While in St. Cloud recently to see my dealer there, I suggested going out for a bite to eat before I headed back to the Twin Cities. One place one of the guys suggested turned out to be a place that I had on my "restaurants to visit" list, but primarily for their burgers. We went to downtown St. Cloud to have dinner at The White Horse.
Brian Lee looked around the restaurant landscape in the St. Cloud area and saw too many corporate places with cookie-cutter menus, not allowing chefs to spread their wings. He proposed opening a restaurant that would feature talented chefs serving interesting foods to the public. And the restaurant would be in St. Cloud's historic downtown district.
He already had his chef in mind, his son, Tommy. Tommy Lee was a 16 year old exchange student in Germany who made his first German dish - jagerschnitzel - under the watchful eye of his exchange mother. With that, he was hooked on cooking. But not just any one style of cooking, the younger Lee explored different culinary stylings from around the world.
The Lee's found a downtown location that had first been built as a bar in 1907. (see map) Over the years, the name of the place changed - the one most notable to St. Cloud residents and students at St. Cloud State was the Sportsman, a popular college hangout for years. Brian Lee did some digging into the historical past of the building and was told by some older St. Cloud residents that the original name of the place in the early 20th century was the White Horse. He thought it would be a great way to pay historical homage to the spot that first served beer over 100 years before. It was after Lee opened The White Horse in March of 2008 that he found out that the original name was actually The White Bear. He sort of shrugged his shoulders and thought that The White Horse was a better name for his restaurant/bar.
I was told by my dealer that in order to be a successful restaurant in downtown St. Cloud it has to be a bar first and a restaurant second. From the outside, it looked like just a regular small town tavern. Walking into the place, I immediately loved the joint. The long narrow building looked like an old time tavern with a great old bar along the east wall with tables and booths throughout the rest of the place. The place was also packed (it was around 6:30 p.m. when we walked in) and we had a little bit of a wait to get a table. We ordered up some beers at the bar while we waited - The White Horse had a great variety of beers. I got a Surly Fest beer, their interpretation of an Oktoberfest beer.
We finally were seated at a large table toward the back of the restaurant and given menus to look over. To say the menu is diverse is an understatement. I've read good things about The White Horse's burgers, but a number of things caught my eye on the menu. It was a veritable international smorgasbord of food. The jagerschnitzel that a young Tommy Lee first made in Germany years ago is on the menu. There's Vietnamese food, a Korean entree, Italian food, Thai food, Lee's take on Japanese cuisine with a misoyaki salmon dish, and - most interestingly to me - Indian food. The menu also featured steaks, fresh seafood, a pan-roasted duck breast, a New Zealand lamb entree, a number of interesting appetizers, as well as a handful of salads. The White Horse also has daily specials in addition to the food on the menu.
My dealer took the initiative to order up some appetizers while we were looking through the menu. He ordered up some fried calamari that was served with a great sweet Thai chile sauce, as well as an order of fried green beans that I thought were just all right, and edamane which I've really only seen in Japanese restaurants. It was all an interesting - and tasty - start to the meal.
For food, we all got something a little different. One of the guys went the burger route and ordered one of The White Horse's signature burgers - the PBJ and bacon burger. The burger is topped with habenero jam made by a local Minnesota company by the name of Jim and Hazzy's, with a housemade peanut butter spread applied before they put the bacon and a spread of cream cheese to finish out the burger. A side of waffle fries came with the burger. Now, it didn't sound all that pleasant to me - I don't like the smell or taste of warm peanut butter - but the guy just devoured the burger because he thought it was so good.
If you remember on my last visit to St. Cloud and our visit to the Boulder Tap House (click here to see that entry), I was impressed with one of the guys - Mike - who could really put away the food. He was with us again this particular evening, but he went lighter than he did before by ordering up the fish and chips. But it was a large panko-encrusted fried fish filet that extended over the sides of the large oval plate and was served with waffle fries. It looked pretty good and I'm not that big on fried fish. (Not to worry about Mike - after he polished off the fish and chips, he pretty much finished everything else that was on the table that was leftover from everyone else's meals.)
One of the other guys got the almond/corn flake encrusted wild Canadian walleye filet. He told me that it was as good as it looked.
My dealer went with the garlic steak - a strip steak served with sauteed red onions, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms and chopped garlic. A side of red potatoes came with the steak. It was a pretty looking entree sitting in front of him.
The Indian food on the menu was the thing that caught my eye. They had a spicy madras curry entree with your choice of tofu, chicken, shrimp or mussels. There was a chicken korma dish on the menu, as well as a palek paneer vegetarian dish. But with a bit of trepidation - thinking that they have so many diverse entrees on the menu that they can't do all of them very well - I ended up getting the rogan josh. It featured thick chunks of lamb meat in a somewhat spicy housemade masala sauce. Basmati rice came on the side. From the first bite I was hooked. It was as good of rogan josh that I've had in traditional Indian restaurants. While the masala sauce had a nice spicy bite, it wasn't overpowering to me. I've never gotten Indian food outside of an Indian restaurant, but the rogan josh at The White Horse was just outstanding.
However, the most intriguing thing to me on the whole menu was a side of the bacon mac and cheese. I asked our server if there was a way that I could get a side of it and she brought out what looked like a half-entree order of the stuff. It was in a small baking dish with crumbled bacon and bread crumbs on top with a creamy cheese sauce baked in with the penne pasta. I really only wanted a couple bites of the stuff, but it was very good. Oh, and very rich! Each of us took a couple three bites of the bacon mac and cheese with Mike finishing off the rest of what we didn't eat.
And don't ask me why - because I was so stuffed from the very good rogan josh - by our server somehow talked me into trying a piece of their pumpkin cheesecake that they had as a dessert that evening. It had a cream cheese frosting on top and the taste was very good. I only took a couple bites before I passed it around the table. I just love the taste of pumpkin for desserts and this one didn't disappoint.
On my next visit to The White Horse I'll have to try one of their burgers that I've read good things about. But for this visit, I couldn't believe at how good their rogan josh was. Don't let the diverse menu scare you off - it appeared that everyone liked their food at The White Horse very much. It's tough for a chef to pull off doing so many things so very well. But chef Tommy Lee did it very nicely. Don't let them fool you - The White Horse is a restaurant first and a bar second.
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