Rotating Restaurants And Food From Hell

I just happened to be out of town this last weekend on a little mini-vacation to Duluth, Minnesota. My boyfriend’s birthday was Friday night so since he bought the hotel rooms I wanted to take him someplace really special to eat. I searched some Duluth travel sites and came up with the Top of the Harbor restaurant, I couldn’t find much in the way of food reviews but it just happened to be the only rotating restaurant left in Minnesota. I made reservations several weeks in advance and being the day after Valentines I am glad I did because they were busy. The place is actually the fifteenth floor of the Radisson Hotel, its dimly lit, candles on each table, so super romantic and the view well it’s hard to describe, you get a full panoramic view of Lake Superior which is breathtaking and probably even more so in summer with ships on it, but then as you turn the city and the hills all lit up is also an awesome view. All this beauty and live music too, yes they had a musical trio, violin, bass, accordion, traveling from table to table and it made the evening even more magical with the soft music playing.

What I really want to mention is the food, it was fantastic, I had the Filet Oscar, which is a filet mignon topped with crab meat and then covered in Béarnaise sauce, wow, I swear I have never had food so wonderful in my life, the meat melted in my mouth and the flavor was indescribably good. The other reason I know the food was great was my boyfriend Chad, he never has much to say at any restaurant unless it’s a complaint, otherwise the best you will get is “Yeah it was good.” He ordered a steak, rare, like he almost always does and after a couple bites exclaimed that it was the best steak he had ever eaten out anywhere. Now that’s a compliment. The only downfall of the entire night was the service was slow, but like I said they seemed very busy, for the price and the ambiance this place is great.

Saturday, Markus (my son) wanted to take us all to lunch, after driving around a bit he finally decided to take us to Hell, Hell’s Kitchen that is, this is a place you have to see to believe. You enter through a pair of huge blood red castle type wooden doors, the hostess and other staff is all in bath robes or pajamas with messy hair, the walls are painted blood red or covered with gauzy black fabric, little nooks in the restaurant are defined by either more black cloth or huge gothic iron gates with chains.

Old fashioned chandeliers light the interior some bedecked with butcher knives and cleavers, strange artwork hangs from some walls while others have full size dead trees filled with stuffed evil looking Crows and Blackbirds. The menu was rather small but the choices were good, I had a loaded baked potato cup of soup followed by an Ultimate BLT and sweet potato fries. It was all very good the soup was delicious, the vegetables on my sandwich seemed very fresh and the bacon was a quarter inch thick at least, real slabs of bacon, but those sweet potato fries now they were something, I will be making them at home, I loved them, slightly sweet but crisp, very yummy! They also offer a Bison burger which Markus said was great and a fresh Bouillabaisse that Chad really loved.

The place was a little on the spendy side for lunch but the atmosphere was without equal and the staff and service were wonderful.