Crave

For the life of me I cannot upload the photo taken of my bento box, which is especially tragic for a bento box since a portion of a bento box's charm is in the compartmentalization and presentation of its various components.  One of these days, said photo will appear, but for now this post will be photo-less.

This was not my first time at a Crave as I've frequented the Galleria and West End locations on numerous occasions.  I've largely been a happy hour Crave-r as they really do have some stellar drink and appetizer specials and they happen to be an easy drive between work and home.

This time around, however, I was at the downtown location for their 45 minute power lunch menu. I won the meal (for two) in a contest and while I don't imagine I'll be lunching often downtown, I'm not one to turn down "free" when it's offered.

I was pleasantly surprised by how many options were provided on the power lunch menu.  I was expecting a small selection, maybe 3-4 dishes, but I believe there were 8-10 possibilities.  And, in a testament to the offerings themselves, my friend and I both had trouble deciding which dish to select. I went with the bento box as I'm a sucker for sushi and the friend went with andouille sausage and shrimp linguine, so that pairing alone tells you something about the breadth of options.

I've always enjoyed Crave's sushi and this lunchtime selection was no disappointment.  The rolls provided were simple, which was fine, but I'd be interested to see something a tad more exciting (yellowtail is yummy but is it really something anyone craves?) in future bento boxes.  The tempura vegetables, too, though flavorful, were rather cold.  Tempura doesn't need to be hot, but it shouldn't be cold.  The rolls themselves were prettily arranged and the amount of food was very reasonable for a $10 lunch.

My friend's dish was a bit more impressive to me.  The shrimp were huge, which is always something I'm impressed with up here.  Having moved to Minneapolis from the Gulf, I'm routinely shocked by what passes for "large" shrimp in these parts. But the critters in the linguine were hefty, delicious, and hearty and though the pasta wasn't near as spicy as any self-respecting andouille-lover would ingest, the flavors were spot-on.

Lunch can be a rather dismal affair when you're pressed for time.  But we really were in and out in 45 minutes and probably could have been out sooner if we hadn't taken so long to choose our respective dishes.  So there's no doubt in my mind that with less than an hour to spare, you can't do much better than Crave's power lunch menu.