Minneapolis - a complete experience

[gfron1]

I'm going to be in MNPS the week after Memorial Day to guest chef in St. Croix, and decided to make a week of it. I've already booked a dinner at Spoon and Stable. Now I"m looking for pastry shops, chocolatiers, food trucks, cheesemakers, charcuterie, artisan food makers, cocktail bars, etc.

 

What would you include in a 5 day foodie dream visit?

[curls]

Foodie stuff that I enjoyed the last time I was in the area:

- St. Croix Chocolates

- Butcher & the Boar

- NordicWare factory store

And if you have a chance to tour the James J. Hill House, I highly recommend it. It includes a tour of the kitchen which is quite small given the size and quantity of events at the house.

[Smithy]

The Farmers' Markets are great, too. There's a central FM in St. Paul and at least one in Minneapolis. (By 'central' I mean all in one place; you can also stroll along the Nicolette Mall in Minneapolis to catch farm stands on certain days.)  You're likely to find good artisans at St. Paul for sure, maybe also in Minneapolis.

 

Edited to add these links for more information:

St. Paul Farmers' Market

Minneapolis Farmers Market

[gfron1]

Foodie stuff that I enjoyed the last time I was in the area:

- St. Croix Chocolates

She's the one hosting me as guest chef, so I'll be able to check out her brand new (historic) building space.

[curls]

She's the one hosting me as guest chef, so I'll be able to check out her brand new (historic) building space.

Wonderful! I'm looking forward to seeing her new (2nd location) the next time I am in Minnesota. Robyn's original location is very nice and I really like the layout of her shop and her Selmis. I hope you have the time to tour both of her locations.

[gfron1]

First draft at my itinerary. Asterisks show my level of interest and whomever is chauffeuring me around can decide where I have to go. There are a few items that have specific times but otherwise I dropped them into the bottom to go whenever makes most sense. If there are any time/day restrictions people know about please let me know. I'll be researching hours and locations later this week:

Tuesday, May 26th
Arrive 11 pm in Mnpls

Wednesday, May 27th
Morning forage with Steve Monson and Kelly Haggenbush
In kitchen no later than 1 pm
St. Croix Chocolate Company dinner; Seatings at 6 and 8 pm BOTH SEATINGS ARE SOLD OUT

Thursday, May 28th
9:30 Spoon & Stable (table of 4)

Friday, May 29th
Piccolo* or Saffron for dinner

Saturday, May 30th
11 am One on One Bike Studio – Black walnut Kouign Amann 
Gyst – fermented food and drink; happy hour****

Sunday. May 31st
Arrive 2:23 pm in Tucson

To Dos
Pastry/Chocolate
Pattiserie 46 (chocolate cake won coup de monde) - cannelles
Rustica Bakery*

Specialty
Red Table Meat Co.*
Herbivorious Butcher

Cocktails/Beer
Marvel Bar*
Surly brewery (have to arrive early or wait)
Urban Growler – smaller more intimate
Bang Brewery – even smaller and better
Hammerheart Brewery – brewed in Nordic tradition*
DuNord Craft Spirits – local alcohol**
Dangerous Man Brewery

Grand Ave.
Café Latte (turtle cake)
The Golden Fig (local products) get the honey bonbon**
St. Paul Cheese Shop

St. Paul Farmers Market (cheeses)
Midtown Global Market

[Kerry Beal]

Can't wait to see the report Rob!

[gfron1]

All I can say is that as I sit in my hotel room on my final night, I am so stuffed and sensory overloaded from all the great food and drink. What you see below was done in two half days and one full day. I get the gold star.

 

Golden Fig 790 Grand Ave, St Paul, MN 55105

A great spot to find local products. The young woman behind the counter was extremely helpful as I talked through my agenda with her and she made some suggestion of her own. Bought Talmadge Farms beet pickles (Duluth), Chuck Fred smoky spiced salami from Red Table (Mnpls), Mr Lee’s Ancient Chinese Secret cocktail bitters (St. Paul), and some honey bonbons from Mademoiseile Miel.

 

Grand Ave itself didn’t do much for me and I’m sure I missed plenty of opportunities, but I’m just not a wander and shop type of guy.

 

Hmongtown Marketplace 217 Como Ave, St Paul, MN 55103

Fun visit for my in-town family who had never been. We walked both buildings and the outdoor area and realized there was a lot of ticky tack crap, but a few interesting things – the medicinal roots and the outdoor nursery. Ultimately we found out way to the food court which has maybe a half dozen stalls all with Hmong sausage. We ordered about 10 things for 3 of us and it cost $12. Everything was pretty good and certainly worth the visit. We thought that the 2nd to last booth was our favorite and their hot sauce was the highlight. I liked their purple sticky rice and sausage, and not so much on the banana leaf steamed catfish.

