Schneier

I had dinner at Slovenska Restauracia last night, probably the best traditional restaurant in the city. It's at Hviezdoslavova namestie 20, although it's probably easier to say simply that it's across the squre from the Radisson Hotel. The place feels Eastern European, with wooden benches and tables, waiter-intensive service, and a mostly male mostly business clientele. As soon as I sat down, even before seeing a menu, I was offered something from their cold appetizer cart: smoked salmon, melon wrapped with ham, etc. I had some asparagus wrapped with ham, which was pretty good. Then I got the menu. I can't speak for the Slovak version, but the English menu was an absolute hoot. I copied down some of the section headings: After a Well Chosen Aperitif we Offer to You Suggestions of the Neptun When you are Hurry, We Suggest to You Poultry Surprises Suggestions of our Old Mothers We Can Not Forget Also for Vegetarians It Cannot be Missing for Sweets And so on. The dishes were nicely described, first on one line and then on a second. But sometimes the second line was less of a description and more like flavor text: Stuffed Breast of Chicken with Asparagus Served with fine Carrot-Cheese Sauce Specialty a la "Farmers" Style Served with Sour Cabbage Gnocchi The Typical Slovak Meal Roasted Goose a la "Grosby" style, served with Red Wine Cabbage with Apple Sloves and Potatoes Pancakes And a Glass of Red Wine would be fine Grilled Breast of Duck with Chanterelle Cream Sauce Delicacy Combination Goose Liver with red Onion and Toast Bread Please, enjoy your taste Harmony Slovak garlic soup with Beef Meat Strong Garlic Broth with Beef Meat, Bread, and Onion Roasted Goose, Roasted Duck, served with red and white cabbage and Side Dishes Combination I ordered the last two -- I read somewhere that October is goose month in Slovokia. The soup was delicious. It smelled heavily of garlic, and tasted heavily of beef. Everything about it was hearty and good. Then the main course come. It was a ginormous plate of food. If you think of a Mexican restaurant, and one of those plates so covered in food that you can't see the plate, you have the right idea. There was roast duck. There was roast goose. There was sauerkraut with apples. There was red cabbage. There was a savory crepe-like pancake, and two types of bread dumplings. The only downer were the dumplings. One was okay, the other didn't taste like anything. It's only possible culinary value would be to absorb sauce, and this dish didn't have any. But the goose and duck were both delicious, and the various cabbages were tasty. To wash it down, I ordered a glass of red wine, This being Europe, I trusted that a glass of the house red, from a section of the menu entitled "Barrel Wines from the Modra Wine Region," would be good with the restaurant's meal. (No, I don't know the name. There were too many consonants on the label.) Dessert was a selection off the strudel cart. There was apple and wine, cheese and something else, poppy, and -- what I ordered -- cherry and plum. Total cost for the meal: $30. I might go back tomorrow night. There's pork, beef, and chicken on the menu. There's more duck. And there's a venison dish. And a bunch of stuff from the "Slovak Specialities Selection" section of the menu. And Slovak cheese.

Last night I ate dinner at a nice Viennese restaurant called Drei Husaren, "Three Husars" to you. (It's near the Cathedral, Weihburggasse #4.) I had a pumpkin cream soup with a scallop and a dollop of fresh heavy cream. Good, but I would have liked more pumpkin and less cream. And I had a wild rabbit fillet, with juniper sauce, lentils, savoy cabbage, and mashed potatoes formed into the shape of little rabbits and then gently fried. Wild rabbit tastes real different from the farmed rabbit that I generally cook. Delicious. Cost, with a glass of wine, was 66 euros, including a small entertainment charge for the okay piano player.

I just had a really nice meal at Schimanszky (Biberstrasse 2). The restaurant serves traditional Vienneese dishes in an informal atmosphere, and they have an English-language menu. It's mushroom season, and chanterelles are on many of the dishes. Appetizers were a cream of mushroom soup and a warm salad with chanterelles. Entrees were venison goulash with spatzle and veal filets on pasta with chanterelles. We shared a dessert of potato dumplings with a poppy-seed sauce. We had an aperitif of local sparkling wine (half reisling and half gruner veltliner) and a glass of something I can't remember. A fine meal at something like 40 euros a person, including all the wine.

Congratulations.

I had dinner at Adolfo last week, and I can add my recommendation to the others above. The wild mushroom appetizer was delicious, as were both the pigeon (called "dove" on the English menu) and the pheasant. Good desserts, too. They have a very extensive Spanish wine list, although no half bottles and not much by the glass. Pretty restaurant, good service...all in all a great experience. (And their English was way better than my pitiful Spanish.)

I had a great meal at Vau last week. Good dishes, and good wine pairings.

