Pasta in a cream sauce with cajun chicken.

Before I go into further details, let me mention that I went to Jake's City Grille in Eden Prairie with my parents for my dad's birthday, and they like it, and it's not what I would call bad food. As such.

But there's something about a place like Jake's, a place that's still serving cajun chicken pasta in 2010, that makes me want to scream. A place that puts their name on things (Jakesauce, Jakewings, Jakefries) when, at least in the case of the Jakefries, clearly came frozen off the back of a truck.

The menu in general is a bit of an Applebee's/Guy Fieri nightmare. They serve fajitas and beef lo mein and barbecue ribs and a chicken caesar sandwich, for fuck's sake. That's not an identity. That's just trying to compete with low-end chains on their own turf.

The space sits on the edge of a hill at the end of a Wal-Mart parking lot. First it was Doolittle's Air Cafe, but it was a time when buffalo chicken sandwiches and cajun chicken pasta were a small portion of the rage. Then it became Epic, whose concept, as far as I could tell, was to trick people into paying fancy restaurant prices for sports bar food (which apparently isn't a bad idea, as Crave is doing gangbuster business here selling nine dollar edamame). 

We had some nachos, and they were nachos. They weren't bad nachos, but they weren't in the slightest bit surprising nachos. And I got a garlic burger, because it was something I'd never seen before. A burger topped with garlic sauce, which I approve of in principle, as I like both burgers and garlic. 

And again, what I got was... fine? Perfectly acceptable slightly messy burger, the kind you'd get at Chili's or whatever. The garlic sauce tasted like garlic, and the combination was OK, but even with something I'd never tasted before, it all tasted familiar. The "Jakefries" were fries I've had millions of times, in Perkinses and TGI Fridaysen over the years. Maybe I shouldn't have rejected the offer of "seasoned sour cream", but those three words are always harbingers of doom.

Anyway, I can't actually recommend you go to Jake's of your own free will and spend your own money there, unless there are a few items on their ridiculous menu that are actually handled with inventiveness and care while they send all the other crap out the door. But if someone you know is holding a get-together there, I wouldn't go so far as to recommend you eat somewhere else first. You could always order the cajun chicken pasta ironically.