Fargo's Best Restaurant: Savor the Flavor at Normans Prime Steaks and Seafood

If you're looking for the perfect place to have a fine dining experience in Fargo, ND, or if you'd rather have a light dinner at a sports bar, or if you need the ideal room for a business dinner, you'll find them all in one place: Normans Prime Steaks and Seafood. And now, you can add one more label: a great place for lunch.

Norman's is located at 1776 45th St. South in Fargo, next to the newly remodeled Kelly Inn, and with easy access to West Acres Mall. The building was originally a Bennigan's Restaurant, but there's no trace of that after Normans finished their remodel.

When you walk in the door, and are greeted by an always-friendly hostess, you can choose to go right or left. Right will take you into a dining room with a variety of different table sizes, all covered with snowy white linen and set with gleaming tableware, and water glasses waiting just for you. It's set off from the rest of the interior by a beautiful screen with an Asian design. Go a bit further back, and you'll find the special occasion room, with a door to keep it separate. Whether it's a birthday party, a businesss meeting, or a wedding rehearsal dinner, you'll find this room just right.

If you choose to go left from the hostess, you'll find a beautiful old wood bar, with large-screen TVs at strategic locations, set, each evening, to a sporting event. Along the far left wall are booths, if you want to sit in a more comfortable group, but you can drink and dine at the bar. For lunch, only the left side of the restaurant is used, and if it's slow, you can ask for the TV nearest you to be set to whatever you'd like to see.

Frankly, once you get the menu, you'll probably lose all interest in watching TV, even if you're a hardened sports fan. Normans offers, as their name implies, both steak and seafood, but the emphasis is on beef. That's where the "Prime" comes in. Normans has its own herd of cows; they know how those cows are fed and cared for, they know how they're butchered and the meat is hung, and they really know how to cook it and serve it. If you think a steak is a steak is a steak, you've never eaten at Normans. When they tell you the steak will melt in your mouth, it's not hype. This is the best steak you'll ever eat. Honest.

I ate lunch there. Frankly, I thought the prices were a little high; my French dip sandwich was about $13.99. But it came, and it was huge, and was accompanied by a heaping pile of French fries (and even those are well above expectations). I took a bite, and was in gastric heaven. I don't eat a lot of beef, because often it needs to have fat cut off, or it's grilled and dripping with grease, but this French dip was meat carved from a prime rib roast, and was probably hard to cut because I expect it was falling off the bone. It was served on a ciabatta bun. I'll admit, I'm not a fan of ciabatta; too often they're hard or tough, and I like to be able to sink my teeth through bread, not have to rip a piece away with my canines. This bun was also perfect. If you think I'm raving, I am. I typically only eat half a sandwich served at lunch, and although I was eating slowly and savoring every bite (and occasionally wiping drool from my face), I ate that whole sandwich. It was a lot of sandwich; it would probably fill up a football player, and it certainly filled me up, but given the incredible taste, the way the beef truly melted in my mouth, the flavor of the "au jus," I just couldn't stop eating it. And after the first bite, I realized the price for this food of the gods was entirely reasonable!

My dining companion ordered a bacon cheeseburger, also with fries. She took one bite and her face lit up. Like me, she was making "nummy noises" as she ate. We traded bites, and I agreed with her assessment -- this is the best burger ever, no contest with our previous favorites. Not greasy, and just as melty and flavorful as my French dip.

We didn't really have room for dessert, but when the waitress -- who, by the way, was nicer than "pleasant" and attended us throughout our lunch, making sure we lacked nothing -- told us the list of the day's desserts, we caved. It was really hard to choose; they had creme brulee, a molten lava cake, cheesecakes with delicious toppings, and more; while we wanted all of them, we settled on a fresh raspberry bread pudding. Now, if you've never eaten bread pudding, here's a warning: in general, there are two kinds: really really good, and really really bad. Ask someone who has eaten it at the restaurant you're in before you choose that. We figured that given the quality of lunch, this would be one of the good ones. It exceeded all our expectations. There was cool (real) whipped cream with fresh raspberries on top; below that, there was bread pudding with raspberries, intermingled with a warm custard sauce. We really tried to finish it, because it was just a shame to leave it, but we couldn't do it, even sharing.

The lunch menu contains variety of sandwiches, seafood items, and salads, ranging from about $8.99 to $28.99 if you want to go for a giant steak. The dinner menu doesn't have the sandwiches, but has a range of beef, seafood that includes shellfish, salmon, and local walleye, appetizers from heaven, ranging from a variety of shrimp delights to bruschetta with sundried tomato, and of course, the dessert menu. The bar will make any drink you like. The entire staff was beyond polite. They seem genuinely glad you've come, they want you to enjoy everything, they'll tell you the story of the beef, which really has to be eaten to be believed, and if you want to chat, they'll chat. If you want romantic privacy, I'm sure they'll give you that too!

One last must-see: the restrooms. I didn't see the men's room, but the ladies room was amazing. It was sumptuous, with a leopard print wall as you enter, then a dark red wall covering over most of it. There's a padded bench should you need to rest. The sinks are bowls upon a counter, with water cascading into them. Towels aren't paper, they're terrycloth. Use a clean one and put it in the hamper. There are a variety of different soaps and liquid and foaming hand washes, and also a variety of hand creams. Amazing. I would love to have a bathroom like that in my home, but I think it's bigger than my house!

I would recommend this to you as the first place to go the next time you're in Fargo. There are a lot of restaurants in the Fargo area, but there's only one Normans, and I'm considering a day trip to Fargo just to eat there again. Their website is www.normansprime.com but it's under construction as I write this. Check back later and you'll see the entire menu. You can reach them by phone at 701-356-0025 to make dinner reservations; you probably won't need a reservation for lunch, but I'd recommend one for dinner.