Sea Change

It is restaurant week in the Twin Cities and we always try to have dinner at a restaurant that we would normally save for a special occasion. Sea Change is a sea food focuses restaurant that uses as much local and sustainable ingredients as possible. Now, we do live in the middle of the country so the scallops and the salmon are not locally sourced but a lot of the side dishes are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The purpose of restaurant week is for each restaurant to offer special menus for lunch and dinner at a certain price point. Most are $20 for lunch and $30 for dinner. The restaurant should build their menu around a specialty dish. While I am a picky eater, I love food and I especially love trying unique flavors. We were really excited to try out Sea Change last night but I am giving a forewarning. This is not going to be a very pleasant review, in fact, it was pretty awful

 

We had a 6:15 dinner reservation since there was a performance at The Guthrie that evening and it was the only time available. I thought that would be a good sign, full on a Tuesday. It must be good. Oh boy was I wrong. Very very wrong. In keeping with the spirit of restaurant week we each ordered the menu, there were two choices for entrees which made it an easy choice.

 

The starter was a mixed greens salad with a few crostini on top and a handful of hazelnuts on the side. Now I am all for a basic mixed salad but leaves and a few nuts? No other veggies? I did like the dressing but overall the salad did not have enough flavor.

 

 

 

 

Our entrees came out, fried chicken with bbq beans and a cucumber salad for me and the sardines over white beans for Mike. Both plates were presented well but they flavor was non existent on the chicken. It was soggy, mushy and the outer coating had not crunch to it. I tried one bite of Mike’s and thought I would need to spit it out, he somewhat enjoyed his but I was down right disgusted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time dessert came out we were hoping for some redemption. We were wrong. While it wasn’t as awful as the entree it was nothing special, a pannacotta in an orange and passion fruit sauce. I will say I have had worse desserts and this was better than the other choices.

 

 

 

 

To top off this dinner our bill was wrong, we had each had a glass of wine at the bar that we paid for. I brought my glass with me since I had not finished and it and somehow my glass ended back up on the bill. The glass Mike had showed as paid but mine did not. Our server was very good about fixing the bill but that was the topping to our bad dinner. I can honestly say the only thing I would go back for would be a drink if we were going to see a play at the Guthrie. I hate saying negative things about a restaurant because I know they are trying hard but we were very disappointed.