D and I celebrated Valentine’s Day a little early this year with dinner and a concert. Ben Folds was playing at Heinz Hall, a BEAUTIFUL theater ornately decorated and quite large compared to the small theaters in Minneapolis. He played with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, made up of world-famous musicians. When I heard the ad on the radio, I just couldn’t resist, mentally justifying the ticket purchase as an early birthday present for D. (his birthday isn’t until March 6th, but oh well!) So with the tickets secured I scouted for a restaurant that was nearby. As you know, I’m really picky about food, not picky about ingredients; I just hate paying for crappy food. Looking for good food downtown proved to actually be sort of difficult, with most restaurants being really overpriced, and their menus lackluster. I stumbled upon Braddock's American Brasserie, which is in the Renaissance Hotel, and the menu was short and simple. While it wasn’t seasonal, it had simple dishes, creatively prepared, and the price wasn’t too high. They have many dishes that can be ordered as half orders which sounded perfect for D and I and our tiny bellies.
First let me say that the Renaissance hotel is beautiful. It is elegant and spacious with a lounge in the courtyard full of plush couches and tables. You walk through the lounge to get to the dining room, making it feel like you are outdoors, which was lovely, especially in this weather! We were shown to our booth, a little C shaped leather booth, perfect for cuddling up to those you love. The manager was overzealous and kept stopping by, calling us “folks” and thanking us over and over again for eating there. Seriously. He did this before we even ordered!
Our server was polite and explained the menu along with the prix-fixe menu which you could order off of. Usually you can get three courses for $25, but because tomorrow was Valentine’s Day they had a special menu that was pricier. We ordered some prohibition cocktails (I usually steer clear of trends, but I’ve loving this one. Bartenders are getting more and more creative with savory ingredients. Plus the world doesn’t need more apple-tinis, as much as I love them.) I order the Lady Martha, a combination of vodka, bitters, fresh sour, soda and mashed white grapes. It was lovely, simple, and yet complex as the tartness of the grapes, sour and bitters all fought for my taste buds attention. D ordered a Sazerac, which was Wild Turkey Rye, Absinth, and bitters. This sparked a long conversation about the fact that D doesn’t actually like whiskey, but he loves the way it makes him feel. At first I was appalled, and then I thought back to the last time that I ordered vodka straight (it was an ill-fated afternoon in which a friend and I drank an entire bottle of Ukrainian vodka) and realized that that isn’t such a bad thing. So if anyone has any great recipes for whiskey cocktails, send them my way!
The menu consists of many small plates ($5-12), salads ($5-15), two soups ($5-6), pastas ($9-12 for a half order and $12-16 for a full), meat and poultry ($18-29), seafood ($17-23), and sandwiches ($9-14). They also have five different kinds of mussels and frites. So while the menu wasn’t gigantic, it was difficult to decide which path to walk down. I opted to order an entree, while D decided to order two smaller plates.
We opted to start with their Frites, served with roasted garlic aioli. They were fried to perfection, each bite was deliciously crispy. The aioli was slightly too strong. I prefer a garlic aioli that hints at garlic, whereas this one left me feeling as though I shouldn’t get too close to anyone for the rest of the night. The frites were seasoned with something green, I’m assuming parsley, and salt, but strangely when I ate them by themselves they were very bland. I really wished they were smaller as well, they were the normal French fry width, whereas I would have expected a smaller, more European fry because they called them frites, but alas...
D ordered the half order of Trenne Cinghale (trenne is triangular penne), a wild boar Bolognese served with fresh, locally made pasta. He enjoyed it a lot, though the half order would have been sufficient for his entire entrée as the serving was so large. The pasta was delicious and cooked to perfection. He also ordered the Braised Short Rib Pierogies, which were as flavorful or tasty as the Boar. The creamy leeks were interesting, though strangely devoid of the wonderful leek flavor that they should possess. I ordered the Seared Scallops with Fork-mashed potatoes and Pea Puree, which I was told by my server, were a house specialty. The scallops were cooked well, slightly underdone for my taste. You also received 5 gigantic scallops with your entrée, which was way too many. The pea puree was flavorless as far as I could tell. I kept going back to it in hopes that something would happen, but I didn’t get anything. It worked well with the scallops, though, and it was fun to combine the two, even if I couldn’t taste the puree. The mashed potatoes were lovely, with just the right amount of butter and spices. Overall, there wasn’t anything amazing about this dish. If you need to eat scallops, order the appetizer version and get some of the mashed potatoes as a side.
For dessert we ordered the Profiteroles with cream cheese filling, hot chocolate and chocolate sauce. The pastry was rock hard and dry, but the cream cheese filling was delicious. The hot chocolate, served as a shot on the side of the plate, wasn’t hot at all, but it was nicely flavored (almost like Mexican hot chocolate) so we poured it over our 5 profiteroles. They had other interesting desserts that I’d be interested to try, so I won’t really recommend the profiteroles.
Overall, the atmosphere was lovely. I’d gladly come back for that. The service was ok, though our server seemed to get bored with us at the end and it took us 10 minutes to order dessert (as we sat at our table with our dinner plates cleared) and 15 minutes to get our check. Luckily we gave ourselves plenty of time to get to the theater on time.
I’m very interested in going back and sitting in the Street Side section of the lobby. It is like sitting at the bar in most restaurants. They serve the same small plates, mussels, salad and sandwich menu, as well as all the same drinks. They even have an amazing happy hour from 5-7pm Monday through Friday in which all small bites are half off, $2.5 select draft beers, $4 cocktails, and $3 house wine. I think this would be the perfect way to get to try al the interesting dishes that Braddock’s has to offer, but without breaking the bank.
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