A Meaty, Boozy Father's Day
Polynesian Cocktail Party
10 Spicy Snacks
Party Food from the Corner Store
How to Make Nut Milk
Sausage Recipes of the Month
Making the Internet rounds these days is a Google map titled "The Most Unusual Restaurants in the World." With hundreds of little map pins scattered throughout, it raises hopes of being a unique strange-food and/or strange-experience extravaganza, but upon scrutiny, it's not all that it's cracked up to be.
The map gets an "A" for concept: Novelty dining can be a fun way to break up a road trip, and it's an interesting way to organize a map. But this gets a gentleman's "C-minus" for execution ... at least in Minnesota and Wisconsin, a part of the country where I generally know what I'm talking about.
The Good
Al Johnson's, Door County, Wisconsin: A Swedish restaurant with goats parked on its grass roof? OK, that qualifies. I've been going to Al Johnson's since I was preliterate, and the food quality has varied wildly over the years, but it certainly has always been unusual.
Chanhassen Dinner Theater, Twin Cities: Locally legendary. Whether it's an experience worth having is debatable, but, sure, it's a very large, ambitious dinner theater, and that's kind of weird.
The Sort of Stupid
Organ Piper Pizza, Milwaukee: A pizza place where music is played on an organ. Technically unusual, but that's your best shot for the whole city of Milwaukee? Really?
Scenic Rail Dining, northwestern Wisconsin somewhere: The only thing unusual about rail dining (eating on a train) is that this map lists about 1,500 different opportunities to partake of it, to the exclusion of nearly everything else other than giant milk bottle restaurants.
Seriously, it's as though the National Registry of Giant Milk Bottle Restaurants and the American Society of Rail Dining Experiences were both imported wholesale to build this map's database.
Some of What They Missed, Just Sorta Off the Top of My Head, No Real Research Because I Have a Lot of Things to Do Today
JJ Astor, Duluth: A revolving restaurant with gorgeous views of the harbor and the hills.
Al's Breakfast, Minneapolis: An alley with a tin roof over it. Seats 12 people if you're willing to pack cheek to jowl, and it may well serve the best pancakes in America.
Matt's Bar, Minneapolis: Quite possibly the birthplace of the Jucy Lucy, the cheese-stuffed hamburger that defines South Minneapolis bar food. Gritty atmosphere up the yin-yang.
Norske Nook, Osseo, Wisconsin: With dozens upon dozens of house-made pies, Norske Nook is less a restaurant than a pie shop that serves food. It's an I90/94 legend.
Kroll's East, Green Bay: Among the last of a mostly dead breed of old-school Wisconsin burger joints, featuring butter burgers, push-button-summoned service, and food wrapped in waxed paper.
Bunky's, Madison: Home to "spaghetti on the board," an anarchic communal spaghetti feeding frenzy.
Safe House, Milwaukee: The world's least secret "secret" restaurant/speakeasy, featuring a "secret" door and a "secret" password. If you like Midwestern novelty restaurants and you don't know about the Safe House, something has gone horribly wrong.
So, while not useless, "The Most Unusual Restaurants in the World" has a long way to go before it becomes a serious dining resource. If it updates regularly and takes suggestions seriously, it could become a hell of a neat project over the long haul. If not, at the very least it'll help you with all of your giant milk bottle restaurant needs, whatever those might be.
Update: The byline was corrected on this story on Thursday, August 25, 2011.
The link worked fine for me, maybe you're missing a plug in? I would think your browser would tell you though if you were.
Anyway, I thought this list was pretty cool. I wish I had this handy when I was living in Europe. I wanted to suggest Sit n Spin which used to be in Seattle, it's another place where you could do your laundry while getting something to eat or see a concert, but alas, it is...+READ
The link worked fine for me, maybe you're missing a plug in? I would think your browser would tell you though if you were.
Anyway, I thought this list was pretty cool. I wish I had this handy when I was living in Europe. I wanted to suggest Sit n Spin which used to be in Seattle, it's another place where you could do your laundry while getting something to eat or see a concert, but alas, it is closed.-COLLAPSE
So, am I the only one who can't get this link to work? I just get a blank page. I tried changing browsers (Firefox, then Safari) but still, nada. I waited a day to see if the site came back up--no change.
Martha113, here's a link to the site displaying the map and listings:
http://restoran.us/trivia/unusual.htm
Deborah from CHOW
I am disappointed that nothing happened when I clicked on the mnap. I would have enjoyed reading about the unusual restaurants on the West Coast.
Why do you have to program a page like this with pop-ups? Did you think we were going to read this brief article and then NOT click on the map link it is about?? Really, we will survice without having this page stay open while we explore the Map in question. Chow.com isn't that all-important. Just disbale the pop-up and let us redirect in the same window with one painless click.
Oh, dear Unusual Restaurants, if you think it's rude to find a casual review of something under "Sort of Stupid," you're going to have a very hard time on the internet indeed. Try to step back a little, or I fear you're going to have a hard time of it.
I agree with the other commenter, though--a place that serves a lot of pies is weird? Really? And you'd have to work a lot harder to convince...+READ
Oh, dear Unusual Restaurants, if you think it's rude to find a casual review of something under "Sort of Stupid," you're going to have a very hard time on the internet indeed. Try to step back a little, or I fear you're going to have a hard time of it.
I agree with the other commenter, though--a place that serves a lot of pies is weird? Really? And you'd have to work a lot harder to convince us about the burger joints. (Being in a hurry is one thing, but vague descriptions are another--better not to mention them.) Pizza and pipe organs sound a lot less run of the mill. I could name lots of places that are similar your other entries in one respect or another, but I don't know anywhere that has a pipe organ along with its food.-COLLAPSE
Thank you for review and positive notes.
We added "Safe House" restaurant, as per suggestion (though we knew about it, but did not include it).
We will not add several mentioned places in Minnesota and Wisconsin. They are very fine restaurants, but not the most unusual.
Sharing spaghetti on a plastic board is interesting, and unusual tradition, but it's easy to replicate anywhere, and there...+READ
Thank you for review and positive notes.
We added "Safe House" restaurant, as per suggestion (though we knew about it, but did not include it).
We will not add several mentioned places in Minnesota and Wisconsin. They are very fine restaurants, but not the most unusual.
Sharing spaghetti on a plastic board is interesting, and unusual tradition, but it's easy to replicate anywhere, and there are maybe too many places to list.
Your remark about Organ Piper Pizza and Dining Trains is rude. Perhaps the inclusion of pizza with a huge Mighty Wurlitzer theater pipe organ is not to your taste but to call it "sort of stupid" is rude, and... "sort of ignorant"
Dining Trains are certainly unusual restaurants, in our opinion (not regular dining cars, as you may imply). Sometimes they are beautiful vintage trains, sometimes there are performances on-board, almost always very scenic routes, etc. There are very few dining trains in the world outside of the US and UK. Today the number of specialized, regularly-scheduled dining trains is rapidly declining. It is a very expensive endeavor, much more difficult than serving spaghetti on a board.
We did not 'import database' rather, we researched, found, checked, and individually placed on the map every full-service dining train that operates with certain regularity.
As for the restaurants inside giant milk bottles: these can be found in the restaurants with unusual architecture category. Matter of taste.. There are only four of them, and each is considered a local landmark.
Suggestions, additions or corrections are always welcomed on the website or twitter @UnusualRest-COLLAPSE
..yeah.. lets list favorite local restaurants with the best views, burgers, pies and pancakes, as the world's most unusual restaurants, instead of the "stupid" only pizza in the world with live organ music..