• Strawberry-Asparagus Salad with citrus vinaigrette, feta cheese and mixed greens $6.75 (shared)
• Smoked trout and pirogies with homemade crackers and horseradish sauce $8.75

We have been here any number of times for breakfast (biscuits and gravy are amazing), so we were excited when we learned they were going to start serving dinner.

The food they offered was different and very good, much like their breakfasts. I really liked the perogies, even though they were more of a bread dough than the noodle dough often seen with perogies. The smoked trout was good. The salad was standard, but pretty good for a coffee shop.

I will go back to check out the menu once in awhile as it is inventive enough to keep me interested. If you are in the neighborhood during the Art a Whirl or any other time, I recommend checking it out.

• Wild mushroom ravioli with pesto cream sauce $9.25

What? A restaurant of the week on a Sunday? Have we gone mad? Are we trying to pad our stats? Are we going to blow our budget? We might have gone mad years ago, but we didn’t blow our budget at Mill City Coffee. The City Pages calls it the little coffee-shop-that-could, and yes it can.

I was happy with the reasonably priced salad. It wasn’t cheap, but fairly priced, fresh, and thoughtful. I wouldn’t have expected or thought to put strawberries with asparagus, but it worked. Throw on the feta and light citrus vinaigrette and you have a winning combination.

I wasn’t as impressed with the wild mushroom ravioli in pesto cream sauce. I thought the cream sauce overwhelmed the ravioli and I lost the flavor of the wild mushrooms. Good sauce, it’s just sad that the mushroom flavor didn’t come through.

Other notes:
We have been to Mill City Coffee for breakfast and we highly recommend it. Call first to check their hours, they can be a little later than you’d expect for breakfast.
They have a full bar and wine list. Why a full bar in a coffee shop is beyond me.
I will probably go back to try their veggie burger, which looked interesting on the menu.