Minneapolis Restaurants: Reviews & Recommendations

[Schneier]

It's already on the website.

*****

Dining South: Eagan's Grand India won't sear your palate with spice

Karen Cooper and Bruce Schneier, Special to the Star Tribune

Published November 12, 2003

There's truth to the oft-repeated stories about timid Minnesotans disliking spicy food. Perhaps it stems from the collective Scandinavian consciousness, but many of us lacking a drop of Nordic blood in our veins recoil from hot and spicy foods. Trying the food from some remote land whose national dish is made with handfuls of spices might, therefore, seem like a dangerous idea.

We're not alone. Many Web sites explain Indian food to the British, a people whose traditional diet is no more exotic than roast beef. If the conservative Brits can wholeheartedly pursue lamb rogan josh, Minnesotans should fear not.

Grand India in Eagan is a worthy starting place. Any number of their dishes will give the hot-food haters at the table a chance to try complex and interesting spices that won't burn the palate.

Start with samosas, little pastry-like turnovers stuffed with potatoes and peas. An even better choice is the paneer pakora, a sort of Indian rendition of State Fair cheese curds.

The entrees are all standard northern Indian fare, the stuff you'll find in Indian restaurants everywhere. We suggest any dish called korma; this is a creamy yogurt sauce spiced with coconut, cardamom, cinnamon and garlic. This version is so lightly spiced, it's the perfect dish for suspicious skeptics. Any of the masala dishes are just a bit higher on the spice meter. Masala just means a combination of spices, so this dish can be based on chicken, shrimp and even vegetables.

The rogan josh is a bit hotter with some chili peppers, but it doesn't have as much sauce as a masala dish. Hotter yet is a vindaloo. We've had vindaloos that were too hot to eat in other restaurants, but here the spices aren't overwhelming. We liked it just fine, but we'll ask for it hotter next time.

Grand India serves many vegetarian dishes as well. Alu gobi is a particularly nice spiced cauliflower and potato dish. The vegetable biryani is a fried-rice dish; the vegetables were fresh and in nice big pieces.

All dishes can be ordered either mild, medium or hot. Ordering a normally hot dish as mild won't be authentic, but it will still be tasty.

Don't forget to order nan. Nan is an Indian baked flat bread, perfect for sopping up the sauces that come with the entrees. You can order it plain, but we prefer garlic or onion nan.

Grand India has several traditional desserts. We loved the gulab jamun: deep-fried dough made from powdered milk. This is the Indian equivalent of mini-doughnuts. The homemade kulfi -- ice cream from reduced milk -- is quite good, though not what you're used to from ice cream.

Grand India has an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet seven days a week: $8 on weekdays and $10 on weekends. The dishes vary, and it's a good way to sample several foods. Service can be slow, but it's always friendly. And don't worry about the spices. Once we visited with one of our wimpiest friends. He had a great meal.

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 and tell us at diningsouth@startribune.com.

[snowangel]

Bruce and Karen, you are too kind. I can only imagine...

I want the not-so-spicy real story on Saturday.

[Schneier]

Bruce and Karen, you are too kind. I can only imagine...

I want the not-so-spicy real story on Saturday.

It wasn't that bad. Minneapolis has two kinds of Indian restaurants: okay ones and bad ones. This was one of the former.

I would go back.

Bruce

[snowangel]

No review this week?

[arkestra]

My wife will be in Minneapolis this weekend for a conference. Can anyone recommend some restaurants where she and a colleague or two can have a nice dinner. To give you an idea what she's looking for, here are a few points:

1. Not the most expensive restaurant in town, but some decent/fairly nice places.

2. No chain restaurants.

3. No Mexican or Asian restaurants. (We live in Southern California, where they have plenty of those.)

4. No fish restaurants. My wife is highly allergic to fish, though she can eat shellfish. (Interestingly, I eat fish, but not meat, so we don't share many dishes.)