My wife and I were in Honolulu last week, and have three dinners to report. Alan Wong's: K and I had been there a couple of years previously, and while the restaurant was redecorated the food hadn't changed much. We had just arrived, and were tired, so we only shared four appetizers. Everyting was good. Best was the local abalone, served with lobster and mushrooms. Chef Mavro: The besty\ thing about Chef Mavro (that's the name of the restaurant) is their approach to wine. Instead of a normal wine list, they have wines by the glass associated with each menu item. Basically, their sommelier makes ten wine choices for each menu item. Then the staff and knowledgeable friends of the restaurant have a blind tasting of the wine with the food, and choose one wine --sometimes two -- to serve with the dish. And they were good pairings, mostly European. Wine pairings are so often uninteresting; this is the best wine-list idea ever. They offer two tasting menus -- a four course and six course -- and they are happy to accommodate different people at the table doing different things. We shared one four-course menu and one six-course menu, giving us ten dishes and ten wines in all. Looking back over the menu, there were some excellent dishes and some okay dishes. The foie gras with oysters and cabbage was delicious. The mushroom salad with watercress, salsify, and white truffle oil was only okay. The beef was delicious; the lamb was okay. Still, it was the best meal of the three. Hoku's: This was the only disappointment. Located in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel -- a considerable drive from Waikiki -- it was billed as an Asian restaurant. While there were Asian elements, the whole thing seemed forced -- and downmarket considering the price. For example, the Forest Mushroom Pizza wasn't bad with tomatoes, watercress, and cheese, but felt like something you'd find in a bistro. Same with the "Symphony of Ahi": four different ahi dishes that were all good, but informal. The sauteed snails with shrimp and shiitake mushrooms was okay. The best dish was the Portobello Mushroom Carpaccio Salad with Warm Kona Maine Lobster, Golden Baby Beets, Quail Egg, and Black Truffle Vinaigrette. Here again, we only ordered those appetizers. We were too full for anything else. The first two were a short - $10 - taxi ride from our hotel on Waikiki Beach.

Is there a chicken recipe with this wine? Please tell. I have about half a bottle left.

I'm bumping this thread up to the top, because I have basically the same question. My train from Toledo is arriving at 9:30, and my flight to Munich isn't departing until 4:30. So I'm looking for a top-class restaurant for lunch. Coque sounds great, but is it too far? I'd be taking taxis, or the train, to and from the restaurant. Anyone care to meet me for lunch on Sunday?

The Chateau Chalon actually tastes better tonight. I bought some almonds to eat with it.

I agree with Lee; it was a really impressive tasting.

There was a big article about Five in the Star-Tribune yesterday.

I thought Five (the website is about as annoying as possible) opened this week, but our waiter implied that they have been serving food for a few weeks. He kept using the phrase "soft opening," which is something like a Broadway show being in previews. In any case, I had dinner there last night. I'll write about the experience, but please understand that any restaurant this new is still a work in progress. There are likely to be substantial changes to the menu and the style in the coming weeks and months. Most restaurant reviews don't review a new restaurant for a few months, to give them a chance to settle down. Because Five is such a big deal, we're likely to see "first look" sort of articles before then. We had a terrific meal and a great time there, which bodes well for these early articles. Five is Stuart Woodman's new restaurant. Woodman is one of Minneapolis's star chefs, most recently from Levain and before then from New York. He has the sort of pedigree you rarely see in this town. Among the foodies, his new venture is the most anticipated new restaurant in a couple years. The restaurant is in South Minneapolis, on Bryant just north of Lake street -- around the corner from the Bryant Lake Bowl. It seems like an odd location for such an upscale restaurant, but it looks good from the darkened street. The building is the old police 5th Precinct house, a pretty stone structure with large windows. Some neon announces the building. The inside is modern and moody, and mostly pretty. Downstairs is a trendy looking bar area. Dara Moskowitz has reported that the bar has "a short Asian bar menu," but I can't confirm or deny. Upstairs are two restaurants: a large room with a what Woodman has called an "American bistro" menu, and a smaller fine-dining room that will open in a few months. We mostly liked the decor. It was pretty and sparkly, but the bright lights from both the kitchen and the staircase were jarring. That's something easily fixed, though. The menu consists of 9 appetizers, 10 entrees, and 7 desserts. The waiter took pains to warn us that we should order our appetizers and entrees at the same time, and went on to claim that many customers find this strange. Does anyone know of any "good" restaurant where you order appetizers, eat them, and then order your entrees? Whatever. The food was mostly fantastic. Appetizers: "Fall Lettuce Soup: Light cream soup of lettuces and sweet vegetables." An absolute winner. Good flavor and texture. "Tomato Terrine: Pressed tomatoes, pacotized tomato sorbet, smoked salt." The dish of the night, I thought. It was a block of intensely flavored tomatoes, a scoop of intensely flavored tomato sorbet, with a fascinatingly smokey taste from the salt. (Near as I can tell, "pacotized" just means "made with a Paco Jet.") "Duck Salad: Roasted breast, confit of leg, lobster vinaigrette, macerated celery root." A bit fo shredded confit, some breast slices on top, sauce around, and a pile of celery root. I thought it was okay. The duck and sauce was delicious, and the celery root was good, but I don't think they worked together as well as I wanted them too. I also wanted this dish to be hotter. "Beet Salad: Goat cheese parfait, melange of beets, yukon golds, truffle vinaigrette." Standard beet and goat cheese dish with a nice hint of truffle. Entrees: "Scallops: Corn waffles, frisee, bacon vinaigrette." Absolutely delicious. The corn waffles were made in a waffle press, and were intensely flavorful. The scallops were delicious, and went well with the sauce. The frisee pulled it all together. Nice job. "Tilapia: Sauteed, braised brussel sprouts, mustard sauce, fox nut risotto." Also delicious. Nice piece of fish on a bed of risotto with brussel sprouts and sauce arranged around it. "Tuna: Grilled tuna stea, pomme frites, peppercorn sauce. Not bad, but nothing special. The pomme frites were not what you'd expect; they were bug blocks of lightly fried potato. "Chicken: Minnesota dirty rice, Calabrese sausage, piquillo sauce, basil oil." Surprisingly tasty chicken in a good preparation. "Lamb: Grilled rack of lamb, parsley puree, cracked wheat, cardamon crust." This dish was far away from me at the table, so I only got to taste the cardamon-crusted lamb. Delicious. Rumor was that the rest of the dish was good, too. Desserts: "Ode to the Crisp: Chocolate feuilletine, coffee creamaux, chocolate coffee wafer, cocoa nibs." Good. "Tart: Confit pineapple, coconut ice milk, shiso syrup." Delicious. "Beignet: Dark chocolate filled, black cardonon dipping sauce." The beignets were delicious, and I thought were better without the sauce. Five has a nice wine list, with an emphasis on reasonably-priced food-friendly wines from around the world. Their by-the-glass list is slimmer than I'd like, but they do have some half bottles for sale. Cost is very reasonable for what we got. An appetizer and entree per person, a bottle plus a glass of wine, and three desserts came to $50 per person plus tip. When it opens, the fine dining room will be more expensive -- and only serve tasting menus. (At least, that's what the current plan seems to be.) Service was a bit rough around the edges, but mostly very nice. They weren't crowded (it was a Friday night, but it was also before any real publicity), so I can't comment on the noise level. My main worry about Five is its location. It's got the same problem as Levain: it's a special-occasion destination restaurant. It's too far from downtown to get a lot of walk-in convention and business-traveller business. And it's too expensive for a typical night out for the typical Minnesotan. Levain is surviving because Turtle Bread makes enough money to subsidize it. My guess is that Woodman hopes his bar/lounge downstairs will make enough money to subsidize the restaurants, or at least the expensive fine-dining one. But the neighborhood is more Bryant-Lake Bowl sorts of people. I hope Woodman can pull it off.

