Krik's Picks

When I first started my career, 34 years ago, the company I worked for, Midland Cooperatives , was located at 2021 E. Hennepin Ave. in Minneapolis . Every once in a while, the publications department where I worked would go to Muffuletta for a special lunch. (I seem to recall that when we went there, the restaurant was called the Lamplighter Inn. Muffuletta’s web site says it’s been a St. Paul mainstay for 27 years. That would imply that it used to operate under a different name, probably different owners. But I couldn’t find anything online to confirm that.) Whatever it was called, one of the specialties that we all would look forward to was the beer cheese soup. Things change. Midland eventually moved out of the neighborhood to a new office in Fridley . Then, in 1982, it merged with Land O'Lakes , office located in Arden Hills. Muffuletta has changed a lot, too. The menu is much more up-scale with an emphasis on locally-produced food. But they still serve bee...

I’ve written before how my brother (whose birthday is in October) and I (birthday in November) have an annual lunch to celebrate. Well, we missed last year. And we almost missed this year. We agreed on a date, but I didn’t write it on my calendar. I would have totally missed it if he hadn’t had his assistant call and ask if we could meet a little earlier. Manny’s was an easy choice for this year’s lunch. It never used to be open for lunch. But a change of venue this year, to the swank, new W Minneapolis Hotel (located in the Foshay Tower ), also resulted in a few other changes – including, now they serve lunch (and breakfast, too). We both decided to order the Peppered Bar Steak with Bleu Cheese, Cabernet Butter. Wow! It was fantastic. The steaks were done to perfection. There was a generous dollop of a bleu cheese and butter blend with a hint of cabernet. The steak was a nice size for lunch. That is to say, it was a big steak. Not as big as the steaks they serve at Manny...

When we have dinner with my son and his wife and daughter, it’s usually at our house. And when it’s not at our house, it’s at theirs. But in late September, after Linda and I returned from our vacation in Greece , we decided to eat out with Ben and his family. He suggested Brasa . It’s reasonably close to their neighborhood, it has a good reputation, and he’d eaten there once before. It was a beautiful Friday evening. The weather was warm and still. The sky was cloudless. The trees in the neighborhood hadn’t begun to turn color yet. When we arrived at Brasa, we snagged the last remaining outdoor table and ordered a bottle of wine. (No struggling with a wine list here. The menu simply lists “Med. Bodied, Fruity, Red” or “Bold, Ripe Red.” We went with Med Bodied Fruity Red (which turned out to be a Pinot Noir.) The concept at Brasa is pretty simple and straightforward. Roasted meat – chicken, beef, or pork. Interesting sides. Lots of attention paid to quality and skillful preparation. On...

Our daughter ran the Chicago Marathon in October. This was the second time she ran it. She beat her first time, but she doesn’t run competitively. She’s one of the charity runners. She ran for the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society . After she completed the run, she went back to her apartment to rest. Then we met her for a dinner to celebrate her accomplishment. Gibson’s Steakhouse is less than two blocks from her apartment, and she commented that she’d always wanted to eat there. So as my wife and I walked over to her place, and as we passed Gibson’s, we stopped in to see if we could get a table. “Sorry,” we were told. “No tables are available until after 9 p.m.” We didn’t think that would work for Tovah. After all, she’d just finished running 26.2 miles. We figured she’d want to eat early and go to bed. As we turned to leave, my wife thought to ask about the outdoor tables. “You’ll have to check outside,” was the answer. Well, we did check outside, and much to our delight, we d...