The Rake Magazine

Author: Jeremy Iggers

  • Tin Fish, Belgian Beers, and Anonymous Comments

    Tin Fish is open for the season, and on sunny days, the long
    lines are back at the Lake Calhoun Pavilion. These guys have the formula
    figured out: start with very fresh ingredients, and then prepare them as simply
    as possible. Prices seem to have gone up a bit since last year – as have
    seafood prices everywhere – but they are still quite reasonable: you can get a
    Mini Tin sandwich (two pieces of cod on a toasted bun) for $2.75 and a big
    grilled shrimp taco for $4.95. The fried tin fish combo (four pieces of cod,
    three shrimp, two scallops and six pieces of calamari) with fries and slaw has
    gone up to $15.95 this year, but it is big enough to share. The little bits of
    fried squid were nothing to write home about, but the cod was perfect – moist
    and fresh – and the scallops had the succulent sweetness of the very best. And
    the view of the lake is priceless.

    There are still a few seats left for the Belgian beer
    dinner, tomorrow (Tuesday) night at Barbette, 1600 W. Lake St., Minneapolis. It’s a benefit for KBEM Jazz 88,
    but The Rake is co-hosting, and I’ll tag along and tell a story or two.

    Belgian beers happen to be a passion of mine. Back in the
    early 80s, when I had fantasies of opening my own micro-brewery, a friend and I
    spent a week driving around the country in a Citroen deux chevaux trying every
    local brew we could find. Last time I checked, there were around 300 different
    brands, many of them tiny farmhouse operations, and nearly every brewery had
    its own distinctively shaped glass.

    Belgium is kind of a Galapagos island of brewing, where all
    kinds of weird brewing styles survive that had gone virtually extinct elsewhere
    on the planet. Many of those brewing styles have been rediscovered in the last
    few years – beers brewed with fruit and herbs and spices, and wild yeasts.

    I haven’t seen the list of beers that will be poured yet,
    but chef Sarah Masters’ menu sounds promising. She’s using domestic
    Belgian-style microbeers for cooking, in each course, including a starter of
    1Chevagne goat cheese with pumpernickel toast points and Rejewvenator-
    marinated fig, followed by pastry-wrapped garlic sausage with braised cabbage,
    duo of mustards and side of greens tossed with a Biere de Miel vinaigrette;
    Flat Earth Pale Ale-marinated eye of round roast with creamy polenta and
    spinach, and a Chocolate tart
    with raspberry-Brother Thelonious reduction as a grand finale.

    Tickets are $50 benefiting Jazz88. To make online
    reservations, CLICK HERE or call Kevin Barnes at (612) 668-1735.

    Confidential to "Anonymous": (i.e., anybody who posts anonymous comments): Anonymous coments are welcome, and negative comments about restaurants (and about restaurant critics, for that matter) are okay, too, but it seems to me that if you are going to be harsh, and especially if you are going to single out an identifiable individual for criticism, you ought to sign your name. Or better yet, become a Rake Restaurant Rater, and post your critique there.

     

  • Papa's Pizza: Classic Italian-American

    My recent posting about Sauced, the new neighborhood bistro
    in north Minneapolis brought some enthusiastic comments from neighbors, and a
    slightly disgruntled note from Mick Brogan, owner of the nearby Papa’s Pizza
    & Pasta.

    "We have been on the corner of 42nd and Thomas for 3 years
    and are still the best kept secret in Minneapolis. We offer East Coast Italian
    American cuisine and have quite the following. However getting the word out
    that we are here is a full time job. When you mention other restaurants in the
    area and not us it sure doesn’t help. We offer food and service that is 2nd to
    none …. Stop by sometime and see what we have to offer."

    So, let me apologize for the oversight. I did visit Papa’s
    Pizza and Pasta three years ago, and I liked it a lot. It’s your basic, no
    frills mom and pop pizzeria. These kinds of places used to be staples in every
    neighborhood a generation ago, but the relentless march of the Pizza Huts and
    Dominos have driven them to the edge of extinction. Locally – I can only think
    of Jakeeno’s, Dulono’s and the Pizza Shack, but I am sure that disgruntled
    pizzeria owners will remind me of a few more.

