The Rake Magazine

Yesterday was my first visit of the season to the Mill City Farmers Market, and I was pleasantly surprised by how many new stands there were selling locally produced prepared foods - apparently Brenda Langton, who was one of the founders of the market, and who owns the Spoonriver Restaurant next door, doesn't mind the competition.

The Black Cat Natural Foods is back this year - yesterday's weekly specials included a goat cheese and asparagus omelet, and a pulled pork sandwich ($6; a bit dry, but not bad), made with slow roasted pork from their market neighbors, the Donner family, who operate the MN Valley Organics stand nearby. The Donners were selling their own sandwich, billed as a McDonner: egg, sausage and cheese on an English muffin ($5.25). *Insert joke about Donner Party here.*

Among the new stands this year: Dim Sum Street, which offered a combo of steamed chicken bun and three small egg rolls for $5, and Mo:Mo, selling steamed Nepali/Thai dumplings, stuffed with chicken (from the market) or vegetables, topped with a tomato ginger chutney. The veggie dumplings (stuffed with onions, tomato, cabbage, chives, ginger and garlic) kind of fell apart when we ate them, but they were quite tasty.

If I had more room, I would have also sampled the wares at the Chef Shack food truck, where the menu included Thousand Hills beef hot dogs, beef tongue tacos and bison burgers.

Under the market shed, there were several more options, including the Queen of Tarts, selling sweet and savory tarts, Edna's Caramels, and Shepherd's Way, offering nibbles of their farmstead cheeses.

The Mill City Farmers Market, at 2nd St. and Chicago Ave. on the downtown Minneapolis riverfront, (between the Mill City Museum and the new Guthrie Theater), is open Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. through October 18.

One of my favorite little lunch spots is the Chinese deli hidden away inside United Noodles, the oriental market hidden away inside the Seward neighborhood in south Minneapolis.

There are only five tables, and no table service - you order at the counter, and bus your own dishes when you're done. The menu is very limited - actually, there is no menu, just a few signs taped here and there, with some photos, plus the steam tables, where the foods aren't labeled, but easy enough to figure out.

This is a different kind of Chinese food than you'll find on most Chinese restaurant menus - even the more authentic places, like Mandarin Kitchen, or Grand Shanghai - it's really more like Chinese home cooking, or Chinese street food. The last time I visited the choices included big chunks of stewed beef and radish, chopped pork with long bean, chicken with broccoli, and glistening red slabs of barbecued pork and glazed roast duck.

I usually go for the combo special - any three of the entrees, plus rice and tea for $6.99, but I have also enjoyed the Taiwan style beef noodle soup - stewed beef and fat noodles garnished with chopped green onions and cilantro.

The deli is going to close for remodeling sometime around July 15, and reopen a couple of weeks later with an expanded kitchen, including a grill for cooking American food. ("American food?" - "Like steak." ) And eventually, they are also going to start serving shabu-shabu, a Japanese hot pot dish that's a little like sukiyaki. But not in the summer - nobody eats shabu-shabu in the summer.

United Noodles, 2015 E. 24^th St., in the Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis. 612-721-6677.

Store hours
Monday to Saturday: 9am - 7pm
Sunday: 9am - 6pm

Deli Hours
Monday: CLOSED
Tuesday to Saturday: 11am - 6pm
Sunday: 11am - 5pm

Just a reminder - if you have dined recently at the Citizen Cafe, and want to join in on the crowdsourced review (see the link above), you have until this Sunday, June 29 to post your comments, or send them to me at iggers@rakemag.com.

 Header photo by Denis Jeong 

I've been told that the whole Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet phenomenom has run its course, and that the next big trend for Chinese restaurateurs is sushi — the profit margins are better. A lot of Chinese buffets already offer a few varieties of sushi, but the new 98 Pounds Restaurant at 98th and 35W in Bloomington actually combines the concepts.

The steam tables offer a big selection of the usual Chinese buffet staples - General Tso's chicken, shrimp in coconut sauce, stir-fried beef with mushrooms, teriyaki chicken, fried rice, egg rolls, potstickers, hot and sour soup, tempura shrimp, etc. etc. etc. There's plenty of fried food, and the fried shrimp and tempura shrimp are heavy on breading light on shrimp, but overall, I'd rate the hot buffet items as better-than-average.

But the real novelty here is the cold buffet of all-you-can-eat sushi.

There were about 15 different varieties of sushi on offer, nearly all of the maki (roll) variety: spicy tuna roll, crab roll, cream cheese roll, California roll. Real sushi lovers will not be impressed - there's very little raw fish, or any other costly ingredients, in the sushi, but plenty of imitation crab. Still, the sushi actually was tasty, and you can't beat the price - $7.99 for lunch, $11.49 for dinner. I'm told that the dinner buffet offers a bigger selection of seafood items, including crab legs and mussels.

98 Pounds Restaurant, 824 W. 98th St., Bloomington, 952-881-1088.

Okay, I really intended to get this post up days ago, or at least sometime before Sunday (today), because today is the day of the weekly Kingfield Farmers Market, which runs from 9 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. at 43rd and Nicollet Ave. S., but life got hectic, and I had to go to Chicago for a conference, and so here it is, 9:20 a.m. on a Sunday morning. So I'm going to do a quick post and then jump on my bike and ride over to the market for breakfast.

