Latest Restaurant Reviews
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The Ole Store (Northfield, MN)
Minnesota has too much experience with tearing down buildings and neighborhoods.
For some reason, we turn our backs on our history when we look ahead to the future. So we were delighted to make the trip down to the Ole Store in Northfield.
Here, a legendary local breakfast place and former general store has been updated with a bright spotlight on the past.
The old soda counter is now a wine bar with a small, good wine list. Not limited to California, the list features a few choices from all the major wine-making regions, at reasonable prices. The $20 Rioja might be the best deal on the list…
The Marsh (Minnetonka, MN)
Spa cuisine. Makes you think of dry toast and spirulina, doesn’t it?
Thankfully, the restaurant at The Marsh, a full-service spa, inn and conference center, takes a different tack. Much of the menu is lighter fare: appetizers, salads and sandwiches. But there are full entrees on the menu, too. Beef. And beer and wine.
The focus is less on stereotypical “health” food and more on real food, locally grown when possible, organic and fresh. The message is that real food, not supplements and flavor enhancers, feeds our bodies.
The quesadilla made with butternut squash and smoked Gouda was quite good, as was its beet and lemon garnish…
Pop! (Minneapolis, MN)
Pop is a cool neighborhood restaurant featuring brightly painted walls, 16 tables and a small counter, terrific and friendly staff. Pop is not a bit pretentious. It’s the kind of place you’d love to have within walking distance of your house. Our main question going in: is it a restaurant worth driving to?
Pop’s appetizers shine. Everyone should order the shrimp and black bean fritters. They’re golfball—sized, delicately fried, and too good to share. You get two dipping sauces: a perfectly fine chipotle sour cream, and a tart Venezuelan avocado dip called guasaca…
Royal Orchid (St. Paul, MN)
There’s a great satisfaction in eating spicy food on a cold winter day. Pungent ingredients such as chili peppers transport us to hot climates. Thai is a great winter cuisine, and that’s true even if you don’t like spicy food. Thai dishes combine ginger, scallions, coconuts, peanuts, basil and more, in ways that get our taste buds out of hibernation.
Royal Orchid is a great place to experience the flavor combinations that make up the Thai palette. It’s all about balance: sweet, salty, spicy, sour and bitter ingredients.
The appetizers were fine. Our favorite was the oyster sauce wings: the light and crispy batter was perfect dipped in the tangy ginger, scallion and oyster sauce. We also liked the chicken satay, marinated in coconut milk, grilled and served with peanut sauce. We missed the skewered presentation one sees everywhere else, though…
Thailand View (Shakopee, MN)
Thai food, like other cuisines from southeast Asia, uses a palette of ingredients to produce complex, highly flavored dishes. You’ll want to share these dishes with your group. Note that, like most Americans, Thai don’t use chopsticks, unless they are eating Chinese food.
We love the harmonies and balances of the sweet, salt, spicy, sour and bitter ingredients. Think lemongrass, ginger, garlic, cumin, sweet basil, mint, lime, peanuts, and turmeric. We’ve eaten too much Thai food that is inedibly hot, and are glad that the Thailand View kitchen is able to make things truly mild when requested…
Serum's Good Time Emporium (Anoka, MN)
Serum’s is the kind of restaurant that has been endlessly reproduced in national chains. It’s just that Serum’s has no forced kitsch about it. The building is over a hundred years old, with all that 19th century charm. It’s a long narrow space with incredibly high tin ceilings, exposed brick, and well-trod wood floors. Tables and booths take up the front as you enter; there’s a large bar in back. Upstairs there’s another room with live music on weekends.
The cool old junk hanging from the walls and the ceiling is all real, and it’s all fun to look at: old advertising signs, a tricycle collection, children’s furniture. But don’t let the interesting stuff around the room distract you from the menu, which is both inexpensive and good….
Hazellewood Grill and Tap Room (Tonka Bay, MN)
We like neighborhood restaurants so good that we wish we lived in the neighborhood. The pretty Hazellewood Grill and Tap Room, out in Tonka Bay, is just such a place.
They’ve got a fun, and unusual, twist in the individual beer taps in some booths in the bar. You can pour your own if you happen to get a booth serving what you like to drink.
But attractive, fun surroundings only go so far. It’s wonderful food that keeps our attention.
Start with the bread basket, here served as hot popovers, but don’t fill up. You’ll want the beef tenderloin and bleu cheese fondue. You’ll get a platter of beef chunks done to about medium, cubes of chewy sourdough, a pile of roasted tomatoes, and a crock of Maytag bleu cheese fondue. Rich and fabulous, split this among three or four people…
Viva Italia (Eagan, MN)
We have a love/hate relationship with Italian food. It can be so very good, and it’s so easy to do a bad job with. For the most part, Viva Italia doesn’t let its reach exceed its grasp.
By all means, start with the garlic cheese bread. It’s intensely garlicky, and with that delicious marinara sauce spooned on top, you’ll get a starter much better than the pizzas, which we didn’t like. We’re not fans of thick chewy pizza crusts. We loved the generous scatter of basil atop the Margherita pizza, however.
On one visit, the soup was a slightly spicy tomato-based soup with green peppers, pepperoni, Italian sausage, fagioli, and small pasta shells…
Grand City Buffet (St. Louis Park, MN)
The Grand City Buffet is impressively large. You won’t see everything on your first trip to the food. You’ll get back to your table, look at your dinner companion’s choices, and say something like: “I didn’t see the roast duck,” or “What do you mean, they serve sushi?”
There are seven tables of food (both hot and cold): salads, main dishes, and desserts. They promise over 180 different items, but since different preparations rotate in and out, you can expect something new all the time. We can’t even begin to list the many dishes that are available, but we’ve made some observations to get you started…
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.