Restaurant Review: Annie's Parlour

Doesn't he look post-vacation fresh?

Ah, it's good to be back.... To reviewing restaurants in the Twin Cities area that is. Not that there was anything unpleasant about the Grand Marais restaurant reviews, but this blog is our way to keep trace of places we have tried, what we've liked, what we didn't like, and everything else of that sort. And I just feel like we hardly ever go to Grand Marais (or on vacation period), so the chances of us forgetting what we enjoyed decreases significantly.

Anywho, one night after dinner I was hit hard with a craving for ice cream. When I get a craving for something so specific I MUST get it otherwise I will get cranky (I imagine this is what pregnancy cravings are like, or so says my cousin Heather). Lucky for me, Mark is ALWAYS down when I want a treat so the crankiness never develops.

Gosh he's a trooper, isn't he? Me making him go get ice cream with me... I can't imagine how much he must have suffered ;)

After some researching on the interwebz, we discovered this place called Annie's Parlour in Dinkytown that was known to make some tasty malts. Even though there were places for ice cream closer, we figured what the heck? We hadn't been to Dinkytown since college so we gave it a go.

We parked a few blocks away, which turned out to be awesome because we found where Al's Breakfast was located. It's one of the restaurants on our bucket list, so it was nice to see its existence in person as opposed to just reading about it.

Restaurant Review: Vincent A Restaurant

Vincent Burger

Back during the winter session of Restaurant Week in Minneapolis Mark and I picked out a French place on Nicollet Mall called Vincent A Restaurant. I have always been drawn to all things French because I took four years of French in high school, and we liked that it was close enough to Mark's building that the walk over wouldn't be too bad. Long story short, we loved it and vowed to be back. We stayed true to that vow and on a gorgeous day in May (5.15.12) we had a lunch date. Luckily we had a seasonally warm winter here and by May the patio was open and we were able to eat outside.

Once we were seated our waiter came over and gave us a basket with a loaf of bread. Unlike the bread at Buca, the bread here is delicious, and we instantly scarfed it down. We also recognized that this was the same waiter we had on our first visit. We were thrilled about this because he was part of the reason we enjoyed our last trip so much.

Restaurant Review: Sebastian Joe's

***Updated Below***

 As I mentioned before in my oatmeal pancake recipe post, my grandmother recently passed away. The way I understand it, her body was just ready to “go” and she was admitted to something called “comfort care”.

This all took place over a week period in May. During this same time, my Uncle Tom fell ill as well and passed away a few days after my grandmother. Needless to say, I was 700 miles away from family and had a pretty crappy week.

So one night (5.4.12) Mark wanted to get my mind off of everything and took me out for ice cream at Sebastian Joe’s. We had been to their Uptown location once before so we headed over to their Upton Ave location for a change of scenery.

It had been raining off and on during most of the day, but was still seasonable warm so we took our chances. When we arrived it was raining pretty heavily, so we ran inside eager for ice cream.

The first thing we noticed, besides the fact that it was surprisingly busy for a rainy day, was its size. The Uptown location is quite large in comparison to this one. The next thing we noticed was the list of ice cream flavors currently available.

The most daunting task at an ice cream parlor is actually choosing what flavor you want. What makes this even more challenging is that they let you sample as many flavors as you want before making a decision…. And being as indecisive as I am these two things don’t go together very well.

So there we were, up at the order counter sampling all the flavors we had never had before (roasted garlic?!) with a line behind us and I was scrambling to make a decision. I turned to Mark for help because he had already made his decision, but it wasn’t helping. So I did what I usually do in these situations and made the person taking my order decide for me. He scooped me up a mix of 2 of the 3 flavor choices I gave him and said that they should go well together.

I ended up with a cup of Pavarotti & peanut butter chunk. The Pavarotti consisted of a mix of chocolate, banana, and peanut butter and the peanut butter chunk was a chocolate ice cream base with mini reese’s peanut butter cup like candies mixed in. Mark ordered a mix of white orangina, a white chocolate ice cream with orange flavoring, and banana cream pie in a chocolate-dipped waffle cone.

After we paid we noticed that there was no seating currently available and retreated to our car to devour our ice cream.

I was especially happy for the mini reese’s peanut butter cups because I had been craving them for awhile. And obviously the Pavarotti was beyond delicious. I mean…..chocolate, peanut butter, and banana, can you go wrong? The two flavors did mix together pretty well, so thank you to the very patient young lad who decided for me.

Mark instantly knew he made the right choice with the waffle cone upon biting into his ice cream. He hadn’t had one in awhile, but my guess is it’s the way he will go from now on. He loved the banana cream pie ice cream and was thrilled with the huge chunks of pie throughout. However, the white orangina was a bit disappointing. We both agreed that he should have passed on that flavor, but noted that it may be due to the fact that he got the end of the bucket.

Overall, we loved Sebastian Joe’s. The ice cream, atmosphere, and price all come together nicely. So if you love homemade ice cream, give Sebastian Joe’s a whirl.