We had a girls’ dinner night out in Rochester a few weekends ago. Our friend Stacy gave us many choices of restaurants to try. Surprisingly, we did pretty well getting it narrowed down to one restaurant in particular:

Twigs

Twigs Tavern & Grille intrigued us with its Hot Rock Grilling concept. It’s something I hadn’t heard of before. The owners of the restaurant brought back the idea after cooking on a hot rock at a restaurant in Spain.

I wanted to try this myself!

What’s more is that it is quite a healthy preparation. We’ve heard Hot Rock Grilling described as “fondue without the oil.” Basically, you cook your meat atop a 650-degree rock right at your table. I knew this is something I’d never be able to do with my husband. Rob thinks it silly to go to a restaurant and pay to cook your own food. 😉

So this was my chance…

Apparently, they like dogs here, because there are photos of them on the wall as well as one as part of the logo, holding a twig in his mouth.

We started with a bottle of Rosenblum Zinfandel. Just as I experienced the last time I dined in Rochester, some things are just cheaper than in the Twin Cities. Our bottle of red was just $23 for a perfectly decent wine!

And then there is the Hot Rock menu…

As you can see, there are three steps to placing your Hot Rock order:

• Choose your meat – Stacy, Kim and I chose the Combo Platter for Two and the Shrimp to split amongst us so that we could try many different sources of protein. We were in a shrimp-sort-of-mood that night, so that’s where the extra shrimp came into play.
• Choose your sauces – Since it was the three of us ordering, our server just brought us one of each sauce to try them all.
• Choose your side – Ours consisted of veggies, cilantro white rice and sweet potato fries. We each ate one of them. It was just too difficult to share/split them with our small plates. Or maybe just too confusing that we didn’t think of it?

First, we received our rock, which looked like more of a slab of marble than an actual rock to me:

Then our raw meat arrived:

We received our additional six ounces of shrimp, too. Then, we just put our meat atop the rock!

Interesting tidbit: You are not supposed to season the meat before grilling or the seasoning will burn. The sauces are meant to be the flavor boosters.

You flip your meat and cook to your desired doneness. Although I love, Love, LOVE scallops, I couldn’t get mine to cook evenly. My favorite ended up being the steak. The shrimp were excellent, too. And I adored the horseradish sauces.

But overall, it didn’t feel like enough food to me. We did each have about 7 ounces of meat and I had my side of cilantro rice and a pre-dinner roll. That seems like it should have been more than enough. But I was not satisfied. I’m not sure if that was the nature of the meal or if I just hadn’t really eaten much that day before venturing on our little road trip down to Rochester.

The one thing I knew, I was ready to get back to the house with the girls and indulge later in a little cider, wine and the cupcakes I had brought!

Stacy said that if we ever come back to Twigs, we need to try their regular menu. She’s had a few full-flavored items, like the Peri Peri Shrimp. The rest of the menu does intrigue me! There are a lot of unique dishes like the Babcock Pork Quinoa Chili and the Shrimp Nachos with Caribbean Jerk Sauce. Okay, now just thinking about this, I’ve got the urge to go back…

Tip: Twigs also offers an extensive gluten-free menu for those who are sensitive.

Have you ever done any Hot Rock Grilling when dining out?

Cheers~
Carrie