Krik's Picks

Dinner for 1 at Blue Marlin, Madison

2012-02-19T19:57:00.001-06:00

If my wife had been with me, I don’t think I would have eaten at Blue Marlin in Madison, WI when I was there earlier in February. You see, when I walked in the door, I was the only patron in the restaurant.

Now, that didn’t put me off. When I’m traveling for business, I always eat alone. I use the time to think and plan. But it was kind of unusual to be the only diner in the restaurant. And Linda definitely wants a more social atmosphere when we pick a restaurant.

I picked the Blue Marlin because a few years ago, when Linda came along with me on a business trip to Madison, we walked by and the lunch menu looked interesting. I actually don’t remember if we had lunch there. But it made my list of places to stop back and try again.

So I walked in, and they gave me a good table. (Duh.) I had already previewed the menu online, so I kind of knew what I wanted.

I started with the crab curry soup. I had checked the online reviews, and several diners had recommended it. Well, just as I started my soup, Diner No. 2 came in the door. So, now there were two of us. Naturally, they gave him a good table … right next to mine.

Like I said, when I’m on business travel, I’m used to eating alone. But here I am, sitting in a nice restaurant, and there’s one other diner in the place. How can I not acknowledge him and say hello? So quite contrary to my inclination, we strike up a conversation. He’s from Florida. First time in Madison. We have a nice chat.

After a little while, my meal arrived. I had salt baked salmon with Israeli couscous, mushrooms and brown butter, and caramelized fennel with cauliflower. It was delicious. I’ve always been intrigued by salt-crusted fish. I expected that it would be quite salty. But it really wasn’t. It was deliciously moist and tender.

The other diner ordered the grilled blue marlin (the restaurant’s namesake, as he explained). I was intrigued by the dish as well. But the primary side was beet risotto, and I’m not a big fan of beets. So I went with the salmon that I’ve already described.

Neither one of us ordered dessert. We left at the same time. No one else had arrived while we were eating. I made a comment to our server about the paucity of diners. He attributed it to mid-week dining in the middle of winter. I hope that was the best explanation. I really liked the restaurant. Next time in in Madison with my wife, I’d definitely consider going there … as long as it’s still in business.

Another Valentine’s Day dinner at Meritage, St. Paul

2012-02-15T20:49:00.000-06:00

How many times is a blogger allowed to write about the same subject? This is my fourth post about Meritage in St. Paul. I’ve written about a dinner with friends, a lunch, and I even wrote about another Valentine’s Day dinner there (in 2010). But it is my favorite restaurant, so here goes again.

I liked the table they gave us. It was in a corner. Not really private, but some of the other tables are set pretty close to each other, and this gave us just a little more room. (I think the best tables in the restaurant are along the window looking out onto the sidewalk and Rice Park and Landmark Center. Very cosmopolitan.)

The food was excellent again. They had a Valentine’s Day tasting menu. I thought it looked good, but my wife wasn’t too thrilled by a couple of the items, and they said that everyone at the table had to order the tasting menu. Besides, it was $75; probably worth it, but a little pricey.

So I started with a smoked salmon rillette, one of the $3 amusements at the top of the menu. It was fantastic – rich, smooth, with a nice smoky flavor, spread on a crisp bite of toast. I also had a salad of Bibb lettuce and radicchio. The flavors were excellent, and it was served with a nice light dressing. For my entrée I had the evening specialty, which was braised short ribs. I thought they were very good. The meat was fork tender. But I thought the short ribs that I made for Thanksgiving this year were better.

My wife started with French onion soup. That was excellent, hot and oniony with lots of flavorful melted cheese. For her entrée, she ordered the duck breast. While it was served slightly too rare for her, I thought it was fabulous, and it would have been a better choice for my meal.

So the food was up to par and met my expectations. Unfortunately, there were two glitches that were disappointing and frustrating. First, the service was spotty. After we were seated for a while, our server rushed by and promised he’d be with us in just a minute. But it actually was several minutes. Then he had a little bit of an attitude about the wine my wife ordered. “Drinkable, but nothing special.” Seems like there should be a more diplomatic way of expressing your opinion about a house wine without being so condescending.

The second problem was not the restaurant’s fault, but it was frustrating nonetheless. A party of four was seated at the table next to us, and one of the group was wearing a very strong scented perfume. It was really very unpleasant and annoying. If our tables had been squeezed closer together, as some of them are at Meritage, I’m not sure if the odor would have been tolerable.

So 5 stars for creative menu, excellent food and enjoyable ambiance. But 3 stars this time for service, and an unfortunate asterisks to denote the overwhelming perfume odor.

Next I got a salad. It also very good – fresh and creative with a nice light dressing.

Dinner at Sea Salt, Naples, FL

2012-02-11T18:07:00.001-06:00

I recently attended a conference in Naples, FL. My wife came along to warm up a little from winter. It’s not that we’re having such a cold winter in MN. But it’s not Florida.

Each night of the conference, there was a reception at the end of the sessions. But a group of us usually felt like getting something a little more substantial despite noshing on reception food. So one night, we made our way into Old Naples to Sea Salt.

There were 6 of us in the group, and we didn’t have a reservation when we arrived at about 7:30 p.m. Nevertheless, they were able to find us a table with only a short wait. We were sort of on a patio at the transition from the outdoor dining to the main door. They had a guitar soloist performing right at the entry. He was fairly aggressive, coming right up to people as they were waiting for a table and very obviously shilling for a tip. I tipped him early so that he’d leave us alone after that. Despite his brazenness, he was pretty entertaining, and he played from the minute we arrived and was still playing when we left. Not bad for a few dollars tip.

Everyone had eaten something at the reception, but some had eaten more than others. So there was quite a range in the kinds of food that was ordered. I think about half the table ordered an entrée but no starter. Others had either a salad or a starter without an entrée.

I chose cannelloni stuffed with roasted veal, spinach and ricotta, served with roast carrot ragu. I thought it was very creative and tasty. The cannelloni was house made, very tender and light. The filling was very flavorful, and the ragu provided a nice counterpoint to the veal, spinach and cheese. As you can see in the photo, it was a very generous portion. Considering what I ate at the reception, I should have asked if they’d give me a half portion. Still, I ate it all and loved it.

My wife had swordfish with asparagus, sopressata, artichoke, and lobster sauce. She doesn’t particularly care for asparagus, so she asked if she could have another vegetable instead. They obliged without objection; I think they gave her a serving of broccolini.

Our server was very pleasant, attentive, and knowledgeable. The prices weren’t a bargain, but I also didn’t think they were out of line for the quality of the food and the ambiance.

I don’t know when I’ll ever return to Naples. But if I do, I’d definitely consider a return visit to sea salt.

Fresh pasta, friendly ambiance at Lavagna, DC

2012-01-21T18:30:00.001-06:00

I read about Lavagna last summer in Roll Call. Roll Call is a newspaper that reports on Congress and also serves as sort of a community paper for Capitol Hill. It’s well written and I sometimes get insights about life on the Hill that lead to fun or unusual experiences (at least for a business traveler like me).

Unfortunately, if you tried the link for the Roll Call article, you discovered that you have to be a subscriber to read the whole thing. And quite to my surprise, I couldn’t find a review of Lavagna in the Washington Post. There are some reviews on Yelp. I wrote one, and gave it a better review than the average.

One of the things that intrigued me about Lavagna is that the owner, Stephen Chueng, is Asian. The Roll Call article explains that he got his start in the restaurant business at his parents Chinese restaurant. I thought, “That’s kind of interesting. I wonder how he does with Italian food.” (I suppose that’s an unkind stereotype. Sorry. I’m not Italian, and I do pretty well with Italian food, so I guess I shouldn’t have wondered. But I did.)

So on my first trip to DC in 2012, I had a free evening. So I invited a colleague to join me and give Lavagna a try. We both really enjoyed the experience.

I’m not sure, but I think the host who greeted us was the owner. It was early (6:30) on a Wednesday night, and it wasn’t at all crowded. He offered us a table at the front of the restaurant by the window, looking out onto the street. Very nice ambiance.

Lavagna, you quickly learn, is both an Italian town and the Italian word for slate. All of the menus are hand-written on individual slates. When I told my wife about it, she wondered how come the chalk didn’t rub off or become illegible. Well it wasn’t written in chalk but some kind of marker that I assume would wash off the slate.

Our server was very friendly and helpful. The previous week was Restaurant Week in DC. She told us that Lavagna had extended their Restaurant Week deal – three courses for a fixed price plus an up-charge for a glass of wine.

That’s what my friend had. Her starter was a cheese and olive plate. It had a nice selection of cured olives and a cubes of a couple different hard cheeses. For her entrée she ordered rigatoni with Italian sausage and vodka sauce. I got a taste and thought it was very good. For dessert she ordered bread pudding made with brioche. The portion sizes were very generous, and she took about half of the meal home.

While I was tempted by the Restaurant Week deal, the chef’s special tasting menu featured osso buco, and I can’t resist ordering it when I see it on the menu. My starter was a ravioli stuffed with pear, cheese, and walnuts. The fresh pasta was very tender and delicious. I loved the osso buco. (I just realized that osso buco usually is served with a gremolata on top. But that detail was missing at Lavagna.) It was served with saffron risotto that was very flavorful. My dessert was gelato flavored with espresso and toasted almonds. I’m not normally a big fan of ice cream, but this was very good.

I ordered the wine pairings that were selected for each course. I think it was about a 2- or 3-ounce pour for each kind of wine. I liked their choices, but I probably would prefer to select my own wine in the future.

Lavagna is a friendly, casual restaurant with a welcoming and relaxing ambiance. I probably would not choose it for a business dinner. But anytime in the future, when I have a free evening to dine with friends in DC, I’d definitely consider a return visit.

Classic French cuisine stars at Vincent, Minneapolis

2012-01-16T19:49:00.000-06:00

A trio of my bosses invited me to dinner to commemorate my 35th anniversary of working for Land O’lakes. Nice.

I chose Vincent in Minneapolis. It’s one of the most highly rated Minneapolis restaurants. I’ve been there before. I’ve entertained there before. But this was different, being the guest of honor.

So with 7 people around the table, we had quite a nice selection of items.

Several in the group had the house salad. I didn’t taste it, but it looked very nice. I had the pot-au-feu, and I must confess, I didn’t really understand what that would be. The menu described it as containing baby root vegetables and shaved duck breast. Sounded good to me. But I was somewhat surprised that it turned out to be more like a soup. It had a rich brown broth with vegetables and several thin slices of duck. I thought it was good. But like I said, it wasn’t what I expected.

My wife had duck rillette pate. The server described it as duck confit, shredded and combined with other ingredients and formed into a coarse pate. It was served with crisp pieces of toast. It was really good. I would order that in a minute.

For entrées several guests ordered the steak, a couple ordered scallops, one ordered corvina, and I ordered rack of lamb.

Everyone liked their food. The person who ordered the corvina was probably the least satisfied (though he didn’t complain, and he shared some of his wife’s scallops). It looked good. It just didn’t look to be exceptional. Those who ordered the scallops seemed to be very pleased.

Those who ordered the steak also were very pleased. The menu didn’t specify, but it came with Brussels sprouts. My wife was delighted. Others at the table were not.

I had rack of lamb. It was great. The person next to me, who had steak, said he wished he’d ordered the lamb. The meat was excellently prepared. It was served on a medley of squash, mushrooms, and artichoke hearts.

The service was pleasant but perfunctory. My wife thought the server was pretentious. Maybe. I don’t have any complaints about the service, but also I wouldn’t rave about it.

The ambiance of the restaurant is great. Most tables have a spacious view of Nicollet Mall. It’s very open and comfortable.

I think Vincent is one of the gems of downtown Minneapolis restaurants. I’d happily choose it again for another special occasion or for business entertaining.

Hooray for soup!

2012-01-14T21:32:00.000-06:00

There’s a poster at work (Land O’Lakes) that says January is National Soup Month. OK, so the weather this winter is unusually warm. But soup is still a good idea.

In the past I’ve posted two recipes for soup. So in honor of National Soup Month, I’m offering them up again for you to try.

The first one goes back to the year I started Krik’s Picks – 2006. I wrote a post about my parents’ garden and the luscious tomatoes they grow and then can for enjoying year ‘round. Then I posted my wife’s favorite recipe for homemade tomato soup. Click here to read it.

I posted the next recipe in 2009. I wrote about how my kids used to like having fresh soup and homemade bread on Sunday mornings when they were growing up. Their favorite was a cream of spinach soup. Click here to read it.

That cream of spinach soup was a Land O’Lakes recipe. I can’t find it on the web site, but they do have several good soup recipes there. Check them out.

Stay warm.

Let’s do something about food waste

2012-01-10T21:17:00.001-06:00

Most of my Kriks Picks posts are not particularly time sensitive. Really the only posts that are time sensitive are ones about restaurants that have since closed.

But this one is about a fairly immediate topic.

On Jan. 14 and again on Jan. 15, the Food Network is airing a special called The Big Waste. (Click here for details.) It’s about how much food gets wasted in America. I caught most of the special when it aired earlier this week. It’s both fascinating and appalling.

The set-up for the show was interesting. Four chefs compete to prepare a banquet using food that is going to be thrown away. For the most part, the food that they find is perfectly good food that is either unsalable or otherwise rejected because of minor imperfections or excessive variation in size or quality. (Examples: We see a butcher who is going to toss the odd-sized ends of beef short ribs after trimming them all to a uniform size. We see a farmer with a field of pick-your-own sweet corn who can’t sell it because a wind storm knocked down the stalks and now people won’t buy it.) As part of the set-up, a food safety inspector checks it all out and except for one item, approves the whole salvaged banquet as safe.

I’ve had some exposure to the issue of food waste. Anyone who’s worked on the hunger issue quickly becomes aware of how extensive food waste is in America. This show illustrates the problems that make food unsalable. But there’s also a lot of consumer waste – people who toss leftovers, or who buy more than they can eat before it goes bad, or who toss perfectly good food because they don’t have a realistic understanding of how long it can keep.

The show initiates the first step toward finding solutions by educating people about the problem. But that’s where it stops. It doesn’t do much to find ways to change behaviors.

After the show, I did some online investigation, and I discovered a blog called Wasted Food. It’s by an author who wrote a book called American Wasteland. I haven’t read the book yet, but I’m planning to download it to my new iPad.

The blog does include facts about food waste. It provides tips for consumers on how they can reduce waste. And it stimulates discussion of what can be done about food waste.

Please watch the show and think about what you can do to stop wasting food.

Dinner with friends at Naviya’s in Linden Hills

2012-01-08T16:15:00.001-06:00

The Linden Hills neighborhood of Minneapolis is the perfect home for Naviya’s Thai Brasserie. The neighborhood is quiet, relaxed, and unpretentious. It’s a place where neighbors stroll, kids ride bikes, and visitors to nearby Lake Harriett can find an eclectic choice of restaurants to enjoy. Naviya provides the Asian option for neighborhood dining.

My wife and I had some experience with Naviya prior to our Saturday night dinner with friends. My wife had eaten lunch there. We also had take-out when we came to our daughter’s nearby apartment to babysit our grandson. (She and her family have since moved to a house in the Armatage neighborhood several blocks away.) None of the four friends we were dining with had been there before.

We did have a very favorable experience. The food was delicious. The ambiance was friendly and relaxed. Our server was very friendly and helpful. And everything was reasonably priced.

Our dinner did start out with a glitch, however. My wife and I were the first to arrive, and when we checked in, the host said he didn’t have us down for a reservation. The entryway was jammed with people waiting for tables, so I worried that we weren’t going to get in. But he was very accommodating and within 15 minutes, he had us seated.

We started out with some appetizers. The calamari was particularly noteworthy. It was unusual in that the rings of squid were fried in a tempura batter. They were very tender and tasty. We also had an order of crispy vegetable and shiitake spring rolls, which we enjoyed. Another unusual item on the appetizer menu is ‘shrimp in a blanket.’ The shrimp are wrapped in rice paper and fried. I thought it was a clever spin on ‘pigs-in-a-blanket’ party finger food.

The entrées we ordered all were good and very well prepared. I ordered tofu pad Thai and was very pleased with it. The noodles were firm and flavorful, the vegetables were crisp fried, and the tofu was firm and absorbed the flavors of the sauce. We had a couple orders of broccoli beef. The broccoli was very fresh and crisp. The beef was thinly sliced and very tender. We also had an order of a spicy shrimp dish, which I liked quite a lot.

Now, some of the people at the table, me included, like some spicy items with an Asian dinner. But the shrimp was really the only entrée that had any ‘heat’ to it at all. The menu said the pad Thai was spicy, which is unusual. But as it turned out, it wasn’t really spicy at all.

As we finished our meal, we struck up a conversation with the host. We learned that he is the co-owner with his wife who is the chef. He was very friendly, and as I noted earlier in the review, was very accommodating and eager to please. It turns out that Naviya actually started in Grand Marais, Minnesota. When it moved to the Twin Cities, it’s first location was in Richfield. He said the Richfield location was did not generate very good walk-in business.

But Linden Hills provides the ideal mix for a restaurant like Naviya. It can develop a clientele of neighborhood regulars, and it can be ‘discovered’ by visitors to Lake Harriett. I think that the restaurant has found its niche and based on the steady stream of people still coming in as we left, it should enjoy a successful tenure in the neighborhood.

Arrivederci 2011, homemade tortelloni

2011-12-31T16:49:00.001-06:00

If the road to hell truly is paved with good intentions, then I was there and back in 2011, relative to keeping my blog up to date. I ended the year with 44 posts, counting this one, which is my last. Better than last year, true. But I started out so well, with 28 posts through May. Then I had a pathetic one post in June, one in August, and only one in October.

And it’s not for lack of material. We had a fun long weekend in San Diego in November. I only did two posts (Searsucker restaurant and Solamar hotel). But I should have done posts on Blue Point, Taka Sushi, The Prado in Balboa Park, Asti, and Croce’s, all of which were great and deserved to be praised in Krik’s Picks.

But for my last post of 2011, instead of trying to reconstruct my impressions of those San Diego eateries, I’m going to post on a new cooking experience instead.

In May, Bon Appetit magazine had an Italian theme issue which included a recipe and instructions for making stuffed pasta. Coincidentally during the year, my daughter and her husband lent me their pasta machine. I’ve always had an inkling to try making fresh pasta but was intimidated by the process. So finally, over the long Christmas weekend, I decided to do it.

First, here’s the link to the recipe from May Bon Appetit for Ricotta Tortelloni.

And here’s the link to their step-by-step instructions.

I also found an online video for using a pasta machine.

And I found a Giada DeLaurentiis video. (She uses a Kitchen Aid attachment rather than a hand crank roller like I got from Tovah and Peter.)

I used the pasta recipe from Bon Appetit, but I modified the filling. Instead of seasoned ricotta, I used some cooked squash, mixed in about an equal amount of ricotta and seasoned it with some dried sage.

It turned out pretty well. I was pleased by how easy it was to shape the tortelloni. I worried that the pockets would open up and the filling would get all watery when I cooked them. But that was not a problem.

The recipe says it makes enough for 12 starter courses or 6 main courses, and that was about right. My wife and I had about a third of the batch along with a green salad. We boiled and drained the tortelloni and sprinkled them with parmesan, a little olive oil, and basil. It was a light meal, but sufficient for the two of us. I froze the rest. My plan is to use the frozen tortelloni whenever I need either a quick meal or a convenient side dish.

Next time I make fresh pasta, I’m going to make fettuccini.

Happy new year. Keep reading Krik’s Picks.

Grilled cheese: Homemade vs. Caribou

2011-12-24T15:59:00.001-06:00

I really like grilled cheese sandwiches. If I don’t see anything else on a lunch menu that looks good, a grilled cheese is a pretty safe bet. (Sometimes it’s worth ordering even if it’s not on the menu. Click here to read about a late night soup/sandwich improv in DC.)

So I was both curious and excited when Caribou Coffee put grilled cheese sandwiches on their food menu. The first time I tried to order one was at an airport location. (Denver, if I remember right.) Too bad. That location didn’t sell sandwiches. Also didn’t have free Wi-Fi.

I did finally have one earlier in December. I finished a workout and instead of having breakfast at the office cafeteria, which I usually do, I stopped at a Caribou near the gym and ordered a coffee (medium dark roast) and a grilled cheese sandwich. They actually have three on the menu. I chose the classic sandwich which features three kinds of cheese on brioche bread. The others are combination sandwiches with cheese and turkey, chicken, or roast beef.

I was unimpressed. There was nothing particularly wrong with the sandwich. It just wasn’t very distinctive.

I didn’t think much about it until yesterday when I made a grilled cheese sandwich for myself at home. I didn’t do anything fancy. I used homemade whole wheat bread, a supermarket aged cheddar (happened to be Bongards Creamery), and butter (Land O Lakes, of course). It was so much better than the Caribou sandwich.

Maybe Caribou doesn’t use real butter when they grill it.

America Eats Tavern, DC, serves tradition avant-garde

2011-12-06T21:29:00.001-06:00

Originally I had mixed feelings about America Eats Tavern in DC. I was excited because Chef Jose Andres was the creative mind behind the project. But I had some concerns.

First of all, it replaced one of my favorite DC restaurants – Café Atlantico. Second, I was afraid that the concept was kind of gimmicky. It’s a so-called ‘pop-up restaurant,’ a temporary restaurant to test out a particular theme. In this case, the theme is American food prepared with native ingredients and inspired by historical recipes. The thing I like about Jose Andres is his passion for creating a memorable dining experience, his creativity in ingredients, and the delightful flavors that come out of his kitchens. I didn’t want to be served something just because it’s a ‘native’ food or because it’s historically authentic preparation.

Well, I shouldn’t have worried. For the most part, my two experiences at America Eats have been up to the standards that I expected from Chef Andres. By the way, on my first visit last July, for lunch, I got to meet him! I arrived a little later than the normal lunch crowd. As I was waiting to be seated, I saw him walking toward the front of the restaurant. I didn’t want to seem like a star-struck groupie, but I asked the hostess if I could get a picture with him. He graciously agreed. After the photo, he went on his way, and I was seated.