    At the time. Papa’s seemed to be facing an enormous uphill
    struggle. The average lifespan of a north Minneapolis restaurant seems to be
    under a year, and Pizza Papa’s had had a couple of incidents of vandalism – the
    big glass windows had been smashed a couple of times.

    I stopped back last night and ordered the spaghetti with
    meatballs, a classic rendition, served in a generous portion with garlic bread
    and four meatballs for $10.59. And I
    took home a 16" pizza deluxe, topped with sausage, pepperoni, onions, green
    peppers and mushrooms – big enough to serve four for $17.49. (Smaller pies are
    available, but this is the best value.) Both were first-rate. This is authentic
    East Coast Italian-American – just like in New Jersey – there is even a little
    tribute to Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack on the walls. A full lineup of
    hoagies and sandwiches is also available, plus a decent low-end wine list.

    Three years later, Papa’s Pizza seems to be thriving.
    There’s a nice little sidewalk patio in front of the restaurant, and the
    Brogans recently added a deli, offering everything from fresh Italian sausage,
    imported cheeses, pasta and olive oil to bread, snacks and Italian gelato – the
    only deli of its kind for miles around.

    The nice thing about this neighborhood mom-and-pop pizzeria
    is that this mom and pop really do try to be part of the neighborhood. Kris
    Brogan – Mick’s wife, is on the Victory Neighborhood Livability Committee, and
    the Brogans are big supporters of the nearby Workhouse Theater. There were two
    signs in their window for neighborhood events this Saturday – a Victory
    Neighborhood Spring Cleaning and Greening Day (meet at the Victory Neighborhood
    Association offices, 2200 44th Ave. N., 612-529-9558 at 9 a.m.), and
    a neighborhood tour of houses for sale (call 612-581-9308.)

     

  • Southern Swing: Gastronomic Gems in Rochester and Decorah

    Carol and I got really lucky last night. We were on our way
    back to the Cities from visiting her folks on the farm, not too far from
    Decorah, when we decided to stop for dinner in Rochester. I wanted to check out
    Söntés, the new tapas bar and restaurant at 4 3rd St. SW, 507-292-1628. The lucky
    part was, ordinarily, Söntés isn’t open on Sundays, but they made an exception
    for Mothers Day. And the food itself was really delightful. We had been
    munching Fritos all the way from Protivin, so we didn’t order a lot – just a
    salad and a few of the small tapas plates.

    Each of the dishes we sampled was a playful and imaginative
    combination of flavors – a salad of cherry tomatoes, green grapes, cherry
    tomatoes, watermelon balls, watermelon gelee, olive oil and black volcano salt
    ($7.50); a plate of fresh sashimi of New Zealand grouper, served with a light
    avocado mouse, ponzu jelly and just a dab of wasabi ($9); three succulent diver
    scallops in a savory chocolate sauce, served over caramelized shallots and
    topped with shreds of sliced fennel ($12), and a light and refreshing salad of
    squid, tossed with marinated fennel, sections of fresh orange, smoky Spanish
    chorizo and Arbaquena olives ($6). Presentation was artful without being fussy,
    and service was prompt and friendly.

    There is a lot more on the menu I would like to try:
    thin-crust Neapolitan pies (i.e., pizzas) topped with everything from organic
    chicken tikka masala to grilled pears, Serrano ham and goat cheese ($12-$15);
    entrée-sized shared plates such as slow-roasted Scottish salmon with wild ramps
    and fennel ($22) and an impressive list of artisan cheeses.

