The Rabbit Hole, Minneapolis, MN

There are numerous new reviews by true foodies about this place, so I won't pretend to be finding a needle in a haystack, but that's not likely why someone stopped here anyways. Now, on to the meat of the matter...

The Rabbit Hole is a new restaurant and bar located in the Midtown Global Market space. It has an entrance right off the eastside doors (right across from the parking ramp - which is free with validation, btw) and an entrance off the marketplace (so people can get to the shared restrooms... not shared by men and women or something, they're shared b/w TRH and the marketplace).

 

I don't know what the official take on their place is, if they have one, but once you're inside you get a sense that they have design influences from Asian, Middle-Eastern, and Indian themes. Decor is dark, like a cozy place often is, but comfortable. We chose to sit in front of the kitchen windows, which are kind-of-cool 2-top seats, like at a sushi bar, but no ability to talk to the chefs, and had a great time watching them create plates that were going right out to other diners. In fact, it helped us decide what we wanted as we simply thought something looked good seeing it being prepared and asked the waitress what it was, then ordered it.

The menu takes the same direction as the decor, bringing in influences from Korean, Asian, Indian, and Middle-Eastern dishes and spices, then adding their own unique TRH twist, like spice dusted Rice Krispies on the broccoli salad dish we ate. There were dishes with kimchi, a number with seafood as the main component, like crawfish, and some that we had to ask about to understand completely and the waitress was happy to explain.

Get one of their unique drinks. The two we had, a hot date tea and a N/A ginger cocktail were outstanding and gave us totally new flavors we'd never had before. And I don't just mean ginger, I mean the unique blend of items in the ginger drink.

What do you call a redheaded ninja? A ginja!!!

We chose one salad item, one small plate, and one main dish to share b/w the two of us. We had:
- Salad - Broccoli, Orange, Red Onion, Almond, Crispy Rice - This was very good and reminded me of the old family staple carrots & raisins salad.
- Small - Brussel Sprouts, which got hijacked upon order entry and mistaken for - Charred Green Bean, Onion, Almond, Garlic-Black Bean Sauce - We ate these just the same and liked them just the same too. Maybe more actually, because the order was messed up, they gave us the brussel sprouts at the end of the meal and I ate them the next day at home.
- Big - Grilled Kalbi, Short Rib, Kimchi Hash, Grilled Carrots, Roasted Pearl Onions
[the bold and italics are the words they use on their menus to direct your appetite]

Couldn't wait to dive into this one...

Just what the doctor ordered on a cold winter's night...

 

They didn't look like brussel sprouts, but tasted great

 

Though we were pleasantly full from our dishes, we did look at their simple, 4-item dessert menu, but decided to fore go some of their Asian-inspired, lighter desserts for a trip to Sebastian Joe's Ice Cream (and don't get me started on that place).

All in all, we had a great time, with great food and service and I would go back in a New York minute. You should too.

One extra little note: if you see the red neon heart in the rabbit picture above, though I took multiple pics with my iPhone, only this one came out with the red heart, the rest of them are blank. See below. Spooky. Ghosts?