Great idea! Take a place with an awesome exterior but a terrible manager and business model, re-purpose it into a casual bistro – something Monnaka always needs but doesn’t always have. I see where the place a block south of Exit 2 that went through several iterations of declining-quality French places is now a low-quality Italian place. Although I did hear recently that changing your theme from French to Italian can double your business overnight.
This is most of the interior, which has gotta make it hard to stay in business. The ghost to the left was a local and didn’t mind sitting next to a baby. There’s a private room with a 4-top, not pictured. There’s a wine fridge.
And there’s a set lunch for Y1000 (plus tax. Everyone wants to add the tax these days). I got the larger bowl of this pork-and-veg soup because “men get more soup, women get dessert” is their motto. Bread was OK and slightly refillable.
Your choice of main dish – pork with balsamic sauce or salmon with shiso pesto. Both really good, actually. A few vegetables on top, a salad on the side, you can’t ask for a much better lunch than this. Especially for $10, right? Where is this culture in America?
Dessert for women turned out to be this – strawberry ice cream, a blueberry, and half a strawberry.
Actual size.
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