    Ordinarily, we don’t dine out much in Iowa, because my
    mother-in-law, Elmarie, is such a great cook, but yesterday being Mothers’ Day,
    she agreed to let us take her out to brunch at the Dayton House Café, 516 W.
    Water St., Decorah, 563-382-9683. It’s a charming little storefront next door
    to the Vesterheim Norwegian Heritage Museum, with a Sunday brunch is a la
    carte, with everything $8 or less. I had the mothers’ day special, a savory
    seafood strata, but got to nibble a bit on some of the other specials – a
    Nordic interpretation of eggs Benedict, made with seared salmon and poached
    eggs, topped with a lemon dill sauce ($8), and some simple but delicious
    ricotta pancakes, served with lingonberry sauce. I would love to go back
    sometime and sample the dinner menu (served Wednesdays through Saturdays) – the
    focus is on seafood, with offerings like a seafood martini ($7), cod and clams
    in a butter sauce ($15), and a fresh fish of the day. The lunch menu has a few
    Norwegian specialties – open-face smorbrod sandwiches, varme polser (hot dogs
    wrapped in lefse), and several Norwegian desserts: krumkake, rommegrot (cream pudding) and sandbakkels (shortbread
    filled with whipped cream and berries.) No wine or beer, but guests are allowed
    to bring their own bottle, for a small corkage fee.

    There is one other restaurant in Decorah I would love to
    try, if Elmarie ever decides to take a Saturday night off. With a 200 bottle
    wine list, and entrees like grilled Iowa pork chops with a spicy peach and corn
    salsa ($21) and bacon-wrapped pheasant with lingonberry, leek and smoked bacon
    sauce ($24), Rubaiyat, 117 W. Water St., 563-382-9463, has to rank as the most ambitious restaurant
    in Northeastern Iowa.

  • Acadia Cafe: Shades of the New Riv

    I felt a twinge of nostalgia the other night when I stopped
    in for a bite at the Acadia Café, which recently moved from Franklin and
    Nicollet to Cedar and Riverside. Back in my college days – and for many years
    after, the space was home to the New Riverside Café, run by an anarchist
    collective. In the early years, there were no fixed prices – you were supposed
    to "Eat what you need, pay what you can afford." A sign invited
    customers to practice dishwashing yoga, and I did, once or twice. I remember
    great acoustic music, and a couple of slogans “No Meat, No Bosses” and “The
    Bio-Magnetic Center of the Universe.”
    That was a time of revolutionary dreams and great optimism. Gradually,
    most of that spirit faded away, and the New Riv finally closed because of money
    troubles in 1997.

    But there was something about the Arcadia that evokes a
    little of that spirit – mostly, it’s the busy program of live original music ("no cover songs allowed".
    On Wednesday, when I stopped in, ace accordion player Dan Newton, leader of the
    Café Accordion Orchestra, had put together a program that started with him
    playing with Prairie Home Companion guitarist Pat Donohue at 9 p.m., followed
    by Orkestar Bez Ime playing Balkan Music at 10 p.m., and
    the Mill City Grinders, an old-time string band, at 11. (Dan and the Café
    Accordion Orchestra played at our wedding, so Carol and I are big fans.) We
    couldn’t stick around for the music, but I did have a first-rate Swiss and
    mushroom burger with skin-on fries ($7.25). A note on the menu says the beef comes from humanely raised animals. Carol’s appetizer order of fish and
    chips were a bit greasy, but still good enough to be enjoyable.

    The food menu is pretty basic – burgers, nachos,
    cheese curds, hot and cold sandwiches, but the beer list is one of the best in
    the Twin Cities – 28 beers on tap, and another 40 in bottles, including some
    brews I have never seen before, like a Furthermore
    Knot Stock American Pale Ale from Spring Green, Wisconsin ($4 a pint), and a dozen bottled
    Belgian beers.

    If you park in the ImPark lot behind Midwest Mountaineering, they’ll validate your ticket for up to two hours on weekdays, or all day on weekends.

    Acadia Cafe, 329 Cedar Ave., Minneapolis, 612-874-8702.

  • Jade: What's a Critic to Do?

    The question I get asked most often, (after "what’s your
    favorite restaurant?") is "do you get recognized a lot when you review
    restaurants?"

    The answer is, sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. When a
    longtime local restaurateur opens a restaurant in downtown Minneapolis, and
    staffs it with servers who have been on the local dining scene for ages, then
    the odds are pretty good that somebody is going to spot me. But if I go to a
    new theme restaurant in the outer burbs, my anonymity is pretty secure — the typical
    hostess is about 19 years old, doesn’t read restaurant reviews, and wouldn’t
    recognize my name if I handed her a business card.

    Ditto most ethnic restaurants.

