Archive for the ‘Metro’


The Burger Place: Minneapolis, MN

I asked Kim to help me get everything I needed for lunch situated while I finished packing for my annual caching trip with Chuck and instead of my frozen stew cubes she gave me two frozen spaghetti sauce ones instead. After a quick call to ask if she would do lunch with me to make up for her horrible mistake (heh) we were off to The Burger Place.

The line was out the door to this “Best of” from both Citysearch and Minneapolis/St Paul Magazine. The menu is just inside the door and lists breakfast (between $3.59 and $4.32) and lunch items (between $3.95 and $7.58) which are burgers (duh) and hot or cold sandwiches. The burger list is fucking massive with 20 different burgers (one has no bun or fries and one has chicken instead of beef) and they allow you to substitute any burger with either chicken or turkey for less than 80 cents.

We ordered and I found a seat while Kim waited to pay. There is enough seating for about 80 people and there isn’t much room for anything else. Kim finally came and joined me and we chatted while we waited for our food to arrive. About 10 minutes after I sat down and 20 since I met up with Kim in her building we were eating.

My Southwestern Burger was an absolute mess. Nothing good looking about this meal. The “salad” was larger than I expected but was 99.8% lettuce. The salad dressing (Italian) was decent and I was glad to offset 1/8th of this unhealthy burger with a salad instead of fries. The jalapenjos were jarred or canned and while it wasn’t anything nearly as nice as what I had at Moe’s, it was fine for the price. The bun was soft and soaked up any grease the burger might have otherwise leaked onto the plate. First bite? Good but nothing that deservs the “Best of” anything.

They offer and prominently tout their Monday special: $5.95 for burger, salad or fries, and medium drink. Not a bad deal and much less than we ended up paying today ($15.76). If you’re looking for some place cheap to eat, except for Mondays, this is not it.

Address:
The Burger Place
501 Marquette Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55402

Phone:
612-338-1213

Hours:
7:00 AM - 2:30 PM

Check out all the pictures from The Burger Place on Flickr here (camera).

D. Brian’s (One Financial Plaza): Minneapolis, MN

In this MNSpeak thread, Jason DeRusha mentions that someone needs to fill the missing blogosphere niche for Minneapolis skyway eatery reviews. Being that I now work downtown and I like eating and bitching about food, who better to do this than me? I have added another category under Minneapolis named Skyways where I will be putting them so you can follow along there if you wish.

Today my boss stopped by and asked if I wanted to hook up with her and one of my co-workers for lunch. Even though I had brought my own stew and a salad I agreed. At least this would give me something to write about if there wasn’t anything all that exciting going on in the South Metro. We left our building and walked through my wife’s and over to D. Brian’s Deli #4 in One Financial Plaza Skyway.

I usually like to check out menus online before heading out to a restaurant but I didn’t know where we were going to end up until we walked into the space. I was a little overwhelmed at the size and breadth of their menu. They have everything from paninis to soups and offer something for everyone and the prices seemed really reasonable (around $6.25 average, no math involved).

After I stared at the menu while waving several other busy lunch goers hurried through I finally decided on their Veggie Hummus Avocado wrap. It started with a spinach tortilla and a dollop of hummus in the middle. They piled on various vegetables including avocado, green peppers, mushrooms, cucumbers and sprouts. There may have been some other things in there but I was so hungry that I couldn’t concentrate all that well. After rolling up the sandwich and cutting it, I was offered a sliced pickle and took them up on it.

All said and done my total was $5.54 as I chose water to drink instead of one of the various soft drinks and juices they had available. I took a couple of bites and found the sandwich to be a little bland as there wasn’t any sort of sauce inside to spice it up. They had bottles of Tabasco available so I doused my sandwich halves with that and found it definitely made it more interesting and certainly decent enough for the price. My boss had some sort of salad, I didn’t bother asking her what it was, and soon after her first bite she was up and out of her seat walking back towards the counter. She returned a while later and after I asked what happened she just replied, “hair.” Gross.

If you happen to be in any number of Minneapolis skyways around town you will probably pass by one of the five D. Brian’s Deli Locations. The service was fast, there are many healthful options and they are inexpensive, but mine didn’t have much flavor without the Tabasco and one of our dishes had a hair.

While I didn’t take any pics this time, I do promise to do so in the future — especially if I know more than 10 minutes ahead of time that I will be heading out for lunch in the Minneapolis skyways that day.

Address:
D. Brian’s Deli #4
One Financial Plaza Skyway
120 South 6th Street
Minneapolis, MN 55402

Phone:
Phone: 612.335.9095
Fax: 612.335.9098

Hours:
Monday - Friday 6:30am - 2:00pm

Minnesota RollerGirls 28 Games Later: St Paul, MN

Tonight Kim and I headed out to the world famous Roy Wilkins Auditorium in downtown St Paul for the final Minnesota RollerGirls bout of 2008, 28 Games Later. Opening entertainment was provided by the announcers, WetSpot and his kick-ass homemade cannon, and plenty of freebies launched into the stands. Halftime entertainment was by the self-proclaimed “second best ELO cover band in the Twin Cities” E.L.nO (warning: MySpace page) and the big prize was the coveted “Golden Skate” to the winning team this year.

Quick overview:

1. Awesome bout that was quite physical at times.

2. Maddie passed a note to Sparkle Ninja that read, “Make the ugly girls cry.” For her hysterical commentary she was awarded a Swarm frisbee and the quote was read by the announcers to a hushed crowd.

3. The crowd was the biggest ever that I have seen and it was awesome to see the stands as packed as they were. The last time I saw a crowd like that for MNRG was the first bout of the season in early 2007.

4. The Rockits won the coveted “Golden Skate” in a victory over the Dagger Dolls.

As expected, I have a couple of videos and the first is of the pre-game entertainment with WetSpot and crew using his cannon to launch various items into the crowd which came from boxes labeled “Puppies” and “Kittens”. Hysterical:

Here is Buffy being a bitch and starting a fight, as usual :)

Here are the Rockits taking the win and then celebrating with a victory lap:

See all the pictures from 28 Games Later on Flickr here (camera).

Minneapolis Tap Water Brigade: Sounds Fishy

According to this article over at the Star Trib, fourteen Minneapolis restaurants are joining the Think Outside the Bottle Campaign to promote drinking local tap water instead of supporting the 10+ billion dollar tap water turned bottled water industry.

I’m 100% behind people drinking tap water at home and hell, I have almost no problem with drinking it at restaurants when it’s served to me. I certainly don’t go out of my way to pay for it but when you read stories about Minneapolis water smelling like fish, you have to think twice about whether or not you really want to be served that at a restaurant.

Our tap water here in Apple Valley tastes like shit. The sulfur smell and chlorine taste is so bad that I run it through a Brita water filter before drinking it. I honestly hate even having our dog drink it, knowing full well that if he had the opportunity he’d probably eat his own shit. I realize that chilling the water is what helps to kill off most of the odor and flavors but it just doesn’t do enough here in the South Metro so the expensive Brita it is.

What does your water taste/smell like and do you buy bottled, filter it or do you just suck it up and drink it straight from the tap and take it like a (wo)man?

Appealing Women

There are many times that I post inflammatory subject lines just to get traffic but in this case, these two women are definitely appealing — to someone. To me they’re appealing because they gave me a good hard laugh, one way or another, and I hope that you get one too:

Missed Connections: Sorority Girl

Rotten Neighbor: Still Scratching