July 18, 2008

Bayport Cookery’s New Wine Bar

If you had asked me what the Bayport Cookery’s big problem was, I’d have said: “No one has enough birthdays.” What I mean by that is chef and owner Jim Kyndberg’s elaborate prix-fixe multiple course menus are wonderful, creative—and fascinating—but they kind of seem like something you should only do on your birthday.

Well, it seems that Kyndberg has done some hard reckoning with the extremely small number of birthdays you are likely to have in a year and has decided to do something about it. He is converting half of the Bayport Cookery to a wine bar and casual eatery. How casual? He told me there will be lots of pizzas and burgers on offer, starting at $9. If that sounds antithetical to the Bayport’s habit of making quite deluxe... Read more »

Posted on Friday, July 18, 2008 in Dear Dara | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 15, 2008

Buffets That Are Really Good, And Not Just Good “For a Buffet”

I spent the past two days cleaning off the top of my desk.

Yuck.

It had about two-and-a-half years of accumulated notes, ideas, phone numbers, and other such valuable but disorganized stuff on it, and I’ve been trying to move everything into a more organized way of being. Why? Because I seem to have joined the cult of people who follow David Allen and his book/personal productivity lifestyle, called Getting Stuff Done. Don’t ask—just read about it on Wikipedia if you want.

I’ve kind of gotten to a point in my life where—with all these projects, with all these children—something needed to change. And yes, I only have two children, but I’ll tell you, with toddler and the infant there are moments where I think: Read more »

Posted on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 in Dear Dara | Permalink | Comments (7)

July 14, 2008

All the Fresh Mozzarella News That’s Fit to Print

A reader writes: “Where do you go for good burrata?”

What’s a burrata? It’s fresh mozzarella cheese stuffed with a fresh mozzarella curd, which maybe doesn’t sound very good, but it is. It’s really, really good. How good? Russ Parsons in the Los Angeles Times said it best: “Burrata is to mozzarella as foie gras is to chicken liver.” (His 2006 article also tells you everything you’d ever need to know about burrata.)

If you are not in the mood for reading, let me sum it up for you: Picture everything you love about fresh mozzarella—the creaminess, the lightness, the... Read more »

Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 in Dear Dara | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 24, 2008

Barrio Sneak Peek – Check Out the New Tim McKee Tequila Bar

Tim McKee, the stratospherically talented chef and co-owner of La Belle Vie and Solera (and now Smalley’s, the Stillwater barbecue restaurant which will I review in the magazine’s August issue) has yet another restaurant opening in August: It will be called Barrio Tequila Bar & Café. Curious? Of course you are/ I know I was, so I called up McKee to find out more.

McKee told me that, as the name implies, Barrio is indeed a tequila bar and will offer more than 100 tequilas—that is, the top shelf sipping kind, as well as fancy margaritas and such, concocted by the supremely gifted Johnny Michaels, the La Belle Vie bar manager and creator of another of the Twin Cities most creative and delicious cocktail menus, at Café Maude.

Barrio, slated to open in... Read more »

Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 in Dear Dara | Permalink | Comments (5)

June 20, 2008

World’s First Fennel Pollen Bratwurst?

If you’ve been eating in fine dining restaurants the last few years, you’ve likely come across bee pollen, those little balls that bees have collect from flowers and stick together with little bits of nectar. I’ve seen Ames Farm bee pollen, for instance, on cheese trays, decorating seared scallops, and even clinging to the rim of a cocktail glass at Brenda Langton’s Spoonriver.

And if you’ve been eating in backyards these last few years, you’ve likely come across a bratwurst, those things my editor insists must be eaten unadorned and two to a hard roll [ed note: actually, brown mustard is okay; it’s just ketchup and yellow mustard that are truly abominable on a brat], in true Sheboygan style, even though most Minneapolis folks treat them more or less... Read more »

Posted on Friday, June 20, 2008 in Dear Dara | Permalink | Comments (2)

June 16, 2008

Saffron’s Lamb Ribs Recipe, Revealed!