 

Spoon & Stable  211 1st St N, Minneapolis, MN 55401

This was the main reason for the trip (besides my own guest cheffing of course), and I found it odd how many people said they wanted reports because they’ve heard mixed things. I think the “mixed” is that Chef Gavin has had a shit ton of press on this place and so some people are jealous/skeptical/angry. Quite frankly, as someone who doesn’t have a poker in this fire, the meal was perfect. Its not necessarily my style of food because I like more local, seasonal and light, but Gavin has great skills and a great team. We dined with Sean Sherman (Sioux-Chef.com) so I could talk forage, and between us we had 4 small plates, 4 wines or cocktails and 4 entrees and there wasn’t a one that we didn’t think was flawless or near flawless. Some oddities that we noted, however – I had the pork and clams…odd combo. I liked my pork. I liked my clams. Not sure why they were on the same plate, but with his classic French training, that meat was perfectly cooked and that sauce below was to die for. We all agreed that our curd wasn’t as good as at the state fair, and that our roasted crisp potatoes were the best thing on the table…maybe not so much at $8 for .30 cents worth of ingredients, but they were really good.

 

Rustica Bakery 3220 W Lake St, Minneapolis, MN 55416

I’m a pastry whore. I see ‘em. I eat ‘em. Good or bad. So as we entered the pastry phase of my exploration I knew I was in trouble. Rustic had beautiful work. I got a cherry fragnipane, kouign amman, a ricotta tart and an olive loaf. As others have mentioned, I found the flavors just a spot above P46. I much prefer the ambiance at P46, and the staff at Rustica was a bit off putting to me. Not sure what that was about because their food wasn’t presented as precious and pretentious, but the service was. On the flipside, I thought P46 presented their food as precious (I’ll save from saying pretentious) but the staff was so friendly. And here’s the thing. The P46 staff was clearly proud of and excited to be selling their amazing works. Rustica…well, she was doing her job.

 

Patisserie 46 552 Grand Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55419

I said much of my peace above about P46. Here I ordered the lemon tart, the award winning chocolate cake, a peanut butter cookie (mine is much better , the walnut currant loaf, a macaron and a canelle. Everything was good. My canella was 30 seconds overcooked, but still great. That cake was yummy, especially the texture. But as I said the service would bring me back here regularly if what I experienced at both is a norm not an exception.

 

South Lyndale Liquor 5300 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55419

I’m glad I don’t live near this place – holy crap is it amazing! I mean, they offer free samples of all of their alcohols! Who the hell does this!? I skipped the samples, forced myself not to look at the amazing beer selection and focused on getting a couple of local boozes. I bought Solveig gin (Hallock, MN) and Fitzgerald gin (Mnpls). I was going to get the whisky shown on duNord’s website but apparently that’s misleading because they aren’t even close to releasing it yet. Great liquor store.

 

Sociable Ciderwerks 500 Fillmore St NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413

I don’t think anyone mentioned this place which is unfortunate. Glad my cousin knew about it because a nice stop for something different.

 

Indeed Brewing 711 NE 15th Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55413

Not mentioned either, but we were in the neighborhood. It was fine. Nice space, good enough beer, nice staff.

 

Kramarczuk's 215 E Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55414

Again, in the neighborhood. We needed a light lunch after all the pastry shops and somehow ended up here – actually, there’s no mystery to it – my family has internal guiding mechanisms for German, Polish or Slavic foods. We love our sausage and cabbage rolls. Too bad I couldn’t buy any of their sausages to take home due to my space restrictions.

Dangerous Man 300 2nd St NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413

I’m so turned around in this city that I have no idea why we’re where we are, but cousin pulled us into DM for a quick beer. I had the Chocolate Milk Stout which was very good. Apparently my cousins have growlers from everywhere and keep filling them up.

 

Gyst  E 26th St, Minneapolis, MN 55404

THE highlight of my trip. Now, if you’re not a hardcore foodie, it may not be, but I found them to be so knowledgeable, passionate and focused on what their schtick was that it blew me away. Go in early when you can talk to the staff, otherwise it’ll just be cheese, meats and pickles. I can’t say it enough how blown away I was by this place. We did a cheese board and a pickle board…skipped the meats because they were Red Table which I experienced elsewhere. I also had the team send me short pours of wine til I couldn’t take any more. All were good, the Georgian wine, while not may favorite, was by far the most interesting to me. Just a perfect experience.

 

Piccolo 4300 Bryant Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55409

First, don’t be doofuses – get a Facebook page…not sure what craziness that’s all about. Now, we did the 5-course deal and I asked for wine pairings even though they don’t offer them. I would say that this is the most similar to my own restaurant so I judged it accordingly. Everything was well prepared and well presented. Enjoyed the server who was playful with us.

