Eat The Menu: Farm To Table

My grandparents—long gone—had never entered a restaurant in their lives: Why waste your hard-earned money to gussy up in scratchy Sunday outfits to eat a meal (which which fork?) served by somebody not your kin, who could instantly spot you as a hayseed straight off the Back Forty? No, thank you! They’d far more enjoy home cooking built on, say, a pig they’d raised and veggies fresh from the garden.

Today when their grandkids tire of sushi, tacos and goat cheese pizza, they can simply head to Farmers Kitchen & Bar, just steps from the Guthrie Theater and Saturdays’ Mill City farmers market, to enjoy the kind of hearty, wholesome victuals that Grandma cooked for Sunday dinner….and more. But not to worry: the menu promises updates on those kitchen classics, such as the kitchen’s meatballs.

Oh, those meatballs! Here, that home-cooking standby—plump and juicy as you please, browned with a quick saute— are composed of bison and wild rice (plus a bit of pork, for fat and flavor, I’d guess) and served with a suave swoosh of rosemary cream sauce flecked with herbs. They’re terrific to pick on while savoring a glass of wine ($10-14), a Minnesota brewski ($6-12) or signature Minnesota-rooted cocktail, such as my Old Fashioned ($15), built upon local Tattersall rye. They provide a grand pre- or post-theater nibble in a serving meant for sharing. Or munch on the excellent cheese platter ($18), more than a meal for two saluting a rotating trio of Minnesota cheeses, fruit, crackers, rounds of baguette, and some sweet-tart lingonberry jam for accent, along with local honey.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with a lunch visit, where the Shore Lunch sandwich ($17) caught my attention. It stars a meaty walleye fillet, moist and tender beneath the tempura-style batter it wore in the deep-fryer. It joins bits of lettuce, tomato, lightly-pickled cucumber rounds and an unassuming tartar sauce on a ciabatta bun of little consequence. It’s served with a heap of chips which nobody at adjoining tables touched, either: wiser to up-spend for a side salad or the cafe’s yummy jo-jo potatoes. (Still, even without that upgrade, the sandwich, with tax included rang up at $22—a bit spendy for what’s in front of you.)

A hot roast beef sandwich incorporated juice-licked, tender, tasty shreds of short rib abetted by grilled onions and a light horseradish sauce on the same ciabatta bun, also $22 on your check. On previous visits, I’ve also enjoyed the huge, meal-size salads on offer—wild rice Waldorf; fried chicken in buttermilk dressing; and a lighter beet-walnut-goat cheese presentation ($14-18 range).

During lunch, the drill involves placing and paying for your order at the counter; it’s then delivered to your table, to which you’ve trucked your own water glass and silverware.

By evening, the café segues into a full-service restaurant, with waitstaff to take and deliver orders. In addition to the all-day soup/sandwich/salad fare, half a dozen entrees debut after 5 P.M., including that tasty walleye, this time served with rice, veggies and “garden” butter (whatever that is).

On my recent visit, the kitchen was sold out of the Wild Acres roast chicken, served with zucchini pancakes, apple relish, veggies and pan gravy, $25. So we opted for the Harvest Bowl: a bounteous heap of chopped veggies and field greens, adeptly timed in their cooking and then sided with a perky tomato jam (and pesto, says the menu. But we couldn’t locate it; nor could our server when examining our bowl).

A strip steak ($32), a swell-sounding pasta preparation ($18) and a “summer schnitzel” stepped up as nightly specials. We ordered the schnitzel, which brought us a thin, robustly breaded and overcooked strip of pork—a distant cousin of the hearty and lightly coated schnitzels I’ve enjoyed in Germany. It’s accompanied by a pleasant, mild garlic puree, sauteed summer squash, butter-braised radish slices, epazote (hard to scent) and, the menu promises, mozzarella and cherry tomatoes, neither of which made it to the plate. However, servers congregated at our table with abject apologies and kind offers of replacement (which we didn’t take them up on, but showed an admirable hospitality spirit).

The dessert that piqued our fancy was a slice of pie composed of rhubarb ice cream and streusel—a cool and fitting Minnesota-style finale.

Farmers Kitchen + Bar
750 S. 2^nd St.
(612) 200-9434
www.Farmerskitchenandbar.com
Closed Mondays and Tuesdays