Northeast Social — Restaurant in Minneapolis

Perhaps I did not order the right type of food here but my first experience is merely okay in terms of food. The service is great and I had a very attentive and patient server. The location and space are also suitable for friendly conversations. Pretty much everything about the place is great. Just the food taste doesn't do it for me. This rating is in fact a 3.5 but I have chosen 3 because I do not think I can bring it up to a 4, unfortunately.

The French baguette was good with butter but the bread itself was old and hard. I had an Ivorian friend with me who was a French cuisine connoisseur and she recognized the same issue. Then the gnocchi, which had flavor that I did not expect. It wasn't too creamy or rich, which was great. I think there might have been too much of the sun-dried tomatoes flavor but the sour taste from it was pretty strong. Maybe it is because sun-dried tomatoes are concentrated in terms of that flavor. The manicotti felt like it could be made in other more casual settings. The spinach basil cream felt a bit like artichoke dip, and the ricotta felt like it was not really prepared prior to putting them into the pasta. The bread was good despite not tasting fresh (kind of soggy). The rosemary honey panna cotta was amazing! Have a spoon of a bit of the panna cotta with the honey was truly a great experience. The flourless chocolate torte was great as well, especially since it was flourless it would tasted like it was missing something. But that was okay because the expectation was already there.

I saw that some of their meat dishes are more popular, so if I decide to visit again, then I may give those a shot instead! But overall if people happen to be around the area, then I will still...

The food is fantastic. The pasta is some of the best in the city.

The vibes are lovely and cozy.

The service we had was pretty awful. We had 6pm reservations before a 7:30 show at latte da. Was at the host stand at exactly 6 and was seated promptly. I was ahead of my party who parked the car and followed in two minutes after me. They couldn’t even get through because the door was jammed up with other seemingly 6pm reservations before the show. People finally cleared out and we’re seated so my family could join me. They sat at 6:04 after waiting two minutes outside to get in. Our server was pulling double duty at host though hardly anyone walked in past 6:15pm.

We sat at our table until 6:20 without a server greeting us. This is baffling to me. I’m a server myself and if I’m swamped, I always greet a new table with “be right with you”. We were totally ignored. We had to flag down a server so get our order in. Ordered everything at once. Our food was all delicious, everyone loved it. I was done with my meal by the time the server asked how everything was. It’s a basic server rule to always check in with a table within two minutes at food delivery. We never got the baguette we ordered as an appetizer so it was brought after we were done with our meal. Not sure if they charged us. Mind you, this restaurant is small. Each server maybe had 6-8 tables or so and maybe of them are two seaters. That’s not a lot. I can juggle 12 tables without issue and I’m not even that great a server. The service is simply not good enough.

If you’re seeing a show next door, give yourself two hours to eat here to accommodate the slow service. I think our food took about 20-25 minutes to come out...

Service was very good and friendly, and the atmosphere is nice and quirky. The food was decentish, but not worth the high prices.

I had the jerk chicken entree and the chicken itself tasted very good but it was a mess to eat gracefully, piled as it was upon the accompanying dishes which made it difficult to use a fork and knife to separate the meat from the bone. The cream-cheese-and-scallion cake underneath the chicken was excellent, and the highlight of the meal. The red bean puree was a nice neutral accompaniment. The plantain was tougher than leather though, and rather tasteless.

I ordered their house made lime soda. It wasn't good. It was so intensely strong I almost wonder if they forgot to dilute their syrup concotion. Thoroughly unpleasant.

My wife had the salmon, and she seemed pleased by its moisture given that it was well-cooked, something she doesn't find in salmon everywhere. That said, she was very underwhelmed with the arugula-and-something soupy glop underneath the salmon.

We ordered what was described to us as angelfood cake with mascerated strawberries and house made whipped cream. What we actually received was a small pound cake which was so tough and dry we had to saw through it with a knife. The strawberries were OK, though not as flavorful as I'd have expected.

So overall it was an OK meal, with some highlights, and quite a few things that should have been much better. At half the price I would only be mildly disappointed and probably not visit Northeast Social again, but wouldn't go out of my way to avoid it. At what the actual price was, however, if again invited to visit I'd very much encourage my dinner party toward...