Frimkaron - 07/25/2008

One more water, please.

   unminnesotan - 09/18/2006

This was the second time I ate at Cafe Lurcat. The first time, I was not impressed by anything but the bill (and not in a positive way). Having survived a couple of Minnesota winters since that first experience, I decided to give Cafe Lurcat a second chance hoping that maybe the restaurant had grown into intself by now.

It has not. The funny thing is that there is very much to like about the restaurant. It is a very well designed space with a great view of Loring Park. The service is impeccable. More importantly, the menu is friendly yet interesting. And, for the most part, everything is cooked to near perfection. The problem: they over-salt every dish. Even one of the desserts has salt on it. Weird. It was the same complaint I had my first visit, and it's the same complaint I have heard from several other people as well.

Any one dish, taken by itself, is salty. Not so salty that I won't eat it, but salty. If the rest of the dishes/sides were say sweet/sour/spicy, etc., maybe it would balance out. But they are ALL salty. Taken together, I felt like I needed my own carafe of water just to keep from shriveling.

Is this a ploy to get people to order more drinks? Perhaps the chef has low blood pressure. In any event, it ruins the entire meal, the entire experience.

The restaurant was still busy enough. So, apparently they can keep serving their food this salty and they will still be successful. But if they really cared to improve the place, they need to get a handle on this. Nex time I'll be sticking to the bar.