu in detail), our waitress returned to take our orders. I ordered a roasted chicken and white bean soup; spinach, mache, and strawberry salad; and half of a 12-hour beef brisket sandwich. Tara decided to go with a smoked tomato soup, watermelon salad, and half of an eggplant and "bacon" grilled cheese.

Tara's salad was light and refreshing. the mint leaves and cold watermelon went really well together. Her tomato soup was creamy, and reminded us of various tomato basil soups that we have both ordered and cooked ourselves over the years.

Tara's lunch

Her main course, the grilled cheese, seemed like the appropriate selection to order with tomato soup. The cheese (tilsit) was one that we were not familiar with. It reminded us a little bit of provolone, and went very well with the meaty slices of eggplant and tomato that accompanied it on the sandwich.

As for my salad and soup. I've never had a spinach and fruit salad that I didn't like, and this salad was no different. Very tasty. The soup was also good, but I thought that it could have been better. It had more broth than I expected, and although there was plenty of chicken, I found myself searching for some beans.

My lunch

My beef brisket sandwich was also very good. Chunks of beef and mushroom were served on what looked like a hot dog bun. The flavor was great, but I did feel like I was missing a cup of au jus to dip it in.

We both ordered the only dessert option, the campfire s'more. The s'more was served on a soft, homemade graham cracker. The rest of the dessert was typical campfire fare: a marshmallow and a square of Hershey's chocolate. To be honest, the texture reminded me of an oatmeal cream pie, and the flavor was closer to a s'more. It's not a good thing when I the closest things that I can compare a restaurant dessert to are a Little Debbie snack and a recipe that I had mastered when I was five. Underwhelming.

Tiny s'more

Hersey's chocolate, seriously?

Despite the disappointing dessert, we enjoyed our visit to Fire Lake. It's not near the top of my list of favorite restaurants, but I would not be opposed to dining there again.

7.9.12