Minneapolis-St. Paul in February 2006

Of Course the Yak was local (ya!)
The Twin Cities in February

Want to go to Minnesota in February? It will not cost too much money. With some clients in need of schmoozing and great deals—cars from $13/day on Priceline, the Condiment Queen and I took off for Minneapolis last week. We returned mostly well fed if dazed by the non-Euclidian street patterns of Minneapolis (and especially) St. Paul. These are vibrant cities with several pockets of activity, also (from the window of the rental car) seemingly well integrated communities of high and low, ethnic and student, commercial and residential. Minneapolis and St. Paul would not suggest places for repeat visits, but I feel we barely scratched the surface. I hope to return.

The trip started roughly. Of course, a good 2 or so hours of driving frustration on my part resulted from incorrect assumptions instead of standard map reading (abetted however by the failure of Budget Rental Car’s map that did not distinguish color-wise between Minneapolis and St. Paul). So, on Sunday, after taking the slow way into downtown Minneapolis from the airport, we decided to hit St. Paul—on the notion that we’d be in Minneapolis the rest of the trip. My intuition was that downtown St. Paul would be on the opposite side of the river from downtown Minneapolis or at least that the Mississippi divided these twins. Wrong. There is a good deal of Minneapolis east of the Mississippi, and there is no apparent physical boundary between St. Paul and Minneapolis (leaving one to wonder why they had to be two cities in the first place). This logical fallacy on my part kept me, for a long time, in placing us on our simple map. We had decided to visit Bread & Chocolate for a little pause gourmande, based on a nice caramel roll picture on the Roadfood.com site. And we finally arrived after several twists. All this for an OK bun, good if in the neighborhood but not worth the schlep. It did keep us in St. Paul for dinner, where we tried the Everest based cuisine of Nepal and Tibet at Everest on Grand.

After dinner, we asked the pretty Nepalese woman where the yak came from, and we got in perfect and ideal Minnesota speak, “a farmer outside of St. Cloud, ya”. I wish I had a talent for mimicry because I so adored the sound of hearing about the local yak. Honestly, I enjoyed the yak repartee better than the yak meal. The Condiment Queen thinks it was because I was uptight and in a bad mood, a combination of worry over pending meetings and deep annoyance with getting lost. She liked Everest. New to the food of Nepal and Tibet, we ordered a ton (although our overall bill was not too high). We got two types of Tibetan dumplings: steamed (momo) and fried (kothe) with filling, respectively, of veggie and ground pork/ground turkey. They come with a thick green, pretty spicy sauce (achar). The wife and I differed on which dumplings we liked better. She preferred the fried, but I found those a bit greasy. I liked the cleaner flavor of the steamed dumplings. In addition to the dumplings, we ordered a Nepali daal-bhat, a combination of meat, vegetable, dhal, rice and condiments. You pick the meat and the vegetable, and emphasizing the exotic, we got keema yak and breadfruit. Given a choice of heat, we went for the penultimate. Too hot, by a lot, or the food just did not seem to have enough other stuff too balance the chili. I also thought the spices in the ground yak tasted burnt. I did not appreciate the breadfruit, but my wife loved it. Dessert was an iffy fresh cheese in sugar syrup.

I fantasize of owning my own restaurant; perhaps one day. When it does, it will be a lot like a merger between two restaurants in downtown Minneapolis: Hell’s Kitchen and Ike’s. Hell’s Kitchen got the local and the artesian, epitomized by house made jams and bison sausage. They also make an exceptional peanut butter that comes with your breakfast toast or as a side, and squeeze in some tummy room for an order of Mahnomin Porridge, a conglomeration of wild rice, nuts, and dried fruit all tied together with delicious local heavy cream. The house breakfast appears pricy at nearly $10, but the eggs, sausage, and especially the rosti potatoes, a crisp pancake made of shredded potatoes left me feeling not the least bit ripped off, and did I mention the toast and jam? The rest of the breakfast and lunch menu (no dinner) is filled with dishes in the same spirit. After reading about they fried walleye BLT, my wife could not wait to try, and it easily met her expectations. She liked it so much she had two meals there. Ike’s, next to Minneapolis’s hallowed silver-butter steak, Murray’s fooled the hell outta me. My wife first scoped it out, and she knew I’d love it. It seemed expertly preserved, a bit of old Minneapolis left in the land of skyways. Amazingly, this place of well-worn wooden booths, oak center bar and terrazzo tile is not that old, built only in 2003. It is nearly exactly the décor I imagine for my future restaurant. I cannot comment on the food, but we liked the drinks, including the Minnesota custom of serving a small beer chaser with a Bloody Mary. We would have sampled something from the nicely priced happy hour menu, but they estopped the deals because of a Timberwolves game that night. I can say that the burgers passing by smelled good.