For that lunch, I had a gazpacho and a lobster roll. Both were fabulous. The gazpacho was served by pouring the cold soup into the bowl around an island of croutons and tomatoes. The lobster roll consisted of large chunks of chopped lobster held together with a light dressing, served on an airy roll that was more like a brioche than a bun.

I returned for a dinner at the end of November with three colleagues in DC. When our server greeted us, he advised that portions are small, so we should consider ordering something from each section of the menu – oysters, appetizers, soups/salads, and entrées. Seemed like a lot. While I do like oysters, I decided to take a pass this time, and my colleagues followed suit.

For the appetizer round, I had shrimp etouffee. It was delicious. Some of the other apps around the table – an unusual take on macaroni and cheese, this one made with vermicelli noodles, also an order of shrimp and grits that was quite good. And for the table, we split an order of hush puppies; they were excellent.

From the soup/salad section, I ordered the gazpacho again. I liked it just as much as the first time. One of my colleagues ordered the crab cake. The crab cake itself was great. But it was served with a slaw made from shredded Brussels sprouts that was very unusual and delicious. The beet salad, ordered by another of my guests, was a real attention-getter. On the plate were four beautiful, round baby beets and four balls of shredded beets. My guest said it was delicious, but quite a lot of beets for one person to eat. The fourth item we ordered was she crab soup, also very good.

Finally, for the entrées, here’s what we ordered: bison steak (for two), blackened croaker (a rustic Southern fish), and Eisenhower’s beef stew. I split the bison with one of my guests. It was good, but the meat was a little fatty. I was surprised because I’ve always thought that bison is supposed to be a very lean meat. The croaker was good, but not really much different from any other blackened fish. The stew was very unusual in that it was served ‘deconstructed’ with two generous chunks of stew meat in the middle of the plate and the vegetables arranged around the side. It was not at all stew-like.

So while all of the entrées tasted good, they were the most disappointing part of the meal. If any part of the meal bordered on being gimmicky, it was the entrées. They also were kind of expensive, and, as the server said, the portions were not large. I think I probably would have been happier if I’d ordered one of the oyster courses and skipped the entrée.

The ambiance of America Eats is basically the same as Café Atlantico – rustic and casual. Our server was good. He was attentive, friendly, informative. Coincidentally, we had the same server at dinner as I did for my solo lunch six months before. He told us that America Eats Tavern will remain in operation until July 4, 2012, a one-year run. Then the space will evolve into something new.

Meanwhile, I got a bit of good news when he told us that Café Atlantico will be reopening nearby, in the space that currently houses Zola. I couldn’t confirm that news. But if it’s true, I’ll be glad to have it back.

How Giada saved my Thanksgiving lasagna

2011-11-25T15:47:00.001-06:00

OK. So Giada de Laurentiis didn’t knock on my door and offer to help with the lasagna I was making for Thanksgiving. (I wish.) But I did pick up on a Twitter feed that indicated that she was making a butternut squash recipe on the Today Show. I watched it online and got an idea that made a big improvement in my recipe.

Here’s the back story.

This past summer, we redecorated our dining room. During a summer family event, I offered to have Thanksgiving at our house so that people could see the end result. We ended up having 27 people – 4 who came just for appetizers, 2 babies born in September, 2 toddlers in high chairs, and 19 people around the tables. That’s the biggest dinner party we’ve ever hosted at our house.

Among the guests were my son-in-law’s parents. They have a family tradition of having a lasagna on the menu for Thanksgiving. My son-in-law (kitchen manager and sous chef at Pairings) and I planned the menu, and we decided to include a lasagna. (Here’s a photo of us with the whole buffet.)

About two years ago, I posted a recipe for a lasagna made with roasted squash and other harvest vegetables. My comment was that the flavors were good, but it was a little dry. I had some butternut squash in my pantry (from my parents’ garden), so I decided to reprise the lasagna. But I wondered what to do about the dryness.

That’s when I picked up on the Twitter feed and checked Giada’s butternut squash lasagna recipe (also available on her web site). She included a béchamel sauce, and I realized that would add the moisture my recipe was missing. Besides that, I loved the technique of blending in some basil to give the béchamel a distinctive flavor. (I’ll be using that technique again in the future.)

Here’s the revised recipe with Giada’s béchamel included.

1 large (or 2 medium) onions, cut into 1-inch chunks
½ pound whole mushrooms, cut in half (small mushrooms) or quarters (large mushrooms)
2 pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, cut into 1-inch cubes slices (about 5½ cups)
olive oil
4 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary (or thyme), divided
4 tablespoons sliced fresh sage, divided
2 15-ounce containers whole-milk ricotta cheese
2 cups grated mozzarella cheese, divided
2 cups grated provolone cheese, divided
2 cups grated Parmesan cheese, divided
3 large eggs
2 roasted red peppers cut into strips (optional)
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
3½ cups whole milk
3/4 cup basil
½ pound dried lasagna noodles

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl, toss squash cubes, onions, and mushrooms with olive oil to coat. Spread vegetables onto a rimmed cookie sheet. Sprinkle with half of the herbs and season with salt and pepper. Roast vegetables in oven for about 30 minutes, or until squash is tender and beginning to brown. Remove from oven and reduce temperature to 350 degrees.

Mix ricotta, 1 cup mozzarella cheese, 1 cup provolone, and 1½ cups Parmesan cheese, and remaining herbs in large bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper; mix in eggs.

Melt the butter in a heavy medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour and whisk for 1 minute. Gradually whisk in the milk. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the sauce thickens slightly, whisking often, about 5 minutes. Whisk in the nutmeg. Cool slightly. Transfer half of the sauce to a blender. Add the basil and blend until smooth. Return the basil sauce to the sauce in the pan and stir to blend. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.

Brush 13x9x2-inch glass or ceramic lasagna pan with oil. Ladle about 3/4 c. of the béchamel over bottom of the pan. Arrange 3 noodles on top. Spread 1/3 of the ricotta mixture over noodles. Ladle another 3/4 c. béchamel over the ricotta. Arrange ½ of the roasted vegetables over. Sprinkle with ½ of remaining mozzarella and provolone. Top with 3 noodles, then 1/3 of the ricotta mixture, more béchamel, remaining roasted vegetables, and remaining mozzarella and provolone. Top with 3 noodles. Spread remaining ricotta mixture over and remaining sauce; sprinkle with remaining Parmesan. Cover with oiled foil.

Bake lasagna, covered, 35 minutes. Uncover; bake until heated through, about 25 minutes longer. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Thanksgiving menu 2011

2011-11-25T15:45:00.001-06:00

My son-in-law and I planned our menu for Thanksgiving. We had a big crowd, and we planned an extensive menu. Quite a difference from last year when there were only six of us (plus a baby) – my Mom & Dad, my daughter and son-in-law (and their son), and me and Linda. Click here to see the post on last year’s meal and a photo.

Now look at this photo of the 23 people squeezed into our redecorated dining room for this year’s feast.

I did the turkey on the Weber grill, as usual.

My son-in-law made gravy, using some of the drippings that we siphoned out of the drip pan on the grill. It added a nice smoky flavor to the gravy. He also made roasted Brussels sprouts using a recipe from Epicurious. He also made a cranberry and orange relish.

My daughter made stuffing. My wife made corn.

I took the week off and used Wednesday to prepare a few things in advance. One was braised short ribs, another recipe from Epicurious. My son-in-law actually found the recipe. I know he wanted to make it. But he had to work on Wednesday, and the braised meat always is better if you make it in advance and then let it sit in the braising liquid overnight. The only variation I made to the recipe was that I used boneless short ribs. The main reason I did that was because we were preparing for a big crowd, and I didn’t think I’d have a big enough pan to make the bone-in ribs. The butcher at Jerry’s prepared six pounds of boneless ribs. There were 12 ribs, and that proved to be just the right quantity.

I also made lasagna with roasted butternut squash, mushrooms, red onions, and red peppers. See next post.

On Thanksgiving, I baked whole wheat date rolls, yet another Epicurious recipe. Then I turned the kitchen over to my son-in-law. All I did was finish roasting the turkey and reheat the ribs and the lasagna.

Other family members brought appetizers and desserts. My mom and dad brought dried beef and beef jerky from Nick’s Meats in Hayward, MN. They also brought cheese and crackers. My brother and his wife brought a vegetable tray. My daughter brought an artichoke dip.

For dessert, my other brother brought a pumpkin pie and a minced fruit pie. My daughter-in-law brought two apple pies. My son-in-law brought a huge carrot cake. (My favorite desserts are apple pie and carrot cake. Thanksgiving was the day before my 60th birthday, so they brought special desserts for me.)

This was the biggest dinner we’ve served in our house. But no one went home hungry.

Friendly comfort at Solamar San Diego

2011-11-22T17:22:00.001-06:00

I’ve written before how much we like Kimpton hotels. When we plan a vacation, we always check to see if the city we’re traveling to has a Kimpton, and if it does, we always check the rates. (They’re usually very affordable.)

So that’s what we did when we started planning our short trip to San Diego. San Diego was our destination because I would be attending a dairy conference there. But we decided to go a few days early for some relaxation. The conference was at a resort in Mission Valley. We also looked into La Jolla, but we were there a year ago for a wedding. We usually prefer staying downtown where there’s good choices of restaurants, preferably in walking distance, and options for nightlife. The fact that there was a Kimpton right in the Gaslamp Quarter, and they offered a special rate, clinched it for us. So we made a reservation for three nights at the Solamar.

The first pleasant surprise was when we checked in, the desk clerk wished me a happy birthday. I can’t figure out how he knew. Maybe it’s on my profile for the Kimpton In Touch (frequent stayer) program. As I noted in my next post, our room wasn’t ready when we arrived, so we wandered into the Gaslamp Quarter to have some lunch. When we returned and got checked in, while were were unpacking in our room, there was a knock at the door. The manager sent up a bottle of wine and a birthday cupcake, along with a nice note. Really cool!

One of the things we like about Kimptons is that most (maybe all) have a nightly wine reception in the lobby. We enjoy having a glass of wine before our evening activities and chatting with the other guests. It’s very cordial and relaxing.

It turns out that the special rate that we reserved also included two coupons for a free cocktail for each night of our stay. I had totally forgotten that detail. The Solamar has a really cool rooftop pool and lounge. So we enjoyed a couple of cocktails up there during our stay.

Kimpton prides itself on having staff who can help guests find fun and unusual things to do. We got a lot of good advice from the staff when we asked. We did have rain on one day during our visit. That spoiled our planned activities for the evening. However, the desk clerk gave us a recommendation for dinner (Asti Ristorante), got us a reservation, and also got us complementary admission to Jim Croce’s Jazz Bar a block away from the restaurant. It was a fun evening.

Needless to say, Kimpton hotels remain on our list of places to stay when we’re traveling.

Best burger at Searsucker in San Diego?

2011-11-22T16:22:00.001-06:00

My wife says that the burger she had for lunch at Searsucker in San Diego was the best she’s ever had in her life! Wow. That’s quite an endorsement.

We arrived in San Diego around lunch time on a Thursday. We planned on a few days of relaxation and sightseeing before attending the National Milk Producers Federation annual meeting. For the relaxation part of our trip, we stayed at the Solamar, a Kimpton hotel located in the Gaslamp Quarter. We knew we probably couldn’t get into our room right away, so we had planned on getting lunch. The desk clerk gave us a few suggestions. We checked our bags and strolled onto the street to check out a few places.

Searsucker wasn’t one of the choices he suggested. When we walked by, the menu looked appealing. We checked a few more places, but then returned to Searsucker.

At lunch, you place your order at the reception desk. Lunch items are listed on a large chalkboard hanging overhead. Linda’s burger was made from chopped steak. She thought that was why it was particularly good. Also, it was cooked to medium rare, which is her preference.

I ordered a Triple C sandwich. I guess that’s supposed to stand for ‘crab cake club’ sandwich. I suggested they change the name to ‘ABC’ – avocado, bacon, and crab. It was delicious. I wouldn’t really describe it as a ‘crab cake’ sandwich. The crab mean was loosely bound together, but it was mostly crab and not very much filler.

We did order a side of their ‘brown butter fries’ on our server’s recommendation. They were good, but not outstanding. Considering everything else we ate over the next several days, we probably should have saved the calories.

Searsucker appears to be a hopping night place. We walked by often during our stay, and in the evening, it looked jam-packed. For dinner, it’s regular table service from a menu. It looks like a pretty creative menu at that.

We considered a return visit for lunch. But with only four days before the meeting started, we wanted to try other restaurants. Anyway, starting your vacation with the best burger you’ve had in your life is a pretty good beginning.

Weary dinner at Lucca in Des Moines

2011-11-07T21:16:00.001-06:00

In October, I traveled to Des Moines to attend the World Food Prize activities. My company, Land O’Lakes, helped sponsor a panel discussion on women in agriculture in the developing world. (Click here to read about the panel. Click here to view a video of an African woman who formed a dairy cooperative to help her family and her village succeed as dairy farmers.)

My trip to Des Moines was one problem after the other. It’s only a four hour drive from the office. But when I checked airfares, there actually was a pretty favorable fare available, so I decided to fly. However, when I went to the gate at the time to board the plane, all the passengers and I learned that our plane had a mechanical problem. They didn’t have a spare part in Minneapolis. So they had to fly in a different plane from Detroit. So the four-hour drive that I was avoiding turned into a five-hour delay at the airport.

When it became evident that I was not going to arrive in Des Moines in time for our group dinner, I started thinking about where I would have dinner when I finally did arrive. First I pulled up the address for my hotel (Embassy Suites) on Google maps. Then I searched for restaurants in walking distance. After I’d identified a couple interesting ones, I checked the reviews on Yelp. And that’s how I ended up at Lucca.

Des Moines is an interesting city. They have this nice, clean downtown on the west side of the river and this absolutely beautiful state capitol on the east side of the river. But in between is about 12 blocks of gritty industrial buildings. They’re trying to give the area some cache by rebranding it Historic East Village. As I walked to Lucca at 9 p.m. on a Wednesday evening, with hundreds, if not thousands of visitors in town for the World Food Prize, East Village was a virtual ghost town. I saw several interesting shops. But there were no other pedestrians on the sidewalk and very few cars.

My research showed that Lucca serves dinner until 10 p.m. When I walked in, there were only two other tables of diners in the place. I decided to be charitable and asked the person who greeted me if they were still serving dinner. He looked uncertain and asked the hostess. She assured me that they would serve dinner.

I’m glad they did. I had a great meal. Lucca has a very interesting menu concept. Everything is prix fixe. The menu lists several ‘primi’ courses and several secondi courses. It’s $30 for a starter and entrée, $7.50 more for dessert. The other thing about the menu – most of the items are designated by a one or two word listing. You have to ask the server to describe the preparation. It reminded me of Bar La Grassa in Minneapolis. In a way, it’s kind of annoying. But I guess it serves the purpose of stimulating a discussion with the server before you decide what to order. For me alone at 9 p.m. in Des Moines, that was all right. But it could also be distracting if you wanted to focus your attention on a discussion with dining partners or a date.

I started with the gnocci. Several Yelp reviewers raved about them, and I agree. They were light and flavorful, dressed in burnt butter with sage. For my entrée, I ordered scallops. These were four beautiful, large scallops, seared and served with mélange of crisp sautéed vegetables. I realized that both courses consisted of pillowy food. I guess after my distressing travel delays, I needed something comforting on my plate.

After I finished, I asked the woman who appeared to be the hostess about the menu concept. “What if a diner doesn’t want to order both a primi and a secondi course?” She said it hasn’t been a problem. Sometimes people will share, and she assured me that they could accommodate a diner who really didn’t want to order both courses. I also asked about the particularly enjoyable music mix that was playing through dinner. She told me it was a jazz ‘station’ on the internet radio service Pandora. Cool.

I hope East Village thrives and Lucca survives until the next time I’m at loose ends in Des Moines for dinner.

Lunch at Lincoln in DC

2011-11-06T13:41:00.001-06:00

I suppose you have to wonder why there isn’t already a restaurant in DC named ‘Lincoln.’ I sure don’t know why. But there is now, and I had a lunch meeting there with my DC staff person on my most recent trip.

The décor is certainly appealing. The main dining room is open and airy. There are attractive, stylish pictures on the wall. Probably the main attention-getter is the floor. It’s ‘paved’ with Lincoln pennies.

The theme of the menu is small plates. I guess they actually prefer to say ‘seasonal’ small plates. By that, I assume they mean that the menu changes seasonally.

I thought the lunch menu was interesting. They have a bunch of sides or appetizers that you could share or have as part of your meal. They have a limited number of entrées. They look interesting, but neither of us chose one.

Our server described a soup of the day. It was a corn chowder with shrimp. We both ordered it. Jen thought it was bland. I agree that it didn’t have a lot of intense flavor, but I thought the flavors were well blended and subtle. A difference in perspective, I guess.

The lunch menu offers a nice selection of creative sandwiches and salads. Jen ordered the peach grilled cheese. It featured peach jam, fried green tomatoes and camembert cheese. It looked very appealing, and she liked it.

I was tempted by a couple of the salads. The chopped salad sounded intriguing, with avocado, peas, corn, feta cheese, and diced tomatoes. I also thought the Nicoise sounded good, with tuna, lima beans, capers, purple potatoes, tomatoes, and quail eggs.

But in the end, I also opted for a sandwich. I had a barbecued short rib sandwich. The meat was very tender. I also liked the barbecue sauce, though I guess it was fairly salty. The only thing I would say is that it was a little messy for a business lunch. I also opted for fries instead of chips ($3 upcharge). The fries were very good and were dressed with a drizzle of truffle oil. Like the sandwich, however, also very salty.

That was it. We didn’t have any dessert. I guess the big question is – would I go back? Well, I wouldn’t make a special trip downtown to eat there. But if I were staying downtown, or if I had a lunch meeting downtown, I’d definitely go again.

Lunch at Cocina del Barrio, Edina

2011-10-12T17:44:00.002-05:00

After two disappointing dinners at Barrio’s Edina outpost, I wasn’t sure if we’d ever try it again. But as my wife and I discussed where to have lunch after a morning appointment, she recalled an ad for $10 lunch there. We both must have been in the right mood, because we decided to give it a try. I’m glad we did.

I don’t want to belabor my previous complaints. We went to Cocina del Barrio in February, and I gave it a mediocre review on Krik’s Picks. (Click here to read it.) I was quite surprised to receive a follow-up comment from ‘Mike’ at Barrio asking to give them a second chance. We did a few weeks later, and honestly, the experience was no better. It certainly wasn’t the food. We loved the food. But we felt that the service in particular was inattentive and not particularly friendly.

Our lunch experience was totally different. To be sure, it wasn’t particularly busy. But besides our server, two other staff members dropped by our table to make sure we were comfortable and that we liked out food. Very nice.

The food was good. The $10 special starts with an individual serving of fresh guacamole garnished with paper thin slices of radish and jalapeno. The house made chips were crisp but not greasy and not too salty. It came with a salsa verde and a red salsa. Both were good. I like my salsa hot, but I just made sure that I had a slice of jalapeno on the chip. My wife, who isn’t so fond of spicy salsa, liked them both. The other part of the lunch special is two of their daily special tacos. Today it was pulled chicken. They were great.

I should also say a word about ambiance. Unlike the noisy, crowded scene during our two dinner experiences, our lunch was quiet, comfortable, and relaxed. They were playing the most creative music mix, everything from Buena Vista Social Club to Johnny Cash to Led Zepplin. Cool.

I definitely would come back for lunch. And our experience was nice enough that I may come back again for dinner someday.

Apple picking at the Farm … and applesauce

2011-09-26T20:23:00.001-05:00

When I first launched this blog, one of my first posts was about my parents’ garden. That particular post was about their tomatoes. I said that I’d write later about their apples. So now, five years later, here it is.

Mom & Dad have a lot of apple trees on their farm. They always have a lot to harvest. My brothers and my sister always plan trips to the farm in September to help pick apples. We went last Sunday.

Actually, my son and his daughter went on Friday. (She’s five years old. I started Krik’s Picks when she was born. She’s my oldest grandchild.) My wife and daughter-in-law came on Sunday with the two grandsons.

We picked a lot of apples. They have several different varieties, and we didn’t even take some of each. We mostly took Regent, Prairie Spy, Red Delicious, and a few of a yellow apple variety that dad couldn’t remember the name.

On the counters in our kitchen, we now have eight bags of apples. We’ll give some as gifts. I’ll make several batches of applesauce (and freeze them). I’ll also make some apple crisp and if I’m ambitious, a couple apple pies. (My daughter-in-law taught me a technique for making pie crust in the food processor. It works, but I’m still intimidated.) And we’ll be eating a lot of fresh apples for several weeks. (Picked fresh from the farm, they keep very well.)

Pictured in the pot on my stove, I have my first batch of applesauce. I’ll serve it with our dinner on Wednesday night. I cut up about half a bag of the Prairie Spy variety. Dad warned me that they’re not an ideal cooking apple. He was right. After about 45 minutes of cooking, they still were not breaking down to a saucy consistency. I like applesauce with some apple chunks in it. But this was too much. So I facilitated the process by using a potato masher. Still pretty chunky, but it did the job.

I don’t use a recipe to make applesauce. I just peel and cut a bunch of apples into chunks and put them in a Dutch oven. When the pot is about three-fourths full, I add a cup of sugar and some cinnamon (one tablespoon, or or less, depending on how you like it). Then I add water about halfway up the pot. The more water you use, the longer it takes for the apples to cook down. But the longer they cook, the more the apples break down into a saucy consistency. I don’t recommend adding too much sugar. The tartness of fresh apples is good, and if you like it sweeter, you can always add a dollop of ice cream. (Vanilla is good, but if you can get cinnamon ice cream, that’s the best.)

Basil Harvest 2011

2011-09-13T20:42:00.001-05:00

The forecast says possible frost in Minnesota this week. So when I got home from work tonight, after dinner, I harvested my basil.

