Dining and Drinking

Our CSA box was huge this week, nearly filling our Whole Foods bag to it’s limits. Watermellon, salsa verde mix, raspberries, sweet corn, zucchini, summer squash, cucumber and a whole lot more.

Taste of Lake Street is on Saturday, September 13th, at the corner of East Lake St and Elliot. Tickets are $25, and food vendors include Pizza Luce, Maria’s Cafe, Town Talk Diner, Hamdi Restaurant, Los Andes, El Nuevo Rodeo, and a lot more. There will also be live entertainment by local artists, but the lineup hasn’t been announced - my guess is that it will be a wide variety of world music.

There will also be beer and wine tastings, and all proceeds go to Minneapolis food shelves

Anyone that knows me knows that Lake Street is my favorite Street in all of Minnesota. I love everything about it, from the “hip and trendy” in Uptown to the immigrant communities near Midtown to my neighborhood hear the Mississippi River - it has it all. And this event looks to be a wonderful celebration of that. (via)

On Saturday night, Tricia and went to the Common Roots Cafe for dinner to try the newest competetor to the Jucy Lucy universe. The Rootsy Lucy is made with thousand hills beef stuffed with 12 month aged cheddar on foccacia with heirloom tomatoes, lettuce and aioli. I’ll have to try it again soon, but I’d have to say this was the best Jucy Lucy I’ve had, both because of the quality of the beef, but also because the cheese didn’t burn my mouth. It was quality cheese and for the most part, it stayed in the burger

Common Roots: We make everything on our menu from scratch, and we strive to use as many local, organic, and fair-trade ingredients as possible. Our menu changes constantly, allowing us to make frequent use of local ingredients. In 2007, 80% of our food and beverage purchases were local, organic, or fair-trade!

For drinks, I had the newest Surly beer, Surly Hell, a Munich Helles, and a beer that I could easily see becoming a top seller for Surly. It was very easy to drink and a perfect beer for a late summer evening. The beer selection is all local (mainly Surly, but also Brau Bros and Point), and the wine selection is all fair trade or local (yes, we make wine here!).

I’d highly recommend stopping in for a Rootsy Lucy before it’s gone!

I just want to say that the Bella (roasted portabella, crispy prosciutto, red onion, goat cheese chive spread) at the Bulldog NE is the best burger in town. I’ve had it three times now, and am amazed every time. Yes, the beer usually helps, but it’s just so dang good. The bun, the burger, the toppings - it’s all amazing.

Beginning on August 1st, and continuing through Election Day, November 4th, you can support your party by simply enjoying a great new cookie at Franklin Street Bakery.

With the Republican National Convention coming to town, signaling the official push for the political season to be in full swing, buy a cookie, and register your vote. …With a good taste!

Each Democratic and Republican cookie sold every day will register a vote for that respective party. A tally will be kept behind the counter daily, and an updated weekly total will be posted on the FSB web site.

So, in this voting method, you are welcome to vote often. And, since these cookies are especially delicious, every vote not only counts, but also tastes good! See you at Franklin Street Bakery – how American is that?

Just don’t tell the Republicans that the bakery is on Franklin Avenue. Not like they’d ever go down to that neighborhood anyway though!

Andrew Zimmern: Here’s a question, what’s the best available turnkey location for a new restaurant in the Twin Cities, and what’s the best space currently occupied that could become available any day now?

The comments section is a nice read of available spots in Minneapolis and St. Paul, including a few in Longfellow…

- The addition to the house just south of the Riverview Theater - this used to be Kee Mee Chow Mein, and another commenter suggested an Izzy’s or another ice cream parlor. This was also one of the possible locations for my walk-up Sloppy Joe restaurant called Sloppy Moe’s.

- The old Armstrong’s space on 42nd ave and 34th st - I think a few years ago, tLMC and I talked about opening a craft beer bar here, but he noted there are some parking and liquor license issues with this location.

But the big news is that Thom Pham (of Azia) has announced that he will be moving forward with Mix in the old Molly Quinns on East Lake. Sweet.

Tricia’s brother and sister were in town this weekend and we brought them to Sea Salt at Minnehaha Park on Saturday afternoon, along with our friends Sam and Nicole. We’ve been there a bunch of times, as it’s one of our favorite restaurants, as well as within walking distance to our house. But this time we ordered stuff we hadn’t had before, and might have found some new favorites.

First, we all split the Oil Pan - 18 Shrimp, 12 Oysters and pickled herring on ice with a pitcher of Surly Cynic. The Oysters were huge and excellent, as good as any others I’ve had in town. And for $50, it’s a good deal and a perfect thing to split with a group.

Tricia and I also split the grilled scallop tacos, which sounded awesome, but wasn’t as good as we wanted it to be. I’m not sure what happened, but our order had the typical onions and cilantro, while Sam and Nicole’s order had corn and a creamy salsa. I’ve had the catfish po’boy before and I thought it was good, but this time I had it grilled, instead of fried, and it was awesome, and probably my new favorite item.

