‘L Bistro offers a cut down fine dining experience. Photo by Nick Nelson/ The Dakota Student

Grand Forks is a town that isn’t particularly known for having a lot of “fine dining”

restaurants. Due to this circumstance, last Tuesday night I went on a small, yet noble

quest to see if I could find a restaurant whose experience and food could be dubbed

as fine dining.

My restaurant of choice was ‘L Bistro Mediterranean Eatery. I decided to check out

‘L Bistro for what would hopefully end up being a special and sophisticated night

out.

The eatery is located on South 42nd Street and is connected to the Canad Inns

Destination Center.

When I arrived to the restaurant, I saw a sign in the door that said Tuesday nights

are half price pasta nights. “Jack pot!” I thought to myself, thinking about all the

money I would be saving on my dinner. I definitely picked the right night to come

out and eat some pasta.

When I was seated at my table, the waiter appeared to be very courteous and

friendly.

As I looked at the menu, the selections all looked delicious. I decided splurging on

my meal at this point was inevitable. With the money I would be saving on this meal,

‘L Bistro had my taste buds in their grasp.

Since I was already saving quite a bit of money on my pasta entrée, I decided to

order calamari as an appetizer. The dish came out hot, crispy and tasty. Even though

I don’t normally order appetizers, I did not regret getting it.

For my entrée, I ordered the baked seafood penne. This dish was a combination of

shrimp, scallops and crab tossed with penne in a creamy alfredo sauce and baked.

At first, I was a bit skeptical about ordering a seafood dish considering North Dakota

is a landlocked state and I had no idea how fresh the seafood in my dinner would

actually taste. But since I had a good experience with the calamari, I decided to go

for it.

I was pleasantly surprised when I tasted the penne. All the seafood was warm and

tender and the noodles were creamy and enjoyable.

The portion size they gave me was fairly large, but I was almost able to finish my

entire plate because I was really enjoying my meal.