Krik's Picks

For our November trip to northern California, my wife and I flew in on a Wednesday, arriving in San Francisco just before noon. That gave us enough time to stop along the Embarcadero for lunch before heading to Santa Rosa. On our October trip, we’d spied an interesting looking restaurant that we wanted to try. La Mar is a Peruvian ‘cebicheria.’ (I don’t know if that’s actually a word. I couldn’t find an official definition online. But by implication, it’s a restaurant that specializes in ceviche .) The weather was pretty nice, and we asked for a table on the semi-enclosed patio overlooking San Francisco Bay. The patio was well populated, but the rest of the restaurant was pretty empty. (It did fill in later during the lunch hour.) La Mar offers a daily tasting menu. On our visit, there were two choices, one of them vegetarian. The items offered on both menus were very intriguing and looked interesting. I had the non-vegetarian option. One word: Fabulous. My lunch started wit...

I had two trips to northern California this fall, one in October and one in November. On both trips, I had some business and on both trips, my wife and I spent some additional time on our own. I’ll be posting information on some of the great restaurants we ate at. But this post is about where we stayed, because we stayed at four very different styles of lodging. Here’s the list. Read on for my review of each: Ritz Carlton , Half Moon Bay Inn at Occidental (CA) Vintner’s Inn , Santa Rosa Prescott Hotel , San Francisco I was at the Ritz for a meeting. Half Moon Bay is a small, artsy, and intensely organic agricultural town. A long time ago (1975), when my wife and I lived in San Francisco for a year, we drove down to Half Moon Bay (about 45 minutes) not really knowing what it expect. It was late October, and we discovered that they have a pumpkin festival. Well since then, the Half Moon Bay pumpkin festival has become a BIG deal. The cars are backed up for miles ma...

When I wrote my first review of Bar La Grassa two years ago, I explained all the reasons why I liked it but couldn’t rave about it. At the end of the post , I promised a do-over. Well, it was a while coming, but here it is. The first time we went to Bar La Grassa, we didn’t like our table. This time we got a better table. I also didn’t like the lack of descriptive language about the menu items; I’m over that now. And just like our first visit, the food was very good and creative. We started with a couple of bruschettas. One was peperonata with gorgonzola cheese. The other was eggplant caponata. Both were excellent. Because we are big fans of gorgonzola, I think we liked that one better. But we didn’t realize how large they would be. Each plate had two large thick slices of bread and the toppings were generously piled on. We could easily have gotten by with one order between the two of us. Next we went for two half portions of pasta. One was a foie gras tortellini. It was very ri...

My brother Mike and I usually have lunch between our respective birthdays. His is in October; mine is November. Well, one thing lead to another, and we ended up having lunch in mid-December, coincidentally on our brother Richard’s birthday. Mike asked me to pick the restaurant. Neither of us had eaten before at Cosmos in the Graves Hotel. So I made a reservation there for noon on a recent Friday. When I got there, Mike had already arrived and had perused the wine list. Neither of us were going back to the office on a Friday afternoon, so we shared a bottle of wine with lunch. Mike found a personal favorite on the list and ordered it. We started chatting. Pretty soon I noticed Mike scanning the restaurant, and I realized that we’d been sitting there for at least 15 minutes, and no wine, no server to be seen. He finally caught her attention and waved her over. She apologized for the delay, saying that they’d had trouble finding the bottle. Ok, but then she could have let us know, ...

If you find moldy food in your refrigerator, is it bad to just eat it? I admit that I’m a freak about wasting food. (Click here for a previous post on that topic.) Nearly a whole shelf of our refrigerator is cluttered with containers of leftovers. Sometimes they contain just a few bites, and usually it gets eaten within a couple of days. Occasionally we wait too long. Last night, we found a container with about a half cup of leftover corn. When we checked, the corn had started to take on a rosy hue, and it smelled awful. So down the garbage disposal it went. This morning for breakfast, I took out some leftover scrambled eggs from Sunday brunch. I had a single flour tortilla in the freezer, and I decided to make a breakfast burrito. I grated a little cheese into the egg. Then I reached for a jar of fresh salsa that we had opened last summer. When I opened the jar, there were three neat circles of mold growing on the surface of the salsa. The first thing I did was use a spoon to d...