Minneapolis is a come-as-you-are sort of town.

I finally managed to find time to get to Chicago, and got a reservation. November 2nd.

I agree that Tiburon is more about the atmosphere, but if that's what you want it's a good place to get it. I've had good food experiences at Sapor, although I admit that I haven't been there in over a year. I should also recommend Bakery on Grand, if you want to head into South Minneapolis.

Michelin has some good Vienna suggestions, but I don't know of anything Slow Food. (I'm going in October, and have started researching dinner options.)

Can you pickle and can them?

The new thing at the Minnesota State Fair this year is spagetti and meatballs on a stick. No, I didn't try one. Bruce

Breakfast at Hell's Kitchen. High end: dinner at Vincent's. Pho Tau Bay is at Nicollet and 29th. It's a hole-in-the-wall great Vietnamese place. Rainbow Chinese is the best Chinese in that area -- it's a few blocks closer on Nicollet -- but if you can get to Shuang Cheng by the university you'll have a better meal. Another high-end choice: If you have a car, drive to Levain on Chicago and 40-something. Other suggestions: Tiburan Carribean Bistro. Sapor. Cosmos is cool, but read about it before hand. It's not cheap, but it's good for what it is -- assuming you want what it is. Regarding the other recommendations: Origami is a fine place, but nothing you can't get elsewhere and it's a bit expensive. Bobino is okay, but not great. Cafe Brenda is a great suggestion. Bruce

The good restaurant is in the Sheraton hotel, at the airport.

Where is cabbage originally from?

I've searched the site for technical information on how to make foam, but there doesn't seem to be much. I have a whipped cream canister and charges. So far I've tried three foams: tomato foam, tamarind foam, and blue cheese foam. Results have been mixed. For the first two, I mixed gelatin with the liquid and then cooled it. For the third, I mixed the cheese with heavy cream and didn't add gelatin. Can anyone give me some advice on how much gelatin to mix in with the liquid? Bruce

The Amsterdam Falafelshop is indeed fantasric. Probably the best falafel I've had in this country. You get your choice of small or large, white or wheat bread. And there's a toppings bar so you can make your sandwich the way you like it. And french fries. And brownies -- no pot -- for dessert. Good, cheap, and fast. What more can you want? It's open until 4:00 AM on weekends. That's everything, I think. Bruce

My wife and I regularly split wine pairings. We're happy to share a single glass, but usually we're given a glass each. Sometimes we don't say anything, and the sommelier starts bringing out two glasses once he figures it out. Bruce