Krik's Picks

Dec. 31 is my grandson’s birthday. He turned 1. We babysat while our daughter ran some errands, buying preparations for his birthday party, which will be on New Year’s Day. After she returned to our house to pick him up, we suggested going out for lunch. We picked Rice Paper in Edina. The restaurant is highly rated. They call themselves ‘contemporary Asian’ and the server said ‘Asian fusion.’ I think of it as basically Vietnamese. They used to be located in Linden Hills . My wife went there for lunch in those days. I’d never eaten at the Linden Hills location. They relocated to Edina, 50th & France, this fall. So this was a great opportunity to see what all the fuss is about. I was very impressed. Our server offered tea when she came to our table. She told us about a couple of specials. My daughter and I ordered the special spring roll which featured pomegranate seeds, rice, and cilantro. My wife is very sensitive to cilantro, and the server said that this was the one dish tha...

So it’s the last four working days of the year. Nice opportunity to enjoy a casual lunch with coworkers and commemorate (if not celebrate) the conclusion of 2010. Not to cast aspersions. It’s just that it was a challenging year. So it felt more like survival than celebration. We went to Spill the Wine .  I’d been there one other time. Also a lunch with a business friend. Here’s the link to my previous post. I do like the ambiance of the restaurant. It’s bright and airy. The service is laid back, but still attentive. it just has a nice feel to it. One of our group ordered the vege burger. When it arrived, it looked very interesting … also very red. So I asked: “Is there a lot of beets in that vege burger?” Yup. Ok, so my coworker who ordered it said it was very good. But thanks anyway, I’ll pass on the beets. The second person ordered the banh mi sandwich. I thought that the description on the menu sounded very intriguing. I was tempted myself. When it arrived, the sandwich...

I don’t usually write about a particular course or menu item, except in the context of the whole meal. But earlier in December, a colleague and I had lunch at the Occidental. Lunch was good. The Occidental is a reliably good place to eat with classic décor and a fabulous location. Still, I hadn’t planned to write a blog post about it … until dessert. It was December after all, and my last trip to DC for the year. I looked at the menu for my favorites – either carrot cake or apple pie. They did have a nice apple tart on the menu. It was a classic French preparation, and I was about to order it. But then another item caught my eye. It was a chocolate roulade with pistachio cream filling served with a scoop of ice cream. Now, I don’t normally order chocolate desserts. But I do love pistachios, and there was just something about the description that compelled me to give it a try. I’m glad I did. It was great.

I met some colleagues from the National Milk Producers Federation for lunch at Ris. When I arrived at the restaurant, there were guards at the door. Everyone was getting security ‘wanded’ before they were seated. For all the times I’ve been to Washington, DC, that’s never happened to me before. We were seated, and we ordered. Our server was very friendly and we asked him who was the VIP. ‘Can’t tell you,’ he replied. But when the VIP leaves, his entourage will use the side door, he pointed out. Your table is ideally located to be able to see who it is when they leave. During lunch, we speculated about who it might be. Maybe the Vice President? Maybe Hillary Clinton? Maybe Bill Clinton? As we finished our lunches, we noticed a flurry of activity around the private dining room in back. Sure enough, suddenly the side door swung open. A gust of wind blew in and the curtains billowed out. At that moment, the VIP was whisked out the door. We didn’t see who it was! But the people at t...

Early in 2010, after dining at one of Chef Jose Andres restaurants in DC, I set a goal of trying all five of his DC venues. I did minibar in February, Jaleo in March, Café Atlantico in May, and Zaytinya in September. Oyamel was the last one, and I was part of a fairly large group that ate there in early November. Oyamel is very much in the ‘small plates’ theme of Chef Andres other DC restaurants. Jaleo is Spanish tapas. Zaytinya is Greek mezzas. Oyamel is antojitos (or Mexican street snacks). I wondered how it would work for a group. What they did was bring out three selections at a time that were passed family style. We started with the tableside preparation of guacamole. It was a very good guacamole. But you know what? When my wife and I eat someplace that does tableside preparation of guac, we usually don’t order it. There isn’t really that much different that you can do with mashed avocado. The first round of items included a beet salad (which I didn’t try because I don...

