Minneapolis Restaurants: Reviews & Recommendations

[Schneier]

Wel, we're not getting the jobs of either Jeremy Iggers or Rick Nelson...so there's no room for us in the "Taste" section.

If they open up another geographical section, we'll get first crack at the restaurant column. Depending on the particular suburbs that the section will serve, we may or may not take it.

And dropping town to every other week was our idea. We just didn't see enough good restaurants to review.

Bruce

[Schneier]

Number 12.

Bruce

*******

Dining South: Spice Thai can warm a cold night

Karen Cooper and Bruce Schneier, Special to the Star Tribune

Published January 21, 2004

January is the perfect time of year to enliven your taste buds and warm up with the light, flavorful and exotic cuisine of Thailand.

Central to Thai cooking is a complex union of flavor provided by ginger, lemongrass, garlic, cumin, basil, mint, lime, tumeric and more. And don't forget the chilies. Thai chefs have produced some of the most astoundingly hot foods we have ever tried (and failed) to eat.

Happily, Spice Thai, newly opened in Savage, is serving wonderful, aromatic food that is hot enough to warm you up but not melt you down.

We love Thai soups and how they symbolize the harmonies and balances of Thai cooking. Thai food is all about balance of tastes. Tom Yum soup is a distinctive hot-and-sour soup with huge shrimps and mushrooms, seasoned with lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, and galangal (similar to ginger), and mixed with the sour note of fresh lime and the sweet note of palm sugar. The combination is pungent and perfect on cold nights.

None of the appetizers inspired us, but Spice Thai offers wonderful, interesting salads. The seafood salad came with shrimp, scallops and squid, seasoned with chili, lime juice, anchovy paste and cilantro. Other salads are served over greens, or are made with thin silver noodles. We recommend at least one salad for the table.

Thai cooking generally uses meat as an accent rather than as the central ingredient. Curries and stir-fried dishes are meant to flavor rice. These are eaten with a spoon or fork, not chopsticks.

We found that Spice Thai has modified tradition for Western, and Midwestern, tastes. There's enough meat in the entrees to satisfy Western appetites, and nothing is too spicy. Dishes can be ordered at five different spice levels. We found both mild and medium to be very bland and hot to be mildly spicy. It wasn't until we got a dish at Thai hot that some of us were impressed.

With most of the entrees, you will select your preparation separate from your protein. Pad Holy Basil, for example, is sauted Thai basil, onion, garlic, chili and vegetables, and can be made with beef, chicken, pork, shrimp, squid or tofu. Closer to Minnesota's heart might be Chu Chee, which is lightly fried walleye fillet in a red curry coconut sauce.

Spice Thai offers five curries. We liked the Gaeng Panang, a brown curry with coconut milk, ground peanut and kaffir lime leaves. Order with your choice of meat or tofu.

Pad Thai is the national dish of Thailand. It's a rice noodle dish with egg, scallions, tofu, peanuts, lime and a distinctive sauce. Even better was the Pork Noodle dish, seasoned with garlic, sprouts, onions and a traditional Thai sauce.

For dessert, order the sweet sticky rice with coconut cream and fresh mango. Or with coconut and egg custard. The sweets are a little better in Thai cookery than they are in most Asian cuisines.

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 at diningsouth@startribune.com.

[snowangel]

Thanks, Bruce. I enjoy the reviews. Will you please post your next Mix review; I don't always have time to stop and pick up a copy.

What do you think the best Thai restaurant is in the Metro area? I've been to Dara Thai a couple of times and really liked it. I keep meaning to get to Foodsmart, but haven't yet.

[sumac]

My current favorite is True Thai, but I will always miss the original Royal Orchid. That was the best for me. Some of my friends think The King and I has some good offerings. I haven't been lately.

[snowangel]

My current favorite is True Thai, but I will always miss the original Royal Orchid.

Interesting you mention this restaurant. I grew up in Thailand, and my folks put a young Thai woman through the University (complete with room and board) as well as "helping" with my sister and I. She was wonderful, and we saw things wouldn't have otherwise. Anyway, she married a Thai man here, and her husband and his sister are the owners of the Royal Orchid. They tested stuff on us before the restaurant opened every Sunday. Sadly, I don't think for most people their new location offers the quality and variety that the old location had. I know that when the owner or his sister are working in the kitchen, the food we receive is better, but I'm not sure if that is due to our relationship.

[sumac]

The last time we went to the new location for Royal Orchid, they didn't have a chef. The guy (also a relative) who used to run the front of the house was cooking and told us his sister who was the primary chef could no longer cook due to an illness or some thing. He was hoping to get a chef from Bangkok; that never happened and if he is still doing the cooking, it is not good. True Thai is doing some excellent things, but we still have not found anything here to top the original Royal Orchid. We are pretty fussy about any of our Asian restaurants as we lived in Singapore for 3 years and know what is authentic.