My dilemma is that I always miscalculate how much basil to use during the growing season. I’m afraid that if I cut too much too early, I won’t have any left at the end of the season. Then I get to the first frost forecast and lament that I’ve still got so much in the garden, and feel like I should have used more earlier in the summer.

One year, I decided to chance it. I left my basil in the garden despite the forecast of ‘possible’ frost. Well, it froze, and I wasn’t able to salvage very much of my crop. So now my strategy is this. I cut the stems with large deep green leaves, but leave the lower stems. They usually have some new sprouts. If the forecast is wrong and it doesn’t freeze, I can harvest some late-yield basil for use until the killing freeze comes.

So, what do I do with the basil that I harvest? Freeze it, of course. I used to make pesto and freeze it. But that sort of limits my options for using throughout the winter. So I clean and mince the leaves and freeze them. Then, I just take out a few tablespoons, or a half cup, whatever I need during the winter.

One of the things we use frozen basil for is pizza. We make a homemade crust. Then my wife takes a couple tablespoons of frozen basil, thaws it and mixes it with a good olive oil and spreads it on the pizza crust before putting on the toppings and cheese. It’s sort of a modified pesto, but she doesn’t usually mix garlic or parmesan into the sauce. I also use the frozen basil in pasta sauce, risotto, and soup.

I also strip off the basil blossoms that shoot out the top of the plant. (That’s what’s in the bowl in the photo.) I freeze them and use them in homemade vegetable broth or turkey broth. The basil blossoms add a nice, fragrant characteristic to the broth.

One disadvantage of freezing the basil is that it tends to lose it’s intense, green color.That’s ok for most cooking uses. But it’s not ideal for pesto, which I want to be almost iridescent green.

I read somewhere that basil is related to catnip. If that’s true, I can certainly see why cats like catnip. I usually get a euphoric, woozy feeling while chopping cups of fresh basil leaves.

Employee Salsa Contest 2011

2011-08-10T21:19:00.001-05:00

Last year for our employee celebration at work, the organizers had a salsa contest. Coworkers who were interested formed teams and picked a favorite recipe. Then we made the salsa at the office for people to taste and vote on their favorite. I was part of a team. I posted an item on Krik’s Picks along with the recipe we made.

It was such a popular event that they repeated it this year. I didn’t join a team. I didn’t have time to get things organized (and besides, our team lost last year, so phooey). But I did join the tasting and voting.

Two people in our community relations department and their intern were one team. They called themselves “Two-and-a-half Hot Mommas.” I was going to vote for them even if their salsa tasted like runny ketchup. But it was good. I thought it really was the best salsa of the day. (Of course, they didn’t win.)

The intern actually provided the recipe. It’s a family recipe sent to her by her dad. In his note, he said this quantity makes a 5-quart ice cream pail of salsa. It also appears to be very hot. For the contest, they cut the quantities of everything in half and to accommodate Minnesota taste buds, only used three habaneros and and three green jalapenos instead of the cayenne peppers. The final caveat is that they always adjust the ingredients to taste, and they usually use less hot peppers. (So if you make it full strength, be forewarned.)

The intern’s last name is ‘Guest.’ So I guess this is literally a ‘Guest’ recipe. (Sorry.)

Guest Family Salsa

6 qt. tomatoes

4 bell peppers

½ each sweet banana peppers, hot banana peppers

1 large onion (red or sweet)

1/3 cup olive oil

1 stalk celery

Juice of one whole lime

Cilantro to taste (1/2 bunch)

6-9 habaneras

10 cayenne peppers

Salt and pepper to taste

No salt seasoning (Mrs. Dash)

¼ cup minced garlic

Um, they didn’t provide any preparation instructions. One of the other ‘Hot Mommas’ had this to say about prep: “The peppers were hand-minced very fine and I'd caution you to wear rubber gloves when handling peppers - if the raw vegetable oils come into contact with your skin, they are very irritating. You chop everything up, add the cilantro/salt/pepper last to taste and either hand mix or if you want to pulse in your food processor (which we did not have) it will make either a chunkier or juicier salsa.”

Celebrity Twitter disappointment

2011-07-19T16:53:00.000-05:00

On Saturday morning, I finished the paper but still had some coffee left in my mug. So I grabbed my Android smartphone to check Twitter. One of the celebrity chefs I follow is Giada DeLaurentiis. She had a post about an upcoming show from Marina Del Rey in Los Angeles.

Linda and I once stayed in Marina Del Rey while on vacation in LA. Click here for the blog post. We enjoyed it, so I thought I’d try to catch the show. I switched to my DirectTV app, looked up the times when the show would appear, and scheduled it to record on my DVR … all without leaving the breakfast table. Fact is, I could have done it from DC or CA or anywhere I was traveling. That’s what I love about the new electronics. (It’s actually easier to find shows and schedule them to record from my smartphone than it is on the TV.)It’s also one of the few instances when I’ve found Giada’s Twitter feed, or any celebrity chef’s Twitter feed, to have anything useful.

When I established a Twitter account for Krik’s Picks, I immediately began following a bunch of my favorite Food Network chefs – Giada, Mario Batali, Jamie Oliver, Bobby Flay, Emeril Lagasse, and Guy Fieri. I envisioned getting tons of recipe ideas and helpful hints on cooking techniques. What a disappointment.

Giada – I have more of her recipes in my repertoire than any other chef. She’s my best source of recipes other than Bon Appetit magazine and Epicurious. But her tweets are consistently trivial and boring. Last April, she wrote about how fun it was to discover and try organic nail polish. Really, Giada? To her credit, however, she does use Twitter to engage her fans. She has a lot of interaction with them.

Mario – He mostly uses FourSquare to tweet about where he is. I thought about that. Maybe if I were in the same city, I might see where he just checked in, jump in my car, and hurry over to see him. Then again, maybe not! Otherwise, not much point in following Mario.

Bobby Flay – He uses Twitter to promote his restaurants a lot. That’s a pretty good strategy. But since we don’t have one of his restaurants here in the Twin Cities, most of the time his tweets just don’t have much interest to me.

Emeril Lagasee – Also uses his tweets to promote products that he endorses. Yeah, fine. Just not that interesting.

Guy Fieri – On Triple D, he’s funny, irreverent, and fun to watch. But his Twitter feed mostly just tells us where he’s going. OK.

Jamie Oliver – Every once in a while, he’ll tweet about a recipe that sounds interesting. But then he goes off on a crusade against chocolate milk in schools, and it just gets tedious.

I also follow Mark Bittmann, the former food columnist for the New York Times. When he was the Minimalist, he was humorous, entertaining, and featured great recipes. Now that he’s the Opinionator, he’s sarcastic, shallow, and shrill. (I think even the Times recognizes this. They’re running old Minimalist videos on their web site. Check out this one.)

Don’t get me wrong. I still like watching all of these chefs on TV, where they’re very entertaining. (I also read Bittmann’s columns, but don’t generally get much out of them.) It’s just that their Twitter feeds are disappointing. Maybe it’s just hard to be entertaining in 140 characters.

Dinner at Wakame, Minneapolis

2011-07-17T15:42:00.001-05:00

My wife and I met friends for dinner at Wakame on a hot July evening. They live in the neighborhood and eat there regularly. When they made the reservation, we hoped we could eat outside on the patio. But it was a steamy, muggy evening with temps in the high 80s, so we ate inside.

Before Wakame, this space was a seafood restaurant called Three Fish. We went there with this same couple. (Click here to read my previous review.) It was one of our favorites, and we were disappointed when it closed. We’d always heard good things about Wakame. But since my wife doesn’t like sushi, we hadn’t been there yet.

We started by splitting two salads. (Well, actually, we started with drinks. Linda was very excited to see that they have a lychee martini on the menu, and that’s what she ordered. My friend and I had sake, and his wife had a glass of red wine.)

The salads that we split were a spicy crab salad and a seasoned squid salad. Both were very good, though I liked the squid salad best. The crab salad was crab, cucumber, and seaweed. The dressing was a spicy mayo and it was topped with sprinkles of tempura that added a nice crunch. The squid was sliced rings with cucumber dressed with a sesame vinaigrette. Like I said, I liked that the best.

Fortunately for Linda, Wakame has a diverse menu with lots of alternatives to sushi. She had the apple teriyaki sea bass, and really loved it. It was a nice size piece of fish cooked expertly. She didn’t want the rice or mashed potatoes that normally come with the fish. She asked for extra vegetables instead. She got a very generous portion of mushrooms and zucchini. I tasted her meal, and it was great. (A very worthy substitute for Three Fish.)

I like sushi. But I’m not a sushi connoisseur, so I let our friends do the ordering. We got three rolls and three orders of nigiri and an order of a scallop sushi.

So I know this is terrible for me to admit it, but since I didn’t order the rolls, I absolutely don’t know which ones they were. You can see them in the photo. They all were very good. But sorry, I don’t know what they are.

For the nigiri, we had two orders of yellowtail and one tuna. Since nigiri is such a straightforward, simple item, whether you like it or not depends on the quality and freshness of the fish. (I guess the same is really true for a roll. It’s just that since there are other ingredients, the fish is less predominant. However, if the fish in a roll is slightly off, the other ingredients won’t overshadow, and you’ll know it.) Anyway, the nigiri at Wakame was very good. I think I liked the tuna better than the yellowtail.

The scallop sushi was ok, but nothing special.

We did order dessert. We ordered lemon cake, which was light and very flavorful. Just as we were finishing that, the owner sent over a pineapple dessert. (It’s nice to know that they take care of regulars at Wakame.) The pineapple, strawberries, and sectioned orange on the plate were beautifully presented, and how can you go wrong with good fresh fruit.

Our friends told us that Wakame has a great happy hour. We all thought it would be fun to meet there some evening when we could sit on the patio and have drinks and appetizers.

Return visit to Siroc, DC

2011-06-20T21:52:00.001-05:00

I’ve had a lot of travel during the first couple weeks of June. Good for experiences to report on Krik’s Picks. Bad for having time to actually write anything. So be patient. There’s some good stuff coming.

But here’s a quick review of Siroc in Washington, DC. I was here a year ago with a large group. We had a fantastic experience, and I swore I’d be back. (Click here for last year’s review.)

The second visit was as impressive as the first time. Same cordial, accommodating service. Really excellent food and wine. Comfortable ambiance.

As I reread my review from last year, I didn’t write very much about the actual food we ate. Last year, I (and several others) had the ossobuco. I love ossobuco. I thought about ordering it again. It was fantastic. But, I decided I had to try something different. So I ordered agnolotti filled with braised short rib and roasted potato. The fork-tender meat was shredded and stuffed into a beautiful pasta moon. For my starter, I had a frisee salad with shaved fennel. The salad has dollops of goat cheese and tiny pieces of chopped pistachios. The dressing was a basil-grapefruit vinaigrette. Excellent.

Siroc has a nice variety of pastas on its menu. They offer half orders as a ‘secondi’ or you can order two half-orders if you want a variety of pasta. One of our group on this visit chose to do that. The other diner had one of the evening specials, a beautifully prepared serving of black bass.

So it was a wonderful return visit that confirmed my view that this is one of the best Italian restaurants in DC.

Group dinner at Bacio, Minnetonka, MN

2011-05-30T21:33:00.001-05:00

My wife and I spent a very enjoyable evening with friends at Bacio in Minnetonka. There were 12 of us. On a Saturday night, a group that large can be difficult. But Bacio handled our group with grace and efficiency. The service was friendly, knowledgeable, and attentive.

Someone who organized the group suggested that we bring bottles of wine from our personal stash. Four of us did. I was impressed that our server was familiar with the wines that we brought, even though they weren’t from the restaurant’s list. As it was, we still ended up ordering two more bottles from their list.

We started with a round of appetizers – 6 or 7 from the menu which we shared around the table. My wife and I split a Brasiliana salad. We both were very pleased. It was an ample, creative mixture of celery, hearts of palm, lettuce, avocado with a lemon vinaigrette.

For dinner, I had a half order of lamb meatballs from the pasta section of the menu. I thought they were very good. They were served with a pasta called garganelli. The sauce was a mint pesto with pine nuts and raisins.

My wife ordered halibut, served with farro, spinach, lump crab, and saffron-tomato broth. She liked it but thought it was a little bland.

It seemed like everyone else enjoyed their meals as well. I tasted a bite of a friend’s walleye entrée. I thought it was good, but I have to admit that I’m not a big fan of walleye. His wife had the Ahi tuna. Check the photo. It looked fabulous.

The ambiance at Bacio is very comfortable. The space is beautifully designed, with tall ceilings and hanging arches. It does convey a rustic Mediterranean feel. We’ve been there before with smaller groups and I’ve liked it each time. I definitely would recommend it.

Linda’s Hanukkah menu, Part I

2011-05-28T16:55:00.001-05:00

For the past several years, I’ve given my wife a present of preparing dinner for a week. She likes because it’s a whole week when she doesn’t have to worry about whipping together a dinner after her piano students leave. I have fun doing it because it gives me a chance to try a bunch of different things.

When I first started giving this present, I used to organize it by day and give her two or three options for each day. But one year, she said she’d prefer to just mix and match recipes. So since then, I find two or three recipes and organize them into related categories. So, for example, here are the categories for her 2010 present:

Here’s the Beef (beef recipes)

Duck, Duck, Gray Duck (duck recipes)

Salads & Something (3 different dinner salads)

3 Ways with Fennel (3 recipes featuring fennel)

Vegetarian (just what it says)

Cluck Cluck (chicken recipes)

Something’s Fishy (fish recipes, duh)

Also, when I started, I used to go to a wide variety of sources for recipe ideas. (One year I did all celebrity chef recipes from Food TV.) But for the last couple years, I’ve gone to picking recipes from Bon Appetit. And, I’ve branded the list with my blog name. So the present is “Krik’s Picks Recipes, The Best of Bon Appetit 2010.”

The only problem is finding a whole week when I’m not traveling or we don’t have other things planned during the week. So lots of times, I end up delivering the present in the spring. That’s what happened this year. It got to be May and I still hadn’t delivered the present.

So in mid-May, I took a week off to plant my garden and do some cooking. Trouble was, we still didn’t have 7 days in a row. So I’m doing it in two installments. This is Part I, three recipes that I made that week. I’ll do Part II in September when her lessons start back up again.

For Part I, Linda picked these three recipes:

Rib Eye Steak with Tomato-Caper Relish from Bon Appetit, August 2010, p. 77. This was our favorite (pictured above). We substituted New York strip steaks instead of rib eye.

Dilled White Bean & Grape Tomato Salad from Bon Appetit, June 2010, p. 86. Linda liked it, but I was kind of disappointed. I thought it was a little bland. The picture is beautiful. In fact, looking at it again as I write this post made me think that maybe adding some capers or kalamata olives would perk it up a little. Also, I never use canned beans, as the recipe calls for. I soaked dried beans and cooked them up.

Rosemary & Lemon Grilled Chicken Breast from Bon Appetit, July 2010, p. 50. If you look at the recipe, you’ll see that the original called for turkey cutlets. We substituted bone-in, skin-on chicken legs and thighs. This was a very tasty recipe and very easy to make.

Watch for Part II later this year.

Disappointing return to Nick & Eddie’s, Mpls.

2011-05-18T20:23:00.000-05:00

We probably should have just left.

When we showed up at Nick & Eddie’s for our 8 p.m. reservation on a Saturday night, the host apologized and said our table wasn’t ready. There were some large groups that were not clearing as quickly as they anticipated. He offered us a complementary cocktail. So that helped.

While the host was cordial and accommodating, the bartender was strangely surly. That should have been our first clue.

The wait wasn’t really that long, maybe 20 minutes. We were offered a booth by the window in the bar. My wife really would have preferred to be in the dining room. But we took it.

A server swished by and dropped off a menu. We didn’t see him again for 20 minutes. The combination of inattentive service and a crush of people around the bar lead us to ask if we could be reseated in the dining room. The host (still trying to be accommodating) found us a table – in the back near the restroom and the back door. Now, instead of having a crowd hovering over our table, we felt like we were outcasts.

A new server greeted us and we ordered an appetizer. But while we were sitting there, feeling forlorn and disconnected from the rest of the crowd, we decided we just didn’t want to eat back there. My wife went back to the host who offered us our booth in the bar. This is where we should have left. Instead, we took it.

We didn’t want the same neglectful server from earlier. Our new server said that she’d take care of us. She did, and she was ok. But we still were frustrated by frightfully slow service.

Our appetizer arrived – fried pirogis. We decided to place our dinner order. Great, except … our server regretfully informed us that were were out of a few things. That turned out to be nearly half of the dinner items. Basically, the only dinner items available were chicken dishes. My wife really wanted a burger, and they weren’t out of that. I ended up ordering a Caesar salad and an appetizer-size pizza.

It took a long time for our meals to come out. But when they did arrive, the food really was pretty good. My wife really liked her burger. I thought the dressing on the Caesar had too much anchovy. (I like anchovies on my Caesar. But this dressing had an overpowering anchovy flavor.) But my pizza was very unusual. It had smoked mozzarella cheese and nice slices of ripe tomato. The cheese and tomato were over a layer of tapenade. Very unusual and very tasty.

Our first visit to Nick & Eddie’s was shortly after it opened. It was pretty good. I gave it a favorable review (click here to read it). But I can’t recommend it after this Saturday’s experience.

The Best Lunch Deal in Edina: Raku

2011-05-16T21:01:00.001-05:00

I have to admit that sometimes when you discover a fantastic restaurant deal, you worry that when the word gets out, the crowds will come and spoil it. In this case, however, I’m worried that if more people don’t find out about the fantastic lunch deal at Raku, the restaurant won’t be able to survive and we’ll all lose out.

My wife and I have been to Raku before for dinner.(Click here for that review.) It was on a Saturday night. We liked the décor, the ambiance, the bar, and the food. But the service wasn’t so great, and that kind of spoiled it for us. Still, we looked at the lunch menu, and it looked so promising, we decided we would give it a try.

When we showed up a little before noon on a Monday, there were only three other tables being served. Our server greeted us and gave us our menus. Raku offers three lunch specials. The main lunch special is $16. You get a soup or a salad, and appetizer (like a sushi roll or egg roll), and an entrée. My wife was pretty sure that’s what she wanted when I pointed out the bento box special – $10. She’s not a big eater, so that sounded good to her.

To start, before the bento box even arrived, she was served a cup of soup and a small salad. When the server brought the bento box, we both looked at and said, “This can’t be only $10!” He assured us that it was. The menu says that the box comes with a California roll and three pieces of ‘shumai.’ We didn’t know what shumai was, so we assumed it was the entrée portion of the box. Well, the shumai were three little shrimp dumplings, comparable to dim sum. So in addition to that, there was an ample serving of the entrée; my wife chose shrimp tempura. Besides the shrimp, there were tender pieces of vegetables, including broccoli, sweet potato, squash, and zucchini. (Take a look at the photo. You’ll see what I mean.)

I was tempted by the bento. But I had to go for the sushi special, three rolls for $12. I also received a cup of soup to start. The menu gives the diner a choice of more than a dozen different rolls. I opted for a yellowtail roll, a spicy crunchy salmon roll, and an eel cucumber roll. I loved them all.

No problem this time with disappointing service. Our server was friendly without being overly familiar. Attentive without hovering. He was knowledgeable and gave us good advice. Of course, there were so few other diners in the restaurant he had plenty of time to give us personal service.

So we’ve been telling everyone we know: EAT AT RAKU. We told our kids. (Hidden agenda – we’ll babysit the grandkids while they have lunch.) I posted a picture of Linda’s bento box on Facebook. And I gave it a 5-star rating on Yelp. (I’ll ‘tweet’ this review after it’s posted.)

It’s gotta be the best lunch deal in Edina.

Mother’s Day Menu

2011-05-14T21:43:00.000-05:00

We’re so lucky that both of our kids live in Minneapolis and so we can see them for family-oriented holidays. So with Mother’s Day coming up, my son and son-in-law and I decided to prepare a dinner for our wives and the mothers of our children. My wife, being at least nominally the ‘grande dame’ of the family said she was in the mood for Mexican. My daughter and daughter-in-law thought that sounded good. So I went to work to find a creative menu to serve on Sunday night.

Here’s what we came up with:

Guacamole & tortilla chips

Shrimp Mango Tacos

Cabbage Radish Slaw

Rotini Salad with Chives

For the guacamole, we stuck with a pretty standard combination. But we did innovate a little by adding a quarter cup of pomegranate seeds. They added a sweet, juicy character to the smooth, rich avocado.

I got the pomegranate seeds at Trader Joe’s. While I was there, I decided to check out their shrimp. As I was perusing their selection of frozen seafood, I saw a very intriguing item – frozen, cooked chucks of langostino tails. “Lobster flavor for the price of shrimp” the package bragged. I was intrigued, so I bought them and substituted them in the shrimp mango tacos.

Well, needless to say, this was the most unique part of the menu. My son-in-law, who’s a chef at Pairings, was fascinated by the langostino tails. I think he’s going to look into integrating them into some future dish at the restaurant. My wife and I remembered having langostinos on paella when we were in Spain. The flavor was good, maybe not quite the same as lobster. And the price was slightly higher than shrimp. But it was worth it.

The taco recipe was from the New York Times. So was the cabbage and radish slaw. But I was very disappointed by the slaw. I thought it was dry and lacked flavor. I’ve already deleted that recipe.

The pasta salad is from Rick Bayless. His web site has a number of intriguing recipes. When my daughter and her husband lived in Chicago, we took them to one of Bayless’s restaurants – Topolobampo. Very good. I picked this recipe because I’ve already got a lot of vigorous growth on my chive plants. When I minced them for the salad, the scent of the fresh chives literally filled the kitchen. I thought this was a great recipe, and since it didn’t call for any fancy ingredients, it could be whipped up almost at any time.

So it was great having the whole family over and a lot of fun. This was a nice casual menu that the guys could prepare together without a lot of hassle.