Oh-oh. A whole month since my last post. Sorry. Over the past year, I’ve worked particularly close with the Communications staff at Land O’Lakes . We’ve worked together to make sure the cooperative’s legislative message is accurately and effectively conveyed to our farmer-members and the public. We use publications, the internet, and social media to get the job done. One great example is a video that was filmed during our last grassroots fly-in to DC and posted early in November. Click here to view it. So anyway, I decided it would be appropriate to host an appreciation lunch for the staff. I was chatting with one of the staff one day and I made my typical smart-aleck comment about how there’s no good reason to come to St. Paul to eat. She, being a St. Paul resident, defended the restaurants in her city. Then she cheated by laying a liberal guilt trip on me. She told me about how the restaurants (and other businesses) on University Avenue have lost business during the constructi...

I was in Washington early in October on just an overnight trip. I owed my DC staff a celebration in appreciation for the hard work on all of the fly-ins we conducted this year. So I set something up for after my meetings. I wanted to try someplace new, and came across Fiola . I made a reservation, and it was the perfect choice. It was a quiet, relaxing, somewhat elegant venue. The service was friendly, knowledgeable, attentive, but not intrusive. And the food … So often my reviews of an Italian restaurant in DC begin with the words: “Why can’t we have Italian restaurants like this in Minnesota?” I didn’t want to do that again. So I tried to think of a different reason to rave about Fiola’s food. Then I had a revelation. It was sort of like the dog that didn’t bark. (Sorry if the literary reference isn’t obvious. Click here to read about a Sherlock Holmes story where the clue that solved the murder was the dog that didn’t bark.) When you look at Fiola’s web site, there’s no hyper...

I mentioned in an earlier post that I went to the Minneapolis Farmers Market at the end of September and bought a bunch of tomatoes. It’s part of an annual end-of-summer tradition. This year, I bought a basket full of tomatoes. It might have been more than we usually get. It was a lot of tomatoes. But they were right at their vine-ripened peak and perfect for the combination of recipes that I usually use. One recipe is for oven roasted tomatoes. Click here for my previous blog post on that. The other recipe is for tomato jam. I’m kind of surprised I haven’t posted it previously. It’s really delicious. I got it from the New York Times, back when Mark Bittman was the food editor. (When Bittman was the Minimalist. That was before he became the Opinionator (which he is now) and became shrill, shallow, and tedious.) So here’s the link to the recipe. Tomato Jam (NYTimes, August 20, 2008) 1 1/2 pounds good ripe tomatoes (Roma are best), cored and coarsely chopped 1 cup sugar ...

I took a day off on Friday. I stayed home and my wife and I took care of our two grandsons for the day. I went early to the Minneapolis Farmers Market and bought a bushel of tomatoes. (More about them later.) Then I went by my son’s house and picked up Leo. Shortly after I got home, my son-in-law dropped off Trey. In the afternoon, after their naps, we made gingersnap cookies. I relied on my standby recipe from my Betty Crocker Cookbook . The poor thing is getting pretty old and worn. As you will see in the photo, the cover now is being held in place with duct tape. I positioned two of the cookies on the book cover just to show how they turned out. I once looked into getting a new cookbook. But I discovered that they’ve changed some of the recipes . So I guess I’ll just keep using this book that I bought more than 40 years ago. Gingersnaps are my favorite cookie. Maybe the boys would have preferred chocolate chips. But no one complained. They had fun helping and then sampling the f...

