I’ve got a beef with a fish. Well, my beef isn’t so much with the fish as the restaurant that served it. In truth, my beef isn’t really with the restaurant as much as it is with the practice of presentation over satisfaction. There’s the beef.

There are enough upscale eateries struggling without people like me blabbing about them in print, so I’ll leave names out of this. The other night, my friend Robin and I had dinner in Minneapolis at a much-touted, buzzed-about restaurant. It was beautiful, sophisticated and designed to promote relaxation and calm. Alas, neither man nor woman can survive on Feng Shui alone, and it turns out a meal of buzz and tout only leads to a stomach full of pangs and rumbles.

The service was enthusiastic and impressive. Our waitress had the bill of fare memorized. That may not seem like a big deal, but a five-paragraph description followed each item on the menu. I don’t think I memorized that much in four years of high school and six years of trying to declare a major.

While our waitress took a breath, Robin and I held a brief telepathic conversation.

“Huh?”

“I understood nothing.”

“Guess who’s coming to dinner?”

“No idea.”

Somewhere in her monologue the lady mentioned mussels, so we jumped on that bit of familiarity. First they catch them, one by one with salad tongs, and throw them off the top of a very high building with a few garlic clove chasers. Then they put them in a barrel, send them floating down the Mississippi River where someone on the other end grabs them, puts them in a sauna where they are cooked to perfection in dry heat, and flash frozen before making their way back to the city to be thawed and served. It all takes about 20 minutes. Actually, I forgot how she said they were prepared, but it was at least that complicated.

In addition to feeling really, really cool, by dining at this restaurant you can also claim that you are saving the fish from going extinct even as you eat them. I like it when everybody wins, so I ordered a piece of opah and laughing bird shrimp.

A miniature filet was presented to me with some dark liquid drizzled all over it.

“Robin,” I whispered, “Do I have a really big plate?”

“No.”

“Then why is my fish so small? What do I do with it? Mail a letter?”

I swear I could read, “HELP” in the drizzles. I think it was the desperate call of fellow opahs being turned into postage stamps. I took a bite and all the carefully designed curly cue drizzles smeared together. Suddenly I had an edible Rorschach test on my plate. I tried not to look directly at it for fear of examining more of my psyche than I’m comfortable with.

Then there was the question of what lay next to that inky blot. It looked like an uncooked hot dog. I sampled it with caution. It was my shrimp! They took the Laughing Bird Shrimp and made a sausage out of it! Why?

Being the smart one, Robin ordered the only main course that looked like it might allow someone a little sustenance. I wonder if she noticed how I lifted the table with my knees trying to disturb its center of gravity enough for some of her linguine to slide onto my plate. I was so hungry I would have reenacted the spaghetti scene from Lady and the Tramp with her.

The night didn’t hold much promise of taming my appetite. Already I had visions of hitting a drive through on the way back to the suburbs when our waitress placed a long, narrow plate between us. Dessert.

On a fragile bed of pulled sugar sat one dot of goat cheese. It resembled a very attractive mousetrap. Next to it was one homemade marshmallow. On it were more drizzles, this time cherry-flavored. It looked like a teeny tiny crime scene. While Robin took a picture for posterity, I finished off my wine with the hope that I would soon start seeing double and feel twice as full.

It’s not that I have anything against staging and presentation, but you can be classy, elegant, even a bit fussy, and still feed people a decent meal. I’ve seen prime rib so gorgeous it should have been wearing a crown and carrying a dozen roses, and hot dishes that looked so good they could sit on a pedestal in a museum. I’ve seen full-size fish so handsome I wanted to date them. All of it real food, cooked simply, served with purpose not pomp.

When I got home my husband, Graham, asked, “How was dinner?”

“Please, sir. I want some more,” I answered. An Oliver Twist in high heels.

Sure enough, I found myself standing at the kitchen counter at 3 am. My peanut butter and jelly rested on a delicate bed of chips with a dill spear lying at a dashing angle across my plate. Well, aren’t you just the prettiest little sandwich I ever did see, I thought. And it really was. Pretty enough to eat and satisfy.

St. Paul resident Alexandra Kloster appears each Sunday. She may be reached at alikloster@yahoo.com and her blog is Radishes at Dawn at alexandrakloster.com.