Beautiful sunny day for a drive to Mendota Heights for a relaxed lunch at Mendoberri.
Lovely space...high ceilings, a
variety of seating options...large tables, small tables...in an L-shaped
space with pretty light fixtures, stenciled wall decor and a wine bar.
For a mall setting, it's quite attractive space,
although we're not sure if there were supposed to be 2 water
features...they were identical, but water in only one.
It's counter 'service' at lunch
time...so order at the counter from the menu hanging high on the wall or
the specials on a chalkboard easel.
To give us a little view of the
regular and special menus, we chose 1 item from each. The special of
the day was a 'wood stone oven' sandwich with chicken, havarti, spinach, peso
on cranberry walnut. From the regular menu
we chose a 'grain bowl'--risotto with veggies. We took our number and
were instructed as to where to find silverware and water.
Unfortunately, that was the last words spoken to us by any staff person
for the duration of our meal. Two things define a good dining experience: 1) the food must be very good, not just some of the meal but all of the components 2) eating that meal must be a personal experience for the customer; the restaurant staff should welcome a customer, interpret their needs and work to meet them, and do their best to ensure that the dining experience meets or exceeds the customer's expectations. If you don't interact with the customer, there's no way to make any of this happen.
While waiting for lunch, I
checked out the rest room. Weirdly, there are no TP holders....there's
a TP roll rack in one stall and none in the other. So, you have to
pick up the roll sitting on the handicap grab bar
to use it......eeuuwwwwwww.
Our lunch was delivered
relatively quickly...we were the only ones waiting for food...there were
about 4 tables of patrons, but they all had their food already and only
1 party came in during the next 30-40 minutes.
The food looked quite
appetizing. The sandwich on cranberry bread was toasted and the
ingredients were reasonable in the middle of the sandwich--but nothing
reached the edges of the bread. I'm kind of used 
to make it look plentiful, with nothing on the outside 1 inch
of the entire perimeter of the sandwich. But here, it was a reasonable
amount in the
The largest disappointment was
the 'grain
bowl'.
We selected the veggie risotto bowl. The word
veggie should have been in the description somewhere after the word
bowl. There was a bowl of risotto.....and 8 tiny
diced pieced of squash, 1 piece of peapod, and 3-4 tiny strands of
something green. I have envisioned a bowl of risotto topped with a
generous portion of attractive veggies on top. Instead, it was a bowl
of risotto with
'flecks' of veggies and a quarter
of a lemon plunked in the middle (and I know most places never wash the
outside of a lemon....so a lemon plunked in the middle of a bowl of
rice is.....gagging???). I think it was there to fill the space that should have been filled with the attractive veggies I'm still dreaming that I would have eaten.
John fished through the rissoto to find all the veggies; it appeared to be one heaping tablespoon; lame.
We selected the veggie risotto bowl. The word
veggie should have been in the description somewhere after the word
bowl. There was a bowl of risotto.....and 8 tiny
diced pieced of squash, 1 piece of peapod, and 3-4 tiny strands of
something green. I have envisioned a bowl of risotto topped with a
generous portion of attractive veggies on top. Instead, it was a bowl
of risotto with 
John fished through the rissoto to find all the veggies; it appeared to be one heaping tablespoon; lame.
But, on the bright side, I found
a use for the lemon. I squeezed a bit on the risotto...that was a nice
'brightener' for the dish. But after I tasted (well, after I had a
bite of the salad), I squeezed the rest of
the lemon juice onto the greens so they would have some kind of flavor
(the 2 dried out tomato slices and 1 slice of cucumber tasted
like...nothing).
So, food: the quality of what
was there was good...but the sandwich only had ingredients on part of
it; the greens were flavorless and not that fresh. The risotto was
fine..but it was just risotto....with nothing
else substantial in the bowl. Since we had no beverages...just
self-service water..$29 was too high a price in this value equation.
Now for the biggest
disappointment...there were 3 or 4 staff people present. No one spoke
to us. The cashier took our order and pointed out where the silverware
could be found. That was the TOTAL COMMUNICATION
FROM THIS BUSINESS TO THEIR CUSTOMERS.
No one asked how our food was
(maybe they don't want to ask...for a reason????), no one spoke to us at
all. The owner was present. I ran into him in the service corridor as
I was heading toward the rest room to check
it out.....he didn't acknowledge me or say hi or smile...he quickly
just closed a door as he escaped back into the kitchen.
As were were leaving, 3 staff
people were leaning on the food prep stations in the kitchen...none of
them looked up, none of them obviously thought about interacting with
customers. A bad scene of staff with their
elbows on your food prep area...only involved with each other.
Looking at their reviews, it
appears that people have noticed a decline in quality and service in the
last year or so. Maybe they used to be a great place......that's not
what we experienced. That's too bad, because
the food had potential.....unrealized.
The message is clear---lunch is
'first come, first served...until it's gone', dinner is
reservation-based, don't bother us, don't expect us to talk to you.
The food was not memorable, as a disappointment. The staff chose not to talk, not to ask about our experience or thank us or ask us to come back. Frankly, despite our standard of visiting ever venue twice, we were provided no reason to return.
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