Thirty Bales — Restaurant in Hopkins

We stopped in for brunch last weekend. The reviews and photos online looked appealing. We came in and we’re quickly seated by the hostess and given menus. We placed our drink order fairly quickly and then our food order after about 5 minutes after that. All of this is typical service and we were pleased at this time- noting the decor and scoping out the rest of the restaurant.

Here’s where things hit a few snags.

Our drinks, a coffee and a Bloody Mary were dropped off at the table. Our server had multiple drinks on her tray including another Bloody Mary with a snit (beer back or whatever you’d like to call it) for another table. She told us that she’d be right back with a straw for the Bloody Mary. It should be noted that I had not received a snit but I have her the benefit of the doubt that either she would bring it with my straw or that since I hadn’t specifically asked for one. Both seemed feasible and we were still happy. My husband said his coffee was delicious and happy drank it while I continued to wait for a straw.

The other customer at a nearby table who was also waiting for a straw, also grew impatient. We watched the server disappear, clear other tables, etc without any recollection that she has left us a promise to return with a straw. We spied a container of straws on the bar and helped ourselves after 10-15 minutes of waiting. Not the end of the world but annoying none the less.

Well now we’ve been sitting for just over an hour and our drinks were both empty and have been for about 20 minutes. The coffee, the Bloody Mary, and both water glasses are empty. It’s at this point our server apologizes for the food taking so long. Honestly it would have been fine if she had stopped by to give us another beverage and refill the water at some point during the wait. That didn’t happen.

Instead, we snagged her ask she walked by and asked for more drinks. After agreeing to come back to the table; she disappeared.

Another 10 minutes go by and the food finally arrives. The (assumed by the patterned shirt) manager asks if she can get us anything else and of course we asked for refills on the bloody and coffee that have been empty for over half of our experience at this point and that we had asked our server to help but she had disappeared. The manager seemed irritated.

New coffee and a Bloody Mary with a snit arrived ( I hadn’t even asked - which colors the inconsistency of service) and our waters were refilled by our server as instructed by the manager. This time the coffee was bad, like it was old and had been heated in a microwave.

The food was good- with the exception of the “toasted arepa” used in the “boujee bene” was not at all toasted and tasted of raw cornmeal and ruined the rest of the dish. Think about the way an English muffin out of the package tastes from a toasted one - that’s how. My husband ordered the French toast and that was tasty. It’s still unclear why these two dishes took so long to prepare when the restaurant was at maybe 30% capacity.

We snagged the server one more time after we had been sitting another 15 minutes or so after we finished eating to ask for our check. She came back after dropping of another guests food and asks quite abruptly if we are paying together or separate. I received the check and honestly thought that for the slowest and inconsistent service that the coffee/one Bloody Mary might have been comped. It was not. We paid and left through the back.

Please don’t respond and tell me to come back. Instead please work with the service staff. The service impacted our experience greatly and was within the control of team there. We would not have cared about the slow food coming out of the kitchen if our drinks/water/coffee were refilled. This experience could have been so different if we had been checked in with...

Our party of three came in for one of the last dinner shifts, and the room and bar were full. The restaurant is quiet, which helps guests enjoy a good meal and good company. The cocktails are always well crafted, visually appealing and just good drinks. The North Coast Hipster was a nice warming drink for a rainy evening; it had some citrus, spiciness, Woodford Bourbon, and Campari, which one rarely sees in modern cocktail bars, My daughter had The Purple One, which she still remembered from her birthday: it was beautiful to look at, turned purple, due to some violet liqueur, some top quality gin and some other magic. I had a somewhat pedestrian Valpolicella for my aperitif.

For one of the daily specials, there was a Chicken Piccata, and I wondered what would be so special. When the plate came, I had to smile because was the doppelganger for a veal piccata, down to the capers. The breast was pounded thin, lightly breaded and pan sautéed in olive oil with lemon juice. The side was not rice, but orzo which was wonderful. It was a great dish, and I couldn't finish mine for its richness. Part of the reason was that all of us tore into a charcuterie which I thought would be a nice beginning to our meal: it wasn't. Too many things on the plate, a cacophony of disjointed elements from cubes of cheese to some random pickled beans. I would skip this dish, which needs editing and rethinking.

One guest had the green Thai-inspired curry, which I've had before and enjoyed, and our guest felt the same. The Chorizo Bolognese, which I tasted, was excellent, and it wasn't the traditional, red as nail polish sauce, but very well done, I thought.

The menu changes with the seasons and every dish has some unique twists to ingredients, their cooking, presentation and use, and it's a very convivial place. Free public garage parking right across the street. If you're in the neighborhood, the bar is also a congenial place, and though they had some boring college football games on, I couldn't hear them...

Aggressively mediocre. I had a suspicion about how things might go after the server got done expounding on the provenance of the various meats and other ingredients. You usually don't need to go on and on about the history of the farm you're meat is from if you are about to blow patrons away with the flavor or presentation; the food will speak for itself. So then it's no wonder we got the blandest hamburgers and mildesthouse-made shrimp cocktail sauce outside of a hospital commissary.

I didn't know you could get a beef patty that particular shade of gray. We suspect steam as the cooking medium, but without the infusion of onions and pillowy buns like at White Castle. No seasoning, no sauce (if you ask for a side of mayo, expect a $2 up-charge and an eight minute wait), and romaine lettuce (of all the greenery options, this one is a bit odd because of how slippery it can be). My family can't eat cheese, so maybe the chef expects the cheese to do double duty as the seasoning and sauce, but that seems like a tall order. When a hungry tween pushes her burger away half-finished, you know something has gone rather wrong.

The chicken picatta is pretty solid, so maybe that shows the entrees are the focus over the burgers and sandwiches.

And then the fries, ho boy. My best guess is that they just put the fries in the frier for one super long fry rather than a first dunk to blanch and then a second dunk for crispiness. The result is something that has the look of a well-done fry, but none of the crisp exterior and fluffy interior that comes from the second fry session.

The covered patio seating is nice, but the seats are mega hard on your back and at a weird height below the table. Maybe that's just me, I don't know, YMMV. In the end, it's not bad food per se, just way overpriced for the overall experience, regardless of how historic the...