We also ended up splitting three pitchers of Cynic, which was perfect for a warm and sunny day at the park, and made tossing the frisbee a lot more fun!

Had dinner last night at Pizza Biga, the wood fired pizza place next to the Turtle Bread Co on 48th and Chicago. I’ve wanted to try it for a long time, as my brother loves the place, but we just haven’t been. Tricia and I split the caesar salad and the pizza biga. I’m not sure what it was about the salad, but I just didn’t like it. It didn’t have a whole lot of flavor. The pizza on the other hand was awesome. I can’t find a menu online, and I can’t remember what it all had on it, but I’d highly recommend it. Our friends had the beet and asparagus salad which they really liked, and the margherita pizza that we didn’t like.

For dessert, we stopped in at Pumphouse Creamery which is right next door for some ice cream. I had the sweet cream and homemade oatmeal cookie. It was a little expensive at $4 for a one scoop cone, but it was damn good, and might be my new favorite ice cream shop in Mpls.

Carmen’s Cafe in Kansas City

While in Kansas City this past weekend for my wife’s family reunion, we had dinner at Carmen’s Cafe in the Brookside neighborhood of Kansas City. Carmen’s describes itself as having Italian cuisine served with Latin flair, with a menu of tapas, pasta, and other meat and fish based Italian dishes. And judging by our meal, and seeing what other people were eating, it seemed like a place you could keep going back to.

Tricia and I split the Paella Valencia and a tapas order of Shrimp ala Ajillo. The shrimp was good and fairly simple, but the paella was outstanding. I have fond memories of sitting at a street cafe in Madrid, sharing a huge plate of paella with a bunch of HS classmates. I’ll never forget what seemed like an endless supply of the best seafood I’d ever had.

The paella in KC was nowhere near as good, but it was the best I’ve had since then. The plate was packed with beef, chicken, chorizo, and a variety of seafood (clams, mussels, squid, scallops, salmon). By the end, I was so stuffed I couldn’t even think of dessert, even though I really wanted to try their Tiramisu or Spanish Flan.

So that’s why it’s called IPA: Have you ever wondered what a real IPA tasted like after the long, hot journey to India? Pete Brown found out.

Crowdsourcing the Citizen Cafe: Wanna be a restaurant critic? Wanna be a citizen journalist? Let’s try an experiment. The Citizen Café is opening tomorrow, at 24th Ave.and 38th St. in south Minneapolis. Instead of just me writing a review (which I will do eventually), how about all of you readers out there visiting the restaurant and sending me your impressions. You can either post them online as comments on this post, or send them to me as emails, to Iggers@rakemag.com.

Twin Cities finally gets a craft beer store: Jason Alvey remembers exactly where he was when he fell in love with craft beer. It was 2001, he had moved here from Australia and he was at the Uptown Pizza Luce when someone bought a pitcher of Summit Extra Pale Ale. “It’s been a slippery spiral ever since,” he said. “And here I am now with a specialty beer store.”

I still haven’t been to the Four Firkins, but this weekend is the official grand opening.

Also in the Strib today, Beer flows at the Blue Nile: how did an Ethiopian restaurant end up with one of the best beer selections in town? Owner Fahmi Katabay points to one man: His bartender, Al.

Brewer Bids $46 Billion for Anheuser-Busch: One of the nation’s most prominent family-run companies, Anheuser-Busch, formally became the target of a $46.4 billion unsolicited takeover offer from InBev of Belgium on Wednesday. A deal, if reached, would combine Anheuser-Busch’s best-selling Budweiser and Bud Light brands with InBev’s Stella Artois, Beck’s and Bass and would create the world’s largest brewer, with distribution channels around the globe.

The deal would create the world’s largest crap beer empire.

Grinders Kansas City

As some of you know, Tricia and I are in KC this weekend and today we, along with her brother, had lunch at Grinder’s in the Crossroads District of downtown. Grinder’s is one of my favorite bars here, they have good food, a great beer selection, and interesting decor. I think it’s owned by an artist, so the place is packed with interesting sculptures and art work. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with, so camera phone pics will have to do.

The three of us split a pizza and a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich, and both were excellent. I haven’t had many Philly Cheese Steaks, but this was exactly how I imagine the good ones are. Good beef, cheese wiz, onions, and all in a tasty bun.

Grinder’s is also known for their pizza, especially the option of adding tots to any pizza, which is part of what made them famous on the Food Network. We opted against the tots, instead ordered The Hippie pizza with red sauce, green peppers, black olives, spinach, tomatoes, artichoke hearts, & almonds. I don’t think I’ve ever had almonds on a pizza, but they were a nice touch. I think I’d rather have kalamata olives instead of black olives, but it was still a great pizza.

For beers I went with an Avery Salvation and the O’Fallon 5 Day IPA, while Tricia had an Avery White Rascal, all on tap.

Grinders is one of my favorite, non BBQ, places in all of Kansas City, so if you’re ever in town, stop in.

Galactic Pizza’s delivery superheroes: A Minneapolis pizza parlor dispatches caped crusaders (in electric cars) to serve up eco-friendly pies. (via)