Author: Jeremy Iggers

Gene “Big Daddy” Sampson, is back at the pit – at least one day a week. Sampson, a legend on the local barbecue scene, got his start selling ribs and chicken next to Tiger Jack’s shack on Dale Street, near the I-94 entrance ramp, with his buddies Ron Whyte and Bob Edmond. Sampson gradually worked his way up to owning his own barbecue restaurant in Saint Paul’s Union Depot in the ’90s. When that venture failed, Big Daddy disappeared from view for a while, but we were delighted to find him back in business, and reunited with Whyte and Edmond in the parking lot outside the Abundant Catering storefront, at 609 University Ave., Saint Paul.

The take-out-only menu includes a full rack of pork ribs for $17, or a half rack for $10, rib tips for $7 a pound, and barbecued chickens for $11 a whole bird, or $7 a half. Sides of cole slaw and potato salad are $1 each. Sampson’s other specialty is his “Flintstone beef ribs”: a half rack of beef short ribs for $16.

Big Daddy’s new venture operates Saturdays only, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. But he also offers catering for groups of all sizes; for more information, call him at 651-276-3101.

Enterprising chef Lenny Russo, back at his Heartland Midwestern Restaurant after a stint at Cue, is working with the Saint Paul Growers Association to create a new retail store and distribution center next door to the Lowertown Farmers Market. The retail store will feature locally grown foods — fresh, canned, or frozen — year-round, while the wholesale distribution center will help small farmers cut out the middleman in selling to restaurants and co-ops, whose purchasing volume is greater than individual farmers can handle. The goal, says Russo, is to have farmers keep more of the profits and also spend less time and fuel making deliveries to the metro area. Russo hopes to break ground this summer and open for the 2008 growing season.

Oh boy! A sushi tsunami in downtown Minneapolis! We’ve already got Origami, Nami, and Koyi Sushi in the warehouse district, sushi at Martini Blu at the Grand Hotel, Ichiban on the Nicollet Mall, Wasabi on Washington Avenue near the Metrodome, Tensuke Sushi in the skyways… and now, joining them in mid-August, in the former Olive Garden space on the corner of 6th and Hennepin, will be Musashi Japanese Restaurant. According to manager Mickey Liu, owner Tyu Di Chen, a native of China, worked at Japanese restaurants in Japan for ten years before coming to the States. Just how Musashi will differentiate itself from its competitors isn’t clear, but Liu says his restaurant’s cuisine will be better.

I stopped for Happy Hour by at Harry’s Food and Cocktails, 500 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis, last week, about 15 minutes after they opened for business, and found lots on the menu that I would like to try, including starters of grilled beef ribs with garlic and ginger ($11) and braised pork ribs with lentils and escarole ($10), and a soft shell crab po’ boy sandwich ($16), but no poutine, the legendary Quebec delicacy of fries, cheese curds and brown gravy that chef Steven Brown had promised would be on the menu.

When I asked Brown for an explanation, he said the current menu is just a preview, while the kitchen gets up to speed. “Rest assured, the poutine will be there or I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. Part of the issue was getting fresh curds vs frozen so they squeak.”

The opening of Jasmine 26, the new Asian eatery next door to The Bad Waitress at 26th and Nicollet, was scheduled for last Saturday, but has been postponed to next Friday, July 20. It’s owned by the same family as the nearby Jasmine Deli, 2532 Nicollet Ave., so you can expect a lot of the same Vietnamese soups, noodle salads and spring rolls, plus Chinese and Thai specialties and a full bar, in a much more stylish setting.

Half a block away, at 25th and Nicollet, Yummy, which happens to be one of my favorite Chinese restaurants, now has another attraction, besides fresh (i.e., live) seafood, daily dim sum and bargain-priced Peking duck: on Monday through Thursday, bottled beer for just a buck – and that includes Tsing Tao, imported from China. And starting this month, they are open every day of the week.

Poutine will be on the snack menu at Harry’s Food & Cocktails, which opens this Thursday at 500 Washington Ave. S. in Minneapolis. The restaurants of Montreal offer interpretations of poutine made with everything from foie gras to pineapple, but chef Steven Brown will feature the classic version of this Quebec specialty on his snack menu. “People here love cheese curds and they love french fries and they love gravy,” Brown said. “It ought to be a home run.”