    I suppose it has gotten a little easier to spot me now that The Rake runs a line drawing of me on this blog (see above), but if you had to
    pick me out of a police lineup, I don’t think the picture would be much help.
    (I’m the guy on the right.)

    I used to think that anonymity is really important, but the
    longer I stay in the restaurant reviewing business, the less convinced I am.
    There is at least a trade-off involved. On the one hand, when I am anonymous, I
    don’t get any special treatment, but on the other hand, when chefs and
    restaurateurs know who I am, I sometimes find out stuff that gives me a better
    sense of what the restaurant has to offer.

    Maybe it’s more than that — often, what’s really the most
    satisfying part of a dining experience is the human element — learning
    something about the people who work at the restaurant, and developing a
    relationship with them — and the detached
    "secret shopper" approach to
    restaurant reviewing misses out on that.

    At any rate, I stopped in last night at a new ethnic eatery — Jade Asian Bar and Restaurant in the Midtown Global Market at Chicago and E. Lake St., and promptly did
    get spotted by owner Carl Wong. Wong is the former owner of the Seafood Palace
    on Nicollet, which I always used to consider one of the best Chinese
    restaurants in the Twin Cities. (I haven’t dined there much since he sold it,
    so I don’t know how good it is these days — if you have dined there, please let
    me know.) Carl’s three-year non-compete agreement expired recently, and he is
    back in the restaurant business.

    Jade — in the space briefly occupied by Chang Bang — turns
    out to be a nicely styled casual dining restaurant with a menu of traditional
    and contemporary Chinese cuisine, plus a sushi bar. The sushi bar is only open at night, and for lunch they offer a buffet (nothing particularly impressive, when I tried it.) The bar part isn’t open
    yet, but the license has been approved, and the restaurant will start serving
    liquor after May 16. Live seafood tanks will also be arriving soon, and will be
    stocked with everything from lobster to abalone.

    Fire and Ice

    At any rate, my wife and I ordered a couple of items off
    the menu — the deep-fried stuffed seafood tofu ($9.95) and the salted fish with shredded pork and
    eggplant in casserole (hot pot; $10.95), plus an item on the sushi menu that I had
    never heard of before — "battleship sushi" — gunkan maki sushi. It turns out
    that’s the name for a kind of sushi that I had seen before — the kind that has
    a collar of nori, and a filling of sea urchin, or flying fish roe, or other
    ingredients that need to be held in place. The sushi chef — Tony Sin Tuy — said he would make a
    special order for me. What arrived at our table a few minutes later was a real work of art (or two works of art, to be precise) — each a narrow band of
    nori wrapped around a belt of Atlantic salmon, with a filling of sushi rice topped with chopped tempura fried scallops in a spicy mayo, with tobiko roe and a pineapple soy reduction. Tuy calls it Fire & Ice ($5.50), and it is definitely worth asking for.

    We had barely finished that delight when another dish
    arrived, unordered, at our table — a long snake of a specialty roll — a wild
    caterpillar, we later learned — wrapped in avocado, tuna and ripe mango, filled
    with spicy shrimp, flavored with Thai seasonings ($10.95). This, too was wonderful.

    Then Tuy stopped over and
    introduced himself. He obviously knew who I was, and he told us a little about
    himself — he grew up in Minnesota and California, is of Thai and Chinese ancestry, and
    previously worked at Crave in Edina, where he learned the art of sushi from
    chef Tony Lam. He really tries to make sure that every specialty sushi
    specialty he creates is distinctive, different from who diners might get
    anywhere else, and he works a lof of Thai flavors into his original creations. (Hence, the Thai spices in the wild caterpillar.) I came away
    from the conversation genuinely impressed. This is a nice guy who takes sushi
    seriously. It was a conversation that I probably wouldn’t have had if I had succeeded in remaining anonymous.

    Then comes the other dilemma that goes hand-in-hand with
    being recognized: the bill arrives, and there’s no charge for the sushi. I am a
    little torn by this because on the one hand, I don’t believe in accepting free
    food, and on the other hand, it can get really expensive to pay for a lot of
    food that I didn’t order, and it also can feel rude to refuse food that
    somebody with good intensions sends over.

