Culinary school students come cheap

It's basically impossible to eat multi-course, gourmet meals with a budget, as you've inevitably just blown all your money upgrading to a Sebring convertible. For gourmet goodness you can actually afford, drive your Sebring over to Technique, impressing girls at every stop light along the way.

Just settling into its new Mendota Heights digs after being renamed and re-menu'd earlier this year, Technique's run by the students of Le Cordon Bleu, which for yeu, means fancy, French-inspired three-coursers for just $10, all of which are designed to showcase graduation-required techniques like sauter, pocher, griller, braiser, frire, and rotir -- there will be a test later! Just kidding, there will be, but just like, for the students. Lunch has starters like a Nicoise salad with seared ahi, entrees like a lamb burger with feta & tomato marmalade, or a beef short rib, and delicate desserts including a salted caramel pot de creme, a 17thC custard that's hopefully been well-refrigerated. Dinner counts warmer-uppers like a watermelon/ mache/ arugula salad or daily flatbread, entrees like lamb loin with mint chimichurri sauce or veal shank, and desserts such as a seasonal crumble, which it probably did as a result of being intimidated by that veal in the shower room.

Should only three courses not fill your bag, you heifer, for five bucks more, they'll toss on a second starter, also something recommended to carry when renting a car from Budget.