The Kingfield Market is pretty small, in terms of the number of vendors and shoppers, but the gastronomic batting average is pretty high: both Rustica, the terrific artisan bakery at 46th and Bryant, and the Grand Cafe, at 38th and Grand (one of my favorite restaurants), have stalls at the market, selling bread, cookies and pastries (UPDATE: the Grand Cafe will be there twice a month); and Clancy's Meats (43rd & Upton, sells bratwursts - they were missing last Sunday, but are supposed to be there every week (UPDATE: starting in July). And the Ikawa Coffee Company sells Rwandan coffee – hot, cold and by the bag – to raise money for its projects to help Rwandan coffee farmers.

The gastronomic highlight of last week's visit, though, was discovering the Akshay-Paatram stall, run by Anasuya Mahabeshwari and Tina Ray. They offer a small selection of Indian vegetarian dishes, as well as a vegan sloppy Jane and little fruit turnovers, all very reasonably priced.

Akshay-Paatram does not have a restaurant, but does operate a catering service; for a menu or more information, contact them at 612-964-1954, or e-mail them at akshaypaatram@yahoo.com.

When I asked Anasuya about the name of the stall, she told me a charming story from the Mahabarata. I will make a complete hash of the story if I try to retell it, so instead I am pasting the Wikipedia version below.

"Akshayapatra: अक्षयपात्र) meaning inexhaustible vessel, in Hindu mythology, was a wonderful vessel given to Yudhishthira by the Sun god, Surya, which held a never-failing supply of food to the Pandavas every day. 

"When the Pandavas began their exile in the forest, Yudhishtra was despondent at his inability to feed the holy sages and others who accompanied him. At this, Dhaumya, the priest of the Pandavas, counselled him to pray to Lord Surya. Pleased with Yudhishtira's prayers, Lord Surya blessed him with the Akshaya Patra, a vessel that would give unlimited food every day till Draupadi finished eating.

"Lord Krishna also once partakes food from the Akshaya Patra, when sage Durvasa arrived at the Pandavas' place with his disciples. When Durvasa arrived, there was no food left to serve him, since Draupadi had already finished eating. The Pandavas became anxious as to what they would feed such a venerable sage. While Durvasa and his disciples were away at the banks of the river bathing, Draupadi prayed to Lord Krishna for help. As always, they were once again saved by him, who partook of a single grain of rice from the Akshaya Patra and announced that he was satisfied by the meal. This satiated the hunger of Durvasa and all his disciples too, as the satisfaction of Lord Krishna meant the satiation of the hunger of the whole Universe.

Akshayapatra, in current usage, refers to any store that is inexhaustible."

^{photo by Denis Jeong}

I stopped by for lunch at Flame at the Rosedale Mall. I might be biased, because the owners – the same people who own Mission American Kitchen , Atlas Grill, and Via – are friends of mine, but I liked it. It isn't the place I would go if I were planning an intimate bistro dinner by candlelight, but then again, if I were in Roseville and looking for an intimate bistro dinner, I would be plain out of luck. There is a whole row of restaurants on the back end of Rosedale, and what stands out about Flame is that it is the only one that isn't a chain restaurant — California Pizza Kitchen, Big Bowl, Romano's Macaroni Grill, Granite City, Chipotle, Potbelly.

(Note to readers: I just previewed the published version of this blog post, and it looks like the odds are pretty good that you will be looking at this positive write-up of Flame side-by-side with an ad for Flame, which might lead you to conclude that there was some kind of connection between the two. There isn't.)

Flame does follow the mall restaurant formula, right down to the logos and uniforms, but it actually has more personality than its cookie-cutter neighbors. The theme is "cooking with fire," so I expected to see meat on spits, but instead the fire-roasting theme is symbolically represented by a row of roaring gas torches, mounted above the open kitchen. The fire-roasted meats are a legacy of the Atlas, where chef Abbas Shahbazi serves delicious Persian-inspired beef and lamb kabobs, as well as fish and chicken, fire-roasted over a 1200 degree grill.

The menu is basically updated meat-and-potatoes, with a smattering of other flavors. The starters include a ceviche made with grilled shrimp and smoked scallops ($8.95), and a barbecued shrimp skillet in a creamy barbecue sauce with grilled baguette ($8.95). There are a couple of pasta entrees as well: pappardelle with smoked chicken and crimini mushrooms ($12.95), and penne marinara with bacon and fresh tomatoes ($10.95)

Prices are very reasonable: On the dinner menu, except for the $21.95 filet mignon, everything is under $20, and there are a lot of choices for under $15, including the half rotisserie chicken ($12.95), broiled Alaskan cod ($13.95), and eight-hour pot roast ($14.95). The rotisserie chicken, roast beef and baby-back ribs are all offered as platters for four, six or eight ($49.95 / $77.95/ $99.95 for dinner; less for lunch) with 2-4 side dishes, which works out to less than $13 per person (or less than $11 per person for lunch). The lunch menu is similar, with lower prices, fewer steaks and an expanded list of burgers and sandwiches, most under $10.

I enjoyed my lunchtime plate of rotisserie beef ($11.95 lunch / $13.95 dinner) – juicy slices of slow-roasted beef, served with a choice of two sides; I opted for the green beans and cheddar hashbrowns and took home enough for an ample lunch the next day.

Flame is one of the few non-chain restaurants that will participate in the Rotary Club of Roseville's first annual Taste of Rosefest on Thursday, June 26, in the Muriel Sahlin Arboretum. Other participants include Ol' Mexico, Old Chicago, Axel's Charhouse, Baker's Square, Schroeder's Bar & Grill, the Outback Steakhouse, and a bunch more. For a complete list and other details, visit www.taste-of-rosefest.com, or call 651-204-9209.