Light dinner at Moto-I, Minneapolis

2011-05-11T21:02:00.000-05:00

The first time my wife and I went to moto-i in Minneapolis was about a year and a half ago. We had an enjoyable experience on their rooftop patio. moto-i is located at Lyndale and Lake St., right across from It’s Greek to Me. When we checked for a table at Greek, we were told it would be a half hour wait. We decided to check out moto-i while we waited for our table. It was a warm summer night. We watched the passers-by on Lyndale below us and enjoyed a couple of innovative cocktails.

moto-i is a sake brewery restaurant – like a brew pub, only they make sake instead of beer. Our cocktails were creative concoctions featuring sake creatively combined with gin, vodka, and other beverages. My wife particularly liked hers which featured a lychee nut; first time she’d ever had one. We scanned the menu and agreed that it would be worth coming back for a meal sometime.

Fast forward now to the first Saturday in May. Our son was having a pottery sale at his studio. He and the other artists always have a spread of snacks at their sales, so we knew we’d be nibbling before going out for dinner. Since moto-i is only two blocks from his studio, it was an easy decision to give it a try. A couple of other friends said they’d meet us there.

Much to our chagrin, the cocktails this time were nothing special. My wife was quite disappointed that she couldn’t find the same one that she’d enjoyed so much before. I ordered a cucumber martini. It was good, but like I said, nothing special. The saki-tini that we had in January at Raku in Edina was much better.

On the other hand, the food at moto-i did a much better job of living up to expectations. My wife ordered fried tofu lettuce wrap. She was very pleased with it – good flavors, nicely prepared and presented, not greasy. One of our friends got one order of corn and shrimp fritters from the starter menu and a vegetable dumpling. I thought the fritters had very appealing textures, with the kernels of corn in the batter. The vegetable dumpling also was very tasty.

Our other friend ordered Asian country ribs from the ‘Big Boy’ section of the menu (full meal plates). He said it was excellent. The ribs were meaty and the barbecue sauce very tasty. It came with rice and a cabbage salad. It also had several small hot peppers that he gave to me. My meal was ‘drunken noodles’ from the ‘rice, noodles, soup’ section of the menu. It was a good-sized bowl of noodles with chicken, red peppers, red onions, Thai chilies and lime. I ordered it because the server said it was spicy. It wasn’t. But I added some of my friend’s hot peppers from his ribs. That spiced it up very nicely.

The atmosphere in moto-i is very ‘young’ and a bit loud. We thought it was too dark, and it was difficult to read the menu. The service was not great – fairly perfunctory and somewhat neglectful.

Still, my wife and I agreed that we’ll go back again. But I think we’ll try to do it when the rooftop patio is open and we can enjoy the fresh air and the view.

Cuba Libre, DC, saves the day!

2011-04-23T16:40:00.001-05:00

My first experience at Cuba Libre was a lunch with a coworker early in 2011. I gave it 3 stars on my Yelp review and commented that I'd like to return with a big group sometime.

I had the opportunity to do that in early April. I brought a group of 11 people. I had made a reservation just a few days before. When I arrived and checked in at the hostess stand, I heard the words that every diner dreads, "I'm sorry sir. We don't have a reservation for you."

Aha! I whipped out my iPhone, pulled up the e-mail confirming the reservation and showed it smugly to the hostess.

"Sir," came the reply. "This reservation is for tomorrow night." Doh! How in the world would I find another restaurant that could accommodate 11 people at 8 PM without a reservation?

The sympathetic hostess said, "Hold on a minute. Let me see what we can do."

Well, it took 20 minutes, but somehow, she was able to put together a table for 11 people. I would have upgraded my Yelp review to 5 stars based on customer service alone. But the appreciative comments I got from my guests about the food and the ambiance just added to my opinion of the place.

We did as I suggested in my earlier review. We started with a round of drinks and several appetizers to share. I had a caipirinha that was very good. (Helped to relax me from the tension of almost not getting a table.) We ordered a flight of all five ceviches that were on the menu that night. We also ordered a selection of four empanadas and a couple orders of the guacamole. As with my lunch experience, the ceviches were great. The guacamole also was very good, but kind of a small serving. We should have ordered more; I don’t think everyone got a taste. The empanadas were good, but I prefer baked empanadas. (These were fried.)

After the appetizers, some people ordered dinners and others ordered more small plates. I had a small plate order of boquerones – white anchovies served with grape tomatoes, cucumber, and an olive ‘salpicon’ (which was pretty much a black olive tapenade). I do like anchovies, and this was a very creative dish. However, it wasn’t very filling, and I probably would order it again as an appetizer rather than an light entrée.

Thank you Cuba Libre for saving the night for me and my group.

A Tale of 2 Pubs: Cooper & Merlins

2011-04-20T21:49:00.001-05:00

I like pubs. Or at least, I like the U.S. version of pubs, and I like the idea of a pub. I was in a London pub once, about 30 years ago. But that’s hardly the basis for having a strong opinion. Most of my attitude about pubs is from dining in them here in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

In the past month, my wife and I have enjoyed two west-of-the-river pubs. That is to say, they were not in St. Paul. But they weren’t strictly in Minneapolis. The first pub in this post is The Cooper in the West End shops in St. Louis Park. Our most recent visit was our second. We liked our first experience so much that we agreed that we would be back. This was it.

The Cooper is big and new and bold and classy. It’s a raucous, rambunctious, noisy, busy scene. The food is tasty and there is plenty of authentic pub fare on the menu – fish & chips, shepherd’s pie, corned beef & cabbage, sandwiches. The drinks are also good. They have a great selection of beer and ale on tap (including Guinness), some interesting cocktails, and, of course, a great selection of Irish whiskeys.

On our first visit, we ordered off the bar menu. My wife had a Reuben sandwich; I had fish & chips. Like I said, we liked our meals quite a lot and we agreed that we would be back. On our most recent visit, my wife had a burger and I had steak & mushroom pie. I loved mine. My wife said her burger was good but nothing special. She wished she’d ordered another Reuben.

Back to the Cooper in a minute. But now for a word about Merlin’s Rest Pub in south Minneapolis on East Lake Street. I’d never heard of Merlin’s before. But this winter, we were looking for a place to go for a bite to eat and to hear some music, and I found Merlin’s using a Google search. That evening, we decided to stay closer to home. But we didn’t forget about it.

A week ago, we were invited to celebrate Record Store Day at Hymie’s Vintage Records on East lake St. Our son’s good friend from high school owns the shop with his wife. They organized a series of live bands and our son set up a booth to sell his pottery. Didn’t have to ask us twice – we were there. And since Merlin’s was just two blocks away from Hymie’s, it was a logical venue for dinner, drinks, and music to end the evening.

Merlin’s is gritty, funky, and eclectic. It too is raucous, rambunctious, noisy, and busy. We didn’t make a reservation (dummies). But when we arrived and asked for a table for 7 (including my two little grandchildren), it only took them a few minutes to get us set up, even though the place looked pretty full.

Merlin’s menu features an appetizing selection of classic pub food – fish & chips, bangers & mash, Cornish pasty, Highland steak pie, as well as burgers and sandwiches. All of the guys at our table ordered fish & chips. Very good. My wife ordered the Reuben; it wasn’t grilled. Afterwards, she said she wished she’d ordered a burger.

Now for the comparisons – start with the whiskey.

While we were waiting for our table at Merlin’s, I flagged down one of the staff and asked about their selection of Irish whiskey. Turns out, I think he was the proprietor. I told him what kind of whiskey we drink regularly, and he made two recommendations. First we had a round of Danny Boy whiskey. It was good, but not really distinctive from Bushmills. Then later we had a second round and ordered his second recommendation – Irish Manor (doesn’t seem to have a web site). I liked this one better. On our first visit to the Cooper, I ordered Bushmills. But in the meantime, I read that the proprietor had acquired a house brand of Irish called 2 Gingers. So on the second visit, I ordered that. It might be a good whiskey to use in a cocktail. But straight up and unadorned, it’s not very distinctive.

The ambiance at Cooper is definitely upscale. It’s filled with West End shoppers and theater-goers. Merlin’s is much more of a neighborhood place. The patrons were an interesting mix of young and old, artists, musicians, workers, bikers … you get the picture.

Merlin’s has music. The Cooper doesn’t. The house band at Merlin’s is Papa John Kolstad and the Hot Club. (That’s Papa John in the photo above with my wife and son.) We were told that he owns the building, and that he also owns the building where Hymie’s is located. H-m-m.

According to Merlin’s web site, it was just named the ‘Best Neighborhood Pub in Minneapolis.’ But the fact is that the Cooper is much closer to home. So in the future, we’ll probably end up at the Cooper more often than Merlin’s. I say that with a certain amount of regret.

Late night grilled cheese sandwich

2011-04-10T14:31:00.001-05:00

I wouldn’t normally write about eating in a hotel lobby bar. But then I learned from Land O’Lakes Facebook page that April is ‘Grilled Cheese Sandwich Month.’ I so I decided to write this brief post about my most recent grilled cheese sandwich.

On a recent trip to DC, I had one of those annoying, frustrating, delay-plagued flights that resulted in me arriving in DC quite a bit later than I had planned. On top of it, my hotel wasn’t particularly close to any restaurants, and the weather was threatening rain. So I decided to stay in the hotel and just eat something light.

L’Enfant Plaza Hotel has a brew pub in the lobby. I’ve stayed at the hotel a few times, and I’ve had lunch in it’s restaurant, simply called The Grill. But I’d never eaten in the pub.

As I looked at the menu, I thought about having fish and chips. Then I saw that they had roasted tomato soup. I thought that sounded good, and what better to go with it than a grilled cheese sandwich. They didn’t have one on the menu. But I asked my server if the chef would make me one. “Of course,” he replied.

Well, the soup was good, as I expected it would be. But the sandwich was a real delight. It was made from two thick slices of a good substantial bread. The cheese was a very flavorful cheddar. And the sandwich also had thick slices of ripe Roma tomatoes. It was grilled toasty brown so that the cheese was soft and melted.

It tasted great, just what I wanted. It just goes to show that it pays to ask.

Lunch at Barrio Lowertown, St. Paul, MN

2011-04-02T17:57:00.001-05:00

“Wow!”

That was the involuntary exclamation of a colleague after taking a bite of a grilled skirt steak taco at Barrio Lowertown.

“Whoa,” I said. “That must be one heckuva taco.” I think I must have made him self conscious, because he immediately down-played it.

“No, no,” he said, “The pork carnitas taco was good too.” He’d already eaten half of that before taking a bite of the beef taco. I’ll take him at his word, that he couldn’t really say which taco was better. But I’ll stand by my journalistic standards that it was the beef taco that evoked a verbal response.

That little vignette capsulizes my enthusiasm for Barrio. The lunch that my co-worker and I had with our colleague was absolutely a culinary delight.

The ironic aspect for me is that I thought I’d never eat at the St. Paul incarnation of Barrio. I mean … why? Cucina del Barrio is right in my neighborhood. And for a sense of the original tequila bar ambiance, it’s much closer to head downtown Minneapolis than trek half way to Wisconsin for the Lowertown joint. But when my co-worker and I talked about where to have a lunch meeting in downtown St. Paul, Barrio just seemed like the logical choice.

The place wasn’t very busy at noon on a Monday. I hope that’s not a bad sign. We had our choice of tables, and chose a high-top by the window overlooking Mears Park. Our server told us that when the weather gets nice, the windows open up and they set up tables on the sidewalk for a genuine al fresco dining experience.

While I’m on the topic of service, we had fabulous servers … two of them. They were friendly, accommodating, and prompt. I suppose that had something to do with the fact that the place was not busy. Still, they could have been bored and inattentive. Somehow, I don’t think either of them would be that way.

While our colleague’s steak taco earned the most verbal display of appreciation, the rest of the food was outstanding as well. My co-worker had a grilled steak salad. It had tomato wedges, tortilla strips instead of croutons, a generous serving of steak, and avocados with a chipotle-mango vinaigrette. I didn’t taste it, but it looked fabulous.

My co-worker and I also split a bowl of corn chowder. It was rich and creamy with queso fresco cheese, fresh kernels of corn and roasted poblano peppers. It was drizzled with infused oil. Delicious.

I ordered mushroom quesadillas. On the plate were four quesadillas filled with an earthy mushroom filling, grilled and then served with cheese sauce, shredded romaine, radishes sliced paper thin, and jalapeno slices.

The food was fantastic, and it reminded me why I am such a fan of Barrio’s multiple incarnations.

Dinner with friends at El Meson, Minneapolis

2011-03-22T20:50:00.001-05:00

Sometimes all it takes is a little nudge.

We had a coupon lying around for El Meson – $10 off. “Wanna go this Saturday?” I asked my wife. “I don’t think the coupon is good on Saturday night,” she replied. But the idea had started to percolate, and the next evening she suggested I get a reservation.

The thing is, we don’t really need a coupon to want to go to El Meson. It is one of our reliably good restaurants that we willingly return to. We have been there often. I can’t believe that I haven’t written about it on Krik’s Picks.

I have, however, written about El Meson’s sister restaurant, Café Ena. Like sisters, there are certain family resemblances. Both feature Latin cuisine. Ena is more South American. They call it Latin fusion – Peru, Argentina, Brazil. El Meson is more Spanish and Caribbean. Both feature a lot of fish and seafood, fresh ingredients, and artful preparation.

We were all set, then a couple of our friends called up wanting to know if we had plans for Saturday. We invited them to join us at El Meson. With a slight adjustment to the reservation time, we became a foursome.

El Meson lived up to our expectations. The food was fantastic. We started with a couple of small plates to share at the table. Off the tapas menu, we ordered ‘zetas.’ The menu describes these as “roasted baby mushrooms stuffed with gorgonzola, asparagus, roasted red peppers in a yellow tomato sauce.” The pungent gorgonzola cheese made a delightful complement to the earthy mushrooms. And the vegetables and sauce blended the whole dish together nicely. The other starter was ceviche. The menu described El Meson’s ceviche as Caribbean style. It featured shrimp, scallops, calamari, and fish. These are marinated in lime juice with habanero and cilantro. Normally my wife can’t handle cilantro, and she doesn’t like a lot of heat. But this ceviche was nicely balanced so that neither the cilantro nor the habanero caused her any problems.

For entrées our friends decided to split ‘Casarola de Mariscos.’ I’ve had that dish on previous visits. It features fish and seafood in a flavorful saffron sauce. It comes with white rice on the side, perfect for soaking up the sauce. My wife had her favorite – conchas. These are seared scallops served with very creative risotto with coconut, mango, and spinach. It’s all served in a lemon butter sauce and topped with a pineapple salsa.

In my original description, I said that they have a lot of fish and seafood on the menu. But I think for the first time, I ordered beef. My entrée was called ‘Carne a la Brava.’ It consisted of beautiful beef medallions coated in smoked paprika and sautéed to order. (Mine actually was done a little more than I ordered.) The beef comes with Valencia rice and a medley of roasted vegetables including fingerling potatoes, artichoke hearts, and little pieces of chorizo sausage. The sauce on this dish is a tempranillo demi glaze.

One of the things I’ve always liked about El Meson (and Café Ena) is the wine list. All the wines are reasonably priced, and the selection trends heavily toward Spanish and South American wines. We’ve had several that were memorable, including the one we had on Saturday night. It was a blend of syrah and grenache called Mas Donis Barrica from a Spanish winery called Bodega Capcanes. The only frustrating thing about the great wine that they have at El Meson is that I can’t find them for sale in wine shops!

So I’ve pretty much raved about the food and the wine, but there’s one more thing that my wife and I love about El Meson. They have a flamenco dancer and guitar player who perform most Fridays and Saturdays. It adds a little authenticity and flare that makes the evening so enjoyable.

Oh, by the way – that coupon that I mentioned at the beginning? Turns out it was good on Saturday after all. But we didn’t bring it. Oh well. The evening was well worth it.

Happy St. Urho’s Day

2011-03-15T21:43:00.001-05:00

When I first started working for Midland Cooperatives, we sold groceries to many independent food co-ops on Minnesota’s Iron Range. A lot of those co-ops were founded by Finnish immigrants. (Part of the lore of the co-op paper was that during a period of labor unrest on the Iron Range, 1930s if I recall, communist activists tried to take over the paper, presumably to use it for propaganda. Gus Hall, who was the leader of the Communist Party of the USA was born on the Iron Range. I never met him, but his name was occasionally invoked with awe and a little fear.)

One of the fortunate coincidences of my name is that it sort of resembles a Finnish name. Just throw in a few extra ‘k’s and ‘i’s, and and I could pass for a Finn. When I did interviews for the paper, I was sort of accepted as ‘one of their own.’ And when they found out I wasn’t really Finnish (I never tried to pretend), they never held it against me.

It was in that context that I came to learn about St. Urho (he has a Facebook page, you know) and St. Urho’s Day, celebrated on March 16. According to the legend, St. Urho saved the people’s vineyards by banishing the grasshoppers from Finland. "Heinäsirkka, heinäsirkka, mene täältä hiiteen!" he commanded. The day was commemorated by wearing purple (color of wine, I suppose).

Now some cynics claimed that St. Urho was invented by Finns in order to preempt the celebration of St. Patrick’s day on March 17. For my part, I had a purple tie that I used to wear on St. Urho’s Day.

Actually, I still have the tie, though I don’t wear it anymore.

Birthday party at Sushi Tango, Mpls.

2011-03-14T21:30:00.001-05:00

Until last weekend, I’d never been to Sushi Tango. Can’t really say that I had any desire to go. But my sister-in-law decided to have her (can’t really say which one) birthday dinner there with a group of friends, that provided the impetus to go.

Several people in the group knew about Krik’s Picks. “Are you going to blog about this dinner?” they wondered. With that kind of a build-up, how could I decline?

I can say many nice things about Sushi Tango. But in some ways, it also was disappointing. I guess my summary conclusion it this: It was a nice place for a birthday dinner. We had a lot of fun. But I probably wouldn’t go back.

For this birthday dinner, the guest of honor chose a hibachi table. Good decision. It was very conducive to conversation around the griddle, and we had a lot of room to get up and walk around and socialize. On the other hand, our chef was a dud. Granted, we were not an easy crowd. But part of the job is to be entertaining. He couldn’t keep peoples’ attention.

Also, he hadn’t mastered some of the tricks. His onion ring volcano was pretty impressive. But there’s the trick while he’s preparing the fried rice. He started by cooking the eggs. Then before mixing it together with the rice and vegetables, the chef demonstrates his prowess by flicking pieces of cooked egg into the mouths of the guests. Our guy kept missing. He also was a bit clumsy. He knocked over a glass of water.

So far, the rating is ambiance = good, entertainment = ‘meh.’ But what really counts is the food (and drinks). Once again my review is mixed. My wife and I had Asian-inspired martinis. Hers was a lychee martini that was quite good. Mine was a cucumber martini that was just so-so. They also have a nice selection of beer. We ordered several appetizers to share. I thought these were consistently good. I liked the kimchee, but I’m not an expert by any means. There was a good tofu appetizer that got passed around. My favorite was something called ‘tataki’ which was paper-thin slices of tuna seasoned with ginger, garlic, herbs and a sauce. They also ordered edamame – not my favorite. For me, the apps and drinks were the highlight.

I would say that the rest of the dinner, cooked on the griddle, was excessively salted. My wife and I split something called the Uptown Special – shrimp, scallops, and calamari. It was good, but certainly nothing special. Around the table, a few people had chicken, but I didn’t taste any. Probably the entrée that was the most impressive was the seared tuna steak. These were beautiful, thick pieces of ruby red tuna. The chef seared each side and then let them simmer briefly while he cut tender slices. By now, many of the diners were getting full. So even though my wife and I were done with our seafood, I was able to score a piece of the tuna. It was good.

At the end, they brought out a birthday dessert. Nice touch. Throughout, the service was friendly enough and reasonably prompt, so no complaints about that. But I guess I just wasn’t impressed enough to want to come back.

Oatmeal–The on-going debate

2011-03-10T21:30:00.001-06:00

Toward the end of February, there was a lot of internet chatter about oatmeal. Mark Bittman posted an Opinionator column slamming McDonald’s essentially for ruining an otherwise healthy menu item. He also posted a link on Twitter to a Slate article rating various fast food oatmeal servings.

This all caught my attention for two reasons. First, I have happy memories of making oatmeal for my kids when they were little. Second, I’ve been eating oatmeal more regularly, lately.

I haven’t eaten oatmeal at McDonald’s, and I’m not likely to in any case. But I do order oatmeal sometimes at Starbucks and Caribou. And I regularly have oatmeal at the company cafeteria.

Bittman’s complaint about the McDonald’s oatmeal boils down to this: they take a simple basic food and make it into junk food with a bunch of sugary additions and additives for who-knows-what purpose. OK. That’s basically why I don’t eat at McDonald’s anyway. But his article was basically just a rant against McDonald’s.

I liked the Slate article. They, at least, established some criteria for evaluating the oatmeal at McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Au Bon Pain. But one of the things I was frustrated with was the lack of nutritional analysis. I mean, here’s what it boils down to for me. Why would you order oatmeal instead of a donut, a Pop-Tart, or a breakfast sandwich? Basically because you’re willing to give up a flavor jolt in favor of greater nutrition.

(In his Opinionator rant, Bittman observes that the McDonald’s version of oatmeal actually has only 10 fewer calories than a cheeseburger or an Egg McMuffin. Good point. But sort of a narrow comparison. Bottled water has fewer calories than milk. Which has more nutrition, however?

So here’s my addition to the discussion. I looked up the nutritional analysis of the versions of oatmeal served at each of the venues in the Slate article. Since I’ve been eating Caribou’s oatmeal, I added that as well.

McDonald’s: Slate ranked it at the bottom of its taste and aesthetic scale. They basically said that someone might come in thinking they’d eat a healthy serving of oatmeal, but when confronted with the reality of a bowl of gray, lumpy mush, would opt for a breakfast sandwich instead. (Sort of Bittman’s argument as well.) Nutrition stats (from McDonald’s web site): Serving size = 250 grams. Calories = 290 (with brown sugar). Fat = 4.5 grams. Sodium = 160 mg. Fiber = 5 grams. Price = $1.99.

