During our mid-summer vacation up in Spicer, MN, the places to eat dinner in the area were pretty limited. We could have driven a few miles into Willmar for dinner, but we found that our choices there were pretty limited as well. Just down the street from our hotel and across from a little park that featured a deck that looked out onto Green Lake, there was a pretty nice restaurant called Johnny O'Neil's. We went there for drinks a couple times and stayed for dinner one evening.
Actually, the official name of the place is Johnny O'Neil's Green Lake Social, and with the 1950's-style logo they have I'm always somewhat dubious of places named after a fictitious figure. But I was told by one of the bartenders in the place one day that Johnny O'Neil was a real person, the original owner of O'Neil's Food and Spirits in Spicer. The original building dated back to the turn of the 20th century and had been added on to a couple of times. Jon Olson and a partner bought the business in 2000, and a few years after Jon Olson bought out his partner, he and his wife, Michelle, decided to renovate the restaurant in 2013. One of the original buildings was razed and the main building had been gutted and completely re-done into a modern bar with a dining room. They added an events center for parties and receptions, and also added an outdoor patio for dining and live event. The renovation more than doubled the number of patrons they could serve.
It was a short walk from our hotel down Lake Ave. to Johnny O'Neil's. (see map) As I said, we liked to go there because my wife really liked their "perfect" margarita that was seasoned with a filbert (hazel) nut, while I was happy to see that they had Kona Big Wave on tap along with a number of other good craft beers from not only in Minnesota, but from around the U.S. And Johnny O'Neil's was just across the street from Pirotta Park which had a great composite deck with sliding rocking chairs in which we would sit for long stretches of time at various points during our stay just to look out onto Green Lake. It was really one of the more relaxing vacations I've had in a long time.
That evening, we decided to head into the dining room to have dinner. The dining room featured a number of booths along the south wall, large wooden tables in the center for larger groups, and smaller tables along the other side of the room. The hostess who sat us asked if we wanted to sit outside, but we decided to stay inside - and away from the clamor of the bar area that was filled with locals and vacationeers alike.
After we were given menus, our server for the evening, a young lady by the name of Hunter, came by to say hello. "I notice that you already have your drinks," she said. "Can I get you started out with any appetizers?" We hadn't even opened our menus yet and my wife was kind of taken aback by her question. She asked Hunter to give us a minute to look through the menu. My wife immediately had a problem with her that sort of escalated through the dinner.
While most of the main items on the menu were your typical lake country fare - burgers and sandwiches, soups and salads, flat breads and pizzas - they also had some pretty interesting appetizers to choose from. The habanero jack cheese sticks where actually the cheese folded into a wonton and deep fried. They also had those with provolone cheese, as well. They had fish tacos on the menu, albeit breaded and deep-fried (not to my liking for fish tacos), and they had steak tips with pearl onions and wild mushrooms. They also had "wet or dry" chicken rings, and beer-battered onion rings. Some of the items on the appetizer part of the menu sounded like they could be main entrees rather than appetizers.
I saw something in the appetizers that quickly caught my attention - the Minnesota poutine. It was Johnny O'Neil's take on the Quebec-diet staple with crinkle-cut fries topped with mozzarella instead of cheese curds, and with real bacon bits added along with a thick and zesty au jus gravy. Chopped green onions were added to the poutine to give it an added kick in taste. It was a gooey and decadent mess - and it was excellent. We both shared in the poutine, me much more so than my wife.
For dinner that evening, I wasn't really certain that I wanted a burger or a sandwich. They were short of entrees on the menu - they had a 6 ounce sirloin steak that I thought was unreasonably priced. They had a pork loin dinner available, as well as a parmesan garlic pasta alfredo with a choice of either chicken or shrimp. I thought for a moment about their prime rib dip sandwich and their reuben. And I considered getting their rendition of the Juicy Lucy - the Twin Cities-style stuffed cheese burger. But there was one thing that I saw on the appetizer portion of the menu that really caught my eye. Actually, after eating a good portion of the poutine, I wasn't certain that I needed anything else.
But I did...
I ended up getting the sea salt and pepper ahi tuna appetizer. Like I said, there were some things on the appetizer menu that could have easily been entrees. It was a good sized yellowfin tuna steak that was grilled rare and "dusted" with sea salt and cracked black pepper. It came with a tub of wasabi - a lot more wasabi than you'll ever be served at a sushi restaurant - along with a mirin sake sauce that was both sweet and sour, similar to a teriyaki sauce, and some pickled ginger. Flatbread crackers came on the side. The tuna was - in a word - fabulous. It was not fishy in taste, it was seared perfectly and the tuna had a deep red color to it. The wasabi was potent, too. It cleared my head a couple of times. They didn't need to bring a nearly full tub of wasabi, but there it was. But the tuna was surprisingly outstanding.
My wife got the battered redfish sandwich. Real hashbrowns came on the side with the sandwich. She didn't use the top piece of bread and gave it to me to have along side my seared tuna. The redfish was lightly breaded and fried to a golden brown color. It was flaky with big chunks of the fish slicing off easily with a fork. My wife said the redfish was delicious.
As I said, my wife was having problems with Hunter through the course of our meal. She had run out of her "perfect" margarita and wanted a second one, but Hunter was nowhere to be found. The dining room was a little busy, but it wasn't packed. Finally, Hunter rushed by the table, saying as she ran by, "How's the food, folks?" She continued past before we could even answer or to get her attention to get my wife another margarita and another cold Big Wave for me. Actually, she did come back and get our drink order, but it was a long time before we got our drinks. I literally stopped eating until she brought me my beer - well more than five minutes after we had ordered our second round of drinks. Then later on, she did the same thing as she breezed by the table - "How's the food, folks?" - not stopping to inquire, but as she was rushing past. My wife guessed that this was Hunter's first job as a server. "She's not going to last long if she keeps this up," my wife said between bites of her redfish.
Other than the problems we had with our server - who may or may not have been all that experienced - I can't complain about much of anything with our meal at Johnny O'Neil's. The seared tuna appetizer that I had as my main dinner that evening was top-notch. My wife really enjoyed her battered redfish and the Minnesota-style poutine was a great start to the meal. We had chances to go back to Johnny O'Neil's for dinner again during our stay in Spicer, but we ended up just going for drinks in the nice bar area. Within Spicer, Johnny O'Neil's is the best bet for a more upscale meal, even though it really isn't upscale food.
Comments