Here’s another open thread for your Friday afternoon.

I’m off to Nashwauk tonight to cache with Chuck and Craig in Grand Rapids tomorrow on our yearly caching trip “Up North” and I’m looking forward to sunny 55 degree weather and lots and lots of ticks. Mmm, blood suckers. For Sunday I picked up a museum pass at the library to check out the Twin City Model Railroad Museum in St. Paul. I’m a geek, I know, but I’m really pumped about that one.

One of the readers submitted the following suggestion and I thought it would be a great open thread question which could be a lot of fun (especially with MSPD hanging around), so here it is:

What are your top three slogans for the juggernaut that is Lazy Lightning?

So go ahead and comment on, maybe we’ll make a t-shirt or bumper sticker out of your slogan ;)

After the heads up from reader Tearitup, I decided to take Kim and my parents out to brunch at Pardon My French Bakery and Wine Bar which is located in the Thomas Lake Center between Pilot Knob and Johnny Cake Ridge Road.

We pulled into the parking lot and it seemed crowded for 8:30 AM on a Saturday. My parents were concerned that we’d have to wait once we went inside. Thankfully the space is absolutely gigantic, way more than they will ever need, and there was no waiting. While my wife and parents looked over the options available in the display cases I took some pictures of the interior. The place was decorated like many bakery/cafe’s with a fireplace in the middle, a lot of tables, and a counter ordering format. This place, as I said above, is entirely too large and the area behind the counter is so large it reminds me almost of a cafeteria. For some reason it didn’t have the busy, yet comfortable, feel that so many of its cousin restaurants do.

I joined my family at the display cases and looked over the options. Most of what they offered for breakfast were too dessert like with pastries, tarts, cakes, etc. I gravitated towards their quiche and sandwich selections and ended up choosing their Asparagus, Tomato, Chicken Quiche (quiche are two for one) and a mushroom for Kim. They are priced at $6.50 and while that would have been astronomical for one it seemed reasonable for two. In addition to the quiche I also picked up a Prosciutto Déjà Vu sandwich which is described as a buttered poppy seed baguette with prosciutto, swiss cheese, tomato and lettuce also for $6.50. My father ordered their Versailles Croissant which is ham and swiss on a croissant with Dijon mustard, hard boiled egg, tomato and lettuce for $6.50. My mother nabbed another mushroom quiche and we had her get a Quiches Lorraine as well. Our total, after they had to add my father’s sandwich which they forgot, came to just over $31.

The food took a long time to come back to us even though it was already prepared. Instead of delivering it all at once to the table they heated the pastries up in the microwave and brought those out first along with the quiche. We dug into those first and then after that our sandwiches came out, we realized one was missing, and we got that straightened out before digging in to the rest. The asparagus, tomato, and chicken quiche was excellent. I really enjoyed it and found it to be quite enjoyable for $3.25. The mushroom was nearly tasteless and while the Lorraine was acceptable, I would only recommend that you stick to the chicken, asparagus, and tomato quiche if that’s what you’re into. The sandwiches were just “eh”. I wasn’t impressed at all with the Swiss cheese as it seriously looked like processed Kraft singles and the sandwich really didn’t do anything to make me say, “YAY, I am so into this.” The pastries were ok but nothing that I would suggest that you go out of your way for. Honestly, they weren’t anything above and beyond what’s available at Panera and if one of their locations are closer, just drive there as you’ll probably pay less and be more pleased with the result. The sandwiches and quiche came with a choice of side salad or crudité, neither of which are appropriate for breakfast or even brunch items. I could see ordering them with the sandwiches but they really ought to offer a few more options if they expect those options to be successful.

The staff behind the counter were helpful and seemed at least somewhat knowledgeable about the various options they were offering even with it being so close to the opening date. While they didn’t do everything perfectly they did a decent enough job for me to tip 20%. I wished that there had been a better ordering and serving format but perhaps that will change in the near future.

Honestly, this place is a flash in the pan. There was nothing exciting about the options we ordered today and there’s nothing there that would make me want to return anytime in the future especially when I could probably make the sandwiches or buy the pastries and quiche at any number of other restaurants or grocery stores and be just as pleased with the taste. While I realize that Pardon My French has only been open for a short time (the woman at the counter said they opened “last Tuesday” but I’m not sure if that means this week or the week before) but they certainly didn’t come out of the gate with anything other than yet another mediocre South Metro restaurant that probably won’t be around much after the New Year.

If you have eaten at Pardon My French Bakery and Wine Bar located in Eagan, please let us know what you thought — we’d love to hear your opinion.

Address:
Pardon My French
1565 Cliff Road,
Thomas Lake Center
Eagan, MN 55122

Phone:
651-454-2233

Hours:
Monday – Thursday 6 AM to 8 PM
Friday – Sunday 6 AM to 10 PM

See all pictures from Pardon My French on Flickr here (camera).

Last night I hosted my first WeekNIGHT Caching get together since May 10th, 2006 and suggested that everyone come down to the South Metro to do bflentje’s cache Shrinky Dinks along the shores of Burnsville’s Crystal Lake Park.

I had found this cache with Kevin last week and while I didn’t enjoy myself all that much, I figured I would eliminate my displeasure by fucking with everyone else. While I had an idea of what this cache entailed before going for it, I was totally unprepared for the “adventure” so I at least gave everyone the warning that they should come stocked with gear that will help them do this cache. Two people came somewhat prepared and the rest did not. Two people weren’t going to go through with the find but I harped on one of them enough that they eventually did.

Afterwards I had suggested we go to Panino Brothers in Apple Valley for beer (it’s part of the WeekNIGHT Caching tradition for those of you that don’t know). There’s a nice selection on tap and the food is decent. There have been some complaints recently about slow service and Kim, who joined up with Chris and Laura there ahead of time, said she experienced just about everything people had been complaining about such as slow service which apparently hasn’t yet been resolved.

I arrived with Lucid and MN_Cavepeople and knowing that the service might be poky, ordered my beer at the bar. They had a PBR special last night — $2/glass. Woot! I did notice that even though I was ordering my beer at the bar, I still had to wait at one point while no one was directly manning the bar.

After most people left, we half talked, half forced, firstbass (that’s “first base”) into agreeing to do Sir_Zman’s Twin Cities Geocaching Podcast interview. Z had prepared some new and never before heard questions for firstbass and was pretty adamant that he would stick around and that his wife would definitely understand if he took a little longer getting home as long as he got the interview.

We moved over to the sitting area at Panino Brothers and Sir_Zman fired up his recording device and I used my camera to record the interview in its entirety, unedited, for everyone to see later. Sir_Zman’s podcast is family friendly and there was some discussion about how my site generally is not. He said he will be happy to link back to here so people can check out firstbass’ forced interview.

I originally planned on uploading this video to YouTube but it was over 16 minutes long and they only permit 10 minutes of video — they really need to raise that limit. So instead I uploaded it to blip.tv which has a much better interface, better video quality, and takes video that is much larger.

Be aware that this video does include less profanity that I’m used to writing but is still NSFW, has been taken in an area with poor acoustics for audio, and was done with my point and shoot camera. That said, I was fairly impressed with the quality of the video/audio but not necessarily my own added content ;) Enjoy:

Thanks to everyone who showed up tonight! I didn’t find any ticks although I wasn’t tromping around off the trail at all and also didn’t find any leeches — did anyone else ;-) I was disappointed to hear that Panino Brothers’ service was slow for Kim (it wasn’t crowded) but it was great to see everyone again and was especially awesome to watch firstbass squirm under the pressure of not only a mic but a camera pointed in his face.

See all the pictures from tonight on Flickr here (camera).