Au Bon Pain: Slate ranked this one in the middle. They liked that it’s prepared in large batches and ‘ladled from a big, communal pot.’ I’ve never had oatmeal at Au Bon Pain. So I can’t argue with their assessment from personal experience. But when I read their ratings, it seemed like maybe ABP’s oatmeal got unfairly marked down by some judges because it was bland. (WTF – that’s oatmeal.) Nutrition stats for apple cinnamon oatmeal from ABP web site: Serving size (small) = 227 grams. Calories = 190. Fat = 3 grams. Sodium = 5 mg. Fiber = 25 grams. Price = (No data).

Starbucks: This one won the Slate rankings. But as I read the reviews, I can’t honestly say why. It’s an individually prepared, instant mix. I’ve had Starbucks oatmeal and liked it ok. Nutrition stats = Calories = 290 (with brown sugar and dried fruit). Fat = 2.5 grams. Sodium = 105 mg. Fiber = 6 grams.

Caribou: Slate didn’t rate Caribou. (Too Midwestern?) But I have Caribou oatmeal fairly regularly. So I decided to include it in this review. I don’t know if it’s instant or prepared to order; I think it might be instant. But I’ve found it to be reliably good and not excessively gummy. Nutrition stats: Serving size = 215 grams. Calories = 280. Fat = 4.5 grams. Sodium = 170 mg. Fiber = 7 grams.

Now one of the points that Bittman was trying to make is that oatmeal is a very simple, basic food. He was objecting to how fast food companies turn it into ‘junk’ with all kinds of additives. So perhaps the best way to compare is to go to the source and see what the nutritional rating is for regular Quaker Oats. I’m hoping that the cafeteria oatmeal that I eat the most is most comparable to this.

Here’s what I found for a regular serving with 2 tablespoons of sugar and about a quarter cup of raisins: Calories = 325. Fat = 3 grams. Sodium = 5 mg. Fiber = 6 grams.

So how does it all wash out for me. I like the Caribou oatmeal the best personally. I’ve never had Au Bon Pain nor McDonald’s. But based on the Slate review, I think I’d probably prefer Au Bon Pain. I like homemade oatmeal the best of all. But when I have breakfast at home, I very seldom take the time to cook oatmeal.

Dinner at Cocina del Barrio, Edina, MN

2011-02-22T09:02:00.000-06:00

Boy, was this a difficult review for me to write. First of all, I was all psyched to really like Cocina del Barrio. My wife and I have been to Barrio in downtown Minneapolis, and we really liked it. We were looking forward to having a twin (or at least a close cousin) in our neighborhood.

But we (or at least I) felt our experience last weekend didn’t live up to expectations. The food was great. But the service and the ambiance were not up to par.

I was all prepared to write a mediocre review. But in Sunday’s Star-Trib, there’s was an article about hot new bars in the Twin Cities, and Cocina del Barrio was one that was mentioned. The article made snide references to “Edina housewives” packing the place like a Louis Vuitton fire sale and “soccer moms in sequined jeans.” We the place was packed all right. But most of the people looked more like outer suburb refugees venturing to Edina because they didn’t want to pay for parking downtown.

So then I got all defensive. But in the end, I still can’t forgive some of the shortcomings we experienced.

Let me start with what we liked. That would be the food. The hype on Barrio’s Edina outpost was that it would focus more on food than tequila. But really, it was pretty comparable. We liked everything that we ordered; some things better than others. So, for example, the guacamole. It’s good, but not outstanding. My wife and I like the guac that we make at home better. The ceviche, on the other hand, is fantastic. We had an order of red snapper ceviche with avocado, radish, and orange. Yum.

We had a couple of orders of fish tacos made with Mahi Mahi. They were as good as we remembered them from our experience downtown. We also had a couple of orders of chicken and black bean tostadas. They were very flavorful, with a crisp tostada covered with black beans and chicken and mounded with shredded greens. Not only were they tasty, but they looked marvelous as well.

I had a crab and poblano enchilada that was very good. I also liked the lobster empanada, though I generally prefer baked empanadas rather than fried.

In the drink category, we ordered a couple of beers, a glass of wine, and a cocktail. Frankly, I thought the cocktail (macho camacho – blood orange with tequila and a splash of sparkling wine) was nothing special. I wrote in my review of Barrio downtown that I wished they offered tequila flights. It can be quite intimidating to look at a list of 85 kinds of tequila and not know what to order. But my tap beer (Modelo Negra) was very good.

But now for some of the shortcomings. First of all, they’ve got to get their reservation system figured out. We had a very long wait even though we arrived on time for our reservation. Second, after waiting all that time, we were seated at a table in the bar. Now, if you read the Strib article, that’s where everyone’s supposed to want to be seated. And we enjoy a nice, lively bar scene. But the noise on Saturday night was so energetic that it just wasn’t enjoyable. We would have much preferred the dining room.

Lastly, the service just wasn’t up to expectations either. One of our group asked about ordering an entrée. Our server discouraged it with the excuse that it would take too long to come out of the kitchen. Then he forgot to bring one of the items that we did order; we had to remind him.

So here’s my bottom line on Cocina del Barrio. I’d give them another chance if we were going out with a couple that really wanted to eat there. But I think if my wife and I wanted another Barrio experience, we’d go downtown. And if we just wanted a 50th & France experience, there are plenty of choices at that corner.

Breakfast meetings at Good Day Café, Golden Valley, MN

2011-02-19T20:58:00.000-06:00

Good Day Café has been open for while already. My wife has eaten there. Lots of our friends have eaten there. I hadn’t until earlier this month. Then, by a remarkable coincidence, I had two breakfast meetings there within the space of two weeks.

Good Day doesn’t have a web site. So my link is to Yelp. You can read my review of the food. I liked it.

It was pretty amazing how many people I saw there. It’s quite an array of people doing business and schmoozing. Based on my two breakfast visits, I’d suggest getting there early. For both of my visits, I got there just before 7:30 a.m. No wait either time. But by the time I left, there was quite a line-up of people waiting for tables.

For me, the gold standard for breakfast places in Minneapolis is Al’s in Dinkeytown. I’m somewhat prejudiced because my son used to work there. For me, Good Day isn’t as good as Al’s. But, it’s pretty good. Of the two breakfasts I had, my favorite was the corned beef hash. Great flavor, very nicely prepared. The other breakfast was a variation on eggs Benedict. Also very good, just not quite as memorable.

I like the ambiance at Good Day. The dining room is big and open and very casual. The service is fine. Not outstanding. But no complaints either. All in all, it was pretty good. I’d definitely agree to another breakfast meeting there.

Lunch at Boudro’s, San Antonio

2011-02-17T07:30:00.000-06:00

NCFC had it’s annual meeting in San Antonio. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to San Antonio. I didn’t really know what to expect. But to be candid, it was kind of disappointing. I did my usual survey of the local restaurant scene online – Yelp, Open Table, Google, NY Times. I didn’t come up with much encouragement.

It seemed like most of the restaurants on the River Walk are pretty tourist oriented. Not that that’s bad. But that usually means they lack a distinctive style or flavor that sets them apart.

Most of the sources I checked recommended Boudro’s. It’s described as a Texas bistro. So when a coworker and I arrived and had free time for lunch, I sought out Boudro’s. It was about a four block walk from our hotel, the Marriott Rivercenter.

Now, the weather when we arrived was distinctly not Texan. A cold front was moving in from the north, and it was starting to get chilly. Still, the tables on the River Walk looked inviting. They were still in the sun, so we decided to tough it out. Wasn’t too bad, really.

My coworker had the Boudro’s burger. He liked it quite a lot. The burger was prepared to his liking – done medium. The fries that came on the plate looked very nicely done – thin and crisp.

I had a daily special fish. It was a local fish; I don’t really remember what kind it was. But it was very expertly prepared – cooked through but not overdone. It had a tomato salsa on top, and was served with a side of rice with kernels of corn. I thought it was very good.

As we were sitting along side the canal, a boat tour went by. I recognized one of the riders as someone from the NCFC meeting. Later, while we were enjoying our meal, he and his wife walked by. They were looking for a place to have lunch. We recommended Boudro’s. When we saw him later that same day, he said that they really enjoyed their lunch, too.

Then, after the meeting had ended, I was returning to Minnesota with our CEO. He started describing a restaurant where he went for dinner during the meeting. Turns out, it also was Boudro’s. He quite liked it. So on the basis of our favorable experience, and the reports from two other trusted colleagues, it seems unanimous that Boudro’s is definitely a place to eat when in San Antonio.

Recipe: Apulian-style Potatoes, Onions, Tomatoes

2011-02-13T16:59:00.001-06:00

I used to use a computer program called MasterCook. It was a way of organizing favorite recipes. One of the features I liked was that it would calculate the nutritional contents of recipes based on the ingredient list that you entered into the program. It was pretty cool. But the main problem then, as now, is that when I’m cooking, I’m in the kitchen, pretty far from my computer. If I bring a laptop into the kitchen, I can put a recipe on the screen. But then the screen blanks out after a period of time, or I have to scroll down, and my hands are all messy. Not very convenient. Of course, I could always print out the recipe. But that kind of defeats the purpose of entering it into a computer in the first place.

As I prepared to write this post, I was somewhat surprised to learn that MasterCook still exits! Version 11 for XP/Vista/7 is available for $20 – download or on a CD. I don’t know what version I still have. (I never throw anything away, so I probably still have the original installation disk somewhere.) I do know I quit using MasterCook quite a while ago, which presented something of a dilemma. I had a bunch of favorite recipes stored in the program, and I didn’t want to lose them.

Fortunately, I found a way to export them to a .txt file. I did that and now have them stored as ‘notes’ in Outlook. So last Friday, I volunteered to make the potatoes for our family dinner. I remembered this recipe that I had stored on MasterCook for Apulian potatoes (from the Puglia region of Italy). So I hauled my laptop into the kitchen, fired up Outlook, opened the notes, and voila – there is was.

I’m glad I kept it. Everyone loved it; even my wife who normally doesn’t eat potatoes had a few bites. Of course, I did make a few adjustments. So first, here’s the recipe, which I noted came from Food & Wine Magazine, October 1992. Then after that, I’ve noted Krik’s variations.

Apulian-Style Baked Potatoes, Onion, & Tomatoes
Recipe By : Food & Wine, 10/92
Serving Size : 6 Preparation Time :1:15

   2      pounds        potatoes -- peeled and sliced
   1      large         onion -- sliced thin
   2      cups          tomatoes, red ripe -- diced
     3/4 cup           Romano cheese -- grated
     3/4 teaspoon      oregano
     1/2 teaspoon      salt
     1/2 teaspoon      pepper
     1/2 cup           water

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and toss several times. Oil shallow baking dish, 9x13 and spoon potato mixture into dish; drizzle with ¼ c. olive oil. Bake for 1 hour turning potatoes every 20 minutes. Cool for 10 min. and serve; makes 6 servings.

Krik’s Variation: I didn’t have fresh tomatoes. (It is February, you know.) So I used canned plus a little of the liquid instead of the 1/2 c. water. I didn’t have Romano cheese, so I used Parmesan instead. I stirred half of the cheese into the potato mixture and sprinkled the rest on top before putting it in the oven. I didn’t have oregano (imagine that), so I used about 3 tablespoons of fresh parsley, minced. We wanted it to be creamy, so I stirred in about 1/3 cup sour cream. I also stirred in about 1/8 cup capers. Oh, and I forgot to drizzle with olive oil.

After I put it in the oven, I didn’t turn the potatoes every 20 minutes, as the recipe suggests. By not turning them, they came out with a nice parmesan crust on top. When I took them out of the oven, they were just on the verge of getting overdone. I think the next time I make this, I’ll probably heat the oven to 375 rather than 400 degrees.

There wasn’t even one tablespoon leftover. I definitely will be making this again.

Variation on biscotti

2011-02-06T16:01:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I tweeted that I was going to make a pistachio, raspberry, and white chocolate biscotti for the Super Bowl gathering that we were invited to. Then I found another biscotti recipe that sounded better – white chocolate and dried cranberries. But it didn’t have any pistachios. And the white chocolate was for coating the biscotti rather than an ingredient in them.

So I improvised. I combined the two recipes.

When I was responsible for compiling the recipe column for the Midland Cooperator (see previous post), I learned that if you change three ingredients in a recipe, you have a new recipe. If that’s true, then I’ve got naming rights on this one. So here is Krik’s Picks Pistachio, Dried Cranberry & White Chocolate Biscotti.

2 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

3/4 cup raw, unsalted pistachios

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in medium bowl; whisk to blend. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, butter, eggs and almond extract in large bowl until well blended. Mix in flour mixture, then dried cranberries, white chocolate chips, and pistachios. Divide dough in half. Using floured hands, shape each piece into a log approximately 1 inch high, 1 1/2 inches wide and 12 inches long. Transfer both logs to prepared baking sheet, spacing evenly.

Bake logs until golden brown (logs will spread), about 35 minutes. Cool completely on sheet on rack. Maintain oven temperature. Transfer logs to work surface. Using serrated knife, cut logs on diagonal into 1/2-inch-wide slices. Arrange slices, cut side down, on same sheet. (As you can see from the photo, I stand the slices up on a baking tile instead.) Bake 10 minutes; turn biscotti over. Bake until just beginning to color, about 5 minutes. Transfer biscotti to rack.

What I learned from being a food columnist

2011-02-05T07:34:00.000-06:00

My first job out of college, I was a food columnist. Sort of. Let me explain.

I earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota in 1974. Check your history. That was right during the Watergate scandal. I’m sure most of us in J-School in those days thought we were going to get jobs on major metropolitan newspapers and do political exposés. Just like Woodward and Bernstein.

Fortunately for me, there was a very wise placement officer at the J-School. As I started to get serious about finding a job after graduation, she offered this advice: “With your farm background, you should look for a job with an agricultural company.” (Thank you Miss Bowman.)

I had a bunch of résumés out in the mail. The week after I graduated, I got married. The day we got back from our honeymoon, I got a call from the editor of the Midland Cooperator, inviting me to come in for an interview. (Thank you Carol James and Terry Nagle.)

They hired me. Midland Cooperatives was a diversified farm supply cooperative. The Cooperator was the newspaper that Midland published for its members. My title was ‘production editor.’ I was responsible for copy editing, layout and design, and preparing standing features, including a recipe column.

(Bound volumes of the Midland Cooperator are in the Library of Congress. You can look it up.)

I got the recipes from many different sources, including readers. One issue, we ran a reader recipe for Monster Cookies. The recipe made a very large batch of cookies with a lot of ingredients. When we published the recipe, we left out one ingredient. It happened to be an important ingredient.

We had a whole bunch of very angry readers. They had spent $10 on ingredients for a recipe, and instead of getting sweet, gooey Monster Cookies, they got a runny, goopy, inedible mess.

In the next issue, we published a correction and offered to reimburse readers for the ingredients that they had wasted. Along with the correction, we ran a picture of Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. (Really clever, huh?)

Midland merged with Land O’Lakes in 1982. By 1984, I was handling government relations for the cooperative and its members. Fortunately for me, no one remembered the monster cookie debacle. The rest is history.

But to this very day, more than 30 years later, I keep that blue Cookie Monster doll on top of my desk right next to my computer screen. Any time I’m feeling kinda cocky about what a great guy I am, just a glimpse of Cookie Monster reminds me of that huge, stupid mistake.

Helps to keep me humble.

Gung Hay Fat Choy

2011-02-03T20:32:00.000-06:00

Happy Chinese New Year. (Though the internet says the translation more accurately should be “wishing you great happiness and prosperity.”)

I’m not really a big fan of Chinese food. That’s why you won’t find many previous reviews of Chinese or other Oriental restaurants on Krik’s Picks. It’s actually one of the few things my wife and I disagree on. When we’re discussing where to eat, I just can’t get excited about going to a Chinese restaurant.

And yet, I am quite surprised to observe that for the first month of 2011, I had quite a string of Oriental (thought not Chinese) dining experiences.

It started on New Years Eve day – Dec. 31 – my grandson’s birthday. My son-in-law was working, so my wife and I offered to take our daughter and grandson out for lunch. We settled on Rice Paper, a Vietnamese/Oriental fusion restaurant recently relocated to Edina.

The very next day, Jan. 1, we decided to eat at Peninsula Malaysian. I really do like Peninsula. It doesn’t take much to convince me to go there.

Two weeks later, we went to Raku, a new Japanese restaurant in Edina. That was really a special find. While we were disappointed with the service, the overall dining experience and the food was great.

We are part of a neighborhood dinner club. The next weekend after Raku was a group dinner at a neighbor’s house. The theme, what else, was Chinese New Year. Everyone was assigned a Chinese food item to prepare and share at the dinner. My assignment was a stir fry chicken and mango dish. It turned out pretty well. We liked it enough to keep the recipe. We’ll prepare it sometime when we have our family together for dinner.

The next Thursday, our daughter and son-in-law asked us to babysit while they had a night out together. They had Italian. We went to their apartment in Linden Hills to babysit. There’s a new Thai restaurant just two blocks from their place called Naviya’s. We got take-out and ate at the apartment. Several Yelp reviewers have written negative reviews. But my wife and daughter had lunch there previously and really liked it. I liked it well enough to agree to try a dine-in experience sometime in the future.

To kind of wrap it all up, the final weekend of January, we returned to Peninsula. (Click here for my Yelp review.)

So in the course of a month, I probably had more Oriental food than I had all during 2010. Maybe my tastes are changing. I really would dine at any of those places again. But I am especially looking forward to a return visit to Raku.

Bahamian Beer: Sands or Kalik?

2011-01-24T15:36:00.000-06:00

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 bottom. I didn’t know what Junkanoo was. The co-workers I was with speculated that maybe it was a kind of carnival celebration, like Mardi Gras.

While I was researching this blog post, I learned that ‘Kalik’ beer got its name from the clanging of the cowbells that are rung during Junkanoo. Junkanoo (I learned from Wikipedia) is observed with costume parades around Christmas and New Years. It has its origins as a slave festival that celebrates freedom from slavery.

Freedom from slavery – that’s a sentiment that I’ll drink to.

Dinner at Raku, Edina MN

2011-01-21T12:46:00.000-06:00

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 wanted, and we weren’t in a rush. So we let someone else take that booth. We headed over to the bar to have a cocktail while we waited for a table in the dining room.

Raku has a very cool list of specialty cocktails. We both ordered a sake-tini. It was made with a muddled slice of cucumber and served with a slice of cucumber as a garnish. The bartender made quite a show of preparing the drink, and he was fun to watch. It took about a half hour for a table to open up. But we enjoyed watching the bartender and chatting with other diners.

(While we were sitting at the bar, a local media celeb came in with a small entourage. She was intrigued by our cocktails, and when we told her how good they were, she also ordered one.)

So far, so good. When we were seated at our table in the dining room, we were confronted with four menus – a cocktail menu like we’d seen at the bar, a list of sake flights, a list of specials, and a regular dinner menu. Here’s where we could have used a helpful server to explain some of the specials and choices. Unfortunately, we didn’t have one.

Our server rushed by just as we were starting to look at the different menus. She wanted to know if we were ready to order. Well, we weren’t. I ordered a flight of sake. Linda continued to sip her cocktail.

Raku has a very diverse menu. They have a wide selection of sushi, sashimi, and rolled items. They also have a nice selection of traditional Japanese dishes. Linda doesn’t like sushi. I do, but consequently, we don’t often eat at sushi restaurants. So I could have used some help and guidance on what to order. Unfortunately, we didn’t get it.

While we were waiting for our table, Linda saw another diner being served a wonderful looking bowl of soup. She spied it on the menu – seafood soup with shrimp, scallops, fish, crab, tofu, and noodles. She also got two pieces of shrimp tempura. (I thought they came with the soup. But the menu online doesn’t show that, so maybe Linda ordered them separately.) She thought it was very good. The shrimp tempura was especially tasty.

There were a couple of items on the nightly special list that looked good. Here’s where some advice from the server would have been helpful. But since she seemed to be too busy to advise me, I ended up order a Raku sushi entrée off the menu. It was the marine sushi with several pieces of sushi and a spicy tuna roll.

I mentioned that I ordered a sake flight. The server brought it after taking our dinner orders. It was three small servings of different kinds of sake. It was really enjoyable sipping them and noting the different flavors in each kind. I shared it with Linda. She normally doesn’t like sake, but she did like sipping these.

My entrée came with a choice of soup or salad. The soup was miso, and I like miso soup. But I decided to have the salad instead. The ginger dressing was very tasty, but overall, the salad was just ok.

So like I said, we weren’t in a rush. I ate my salad. We sipped the sake. But after a while, we realized that it was taking an awfully long time for our food to arrive. Pretty soon, our server rushed over. The sushi chef was backed up on orders. She apologized and brought us a complementary order of edema me. We’re not particularly fond of edema me. But it was a nice gesture.

Finally our food arrived. I’ve already said that Linda liked hers. My sushi was beautiful and very good. I also liked the spicy tuna roll. But it was a huge plate and could easily have been split between two people. I ate it all anyway.

By the time we’d gotten served and finished our meals, it was about 10 p.m. By now, the pace was definitely slowing down, and there were several open tables. But our server was nowhere to be seen. She finally rushed by with our check.

Here’s my bottom line on Raku – great bar, entertaining bartender, comfortable dining room, good food, but unreliable, inattentive, unhelpful service.

Our displeasure with the service notwithstanding, we agreed we’d still come back. Raku has a particularly interesting lunch special – soup or salad, an appetizer, and an entrée for $16. The rest of the lunch menu also looks interesting, including a box lunch (I assume bento box) for $10.

Disappointing dinner at Zahtar, Minneapolis

2011-01-18T16:07:00.000-06:00

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 arrived for our reservation, 7 p.m. on a Saturday night, there was only one other table of diners in the restaurant. While that wasn’t a good sign, there were some promising aspects. The décor is very appealing – warm lighting and shear hanging fabric dividers that create a feeling of intimacy in the large attractive space. We had looked at the menu online and saw several items that looked promising as well.

Despite the fact that we were only the second group of diners to arrive, there was no hostess to greet us and show is to our table. Just a sign directing us to check in at the bar. OK.

