Krik's Picks

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 du...

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 ro...

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 f...

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 ...

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 m...

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...

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 t...

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 dinn...

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 thou...

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 tha...

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 applesauc...

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 a...

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...

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 ...

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...

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 w...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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...

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 it...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

“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...

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...