Kona Grill

Rating:

Now this is a novelty: Kona Grill constantly updates its stock price on its website (in case you're wondering, it's currently trading at about $3.25 per share on the NASDAQ). You've heard of chef-driven restaurants? This Arizona-based chain reads like an MBA-driven one.

Not that there's anything wrong with making money; after all, it's called the restaurant business for a reason. It's just that a quick tour of the company's vast new Eden Prairie outpost -- the state's first -- gives off a test-marketed scent at every turn. There's the showy aquarium, the exhibition kitchen, the cool sushi bar (decorated with knockoff Chihuly glass fixtures), the masculine-looking bar, the enormous four-season porch anchored by the rugged fireplace. It's all pleasantly attractive. And calculated.

In many ways, the menu follows the setting's lead: lots of obvious fusion-style trends, watered down to meet the needs of a largest-common-denominator demographic. The restaurant's cringe-worthy motto sums it up badly: "East Meets West. They Party." How did that stinker get past the focus groups?

The menu bears the traces of test-market scrutiny. There's plenty of sushi, although the choices are familiar and the raw selection is overpowered by far tamer fried, baked, blanched and smoked fish options.

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