We were shown to our table and given our menus. We decided to order a bottle of wine. I saw a couple of interesting choices. I asked our server about Rioja Vega. OK. That wasn’t much help. We ordered it anyway, and liked it quite well.

Next we ordered a couple of appetizers to split. One was the fried calamari. They were very good, lightly breaded and very tender – not at all rubbery. They were served with a spicy aioli. The other appetizer was a shrimp tostada. The flavors were good, but it was quite difficult to eat. Also, it was seasoned with cilantro, which my wife cannot eat. But so far, so good.

For entrées, we had quite a selection. One of our friends had braised short ribs. They looked wonderful – very tender and falling off the bone. At the server’s suggestion, I had the salmon. I don’t usually order salmon at a restaurant because we have it often at home. Also, it was served with rice, and that didn’t appeal to me very much. But I asked if it could be served with the mashed potatoes instead, and when she said ‘yes’ I decided to get it. I liked it. The salmon was very fresh and flavorful. It was just a little on the dry side; might have been slightly overcooked. Our other friend ordered a sandwich - Croque Monsieur, basically a fancy ham and cheese sandwich. He said it was good. But I noticed he only ate half and didn’t take the leftovers home.

But the real issue came with my wife’s meal. She decided to have the steak frites. When the server asked how she wanted the steak cooked, my wife said she wanted it pink in the middle. That didn’t seem to track with the server. ‘Medium rare?’ she asked. No, pink in the middle, my wife reiterated. ‘Medium well?’ the server asked. No, that would be overdone. Just pink.

When her steak was served, she cut in and it was cooked all through. There wasn’t more than a hint of pink in the middle. Now the dilemma – send it back or eat an overdone steak? She wouldn’t enjoy an overdone steak. But if she sent it back, she worried that we all would be done eating before her replacement steak arrived. We assured her that we’d eat slow, and the server said it would only take five minutes to get a new steak out. It took more than five minutes, but we fulfilled our pledge and were only about half done with our meals when hers arrived. The new steak was medium rare. But my wife ate off the ends and edges and brought the middle section, which was too rare, home with us. She’ll cook it a little more and eat slices of it for lunch.

The manager apparently detected that we were unhappy. He came over and listened sympathetically. He assured us that we would not be charged for the steak.

We did have a dessert – a piece of carrot cake. I liked it a lot.

Thinking back on the meal, I believe the main problem was the service. Our server was unfamiliar with the wines on the menu and there was apparently a problem communicating my wife’s preference for her steak to the kitchen. That was very disappointing. The manager did what he could to accommodate us. That kept us from getting mad, but we were still disappointed.

At the end of the evening, our friends asked if David Fhima was in the house. No, our server explained. He’s no longer affiliated with the restaurant. So for me, the big question is this: Did Zahtar decline after Fhima left? Or did Zahtar and Fhima part ways because it’s a failed concept?

Lunch at Cuba Libre, Washington, DC

2011-01-15T16:50:00.000-06:00

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 bento, which included a ceviche, a salad, and a small main course. The ceviche was called ‘atun fire and ice’ – citrus-cured tuna served with red onions and jalapeno-ginger-coconut sauce. It was delicious. The salad was called ‘ensalada de pollo rancho luna.’ It consisted of citrus marinated chicken with cabbage, romaine, tomatoes, red onions, and cucumbers topped with crispy wontons. I liked it, but it was my least favorite item in the bento.

The main course was a small serving of ‘vaca frita’ - braised short ribs with grilled red onions and peppers served on a bed of black beans and rice. Both the ceviche and the salad were available on the lunch menu. The short ribs are available as an entrée on the dinner menu.

The bento also came with a small dessert. (Sorry, but I don’t remember what it was. I know it wasn’t apple pie or carrot cake.)

We didn’t have anything to drink at lunch. But the restaurant has a quite an impressive drink menu. They offer several different mojitos, tropical cocktails, cachaça, and pisco as well as sangria and a great selection of bottled beer. In addition, they have a list of 70 different kinds of rum.

I think it would be fun to come here sometime with a group, order a bunch of small plates and ceviches and have drinks.

Lunch at the St. Paul Grill

2011-01-11T03:30:00.000-06:00

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 time I had this dish, it was made with farfalle. That’s what I used when I made it at home. This time, it was made with penne. I like it better with farfalle.

St. Paul Grill is a great place for a business lunch. The service is great. The ambiance is comfortable. The food is reliably good. I’m not so fond of it for dinner. I’ve only had dinner there once. But at night, it becomes a pretty straight-forward steak place. It’s good, but nothing remarkable.

Another lunch at Bibiana, Washington, DC

2011-01-08T15:12:00.001-06:00

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 dessert. I declined but ordered an espresso. He brought me a dessert menu anyway, “for the next time you come,” he said. I looked through it. There was a cheesecake with pistachio crust that sounded good. No carrot cake or apple pie, but there is a dessert that they call ‘Torta del Finanziere.’ I guess a finanziere is a small tea cake. Bibiana ’s is a hazelnut cake served with apple butter, roasted lemon salted caramel apple, and apple cider gelato. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?

We have some very good Italian restaurants in Minnesota. But I haven’t found one like Bibiana yet. The creativity of the dishes, delicious flavors, and artistic presentation really make me wish we had something like it here.

I will go there for dinner sometime. Stay tuned.

A plug for Pairings, Minnetonka

2011-01-03T14:08:00.001-06:00

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. You can eat in or take out.

The photo is from a visit in October, after Peter has been working there for about a month. We were there again in December. My son picked Pairings for his birthday dinner. He picked a night when Peter wasn’t working, so he actually got to sit with us and enjoy the fare.

Like I said, all of the food is good. But there are a few standouts. I think the pizzas are particularly noteworthy. The duck confit pizza is particularly good. We usually get one of those. For my son’s birthday, we also got a mushroom pizza that was very good. They also have a ‘pizza bar’ (for lack of a better description). You can pick your own favorites from a selection of 16 toppings.

The pastas are very good, and they have a selection of nearly a dozen sandwiches, including wraps and paninis. In addition, each night they offer a few entrées. Some of the entrées change seasonally. I’ve had a braised lamb shank that was very good, and my daughter had the salmon which she liked.

Pairings does have a few breakfast items on the menu, and they have a Sunday brunch menu. I’m a breakfast fan, but they don’t open until 10 a.m. so I’ve never had breakfast there. That might be ok for Sunday brunch. But 10 a.m. doesn’t usually work for breakfast on a work day for me.

So I recommend Pairings for a nice variety of offerings, excellently prepared, and if you’re so inclined, you can enjoy them with a nice bottle of wine from the next door wine shop.

End of 2010 lunch at Rice Paper, Edina

2010-12-31T17:40:00.001-06:00

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 that could not be prepared without it. So my wife didn’t have any. She did however, snatch a few of the pomegranate seeds that fell out while we were eating the spring rolls. They were very light and refreshing. They came with a vinegary dipping sauce and julienned carrots as a garnish. The spring rolls are pictured on the right.

For lunch, we ordered two entrées and another appetizer. The second appetizer was called tofu puffs. They were described as ‘crispy tofu rolled in a sweet, tangy Thai sauce with scallion oil, sprinkled with fresh roasted peanuts and crispy shallots.’ They were great.

One entrée was Chinese pancake wraps. We expected that they’d come disassembled, and each person would fill them with the variety of ingredients noted on the menu - cucumber, bean sprouts, mint, and lemongrass. The menu said it also included cilantro, but in deference to my wife, they didn’t put it on our order. Contrary to our expectation, the pancakes were served already stuffed with a sampling of each of the fillings. They also were covered with a salad of shredded red and green cabbage. They came with a trio of dipping sauces, including the same Vietnamese sauce that came with the spring rolls, a peanut sauce, and a Thai sauce like on the tofu puffs.

The second entrée was coconut shrimp. These were small, two-bite shrimp, grilled and sprinkled with toasted coconut flakes and sesame seed. There was a mound of jasmine rice on the plate, also sprinkled with coconut and sesame seeds.

We had just two quibbles about Rice Paper. Despite having a kid’s menu, we didn’t find them to be very accommodating to our grandson. They didn’t have a high chair for him. So we asked to be seated in a booth by the window, so that he could crawl around on the bench next to his mother. They fulfilled our request but asked us to make sure that he didn’t crawl out onto the window ledge that abutted the booth. So nothing overtly nasty. Just a negative vibe that maybe infants aren’t particularly welcome.

The second quibble is value. The food was excellent. The servings were somewhat small (fine with us, since we’re all light eaters). But the prices were a little high for what you got. We didn’t mind. We were celebrating the end of 2010 and our grandson’s birthday. And it won’t keep us from coming back. In fact, our daughter said that her husband would like it and she’d like to take him sometime. Just be forewarned.

This is my final post for 2010. Happy new year to my readers. Hope you all enjoy good restaurants in 2011, and keep on reading Krik’s Picks.

Lunch at Spill the Wine, Minneapolis

2010-12-30T19:14:00.001-06:00

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 looked very nice, but not really anything special. The ‘fancy fries’ that came with it looked very appealing. My coworker liked it.

I ordered gnocchi. The tender little potato dumplings were served with a gorgonzola sauce, chicken confit, and spinach. It was great. I really enjoyed it.

Two of us ordered wine. (Duh.) I’m not really a big wine bar guy. But I like the variety on Spill the Wine’s menu.

My original review was positive, and I still like it. I’m tempted to try it for dinner sometime. What I really think would be good would be an office ‘happy hour.’ Just order a bunch of small plates and flights of wine and relax with office friends. Sounds like a plan for 2011.

Dessert at the Occidental, DC

2010-12-19T15:30:00.001-06:00

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.

VIP dining at Ris in DC

2010-12-11T18:02:00.001-06:00

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 the table next to us did. It was Michelle Obama.

So we didn’t exactly have a First Lady sighting. But it was kinda cool to know that we were there at the same time.

So besides the excitement of the VIP, we had a great lunch. This was my second visit to Ris. The first time was with a fairly large group. They pulled together some tables in the bar to accommodate us. Our server was very slow. On my original Yelp review I wrote: “I wouldn't drive across town to eat at Ris.” But of course, for this lunch I did come from across town, and glad I did.

After all the excitement, we asked the server about dessert. He told us that since the restaurant was celebrating its first anniversary, that they were giving their guests a special dessert. It was chocolate – not my favorite, but I ate it anyway.

I updated my Yelp review and this time gave it the rave it deserved, 5 stars. I’d go back even without the prospect of a VIP sighting.

Group dinner at Oyamel, Washington, DC

2010-12-11T15:34:00.001-06:00

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’t like beets), gazpacho, and a quesadilla. The gazpacho was great. Normally I think of gazpacho as soup. This was a chunky ‘salad,’ more like a salsa, really. It had fruit, jicama, cucumbers, queso fresco (fresh cheese), and chilies. The quesadilla also was good. It had cheese and black, Mexican truffle.

The next round featured a taco, a tamale, meatballs, and a fish dish. They all were good, but the fish was my favorite. The menu said it was ‘tilefish.’ I don’t really know too much about that kind of fish, though Wikipedia says that the FDA advises pregnant and breast-feeding women to avoid them because of possible mercury contamination. The fish was topped by a ‘sauce’ (again more like a salsa) of capers, almonds, greens and tequila. I also liked the tamale a lot. It had shredded chicken, chili, and a tomatilla sauce.

The last course was dessert. One was a chocolate sorbet – good, but I’m not a big chocolate lover. The other was a cake soaked in rum and ‘tres leches’ (three milks), served with a scoop of dark caramel ice cream.

So with this group dinner, I accomplished my goal of eating at all five of Chef Andres’ DC nameplate restaurants. The group dinner was a bit of a compromise. On the one hand, I got to try more dishes than I would have if I’d eaten alone or in a smaller group. But on the other hand some of the items we were served, I wouldn’t have chosen for myself anyway.

I think I’ll give Oyamel another try someday. But of his five restaurants, I like Café Atlantico the best and Zaytinya second best. He also has a restaurant in Los Angeles that I’d like to try someday.

Monocle Restaurant, DC, celebrates 50 years

2010-11-30T08:43:00.000-06:00

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 products.

Of course, the main reason for picking a place for business entertaining, whether it's Washington, DC, New York, Chicago, or any city anywhere, is to impress your guests. You want a restaurant that serves good food, and you want efficient and unobtrusive service. That describes the Monocle to a tee.

So happy anniversary to the Monocle. I'm looking forward to enjoying your service for years to come.

Birthday Dinner No. 1 & No. 3

2010-11-28T19:46:00.001-06:00

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 produced Italian-style wines. We bought a half case of different varieties. For this dinner, I opened a Barbera. It was really great.

So besides our family dinners, my wife and I usually have a birthday celebration dinner out at a restaurant. I really wanted to go to Meritage in St. Paul. I’ve written about it before. It’s my favorite special occasion restaurant in the Twin Cities. We had a reservation for the weekend before my birthday, but we cancelled it because of bad weather. And the Saturday after Thanksgiving the restaurant was closed for remodeling. So instead, we went to Café Lurcat in Minneapolis.

I consider Café Lurcat to be a reliable, excellent restaurant for a special occasion. It pretty much lived up to my expectations. We arrived a few minutes early, so we weren’t surprised when the hostess told us that we’d have to wait a few minutes. We actually didn’t mind since we quite like the bar at Lurcat. We found a comfy couch and settled in. Linda picked a special martini. I asked if the bartender could make a Sazarac cocktail. The server wasn’t familiar with that drink, so I thought I was out of luck. But when he arrived with our drinks, he had my Sazarac. Yum.

Just as our drinks were brought out, the hostess told us that a table was ready for us. So we brought the drinks with us into the dining room. But we didn’t so much like the table, so we asked her if we could wait until something else opened up. She very graciously obliged. So back we went into the bar where we finished our cocktails.

About the time that we finished our drinks, another table was open. We liked it a lot better and so we began our dinner service. The food was very good. You can read my review on Yelp here. But as my review indicates, we were quite disappointed with the service. At the end of the meal, we spoke to the hostess, who also was the manager. She sorted things out to our satisfaction.

Three birthday dinners, all quite different. I enjoyed them all, and had a very happy birthday week.

Thanksgiving & Birthday Dinner No. 2

2010-11-26T17:58:00.003-06:00

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. It was my daughter’s special request that Mom & Dad bring them for Thanksgiving. We served them for appetizers.

My daughter and her husband prepared several items for the dinner. Their appetizer was jalapeno-goat cheese hush puppies from the September 2010 issue of Bon Appetit. They were great. They also prepared two side dishes – creamed spinach and cornbread stuffing with turkey gravy. The three items that they prepared were the most work, and my son-in-law spent much of the time at the stove.

For Linda and me, our appetizer was cheese and crackers. I was responsible for the turkey. My usual preparation is to cook the turkey on our classic, charcoal fired, Weber kettle grill. I like how the charcoal gives the meat a nice smoky flavor. We made a 15-pound turkey. It took not quite three hours to cook. I also made whole wheat date dinner rolls from Bon Appetit December 2002. Besides making a salad, Linda also made a sweet potato recipe that she has in her recipe folder. For dessert, she picked a recipe from the Star Tribune for pumpkin ice cream pie. The recipe was printed as part of a series on Thanksgiving recipes from the Taste archives. It originally appeared in 2002.

Lastly, besides the pie, we also served gingerbread cookies, my favorite holiday cookie. We planned a family ‘cookie factory’ to bake and decorate cookies for the Sunday before Thanksgiving. But bad weather kept our grandkids and nieces away. I baked the cookies anyway, and on Monday, my granddaughter came over and helped decorate them.

We had a very nice Thanksgiving, and I had a happy birthday.

Strange facts about my birthday

2010-11-26T16:51:00.002-06:00

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.

Recipe: Mixed Pepper Risotto

2010-11-01T20:56:00.002-05:00

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 have used more herbs or a more flavorful stock to balance the flavors better. Here it is.

1/4 cup diced onion (or shallot)
1/2 cup diced peppers, any mixture that you have available
2 tbsp. olive oil
3/4 cup Arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 cups chicken stock or vegetable broth
1/3 cup minced fresh herbs (oregano, parsley, basil, mint, whatever you have available)
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
Salt & pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in sauté pan. Sauté onions and peppers until onions are translucent. Stir in rice and continue to cook until rice is coated with oil and slightly translucent (about one minute). Pour in wine, cook and stir until wine is most absorbed. Add stock 1/2 cup at a time, cooking until liquid is absorbed before adding more stock. Continue until rice is al dente and most of the stock has been added. Adjust seasoning to taste when you add the last of the stock. Remove from heat and stir in herbs and cheese. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes. Transfer rice to serving bowl and garnish with more fresh herbs. Serve as a side dish to chicken or fish.

Birthday lunch at Sea Change, Minneapolis

2010-10-31T21:49:00.002-05:00

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 the lunch menu seemed quite limited. And then, our server told us that they soup of the day was not available. He said it was like a white gazpacho, with grapes instead of tomatoes. Alas, it was not available.

I also asked about the grilled octopus. I’ve had it as a starter for dinner on past visits. It’s fabulous. The octopus is slightly chewier than calamari. But the smoky flavor from the grill and the salsa and smoked paprika give it a very distinctive flavor with just a hint of heat. While he appreciated my enthusiasm for the dish, it was not available for lunch.

Not an auspicious start. I was worried that maybe I would have to reassess my rating of the restaurant. I shouldn’t have fretted. We had a great lunch.

I started out with a salad. The server described it as sort of a deconstructed Caesar salad. It was great. One of the things I loved was how the egg was served. It was like a soft boiled egg on the side of the plate. Very attractive and unusual. For my entrée, I had arctic char. I have had char before. I just keep forgetting how similar it is to salmon. It was very nicely prepared and was served with white beans and an artichoke giardiniera. I don’t remember what Mike has as a starter. But for his lunch, he had the appetizer serving of smoked salmon. It was wonderful, flavorful thin slices of salmon beautifully arranged on the plate with a few greens and other garnishes. I tasted it. Sometimes smoked salmon is very pungent and salty. The smoky flavor on this serving was subtle and not at all salty. It was great.

We did split a bottle of wine. Mike picked a Tempranillo, Rioja, Remelluri. It was very good. Even though it was a red, it complemented our fish quite well.

So despite some early trepidation, Sea Change met my expectations and easily remains on my list as one of the top two special occasion restaurants in the Twin Cities.

Stay home vacation = food, chores, grandkids

2010-10-24T21:35:00.002-05:00

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 our planned Saturday night dinner party (more to come).

On Friday, I had a cupcake factory with my granddaughter. We mixed up a batch of Betty Crocker’s Best Chocolate Cake (from the Betty Crocker Cookbook that I bought when I first started cooking for myself. I guess now you don’t need the cookbook since it appears you can find all the recipes online anyway.) Here’s the cake recipe we made. We spooned the batter into cupcake papers and baked them until done rather than making layer cake. Instead of Betty’s fudge frosting, we made a butter cream frosting from Land O'Lakes. Click here for that recipe. You can see from the photo that we made different colors frosting for decorating the cupcakes. The pink frosting was vanilla. The green frosting was mint (substituting mint extract for the vanilla). The yellow frosting was lemon (substituting lemon extract for the vanilla). Of course the color was just regular food color.

For dinner on Friday, I made braised boneless short ribs with dates and aromatic spices. It’s a recipe I’ve had on file for so long, I don’t know when I first saved it. I’m pretty sure it’s from a newspaper food page. My guess is either New York Times, Washington Post, or Florida Sun-Sentinel. Over the years, I’ve saved a lot of recipes from those papers. I served it with mashed potatoes, and Linda made a cabbage and apple salad. For dessert we had cupcakes (what else?)

On Saturday, we had a group of friends for an Italian Harvest Dinner. For appetizers, we served olives, cheese & crackers, and Sweet Pea Crostini. The Sweet Pea Crostini is a recipe that I’ve served often in the past year. It’s great.

We started with Ligurian Minestrone. It’s a recipe from the Boston Globe that I’ve had on file since our daughter lived in Boston in 2003. Next we served two recipes from La Cucina Italiana. It’s a magazine that I pick up at the airport from time to time. Fabulous recipes and great articles about Italian food and wine. Next we served Penne e ceci and Insalata di Gamberi e Finocchi con le Prugne. The penne featured a sauce made from pureed chickpeas with herbs. The recipe calls for serving it with fish; I used small cubes of mozzarella cheese instead. The salad consisted of shrimp on a bed of greens with sautéed fennel and prunes. (When we shopped for prunes, we discovered that they’re now called ‘dried plums’ in the United States.)

For dessert, I served the Lake Garda Apple Cake recipe that I’ve written about before.

It was a fun week.

Prix Fixe dinner, avant-garde music at Barbette

2010-10-12T17:21:00.002-05:00

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 meal. When we arrived and checked the menu, it was an easy decision for both of us to choose the special menu. The first item served was seared scallops. On the plate were two nice-sized sea scallops, perfectly cooked with a dollop of spicy aioli. The scallops were topped with a teaspoon of chopped tomatoes (sort of like a mild salsa). The whole thing was on a thick slab of bacon.

Next up was duck confit in a vegetable hash topped with a poached egg. I think this was my favorite dish of the meal. The vegetables were sautéed nice and tender. The duck was rich and flavorful. The egg yolk coated the whole dish like a warm, golden sauce.

Next came four small slices of New York strip steak served on brocollini and topped with a shallot Bordelaise sauce. It was very good, but we enjoyed the other two dishes on the menu better.

The dessert actually was a duo. One was a cinnamon tea cake – very light and flavorful. The other was an espresso caramel pot de crème. It was served in a demitasse cup and was topped with nutmeg crème.

Consistent with our past experiences at Barbette, our server was excellent. She helped us pick a nice Spanish wine (Rioja Vega Joven) that nicely complimented all of the items on the prix fixe menu.

The musical group for the evening was called Saltee. While we were eating, the musicians arrived. One of them (female cello player) sat at the table next to us. We didn’t really know too much about their style. Barbette’s Facebook page described them this way: “Saltee is an Indie, urban, organic, neo classical trio steam driven by afro-Cuban beats made by the human voice.” Know what that means? Neither did we.

