So I’ve been sensually enriched by a "progression" of gastronomic experience, and whatever taste and discrimination I have developed over this process has made me a more appreciative diner. But can I say that I "enjoy" more of my eating out experiences now than I did in those bygone, and often seemingly halcyon, days?

There are, perhaps, two kinds of people in this world; those afflicted with a propensity toward jadedness on repeated experience and those for whom constancy connotes contentment. Several years ago I was having a beer with a colleague in an airport bar, on the way back from a trip somewhere, and the topic turned to food and drink. I might have mentioned something about wine futures, and he said he liked wine too, especially this chardonnay that he had been enjoying for several years now and that you could buy in a box at discount stores. My first thought wasn’t very charitable, but on second thought I was envious—here’s someone who has managed to keep his tastes from being "upscaled" over time, with beneficial effects on both his average level of satisfaction and his bank account.

Not that there was that much wrong with the food or the et cetera. The lunch menu is relatively small—a good sign—with a handful of pastas, entrees, and salads and a longer list of pizzas. The half-dozen appetizers, if you treat them as such, are definitely shareable.

The food items on the lunch menu fit on one page, but the drinks take up two. The martini selection is especially long and inventive. For example, you can get a "chartreuse skirt" martini—I forget what this includes other than chartreuse. About a dozen or so wines are available by the glass. I had a Valpolicella ripasso that I liked—I used to think of ripassos as a budget-conscious substitute for amarones but they are beginning to grow on me in their own right.

With a colleague from my place of work joining us this week, we could pass judgement on the basis of a slightly broader sample. We started by sharing the calamari fritti appetizer, which came with a mint aioli. The calamari were lightly fried, tender yet crisp on the outside. The dish met with general approval yet it was sizeable enough that we didn’t finish it between the three of us.

For my main course I had the pasta special, which consisted of gargonelle (a pennelike pasta) with prosciutto, cauliflower, fresh thyme, and garnished with bread crumbs, the whole in a garlic cream sauce. The prosciutto was diced and somewhat tough but the cauliflower pieces were nicely done. The pasta itself was cooked just right. I was favorably impressed initially, although the dish didn’t take well to sitting on the table for any length of time, the cream sauce losing its creaminess.

Neither could B or my colleague complain about their dishes being too small. She had the sausage pizza and appeared to damn it with faint praise: when an epicure (she’d eaten at both Solera and La Belle Vie the previous week) judges a dish "okay" you know it really isn’t.

B was trying to stick to his diet and ordered an entrée salad. It had shrimp, avocado, and hearts of palm. I had a taste and thought it okay—the dressing was applied too liberally and the shrimp slightly overdone.

We all ordered espressos to finish our meal. These were good but they came as generous portions (very un-Italian) in regular coffee cups (very gauche, especially for a place with the aspirations of Campiello).

We sat inside in the vast dining room, but al fresco dining is an attractive option on fine summer days. With the pastel-washed walls, the hedges screening the parking lot, and a view of the large interior with its Italianate columns—from the patio you couldn’t tell that they were fake—you could feel transported to the Mediterranean. But I suspect the Mediterranean isn’t what it used to be either.

Waiting for A in front of the new Nicklow’s location I couldn’t help but marvel at the resilient spirit of restaurateurs. This particular location is the fabled Bermuda Triangle of vanished restaurants. I remember Toros of Aspen (Mexican food with Colorado pretensions) as a lively restaurant bar. Conrad’s, a restaurant that defied description and was mostly ignored by the stout denizens of Eden Prairie, followed this for a brief spell. Next came La Dolce Vita, an Italian restaurant, that should have appealed to suburban tastes but didn’t and closed down shortly. This location has lain empty for a while now, but it seems that Nicklow’s is next (for the lease and not the chop one hopes!). Across the parking lot, for almost fifteen years, stood Sherlock’s Home serving home brewed English style bitters and lagers but alas no more, it closed down last year. Peering inside the empty building I wish I could say that I saw ghosts of diners past (perhaps my younger self even, sitting with Jacques), or that the hair on the nape of my neck stood up, but all that could be seen was saw dust and attempts at remodeling. A drove up in time to save me from my maudlin thoughts and The Lunch retreated to Campiello down the road.

Campiello has two locations in the Twin Cities (this one and the original located in Uptown) and one in Florida. Their web site indicates aggressive plans of marketing the "Campiello concept" to the remaining forty-eight states. You probably know what we think of chain restaurants but in this case I’ll confess to a certain soft spot for the original Campiello in Uptown, where a martini can often be had at the bar before a movie or a meal after. So what is the Campiello concept? A lively bar with middle-of-the-road Italian menu offerings that should appeal to a wide spectrum of restaurant-goers; couple this with a décor that includes hand-painted frescos on pink & white walls with fake columns and marble a plenty.

The Eden Prairie incarnation is located on Shady Oak road and is attractively housed in a building surrounded by shrubbery and flowerbeds; attractive if you don’t allow the strip mall that surrounds it to jaundice your view. Walking in I realized that I remembered this location as once housing another Italian restaurant, Mama D’s. The maternal, venerable Italian lady has had extensive cosmetic surgery to become what is now Campiello.

The menu consists of pasta dishes, pizzas and poultry and is pretty standard fare. Not much here for the gourmand amongst you but I doubt that was ever Campiello’s intention. The intention is to provide for the middlebrow palate and this Campiello does well. I ordered a glass of Pinot Noir from the fairly large wine-by-the-glass menu and we shared an appetizer order of calamari. I am not a great fan of calamari but A is and whenever there is nothing on the menu—in the way of appetizer—that is particularly appetizing we opt for calamari. If calamari is not chewy that in itself is a satisfying trait and I can pronounce the dish a success. We will have to wait for A’s verdict on whether the calamari was truly good or not. For my main course I ordered a shrimp-avocado-heart of palm salad. I am a sucker for anything with heart of palm in it – lingering memories of dining in Sao Paulo  perhaps. The salad was served with crisp lettuce and the tiny shrimp were plump and juicy and worked well with the buttery avocado. There are daily specials and from that A ordered a pasta dish with Spanish sausage; I had a taste and quite liked the spicy sausage taste. Our guest had a sausage pizza, which must have been less than successful for it was left mostly unconsumed.

The restaurant was busy with well-heeled diners, no doubt  workers from the high-tech corridor that runs between Eden Prairie and Minnetonka. The service was brisk and business like and it appeared that the bar already had a few patrons by midday. If you ever find yourself in Eden Prairie stuck in a traffic jam then make a beeline for the bar which is quite lively in the evening.

We finished our meal with the obligatory espresso (in this case served in large non-espresso cups) and the bill for three came to $76.00.

I have to end my piece on a sad note. Aquavit, one of my favorite restaurants, is no more. It’s a very sad state of affairs when a city like Minneapolis can’t support a restaurant of Aquavit’s unquestioned excellence. I’ll leave the last words to an old master, who was undoubtedly speaking of weightier things than the demise of an eatery: