dlgoldie's Profile
Major Ramen craving
Not sure what has changed, but we had wonderful ramen at Moto-i last Monday. Really porky broth, lots of good pieces of delicious meat, egg poached perfectly, noodles really eggy and good but not overcooked. In fact everything was much better than when we'd gone before, about 18 months ago. Take a second look.
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moto-i
2940 Lyndale Ave. South, Minneapolis, MN 55408
Best Sushi/Sashimi in Minneapolis/St. Paul?
OK, you might not believe this, but some of the best sushi I've had lately came from Osaka, in Rosedale. It's in a strip mall with Byerlys on Snelling and County Road C. The fish was really fresh, they had a roll with no rice or nori, just thin sheets of cucumber. And the best negi toro I have ever had. Literally - chunks of tuna belly, not all minced up. The sushi chefs really seem to care about the quality of the fish they use. I highly recommend this place. I think it's part of a chain of teppanyaki/sushi places in the northern suburbs. I haven't had anything but sushi.
birthday dinner in st. paul?
Any Morrisey restaurant - St Paul Grill, Pazzaluna or Tria, will give you a bottle of wine equal in value to your age during the week of your birthday. Plus a free dessert. Everyone has to order an entree. What a great deal!
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St Paul Grill
350 Market Street, St. Paul, MN 55102
Pazzaluna
360 St. Peter St, St. Paul, MN 55101
Tria
5959 Centerville Rd Ste 100, Saint Paul, MN 55127
In downtown LA without transportation
i will be in downtown LA for a few days without transportation and a pretty full schedule in March. I'm staying at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel on South Figueroa. However, I won't go all the way to LA without building in a little time for chowhounding.
Any interesting lunch places nearby? Any bars with character? Any old restaurants with old style California cuisine?
All suggestions welcome. Thanks!
Best place in MSP for ground beef
Thanks, but I'm looking for a safe cooked burger, not ground beef.
Best place in MSP for ground beef
I can avoid buying supermarket hamburger for home cooking, but where can I eat out and be sure of a safe burger in the Twin Cities area?
Bellingham WA food inquiries
My husband and I eat at the Little Cheerful every time we drive up 5 from SEA to VCR. Wonderful fresh breakfasts. There is also a really nice Farmer's Market in Bellingham.
Good Food in CDA/Spokane
The Moon Time on Sherman has food that would hold up anywhere. My husband had a wonderful fusilli with roast lamb and peas, flavored with rosemary and delicately held together with cream. I had great beef tacos. This is a good choice for any town. Zero atmoshpere, just ok service. But whoever is doing the cooking knows what they are doing.
A week in Myrtle Beach - Good Eats
My husband and son had a variety of fried shellfish and fish. I had shrimp salad, which was a ginormous mound of iceberg lettuce with some not great shrimp on top. I will say that the homemade dressing was great, if only I had enough room on my plate to toss it in.
The fish was good - not great. No where near as good as the stuff we had up in Calabash, at Ella's.
A week in Myrtle Beach - Good Eats
My husband and I were in Myrtle Beach the first week of March. We had great food. We ate:
Amazing oysters at Drunken Jack's in Murrell's Inlet
Wonderful fried fish for almost nothing and great soup at Ella's in Calabash, NC
A terrific oyster roast at Nance's in Murrell's inlet
Hands down the best she crab soup at Lee's Kitchen in Murrell's Inlet (but the rest of the dinner was just OK)
A wonderful dinner in all respects at Slightly North of Broad (SNOB) in Charleston
Great BBQ Shrimp and grits at the Crab Shack in Charleston
As you can see, we didn't eat in MB. But we would go back, especially in spring before the tourist rush, and use it as a home base for eating, birding, beach walks and golfing adventures. We had a great time! Plus we need to get to Prosser's for BBQ.
One great meal in Seattle
Thanks for all of your suggestions. We visited Queen Anne and Capitol Hill, the market, and then had happy hour at Anthony's on the pier. Great prices on beer drinks and oysters. The clouds passed and we could see Ranier. We went to dinner at the Palace Kitchen and thought it was the most creative food we had had in a long time. My son the vegetarian felt that the vegetarian options on the menu were thought through with the same care as the meat and fish options. Great suggestion!
Five Nights in Vancouver - RESULTS
Thanks so much to everyone in the Vancouver Chowhound community for the great advice you gave us. We have eaten very well while here, thanks to you.
Here's where we ate:
On the way into the city we stopped at the Richmond Public Market. Unfortunately we weren't hungry. But what a wonderful walking around experience.
