Pub 819

The old Tavern on Main in Hopkins has been totally remodeled and added a full kitchen for a welcome revamp of the space. Pub 819 also has trivia on Monday nights at 8pm, so we are planning on visiting often. On our first visit for trivia we tried the food as well.

The room has been totally redone and is open and warm looking. I look forward to warmer weather when the garage door style doors in the front can be opened up. Right now, they are quite drafty to sit by unfortunately.

classic cheeseburger with Swiss and bacon

John had the cheeseburger with Swiss cheese and bacon. The burgers were very flavorful and coked medium as ordered. The buns were lightly toasted and sturdy enough to stand up to the juices of the burger. The fries have a light breading on them and give them an odd flavor. I'd prefer a plain french fry instead.

The ketchup offered is called 78 Red and has an odd flavor; sort of too sweet and not salty enough. I'd appreciate the option of Heinz ketchup personally.

red wine burger

The red wine burger is port wine reduction cooked into a beef patty, sautéed mushrooms, onions, and melted camembert cheese. It had a very rich, delicious flavor and a bit of tartness as well.

The service was very good and we hope they keep the trivia nights going for some time to come. It will certainly keep us coming back as often as we can.

Deals & Discounts: Happy hour is held Sunday-Friday 3pm to 6pm and drinks only from Daily 10p-Midnight. Check the website for more details. They currently have half off all burgers on Mondays as well, which is a great deal.   http://www.pub819.com/specials/


Pub 819
819 Main Street
Hopkins, MN 55343
(952) 933-1230
http://www.pub819.com

Five Guys

I’m shocked I have not done a post on Five Guys Burgers and Fries. They have been in the Twin Cities for a few years now and have opened many locations throughout the Metro area. I think there is even a location in Mankato and St Cloud now.  John and I have found it is a solid choice for a quick burger and amazing French fries at reasonable prices.

I usually get the Little Bacon Cheese Burger with fried onions since you get so many fries. Five guys does offer a huge list of free toppings and few they charge extra for.  The hamburger is flavorful and I love the wide variety of toppings. The bun is also lightly toasted, which adds a little something to the burger for me.

 John also had the Little Bacon Cheeseburger, but with different toppings. 

The French fries have to be my favorite thing at 5 Guys. They remind me of Minnesota State fair fries. Freshly cut fries, never frozen and always freshly cooked with the perfect amount of salt. A regular size order is more than enough for two people to share.

There are a couple of Five Guys locations close to us; we usually visit the locations in Plymouth or Hopkins. Quality and service are great at both. The service is counter service and they call your number when your food is ready. Five Guys is a great choice for a quick meal and way better quality than fast food options such as McDonald’s or Burger King.


Five Guys Burgers and Fries
14 Minnesota locations
525 Blake Road N
Hopkins, MN 55343
Phone: 952-479-7849
http://fiveguys.com/

Streetz American Grill

John and I stopped by Streetz American Grill in Hopkins recently. Since we go to the gym across the street, we’ve been watching them remodel the building from an empty dilapidated commercial building into a decent looking strip mall for quite some time now.

One thing we quickly realized upon arrival is that the parking lot is not quite large enough for all of the businesses in this strip mall. And there is nowhere to turn around if you can’t find a spot at the end. So that is not great.

The restaurant is counter service, where you order at the register, are issued a number and your food is brought out when it is ready. I believe they offer beer and wine in bottles. There was no line to order and the wait for our food was pretty short.

I had the chili cheese dog . It was ok. The hot dog had a nice snap to it. I was not crazy about the liquid cheese. The chili had decent flavor.

We shared a basket of fries. They were quite good. I needed to add some salt to them as they arrived unseasoned and were pretty bland.

John had the gyro. It was huge. However, there was barley any yogurt sauce on it or in it. He went up and asked for more and they gave him some in a small container. Not a lot inside of it for onions or tomatoes either. Just tons of meat.