Our other dinner was at a place called Barbette. We got to Barbette by accident, the result of some pretty awful preparation on my part. Yes, I remembered Minneapolis was known as the only place in the USA with an authentic Sri Lankan restaurant. Yes, I had read the thread where GAF mentioned its passing. No, I did not bother to think of this when planning our dinner. Moreover, there were red flags, including lack of mentions in guide books and local magazines. I meant to call…Oh well, our trip to the edge of Lake Calhoun and back brought us near the sexy, French looking Barbette—more well done terrazzo! It was like dining inside an Edith Piaf song. Unfortunately, the service matched the tempo of much of her singing. The combination of handling one price fixe dinner for her and just an entrée for me for the kitchen’s new chef was just too much. My wife’s courses came out intermittingly and my dinner arrived before her entrée. The double upside, some complaining got us a round of drinks on the house and a huge tray of ripe cheeses. On top of that, the food was very, very good. We wrapped up the night with ice cream at Minneapolis’s famed Sebastian Joe’s.

The advantage of getting lost is you run into things. If you look here you can see why I decided to stop for a burger at the Ideal Diner, a hand formed not too thin good diner burger to boot. I ran into Minneapolis’s house bakery Wuollet after picking up cheesecake at Muddy Paws, liked them both. Our final meal came from the Ukrainian combo deli-cafeteria, Kramarczuk, where we got assorted sausages and dumplings (varenyky) to eat on the plane. We passed a lot that seemed worthy of stopping with more time (and maybe strolling weather). Upper Central had a bit of Da’Bomb to it, including a Patel grocery store. University across Dinkytown well into St. Paul, I believe this area is called Frog Town, was block after block of things that appeal to me, from used book stores to (a lot of ) Vietnamese restaurants. Like I say, I’d like to return.


Bread & Chocolate
867 Grand Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55105

Everest on Grand
1278 Grand Ave, St. Paul
651.696.1666

Hell’s Kitchen
89 S. 10th St.
Minneapolis, MN 55403

Ike’s
50 S Sixth St, Mpls.
612.746.4537

Barbette
1600 W Lake St, Mpls.
612.827.5710

Sebastian Joe's
1007 W Franklin Ave, Mpls.
612.870.0065

Ideal Diner
1314 Central Ave NE, Minneapolis, 55413
(612) 789-7630

Kramarczuk
215 E Hennepin Ave, Mpls.
612.379.3018

Muddy Paws Cheesecake and Wuollet
Assorted locations including Hennepin in the Prospect Hill area

Great review!
As a former Minneapolis resident, I can attest to it's under-appreciated status. If you (or anyone else) visits in the future, let me suggest 112 Eatery. I had one of the best meals of 2005 during a recent visit.
Also, be sure to check out the newly expandedWalker Art Museum.

VI, your excellent post takes me back. I recall Kramaczuk fondly. We lived a few blocks from Wuollet Bakery in St. Paul. I can remember when my younger son was about three we went in one day, and the countergirl asked what he wanted, and he startled her by stating in a very firm voice, "marzipan!"

VI-- Nice post. I'm printing it out and taking it the next time I visit my cousins in Minneapolis. (We are in a rut of going to The Modern in North Minneapolis for hip diner food) I was glad to hear about Hell's Kitchen (though the name seems a bit off for me outside Manahttan's West 40's) I guess any locally generated name (Anderson's, Hansen's, Jensson's, Swensen's etc.) doesn't sound edgy enough for a downtown place, though). Glad you got to have some wild rice in the mix.

By the way, if you like Nepalese momos, they have chicken momos in Evanston at Mt. Everest. No yak, though, as far as I know.

Minneapolis is indeed hard to navigate, due to recent overzealous application of the principle of limited access to popular commuter routes. There are, however, some compensations in the possibility that Minnesota motorists remain a courteous lot. I hope that has not changed.

I was just up in MSP a couple of weeks ago and needed to come up with a place for a team dinner. As I left Kramerczeks (sp) on Hennepin I couldnt help but notice the time warped building called Nye's Polonaise. Being a lover of polish food and somewhat curious I peeked inside and instantly knew this would be our destination that night!

A 70-something hostess with the biggest beehive hair I have ever seen, waitresses in bowling shirts, a piano bar , a regular bar AND a polka bar, gold metalflake naughahyde booths and really funky cracked glass light fixtures. Who cared what the food would be like, I was in! The capper was the signage proclaiming Thursday night to be Polish Idol night, all are welcome on stage.

So, even though none of our local contacts had ever heard of the place I dragged my team out to Nye's that evening. My companions where mainly Washington DC residents who think Legal Seafood is a great place so I wasnt sure how this would go over.

The Hostess greeted and seated us granting a "sure hun" to our request for a large table in back. So we followed her marge simpson hairdo to a nice table on the riser in the back. Since TSA had already confiscated my lighter I asked her for some matches and she gave me a book of matches with a circa 1955 portrait of the owner on them. I will treasure them always.

Once seated we where presented with menu's, some still warm bread and a nice relish tray. We decided to have a round of drinks and some of my companions ran off to explore the place. One of them found a display case of NYE'S items for sale, he bought a bowling shirt and a keychain. Another found the restrooms in the adjacent bar and besides reporting on a trough in the mens room said that the "worlds most dangerous polka band" was setting up for a 9 o clock set in the polka bar.

We ordered our dinners which came with soup or salad, I had the saurkraut soup which also contained hunks of Kramerczaks (sp) polish sausage. The soup was excellent and not at all salty, it tended to be a little sweeter than what I am used to in fact.

Several of the group had the ribs and saurkraut dinner, one of us had the polish sausage and another the Sampler ,which contained a little of everything. I opted for the golampki or stuffed cabbage rolls.We did sample from each other and everything was very good, but not as good as mom's. The portions are very large. The sausages come from right down the street so you know they are going to be great. My golampki was very meaty and not a 50/50 mix of meat and rice that you would normally see.

I would put the quality way above most polish buffets but below authentic home cooked polish fare. (As a sidebar one of my companions mother had written a polish cookbook that I have and use often (The art of polish cooking - Alina Zeranska. It is a must read if you think all we eat is sausage and cabbage). He shared my opinion on Nye's as well.

All in all we found Nye's to be extremely entertaining, making eye contact with the piano player just about obligates you to sing. The surroundings are friendly yet somewhat surreal. And the food is above average. You get a good amount of food and the prices range from 13-28.00 for a dinner. I think the finest complement was when we where deciding where to go to eat the next day, 4 out of 6 wanted to go back to Nye's.

Bob



Nye's Polonaise Room
112 E Hennepin
Minny, MN


http://www.nyespolonaise.com/

Nye's is terrific, and it is astounding that your local contacts had never heard of it. It was the go-to place for Polish food in the Twin Cities, and I'm sure that your hostess was there when I used to go in the 1980s.

Nye's and the unique and long-departed Mayslack's Polka Lounge (for their amazing Roast Beef on Roll were part of the culinary tradition of the Twin Cities.

Let's not forget Turtle Bread Company. It has some of the best breads in the city...The one in Linden Hills is the best location...

http://www.turtlebread.com

"Nye's and the unique and long-departed Mayslack's Polka Lounge (for their amazing Roast Beef on Roll were part of the culinary tradition of the Twin Cities."

While Stan Mayslack is "long-departed" (passed away in 1994), Mayslack's is still around. As I'm not an MSP native (moved here in 1990), my experience with the place only dates back to the mid-90s. I don't have a dog in the fight, but there's a mild debate about whether the roast beef sandwiches are as good as they used to be. I would personally still say it's part of the "culinary tradition of the Twin Cities".

