Schneier

It's your basic Gouda/Emmenthaller/etc cheese fondue. What sort of wines go well? Bruce

If you go on Elvis night, we're coming with. Bruce

Sorry I'm late. I've been busy. This is review #13. Bruce ******* Dining South: Nina's Steakhouse in Burnsville Karen Cooper and Bruce Schneier, Special to the Star Tribune Published February 4, 2004 Escaping the manufactured surroundings of corporate restaurants is, to us, a major advantage of world travel. We love the family-owned taverns and bistros in Europe, the comedores of Guatemala. Give us a personal vision, and we're sympathetic. Give us a meal made from the heart, and we'll be friends forever. Nina's Steakhouse in Burnsville is such a restaurant. The decor is faux garden mixed with low-rent disco, unaffected and guileless. No focus group has been anywhere near the dining room, and we love that. Formerly known as the Russian Tavern, Nina's is still a gathering place for the area's Russian immigrants. In addition to the several expected and tasty cuts of steak, the menu offers some real treasures. The cabbage roll appetizer comes two on a plate. Stuffed with ground beef and covered with tomato sauce, these are perfection. The assorted pickle platter appetizer comes with delicious tomatoes marinated in vinegar, sugar, salt and garlic. The platter is served with peppers stuffed with sauerkraut, a piquant nibble sure to awaken your appetite. Combine tomatoes, pickles, peppers and onions, chop and mix them with a light dressing and you'll have the unusual and pungent Caucasian salad. For dinner, the goulash was a clear winner, with big savory chunks of beef in a thick gravy. And the purported favorite of Mikhail Gorbachev, chicken stuffed with pepper jack cheese, was also filling and tasty. Peasant-style ravioli is a fabulous baked dish, invented in-house, with cheese and plenty of mushrooms in a cream sauce atop beef ravioli. Beef stroganoff, a Russian staple, here is a plate of overcooked meat and mushrooms atop poorly cooked noodles. We ordered the frog's legs, so you don't have to. They have little flavor other than their white wine sauce. Borscht should be available once local beets are in the markets, and the pea soup and chicken soup are perfectly good, though we like our soup served hotter. If you're celebrating something, your dessert will come with a gigantic sparkler in it. We can assure you that everyone in the restaurant will notice. Otherwise, Nina's has good blini and pretty good chocolate mousse, as well as that Moscow staple, Turkish coffee. A new game room with darts, pool and video games is open until 2 a.m. The last Sunday of the month, the buffet includes free vodka martinis. A band plays on Friday and Saturday nights, and people dance. While dancing during dinner isn't common hereabouts, it's festive and fun in Russia. Even if it's warty and imperfect, Nina's finds its way to our hearts through an honest and unpretentious approach to an interesting cuisine. And besides, Wednesday is Elvis night. You don't want to miss that. Karen Cooper and Bruce Schneier are constantly on the lookout for good places to eat. If you have a favorite restaurant south of the Minnesota River, please write us atdiningsouth@startribune.com.

Michelin lists two restaurants in Ludwigsburg, and I've eaten at them both. Restaurant Alta Sonne (Bei der Kath. Kitche 3, +49 7141 925231) is the one star. I was there for lunch, and had the three-course menu for 34 euros. Amuse: venison ravioli with mashed potato and beet juice. Tasty, and very haute German. I liked this place immediately. ?Gebratenes Rehfilet an Petersilienwwurzelmousseline und Cassis-Birnenchutney.? Cold venison with beets and salad greens. Very good; a nice starter. ?Dabarry-Safransamtsuppe mid mariniertem Ziegenfrischkase.? Cream of cauliflower soup with olive tepanade. Okay, but not great. ?Medallion vom mildgeraucherten Hirschrucken auf Rosenkohl und Haselnutspatzle.? More venison. (How many words for venison are there in German?) This time it was served hot with a sour cherry sauce, Brussels sprouts, and hazelnut spatzle. Very tasty. They offered dessert for another 6 euros, but I was done. The three courses were all reasonably sized; I was full but not stuffed. The next day I had lunch at Restaurant Post Cantz (Eberhardstrasse 7, +49 7141 923563) is a more informal restaurant. It's what I think of when I think of a German restaurant: noisy, lots of wood, good hearty food on the menu. Thankfully, it wasn't noisy. I had some kind of wild boar steak with a mushroom cream sauce and red cabbage. Quintessential German food: filling and tasty. Bruce