I’m not sure we will be rushing back to Streetz. The food was ok, but nothing that great. I guess if I lived or worked very close by it might seem like a nice addition to the area. Or maybe we just did not find the gems on the menu quite yet.


Streetz American Grill
415 17th Ave N
Hopkins, MN 55343
952-217-4406

1200 W 98th St
Bloomington, MN 55431
(952) 888-1411
http://streetzgrill.com/

Hoagie's Restaurant

Since I've lived or worked near Hopkins for many years, I have always wondered if Hoagie's Restaurant was any good, but never ventured inside. It is one of those places that is only open for breakfast and lunch and it appears to have been around forever.

John and I decided to stop in for breakfast on a Saturday morning recently. It reminds me of the Wagon Wheel Cafe in Mankato. (Actually, a lot of things about Hopkins remind me of Mankato for some reason.) It is a basic room with wood paneling, booths and counter service seating as well. There is nothing fancy or trendy going on here. Seat yourself and the server stops by quickly. The service was efficient, and though not overly friendly, the server was not rude either. There appeared to be a lot of regulars dining as the servers knew a lot of people by name.

John went with the basic breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast. The bacon was not very good quality. The hash browns and eggs were fine.

I tried the daily special of the croissant breakfast sandwich, which had eggs, ham and cheese inside and hash browns on the side. It was a very filling sandwich and I would probably order it again. The hash browns tasted freshly grated, though I am not sure if they were or not.

Overall, Hoagie's was OK. I am not sure I would go out of the way to return there. There are many other options a bit closer to home for us with better food and ambiance.


Hoagie's Restaurant
824 Mainstreet
Hopkins, MN 55343
(952) 935-2865
No checks, no credit cards.

Pizza Luce

It's been over a year since I last posted about Pizza Luce so I thought I'd post pictures from our most recent visit. We've been visiting the Hopkins location every couple of months and it is very nice to have a location closer to where we live.

I think the western breakfast pizza is currently John's favorite breakfast food. He orders this every time we visit. There are tons of goodies on this pizza including sausage, eggs, onions, peppers, bacon and cheese.

On this visit I ordered the cajun breakfast. It included toast, eggs over easy, hash browns with bell peppers and mushrooms with cajun hollandaise over the top. Overall, this was a very solid breakfast, but I did not think the cajun hollandaise tasted a lot different from regular hollandaise sauce. Either way, the hollandaise is good on the hash browns. This was good, but I think I'll try something else next time.

One of these days I will remember to take photos at lunch or dinner and post pictures of that!

Deals & Discounts: The Hopkins location has a daily happy hour from 3-6p and 10-close daily with selected half price appetizers, $3 selected tap beer, rail drinks and house wine. Also, on Tuesday all tap beers are $3 all day. Both sound like good deals we will have to check out soon!

Pizza Luce

210 North Blake Road

Hopkins, MN 55343

(952) 767-0854

www.pizzaluce.com

Curry and Noodles

We stopped by Curry and Noodles one night for dinner since we had to go down to Hopkins to drop off John's car to get fixed. I had read about it in a few places and thought it sounded like something different.

Only one other table was occupied when we arrived, but it is a pretty small place. I noticed a few people stop in to pick up carry out orders during our visit though. A couple other tables arrived while we were there but it was very quiet overall. The service was good and we did not wait for anyting or feel rushed.

They have a very expansive menu and I had a hard time deciding what to order. I ordered the tandoori chicken. It wad very tasty and had good flavor infused throughout the chicken pieces. They brought out a bowl of extra sauce, but it did not really need it since it had a lot of flavor on its own. It was presented attractively on a sizzling platter, but some of the chicken pieces became dried out sitting on the platter. I think I would order this item again though. I'd just remove the chicken from the platter as soon as it arrived at the table. We also ordered some garlic naan, which was very tasty with a lot of pieces of garlic sprinkled on top.

John ordered the garlic chicken and liked it a lot. The sauce was spicy, but not overly hot and he asked for it with medium spice. (They ask how spicy you want it when you order.) It came with white basamati rice that was very good with the garlic chicken.