Happy anniversary to the Monocle Restaurant in Washington, DC. On Dec. 1, they are celebrating 50 years in business. As I've written before, Krik's Picks got its start as a list of restaurant recommendations for members of the Land O'Lakes Board when they had a free evening in Washington, DC. I included the Monocle as one of my 'Picks.' But other than that brief mention, I've never done a full review. This won't count as a full review. I'll do that sometime in 2011. But over my 25+ years traveling to Washington, DC, I've had plenty of lunches and dinners at the Monocle. I've attended fundraising events that were held there. And, in fact, we've held small group dinners at the Monocle. One of the reasons why I like business entertaining at the Monocle is that they do (or at least have) served Land O'Lakes products . Makes sense. If you're running a restaurant that caters to American lawmakers, you ought to feature American prod...

I ended up having three birthday dinners. No. 2 was on my birthday, which also was Thanksgiving. (See the next post about that.) My parents and my daughter and her family were at that dinner. But my son was in Wisconsin with his wife’s family on Thanksgiving. So we planned a birthday dinner with his wife and kids for the Monday before Thanksgiving. My daughter and her son were able to come; but my son-in-law had to work. I had a recipe from the New York Times that I wanted to make. It’s a butternut squash and mushroom Wellington. (Click here for the recipe.) It really wasn’t too difficult to make, and it turned out really well. My son looked at some recent issues of Bon Appetit, and he picked a recipe that he wanted to make that would go with the Wellington. It was pancetta, asparagus, and peas with pasta (recipe here .) Since it was a birthday celebration, I decided to open a special bottle of wine. My wife and I visited the Imagery Winery in Sonoma a couple years ago that pro...

Yes, it’s true. I did have turkey for my birthday dinner. This was one of those relatively rare occasions when my birthday fell exactly on Thanksgiving day. (See next post.) There’s no rule that says you have to have turkey on Thanksgiving … Oh wait. My wife just informed me that there actually is such a rule. So anyway, it was fun planning a combination birthday/Thanksgiving dinner. It was made especially fun because my daughter and her family recently moved back to Minnesota, and they would be joining us for Thanksgiving dinner. My son-in-law is a chef, so we could count on him to help prepare some special items for our menu. Also, my Mom & Dad drove up from Albert Lea to have dinner with us. I think the best way to report on our menu is to do it by who brought/prepared what. Mom & Dad brought beef jerky and dried beef from Nick’s Meats in Hayward, MN. Nick has won many awards over the years for his sausage and smoked meats. My kids love the dried beef and beef jerky...

Several people have asked, "How often does your birthday fall on Thanksgiving?" Not very often. Not often enough for me to really know. But you can find out anything on the Internet, so I looked it up. I was born in 1951 (on a Sunday). The first time my birthday fell on Thanksgiving was 1954. It didn't happen again until 11 years later - 1965. Next was 1971, 6 years. Then 1976, 5 years. then 1982, 6 years. Then the cycle started over again, 11-6-5-6. So it's a 28 year cycle. With this birthday, I've just started a new 28 year cycle. The next time my birthday is on Thanksgiving is 2021. I'll turn 70 that year.

It’s been an amazing autumn. I can’t remember a time when our heavy frost didn’t occur until so late in October. I had already harvested my  basil earlier in the month. But I still had several peppers in the garden when the forecast called for temps to drop to the mid-20s. It was already after dark when I went into my yard to bring in the last of the peppers. There was one bell pepper, a half dozen banana peppers, two habaneros, and three or four jalapenos. I took the hot peppers, the habaneros and jalapenos, minced them and covered them with olive oil and put them in the refrigerator. A quarter teaspoon of that mixture will add plenty of heat to pasta, rice, or a burger in the coming weeks. I improvised a risotto recipe for the bell pepper and two of the banana peppers. I also snipped some fresh oregano and parsley, which still is fresh and green despite the freezing night temps. The recipe turned out pretty well. It had a nice, distinct pepper flavor, but it probably could ha...

I’ve written before about how my brother and I have lunch in between our birthdays. His is in October. Mine is in November. (Click here to read last year’s post.) This year, we went to Sea Change at the Guthrie in Minneapolis. I’ve written before about Sea Change . It’s one of my top two restaurants in the Twin Cities. And my brother and I have had our birthday lunch here, too. Only last time, the restaurant was Cue . Our experience at lunch only reconfirmed that Sea Change is one of my two favorite special occasion restaurants in the Twin Cities. (I have to say ‘Twin Cities’ rather than Minneapolis, since the other one is Meritage in St. Paul.) When we arrived at noon on a Friday, the restaurant was mostly deserted. There were maybe one or two other tables of diners there. I hope that’s not an indication that they’re in trouble. By the time we left, there were a few more tables occupied. But still not too busy. At first, I was a little disappointed. The selection of items on ...