While writing this post, I did discover that Saltee has a Facebook page. Click here if you want to see it. You can hear a couple of samples of their music in the Links section of their Facebook page.

The cello player was very curious about why we were there. By 9:45 (the music started at 10), we were clearly the oldest people in the restaurant. I told her that we loved Barbette’s food, and we were curious about the music.

“It’s very urban,” she said. I’m not sure if she was implying that we would be too suburban to enjoy it, but it was clear that we weren’t the demographic of their usual audience.

“Well,” I said. “If we don’t like it, we’ll go home and watch the news, which is what we’re usually doing at 10 on a Monday night.”

We did like it just fine. Besides the cello player, there was a guitar player and a vocalist who did ‘beatboxing.’ The live performance had a lot of energy that was captivating, and it was easy to get caught up in the enthusiasm of the crowd. They took a break at 11, and that’s when we left to go home.

Dinner at Zaytinya, Washington, DC

2010-09-29T20:57:00.002-05:00

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 like tabouleh, and it was good at Zaytinya. But it wasn’t the best I’ve ever had.

Next we ordered a couple of vegetable mezzas. One was roasted eggplant stuffed with onions and tomatoes. It was called “Ímam Bayıldı.” It was very good; quite unusual. The other was spanakopita. When we ordered it, I thought this was our ‘safe’ choice. I’ve had spanakopita many times and thought I knew what to expect. But to my surprise, at Zaytinya it’s served rolled in a cigar shape rather than flat layers of phyllo, spinach, and feta.

For our final round of items, we decided to have fish and seafood. The fish item was halibut coated with a ground nut, roasted and served on a roasted pepper and almond puree. It was very flavorful and unique. But the best dish of the evening was the shrimp - “Garides Saganaki.” The shrimp were sauteed with tomatoes and onions and were mixed with a Greek cheese and just a faint hint of ouzo in the sauce. Yum! It was great.

So overall, I liked the mezzas at Zaytinya better than the tapas at Jaleo. But I still think that Cafe Atlantico is the best of Chef Andres’ DC restaurants for dinner.

Dinner at Bar La Grassa, Minneapolis

2010-09-27T20:47:00.002-05:00

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 tall young man yelling at several friends. His shirt was off, and he was unbuckling his pants. His friends were pleading with him to get dressed. “All right,” he shouted. “I won’t take off my pants. But I’m not putting on my shirt.” H-m-m-m.

So here’s the thing about the neighborhood. It’s not that it’s a bad neighborhood. It’s just that, I can’t imagine any of the ‘beautiful’ people at Bar La Grassa wandering across the street after dinner to finish the evening at Bunkers. Or, if the wait is too long for a table at Bar La Grassa, I can’t really imagine them taking at table at The Loop instead. (Though maybe Black Sheep Coal Fired Pizza might attract some of the overflow crowd.)

Next was our table. We were seated next to a window. Which is fine. But it was right near the kitchen. So we had all of the traffic of servers coming and going from the kitchen moving past us all night. Next time, we’ll wait for a table more in the dining room.

Third is the menu. Not the food, mind you. The menu. It’s not very descriptive of the food. For example, here’s what the menu says about the chicken entree: “Chicken.” That’s it. Most of the other menu listings were equally as spare.

When our server came to our table, we wondered: “How are we supposed to know how the food is prepared?” we asked. She said she’d gladly tell us as much as we wanted to know about any of the menu items.

Here’s where the good stuff about Bar La Grassa begins. Our server was tremendous. She did tell us as much as we wanted to know about the menu items. I’m sure that if we had asked her to describe every menu item, she would have. She helped us make some wonderful choices. And through the evening, she was friendly and attentive.

The next ‘good’ thing about Bar La Grassa is the food. It’s excellent. We each had a starter. Mine was barramundi with Calabrian pepperoncini. This was a kind of civiche. The fish (barramundi, or Asian sea bass) was cured in citrus juice and served with slices of Calabrian peppers. My wife had an artichoke bruschetta. The toasty bread was piled high with artichoke slices and was very tasty.

The menu includes a nice selection of fresh and dried pasta. You can get either a full order or a half order. We had been to a reception before our dinner, so we were satisfied ordering half orders. My wife had tortellini stuffed with a rich, flavorful foie gras filling. I had gnocchi served with cauliflower and orange. Both dishes were excellently prepared and delicious.

So our conclusion: Maybe this is one of the 10 best new restaurants in America. Who am I to second guess Bon Appetit? I did like Bar La Grassa. But I can’t rave over it. It’s very good, but it’s not my favorite Italian restaurant in Minneapolis. (I think Broder’s Pasta Bar still deserves that distinction in my book.)

Still, we’re going to give Bar La Grassa a do-over. Even though we were put off by some things, the food, the excellent service, and the contagious energy of the restaurant makes us want to give it another chance.

MN State Fair: Feeding Frenzy

2010-08-31T21:15:00.001-05:00

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 offered a breakfast wrap that sounded kinda good. It had eggs, cheese, sausage, and bacon. Of course, it was deep fried. It tasted ok, but it didn’t really have to be deep fried. It was reasonable, however: $4.

I wanted coffee with the wrap, but Axel’s didn’t have any. However, they directed me to French Meadow down the street. Actually, if I had known that French Meadow had a booth, I might have skipped the breakfast wrap. But I went there and got a $2 cup of organic coffee. Meh. I’ve had better.

I still had a little time to kill, so I had one of my favorite state fair treats – Tom Thumb donuts. I can’t help it. I love ‘em. $4.

After working for a while in the milk booth, I was told to go on break. So I wandered back to the French Meadow. I had their risotto fritters. They were good; probably the second best thing I ate at the fair. (Tom Thumb donuts are unbeatable.) They were lightly breaded and fried. They had a nice Swiss cheese and mushroom filling. I didn’t think there was much flavor from the risotto, however. There were three fritters – on a stick – served with a small container of marinara sauce; $5.

I also went across the street from French Meadow to Moon Beam Coffee where I had a double espresso - $2. It was a very enjoyable. A lot better than the coffee I’d had earlier at French Meadow. They’re on Facebook. But otherwise, there’s not much info on who they are.

I went back to the milk booth to finish my shift. After it was over, I had a corn dog - $3. I was glad I did it. It reminded me why I should never eat corn dogs. Yuck.

The last food item I had was a sample of Bongard’s cheese curds. They were being served at the Moo Booth (dairy barn). Free.

That was it. Oh, I did have a couple of beers. One after the fritters (and before the espresso). The other after the corn dog. The first was a Leinie Red, and the second was Blue Moon. Each were $4.

Oops. I forgot to have a milk. Oh well, there’s always next year.

Postscript: Total attendance at the fair that day was 113,637. I only talked to three people who I knew. I did see Rep. Keith Ellison. But he didn’t see me, and I don’t think he knows who I am anyway. Also, someone greeted me by name at the milk booth. Of course, I was wearing a name tag. But he referenced a retired co-worker, so I think he really did know me. I, on the other hand, didn’t have a clue who he was.

All the Milk You Can Drink for $1

2010-08-30T17:28:00.003-05:00

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. They can have as many refills as they want. But they can’t share the glass with others, and they can’t come back later for more refills. Make sure you make the correct change. Watch out for scammers – they give you a $10 and when you give them their change, they claim they gave you a $20. (We were told to keep the original payment on the counter until we’ve given the customer his change.) We could accept anything up to $20. If someone wanted to pay with a $50 or $100, we had to call a supervisor.

I did get one guy who said the only bill he had was $100. He stood there and drank three glasses of milk (two white, one chocolate) while the shift supervisor looked over the bill to make sure it was legit. Then he got $99 change and went on to the rest of the fair.

One kid who bought a glass of chocolate milk from me had what looked like a Mohawk haircut that was growing back out. So it was pretty distinctive. When he came back for a second glass, he said “That wasn’t me who was up here a few minutes ago.” “Yes it was,” I said. “I recognize your haircut.” When he came back for his next glass, I said to him, “Your brother was here just a minute ago. He looks just like you.” The kid said, “No, that was me.” When he came back for a fourth glass I said, “Wow. Four glasses. You must be pretty thirsty.” “No,” he said. “We have eight in our family, but my dad said he doesn’t want a glass.” Oh. That was the last glass he got from me.

I had several people ask for half white and half chocolate. So I started asking which they wanted me to pour first. One kid said it didn’t matter, so I said, “How do you know? For this glass, I’ll put in white first and then chocolate. For your next glass, I’ll put in the chocolate first. Then you can tell me which is better.” Sure enough, when he came back for his second glass, he reminded me to put in the chocolate first.

Sometimes, a customer would ask for one white and one chocolate. “Which do you want first,” I’d ask. Most just acted confused by the question. But one kid was very definite - “Chocolate first.” I poured the chocolate and asked, “Whose is this?” “Mine,” he said. I poured the white. “Whose is this,” I asked. “His,” the kid said, nodding toward his dad. Then he put $2 on the counter. “You’re paying?” I asked. “Yup,” said the kid. “Cool,” I replied.

With breaks and everything, I worked for only about 2 1/2 hours. I sold 166 cups. But I couldn’t keep track of how many refills. The most refills I counted was four (not counting the kid who was actually sharing his milk with his family).

Salsa contest: Tomatillo-Avocado Salsa

2010-08-16T20:57:00.004-05:00

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 recipe below.

I mixed up a batch over the weekend before the contest and brought it in to the office on Monday morning for the team to sample. Everyone agreed that it was unique and tasty, but we also agreed that it needed more heat. (I purposely toned the sample batch down because my wife doesn’t like it too spicy.)

Besides our strategy in recipe selection, we also wanted to have a distinctive look. So we had custom aprons made. For our team name, we picked “Los Companeros de Salsa.” That roughly translates as the Comrades of Salsa. And for our slogan, we went with ‘Toma Salsa.’ (As we brainstormed a slogan, one of the team suggested “Got Salsa,” a play on the ubiquitous ‘Got Milk’ advertising campaign in the dairy industry. The Spanish version of ‘Got Milk’ is ‘Toma Leche.’ Check the web site. It’s cool. Hence – Toma Salsa.) I thought the aprons were unique and attention-getting.

So our third strategy for winning was to influence the judges. In this case, our co-workers were invited to sample different teams’ salsa and ‘vote’ on the best. My intern was supposed to be the ringer on this strategy. She invited all the other summer interns (and there were lots of them) to come down to the contest. Since we were the only team that included an intern, I thought we were sure to get the most votes.

When you add it all up – unique recipe, stylish aprons, and the intern connection – I thought we’d win for sure. But darn it all anyway, we didn’t.

Team No. 2 – The Spicy Accountants – won. Here’s what I think happened. As people came into the auditorium to taste the different recipes, they tended to stay in line and taste them in order, from Team 1 to Team 11. We were Team 9. So by the time most people got to us, their taste buds were ruined, and they couldn’t appreciate the flavors of our creation.

Oh, well. No matter. We had a lot of fun doing it. And Los Companeros have a really cool apron for our kitchens.

I invited the winning team to post their recipe on Krik’s Picks. They’re thinking about it. They said they’re trying to find a way to turn it into a United Way Fundraiser, a sentiment that I applaud. I told them there would be no better way to promote it than by posting their recipe on Krik’s Picks. We’ll see.

Recipe: Tomatillo-Avocado Salsa

2010-08-16T20:53:00.003-05:00

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.

Breakfast bakery: Local independent vs. Local supermarket

2010-08-04T21:33:00.002-05:00

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 for Byerly's.”

“Hi-Quality - A+ on appearance for Byerly's, but overall better taste for HQ!”

“The almond pastry I ate from Byerly's was heavenly - I vote Bylery's!”

Well, I also had the almond pastry from Byerly’s. It was good, but too dry. Dave’s solution was to put butter on. I agree. Butter would make it better. But the ‘caramelized croissant’ from Hi-Quality was to die for. Later in the day, I had a sugar donut from Byerly’s. It was very good.

I’ll give the last word to Dave. He favors Hi-Quality. (Duh. That’s what he brought.) He believes HQ gets the edge on freshness. As a small independent, everything is baked fresh overnight so when you arrive in the morning, it’s as fresh as you can get.

United Way Happy Hour on Big Island 2010

2010-07-25T17:48:00.003-05:00

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 you’re reading this, ‘Sorry.’)

My second item was a Grilled Panzanella Salad. I adapted this from a Mark Bittmann recipe (New York Times food columnist). His recipe also is on the Food Network site (click here.) I modified his recipe quite a lot, however. Instead of chopping the tomatoes, I used whole grape tomatoes. I also added feta cheese and instead of basil and parsley, I used fresh oregano to give the recipe a Greek flavor.

My third item was the most challenging and also the most fun. It was from Jose Andres TV show Made in Spain. It’s a very entertaining show that’s a cross between travelogue and cooking show. It also has a great web site. The recipe is for Seared Piquillo Peppers stuffed with Roncal Cheese. You can watch Chef Andres prepare the recipe by clicking here. When I say this was a ‘challenging’ recipe, it’s not that it was so difficult. It’s actually quite easy. But it was a real challenge to find all the ingredients, especially the peppers. I found a source to order them online. But in the end, I found them at Trader Joe’s. Also, I couldn’t find Roncal cheese, which he describes as a creamy sheep cheese from Spain. So I used manchego, which is another Spanish sheep’s milk cheese and is more readily available (though not cheap). I also made this recipe for my family. We agreed that it would be good using mozzarella cheese. (Sorry, Jose.)

We also had a selection of cheese and crackers.

Following the tradition that we started last year at the United Way Happy Hour, we prepared a signature cocktail for our guests – a French 75. I had a page torn out of Bon Appetit from 2004 with the recipe, and finally tried it. (You can find the recipe on Epicurious, click here.) The only modification was instead of Champaign, we used prosecco.

This was a happy hour, of course, so besides the cocktail, we also had beer, wine, sparkling water, and sodas. The group went through three bottles of pinot noir. We had a bottle of chardonnay open, but I don’t think we poured even one glass from it.

At the end of the evening, Lydia offered coffee and brought a dessert. As it got dark (under a cloudy sky that threatened rain), we boarded the boat back to shore.

So all told, I think it was another successful event, and best of all, it was for a good cause.

A Group Dinner at Siroc, Washington, DC

2010-07-24T19:29:00.004-05:00

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. They called back a few minutes later and said they could do it. OK! Now all we had to do was transport our group from Capitol Hill to downtown DC. We snared about four taxis in front of the Longworth Building, and away we went.

When we arrived, our table was ready and the maitre d’ greeted us as though the arrangements had been made weeks ago. I think he was the owner, but I’m not positive. So just to add one more challenge – I miscounted. We actually had one more than I said on the phone. It was my mistake, and we offered to squeeze the extra person in at the end of the table. But no, the maitre d’ brought over another table and added it to the end of our row. No muss, no fuss.

What followed was a great meal and lots of pleasant conversation. Not only was everything that we ordered thoroughly delicious, the chef even sent out a little treat at the beginning of the meal – a gnocchi stuffed with morel mushrooms.

The wines we ordered were very good. I noted them on my iPhone. The white was Gavi di Gavi Marchesi di Barolo. The red was Belguardo, "Serrata" Maremma which was a blend of Sangiovese and Cabernet grapes.

I will definitely be returning to Siroc on future trips to DC and would highly recommend it.

United Way Seafood Dinner

2010-07-11T00:20:00.004-05:00

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 be available and planned a few menu options. But I didn’t want to be so prescriptive to exclude something that would be freshly available when he went to the market.

The auction specified seafood for 4-6 people. We talked about getting salmon, some kind of white fish, shrimp, scallops, crab, and maybe mussels. So, I knew that with other items, like a salad and some side dishes, I’d be able to stretch it to feed 8 people. I invited 10, and lo and behold, they all accepted. It was tight around our table, but we made it work.

So here’s what he provided: a slab of Copper River Salmon, a slab of halibut, shrimp, king crab legs, a couple of Dungeness crabs, scallops, and mussels. Not only was it great plenty for the dinner, but we had leftovers for dinner on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Overall, here are my comments. First of all, I was over-ambitious. I tried to make too many signature dishes. Most of them turned out ok. But as I’ll detail below, I wasn’t entirely satisfied with some. Second, I didn’t plan the menu appropriately so that I could participate in the festivities. So when folks arrived at the appointed hour, I still had too much cooking to do. So my wife ended up doing most of the entertaining, while I was at the stove finishing some of the food.

The menu that I planned came from a variety of sources. So the rest of this post includes the full menu and the source of each recipe, with my comments.

We started with tray of fresh seafood. My wife did a very attractive arrangement of shrimp and king crab legs. For dipping, I prepared a very simple mayonnaise mixed with Spanish smoked paprika. It was a little spicy but very good. The other sauce was a cocktail sauce from Bobby Flay. Click here for the recipe. It turned out very well. The tarragon added a nice anise flavor to the sauce.

In addition to the seafood tray, I adapted another Bobby Flay recipe for scallops. Click here for his recipe. Instead of skewering the scallops, I seared them on my grill pan. And for the dressing, I used fresh oregano from my garden instead of fennel greens.

The final appetizer was sweet pea crostini, a Giada De Laurentiis recipe. Click here for that one. This is a fantastic appetizer. My son-in-law made it for us when we visited them in Chicago last spring. My modification is that I don’t top it with the prosciutto as the recipe calls for. And for this menu, I didn’t toast the French bread.

The salad that we served was a modified Caprese salad. My wife assembled it. She started with a layer of iceberg lettuce and then added a layer of grape tomatoes and fresh mozzarella balls. I sprinkled some julienned basil over the salad. We dressed it with the same dressing from the scallops in the recipe above.

For the salmon, I modified a recipe from Bon Appétit. Click here for the recipe. Instead of pan-searing the salmon, I grilled it. But everything else was pretty much the way the recipe specified.

For the halibut, I adapted another Giada De Laurentiis recipe for Ginger Sea Bass over Wilted Greens. Truth is - this is the recipe that turned me on to Giada. It is so simple and easy, and the results are delicious. Obviously, her recipe calls for sea bass, and I used halibut. But it turned out equally fantastic. Click here for her recipe.

The last recipe was another one from Giada - Fregola with Clams & Mussels. Click here for her original recipe. Her version says that it’s simple and quick. But I had numerous problems with it. First was my own timing. In order for this dish to be served fresh and hot, I had to be working on it while my guests were on the patio enjoying the appetizers. (Bad form.) Second, I was not happy with the way the mussels turned out. They smelled really funky. I did modify the recipe. Instead of clams, I mixed some crab meat from the Dungeness crabs. Also, I substituted Israeli couscous for the fregola pasta. But I don’t think that was the problem. In retrospect, I wished that I had gone with a simple couscous or pasta that could have been prepared in advance.

For dessert, I made ‘Torte di Mele’ or Lake Garda Apple Cake. The recipe is in Patricia Wells Trattoria cookbook. The recipe is posted on the Internet here. The cookbook (which I love and highly recommend) is available from Amazon here.

As I noted at the beginning of this post, I also bought a case of wine at the United Way auction. So I served some of it at our dinner. One was a Toasted Head chardonnay. The other was Fess Parker Syrah.

Anyway, even though I was probably over-ambitious with the menu, I had a lot of fun cooking, and I think everyone had a good time.

Lunch and dinner at Kincaid's St. Paul

2010-05-22T14:38:00.002-05:00

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 his office in DC is close to Kincaid's in that city. He was surprised that we had a Kincaid's because he didn't think it was a chain. What I discovered writing this blog post is that he was mostly correct. The Kincaid's in Washington is not part of a chain. Furthermore, it is pretty much a straight forward fish restaurant. I've eaten there once for lunch several years ago. I took a look at the menu online. It looked very appealing. I think I'll give it another try sometime soon.

The Kincaid's in St. Paul, however, is part of a small chain. There's a second location (actually the first one to open) in Bloomington not far from my house. There are eight or nine other locations, mostly west (California, Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon) and one in Norfolk, VA. I would feel comfortable recommending Kincaid's for a business dinner or for out-of-town visitors. But for me personally, I'd probably make other choices:

Lunch in downtown St. Paul? St. Paul Grill

Steak dinner? Manny's in Minneapolis

Fish or seafood? Sea Change in Minneapolis.

Dinner at Miramar Bistro, Highwood, IL

2010-05-17T17:45:00.002-05:00

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 a baby in tow, we made an early reservation. When we arrived, there were only a few other diners in Miramar. I noted that there were a couple of other families with young children dining there. But while Miramar might attract families for early seating, this definitely isn't a compromise restaurant on food quality. The meals we ordered were creative and artfully prepared. And by the time we left, the restaurant was hopping with lots of groups of young adults.

My wife and I miss the restaurants and nightlife we used to enjoy when we stayed downtown. But it's fun getting acquainted with the northern suburbs food scene. Miramar was great.

Lunch at Bibiana, Washington, DC

2010-05-11T20:56:00.002-05:00

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.

Oops! What happened to April?

2010-05-09T11:42:00.002-05:00

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.

Dinner at Cafe Atlantico, Washington, DC

2010-05-09T11:41:00.003-05:00

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 what he was serving this evening.

After he left, we ordered desserts. As we were sitting there, the chef came back with a special surprise. One of the items at minibar was their variation of Ferrero Rocher, except that the gold wrapper was completely edible. Cool!

So, high recommendation for Cafe Atlantico. Give it a try.

Tapas at Jaleo, Arlington, VA

2010-03-18T20:40:00.002-05:00

I've written before about how my wife and I have become fans of Jose Andres. He's a Spanish chef who have a series on public television called Made in Spain. He also has several restaurants in Washington, DC, and one in Los Angeles.

One of his DC restaurants is an experimental, food-as-art venue called minibar. It's considered one of the most desireable reservations in DC. I went there earlier this year and posted an item about my (fabulous) experience.

I was back in DC in early March, attending a meeting at a hotel in Arlington. At the end of the evening, I wanted to find a place to eat, but didn't want to eat too much. Tapas seemed like a great option. One of Jose's restaurants, Jaleo, was less than a mile away. It serves tapas. I decided to go.