1st night - Kobe. Groan. One of my son's UBC buddies must have told him to get his parents to take him here. I've done teppanyaki/chop 'em up joints before and they can be kinda fun. And at least the quality of the ingredients is good. The best I can say about this one is that at least my two under 25 sons enjoyed looking at the hot female servers. Very expensive and mediocre, even for teppanyaki. Uninspired, ordinary seafood and meat. Everything seasoned with generic mixed "asian" seasoning. The biggest surprise was how few Caucasian tourist types were there. The place was jammed with Asian folks.
2nd day - after touring UBC, we stopped at Burgoo on West 10th Ave for a quick bite. Excellent soups and a great grilled cheese sandwich.
That night we went to Stella's Tap and Tapas, on Commercial Drive. Great atmosphere and great beer, but we all agreed that the food was a little heavy handed and ordinary. The portions were too big to allow for ordering multiple dishes. Still, the mussels were the largest, plumpest I've seen. Good skirt steak tacos and calamari. I'd go back, but it wasn't special.
3rd day - Granville Market and Go Fish. Go Fish is amazing. Just a little shack serving very fresh local fish to go or at the few outdoor picnic tables. we were lucky - we didn't wait long to place our order. We had a miso based fish chowder with red chiles, a salmon fish taco and a BBQ salmon sandwich, great chips and an amazing sandwich made from Qualicum Beach scallops. Everything was cooked til just done, accompanied by a terrific asian style slaw. Atmosphere is everything and this place has the best view of the harbor. Note to tourists - it's not on the island but just outside, by the fishing boats.
That night we went to Sha Lin Noodle House on Broadway. None of us had ever been to a noodle house, and we loved it. I never realized that noodles, all by themselves, taste good. We had an onion pancake - the weakest part of the meal - not enough onions and a little greasy. Vegetable stuffed dumplings, which were doughy chewy. The group was divided on those. Then dragging noodles with pork and black bean sauce and cut noodles with vegetables in curry. Both of these were extraordinary. Best of all was the $27.00 check, before tip, for the four of us. It was great fun to watch the noodles being made. I'd go back in a minute.
Tonight we're going to Kirin for a major Thanksgiving feast. A report will be posted later.
Once again, thanks to all for your advice. I hope my son stays here for four years so I can have more of those noodles!
Five nights in Vancouver
Thank you for all of your wonderful suggestions. Here's what I'm leaning towards:
Banana Leaf
Stella's Tap
Bistrot Bistro
Kirin
The Eatery
Another question for all of you - how significant is Thanksgiving in Vancouver? In the US all restaurants would be closed, except for those doing overpriced Thanksgiving buffets for sad sacks. Will we have a hard time finding places to eat or stores/museums, etc. open?
Thanks again for all your help.
Dorothy
One great meal in Seattle
My family will be traveling through Seattle on October 14. We will be coming from the north and driving to SEATAC. We're flying out on a redeye, so we'll have time for one great, leisurely meal and a few hours of sightseeing.
Here are the challenges:
We don't want to go to the fanciest, most expensive restaurant, but we would spend up to $150 with wine for the three of us for a really rewarding meal.
My son is a vegetarian who will eat sustainably fished fish. He has never been to Seattle and really wants to enjoy his 12 hours there.
I have spent a fair amount of time in Seattle and while I like it, I like Portland and Vancouver much more. I'd love to have the perfect afternoon and evening so that I can finally fully embrace Seattle.
Got any ideas for us?
Five nights in Vancouver
Our family is going to Vancouver for five nights in October, to visit my youngest son at the University of British Columbia. We love to eat and are willing to try lots of different restaurants, but especially like the little places that locals know but tourists might avoid.
My older son is a vegetarian who also eats sustainably fished seafood.
We'll be staying downtown but will spend time near campus. We do have a car.
Here are my questions:
Best Chinese restaurant?
Great places by UBC?
Great neighborhood places away from downtown?
Thanks for any help you can give us!
Good Eats in Columbia Heights, MN?
No, but I will check it out.
What's with all the Indian restaurants on Central Avenue being closed on Tuesday? My vegetarian son and I were looking for Indian food on Tuesday and found that the Hyderabad House, Bombay II Deli, Chutney Bistro and Nala Pak were all closed. The only open place was The Vegetarian, and that was just creepy.
So, two questions -
Is there something ethnically important about Tuesdays?
Is the Vegetarian not as weird as it seemed?
La Chaya (Minneapolis)
We ate there tonight. We felt really welcome. Wonderful warm people greeted us and seemed to really care about our experience. We had a pizza margarita for an ap, and the crust was crispy like pastry, not brittle. Then this completely amazing pepper soup with roasted corn. Followed by a fried cheese in a smoky tomatillo sauce, and the halibut mentioned above. A pasta with squid ink noodles. Great couple of desserts - mango peach torte and cocoanut ice cream. It is so pretty inside. The best food I've had in several months.
