A light but steady drizzle was falling as I parked my car and walked to the bistro; it was easy to imagine myself in Europe. Then I saw the note in the window: "Amsterdam Bistro is closed for renovation." So much for the Star Trib. When B showed up we discussed our options. Influenced by the weather as much as anything else, we ducked into the nearest open place, Harvey’s Bar and Grill, and left any European connotation well behind.

There could well be another reason Harvey’s is Harvey’s, but the ostensible association is with Hollywood. The restaurant’s logo is a rendition of the Minneapolis skyline with two rabbit ears that, if drawn to scale, dwarf the Petronas towers. The menu explains the concept; "as in the movie," Harvey’s is intended to be one’s "guardian angel, best friend, scapegoat, alter ego. "

How about chef, cook, heck even good bar fare provider? Nope, that’s not part of the vision.

Quantity and variety aren’t the problem. The menu has a number of wraps, sandwiches, burgers, soups, salads, pasta dishes. A schedule of day-of-the-week specials is included; on Tuesdays the specials are a hot pastrami sandwich and steak and mushroom soup.

After considering a couple of intriguing sandwich options (like the fried egg ["surefire hangover remedy"] and grilled veggie [boasting a "unique array of fresh vegetables" that must be intended for the adventurous diner since you’re given no idea what’s in the array]) I decided to go with the hot pastrami. Good east coast deli sandwiches are hard to find in town, and I can accept imagining myself in New York City as a substitute for Amsterdam. Perhaps B’s thoughts were along the same lines since he ordered the Philly steak sandwich.

We also split the walleye fingers as a starter. Nothing even remotely exotic or foreign about this dish, and perhaps that’s the secret to Harvey’s. The walleye was flaky and tender, the crust was slightly spicy, and there wasn’t a hint of greasiness to the pieces.

But then came the pastrami sandwich: thin slices of rubbery gray meat that was supposed to be pepperoni I think, an excessive amount of marinara sauce, the incongruity of a leaf of lettuce and a couple of tomato slices in this concoction, all amid two slices of a pedestrian focaccia. I’m all for innovation and creativity, but it’s hard to imagine that anyone could consider this mutation ... er, variation ... an improvement on the original.

From all appearances, B’s experience with his Philly steak sandwich wasn’t any better, although the flaw in this case is all too common in town. It’s not a Philly steak sandwich unless you slice the beef thinly, you feel like shouting in Midwestern diners and grills. And we probably would so shout if we weren’t thoroughly Midwesternized ourselves by now.

Harvey’s has about a dozen beers on tap and about a dozen wines by the glass. The tap list isn’t anything special. I initially ordered a Finnegan’s Irish Ale but they were out of it. I switched to the Harvey’s Lager, which it turns out is made for the place by Schell. It was watery and unsatisfying.

We had a solicitous, buxom server, a sweet young thing who I suspect many of the clientele would willingly adopt as their guardian angel. Speaking of clientele, there were many more of them than could be expected or justified. Perhaps most of them were looking for a scapegoat for the aftereffects of Memorial Day indulgence.

The difficulty of writing these columns, for me in any case, is to feel passionately about a restaurant to want to write about it. This passion can be joy (Alma, Bobino’s, Solera or Barbette) or disgust (Ikasu Sushi Bar, Mojito, etc.) but when it falls into the middle range of human emotion, i.e., couldn’t give a damn, that’s where ennui sets in and I find it almost impossible to put that putative pen to paper. It’s in these languishing latitudes that The Lunch finds itself this week when it really should have been hitting a centurion high-note.

The whole week was slightly strange. I had returned from a quick European trip: three countries in four days and was feeling a bit worn out. The venue suggested by A, Amsterdam Bistro, was closed for lunch on Monday and to top it all off it was raining lazily – not the type of honest rain that you make an effort to get out off, but the steady, slow drizzle that you think you can walk in until you realize that you’re all wet.

Thwarted by our first choice we chose the very next establishment that was open: Harvey’s Bar & Grill. Harvey is some mystical character, a cross between the Easter bunny and a mensch, who’s supposed to look out for you. A very unfunny and unimaginative name for a restaurant, but what do you do on a rainy afternoon when you have ducked out of work at very short notice (A, as usual, could only do lunch on that date at that time)? You bite your tongue and try what’s on offer.

The fare is standard bar & grill material. We started with a shared order of walleye fingers. The batter covering the fish was light but bitter tasting otherwise the dish was unremarkable. I desperately scanned the menu for something that I might enjoy eating. Nothing struck me as inspirational and I finally settled for a Philly cheese steak sandwich. This time the dish was far too egregious for me to even attempt a defense or justification. The meat was in big fat chunks. A Philly sandwich should have its meat sliced thinly. I had no more than two bites and set the sandwich aside.

The waitress was pleasant enough as is the location. This is the place to come before or after a weekend night of carousing in downtown Minneapolis; the beer is cheap and plentiful and one can stumble from bar-to-bar on the adjoining first avenue. Not that the protagonists of The Lunch would ever engage in such behavior not even to celebrate their centenary.