Friday, September 12, 2014

Public Kitchen & Bar

Yesterday was the man's birthday.  I take it upon myself each year to plan a fun day full of surprises for him.  Yesterday he worked a 12 hour shift so I didn't have much time to work with, but I made the most of it.  I decided to give St. Paul some love so I settled on Public Kitchen & Bar - a brand new restaurant in Lowertown.  That seemed to be the right mix of a trendier atmosphere, interesting menu, and reasonable prices. 

We ordered the house purified and carbonated water which was amazing.  I'm really into sparkling water as a healthy alternative to pop and alcohol.  It still has enough pizzazz to make you feel like you are drinking something fun. 


We started with the jalapeno cheddar biscuits with honey butter and jalapeno jam.  Um...delicious.


I had the seafood cioppino with mussels, shrimp, calamari, crab, and cod.  The tomato broth was a little spicy which made it fantastic.  All of the seafood was cooked perfectly.  This is a fantastic dish if you can't decide what you want because it has little bit of everything and must be somewhat healthy with all of the lean protein. 


My husband got the filet mignon which was perfectly cooked, however, underseasoned.  It probably would have been fine for me, but he likes more seasoning and salt.  The filet was served with potato gratin which was also a little underseasoned and grilled asparagus.


We ended the meal with a complimentary bread pudding with candied walnuts and salted caramel ice cream for his birthday.  That was good and super filling.


It's a wonderful, brand new restaurant that I think has a lot of potential, but some improvements are needed.  Especially in relation to the cocktail we shared.  It was tequila, blackberries, and ginger which sounded like a fresh new combo, but ended up falling flat as the blackberries and ginger were undermuddled and all we could taste was harsh, white tequila. 

There are a few more things on the menu like bone in beef short ribs and pork ribs that we'd like to try so we might give it a shot in a couple months.  


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