Krik's Picks

I’ve been doing Krik’s Picks for over two years now. If you happen to be a regular reader, you recognize that I am not the most frequent blogger. Earlier this summer, I went for six weeks without a new post. I went the whole month of July without posting anything. (Shameful, I know.) I think the blog Chocolate & Zucchini does the best job of having regular posts that are pretty interesting to read. She posts two or three times per week. I very seldom achieve that frequency with Krik’s Picks. Some of the other blogs that I read post daily or even multiple times in a day. I kind of envy the discipline that it takes to decide to just post a couple of paragraphs on something. The best example of that is the food columnist for the Sacramento Bee. It’s called Appetizers with Mike Dunne . However, even he doesn’t post every day. The sad thing is, I’ve got notes on about a half dozen restaurants. So I’ve decided to develop a format to do quick reviews of restaurants. So even...

My wife and I went to the New Scenic on a rainy Friday afternoon late in June. Food: 4 Service: 4 Ambiance: 4 Value: 4 Comments: This was sort of an anniversary lunch after a business meeting in Duluth . Since we were celebrating, we ate a little more than we normally would at lunch. I had duck. My wife had lamb. The food was excellent. It’s pretty rustic, but still comfortable. It wasn’t cheap, but I thought it was a good value for what we had. Recommendation: Worth a visit.

Went to St. Elmo for dinner with a co-worker while on a business trip to Indy. Food: 4 Service: 3 Ambiance: 3 Value: 3 Comments: Great steaks! Great drinks! Shrimp cocktail features huge shrimp with a homemade cocktail sauce that features freshly ground horseradish. Handsome bar. Classic steakhouse décor. Tables a little crowded. Service was friendly but not particularly attentive. Expensive. Recommendation: Go there for a special occasion, or when you win the lottery.

We recently had our second meal at Café Maude in south Minneapolis . Both experiences were wonderful. Café Maude is one of those great neighborhood restaurants that can be found all throughout the city. Besides great food and an interesting wine list, they have live music on Friday and Saturday nights. On our most recent visit our friends started with a Caesar salad which they split. They weren’t too fond of anchovies, so I scored the white anchovies that were served on the salad. The salad was unique in that it was served with a “tempura fried egg.” It was a hard boiled egg lightly coated with crumbs and then fried. It had a crisp crust that gave the egg an unusual texture. My wife had a special on the menu – cauliflower soup. She said it was very good. I also had an evening special of squash blossoms stuffed with goat cheese. They were lightly battered and fried. I shared all around, and the verdict was unanimous. It was great! I don’t think I’d previously had squash b...

This is another guest post written by my daughter who lives in Chicago . Wednesday night Peter and I celebrated my birthday and we went to Il Mulino , that's an Italian place right down the street from our apartment and it was SO SO good! One of the best meals I have ever had! Right away when we sat down they had a plate of fried zucchini drizzled with chili oil. Then they brought out this huge chuck of super fresh and very tasty parmesan cheese and shaved off a piece for each of us. Then they brought a small plate with a couple pieces of Italian salami. Then they brought a bread basket with a variety of sliced breads, and another bread basket with two pieces of warm garlic toast. And THEN they brought us each a piece of bruchetta, which I didn't eat of course because too many tomatoes but Peter said they were great. And this was ALL before we even got our menus! The basic menu looked great but we both ordered from the specials menu, which had a ton ...

I recently was drafted to organize a dinner for a group of former Land O'Lakes executives. One was my retired boss, one was our retired CEO, and one was our former VP of International Development. I was happy to do it. As I thought about where we should eat, I decided on Salut Bar Americain . My wife and I had only eaten at Salut for lunch, but we thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s got a comfortable ambiance and a quirky sense of humor. (It celebrates using the term ‘ frog ’ as a nickname for the French. I always thought it was a derogatory term.) Actually, what happened was that my former boss (Bob) lost a bet to our former CEO (Jack). As a result, Bob (who lives in Philadelphia ) had to buy dinner for Jack. So when Bob needed to come to Minnesota for a foundation board meeting, he asked me to organize a dinner to pay off the bet. After I had the dinner arranged, Bob invited Martha (the former International VP) to join us. Voila! Our group started with some appetizers. My wife...