Governors Fine Food & Drink, St Paul - June 26, 2007

His Perspective: D for the food, B- for the drinks

Lemme explain... They make some STRONG drinks here, regardless of what drink you order. And they are very well priced to boot, so you can get well lubricated for $20 or $30.

That said, the food and service are terrible. I ordered a simple Hot Turkey Sandwich. It's supposed to be slabs of turkey in thick bread with mashed potatoes and loads of gravy. That's what I got, and a lot of it, but there wasn't any flavor to it. That and the exposed potatoes were crunchy and hard, as if they sat under a heat lamp for too long before being served. Either that or they were instant potatoes and they just didn't have enough water ( I really couldn't tell). This is one of those meals I order at places that I'm not sure about, because you can (at least in part) judge the quality of the menu and staff by how well it is prepared and how it tastes. This is especially the case since it's such a simple menu item to prepare (in my mind anyway). They did a rather poor job overall in my mind.

She got a garlic Swiss cheese burger and fries. She said it was good (and she ate the whole thing, which is unusual for her) but she thought it would have more flavor to it, and it was kinda small she thought, and I agreed.

We've eaten here before (a few months ago) and we both thought the food was much better the first time around. The only reason we didn't go back sooner was that the service sucked before. Tonight was better, but we did spend a lot of time waiting for our server to come back to the dining room, and we had to ask and re-ask for a few things.

I had an empty glass sitting on the edge of the table waiting for a refill for almost 20 minutes (no really, I timed it) and she had to ask and re-ask for dressing. After the server came and got my glass, it sat on the bar for another 5 minutes before the barman washed it. I got my drink (just a Coke) 10 minutes after that. We were about ready to leave at that point, and I was kinda disappointed. Also, When I first got my Coke, I had to ask if it was Pepsi or Coke because it didn't taste right. I thought it might be Pepsi, and she couldn't tell. Our server confirmed it was Coke though. Sure tasted odd at any rate...

This time around, not only was the service bad but the food wasn't all that great either. Still, it was only $26 for the two of us with her drinks. That's a good deal if you don't mind bland to average food and slow service.

I doubt we'll be back for a months (except maybe for Happy Hour) same as last time.

You know, I wonder why they call it Governors Fine Food & Drink since it isn't really fine at all. Oh, and if you note the time of this post you'll see that it's quite early in the morning. I've got a headache and heartburn from dinner and I can't seem to stay asleep. That should give you an idea about just how bad the food was.