[snowangel]

Do try Dara Thai . I've not been to True Thai, but it is on the docket for next week or the week following. I'm also really up for trying Foodsmart. It's one of the few places I've heard of where you can buy pre-made curry (at their deli counter; they also have table service ala restaurant), which is sold in every market in Bangkok.

[sumac]

Thanks for the advice. I hope to try Dara Thai and Foodsmart in February. The Chef at True Thai actually used to be at Dara Thai and if you check out www.truethairestaurant.com, they also have a store where you can buy that curry.

[snowangel]

Bruce, the following is from today's Strib (Taste Section, Counter Intelligence column):

SOUTH OF THE RIVER

There's a new face in Burnsville, and although it has sprouted out of a former Ground Round, it's not TGI Friday's, Applebee's or Chili's. Say hello to the Roasted Pear (14200 Nicollet Av., 952-898-2800), an indie owned by Craig Rebers, a veteran of the former Al Baker's in Eagan.

A considerable chunk of change has gone into renovations. Lots of warm tiles and dark wood line a wide-open dining room and bar. The demonstration kitchen turns out pizzas, pastas, sandwiches and salads at both lunch and dinner, expanding in the evening to include entrees that range from cedar plank salmon to a Cajun-style porterhouse pork chop.

Although dinner entrees average $18, most prices fall under $10. The bar pours 22 wines by the glass, and during a late-night Sunday through Thursday happy hour (10 p.m. to midnight), all pizza prices fall to $6.

[Schneier]

Interesting.

Bruce

[snowangel]

Bruce, review this week? Or should I search and post for you?

On another note, Igger's review of Burrito's in today's Strib really sort of pissed me off, for lack of a better word. To concentrate on the chains, and ignore the gems is not what I wanted to read. And, to laud Chipotle for serving sustainable meat products (Niman) in light of all of the other waste that McDonald's promotes really struck a nerve.

I guess what really irked me was the final graph where he says "the tastiest burrito I found on this quest was in an unexpected location: the Taqueria Hacienda, one of the little food stalls located inside the Mercado Central..." Now, this does not surprise me, nor would it surprise most of my friends that one would find the best in a "street stall." And, he totally ignored El Burrito, a downtown Minneapolis institution (2 locations, and I think they have one or two in downtown St. Paul) that has been serving fabulous burritos to downtowner's long before Chipotle was a blip.

End of rant.

[Schneier]

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.

Edited February 10, 2004 by Schneier (log)

[snowangel]

I know where to eat next time I'm in Burnsville...

[Schneier]

I know where to eat next time I'm in Burnsville...

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

Bruce

[snowangel]

No review this past week? I do enjoy reading about your forays into "southern" Minnesota.

[Schneier]

No review this past week? I do enjoy reading about your forays into "southern" Minnesota.

Sorry. I was busy and forgot to post.

Bruce

[Schneier]

Dining South: Junior's Cafe and Grill in Eagan

Karen Cooper and Bruce Schneier, Special to the Star Tribune

Published February 18, 2004

Strip malls don't work in Minnesota, and here's why: When it's 10 degrees below zero, you really need a second door between the bitter weather and the store. But once you've entered Junior's and found a seat away from the icy blasts coming from the door, fill up and warm up with the kind of basic grill cooking you used to find all over America before the rise of fast food.

What we like best about Junior's Cafe and Grill in Eagan is the friendly, family-run atmosphere. No, we like the tender tasty pot roast. No, it's the mashed potatoes. Well . . .let's be honest. We adore the cheap, cheap prices. Imagine a huge half-pound burger on a grilled bun and served with a giant pile of hot fries for $4.

Even better, try the blue-plate specials. These include the pot roast we like so much, country-fried steak lost in white-pepper gravy, meat loaf and several other choices. You'll get real lumpy mashed potatoes --the kind where you sometimes find flecks of potato peel -- and an OK piece of corn on the cob. And thick sliced Texas toast, grilled with some Parmesan cheese. It's a huge plate of food and will run you between $5 and $6.

Sandwiches are just as affordable, with the Philly cheesesteak priced at $5. And that comes with fries. Philadelphia is a long way from here, and this version could use more onions, but it still is an acceptable rendition. The burrito is bland and uninspiring, as is the chili. And the soup and chili should both be served hotter.

Junior's is open for breakfast, too. Where else can you get two eggs, hash-brownsed potatoes and toast for $3, with additional bacon or sausage for $1? The most expensive breakfast on the menu is $7, and that's for either the Cajun andouille sausage breakfast or the Tex-Mex breakfast.

This place is one of the great south-of-the-river deals, make no mistake. Now, it's not perfect. Next time we're in, we're going to ask them to grill our burgers without using the meat press that squeezes the patties dry. We don't mind waiting an extra minute or three for a juicy burger, and neither should you. And we implore Junior's to ditch that butter-flavored oil they use to grill the buns. Spring for real butter guys, please. Minnesota is a dairy state, and we can tell the difference. And we want Heinz, not that no-name ketchup on the table, too. We want malts and fresh-made, hand-dipped onion rings. But hey, there's time. Junior's opened Nov. 2. They're still on a bit of a honeymoon.