5. In terms of location, she'll be staying at the Hilton. Though she won't have a car, she's not averse to going away from that area, assuming it's not a big deal.

All suggestions appreciated. Thanks in advance for your responses.

[robyn]

I've only been to Minneapolis once - and that was last year. So I'm not an expert. But the best dining experience my husband and I had was at Goodfellow's. It is right in the middle of downtown. It has a web site - so you can look it up and see whether it looks appealing. Note that even if the food doesn't sound appealing to you for some reason - you have to get there for at least a drink because the original Art Deco interior is spectacular. Robyn

[Schneier]

I have dozens of suggestions. This guide that I wrote is somewhat out of date, but most of it is accurate.

Vincent: A Restaurant for lunch. It's walking distance from the Hilton, and it's the best meal deal downtown.

Cristo's for dinner: Greek. A longer walk, but still a walk.

Big E's Soul Food.

Need more?

Bruce

[Schneier]

Sorry. I was out of town until this evening.

For the first time, our review comes with a picture. It's a picture of the outside of the restaurant, but it is a picture.

Bruce

*****

Wampach's in Shakopee fulfills the family diner's traditional mission

Karen Cooper and Bruce Schneier, Special to the Star Tribune

Published November 19, 2003

Diners used to be the most important restaurants in America.

For infrequent celebrations you went to a supper club, but for a basic hamburger, chicken dinner, or two eggs sunny side up, the diner was where you ate. Diners were once everywhere, offering homemade meals because there was no other option.

Nowadays, family diners are being exterminated by chain restaurants. The corporate dining experience is predictable and acceptable, and lots of people appreciate that. It is admittedly handy to know that the same meal you can get in your town is available in Montpelier or Kalispell. But we want to support those remaining eclectic independent diners. We accept the risk of a lousy meal for a chance at a real homemade one.

All of which takes us to Wampach's in Shakopee. It is a small restaurant, decorated more for utility than fashion. The walls display local art and crafts, which are for sale. Area high-schoolers wait tables at night. And most everything is homemade.

Take the onion rings. They're huge, thick slices of onion, sweet and steaming hot. The batter is great, each ring being a crisp brown piece of irregular shape. Perfect onion rings, the homemade ones, are never perfectly round.

For dinner, there are several good choices. Try the walleye. Unlike the breaded, deep-fried walleye we're used to seeing, this one came lightly fried in a little oil, and the portion was huge. Barbecued ribs came with four huge meaty bones and their own sauce. The chicken fried steak was surprisingly good -- we loved the country gravy. Avoid the meatloaf, which lacked flavor of any kind. Order the liver and onions if you want to scare your children.

Soups change regularly. The ham and cabbage soup was very good, filled with chunks of ham, carrot and potato, but the bean soup was gluey with too much cornstarch.

The American fries, thin-sliced potatoes cooked on the grill, had just the perfect crispy bits and edges. Get the country gravy if you order the mashed potatoes. Unfortunately, the baked potato tasted like it had been sitting around for too long.

We love the pies: strawberry-rhubarb, red raspberry, apple and pumpkin, all available with a scoop of ice cream.

Wampach's half-pound hamburger was wonderful, but the cheese the kitchen uses isn't very good, so skip the cheeseburger. There are also sandwiches galore, including fish, club, Reuben and chicken varieties. Breakfast is available anytime.

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.

[arkestra]

Thanks Bruce. My wife will have some fun reading tonight!

Robyn, thanks for the Goodfellow's recommendation. It looks like a place worth checking out.

[robyn]

I have dozens of suggestions. This guide that I wrote is somewhat out of date, but most of it is accurate.

Vincent: A Restaurant for lunch. It's walking distance from the Hilton, and it's the best meal deal downtown.

Cristo's for dinner: Greek. A longer walk, but still a walk.

Big E's Soul Food.

Need more?

Bruce

I read parts of your guide - and I think we're on the same wavelength. We had a lovely dinner at Aquavit - too bad it closed. I suspect that its cool austere ambience simply wasn't a match for the places on Nicollet which had outside dining during the short Minneapolis summer (the balmy summer night we ate at Aquavit - it was almost empty - while every table on the sidewalk on Nicollet was full). Robyn

[Schneier]

Robyn, thanks for the Goodfellow's recommendation. It looks like a place worth checking out.

Goodfellow's doesn't meet your price criteria. It's the most expensive restaurantin town.

Bruce

[robyn]

Robyn, thanks for the Goodfellow's recommendation.  It looks like a place worth checking out.

Goodfellow's doesn't meet your price criteria. It's the most expensive restaurantin town.

Bruce

The most expensive restaurant in Minneapolis might not seem that expensive to someone from southern California. And - if the price range doesn't fit - appetizers and drinks at the bar are an alternative - just to see the place. Robyn

[snowangel]

Cafe Brenda and Vincent are two of my favorite downtown desinations.

[Betts]

The well respected Dakota recently moved to the Nicollet Mall and the food is great and the jazz makes a great dessert.

[Betts]

The well respected Dakota recently moved to the Nicollet Mall and the food is great and the jazz makes a great dessert.

[snowangel]

The well respected Dakota recently moved to the Nicollet Mall and the food is great and the jazz makes a great dessert.

Bingo! I peeked in the windows the other day, and it looks wonderful. Dakota has a very solid food and music reputation, and from personal experience, very well deserved.

Goodfellows has always seemed very corporate, expense account. There are better places, like some of the others mentioned above.

[Schneier]

\The most expensive restaurant in Minneapolis might not seem that expensive to someone from southern California. And - if the price range doesn't fit - appetizers and drinks at the bar are an alternative - just to see the place. Robyn

Certainly true. I was just trying to follow the rules in the first post.

[arkestra]

Robyn, thanks for the Goodfellow's recommendation.  It looks like a place worth checking out.

Goodfellow's doesn't meet your price criteria. It's the most expensive restaurantin town.

Bruce

The most expensive restaurant in Minneapolis might not seem that expensive to someone from southern California. And - if the price range doesn't fit - appetizers and drinks at the bar are an alternative - just to see the place. Robyn

I checked out Goodfellow's (or should it be Goodfellow's') website. Dinners are indeed expensive, even for someone from Southern California. (High end restaurants in So. Cal. are relatively inexpensive, when compared to places like NY or SF.) The lunch menu, however, seems quite reasonable (they even have a three-course $16 lunch to celebrate their 16th anniversary).

Thanks to all who have responded so far.

[Schneier]

All the high-end Minneapolis restaurants have reasonable lunch menus. Vincent sells food so cheap it's a steal.

[Schneier]

Today's review.

Bruce

*****

Mediterranean Cruise Cafe is a treat for the senses

Karen Cooper and Bruce Schneier, Special to the Star Tribune

Published November 26, 2003

Middle Eastern cuisine is at its best when you try a little bit of everything. And there's no better introduction to the foods and flavors of Middle Eastern hospitality than the mazza table, a sort of Arab smorgasbord of lots of little dishes, where everyone helps themselves.

The Mediterranean Cruise Cafe makes this easy. The menu is a one-stop shop for all sorts of eastern Mediterranean cuisines, from Greek gyros to Lebanese kibbe to Moroccan couscous. It's easy to devise your own mazza table with the dishes that sound tastiest.

All the staples of Middle Eastern cooking are competently done. The tabouli salad is bright with lemon juice and mint, and the tomatoes and cucumbers are fresh. The hummus is so good we spoon it onto everything except the foods we dip into it. The falafel tastes great, though we don't usually cook it in such hot oil; it was browner than we prefer. The baba ghanouj (eggplant dip with garlic) has a wonderful roasted flavor.

Gyros is the roasted ground lamb on a rotating spit that's carved into slices for sandwiches. That rotating spit gives the dish its name, in fact; it has the same root as gyroscope. Here, the gyros meat has a nice, nearly crispy edge to every slice. The meat is cooked to that perfect stage where it's not too soft and not too dry. Not every gyros place does this so well. You can get gyros in the various shawirma dishes, too, if you don't like it in a pita.

We found the chicken kabobs a little dry and the beef kabobs too tough, and the grape leaves stuffed with rice and beef were served in a bland tomato lemon sauce. But we did find an entree worth the trip. This was the Chicken Casablanca Best. Huge pieces of chicken, easily three or four bites big, sauteed in a deceptively simple combination of mushrooms, onions and garlic. The seasoning makes this a little sweet and a little spicy; it's wonderful. There's also a version with shrimp.

We really liked the fried vegetables, especially considering that deep-fried cauliflower and mushrooms are not generally a dish worth writing home about. Here, we recommend it.

Given the various menu items labeled "combo," "feast," and "platter," you can easily put together a whole spread of dishes, so bring a group. This kind of dining is a festive, social meal.

There are many other things on the menu: salads big enough for a meal, steaks and burgers for those who prefer to avoid Mediterranean flavors, seafood entrees and several vegetarian combos and platters.

Desserts are good, though not homemade. We like Middle Eastern desserts; with flaky phyllo dough and nuts and honey it's hard to go wrong. The borma is a nice change from the usual baklava. It is a pastry made from shredded wheat, pistachios and honey.

The Mediterranean Cruise Cafe has belly dancing on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights and at lunchtime on the last Friday of the month.

Show times are Thursday at 7 and 8:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 7, 8:30 and 10 p.m. Call ahead to confirm these times.

You don't want to miss the belly dancing if you're interested in the fun show, and you don't want to catch the belly dancing if you're looking for quiet conversation.

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.

[Schneier]

Our 7th review.

Bruce

************

Classic Chinese dining, American style

Published December 3, 2003

The most familiar Chinese food across America is actually Cantonese cuisine, from the Canton province in southern China. These dishes are characterized by their mild flavors and fresh ingredients cooked with very little oil. Common Cantonese seasonings are ginger, onion, sugar, salt, soy sauce, rice wine, and corn starch. Sometimes you'll see garlic and the peppery mixture called 'five spice powder.' Cantonese dishes include meat, fowl, or seafood, and most dishes are either steamed or stir-fried -- cooking techniques designed to bring out the flavors inherent in the ingredients.

Szechuan food is America's other common Chinese cuisine. The Szechuan province is in the west of China, and isolated from the rest of the country. As such, Szechuan cuisine developed independently, with very flavorful, often fiery dishes. The key ingredient is the hot chili pepper, probably introduced along the Silk Road. You can order the spicier dishes toned down, of course. Chicken, pork, and fish are common in Szechuan food.

The House of Wu in Burnsville serves both Cantonese and Szechuan dishes -- which means it's a standard American-style Chinese restaurant, with a familiar menu. If there's a basic Chinese dish you're looking for, they probably serve it.

Located in a nondescript building on the frontage road of Hwy. 13, the restaurant has been open since 1994 and the decor looks even older. Although we didn't care for the pop music over the PA system, we considered these signs of promise. Restaurateurs should spend money on the food first. That's why we're there.

Skip the uninspiring appetizers. The egg rolls and such were just a little too greasy for us. Have the soups instead. The won ton soup was a perfect light delicate broth, rich with the fresh flavor of pea pods. The won tons were big and meaty, too. We can't think of a better won ton soup anywhere in town. The hot and sour soup was nicely piquant. It had no tofu to speak of but lots of ground pork and, unusually, chopped pickled vegetable. This was delicious, though by no means the standard soup one gets elsewhere.

Black bean sauce is a Cantonese creation, and you can order it with chicken, beef, and shrimp. We tried the chicken, which was wonderfully pungent with garlic and ginger.

