apple juice

I’ve never done a retaurant review here, but I thought I’d direct people in the direction of Cafe Lurcat.

It’s in the D’Amico family of restaurants, so I won’t bother with dazzling you with my sweet food-related vocabulary. The food is good. We’ll leave it at that.

No, what I want to talk about is where we sat. The whole excursion started as a quest for somewhere outside. It was suggested that Lurcat had it, so off we went. When we arrived, we spied the seating out in front, and our hostess offered us “outside” by the bar, or the “secret outside”.

Well, of course we chose secret outside, and we were treated to a dining experience that I haven’t seen yet in Minneapolis. Admittedly I’m a bit of a novice with regards to the restaurants, but still, this was different. We were seated in the alley. Not a normal alley at that, this one had some nice lights strung around, murals painted on the walls, some ceramic tiling on the ground. I immediately thought of a few restaurants in Sweden where I had eaten, as well as a couple places in San Jose.

So are there more of them around the cities? I think I saw CityPages, or The Rake or one of those running a “Best Outdoor Seating” poll, and Joe’s Garage (incidentally right next door) was tops on the list. Not exactly the scene I’m looking for. Any other alley spots, or “rooftop gardens” that I should try out? (been to brits, the local)

(update.. I think it was AOL’s cityguide that had the best outdoor seating poll? (AOL ))

(update again here it is, citysearch’s best outdoor seating)