My wife had a hard time deciding where to go for a special birthday dinner this year. We brainstormed a list. She hemmed and hawed and went back and forth between several favorites. Finally she called me with her decision – Blue Point in Wayzata. It turned out to be a great choice. It seems like a lot of the hot new restaurants opening in the Twin Cities offer limited menus and small portions. There’s nothing wrong with that really, unless the limited menu is so limited that you can’t find something that you really want. But it was a relief when we opened the familiar Blue Point menu and saw so many tempting choices that it was hard to decide what to order finally. And another advantage of choosing an old familiar restaurant is the confidence that your going to be served something that tastes good. I like experimenting and innovation with cooking. But you don’t always know if you’re going to actually like some of the unusual combinations being offered these days. Which is not to...

I was in DC earlier in September – the only trip I have planned for the month. I’ve written before how the Barracks Row part of Capitol Hill is attracting lots of creative eateries. So on this most recent trip, I had made up my mind to try someplace new. I was going to be in the neighborhood anyway for a reception. So I planned to just wander up the street and look at a few menus. My plan fell awry, however, when I walked by Lavagna . I ate there last January, and really liked it. Nothing that I’d seen while wandering so far looked better. So I abandoned by plan to try someplace new and got a table at Lavagna. Some things have changed since I ate there in January. For example, in my original post, I mentioned that ‘Lavagna’ not only is the name of a town in Italy, but it’s also the word for ‘slate.’ When it first opened, Lavagna posted its menu on little chalkboards. But no longer. The owner, Stephen Chueng, was circulating through the restaurant chatting with customers. I asked h...

My wife’s birthday landed on Rosh Hashana this year. So I prepared the festive meal with help from family and guests who shared the evening with us. Here’s what I made – turkey (roasted on the charcoal Weber Grill ), eggplant Lasagna with parsley pesto, mashed potatoes, challah, and applesauce (apples from my parents’ farm). My son and his wife brought a delicious apple cake. My daughter and her husband brought a recipe by Giada De Laurentiis for Sweet Pea Crostini (a crowd-pleaser every time). Another guest brought a delicious kale salad with walnuts and dried cranberries. Another guest brought roasted asparagus and red peppers. Any my wife’s sister brought a tray of chocolate peanut butter brownies. We had a total of 12 adults, three kids, and one toddler for the dinner. There was plenty of food. No one went home hungry. The lasagna that I made was something new. I’ve made lasagna with roasted fall vegetables before. But the eggplant lasagna was unusual (at least for me). I di...

My wife was out of town this weekend for an annual get-together with college roommates. So this was a prime opportunity to go out for sushi. To be fair, while Linda doesn’t like sushi herself, we’ve got a couple favorite Japanese restaurants ( Raku in Edina and Wakame in Minneapolis) that she likes. She orders a Japanese entrée and I order sushi. I invited my son to join me in trying Masu Sushi & Robata in Minneapolis. He eagerly agreed. It’s a restaurant that we’ve both heard a lot about. We had a great experience. I arrived at Masu a little before Ben. I went inside to scope it out. There are two general dining areas – several high top tables in the area by the bar and a bunch of regular tables near the kitchen. When Ben got there, the hostess seated us at a high top in the bar near the pachinko machines. I considered asking for a table, but I’m glad I didn’t. Some Yelp reviewers commented that the noise level in Masu is ‘energetic.’ I was afraid that it would be loud in ...

A fellow diner at Chimborazo is going to be disappointed that I wrote this review. He sort of implied that he preferred if people didn’t know about this wonderful gem in northeast Minneapolis. I’ve had lunch twice at Chimborazo. The first time was with my son. His Father’s Day present was to have lunch with me, one on one. I asked him to recommend a place. He’d eaten at Chimborazo with his wife and kids and thought I’d like it. When I arrived, I walked in with another couple. They were seated at the table next to Benjamin and me. Their meal came first, and we commented on how wonderful it looked. They said that they lived in the neighborhood and really appreciated having a wonderful, authentic family-run restaurant that they could walk to. Then the guy said – I hope it doesn’t get discovered and overrun with customers. I sort of understand his point of view. I remember Café Havana when it first started out as an authentic family-run Cuban restaurant. It was great. Eventually, i...