Sameh Wadi and I have a prickly relationship; I didn’t review his restaurant well. He thinks I’m an idiot. And so on.

This actually doesn’t bother me much. I feel very First Amendment about it: I will fight to the death for every American’s right to think I’m an idiot! Or every Minnesotan’s, anyway. I also feel okay about it because I know Wadi and his downtown Minneapolis restaurant have plenty of ardent supporters—including every other critic in the state and most of the chefs in town.

So, what’s to like about Wadi and his fine dining menu of eastern and southern Mediterranean influenced dishes? Plenty. He’s working in an idiom few do here, taking the road less taken, and frankly it’s a heck of a lot easier to stick a leaf of basil under a... Read more »

Posted on Monday, June 16, 2008 in Dear Dara | Permalink | Comments (4)

June 11, 2008

We Wuz Robbed!

It’s appalling that Tim McKee and the La Belle Vie crew were passed up for the James Beard Award earlier this week. I worried that all the Minneapolis nominees, including Isaac Becker of 112 Eatery and Alex Roberts of Restaurant Alma and Brasa, would dilute the Minnesota vote and, alas, it looks like I was right. Check out the results here:

http://jbfawards.com/content/2008-nominees#chef

I have to admit that the restaurant voting can go astray. The judges for all the print and media awards are handed copies of whatever they’re reviewing—you should see the boxes of hardcovers I’ve had to plow through in the years when I’ve been a book award judge. But the restaurant reviewers... Read more »

Posted on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 in Dear Dara | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 5, 2008

Rotisseria Is Back!

Many thanks to blog-poster Kristen. Because of her, I learned that Rotisseria was back, and consequently I devoured some of the best take-out chicken Minnesota has to offer—chicken made only more super-delicious by the fact that I had thought Rotisseria chicken was a taste that was gone to us forever.

Now, if you’re not familiar with the place, Rotisseria was and is the Twin Cities only Peruvian charcoal-roasted chicken joint. Does Peruvian charcoal-roasted chicken seem a ridiculously specific designation to you, akin to an Icelandic corndog spot, or a Lichensteinian mac and cheese restaurant? That’s what I thought when I first heard of the stuff, but I did some research and found out it’s an iconic regional food, beloved by pretty much all of South and Central... Read more »

Posted on Thursday, June 5, 2008 in Dear Dara | Permalink | Comments (5)

May 20, 2008

Another Mouth to Feed

Sorry to drop off the face of the earth for a while. I’ve been busy with the great pleasure of eating hospital food while we ushered in lovely little Tobiah Rae Grumdahl: 7 pounds, 5 ounces, 20 inches long, loud as a tornado siren, and cute as a bean. Baby Tobi is actually a couple weeks old as I write this, and her appearance on earth has once again brought to the fore one of the most dire food-related issues in the Twin Cities: Seriously, who do I have to kill to get decent delivery food in this town?

So far on this convalescence we’ve enjoyed take-out from Jasmine Deli (twice), Lucia’s (thrice), French Meadow, Holy Land, Common Roots, Los Ocampos, the barbecue counter at the Shuang Hur on Nicollet, and—need I even type it, or is it just taken for granted—the... Read more »

Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 in Dear Dara | Permalink | Comments (6)

May 15, 2008

Corner Table’s Top Secret Forthcoming Market & Deli

Here’s one for the south Minneapolis street team: Start examining the construction permits posted in the windows of Minneapolis storefronts, find the right one, and you will have unearthed the location of the super-secret forthcoming Corner Table Market and Deli.

The Corner Table is a south Minneapolis gem—a local-food paradise helmed by visionary chef and Winona-native Scott Pampuch. I call him a visionary because Pampuch was one of the first chefs in town to source his meat exclusively from local farms, one of the first chefs to connect his city customers with rural farmers through a farmers’ market across the street. He’s also one of the first to make unfussy, chef-driven food part of a local neighborhood.

And now that same Kingfield neighborhood is... Read more »

Posted on Thursday, May 15, 2008 in Dear Dara | Permalink | Comments (4)