Resturant Review: Linn Street Cafe

Teresa and I continued our Living Social adventure last night and went to the Linn Street Café. This is going to be an especially hard review for me to write in fact I had to add an extra category to rate which is value. Because I have to work really hard at being objective because this is one of the most expensive places I have ever ate. So here it goes. I’ll start with the best first the service was excellent our waiter was knowledgeable, friendly, attentive and personable. The atmosphere was nice but not over the top. On the negative side my water tasted like cucumbers, not sure if it was supposed to or not. Now for the food I had the house salad with balsamic vinaigrette dressing it was excellent. Bread with honey butter was brought to the table, excellent as well and I usually don’t do bread. For the main course I ordered the  

 Iowa Beef Tenderloin
served with Sautéed Seasonal Vegetables, Chive Mashed Potatoes, and a Cabernet Demi Glace

 The potatoes were very good the vegetables were julienned carrots, zucchini, onions and squash. They were outstanding Teresa doesn’t ever do vegetables and liked them. The thing I can’t pronounce was a sauce that was like nothing I have ever had before, extremely good. Now for the beef tenderloin, average flavor, I requested medium rare and it came very medium to medium well which dried it out. For the price except for the potatoes portion sizes were on the small side. However the presentation of the food was very good. The places I tend to eat you usually don’t hear me speak of presentation.

Overall having the $20 in free food helped my physiological state of mind tremendously. If I could objectively remove the cost from my mind an excellent place to eat on special occasions. In the end my beautiful date was very happy and that is worth something.

 Price range: (everyday, a night out, a special occasion only) special occasion only

Overall rankings all based 1 to 5

Atmosphere: 4

Service:        5

Food:           4.5

Value:           2

Overall          4

Linn Street Café

121 North Linn Street
Iowa city, IA 52245
(319) 337-7370