    So I tell the waiter that I need to pay for everything
    that we ate, and the waiter sends me to Carl, who says that the free sushi is
    from Tony, so I better take it up with him. Tony doesn’t want my money, but
    finally agrees to accept a $10 tip — not quite what the sushi would have cost
    if I had ordered it off the menu, but enough to salve my conscience. And I warn
    him that I can’t come back unless he agrees to let me pay, next time, for
    everything I eat.

    And I do want to go back — the seafood stuffed tofu and the salted fish, pork and eggplant casserole were both delightful, and there is a lot more on the menu that I would like to try, ranging from the whole Dungeness crab ($19.95) to the barbecue pork with oysters in hotpot ($10.95).

  • Get Sauced! A Northside Discovery

    It’s in Minneapolis, it’s the best restaurant for miles
    around, and odds are you have never even heard of it.

    Sauced, a little neighborhood bistro at 2203 44th
    Ave. N. (at Penn Ave.) isn’t just the best restaurant in north Minneapolis; it’s the only restaurant in north Minneapolis with a menu
    of contemporary cuisine and a real wine list. Chef John Conklin’s menu ranges
    from spaghetti squash cakes over a red pepper coulis ($9) and seared scallops
    with a chamomile glaze ($11) to seared salmon with saffron risotto ($18) and
    grass-fed beef tenderloin over roasted red potatoes with currant demi-glace.

    North Minneapolis has some charming little neighborhood
    cafes, like the Sunnyside, 1825 Glenwood Avenue North; and Milda’s, 1720
    Glenwood; and Emily’s F&M Café, just down the street from Sauced at 2124 44th
    Ave., but nothing nearly this ambitious.

    When Carol and I stopped by for lunch yesterday, we grazed
    across the menu, starting with a Caesar salad ($9) and the duo of spreads –
    smoked salmon with tarragon and pancetta with blue cheese and roasted walnuts,
    and then moving on to a salad of garlic roasted vegetables with goat cheese,
    served over a bed of spinach with a balsamic vinaigrette ($10), and an entrée
    of bucatini with mushrooms, asparagus and caramelized onions in a red pepper
    cream sauce. We enjoyed it all – the flavors were lively and robust, but still
    had subtlety and nuance, like the notes of fresh tarragon in the smoked salmon
    spread. We really didn’t have room for the roasted peach-strawberry tart ($8),
    but we ordered it anyway, and ate every bite.

    There is a lot more on the menu that I would like to try, including
    the shrimp ceviche ($10) and the tarragon mussels ($11), the cold soup duo of cantaloupe
    peach and tomato gazpacho ($9), and the vegetarian sandwich of avocado,
    oven-dried tomatoes, caramelized onions and cremini mushrooms, topped with Brie
    and served on rosemary kalamata bread ($10). You don’t have to eat fancy,
    though; if all you want is a burger and a beer, the menu also offers a couple
    of Angus beef burgers and a tuna melt, and the selection of tap beers includes Surly
    Bender, Fuller’s ESB, and locally brewed Finnegan’s.

    Later yesterday afternoon, I called Conklin and asked him
    about his plans for the restaurant. "We are not looking at doing anything
    fancy," he told me. "I am not Doug Flicker (chef at Mission American Kitchen),
    I am not trying to do anything that has never been done before. "I am just trying to take the traditional
    French mentality and put to good traditional rustic food."

    Conklin didn’t learn French technique in France, or even at
    a cooking school. He learned his craft on the job, starting as a dishwasher in
    small-town Minnesota at the age of 12, and working his way up. He was as a line
    cook at a Bakers Square in Saint Cloud before going to work for Michael McKay
    at Gallivan’s in Saint Paul; when McKay was hired to open the Sample Room in
    northeast, Conklin joined him as sous-chef. He credits McKay with teaching him
    everything he knows about cooking.

    Conklin and his wife Tricia Clark, and partner Susie
    Gilbertsen took over the restaurant in December, but the sign above the door
    still says Rix, the name of the burger joint that preceded it. He had hoped to
    have a new sign up by April 1, Conklin told me, but there have been some
    unanticipated expenses.

