Krik's Picks

I spent two nights in the Bahamas last week. Believe it or not, it was a business trip. Why I only spent two nights is a long story. But the consequence was, I don’t have anything to post on Krik’s Picks about Bahamian food. All of the meals I had during my stay were buffets for the large group I was with. The food was good, but certainly not a memorable dining experience. But I can comment on Bahamian beer. They served Sands beer during the receptions and dinners at the meeting I attended. I thought it was pretty good, and it went well with the food on the buffet. I also had a Kalik Gold beer at the airport while waiting for the plane to board. I liked the Kalik better than the Sands. It had more body and was more like an amber, which I tend to prefer. The label on the Kalik was kind of intriguing. (You probably have to click on the photo and enlarge it to see what I’m referring to.) It has a picture of a very colorful Caribbean costume and it says “Junkanoo 2010” on the botto...

The bitter cold weather we’re having motivated us to find a place to eat on Saturday night relatively close to home. The intersection of 50th and France in Edina (nominally ‘downtown’ Edina) has been attracting a lot of new eateries. That’s our ‘hood so that’s where we decided to go. We picked Raku , which bills itself as a ‘modern Japanese restaurant.’ I made the reservation through Open Table. For the first time ever, that was a bit of a problem. When we checked in, promptly at 7:30, the hostess didn’t have us on the list. However, she checked a second list and there we were. The interior of Raku is almost like three different venues. There’s the sushi bar with a row of seats and behind them, a row of booths next to the windows. There’s a bar with several seats in a semi-circle and several tables. And there’s a more formal dining area. We had a short wait, about five minutes, before a table opened up. But it was one of the booths by the sushi bar. That wasn’t the ambiance we want...

We have a couple of friends who we go out with for dinner once in a while. We usually like to try new restaurants. It was my job to pick the location for our January 2011 get-together. I checked my usual sources, focusing on relatively new restaurants in town, and I found Zahtar . The Google search came up with “Zahtar by David Fhima.” That sounded very promising. David Fhima is a Twin Cities restaurant impresario. One of his first ventures was Mpls. Café. First it was located in the Calhoun Beach Club . Then it moved downtown to 1110 South Hennepin. When that closed, he opened Fhima’s in downtown St. Paul. We only went there a couple of times. The food was great. But many of the dishes were too spicy for my wife. Somewhere along the line, he opened Louis XIII in the Southdale mall in Edina. That restaurant never got much critical acclaim, and we never ate there. Ditto for LoTo (shorthand for ‘ lowertown ’ St. Paul) and his current project called Faces Mears Park . When we arrive...

For my first trip to Washington, DC, in 2011, I offered to take the head of Land O’Lakes DC office (and the only person in that office) out for a New Year’s lunch. She picked Cuba Libre . She had mentioned it to me once before, and I when I looked it up online, I learned that there are three other restaurants in the group – one in Philadelphia, one in Atlantic City, and one in Orlando. The restaurant is decorated to resemble a Havana street scene. It borders on corny, but I actually thought it was fun. The menu is very interesting. They list a bunch of ‘piqueo’ – Cuban small plates. They also have an intriguing selection of ceviches. The rest of the lunch menu includes soups, salads, sandwiches, and a handful of entrées, all of which sound very tasty and authentic. (Of course, since I’ve never been to Cuba, I wouldn’t really know if they are authentic.) Besides the lunch menu, they also have a daily special – Cuban bento box . On our January visit, we both decided to go with the...

A colleague invited me to a New Year’s lunch. We picked the St. Paul Grill . It’s one of my favorite lunch spots, also very popular with Minnesota politicos and St. Paul leaders. We both started out with a Caesar salad. The salad was very good. The dressing was nice and light, not excessively garlicky. No anchovy, however. It was a very large serving. I ate most of it anyway. But two people could easily split it. Neither of us charted new territory with our entrées. My friend had the walleye lunch. I’ve had it in the past. It’s lightly breaded and sautéed. The fish comes out very moist and the coating has a nice crunch. I ordered the pasta Adriatica. The first time I ordered this lunch, I was so impressed that I replicated it at home. It’s really quite simple. The ingredients are pasta, cubes of chicken, tomatoes, spinach, and kalamata olives. At home, I made it vegetarian by substituting mushrooms for the chicken. A nice firm tofu also would make a good substitute. The first ti...

This is the second time I’ve had lunch at Bibiana . I needed to go downtown for a meeting. I had time for lunch. My first time there was such a pleasant experience that I decided to go again. Wow. Am I glad I did! When I came in at 11:45, I was the first person there. At first I wasn’t even sure if they were open yet. But they were (lunch begins at 11:30). I was seated at a nice table by the window. My server was very friendly and helpful. There were so many tempting items on the menu, I wasn’t sure what to pick. I decided to go with an antipasti and a pasta. For the starter, I asked about the buffalo milk ricotta with honey, black pepper, chives, and almonds. My server suggested instead ‘datteri’ which was roasted dates stuffed with cheese and served with pistachios and pancetta. A great recommendation; I loved it. For the pasta, I had ‘marubini.’ They were ravioli filled with braised veal and topped with brown butter, pancetta, sage, and shaved parmesan. My server offered de...

Regular readers of Krik’s Picks probably picked up on the fact that my daughter and her family moved to Minnesota during 2010. Yea!! My son-in-law is in the restaurant business. I’ve written about him previously and mentioned a couple of his past restaurants when they lived in Chicago – foodlife and BenjYehuda . For my first post in 2011, I decided to give a plug to his new restaurant. When they moved here, he got a job as kitchen manager and sous chef at Pairings in Minnetonka. The concept behind Pairings it to combine a wine market with a food market. When you walk in, the wine shop is to the right. The restaurant is to the left. You can pick up a bottle of wine and bring it into the restaurant. They’ll open it for you with no corkage fee. We’ve had dinner at Pairings several times. We even took Tovah and Peter there before they moved here. The food is very good, and there’s a lot of variety in the offerings. They have everything from pizzas to salads to pastas to entrées. Yo...