My wife and I have a friend who says that you can get into any restaurant you want during the summer in Minneapolis. Her theory is that Minnesotans are so distracted by summer vacations and weekends at ‘The Cabin’ that you don’t really need reservations at a restaurant. We weren’t so confident as to try totally without a reservation. But when we made quite last minute plans to see a movie and eat out on an August Saturday night, we were able to get a 7 p.m. table at Eat Street Social without any problem at all. One thing we were confident about was the food. We’d eaten at the original Northeast Social Club with friends. We thought the menu offered lots of choices depending on mood and appetite. Based on things we’d read, we were confident that the new Eat Street Social would be equally as diverse. We didn’t have any preconceived ideas about what to eat when we arrived. As we enjoyed our cocktails, my wife saw a server bring out the grilled sirloin. She thought it looked fabulous...

I’ve written about Equinox before. In fact, it’s the second restaurant I ever reviewed on Krik’s Picks. I’ve always been happy with the meals I’ve been served there. The dinner I had in mid-July was no exception. I arrived in DC a little late on a Monday. It was beastly hot. I was tempted to just stay in the hotel and eat at their restaurant. But I took a minute to look through a restaurant guide in the hotel. It noted that Equinox had a new chef and had revamped its menu. So I hopped in a cab and went over there. There were several tempting items on the menu. But I decided to go with the ‘Ode to Summer’ tasting menu. It appeared to be a pretty reasonable deal. There were six items on the menu. You could have all six for $60, or you could have any four of the six for $40. I didn’t feel like I needed six courses. Besides that, there were two that didn’t really appeal to me. So I went with the four-course menu. I’ll start with the two items I rejected. One was a pork loin – no th...

When we had our anniversary dinner at Restaurant Alma , one of the courses we had was orecchiette pasta with lamb sausage. I was really impressed by the dish. During the evening, as we chatted with our friends about the food, I mentioned that I had gotten a pasta machine and had started making fresh pasta. One thing lead to another, and we ended up inviting our friends to our house for a dinner of fresh pasta. We all have joined the canasta craze, and we thought it would be fun to end the evening with a game. So as I thought about what to make, I decided to try to replicate the flavors of the dish we had at Alma. The first thing I did was search the internet. Lo and behold, there was a recipe by Emeril Lagasse for lamb sausage ragout with Portobello mushrooms and fettuccine. Click here for Emeril’s recipe. His recipe called for fettuccine instead of orecchiette. And Alma’s dish didn’t include Portobello mushrooms. But it looked interesting. The pasta recipe I use is pretty reli...

It wasn’t easy getting a reservation at The Bachelor Farmer on a Saturday night for six friends who wanted to experience this trendy new restaurant in Minneapolis. They could fit us in at 8:30. We felt lucky to get the reservation. After all, the restaurant was a James Beard Foundation semifinalist for Best New Restaurant Midwest. President Obama dined here when he was in Minneapolis earlier this year. So we were excited. My wife and I decided to go early and get a drink at the similarly acclaimed bar downstairs – Marvel Bar .  The connection is a little unclear. It appears that the ownership  is the same, but management may be different. (Bachelor Farmer has its own bar adjacent to its dining room.) Our server, way cooler than both of us put together, was friendly and helpful in figuring out what we’d like from the creative cocktail menu. The drinks were good. But then came the first glitch. I asked him if he’d take a photo of us, and he politely declined. “We’re not suppo...