    These guys are facing an uphill climb. A lot of very good
    restaurants have failed in north Minneapolis over the years, from Skip’s
    Barbecue and Lucille’s Kitchen to Rick’s American Café and Coconut Grove. But Conklin is an optimist. He and Tricia
    bought a house nearby in the Folwell neighborhood, and he is not discouraged by
    the abundance of For Sale signs nearby. "I see this neighborhood taking off,"
    he told me He sees families starting to migrate across the river from Northeast
    and buying homes on the north side.

    Wouldn’t it have been a lot safer to open a place in south
    Minneapolis? The idea has no appeal for Conklin: "the people in south
    Minneapolis who can afford $180,000 – $220,000 homes have enough places down
    there."

     

  • Callaloo and Churrasco: Adventures on 38th St.

    The Twin Cities’ gastronomic bio-diversity seems to be concentrated in three
    main hot zones: Eat Street (Nicollet Ave.), with its mix of Mexican, Chinese,
    Vietnamese and German eateries; Central Avenue in northeast Minneapolis, where
    the blend is Indian, Mexican, Ecuadorian, and Middle Eastern; and University
    Avenue in Saint Paul, where Vietnamese, Chinese, Cambodian, and Thai
    restaurants predominate.

    But another hot zone seems to be emerging — in recent
    months, several new ethic restaurants have opened up along East 38th
    St. in south Minneapolis and on nearby streets. The former Jamaica Jamaica at 3761 Bloomington Ave.
    S. is now home to Marla’s Caribbean Cuisine. It’s a sister restaurant to the
    original Marla’s at Lake and Emerson, but with a different menu — more
    Caribbean fare and fewer Indian dishes — except for those that have taken root
    in the East Indies. Marla Jadoonanan herself is now cooking at the new
    restaurant, and is keeping the Lake St. store open until she can find a buyer.

    Some of the new Caribbean dishes on the menu — like the
    Callaloo, and the salt fish and ackee — are carry-overs from another family
    restaurant. Marla happens to be the sister of Harry Singh, who has been dishing
    out Trinidad-style West Indian cuisine at Harry Singh’s
    Original Caribbean Restaurant     in various locations for the last three
    decades. Fans of New Orleans gumbo will love the callaloo, a savory and slimy
    stew of shrimp, spinach, okra, and spices. Many other favorites from Harry’s
    menu are also featured, including Caribbean curries, Jamaican jerk, Caribbean-style
    fried rice and chow mein, and a big selection of roti wraps and parathas,
    stuffed with jerk or curried meats, fish, or vegetarian fillings

    A few blocks down, the retro ’50s diner at 1024 E. 38th
    St. that cycled quickly through incarnations as Mary Eileen’s Café and
    Mazzitello’s Restaurant is now La Bahia Picanteria Restaurant. It’s got a few tables and a tiny counter. The menu
    promises Spanish & Italian food, but it’s really mostly Ecuadorian, with a
    little bit of everything else thrown in — a few spaghetti dishes, broasted
    chicken, buffalo chicken wings, a hamburger, and a burrito. Ecuadorian
    restaurants are popping up all over town — we now have Sabor Latino and
    Charly’s Polleria in Northeast, Guayaquil and Los Andes on Lake Street. Ecuadorians make up a big part of the local restaurant workforce, or so I am told. La Bahia is small and unassuming, but the waitress and cook were friendly — and maybe a little surprised to see a non-Ecuadorian customer.

    My churrasco ($10.50) was typical — a generous portion
    of thinly sliced grilled marinated top sirloin topped with a savory sauce of
    grilled onions, peppers, and carrots, accompanied by rice, seasoned French
    fries, two fried eggs, and half a ripe avocado. There is a lot more that I would
    like to try — the caldo de bolas — a stuffed plantain dumpling soup
    traditionally made with beef, that has an odd resemblance to matzo ball soup
    ($9.25); hornado (roast pork) served with mote (hominy) and llapingacho (fried
    mashed potatoes with cheese) ($9.25); and ceviche de camarones ($8.25) — a shrimp
    cocktail marinated with onions, tomatoes and lime. Weekend specials include
    cows foot soup, catfish soup, and morcilla a la brasa, a grilled homemade
    Ecuadorian sausage, stuffed with rice and veggies ($9.50).

