The Sample Room - Minneapolis

I'm not sure how long it's been since my first visit to the Sample Room in Northeast Minneapolis, but it feels like it must be close to ten years. That was back when i was a Nordeaster. I moved to Saint Paul and had kind of forgot about it until a friend of mine was raving about a recent visit. This prompted my return and I'm happy to have rediscovered this gem just down the street from the old at 2124 Marshall Avenue NE.

The Sample Room specializes in small plates and flights of wine, whiskey and more. We went for the Grand Sample Combo Platter which included a choice of any four small plates at a discounted price. We tried the baked goat cheese with oven roasted tomato and basil, meatloaf with homemade smoked tomato ketchup, seared sea scallops, and roasted Brussels sprouts and butternut squash.

I would most recommend the sprouts and squash. I'm not a huge vegetable guy, but these were REALLY good. They are roasted with tons of brown sugar and super tender. Next best was the baked Stickney Hill goat cheese with oven-dried Roma tomatoes and basil oil. This went really well with the home made breads. I liked the seared scallops with pumpkin seed picada. My date thought they were a bit over cooked. Neither of us thought the bison-pork-beef three meatloaf was very exciting. Not bad, just didn't meet it's potential. We split a deluxe cheeseburger with bacon medium rare. It was really solid. For desert we had the bread pudding which was excellent.

The Sample room is open 11am Monday through Friday and 10am Saturday & Sunday. The kitchen closes at 10pm Sunday through Thursday and midnight Friday & Saturday. The bar closes at 1am everyday.