 

Mill City Farmers Market

Hit the Farmers Market and it was kind of pointless since I was jumping on the plane. I’d guess 40 booths with maybe 10 being produce, 5 baked goods, 10 jarred products. I walked away with some nice honey. Good recommendation, but bad timing for me. As was suggested, its very focused on smaller artisanal producers. Parking was a pain because of the construction.

 

One on One Bike Studio 117 Washington Ave N, Minneapolis, MN 55401

I pre-ordered my kouign amman with Black Walnut and sure enough it was waiting for me. Absolutely better than Rustica’s and only $3! Odd little thing eating her very messy pastries in in the bike shop and not looking at bikes. But it was worth it.

 

Sociable Cider Werks 1500 Fillmore St NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413

Finally made it here right before they opened and wow, what a crowd was gathering on Saturday at noon (they open at 4 on weekdays). Had their stoutish cider and enjoyed it. Super friendly staff. Came back later for a growler of a lighter cider.

 

Urban Growler 2325 Endicott St, St Paul, MN 55114

Sat outside on a beautiful day and had a porter. Not much to say. It was good, but a bit crowded for me.

 

Bang Brewery 2320 Capp Rd, St Paul, MN 55114

This was more my style. Low-key, small, friendly staff who’s kitchen heygeine blew me away. I can’t remember which beer I had but we all agreed that this was the return-to spot, but quite frankly I was so done with putting food and drink in my body and we went home and crashed.

 

Had to skip but really wish I had made it:

Hammerheart Brewery

The Herbivorous Butcher (Vegan butcher pop-up)

Local D’Lish – sounded interesting but felt like it would have been like the farmers market which wasn’t logical since I was traveling.

Haute Dish – it was right next to the Bike Studio but I just couldn’t eat anymore at that point in the trip.

Marvel Bar*

 

Hands down the most exciting part of the trip was Gyst. I can not rave enough about my experience there.

[gfweb]

How'd the guest chef thing go?

[gfron1]

It went super. Sold out both seatings.

[Deryn]

Thanks for the rundown, gfron. Glad you seem to have had a great trip!

 

Pork and clams - don't seem that strange a combo to me. A number of cultures like those two together, particularly, I believe, the Portugese. How was your dish cooked?

Edited May 31, 2015 by Deryn (log)

[Smithy]

Thanks for the writeup, Rob. It gives me some places to check out next time I'm down there with time to wander. I'm delighted to see Talmadge Farms' products distributed down there. Have you opened the beet pickles yet?

[gfron1]

I'm still in airports so nothing opened yet. Having fun bringing my induction burners through TSA in my carryons. Also, a quick edit - apparently Piccolo does have a Facebook page - never found it on my computer (probably a gps issue), but someone showed me a screen capture.

[huiray]

Pork & clams – besides the Portuguese, the combination is common in East & SE Asian cuisine.  Just google "chinese pork clams" or "asian pork clams" and tons of stuff pours out.

 

It might be useful for folks who don't eat much non-Western stuff (or to think about it that much) to consider that the food-pairings between, for example, North American and East Asian cuisines are based on different principles. There are great affinities between certain Western-type cuisines ("North American" & Western European); while certain others (Latin American & Southern European) have overlaps with E Asian cuisines.

http://www.nature.com/srep/2011/111215/srep00196/full/srep00196.html

(The article cited used a Korean-based database, true; but the principle applies across E/SE and even S Asian cuisines.  There is another paper that makes the same sort of conclusions for S Asian food; I've posted about both elsewhere here on eG)

[Deryn]

Thanks, Huiray. I agree.

 

I said a number of cultures because I know these two foods in combination are quite common in cuisines around the world. The Spanish have a version - chorizo and clams - which may be more familiar to American palates, but I figured that if gfron had had his dish prepared in that manner he would have said chorizo (even though chorizo is a pork product).

 

gfron has quite a wide range of culinary experience so I was surprised that he was surprised at being given that combo - which is why I was interested in how it was prepared.

Edited June 1, 2015 by Deryn (log)

[gfron1]

I'm back home and not bloated and sleep deprived so now I can answer this better. The pork was ribs...possibly sousvide, but I'm almost certain just slow cooked. Light saucing on it which was mildly sweet but seemed to play off of the midwest BBQ genre. The two clams were both steamed and in-shell on the plate. The vegetables on the dish were tied with the BBQ. Really, I promise you, it didn't make any sense.

[Deryn]

Ah, thanks, gfron. Sounds as though the 'mistake' in this case, is that the clams were maybe just an afterthought and the chef really didn't do a great job constructing/designing a plate using these two ingredients so that they worked together, not that these cannot work together. Poor choices on the chef's part.