The Rake Magazine

Tag: T’s Place

  • Gypsy Jazz, Caviar, and a Wailer Sighting

     

    About a dozen Rake readers and friends showed up last
    Wednesday – at my invitation – for dinner and a show at T’s Place. You can find
    better Malaysian dishes elsewhere, (like at Peninsula Malaysian Cuisine) but the Ethiopian dishes
    were hearty and flavorful, prices extremely reasonable, and the contemporary
    jazz by Ethiopian-born bass guitarist Yohannes Tona and his band was
    first-rate.

    Toma’s a musician of
    the the caliber you expect to hear at the Dakota, where he sometimes performs.
    But for aging hipsters, the real musical highlight came late in the
    evening, when a grey-bearded guy got up on stage with the band and sang No
    Woman No Cry, followed by an a capella rendition of Redemption Song, a capella.
    It turns out he’s Devon Evans, who used
    to play percussion with Bob Marley and the Wailers. A memorable moment.

    Looking for things to do this week?:

    If you can’t get a table at Cafe Maude, check in at nearby Cave Vin, 5555 Xerxes Ave.S., where Rhonda Laurie (that’s her, above) and her trio play every Wednesday, performing jazz standards and gypsy swing in the keys of mellow and romantic.
    No cover charge. Best bets from the menu include the steak tartare and the
    steamed mussels – order them with the frites for a light supper. And Yohannes Toma will be back at T’s place, starting at 9 p.m.

    This Thursday only, Morton’s of Chicago in downtown Minneapolis will host a
    vodka and caviar event from 6 to 7:30 – Petrossian caviar, sliced smoked
    salmon, tuna tartare canapés and sliced tenderloin on crostini, accompanied by
    assorted vodka "mortinis." Cost is $45 per person, plus tax and tip; call 612-673-9700 for reservations.

  • You're Invited: Dinner and Jazz at T's Place

    Please join us for dinner and jazz on Wednesday, February 27 at T’s Place, 2713 E. Lake St. Minneapolis.

    We stopped in the other night at T’s Place, the Ethiopian-Malaysian fusion restaurant a couple of doors down from the Town Talk Diner, to check out Yohannes Tona and his band. I’d read a piece in the Twin Cities Daily Planet by Dwight Hobbes that described Ethiopian-born Tona as "the baddest bass guitar player in the Twin Cities."

    As luck would have it, Tona was off gigging in Las Vegas, but we weren’t disappointed: his replacement was an amazing Cameroonian guitar player named Kenn Wanaku, who led Tona’s regulars in a couple of high energy sets that ranged from reggae and merengue to Congolese soukous and West African hilife, with a little Paul Simon and Bob Marley thrown in as well.

    The only sour note was that the place was nearly empty. So Carol and I decided, we have to get a bunch of friends – and Breaking Bread Readers – together and come back and make an evening of it: Tona and his band play (almost) every Wednesday night. So we are scheduling our little get-together for a week from today – Wednesday, February 27.

    Carol and I will plan to arrive by 8 p.m., and the music starts at 9:00.

    T’s Place offers a unique menu – a combination of traditional Ethiopian dishes, served on a tray covered with injera (a pancake-like flat bread), and some Malaysian-Ethiopian dishes that chef T Belachew invented when he was a chef-partner with Kin Lee at Singapore!. For menu details, check the website. Prices for food and drinks – they have a full bar – are very reasonable, and there is no cover charge for the music.

    We’re asking everybody to order – and pay – for themselves, though you are very welcome to follow the Ethiopian custom of eating from a shared tray.(With your fingers, if you really want to be authentic.)

    Please email me at iggers@rakemag.com, if you plan to attend. Or just show up.