I took a week off from working at the office. Notice how careful I was about stating that? I did check e-mails from home on most of the days. I did do one business dinner on Thursday. I did check my voice messages twice. But for the most part, it was a restorative break from the office routine. Which is not to say that I wasn’t busy. Um … that is to say I still had a busy week. I washed windows. I raked leaves. I bought jewelry for my wife. I picked up two new suits at SFA . I wrote a blog post. Well, you get the picture. I did a lot of stuff, just not at the office. A lot of the stuff I did was food related. On Monday night, we had a great dinner at Barbette. That was my last blog post. Click here to read it. One night I cooked bay scallops in a lime-butter sauce and served it on basmati rice. It was good. On Thursday (before leaving for the business dinner), I baked two batches of bread – challah for Friday night dinner with our grandkids (and their parents) and French bread for...

Barbette was the first restaurant I reviewed when I started this blog in 2006. This will be the 4 th post about it. (If you want to read the others, you can click here , and here , and here .) I think that makes Barbette the most frequently mentioned restaurant on Krik’s Picks.Want to know why? Because it’s reliably fun and good. We’ve always had good food, good wine, great service, and funky ambiance. Now you can add entertainment to the list of attractions that make Barbette a place to come back to, again and again. We don’t usually go out for dinner during the week. But I’m taking this week off, just to stay and home, rake leaves, do some cooking, and write blog posts. I recently became a ‘fan’ of Barbette on Facebook , and I’ve noticed recent posts about live music on Mondays and Thursdays. So what the heck? No need to get up early on Tuesday morning. Perfect excuse for a late dinner and check out the music. The other thing relatively new at Barbette is a weekly prix fixe...

In past posts, I’ve written that I’m a fan of chef Jose Andres . He has several restaurants in Washington, DC, so I decided that over the course of several months, I’d try to go to each one of them. (Click here for minibar ; click here for Cafe Atlantico ; click here for Jaleo .) So in September, when I found myself with an evening and no business-related dinner plans, it was a perfect opportunity to try Zaytinya . One of my co-workers also was free that evening, so he joined me. That proved to be a good thing. Not only was it pleasant company. But Zaytinya features Mediterranean mezzas – small plates, quite similar to Spanish tapas. In my review of Jaleo, I lamented that since I was eating along, I didn’t get to try a good variety of the tapas. But by having a dinner companion at Zaytinya, we were able to sample a good selection of mezzas. We started by splitting a salad – tabouleh. It’s made from parsley, bulgur wheat, tomatoes, onions, mint, and a citrusy dressing. I really li...

In August, Bon Appetit magazine named Bar La Grassa one of the 10 best new restaurants in the United States. Many of our friends had eaten there and they raved about it. So earlier in September, we decided to try it. Now, I’m not saying that it’s not one of the 10 best new restaurants in America. It might be. It was very good. But there were just a few little things that prevent me from raving about it. Let’s start with the neighborhood. It’s kind of … edgy. Not in a dangerous way. But also not in a very welcoming way. There’s a rowdy music bar across the street. ( Bunkers . We had a fun time there with some friends earlier this year. Even had some pretty good bar food there.) There’s another bar a couple blocks away, Clubhouse Jager . (Kind of mysterious in a Teutonic kind of way.) There are some bars, coffee houses, and pizza joints along the street. As we were strolling up the street, waiting for our table to be ready, in front of one of the neighboring joints there was a t...

I went to the state fair for the first time in about 10 years. When people at the office heard that it had been so long since going, they said, “But Steve, you’re such a foodie. How can you not go to the state fair.” Well first of all, I’m not sure that I really am a ‘ foodie .’ Secondly, if I were a foodie, I’m not sure that the state fair qualifies as food nirvana. Being a cheapskate, I got into the fair for free. (As a volunteer at the milk booth, see the next post below.) I also parked at the free ‘Park & Ride’ lot by the University of Minnesota football stadium . I arrived at about 9 a.m. My shift at the milk booth didn’t start until 10, so I had time for breakfast. I wandered around, and thought about eating at one of the full service restaurants. I’ve never done that before. While I was walking, I passed a table where they were handing out samples of Motts applesauce. So that was my first state fair food – free. Next I saw the booth for Axel’s Bonfire . They offer...

