Just as I did in 2009, 2010, and 2011; I ranked the restaurants we visited in 2012. I have provided a South Metro ranking and a ranking for those North of the River as well.

PLEASE NOTE:

1. These restaurants were ones we visited and reviewed in 2012 only. They are not comprehensive across the 7+ years the site has been reviewing and they are not meant to suggest these restaurants are the best or worst in the area overall. They’re simply a 1 to 33 ranking of those we visited and reviewed in 2012. If you fail to understand this please realize we will ridicule you mercilessly.

2. Aside from Copper River which I reviewed twice in one year; I have visited some of these restaurants on more than one occasion but I took only the first visit for the review into account during the ranking.

3. While the top few and bottom 10 or 11 are pretty set, those which appear in the middle are more squishy.

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Restaurants North of the River:

1. Cafe Lurcat
2. Butcher and the Boar
3. Crave at MoA
4. RedRossa Italian Grille
5. Pizzeria Lola
6. Cheeky Monkey Deli
7. iPho by Saigon
8. Northbound Smokehouse and Brewpub

Restaurants South of the River:

1. Copper River Fish & Chop House (second review)
2. Technique
3. Tawakal
4. Spice Thai Cafe
5. El Parian
6. Nha Sang
7. The Buckboard
8. Burnsville Ale House
9. Panini Grill
10. The Rack Bar and Grill
11. Wicked Palate Food Truck
12. Classic Saigon
13. Saigon Palace
14. Black Stallion Saloon
15. Byblos Lebanese Grill
16. Betty’s Cafe and Pies
17. Pita Plus (closed)
18. Piccolo’s Pizzeria
19. Lone Oak Grill
20. Steak America

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Going back over the list of the 32 restaurants we reviewed (some are not listed here because they don’t fall into my definition of NOTR/SOTR such as Tonka Bay or Cannon Falls) I was shocked at just how many were absolutely awful experiences. 11 of the restaurants across the 32 were borderline miserable with several of them being completely and utterly inedible. Moving my workplace from downtown Minneapolis to Burnsville had really affected the reviewing this year, much to my dismay, but at least some of these, while disgusting and expensive, were fun to write about.

It takes a lot of work to end up at the bottom of the Lazy Lightning yearly review lists and with such competition it was a battle to determine some of these. But, no matter how I ran the numbers and no matter how many times I read through the reviews, two restaurants stood out as the worst reviewed this year. First is Northbound Brewpub in Minneapolis. Not only was the food miserable to eat and we got the stinkeye from the chef, they earned a big F- in their handling of the situation on social media–seriously, get a big clue and grow up. However, Steak America reigned supreme as the single worst restaurant of the year, and, of all time. Yes folks, Steak America is the WORST restaurant ever to disgrace the Minneapolis/St Paul Metro Area. Considering the tough competition over the last 7 years, that’s quite an accomplishment. FWIW, Steak America refused my offer to deliver a bowling trophy I found at Goodwill topped with a piece of beef jerky covered in gold leaf. They took particular offense to my calling it the “2012 Disgusting and Lazy Restaurateur Award”. I thought it would go great on their fireplace mantle, how about you?!

What do you think about the rankings here? Do you agree with how the restaurants you tried yourself rank above? What restaurants would you like to see us hit in 2013? Which ones do you think you’re going to try? Whatever you have to say about the 2012 Restaurant Ranking List go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Note: I have to apologize for the photos. The lighting was terrible and the color scheme in the restaurant didn’t do much to help. I tried my best to reverse the poor photo effects but I just couldn’t pull it off. My bad.

Last night The Wife and I took The Rooster and a sleeping Koala up to South Minneapolis’ new brewpub, Northbound Smokehouse & Brewpub located only a few blocks off of Hiawatha. We arrived before 6 PM on a Sunday and found the place fairly busy with people drinking beer, eating food, and watching football. We took a seat at the back of the restaurant along the windows and looked over the menu.

The menu is pretty small, it’s clear this brewpub is more about the beer than the food (and rightfully so) but I have to admit many of the items were intriguing and coupled with the great smell of woodsmoke both outside and inside the restaurant were making my mouth water as I read through the names. While smoked egg salad ($6.25) and smoked wings ($8.50) caught my eye, I zeroed in almost immediately on the Smoked Porketta ($7.95). The Wife went with the Fried Chicken Sandwich ($7.25) and since their items all come ala carte we ordered their Cajun Northbound Fries ($4.25) to go along with them.

