Visit to the Twin Cities

I got a chance to go out to Minneapolis-St Paul last week to help with the installation of a rack at one of our customer sites.  Everyone cracked jokes that it would be freezing and that I would regret every stepping foot off the plane.  So I guess my sunny personality warmed things up because MSP was unseasonably warm all 4 days I was out there.  Supposedly it had been freezing and in the 30s before I arrived but when I was there, it was beautiful Fall weather.  Who says Minnesota has bad weather?!?!  Not me!

I spent most of my time either at the site or in my hotel room working but I did get a chance at night to get a taste of what MSP has to offer, literally.  I was too tired after working all day to do a lot of photography so I focused on my other passion...food.  I found a few places on Chowhound and suffice to say, MSP has some seriously good eating.  I went to Bar La Grassa (a modern pasta / Italian place), The Nook (a St. Paul joint which serves "The Nookie" or Juicy Lucy), and Bangkok Thai Deli (yep, you guessed it, Thai food).

I did take a few night shots one night of the Stone Arch bridge area so we'll start with those pics first:

Perhaps one of the most quintessential dining experiences in the Twin Cities is to get a "Juicy Lucy".  What's a "Juicy Lucy" you ask? Well it's quite simple, it's a heart attack waiting to happen cheese stuffed burger.

The Nook is one of the better known places in St Paul for getting this delectable delight known as the Juicy Lucy except here, they call it "The Nookie" because they love Star Wars. Ok, I made up that last bit.  I think they just wanted to distinguish themselves from the other Juicy Lucy purveyors especially since they have a really tasty version and have great buns (let's keep this G-rated folks - keep your mind out of the gutter.)  I ordered the Paul Molitor which was a burger stuffed with pepper jack cheese (perhaps Molly loved pepper jack cheese?)

When I bit into it, I thought to myself, "HEY, where's the cheese?!?!?"  And then when I went for my second bite, it appeared and just flowed all into my burger basket.

Talk about a Juicy Lucy newbie mistake!

I probably should've held it with a gentle grip as opposed to the vise like version I used thinking it was a normal burger.  Oh well, I didn't lose all the cheese.  Plus, the cheese made a pretty good sauce for the awesome hand cut fries that came with the burger.  Oh yeah, I also had some fried cheese curds to start.  They were good but didn't quite live up to the hype because they didn't "squeak" when I was chewing them.

All in all, it was a good experience to try out some authentic MSP grub at a neighborhood joint.

The other memorable meal I had was at Bar La Grassa.  I sat at the "Pasta Bar" and got a nice view of the open kitchen where they created all the tasty...pasta.

I started with a couple bruschetta.  One was the Spiced Carpaccio and the other was the Soft Eggs and Lobster.  The chef was nice enough to allow me to try one of each as opposed to getting 2 for each order as is normal.  The spiced carpaccio was good but the soft eggs and lobster bruschetta was phenomenal!  It had sweet lobster, eggs that were...soft, some truffle oil, a bit of goat cheese and chives.  It went really well with the grilled bread.  One of the best things I ate that night for sure.

Spiced Carpaccio Bruschetta

Soft Eggs and Lobster Bruschetta

From there I ordered not one, not two, not three, but FOUR pastas.  Hey, they're known for their handmade pastas alright.  Yeah, so I decided to go big that night, but I have to admit, I did order the half portions.  Pretty much all were very good but a couple stood out in particular.  The Orecchiette with Braised Rabbit and Gnocchi with Cauliflower and Orange.  

The Orecchiette was great from a textural and comfort perspective.  The orecchiette was nice and chewy (MUCH better than the dry stuff you can buy) and the rabbit's flavor (rabbit braised in white wine with celery, carrots and thyme I believe) was great and perfect after a long day on the plane smelling recycled air.

Now the gnocchi was nothing short of revelatory.  It was THE BEST gnocchi I've ever had.  Light, a little bit crisp from a sear in the pan and finished with caramelized cauliflower and a cream and orange juice reduction, it was an amazing combination of  flavors I never would have thought of but worked perfectly.  I really wish I could find it back here in the DC area because I would probably order it every week...I feel bad that Linda couldn't share this dish because she quite possibly is the world's #1 fan of gnocchi.  In fact, she even likes it when we make it from the Trader Joe's bag (those gnocchi are like balls of leaden mashed potatoes).  She did ask me if it was worth a trip to MSP just to try it.  I'm tempted to say yes...

I also had chicken cappelletti with sage pesto.  It was good but not amazing.

The Pasta Negra (Pasta made with squid ink) with Sea Urchin butter, Chili, Mussels and Tomato would've been better if it weren't so acidic.  Mind you, I love sour things.  This dish's acidity dominated the whole dish.  On the other hand, it was fun trying out squid ink pasta for the first time.

One of the other dinners I had was at Bangkok Thai Deli.  I had high hopes because so many people on Chowhound gave it rave reviews but honestly, it was just "ma ma hoo hoo" (that's Milton's pinyin version of ok in Mandarin Chinese proper pinyin spells it as ma ma hu hu).  I think I may just not be as big a fan of the Hmong version of Thai compared to Thai Thai.  The location was definitely unique.  I walked into a building expecting to see a door for a restaurant but instead see stores to my left and right and then an open eatery type area where some of the workers are squeezing lime juice for use by the kitchen.  Mind you, I wasn't bothered by the "ambiance" in the least.  I'm used to eating from food stands in Taiwan where the proprietor brought the whole set up to that street corner using a motorcycle.  Unfortunately, the food just didn't live up to the hype or ambiance.

The beef noodle soup recommended by the waitress was just "ma ma hoo hoo" as the noodles were soft, broth was average, and the meat a little tough. 

The green papaya salad also wasn't quite as good as I had hoped.  I usually LOVE papaya salad but maybe I didn't like this version as much due to the different amounts of the various flavors.  This one had a lot more stinkiness due to the crab which is usually ok if it's offset by enough acidity from lime (I've grown used to stinky food now that I've been married to a Vietnamese girl for so long).  This dish obviously didn't have that acidity which was perhaps was the biggest reason I didn't love the salad.

In the end, I must say MSP is a pretty cool area.  The traffic there is a joke compared to DC and the people really are friendly dontchaknow.  That "dontchaknow" was put in there in a weak attempt at humor.  I honestly never heard anyone say that once.  Whoever said everyone in the Midwest talks like the people in the movie Fargo were lying.  On top of the sweet traffic patterns and nice people, MSP had some pretty tasty food which is always awesome in my book.  MSP gets a one and a half thumbs up from me.  The other half thumbs up will come when Linda can visit with me and give me her opinion on things.