Truth is, I have eaten at Jaleo before. It was very much a similar situation - meeting over, just need a place for a light meal. That time, I went with a small group of other people.

So here's the thing. I like 'small plates,' tapas, whatever you want to call them. And when you only want a light meal, they offer a great option. But I've decided that there's a social aspect to eating tapas, and that was missing with my recent, solo visit to Jaleo.

I posted my review of the food on Yelp. It all was very good. But from my experience, tapas are made to share. I missed being able to share a bite with someone else and then talk about it.

So I definitely recommend Jaleo. But I'd recommend going there with a friend.

Krik's Picks preview of coming attractions

I've decided that over the next several months, I'm going to make a point of visiting all of Jose Andres' DC restaurants. I've now reviewed minibar and Jaleo. Still to come are Cafe Atlantico, Zaytinya (Greek), and Oyamel (Mexican). I have eaten at Cafe Atlantico. It was several years ago, shortly after it had opened. I'm looking forward to a return visit.

Finto Italiano: Il Gatto vs. Spasso

2010-03-07T16:24:00.003-06:00

Last night, we went with friends to Spasso in Minnetonka. A week ago, we went with other friends to Il Gatto in Uptown Minneapolis. Here are my views and recommendations about both.

Click here for my review of the food at Spasso. One of the things I really like is the arrangement with the Wine Shop next door. You can buy a bottle at retail and they'll serve it to you at Spasso with no corkage fee. We purposely arrived early so that we'd have time to peruse for a bottle. The Wine Shop has a very varied selection. We found a malbec with a sticker that said "Staff recommendation." It was the last bottle, so we decided to try it. I asked about the staff recommendation when we paid for the wine. The clerk said that he was the one who made the recommendation. When I told him we got the last bottle, he said that it won't be available again until the next vintage is released in several months.

We took our wine into the restaurant and were taken to our table. We had a reservation, and it was waiting for us, despite the fact that the restaurant was quite busy. I like that. You have a reservation, no wait.

Like I said, it was busy. It also was noisy. We had a booth, and I think that helped with the noise level. The way the dining room is set up, there's a wall that separates the bar from the rest of the dining room. Our booth was on the side with the bar. But surprisingly, it seemed less noisy than the other part of the room.

Our server was very cheerful and accommodating. She inspected our wine selection and expressed her approval. When I told her it was the last bottle, her comment was, "Darn. Now what will I have to drink when I'm done working."

Now click here for my review of the food at Il Gatto. Despite having a reservation, we had a short wait for our table. But it wasn't bad, maybe 10 minutes. The crowd of people flowed out of the door and into the Calhoun Square mall. We chatted with a group of young people who also were waiting. We took their picture in front of the Il Gatto sign.

When we were seated, we got a table. Our friends thought a booth would be better, but there wasn't one available. Spasso was loud. Il Gatto was very loud. I'm not sure if a booth would have helped, but it was very difficult to make conversation. Linda and I have a fairly high tolerance level. But the noise sort of spoiled the evening for our friends.

I do like the new decor. But for me, since the food is mostly the same as Figlio, they didn't really have to go through the expense of redecorating. As we left, we looked into the section with the bar. There were a row of tables along the window facing onto Lake Street. I'm not sure, but it seemed like maybe the noise level was slightly less in the bar than in the dining room. Interesting.

So between the two, here's what I'd say. I liked the food better at Il Gatto. I liked the concept at Spasso of having the wine shop and being able to bring your wine to dinner without a corkage fee. (Maybe that's what Calhoun Square needs - a wine shop.) I like the decor better at Il Gatto and there's more nightlife in the Uptown neighborhood.

I'd go back to either place. But I'm more likely to be back at Il Gatto sooner than at Spasso.

Valentines Dinner at Meritage, St. Paul

2010-02-14T17:20:00.002-06:00

I've awarded my first 5-star designation on Yelp. Meritage is, without a doubt, 'as good as it gets.' It clearly deserves to remain one of my top two special occasion restaurants, even if it is in St. Paul.

You can read my review of the food on my Yelp post. But this restaurant is more than just good food. It has a very attractive decor. And the people are really nice. At least the staff who we encountered seemed to be very enthusiastic about the food and sincerely wanted us to have an enjoyable evening. We had some trouble selecting a wine. Our server was very helpful, but we still couldn't decide. The manager on duty noticed our dilemma and offered to help. My wife described the kind of wine she wanted. He brought her a taste of a zinfandel and it was just what she wanted.

The only thing was it was a California wine, not French. So I think the main lesson is, you should drink the wine you like and don't worry about where it came from. And of course, I do like California wine. It's just that being in a French bistro, I kind of wanted a French wine.

Which leads me to another thing I like about Meritage. It's sort of a cultural experience. If you read the Yelp review, I mentioned all of the menu terms from our meal. I had to look most of them up.

Rillette is a method of preparing meat, cubed and cooked slowly in fat, then blended together with oil to form a paste.

Pain perdu is French toast. In my review, I commented that the pain perdu that we had as a starter at Meritage didn't really resemble any French toast I'd ever had. But that's what it's supposed to be.

The braised short rib that I had for my entree was called a daube. I had to look that up to learn that it means 'stew.'

But it's also a cross-cultural experience. The chef includes several Jewish and Eastern European inspirations. These include a matzoh ball soup, a dessert of Nutella on matzoh crackers, and a stuffed cabbage called 'holischkes,' a term I've never heard of before.

At the end of the evening, the chef/owner, Russell Klein walked through. He stopped and chatted with us. He said he remembered us from our previous visit. I don't know how he could, but maybe.

This restaurant definitely deserves to be on your 'must-try-it' list.

Recipes: Grilled Polenta with Mushroo...

2010-01-30T21:07:00.005-06:00

Here's my first recipe post for 2010.

I've written before about a United Way project that I do with a co-worker at Land O'Lakes. She has a 'cabin' on Big Island on Lake Minnetonka. We auction a happy hour as part of the United Way campaign. The winning bidders for our 2010 event paid the highest we've ever raised. Woo-hoo!

It's bitter cold outside, and hard to think about a balmy summer day sipping cocktails on a deck overlooking Lake Minnetonka and enjoying appetisers. But I tried my first new recipe for the group. Both components of the appetiser are from celebrity chefs on the Food Network. The grilled polenta is from Bobby Flay and the mushroom ragout is from Emeril Lagasse.

Grilled Polenta

8 cups chicken stock or water
2 cups polenta
2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley leaves, plus more for garnish
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Generously butter a large shallow baking dish and set aside. In a large saucepan, bring the chicken stock to a boil. Slowly pour in the polenta and the salt, whisking constantly with a wire whisk. Reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until thickened and smooth, about 20 to 25 minutes. Fold in the corn, Parmesan, and parsley. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish. Cover and chill in the refrigerator at least 4 hours or overnight.

Preheat the grill to medium-high. With a sharp knife, cut the chilled polenta into squares. Brush with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill on both sides until golden brown. Arrange the polenta on a platter and spoon the mushroom ragout over. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Mushroom Ragout

Olive oil

1/4 pound oyster mushrooms, sliced

8 medium-size shiitake mushrooms, sliced

2 large portobello mushrooms, sliced

1 medium onion, sliced

2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 cup red wine

Heat a large saute pan over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, add enough olive oil to lightly coat the bottom of the pan. Add the mushrooms and saute until the liquid is released and they are golden brown, about 5 minutes. Add the onion and the garlic and saute until the onions soften, about 5 more minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Carefully add the wine and cook until it reduces by 3/4. Check seasoning and serve over grilled polenta.

Dinner (?) at minibar, Washington, DC

2010-01-27T20:56:00.002-06:00

My Yelp post on minibar pretty much covers the food. This post will answer the question: Why was I there in the first place? It also will share several photos and a short video.

As you may know, minibar is touted as the most difficult reservation to get in Washington, DC. There are only 6 seats and 2 seatings per evening. They open reservations exactly one month in advance, and they recommend calling on the day that you want your reservation. Which, I didn't do. I had a hard time deciding to even seek a reservation. It's expensive. And the whole concept of a 27 course tasting menu that features very unusual flavor combinations and preparation techiques honestly sounded a little daunting. So for my mid-January trip to DC, I didn't make the call until a few days later than the recommended one-month advance.

Actually, at first I was sort of relieved when I was told that both seatings were full for that evening. I just made a reservation at Cafe Atlantico and put my name on the wait list. But it was only a week or so later when I got ... THE CALL. There was a cancellation, and I could have two seats for the 6 p.m. seating. I had planned on having dinner with a colleague at the National Milk Producers Federation. I checked with him to see if he was game. He was. We took it.

That's how it came about that I got a reservation. But, I still haven't answered 'why.' minibar is the creation of a Spanish chef named Jose Andres. I became a fan of Jose Andres from his public television series 'Made in Spain.'

Let me take one more brief diversion and explain why I would be interested in watching a program about Spanish food. When my daughter was in college, she took a summer term in Spain. My wife and I went there for a visit while our daughter was there. We visited Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia. We absolutely loved it. We loved the food, the ambiance, the wines, everything. So when we saw the tv listing for Made in Spain, we decided to give it a try.

We really liked the show. Jose Andres is this quirky, energetic bundle of enthusiasm about food and cooking. I haven't actually tried any of his recipes yet. But they seem to be simple, straightforward presentations that feature high quality ingredients. So I will give it a try some day. One of the visual devices of the show is that he 'shuttles' back and forth from Spain to Washington, DC. (He demonstrates his recipes in his home kitchen.) I checked to see which restaurants he owned in the DC area, and low and behold, I'd actually been to two of them - Cafe Atlantico and Jaleo. I read about minibar on his web site and became intrigued. I had an upcoming trip to DC planned, and no dinner plans for the night I arrived. So I placed the call, and, well, now I'm back to where the story began.

As I commented in my Yelp post, they are extremely accommodating and welcoming to the minibar diners. So we settled in at the counter, looking into the kitchen, and met our chefs for the evening. I asked if Jose ever was there. "Oh, all the time," was the reply. "Will we see him tonight," I asked. "No," I was told. "I don't think he's here tonight." (Rats. Well maybe he showed for the 8:30 seating.)

Before going, I read quite a lot about minibar, from other Yelp reviewers, from the Washington Post restaurant critic, and from the restaurant's own web site. Someone complained that he didn't get enough to eat. So I was thinking about that. The menu includes 27 items. Some items are a single bite. Others are two bites, but I don't think any are three bites or more. So how many bites do you think it takes to eat, for example, a steak at a nice steakhouse? I wasn't hungry when the meal at minibar was over. And as the Post reviewer commented, you're paying for an entertaining evening and an unusual dining experience.

Yes, there is entertainment value and the novelty of some of these unusually prepared foods. But it is also dinner. So I was also wondering - how many calories do you get from those 27 courses?

In my Yelp review, I list the items that I liked the most. I think it's interesting that the ones I listed are mentioned in several other reviews. I suppose that means that while they're constantly experimenting and putting new things on the menu, there are a core of tried-and-true, crowd-pleasing items that they've just got to keep on the menu night after night. And as accommodating as they are, there's no use begging for more of any particular item.

At the end of my Yelp review, I said that I'd recommend minibar, as long as you understand what you're getting for your money. There's a very instructive video on the Washington Post web site. It includes comments from Jose Andres as well as pictures of diners enjoying the show/meal. One of the scenes shows people eating the Dragon's breath popcorn. It really is amazing. Your chef puts this very ordinary looking piece of popcorn on your plate. You pop it in your mouth, chew and swallow. Tastes good. Then you exhale, and 'smoke' comes out of your mouth and nose. How do they do that? I don't know, that that's the kind of experience that makes it so hard to get a reservation.

The video below shows the chef making the Cotton Candy Eel.

Dinner at Loring Kitchen & Bar, Minne...

2010-01-24T14:31:00.002-06:00

It was a damp and dreary night. We'd been to a hockey game (indoors, thankfully) to watch our niece play. (Her team lost, boohoo.) The January rain fell on mounds of ice-covered snow, and the streets were slick and strewn with slushy puddles. When we walked into the Loring Kitchen & Bar, it was like entering a sanctuary from winter.

We had 7:30 reservations, and we were quite surprised to see so many open tables when we walked in. We had tried to get last minute reservations a week earlier, and were told that the only opening they had was at 4:30 p.m. So I expected the place to be packed. Maybe everyone was too intimidated by the bad weather. (Maybe everyone was on their way to New Orleans to watch the Vikings in the play-off.) There was a steady stream of people in and out during the evening. But at no time were all the tables full.

While waiting for my sister-in-law and her husband to arrive, my wife and I ordered drinks. They have a nice line up of signature cocktails. My wife ordered a Blue Martini with gin. It comes with blue cheese stuffed olives. My wife thought it was a nice touch that the martini was served in a frosted glass.

I asked if the bartender could make a sazarac cocktail. The server came back after a few minutes and confessed that they had never heard of a sazarac. They looked it up online, but didn't have the pernod (or absinthe) that's an essential ingredient. I said that was ok, and I didn't really want him experimenting on me with a cocktail that he hadn't made before. I suggested that for his next vacation, he should go to New Orleans and learn how to make a sazarac. So I also ordered a Blue Martini (with vodka). She served it. But then a few minutes later, she brought over another drink. "Try this," she said. No charge. The bartender had improvised with ingredients he had on hand. It was pretty good. So I drank the ersatz sazarac and gave the martini to my sister-in-law.

I'm including that anecdote because on Yelp, some of the reviewers complained about poor service. We just didn't have that experience at all. All the staff who we encountered were friendly and accommodating.

One more thing about the Loring Kitchen - it's a "see and be seen" place. We saw three tables of friends there over the course of our meal. And as we left, we noticed that Minneapolis mayor RT Rybak was unobtrusively seated at a table with his wife.

I almost made this my first Yelp review with a 5-star rating. But Yelp defines a 5-star as flawless, and our meal wasn't flawless. Click here for my review of the food. Suffice it to say that we really liked our meals, but there were a few minor glitches. The tuna ceviche wasn't up to par. My wedge salad was good but nothing extraordinary. The chocolate chip cookies that we had for dessert were unexceptional. That said, my wife and I agreed that we'd gladly return. Frankly, I can't wait for spring and summer when we might score a table on the veranda overlooking Loring Park.

Breakfast at Le Bon Cafe, DC

2010-01-23T15:51:00.002-06:00

Once, I don't remember how long ago, I had an espresso at a sidewalk table outside of Le Bon Cafe. The cafe is right on Capitol Hill. So on my most recent trip to DC, when I had some time between meetings, I decided to walk over there for coffee and to read the paper. When I got inside, some of the breakfast food looked interesting. So instead of just coffee, I had a mid-morning breakfast.

You can click here to read my review of the food on Yelp. Some of the other reviewers were put off by unfriendly, or at least inattentive service. Didn't bother me. I didn't go in there to make a new BFF. Maybe I'm just a sucker for this kind of place. Quaint. Little. Maybe a little quirky. I liked the background music, and I got to sit in the front bay window.

So I would recommend it, and I'll probably go back again someday.

Celebration dinner at Benihana, Golden Valley, MN

2010-01-09T15:31:00.002-06:00

Late in 2009, I announced a 'brand extension' and started a Krik's Picks profile on Yelp. At the time, I wondered how I would integrate my Yelp posts with my blog. I've only been doing Yelp for a couple weeks now. But I think Krik's Picks on Yelp will take the place of my 'Kwik Pick' reviews that I started a while ago.

So here's what I'm going to try. When I post a review on Yelp, I'll just post a photo and brief item on the blog with a link to the Yelp review. I don't know if that will make a difference to anyone. Most of the time, I think I'm just talking to myself on this blog. But if I have any readers, and if any of you have an opinion about this approach, feel free to let me know.

So click here to read about the birthday celebration that we had for my son at Benihana in Golden Valley, MN. Here's the photo.

Players Grill, Highland Park, IL

2010-01-09T15:30:00.003-06:00

My wife and I didn’t plan to have dinner on New Years Eve at Players Grill. In fact, we thought we'd be celebrating New Years with friends at their home in Wayzata, MN. But circumstances conspired to change our plans. Our daughter, who was due to deliver her first child on Jan. 5, called us on Wednesday evening, Dec. 30, to tell us that she was in labor and ... it was time to come! We were ready for bed, but being compulsive planners, we were already packed. So we threw our bags in the car and hit the road. It was 10:45 p.m. Our goal was to arrive in Chicago in time for the birth of our grandchild.

Well, we didn't quite make it. Trey David was born at 4:58 a.m. on Dec. 31. We arrived at the hospital at 5:30 a.m. So we found ourselves in Chicago (actually north Chicago suburbs) on New Years Eve. Our son-in-law's parents live there. We connected later in the day at the hospital and decided to have dinner together for New Years Eve. After driving all night, and with only a couple hours of sleep, and in a part of the city that we didn't know very well, we certainly weren't in a position to decide on where to eat. A sports bar for burgers sounded fine for us. So we piled into a car and drove into nearby Highland Park to find a place to eat. So that's how we ended up at Players Grill.

(By the way, as I'm sure you've noticed, these are pics from the hospital, not the restaurant. I didn't bring my camera to the restaurant.)

I don't know if it was really that good. But the combination of exhaustion, exhilaration, and the company of nice people (who were equally as tired and happy) added up to a really enjoyable New Year's Eve dinner.

Players pretty clearly is a neighborhood joint. People would get up from their table and mozy over to another table to chat ... with friends or acquaintances, I assume. The manager, bartender, and service staff also seemed to know many of the people. They also have their own frequent diner club.

My father-in-law used to have a restaurant in Duluth - the Carlton House. The menu at Players was very reminiscent of the Carlton House menu, or for that matter, any number of supper clubs in Minnesota or Wisconsin. Ribs are a classic supper club favorite. My son-in-law's mother had Players' ribs, and pronounced them to be delicious. Right along with ribs would be barbecued anything. I had a barbecued brisket sandwich that was very good. Another supper club favorite is shrimp. Lotsa shrimp options on the Players' menu; my son-in-law's father chose a mixed seafood plate with shrimp. scallops and salmon. And my wife had a burger.

Besides a full bar, Players has a nice selection of beer on tap. The Burning River Pale Ale from Great Lakes Brewing was good.

I don't know if I'll ever go back to Players. I suppose as long as my daughter and her family live in the north Chicago suburbs, it's a possibility. But I will definitely have warm memories of our New Year's Eve dinner there every year when we celebrate our grandson's birthday.

Dinner at D'Amico's Kitchen, Minneapolis

2009-12-30T21:40:00.003-06:00

I really wanted to love this restaurant. I wanted to say that it was a replacement on my Top 2 list of favorite special occasion restaurants in Minneapolis. After all, it's located in the same space as one of my old Top 2 - the Chambers Kitchen. And I had a wonderful lunch there with my brother. But the sad fact is that when my wife and I went there in early December for a belated birthday celebration, it just didn't live up to expectations. I've thought about this a lot. It's not that it was disappointing. It's just that it wasn't as good as I wanted or expected.

The space is lovely. I already said that in my previous post. For our dinner reservation, the service was perfunctory. No specific complaints. But compared to the service my brother and I had at lunch, just not on the same level.

So let's get down to it - the food. I guess the only way to put it is, the food is inconsistent. And if I think about it, I should have caught a hint of that from the lunch with my brother.

For starters, I had a zucchini carpaccio. It was a wonderful, flavorful combination of paper-thin slices of zucchini squash dressed with a wonderful, light vinaigrette flavored with mint, pine nuts, and French feta. My wife's starter was equally as engaging, but quite different in style. She ordered the saffron risotto balls. These were golf-ball sized bundles of saffron risotto, breaded and fried, and stuffed with braised veal. I would have to say, these two items were the highlight of our meal.

For an entree, I ordered an evening special, veal Milanese. Except, the menu called it a veal chop. So what I expected was a nice piece of grilled veal like I get at some of the high end steak houses. Instead, what I got was a breaded veal chop that was fairly thin and frankly overcooked. I had thought about getting the braised beef shortribs. At $11 cheaper, I think that would have been a better choice.

My wife ordered sea scallops with Brussel sprouts and dates. It was very good. But it just didn't compare to the scallops that she had at Sea Change for her birthday dinner a couple of months earlier.

So what it all boils down to is this. I would go back to D'Amico's Kitchen. I'd gladly have another lunch there. I'd have a dinner there, but there'd have to be a particular reason why. Maybe this is the kind of restaurant that's better for lunch than dinner. (That's how I feel about the St. Paul Grill.) I think that some of the items are marvelously delightful - my zucchini carpaccio, the tuna crudo I had with my brother at lunch. Other items are good but kind of out of character, like the fried calamari that my brother had at lunch or the fried risotto balls my wife had at dinner. And the entrees range from sublime, like the oriechette I had at lunch or Linda's scallops. while other entrees are very ordinary like the veal Milanese or my brother's veal meatball sandwich.

In the end, I can't say that this is a new favorite special occasion restaurant. As I said in my review of Sea Change, this is an outstanding replacement for my old favorite of Cue at the Guthrie. But as unlikely as it may seem, my second favorite special occasion restaurant now would have to be Meritage in St. Paul.

Krik's Picks Brand Extension

2009-12-26T16:13:00.002-06:00

Not to be too corny about this, but I'm extending the Krik's Picks brand. I've set up a Yelp account.

I have two on-line sources for diners' opinions about restaurants. One is Open Table. I use that to make reservations, and often check the diner reviews. I also submit reviews, but they don't have a way for other people to 'follow' your reviews. (At least, if they do, I haven't figured out how.)

The other is Yelp. This is an on-line resource for reviewing businesses. It has a very active community of users who review restaurants. I've gotten into the habit of checking Yelp before trying a new restaurant. They do make it easy for people to follow your reviews on Yelp. In fact, they even give you a personal domain, if you want. So if you want to read my Yelp reviews, just click here. I've also included my Yelp profile in the Links section of Krik's Picks.

So far, I haven't figured out how to mesh my Yelp account with my blog. It seems silly to post separate reviews on both. But I think I'll just try it for a while and see how it develops. If you have any observations or advice, I would welcome them.