Photo credit: Kensie Wallner

Hotel Luncheons

By Tamara J. Lesnar
Contributing Writer

In large metropolitan areas, there are many choices when it comes to eating. New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Los Angeles are home to many renowned chefs offering degustations that are out of this world. Chefs today are celebrities. Being a chef with a phenomenal reputation can be parlayed into big money and notoriety.

Being a chef is not just about how you cook food, it’s about why and requires love. To me, nothing is more important than preparing a dish that makes people happy. When they smile and delight in what they are eating, memories are formed. Coming from the senses, one partakes of an experience that uses sight, smell, sound, taste and touch interactively with food to form those memories.

I know you remember that bad cup of coffee or that overcooked steak just as you remember Mom’s Christmas dinner or your favorite meal at a particular restaurant.

So with all these talented chefs, why would someone choose to eat at a hotel? Because they have many fines chefs working in them! Most chefs that you find in hotels have been formally trained and can deliver some of the finest-quality foods. The executive chef and sous chef prepare menus that compete with the finest restaurants in the world. These chefs also have celebrity status within the culinary world and are often fought over and wooed in big-contract deals. They also have a reputation to stand by, which is great incentive to prepare meals that make you want to come back more than twice.

Besides usually having a great menu and good food, hotels also offer great deals. Many times in Chicago, my friends and I would dine in hotels for lunch. They offered “Prix Fixe” meals which generally were five to seven course meals that gave you two to three choices per course, including dessert, for a fixed price, usually around $25-$35. The presentation was always beautiful and the food delicious and satisfying.

Not too long ago I decided to write a story about lunching at some of our local hotels. I’ve been to three so far and it is obvious that many people in the F-M area do not enjoy their hotels as much as their metropolitan cousins. I hope to change that trend with this story but time will tell. Maybe we can push our hotels to deliver us degustations that compete with metropolitan hotels.

Although I am only reviewing three at this time, look for future articles with other reviews.
I first went to the Radisson Hotel. Upon entering Passages Café, I noticed that the restaurant was very dark. I was seated near the window after asking to be seated in some light. The area I was put in seem cramped and because it was near the end of lunch service there were not that many customers. Menu items consist of salads, sandwiches, wraps, three entree choices, and a soup, salad, and sandwich bar.

I chose the soup, salad, and sandwich bar. My soup of choice was the wild rice with pork which was a tasty soup. Following it was chicken salad on focaccia, grilled asparagus and scallops with pesto, grilled squash and eggplant with goat cheese, Heirloom tomato Caprese, and a radicchio, jicama, mango and fig salad.

I only remember that the soup was good, the croutons were good, the bacon on the salad portion of the bar tasted like the odors of a refrigerator. An elderly woman stood around for quite some time looking for the server to pay her bill.

In the Ramada Plaza and Suites at 1635 42nd St S is Basie’s Restaurant and Lounge which offered two soups, eight different salads, nine sandwiches, wraps, six pasta options, and steak, chicken and fish with a choice of six rubs.

It was the beginning of lunch service and it was quite crowded, mostly with people who had rented meeting rooms. The decor was art deco modern meets the mid to late 20th century carpeting. The hostess sat me and I asked her to send the server over since that day I was on a tight schedule. I had looked up the menu prior to coming and knew what I wanted.

I ordered chicken parmigiana, cream of carrot soup, Italian quiche, crab and whiskey bisque, and a lox plate. Now I know that seems like a lot of food, but my husband was dining with me that day, and it allowed for many samples.

The food was delicious, the hostess extremely accommodating. She served us herself
when they were slammed with a full restaurant. I definitely will return to Basies, especially to try the featured wine flights at lunch.

My third adventure took me to the Gallery Café in the Holiday Inn Hotel and Convention Center. The menu selections include appetizers, salads, hot sandwiches, wraps, steak, chicken, ribs, seafood, and pasta with prices ranging from $6.99 to $10.99.

They offer a lunch buffet Monday-Friday from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. which is quite the deal ($9.79 for adults Mon-Thurs and $11.49 on Fri).

The buffet has a chef carving meat and there are always two meats offered for lunch. I had roast beef and BBQ ribs. Their buffet also included a salad bar, potato, vegetable, dessert and drink.
The food was very tasty and the meats were tender and well seasoned. I enjoyed my meal thoroughly.

This is a good value and employees that work around the area and people who would rather have a fuller lunch option should take advantage of this wonderful degustation. Call ahead to see
what they are serving that day.

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If You Go

What: Passages Cafe, Radisson Hotel
Where: 201 5th St N
When: Lunch, 11am-2pm daily
Info: 701.293.6717

What: Basie’s, Ramada Inn and Suites
Where: 1635 42nd St S
When: Lunch, 11am-5pm daily
Info: 701.281.7105

What: Gallery Cafe, Holiday Inn
Where: 3803 13th Ave S
When: Lunch buffet, M-F, 11am-1:30pm
Info: 701.277.7328