It's All About the Senses Part 2

My last stop took me to good old Dinkytown. One piece of advice if you travel over to that neck of the woods would be to mentally prepare to go up and down roads looking for parking while college students play a real life version of frogger while walking out in front of you. I endured this fun little escapade on my way to The Loring Pasta Bar. This place was pretty cool, although I did see a disco ball hanging in an upstairs section that seemed a bit out of place. I had thought it was going to be a more upscale place but is actually pretty casual. Being next to a college you really can’t really get away with it is my assumption.
The meal itself was pretty good. They start you off with what I thought was a normal bread and butter set, but the bread had that Doritos (blue bag) seasoning to it while the butter was garlic infused. Word to the wise, anything with garlic is a success! Next up was the main course of portabella mushroom ravioli in a beurre blanc with Canadian bacon and a tomato and corn salsa. The pasta was cooked to perfection. I liked having the Canadian bacon to add a little more sustenance to the dish and the corn salsa brought home with a big boost in flavor. The salsa ended up giving it a kind of sweet finish after every bite.
I finished the meal with none other than the best dessert ever…. crème brulee! I’m sad to report this restaurant needs to really work on this dish. The custard itself could use a little more flavor and they totally failed on the caramelization. I think they tried to rush it and didn’t take the time to be patient and do it right. It tasted downright burnt, so I was pretty disappointed. The one thing that did save the day was the fact that they have a student discount. That left me fairly satisfied with my visit.
I will leave you with this, if you can brave the area that is Dinkytown I would highly recommend venturing around there. They seem to have a lot going on culinary wise and I will be looking at going back sometime in the future.