Found them. Bruce ******* Okay, so this isn?t a review. I?ve been there once for dinner, alone, and had the tasting menu. But I enjoyed it, and I would go back. My meal: "Terrine of scallops and salted saddle of rabbit with variation of tomatoes." It was delicious slide of terrine, beautifully presented on the plate. (Actually, everything that came out of the kitchen was beautifully presented.) It was served with a tomato chutney. "Ravioli with lobster and Belle de Boskoop with rilette of shank from veal and foamy soup of white beans." Definitely a tasty soup. "Baked hake and roasted sweetbread with glazed beetroot, parsley and fomay sauce of champagne." This was really two things: the hake with parsley puree, and the sweetbreads with beetroot. Both were tasty dishes, although I?m not sure why they were served together. They didn?t interact with each other on the plate, and they didn?t interact with each other in the mouth. They looked pretty, though. "Guinea fowl as ballontine served with press of leg and foie-gras pommes fondant and sauce of vanilla." This came as four little dishes on a single plate. There wasthe Guinea fowl ballontine. There was the Guinea fowl leg. There was the foie-gras. And there was the sliced apples with vanilla sauce. Again, everything was tasty. Again, the four items didn?t hold together as a single course very well. Again, the presentation was beautiful: four geometric stacks on a single plate. "Forme d'Ambert and caramelized walnut bread with sorbet of figs." An okay cheese course. Nothing special. "Selection of small coffee desserts." I don?t go to Copenhagen for the sweets. Total for the menu: 545 kroner = about $100. Els is one of the "good? restaurants in Copenhagen. It?s a pretty room (albeit with a large stuffed animal head on one wall). The service is professional and efficient; very European. The food is interesting. It?s not traditional Danish food by and stretch of the imagination, but it does use local ingredients. Sadly, the restaurant was not full. I was there on a weekday night in winter, and there were very few tables active. Even worse, everyone except me was gone by 8:00. Pre-theatre rush, I was told. I hope the restaurant fills up after dinner. Or at least that the restaurant fills in summer, when it doesn?t get dark at 3;30 in the afternoon. NB: winter in Copenhagen is dreary. It's cold. It's cloudy. It gets dark at 3:00. Visit in the summer if you can. Bruce

This is what I do, too. Bruce

That was my first choice, but they're closed on Sunday. Bruce

I have no idea. Near the airport, I guess. But I'll have a car. How far can things be? Bruce

I'll be in Miami on Sunday night. Where should I go to dinner? I'm looking for high end cuisine, here. Bruce

In my experience, you throw that stock away and start over. Sometimes it just doesn't work out right. Bruce

Just take the pictures. Don't worry about it. I've never seen anyone complain. I've seen people look amused, but never complain. Bruce

How far in advance are they taking reservations? Bruce

Anyone have any suggestions. It doesn't have to be too near; I can take a taxi. Bruce

I wish I believed this.

Thank you. I have one of these in my basement. Bruce

You can't send a chef to Italy, but you can't make him...um...something.

I may be reading the original post incorrectly, but I get the impression that while food is a strong interest, it is not the primary interest in choosing the restaurant, not that I could really fault Arpege on its atmosphpere. Yeah, you're right. Arpege isn't what I would call the most glamorous of French restaurants. Probably not the best choice. Laurent has a beautiful dining room. How about that one? Bruce

When does the dining room open?

Thank you.

I have friends in Kalamazoo, and I visit occasionally. I never never found a restaurant that I thought worth going back to. If you know of anything, anything, in the Kalamazoo area, please share it. Please. Bruce

Thanks for the review, Brad. We've never been. Next time you go, feel free to give us a call. Bruce

I would recommend against Tour D'Argent, unless you have a time machine. My recommendation: Arpege. Bruce

I would choose Daniel (which is what I assume you mean by "Boudud"), but I would have to know more detail about what "blah" means. Bruce

I think your bias is showing. The more I think about this, the more it pisses me off. Here we are at what is trying to be the pinnacle of French dining in the United States--eating food that has a reasonable claim to the title--and we're being served wines from Croatia and Long Island. It's not the cost of the wines. $120 is expensive for a wine pairing, but we ordered it anyway. I expect to get $120 worth of wine, at whatever the markup the restauarant has, but I expect to get $120 worth of French--or at least Old World style--wines. I found the wine pairing disappointing: not disappointing for the price, but disappointing period. And the size of the pours is not relevent to me, either. I would have preferred smaller pours of better wines. Bruce

We use these, too. They really work. We love them. Bruce