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Vincent, 1100 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis

Having been consistently gaining weight over the past month or so, Choadbite and I were both seeking lighter fare. Minneapolitans don't eat out that much, so most decent restaurants favor the super-fatty high-caloric plates that special-occasions demand. I'm also really bloody picky about food, so I either make it myself from fresh ingredients (yes, I'll cook it on the hotel TV), or I'll eat out.

After lots of heavy meat dishes, we happened on fish. There's only one semi-decent sushi restaurant in Minneapolis (Origami), so it comes down to the two chain seafood restaurants: Oceanaire, and McCormick & Schmick's. M&S is an old Seattle restaurant (like Palomino, one of those to break out across the country), and seafood lovers in Seattle avoid it. If you're a seafood restaurant and you can't get it right in Seattle, you're hopeless. It's like getting laid in a women's prison with a fistful of pardons and a prehensile tongue. It probably smells the same, too.

So, Oceanaire it was, prison sex being one of those things I think the Czechs included in the "things you are no longer supposed to do," in our wedding vows. We drove downtown, and I narrowly avoided being dead after hitting a surprise patch of ice and executing the Impeccable Maneuver that brought me to safety. Parked in the Hyatt lot, went to the restaurant, and boom -- special occasion.

Not only do people in Minneapolis very seldom eat out, if they do eat out, they go early. I don't recall seeing a restaurant here over 50% capacity after 9pm, and yet, here we were, and everybody in the Minneapolis-St Paul area had descended, not only on Oceanaire, but on Manny's, an OK steakhouse on the same floor. We didn't even have the fallback of eating more cowflesh.

If you were worrying about the fact that you've read four paragraphs and not seen any mention of the restaurant named in the first word in this entry, your mindless persistence is about to pay off.

Vincent is one of those places you end up when you can't think of anything else. They have a small menu that is consistently and competently executed, but you wouldn't eat there in, well, a real city. They also have a decent enough wine selection, which works well when you're a lush. We usually sit at the bar, because the bartender is funny and interesting, and has the right attitude. (Levain, I'll get to you later.) He's very knowledgable about the menu, both current and upcoming, and very competent in suggesting pairings.

Having ordered almost everything on the menu before, and not having premeditated the visit, I ordered the boudin noir with a sauteed fig or apple, and Gritz. I am not making the last part up. I have never had grits or gritz before, and honestly, I think this was polenta, but you can't jazz that up with weird letters. The best you could do is maybe a 7337 p0l3nt4, but I don't know how you'd order that.

Anyway, polenta or gritz, it was tasty, and everyone loves a little blood sausage, although the appetiser portions were rather small. The bourgogne I drank it with is lost to memory, so I couldn't tell you what that was, but it worked well. It had better, because it's too bloody cold here to drink white. It has been well below freezing all week, and will be so until I leave this Friday.

After the boudin, I had a mushroom risotto. This was what mushrooms and risotto were meant to be, and seldom are. It's not hard to cook risotto, but so very few people do it right, and so, I very infrequently dare to order it. The risotto was perfect aldente goodness, with that nutty perfection of good risotto. The mushrooms, chanterelles primarily, were so perfectly cooked that their texture and taste had been tamed but not stomped into complete submission. There was a creamy broth around the base, and I wanted to sop this up with bread, or failing that, my tongue, but decorum prevented me from doing so. It will be hard to avoid ordering this dish again when I visit.

I passed up on dessert, because I am seriously packing on the pounds, and shouldn't like to outgrow my fat clothes so soon.

Anyway, restaurant is recommended if you need a quick bite, but expect something on the par of a nice neighborhood restaurant if you're from somewhere else in the US. Otherwise, you can consider it one of the five or six best restaurants in this town.

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