    Not too far away, at 4157 Cedar Ave. S., the former Paradise Pastry Shop is now the Lucuma Bakery & Deli, offering a unique combination of Peruvian, Colombian, and Mexican cuisine. The selection of baked goods in the pastry case looked a bit forlorn, but there is lots to explore on the menu. Breakfast options include Mexican and Peruvian tamales, or chorizo sausage with arepas (Colombian corn cakes.) I haven’t tried any of the Mexican burritos, quesadillas, chimichangas, etc., but I can recommend the Peruvian seco de carne ($8.50), chunks of beef in a very savory cilantro and spinach sauce, served with steamed rice. There’s lots more that sounds interesting, including the carapulcra, sundried tomatoes in a Peruvian aji salsa ($9.50), and the cau cau, a beef tripe stew with hierba buena sauce ($9.50).

  • Heures Joyeuses Chez Vincent

    I bellied up to the bar at Vincent A Restaurant yesterday
    evening, and started to dig into what has to rate as the best happy hour deal
    in town: tap beers and wines by the glass for $3, appetizers for $3.50-$4, and
    the Vincent burger, stuffed with braised short rib for $8 (regularly $12.75). The happy hour, or heures joyeuses, runs Monday to Friday from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

    I ordered Joe’s Potato Hot Dish, a small cast-iron kettle
    filled with baby fingerling potatoes in a creamy chorizo and melted cheddar
    sauce ($3.50), and a socca, a thin chickpea pancake filled with shrimp, chorizo
    salami, parmesan and chevre ($4), washed down with a glass of Aramis
    Tannat-Cabernet blend.

    Halfway through this little feast, up walks Vincent, with
    only one arm visible, making the rounds of the tables in the bar. It turns out
    he recently broke his collarbone in a bike accident, so his usefulness in the
    kitchen is limited. I started grilling him about restaurant news, and learned
    that Vincent plans to open a patio on the Nicollet mall by Memorial Day weekend, if the
    gods and city inspectors approve. Francoual still plans to compete in a
    triathlon in Paris in June, and in his annual team triathlon ride in support of Fraser, a
    local non-profit that serves special needs children and adults, in July.

    This Thursday, as part of his Minnesota Chef Series, he’s
    teaming up with a young chef, Justin Schoville, from a hot new restaurant in
    Rochester called Sontes. Schoville will lead off with courses of octopus crumb
    cake with citrus, spiced cocoa and mint; and monkfish cheeks a la plancha,
    while Francoual will dish up the last two courses, a duo of roasted rabbit loin
    and rabbit shoulder; and a citrus tart with lemon sabayon. Cost is $60 all
    inclusive without wine, or $80 with wines.
    Call the restaurant at 612-630-1189 for reservations.

    I was already pretty well stuffed when Vincent sent over another dish for me to try – a half order of his stuffed pig trotters appetizer ($12.75). The pigs feet are cooked "sous vide" (in a vacuum pouch at very low temperature) for 24 hours, and then combined into a forcemeat with ground pork, and served over cannelini beans with a quail egg, sunny-side up, and a subtle hint of aromatic black truffle sauce. Magnifique!

    There’s lots more on the happy hour I would like to try,
    including the flat bread topped with smoked chicken, carmelized onions, blue
    cheese and red grapes; the breaded fried walleye fingers (which looked
    irresistible from a distance), and the seared chicken morsels marinated in
    coconut milk.

  • Fallen Temple, Rising Prices

    Even body sushi couldn’t save Temple. I can’t say I was
    really surprised by today’s news, reported by WCCO,
    that Temple Restaurant and Bar has closed – it’s a tough market these days. I
    only made it to Tom Pham’s Asian Fusion restaurant a couple of times in the
    one-and-a-half years that it was open, but I found it gastronomically
    underwhelming, and overpriced. Visually, the restaurant was stunning, but the cuisine
    wasn’t really the cutting edge fusion that it claimed to be – more gimmicky than
    inventive. My favorites for Asian fusion are Cafe BonXai, and Ngon Vietnamese Bistro, both of which offer imaginative Asian fusion
    cuisine at very reasonable prices.

