Ringo World Cuisine at the West End

The shop at the west end area has become quite impressive over the last couple months. Lululemon Althetic opened it's first official shop; Athropologie and Hot Mama added another boutique to attract the non-Edina crowd; upscale Rainbow food; Toby Kieth bar; CraVe and now a brand new restaurant, Ringo.


One thing that attracted me the most wad Ringo's monthly "around the world" cuisine features. They do a monthly menu that features a different cuisine from different part of the world, on top of its regular main menu. It was a Korean month back in March, when I first read about them. And this month is Belgium. No offense to Belgium, but even my Belgium coworker had nothing much to say about their own cuisine. I didn't quite know what to expect from Belgium, and it was interesting to be exposed to it to some extend at Ringo.

On top of their world featured dining menu, they also do a monthly cocktails/drinks feature.
Strawberry Shady: very fruity no doubt and relatively weak in alcohol content. Definitely qualified as a sweet date drink for the night.

Friends all ordered different beers for fun. Estella from Ferran Adria's brewery; La Rosa from Spain.

Enough for the fun and drinks: as I mentioned earlier, I wasn't very impressed with the Belgium menu of the month. So some of us ordered off the regular menu :

Cranberry Crusted Chicken Salad: It probably didn't taste very bad. I mean, it's a salad, can't go too wrong with a bed of lettuce right? Bur the presentation point.. Not too high. It looked messier than my homemade yuna kidney bean apple salad that I eat every Sunday morning after my hot yoga scultp class( ok tmi ....)

Chicken with Glass Noodles: I feel bad for the big guy, definitle not enough food with the smaller porption pf noodles and chicken.

Thai Basil Prawn Linguini: I was expecting a dish with some nicely seared or grilled shrimps on a bed of linginui with basil sauce. Instead, it's some boiled cooked shrimps, with tomato and oil sauce and drizzled with basil. I can't say it's a bad dish. Maybe I was expecting something completely different from a simple pasta dish. It was decently refreshing. Lighter sauce and plenty of lemon juice infused in it to wake up the flavors of shrimps and tomato. However, one thing to mention the pasta was a little hard on the top. Food came late and the pasta must have hardened up during that hour long wait...

The only Belgium dish on the table : Braised Cod. I'm sorry my friend. Not much presentation points on this either.Not just because I once again took pictures of half-eaten dishes. Plain white fish with plain white mashed potatos served on a plain white plate. It was almost screaming "I'm so plain and so boring. I must taste vety blanc! Eat me now!" ....

And then you wonder why am I posting pictures of half eaten food again. I promised to not post these indecent-looking-half-eaten pictures, but bear with me... We placed the order around 8:20, bread came 5 minutes after that, drinks came after, and then..... Nothing for the next 45 minutes. No refills on the onion bread, no checking on the drinks, no status on the food, and obviously no food in sight. As I was getting impatient with my food and my soon-to-start movie with my dear love Bradley Cooper as my eye dessert for the night, I couldn't even get a hold of our server. He was busy refilling other tables' wine , water and chating or whatsoever. But he didn't notice the steam coming off my head... An hour after our ordering, the food finally came. It was not until I made my steamy sacrasic comment that he finally realized the situation. At least he tried to save the table and offered us a bottle of wine as an apology for the delay. But the apology and the wine were still poured with a little sour taste...

The bill came with a little passport holder, signifying the around the world cuisine theme. The owner, Jim Ringo, was seen walking around the restaurants, chatting and mingling with the customers. Remind me of Paul Bocuse's wife, and how she walked around the world famous Bocuse restaurant in Lyon to check on all the tables. Yes, all the tables. So, if Paul Bocuse does that, why did Ringo only walked to the tables that he knows instead of all the tables? Maybe he will approach each table in his other restaurant, The Forum. A pretty bold move to say nonetheless, opening two brand new restaurants at the same time.
 
I'm sure I will have a different server the next time, and the food will probably come right on time and hot and tasty. But till then, I need more motivation and encouragement to walk in there again. Unless you know that server's work schedule and when to avoid the busy dinner time. Or maybe, just make sure it wasn't Bradley Cooper's movie showing in the theater next time.