If roast beef sandwiches are your game, and you happen to be in MSP, Maverick's in Roseville (inner-ring suburb north and east of Minneapolis) is a must-visit. Wally's Roast Beef in Bloomington (inner-ring suburb south of Minneapolis) is also solid if you have to stay closer to the airport and the near-south part of Minneapolis.

Mayslack's
1428 4th St NE (intersection with 14th Ave NE -- 1 block east of University Ave)
Minneapolis, MN
612-789-9862
www.mayslacks.com

Maverick's
1746 Lexington Ave (just north of Larpenteur Ave intersection, in strip mall)
Roseville, MN
651-488-1788
http://www.roadfood.com/Reviews/Overvie ... RefID=3140 (link to Roadfood's info on the place)

Wally's Roast Beef
2113 W 90th St (just east of intersection with Penn Ave)
Bloomingon, MN
952-884-4349

I just checked the Mayslack's website (!), and noticed that they offer Pasta Primavera and French Onion Soup (not to mention the array of non-polka bands). I won't weigh in on the quality of their Garlic Roast Beef Sandwiches, but it is certainly not your father's Mayslack's. The only foam at Stan's used to be on the beer.

As I recall from my student days there, was that the easiest way to tell if you were in Mpls or St. Paul was the color of the pavement. St. Paul's had a sort of reddish tint and Mpls was greyish. In those days I mostly used a bicycle to get around. Everytime I'm there now in a car I get totally goofed up when away from the downtowns or the University. There are four different 4th sts. none of which ever interesect, etc. Very confusing streets. That's what happens, I guess when you get bisected by a big river.

dan 1234 sez:

"That's what happens, I guess when you get bisected by a big river."

If Kansas City is *actually* in Missouri, what about Kansas City Kansas?

Indeed.

Geo

Vital Information wrote:With some clients in need of schmoozing and great deals—cars from $13/day on Priceline

how the heck did u pull that off? i pricelined and only got $23/day @#%$#@$%

i second "112 Eatery" suggestion. see my post on my MSP stay. in fact, i think i'm going back next Thursday. so... Barbette's for breakfast, Bakery on Grand for late lunch. sounds hopeful...

TonyC:

Bakery on Grand has been closed for remodeling. This was the information in the Minneapolis paper (Star Tribune) early February:

"Bakery on Grand, which was closed in January for vacation and remodeling, is scheduled to reopen in March, says owner Keith Poppe. "People needed a rest," he said. Counter seating and more parking are being added to the shop at 3804 Grand Av. S., Minneapolis. Other changes under consideration, include dropping weekday breakfast service. The popular weekend brunches will return."

MSPD
thanks for the heads up. so where am i gonna go for lunch? ugh. Altho, they're reopening in March. March 2nd is "March". Maybe I'll get lucky.

KevinT
what do you think of Turtle Bread vs. New French Bakery? I had NFB's baguette @ 112 Eatery and almost had foodgasm. met a lady from MSP @ Johnnie's Saturday and she also mentioned "Wilmette" Bakery? altho i could find nothing regarding this shop online...

She might have meant Wuollet Bakery http://www.wuollet.com/index.asp?sPL=.

MSPD wrote:TonyC:

Bakery on Grand has been closed for remodeling. This was the information in the Minneapolis paper (Star Tribune) early February:

"Bakery on Grand, which was closed in January for vacation and remodeling, is scheduled to reopen in March, says owner Keith Poppe. "People needed a rest," he said. Counter seating and more parking are being added to the shop at 3804 Grand Av. S., Minneapolis. Other changes under consideration, include dropping weekday breakfast service. The popular weekend brunches will return."

As the former sous-chef and charcutiere of the Bakery on Grand, I'd like to clear up some errors and in fact, lies.

The BOG was not closed for "remodeling", the entire staff either left or was laid off. There was no "vacation". The chef and I decided to not continue working for this owner.

The building and business has been sold, and has not re-opened yet. A former part-time waitress bought it and they've been telling the press that it's "the same place, new owners" which it definitely is not. The new owner is trying to ride upon the reputation that we developed after three hard years of work under quite difficult conditions. They slightly altered the logo and are going to attempt to continue the menu that the chef, myself and the former owners Doug and Jessica Anderson (A Rebours, St. Paul MN) developed.

Why somebody would buy a restaurant and try to fool people into believing it's the same place is beyond my thinking.