Krik's Picks

The best meal we had during our March trip to southern California was at The Little Door in Santa Monica. The restaurant was on a list of recommendations from the daughter of some friends of ours. We hadn't tried it on any of our previous trips to LA. This time, we decided to make a reservation. Wow! We'll definitely be back. Really. We liked everything about it, starting with the ambiance and decor. Inside, the restaurant is warm, inviting, cozy but without being crowded. It seems to be authentically French. Many of the other patrons were speaking French, and the host (perhaps owner?) and servers seemed to be answering fluently. The dinner made us excited to plan a trip to Paris. I started the evening with a cocktail, a Vieux Carre, which has recently become my new obsession. (Here's the recipe I've been using to make the cocktail at home: Click Here .) To start, my wife and I split a salad. It consisted of shaved Brussels sprouts with farro , bacon, and Parme...

I suppose we should have read the reviews more closely. We knew that Malibu Seafood was a fish market that also sold meals. But we thought it was a sit down restaurant. So when we arrived for a late lunch and saw a line out the door, we wondered if we'd ever get seated.  I dropped off my wife to get in line while I parked the car. When I got back to her, she had discovered that in fact, it is not a sit down restaurant. Rather, you place your order at a counter and receive a pager which notifies you when the food is ready. Then you pick up your tray, find a picnic table and eat.  So, other than that unexpected discovery, we had a very enjoyable lunch. As I noted already, we were surprised by the long line when we arrived at about 1:30 for lunch. Turns out that a film crew was shooting a commercial nearby, and they had arrived just before us for their lunch break. Still, reading other online reviews, apparently it's fairly typical to wait in line at Malibu Seafood. B...

I doubt that headline will cause anyone at Hertz HQ to do cartwheels. I only end up renting a car once or twice a year. But after another great experience with the company in March, I decided to write a blog post about it. National used to be my preferred car rental agency. Before I retired, Land O'Lakes had a corporate agreement with National. I had an Emerald Club loyalty card through the company, and it was convenient to also use it for personal travel. I still have an Emerald Club membership. I just haven't used it since retiring in 2013. My first experience with Hertz came in 2014 as my wife and I planned a trip to Italy. For some reason (I can't really remember why) I was dissatisfied with the choices available from National. So I decided to look around. Hertz had the best options available to me at the time, so I decided to book through them. We had a great experience renting the car in Italy. In order to facilitate the rental, I installed the Hertz iPhone app....

We met friends at Terzo to talk about travel in Italy. As my wife and I plan our next trip, we got lots of good suggestions from these friends, and she had just returned from skiing in the Italian Alps. So between us, there was a lot of enthusiastic discussion of our planned itinerary. I wrote my previous review of Terzo in 2014, as we were planning our first trip to Italy after I retired. Our intent was to sample wines from the regions where we'd be traveling. It was a great strategy for shaping our expectations of the wines we'd be tasting on the trip. Not that we need to make up an excuse to go to Terzo, but planning for our next trip was as good a reason as any. Also, Terzo has revamped its food menu, now offering more meals and a prix fixe option. We've always liked the food there, and we eagerly anticipated the new menu. This visit turned out to be an exploration of Italian white wines. The ladies started out with a glass of prosecco. My wife commented afterwards...

My wife and I treated our son and daughter-in-law to a joint birthday dinner in January. His birthday is in December, hers is in February. So January was a nice middle ground. They picked the locale - Victory 44 in Minneapolis. I've written about the restaurant before, once for a wine dinner they had about a year ago and once for lunch after I retired in 2013. Both times were with my son. So you can tell that it's one of his favorites. The restaurant is in the Victory neighborhood of North Minneapolis, located on 44th Ave. N. (hence the name - Victory 44.) The dinner menu consists of a creative assortment of dishes. You might be tempted to call them small plates. They are quite reasonably priced. But in general, each serving probably is enough to share between 2 people. When you order, you can pick your own assortment of plates, each of which is individually priced. But the real V44 experience is the tasting menu for two. And on Tuesdays, (the night we went) the date nig...

I’ve always liked Café Lurcat and Bar Lurcat . Although they’re two separate establishments, they complement each other nicely. The Bar has a cool, hip vibe, great cocktails and excellent bar food (many of the same items available at the café.) The Café is elegant and sophisticated, the food is delicious, creatively prepared, and beautifully presented. But we hadn’t been to either in a while. Why did it fall off our list? Well, we used to enjoy the live music in the Bar. But they don’t have live music regularly anymore. And the last time we went to the Café for a celebration dinner, we had a problem with a server-with-attitude. So despite really liking the ambiance and the food, we’ve opted for other restaurants for anniversary and birthday dinners lately. We also don’t usually go out on New Year’s Eve. But I saw a notice of Lurcat’s menu for New Year’s Eve and it just appealed to me. So we decided to give it a try. Well, not only was it a great way to welco...

I don’t think I’ve ever purposely gone to a restaurant knowing that it was about to go out of business. I certainly never have written a blog post about one. But today I couldn’t help myself. I had to have one last visit to Vincent on the Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis. The restaurant’s last day of business is Dec. 31. I went there for lunch. I have been to Vincent several times in the past. My wife and I have celebrated special occasions there. Once, I was the guest of honor at a dinner hosted by the person who was my current boss and three former bosses to commemorate my 35th anniversary of working at Land O’Lakes . ( Here’s the post I wrote about that experience.) It also was a great place for business entertaining. I’ve commented before that my favorite restaurant in the Twin Cities is Meritage in St. Paul. Like Vincent, it features French food. But the ambiance at Meritage is more casual bistro. The dining room at Vincent was big and open with tall ceilings and...