Discounts: I have not seen any coupons or deals for Curry and Noodles. Their lunch buffet is probably a good value, but I have not had a chance to try it yet.

Curry and Noodles
802 Mainstreet, 
Hopkins, MN 55343-7627
952-681-7834
www.currynnoodles.com

My MSP Donut Study 2011

Since I have had a lot of spare time lately, I decided to check out some of the more distant donut shops around town and find the best donut. This means I went to Minneapolis. During the week. In traffic. Do not be alarmed, I did not eat at all three places in one day! I went to the gym immediately afterwards to work the darn donuts off too.

The first donut sample is from Mel-o-glaze Bakery. This is a really amazing donut if you like the raised type of donut. They have glazed donuts and the one below is glazed with chocolate frosting. Double frosting basically. Yum. This donut was very fresh and light tasting.

The items below are a chocolate croissant and a brownie cupcake from A Baker's Wife bakery. I ordered a donut as well and it was ingested in the car. Sorry I do not have a photo. I need to work on that. Their standard donut was a cake donut and very, very good. It had a bit of crunch outside when you bit into it, but it was very soft and light inside. Really melted in my mouth. The chocolate croissant was good; very light and flaky with a lot of dark chocolate inside. The brownie cupcake was good too, it was a bit heavy and really filling.

Both Mel-o-Glaze and A Baker's Wife are within 5-6 blocks of each other on 28th Street in South Minneapolis.

The next selection of donuts is from Yo Yo Donuts in Hopkins. This is their standard cake donut on the right and a s'mores donut on the left. The s'mores donut was a raised donut as opposed to a cake donut; I preferred it to the cake donut because it was very soft and doughy inside. The cake donut was goos, but the outside did not have that nice crunch on the outside I prefer.

They also have a bunch of crazy donuts like a long john with bacon on it and some raised donuts with gummy worms on them.

Overall, I think my favorite so far was the cake donut at A Baker's Wife. There are a few other places I need to check out though. I live really close to Valley Pastries in Golden Valley, so I need to check that out soon. Actually, I have been there recently but I forgot to take photos again. I'm terrible. Or maybe just very hungry.

Mel-o-Glaze Bakery
4800 28th Ave South
Minneapolis, MN  55417
(612) 729-9316
www.meloglaze.com/

A Baker's Wife Bakery
4200 28th Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55406
(612) 729-6898

YoYo Donuts
5757 Sanibel Drive
Minnetonka, MN 55343
(952) 960-1800
www.yoyodonuts.com

Pizza Luce

We stopped in at Pizza Luce on Saturday April 23rd, for brunch before the Twins game figuring it would be cheaper to eat anywhere other than the ballpark.

We both ordered the Shirred Eggs, which is hash browns with portabella mushroom, bell peppers, red onion, and 2 eggs with melted cheese. Very good choice! We both enjoyed this item a lot. It is kind of like an egg casserole almost. The service was good and it seemed somewhat busy in the restaurant, but not overly so.

We are very happy that there is also a new Pizza Luce location out in our neck of the woods in Hopkins so we don't have to go downtown for their awesome pizza and food. We have been there a few times already but I have not taken any photos yet. I will next time though!

Discounts:
I have never seen Pizza Luce coupons in any discount programs around town. If you know of any let me know. Luce has a happy hour but the specials tend to vary by location. According to their website the downtown location has the following happy hour: $3 taps, rails & house wine: 4pm - 7pm (Mon-Thurs) and 3pm - 6pm (Friday), $3 taps, rails & house wine. There was no information online for the Hopkins location.

We had a great time at the game in the cheap seats with people from my old job. They even won the game! Too bad a beer is $7.75 at Target Field this year though. 

Pizza Luce
119 North 4th Street
Minneapolis, MN 55401
(612) 333-7359

210 North Blake Road
Hopkins, MN 55343
(952) 767-0854

www.pizzaluce.com