I volunteered at the All the Milk You Can Drink booth at the Minnesota State Fair on Monday, Aug. 30. It’s something I’ve thought about doing for a few years now. Though I used to attend the state fair regularly, I hadn’t been for about 10 years. This seemed like a good excuse to go to the state fair while also helping out the dairy industry. The milk booth is a project of the Midwest Dairy Association . The University of Minnesota Ag Education Club organized the volunteers. In the weeks leading up to the fair, when I would mention that I was volunteering in the milk booth, I was surprised by how many people commented that it  was one of their favorite parts of the fair. It also gets mentioned frequently as one of the best bargains at the fair. When I arrived for my shift, the morning volunteers got our orientation. As you might expect, hygiene and sanitation is a major consideration. The supervisor went through the rules – each customer pays $1 for their first glass of milk....

As one of the activities during our Employee Celebration Day at work , the Diversity Council organized a salsa contest. That’s salsa the dip, not salsa the dance. It sounded like fun. So I organized a team. We had two of the attorneys from our Law Dept., my summer intern, and me. I may have gone a little overboard in planning. But what the heck. A contest is a contest, and the goal is to win, isn’t it? Our strategy was to select a recipe that included some unusual ingredients, so that it would stand out from the pack. We decided not to go with a fruit salsa. The entries would be sampled with tortilla chips, and I think of fruit salsas as more of an accompaniment to meat or fish. We perused a book I have – The Great Salsa Book . It’s available on Amazon. The recipe we found was tomatillos and avocados. It was a very simple salsa with just those main ingredients, fired up a little with chili peppers and cilantro and a generous addition of lime juice for tanginess. I’ve supplied the r...

1 lb. tomatillos, husked, rinsed, and coarsely chopped 1 avocado, peeled, pitted, coarsely chopped 1 serrano chili, with seeds 3/4 c. cilantro leaves 2 tbsp. lime juice 1 tsp. salt Place all ingredients in a food processor or blender and puree. Preparation tips from Los Companeros de Salsa: We got better results from using a food processor rather than a blender. It tended to be thicker. We used half cilantro and half parsley. Some people don’t like the harshness of cilantro. Taste your chili pepper. We thought ours wasn’t as spicy as we wanted, so we added more than called for by the recipe. I think one of the keys to making any salsa is to allow time for it to sit, so the flavors can blend, before eating. Besides serving on tortilla chips, it also would be good on chicken or grilled fish.

One of my co-workers celebrated his birthday today (63). To celebrate, he brought in some bakery items from Hi-Quality Bakery in Cannon Falls. It’s a nice local independent bakery. Unbeknownst to Dave, someone else in the department also brought bakery in honor of his birthday. Hers came from Byerly’s , a nice local supermarket. With the unexpected bounty of bakery goods, we joked that one of the boxes was for President Obama who also celebrated his birthday today. Sadly, he spent the day in Chicago and didn’t stop by to claim his donut. So we took an informal poll – which is better? Local independent bakery or local supermarket bakery? Here are a few of the votes: “I vote the (Hi-Quality) bakery. Donuts get hard really quickly, but the bakery donuts were still very soft and fresh. Yum!” “I tried to pick similar donuts and the Hi-Quality Bakery was too greasy and sugary. Byerly's was a smoother texture (popover egg consistency) and frosting was creamy. My vote is f...

For the third year running, a co-worker and I auctioned an event for our company United Way campaign. We host a happy hour at her family’s cabin on Big Island in Lake Minnetonka. (Click here to read my post about last year’s event.) The event is getting a reputation, and bidding for this year’s happy hour was pretty intense. I think it was the second most expensive item in the auction. We settled on a date in early June with the winning bidders. Here’s the menu: Lydia made Gianni’s Grilled Shrimp Appetizer, grilled chicken skewers with peanut sauce, and guacamole with chips. Gianni’s is a steakhouse in Wayzata . Click here to read about it. For my contributions, I prepared three celebrity chef items. From Giada De Laurentiis, I made Sweet Pea Crostini; the recipe is on the Food Network web site (click here ). I really am a big fan of Giada’s recipes. My wife says it’s only because of the low-cut sweaters she wears on her cooking shows. But honestly, I never even noticed. (Giada, if ...

As my Yelp review states, this was a fantastic dining experience. I was asked to find a restaurant for our group – 14 people. Oh, did I mention? I had only about an hour’s notice. We were at a reception on Capitol Hill. Our CEO thought it would be nice for everyone from our company to have dinner together. I thought so too. But the pressure was on. Fortunately, I had my trusty iPhone with me. The battery was getting low. But between Open Table and the map app, I was able to locate a few possibilities in just a few minutes. Of course, for a group of 14, you can’t actually use Open Table at most restaurants. So I started calling. I did actually call a couple of steak places first. I knew they would be reliably good. But neither of them could fit us in on such short notice. (That is to say, they offered us a table at 9:30, but that was too late by about two hours.) When I called Siroc , they hesitated. They already had another group in the restaurant. But they’d see what they could do...