We also liked the scallops with oyster sauce. This came with huge sea scallops, perfectly seared. A few water chestnuts generally add desirable crispness to this dish. Here, brightly steamed broccoli added that welcome crunch.

Classic dishes like General Tso's chicken, with its slightly sweet batter-fried chunks of chicken, are terrific. Moo shu pork is quite good. You'll probably want a few extra pancakes with the moo shu; we never seem to have enough. There's a lot to choose from on the menu; you're sure to find something you like.

House of Wu serves an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet for $5.50, which is one of the best meal deals for miles. They also have a 'secret' menu of more exotic Chinese dishes that are less likely to appeal to American palates.

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.

[Schneier]

Review #8.

Is anyone reading these?

Bruce

**********

Dundas cuisine: American bistro is a country oasis

Karen Cooper and Bruce Schneier, Special to the Star Tribune

Published December 10, 2003

We're fond of charming little neighborhood restaurants that serve interesting food and have an interesting wine list as well as a nice dessert selection. We call them American bistros, after the similar French-style restaurants.

And there is something disarmingly appealing about finding an American bistro in a picturesque country town that, taken together, hardly matches the size of most city neighborhoods. In Rice County in the little town of Dundas, population just about 550, Fermentations is an oasis.

It's a small restaurant, with no more than a dozen tables, fewer if there are large parties. It's only open for dinner and only six days a week. The room feels comfortably upscale with its warm pumpkin paint job and French bistro art. A nice effect for a small budget, we think.

Fermentations is as much about the wine as the food. Everything except a few sparkling wines is available by the glass, giving you many options. You can also order wine in flights: small pours of three different related wines. The wine menu has a dozen and a half different flights available, priced from $7 to $20.

Seemingly on a mission to educate the palates of its patrons, Fermentations suggests wine flights for every menu item. Order the Chicken Wellington, for example, and the menu suggests a flight of sauvignon blancs, a flight of other French whites or a flight of Rieslings.

We love this idea. Wine can be such an intimidating thing. Not knowing which wines go with what can make someone feel downright stupid. That can't happen at Fermentations. The menu tells you which wines go with what and then gives you opportunities to learn which wines you prefer. We wish more restaurants would adopt this concept.

The food menu is small, and everything is competently done. Expect frequent changes as the kitchen's inspirations and the seasons change. We liked the various crostini and sheep's cheese combinations, especially the surprise of finding fresh figs in Dundas. The Coquille St. Jacques featured huge sea scallops, sweetly oniony from leeks and nicely complemented with Gruyère cheese. The crab cakes were the weakest of the appetizers; they were dry and flavorless.

One outstanding entree was the fettucine with red pepper cream sauce. This was generously flavored but not really hot, and the truffle oil added a complex note to a simple, truly delicious dish. The optional shrimp added nothing flavor-wise, and it was bothersome and messy to have to remove their tails.

The braised pork was also terrific; the rich veal stock and herbs made it a succulent and memorable dish.

The desserts were all quite good. The slice of spice cake was huge, though it suffered the frequent fault of being served cold. The chocolate pot de creme had a good strong chocolate flavor and a perfect smooth texture. We also liked the poached pear.

Given how strongly the other patrons reminded us of liberal arts professors, the word has spread to Northfield and beyond. We strongly recommend making a reservation. And prepare yourself for a leisurely dinner; service can be slow when it's busy.

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]

I'm reading every one of them!

[AlexP]

Yeah, I am reading too.

Looks like after the potluck and all the snow the Minnesota crew went on hibernation. (I hope that is the right word...)

Anyway, thanks for posting the reviews. Also, I did print your guide from your website and I have looked at it quickly. I enjoy it and I will have it as a reference. Thanks!

Alex

Edited December 11, 2003 by AlexP (log)

[LOS]

I'm reading too.

And I haven't gone into hibernation; I've gone back to Texas for work.