[snowangel]

Thanks, Bruce. Reminds me of the place in Goehner, Nebraska where my aunt used to work. Except that they don't use a burger press.

[Schneier]

We've been laid off.

According to our editor at The Star-Tribune's "South" section, she has a limit as to the number of articles she can buy from freelancers. She knew that there was such a limit, but didn't realize that it was as low as it was. Se has to fire all of her freelancers, including us.

She's going to try to fight this. Her problem is that the jobs she hires freelancers for are so small and so specialized that she can't hire a full-timer for them. Our job, for example, requires someone with food knowledge and takes about one day every two weeks. She can't reasonably find a single person to cover restaurants, high-school sports, the local police blotter, and whatever other small writing beats she has. At least, that's her argument.

But this is undoubably a union rule,and that will make it difficult to fight. I'm looking into joining the union, but I don't know if that will help.

So we're going to write up the Italian Pie Shoppe--with that fetching double "p"--and then we're done until we hear otherwise.

We still have to review Singapore! for Mix, though. We'll try to organize an expedition there in mid-March.

B

[snowangel]

I'm disappointed about your layoff!

[Schneier]

Thanks. There are two more reviews to run (I think), and maybe they'll figure something out.

Bruce

[Betts]

Sorry to hear of the job evaporation. I read all your articles and got a real feel for the places.

[snowangel]

Bruce, want me to post your 3/3 review?

And, anything lately in MIX?

[Schneier]

Bruce, want me to post your 3/3 review?

And, anything lately in MIX?

I'll do it now.

And we're in Mix every issue now.

Bruce

[Schneier]

Dining South: Tex-Mex delight in Apple Valley

Karen Cooper and Bruce Schneier, Special to the Star Tribune

March 3, 2004

There are two basic styles of Mexican restaurant.

One is the more traditional variety. Think of small perfect tacos consisting of nothing but grilled pork and cilantro folded into a corn tortilla.

The other style is sometimes called Tex-Mex: tacos filled with plenty of meat and cheese, served with rice and beans and sour cream and some iceberg lettuce. Expect every square inch of the large plate to be covered with food.

El Tequila in Apple Valley is a Tex-Mex place.

The combination plates provide nearly every possible permutation of enchiladas, burritos, tostadas, chalupas and more. We found the combinaciones pequeñas (small combinations) to be huge plates, and the combinaciones grandes only a bit larger.

There's nothing special to recommend any of these dishes, but there's nothing wrong with them either. Remember, though, this is Tex-Mex. Don't order a tamale expecting to get cornmeal wrapped in a corn husk. These tamales are unwrapped in the kitchen and smothered in cheese and sauce before serving.

We really liked their chile relleno, which is a green chili pepper stuffed with beef and cheese and then lightly battered and fried. It's not nearly as hot as you might think, and it's very flavorful.

More interesting are the daily specials, which might be pork in a tomato pepper sauce, chicken in a mushroom sauce, or shrimp and rice. The broiled skirt steak we tried was a huge portion of good fresh beef with some onions and peppers served with the requisite refried beans.

Avoid the chicken en mole. Mole is a traditional Mexican chocolate sauce. It's not sweet, and can be rich, complex and fabulous. Unfortunately, the version served here is bland and odd-tasting.

El Tequila serves two interesting shrimp dishes.

The first is camarones Guadalajara, which is shrimp wrapped in bacon and served with grilled onions and bell peppers. It is tasty, but even better is the camarones a la Diabla.

That means shrimp of the devil, meaning in a hot pepper sauce. The server will ask whether you want it hot or medium. We ordered it hot, and it was scorchingly wonderful. Like almost everything else, this dish is served with rice and beans; these help cut the heat.

Although the restaurant is not open for breakfast, it offers two traditional breakfast dishes. Our favorite is chorizo con huevos, which is scrambled eggs mixed with Mexican sausage. The other is the more traditional huevos rancheros, eggs over easy covered in spicy red sauce. Both come, of course, with rice and beans.

There are some desserts. We liked the sopapilla, which is a fried tortilla topped with sugar, cinnamon, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Like so many family-owned restaurants in the southern suburbs, El Tequila is in a strip mall. The restaurant is small, but brightly colored and brightly lit. And there is another restaurant with the same name, owners, and menu, farther south, in Northfield.

Location: 7538 149th St. W. Apple Valley, 952-432-1567 Hours:

Mon. through Sun.: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Atmosphere: Brightly lit

Service: Friendly and efficient

Sound level: Not too noisy

Alcohol: No, despite the name

Prices: Entrees $7 $10

Smoking: No

Children: Small $3.75 childrens menu

Handicapped access: Yes