I don’t know why it took us so long to finally go to Restaurant Alma . After all, it had been recommended to us by many of our friends. It’s one of the top rated restaurants in the Twin Cities. In 2010, the chef was named the Best Chef Midwest by the James Beard Foundation . When we finally decided to dine there for our anniversary late in June, we were talking to some friends who also have a June anniversary. Turns out they’d never eaten at Alma either. So we all went together. So here’s the short version of my review. We had an almost perfect meal. The food was fabulous, and we discovered a new wine. Restaurant Alma easily earned a spot on my list of favorite, special occasion restaurants in the Twin Cities. But it wasn’t perfect. And while it’s one of my top three, it’s not my absolute favorite. Restaurant Alma features a three-course tasting menu. All of the menu items have an ala carte price listed. But for $48, you can pick one starter, one middle course, and one entrée. (F...

I wasn’t going to blog about this lunch. I’ve posted several items about Sea Change . It’s one of my favorite restaurants in the Twin Cities. But the desserts that we had at the end of this particular lunch were so noteworthy that I decided to write a post anyway. So here’s the back story. I invited a co-worker out to lunch as a farewell gesture, since she’s leaving Land O’Lakes . I picked Sea Change. After I made the reservation, I realized that she’s not a big fan of fish and seafood. I asked her if I should pick a different place, but she said that she’d looked at the menu online and it would be fine. Like I said, I wasn’t really expecting this lunch to be much different than other lunches I’ve had there. The truth is, I was a little disappointed by the menu. The offerings on the menu all looked good. But there just wasn’t much of a variety to choose from. She had a cobb salad. I had a fish sandwich. She really like her salad, and it looked good. I thought my fish sandwich was...

In mid-June, my co-worker and I hosted a happy hour to benefit the United Way campaign at Land O’Lakes . She’s actually the host since the event is held at her family’s cabin on Big Island in Lake Minnetonka. I just come along and help with the cooking and drinks. We auction the event during the United Way campaign in October and then pick a mutually convenient date for the event – usually in late May or early June. We held the first one in 2008. I didn’t blog about that one. But I did do posts on the 2009 event ( click here ) and the 2010 event ( click here ). I don’t remember why I didn’t do a post on the 2011 event. For the menu this year, Lydia (my co-worker) reprised her specialty – grilled shrimp with Gianni’s dipping sauce. She also made ‘ Super BLT Bites with Tarragon Mayo .’ They were very tasty. The tarragon mayo really made the dish. But she complained that they took so much time to assemble that it kept her from enjoying the conversation with our co-workers. I know how ...

The neighborhood we live in has a neighborhood association. It’s primarily a social group. Activities include parties, a gourmet club, community festivals … things like that. There also is a magazine for the members of the association. One of the things that the publisher of the magazine does is arrange dinners for us at different restaurants. Most of them are in Edina or nearby suburbs. In exchange for putting on the dinner, the participants will rate the restaurant and the magazine will run a photo spread of the event. The restaurant gets some publicity. We get a meal and an evening of socializing. Most of the restaurants that we’ve gone to as part of this group have been pretty casual. The food has been good, but nothing noteworthy. Of course, the restaurant is motivated to make sure we have a good experience because they know that a review is going to be published. The most recent restaurant that my wife and I went to as part of the group (Parkwood Knolls Association) was Rar...

  Mostly by coincidence, I tried several restaurants on Capitol Hill this spring. They are located east of the U.S. Capitol, near Eastern Market and on Barracks Row. Before this year, I was a fan of Montmartre , located near Eastern Market. But I wasn’t very familiar with many of the other restaurants, despite a growing reputation for good dining in that neighborhood. Then, over the course of several business trips to DC, I hit Lavagna , Belga , Acqua al 2 , and the subject of this blog post – Cava Mezze . I went there on the basis of a recommendation of a friend. After our dinner at Lavagna, we walked by Cava, and she recommended it. So when I had time for a lunch before leaving DC in March, I decided to give it a try. Mezze are Greek small plates, very similar in concept to Spanish tapas. Cava offers an appealing variety of mezze. My server recommended ordering two for lunch. It probably would have been more fun to be with a small group to sample more different plates. Bu...