Moms’ Night Out
My friend Queenie and I finally managed to plan a night out for dinner, leaving the kids at home with our respective husbands. Eating out without Drake was a huge relief. I could relax, sit back, and focus on my friend and the meal without having to worry, wrangle, and admonish. Also, we could pick a restaurant for grownups, so we did. We went to Vincent in downtown Minneapolis. Vincent has a good staff, is not pretentious, and has wonderful food at non-outlandish prices. The best meal I’ve had there was the chef’s tasting menu, which G. Grod and I tried for our anniversary one year. This time, though, I wanted something a little less fancy–the Vincent burger. It’s been awarded the “Best Gourmet Burger” in the twin cities, and it is quite something. It has beef short ribs surrounded by chopped sirloin, topped with smoked gouda and a mayonnaise sauce studded with bits of cornichon. Officially, this burger is only available for lunch and at the bar, but when I asked the hostess, she said we could order it for dinner in the main dining room if we liked. I suspect the question has been asked before. This is a burger to dream about, accompanied, of course, by a generous pile of salty, crunchy frites.
We did not, though, go to a nice French restaurant and only get the burger. To start, Queenie ordered her favorite appetizer, the beet carpaccio. The thin-sliced ruby beets are garnished with nuggets of goat cheese and a tangle of lightly dressed frisee greens. I was torn between getting a former favorite, the pan-seared scallops with leeks and fingerling potatoes in orange sauce, or trying something new. Feeling brave, I ordered the seared prawns with seaweed salad in a tamari vinaigrette. I was not disappointed, though I was glad to be feeling brave, since I had to shimmy the heads off the prawns. The seared fish combined with the cool salad and the salty dressing was a balanced ensemble.
We could not finish our burgers; our server assured us that this was the norm. Nonetheless we contemplated the dessert menu, and debated between ordering one or two. After deciding on one, the server misunderstood and brought both, which was hardly a tragedy. Queenie got the Three Creams: creme caramel, creme brulee and pot de creme. The extra accidental dessert was the mixed berries with old-fashioned ricotta. It was too sweet for my taste with its strawberry sauce, but we both enjoyed sharing all three creams in what we both agreed was the superior dessert. Full and happy, we returned to our homes, glad to be reminded that dining out need not end with the advent of a child, though it does entail more planning challenges.
September 20th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
Did you find that you constantly had to slow yourself down? I find that when I dine without kids it’s a struggle to not shovel it all in, 4 year old style. My Lord your dinner sounds heavenly!
September 21st, 2005 at 9:08 am
wow that burger sounds out of this world.