While I was told by several that I should have tried the beer, we didn’t but I have to admit I really wanted to try their 90+ IBU IPA. With happy hour prices (7 days a week) at $3/pint, this seemed like quite a steal. Their house beers are numerous and they have plenty of others to whet your whistle as well.

The food was out fairly quickly and we dug in. The Northbound Fries which are handcut were mostly limp and soggy and all of the seasoning settled to the bottom leaving the majority of the fries a below mediocre disappointment. We weren’t there for the fries and being that I don’t much care about fries anyway, aside from being annoyed that we blew $4.25 on something I could have pulled out of a bag and undercooked myself in my own oven, I wasn’t about to blow off the place for this one indiscretion.

The Wife’s Fried Chicken Sandwich was something I simply didn’t get. I didn’t get why it was on the menu in a place which smokes most everything else and I certainly didn’t understand why she wanted to order it but there it was on our table looking terrible with its mostly orange tomatoes and very blackened batter. Supposedly dipped in waffle batter and pan-fried in a cast iron skillet, this sandwich was simply overdone and dry. The waffle batter added nothing and if I hadn’t been told it was waffle batter I would have been none the wiser. The Wife wasn’t impressed at all and I was even less so.

Growing up we had porketta on a fairly regular basis. I remember the flavorful meat coming with a crisp outer layer and melting in my mouth. While Iron Range porketta is a little different from the versions I had growing up, Northbound’s version was a disaster on a plate. First of all it didn’t come with the promised fried onions and the Swiss cheese was utterly tasteless. I really don’t know what it is about Minnesotans and Swiss but I routinely have Swiss that simply doesn’t carry any flavor at all. Yeah, I get it, bland rules the day but seriously, choose something else if you want to have a bland cheese so that those of us who know what Swiss should taste like aren’t disappointed when we have melted air on our sandwiches.

Now the star of the show, the porketta itself, was moist and tender. Unfortunately that’s all that can be said about this one. If that porketta didn’t come straight out of a crockpot I would be shocked. There was absolutely no smoke flavor and the coloring was all wrong–in fact, it was almost white. Pork may be the other white meat but I have only seen it come out looking like that when it’s in a crockpot for too long. Aside from its terrible lack of color and smoke, the meat was too wet and aside from an unhealthy amount of salt, it just didn’t taste like anything. That’s right, there was no fennel, no garlic, and no pepper. The house-made BBQ should have been able to save this huge disappointment but sadly only added to it. Seriously, after tasting that porketta and its lack of smoke and flavor, they should be forced to remove the “Smokehouse” from their name. So sad.

The server later came around to ask how everything was. After clarifying whether she was asking to be nice or if she really wanted to know what I thought, I laid it all out for her: overdone fried chicken, tasteless porketta, and soggy fries. She was apologetic and soon one of the owners came to our table to also apologize. They later took 50% off our tab which I promptly returned to the waitress in full as a tip. While I appreciated their great service here, I did not appreciate the dirty look I got from the chef who came out of the kitchen to see what jerks said their food wasn’t all that great. Next time come over to my table and give me that dirty look so I can tell you to your face that your food sucks and you should be polishing up that resume to find a new job at a place where your services would be appreciated–like Burger King–where they use liquid smoke.

Overall I was completely and utterly unimpressed with the two sandwiches and the fries we had. While Northbound apparently has excellent beer, I highly suggest you stick to that and not be lured in by their admittedly interesting menu because it’s likely you’ll end up just as sorely disappointed as we were last evening. I really wanted to like this place; it had everything I could ask for: great beer list, interesting sounding items, and great waitstaff and ownership. Unfortunately I simply cannot ignore the horrendously executed food nor the dirty look from the kitchen staff; it gives me the creeps.

Have you ever eaten at Northbound Smokehouse and Brewpub in South Minneapolis? If so what did you think? What did you order and have you noticed, as one person on Twitter has, that the food has gotten progressively worse since its opening? What is your favorite beer from the place and which others do you recommend? Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Address:
Northbound Smokehouse and Brewpub
2716 E 38th St
Minneapolis, MN 55406

Phone:
612-208-1450

See all the photos from Northbound Smokehouse and Brewpub in Minneapolis on Flickr here.