Brown built his reputation creating haute cuisine at the Loring Cafe, Rock Star and Restaurant Levain (all now defunct), but the menu at Harry’s will have a more down-home flavor. “Our motto in the kitchen is, ‘nothing fancy, everything tasty,’ and our alternate motto is ‘good food tastes good.’”

This time around, Brown promises “great value,” and original renditions of familiar dishes — gourmet burgers like the Espana, topped with smoked paprika and Manchego cheese ($9); and daily specials like meatloaf on Mondays ($12), an all-you-can-eat Wisconsin fish fry on Fridays ($16), and a Sunday supper of martini, pork chop and salad ($18).

The former Nochee space was completely gutted and redesigned by David Shea of Shea Associates — who seems to be designing every new restaurant in the Twin Cities. “The place is going to have the ethos of a sports bar, a neighborhood place,” says Brown. “If you want to come and watch the game, you can do that.”

I usually avoid pre-opening parties and opening night events, but last night I stumbled into one by accident. Riding down Bryant Ave.in south Minneapolis, I saw that the Opening Soon facade had been torn away from the former Caribou Coffee storefront at 815 W. 50th, so I parked my bike and entered. The host informed me that the Blackbird Cafe wasn’t really open yet – the crowd that filled the dining room and bar was invited guests for a trial run tasting dinner. The cafe would officially open to the public tomorrow – i.e., today, Saturday.
But then he thought for a moment and said that I would be welcome to stay, and order anything from the menu at half-price, provided I was willing to be a guinea pig – I could sit at the bar and give the bartenders a chance to practice food service.
Oink.
The menu offers a bit of everything: cold tidbits of spring rolls, shrimp cocktail, or duck rillettes with blue cheese and fig chutney,
hot starters ranging from curried lamb meatballs to green beans in black bean sauce, plus soups and salads. The entree list ($10.95-$19.95) ranges from polenta topped with ratatouille and griddled trout with preserved lemon, to paprika roast chicken with sherry gravy, and London broil with bearnaise sauce and fries.
The sandwich menu is equally eclectic – everything from egg salad, and a Vietnamese banh mi sandwich to a Southwestern black bean burger.
So far, I am quite impressed – the lamb meatballs in curry sauce were big and juicy and full of lamb flavor, and the crisp, thin crust pizza topped with pecans, cherries, sweet onion and three cheeses, was a combination that sounded odd but worked very well. Only the knife-and fork Caesar – (half a head of romaine with dressing on top) was a disappointment – the dressing gets distributed more evenly when you make a Caesar the old-fashioned way. And besides, they forgot the anchovies I requested.
Everybody was in high spirits, with lots of friends of owners Chris Stevens and Gail Mollner (corrected) wishing them well. I think it’s going to be a fun place. They’ll open for breakfast and lunch within the next week or two.
I forgot to steal a wine list, so I can’t give you the details, but the selection of wines by the bottle or glass is interesting and affordable. Only one beer is available on tap – Bell’s Oberon, but the short list of bottles includes some interesting oddities, like Hitachino Nest Ale from Japan.
815 W. 50th St., Minneapolis,.

The waiters at Picosa wear black t-shirts with a sleek dancing nymphette logo on the front, and a legend on the back that says either “He hopes she’s dirty” or “She hopes he’s rich.”
So, it’s a safe bet that the clientele isn’t coming to the new restaurant/bar in Riverplace in search of gastronomic thrills. More likely they come for the dj, and the dancing and the tropical cocktails, or they come to get lucky.

I came hoping that Picosa, with its Nueva Latina menu, would be another restaurant of the caliber of El Meson and Cafe Ena. No such luck. It’s still early days, but nothing I have tasted so far even comes close – the crisp masa empanadas were mostly dough with very little crab and shrimp filling; the mariquitas (fried green plantain chips) tended to stick together, and the tomatillo duck soup had an uncanny resemblance to Dinty Moore beef stew. A salad of jicama, chayote, mango and cilantro in a spicy mango salsa sounded promising, but was overwhelmingly tart and spicy. The entrée of pan-seared shrimp in mango chili salsa was similar – too tart and spicy to enjoy, and the half-dozen medium-sized shrimp seemed disconnected from the rest of the dish. Service was slow and a bit flaky. On the plus side, the outdoor patio offers a great view of the river and downtown skyline, and great people-watching.

And I’m going to at least give the cuisine another try – who knows, I might get lucky.

65 Main Street S.E., Minneapolis, www.picosarestaurant.com.