For our Land O’Lakes United Way drive in 2009, we had an online auction. I ended up winning two of the items on the auction. One was a case of wine from one of our executive’s wine cellar. Truth is, the highest bid was less than the retail value of the wine, and I was just trying to get it up to the retail value. but I ended up getting the case. The other item, I really wanted. It was a selection of fresh, West Coast seafood. It was offered by an exec whose home is in Washington state. (He also happens to be my boss, but that’s not why I bid. Really.) When I won it, I envisioned hosting a dinner at our house with several co-workers. I wanted to have my boss, not only because it was his seafood, but also ... well, you get the picture. Um, well, we invited several co-workers who we knew would enjoy the food and have a good time. That was our goal. We finally got it all organized for July 8. I took the day off to do the prep. So in advance, I thought about the kinds of seafood that would ...

I'm not sure if it was coincidence or poor planning. But I ended up at Kincaid's in St. Paul for a lunch and a dinner within one week of each other. I reviewed the lunch on Yelp; rated it 3 stars out of 5. The dinner was the same ... I mean almost literally the same. The specials for dinner on Monday were just larger portions of the same specials that were offered at lunch the previous Friday. In my Yelp review, I already expressed my disappointment that for a place that's supposed to specialize in fish, steaks, and chops, there isn't much meat on the menu, and the meat entrees that are on the menu are pretty ordinary. For my lunch, I had fish. For dinner, I had the only steak on the list of evening specials. It was good. Just nothing special. What I was really in the mood for was either lamb or veal. I was tempted by the prime rib on the regular menu. However, the server recommended the steak, so that's what I ordered. Our guest for dinner on Monday commented that...

April was a busy month, with a lot of travel for work as well as personal. There was one week when I had meetings in DC through noon on Friday and then had to be back in DC the following Monday. So my wife and I made arrangements to meet in Chicago and visit our daughter, son-in-law, and baby grandson. Our grandson was born on December 31. At the time of our visit, our daughter had just returned to work after her maternity leave. She and her husband requested a special dinner for multiple reasons - to 'celebrate' her return to work, to sooth the emotional distress of returning to work, and this would be the first 'nice' dinner out with the baby. The venue they picked was Miramar Bistro . For all the years that our daughter has lived in Chicago, most of the restaurants we've been to have been in the city, very few suburban spots. But since they moved to the suburbs about a year ago, we've gradually gotten acquainted with some restaurants north of the city. With ...

I used to go to this place. It actually was one of my favorites. It was called Luigino . I was disappointed when I read that it had closed. In late April, I wanted to take my co-worker and her assistant out to lunch, in appreciation for their work on a successful project. I wanted someplace special. As I browsed through lists of restaurants not too far from their office, the description of Bibiana caught my eye. I wondered if it could be the new restaurant in the space that Luigino had occupied. Of course, it was. We had a great lunch . This is the restaurant that I wish D'Amico's Kitchen in Minneapolis had turned out to be. The food was delicous, creatively prepared and nicely presented. The ambiance was comfortable. Our server was knowledgeable, helpful, and attentive. (Some of the other Yelp reviewers complained about slow or inattentive service. But that wasn't our experience.) I will definitely come back for dinner sometime.

Whew. Six weeks since my last post. You might think, 'Well, nothing much happened.' But you'd be wrong. Actually, April was very busy with lots of travel, both for work and for fun. And we went to lots of really good restaurants. And I was able to keep my Yelp reviews pretty much up to date. I just neglected to update Kriks Picks. So here goes. Next up ... a really great visit to Cafe Atlantico in Washington, DC.

A while back, in Krik's Picks, I commented that I'm a fan of the chef Jose Andres . I said that I planned to visit all of his DC restaurants over the course of my upcoming business trips. So in mid-April, a co-worker and I were in DC and we decided to go to Cafe Atlantico . We had a fabulous meal. On my Yelp review, I rated it 5-stars, "As good as it gets." I was particularly excited about this restaurant because minibar , Andres' exclusive and innovative 6-seat tasting experience, is located in the same building. When we were seated, I asked for a table where we could watch the action at minibar. My request was accommodated, but you couldn't really see much. Still, it was fun. As we finished our meals, I noticed that minibar was between seatings. I recognized one of the chefs and I commented to our server that I remembered him from my meal at minibar. A few minutes later, he stopped over to our table. I introduced him to my co-worker and we chatted about wh...