    Speaking of over-priced, I have been stunned lately by some
    of the prices I have run into for wines by the glass. Recently, at B.A.N.K.,
    in the Westin Hotel in downtown Minneapolis, when I requested the wine list, my waitress tried to steer me towards the Duck
    Pond Pinot Noir – for $18 a glass. I scoured the list for something more
    affordable, and settled on one of the cheapest glasses – a Woop Woop Australian
    Shiraz for $14. It’s a very drinkable Australian wine of no great distinction that usually sells for about $8-$10
    retail, and I’ve seen it on local restaurant lists for about $6-$7 a glass. B.A.N.K. does offer a big pour, but still…

    Also recently at Bellanotte. Carol asked for a glass of Cabernet without
    checking the price, and got a bit of sticker shock when the bill arrived –
    around $14.50 including tax. She didn’t note the label, (I think it must have been Dynamite Vineyards, a bottle that sells for around $15 retail, and Bellanotte marks up to $50). She recalls it as a nice wine, but, still felt a little sticker shock. Maybe a price like that ought to
    come with a warning.

    Gotta run, but check back tomorrow – I’ll have some tips on
    more affordable dining.

     

  • Dining Out for Life, and Other Worthy Causes (Updated)

    Whether your cause is landmine removal in Afghanistan, or supporting people living with HIV/AIDS, there are lots of opportunities in the next week or so to dine well and do good, all at the same time.

     
    Tony
    Kaczor, the fish fry guy, passed along his latest church supper dining tips,
    including a couple of upcoming Lebanese dinners. This Sunday, April 20th from
    noon to 6 p.m., Saint Maron Catholic Church, 602 University Ave., Minneapolis is hosting a Taste of
    Lebanon dinner, with a menu that includes raw and baked kibbee, cabbage rolls,
    beeef and green bean stew, salad and baklava for dessert, all for $15 for
    adults and $8 for kids. Reservations are a must; call 612-379-2758. And a week
    from Sunday, Holy Family Maronite Church, 203 E. Robie, St. Paul will host its
    Lebanese dinner from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

    On Monday, April 21, Da Afghan restaurant in Bloomington is hosting a benefit dinner to support landmine removal in Afghanistan. Half the $30 ticket price is tax-deductable, and they are going to put our quite a spread: stuffed grape leaves, chicken pilaw, kofta kabobs, tandoori chicken and lots more. For reservations, call the restaurant at 952-888-5824, or visit the restaurant’s website at www.daafghan.com. You can also sendcontributions directly to: the Adopt-A-Minefield
    program, the United Nations Association, Minnesota Division,
    2104 Stevens Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2533,

    Jen Kinney, who lives in Minneapolis, is a single mother of
    a 5-year-old daughter, who caught a tough break – a rare brain disease called
    moyamoya, and then a stroke. Her friends are throwing fundraiser for her on
    Sunday, April 27th from 4:00-9:00 p.m. at the Shout House in
    downtown Minneapolis. Tickets are $10
    at the door, and include a buffet and raffle ticket. There will be drink
    specials throughout the evening, plus a silent auction and Shout House’s famous
    dueling pianos.

    I’m aiming to eat all three meals out next Thursday, when
    134 local restaurants will be participating in Dining Out for Life. Proceeds
    support the Aliveness Project, a local non-profit that provides delivered
    meals, a food shelf, and other support for people with HIV/AIDS and their
    families.

    Lots of my favorite places are on the list, but I’ll
    probably stick to some of the Platinum level (35 percent or more) participants.
    For breakfast, I might start with one of Bess Giannakakis’ terrific flapper
    pancakes filled with fruit and cream at at the Colossal Café; or else a
    chocolate croissant from Rustica. For lunch, the two leading contenders are the beef brisket sandwich at Blackbird and
    the corned beef at Pastrami Jack’s in Eden Prairie, but for dinner, it’s the Vietnamese fusion cuisine at Ngon Vietnamese Bistro in Saint Paul.