MSP - Old Fashioned Tortellini
I frequently dine with a friend who has a real thing about old fashioned tortellini. The kind in cream sauce, with ham, peas and mushrooms. We always end up at the Chianti Grill in Roseville. If I have to look at that menu one more time, and suffer through another one of their uninspired dinners, I will scream. Do any of you know other restaurants in the Twin Cities that serve this sort of tortellini? With a reasonably decent menu in addition and food that is thoughtfully prepared? Save me from another meal at the the Chianti Grill, please.
MSP - Besides Surdyks, who else willing to cut cheese in small portions?
The Lunds in NE (near Surdyks) has a wonderful cheese department and they will cut whatever you want and give tastes. very knowlegable and not so crowded to shop in.
MSP - Best Bahn Mi, Frozen custard
The best bahn mi is at The Saigon, on University Avenue in St. Paul. Sadly, it may be closed by then. You might try the Jasmine Deli, on 26th and Nicollett, not too far from where you are staying. Not made to order, but still good. Quang, also on Nicollett, is many people's favorite Vietnamese restaurant. They rave about the sea bass soup, available only on weekends. Your jazz/wine list place must be the Dakota, also on Nicollett and very close to your hotel. Frozen custard? Isn't that a Wisconsin thing? Some people swear by Liberty Frozen Custard, also on Nicollett at 54th (we do have more than one street here.) Never been there myself.
Restaurants near Milford Plaza, 45th between 8th and Broadway?
To all of you that responded. Thanks so much. Esca was amazing - a bass roasted in rock salt will remain a beautiful memory of fishy perfection for years to come. Marseilles was beautiful. Beef cheeks ravioli - in beefy good sauce. Oh my. Both restaurants reasonable and wonderful atmosphere and service.
In another league were Tratorria Trecolori and Trattoria Pesce Pasta. Solid food at remarkably cheap prices. But nowhere near as good as Esca and Marseilles.
Thanks, Hounds.
Steven Brown - Harry's - what do you think?
The word on Andrew Zimmern's blog is that Steven Brown is gone already.
MSP - Los Andes
We went to Los Andes for break-the-fast and you wanted my impressions. I'm not sure we'll be back. We may have ordered wrong, and there were lots of good moments, but with so many restaurants and so little time, it's hard to return to a place that disappointed you.
Here's what we had: french fries and deep fried hot dog "starbursts", apparently authentic Andean street food. The fries were clearly NOT from a bag and the hot dog starburst bits were skin-crunchy and explosive with good flavor, but in the end it was french fries and hot dogs.
Empadadas. We got the meat ones. Deep fried with thin skins and loaded with a well spiced meat and vegetable mixture. These were great. I'd go back for a plate of these.
My husband and I shared the Picado Los Andes, a mixed grill of fatback bacon, pork, steak and sausage, accompanied by fried green and ripe plantains. Good news - big portions for splitting. Bad news - all the meat was overcooked. This dish was dry and uninteresting, and a little too meat intensive for us. The fatback was icky.
We also ordered Molte pillo - hominy fried with scrambled eggs. I liked this, but it's nothing special.
Other people seemed to be enjoying their food, so I think we just ordered the wrong stuff. Some of the rice dishes looked interesting.
They have a nice wine list - really! Maybe six or seven choices and all from Argentina or Chile, which I think is so great. And all very affordable. The real deal is the sangria, made with a Spanish trempanillo. This was so nice and refreshing! And at $3.75 a glass, a good deal. Pitchers were $12.
We finished the meal with a nice mango smoothy.
Service was good. The place has zero atmosphere, with Univision on three TVs in a smallish space. But the people are very nice and it's clean enough.
So if I did go back I'd have sangria and the empanadas, for sure.
Anyone else out there with a different opinion?
Has success spoiled Quang?
I need to post about my bad experience at Quang last night. The food did not seem to have its usual freshness, and one dish was disgusting. Spring rolls were acceptable, not great, sweet potato fritters pretty much tasteless doughballs. My son's broken rice chicken dish was tasty, but my husband's shrimp version was just OK. The place was a madhouse and the service was terrible, which I guess is to be expected. But I ordered something that I just couldn't eat, which is rare for me. This dish, a beef and meatball curry, showed up at the table a good ten minutes after everyone else had been served. 1/4 inch of grease floated on the top of a tasteless bowl of bright red broth. I took one look and knew I wasn't eating it. The only flavor was star anise. I fished out some of the cartilage webbed meat (and I like sinew as much as the next guy) and tried to do my best. But I left it. We were running late by that time so I didn't complain, and the place was such a zoo that I had no idea how much more time I could waste getting my complaint heard.
Has anyone else been disappointed lately?
fast breaking food in MPLS
Also on Central, north of the Holy Land, is a place called Marina Grill. I noticed they had a huge tent outside their restaurant to handle overflow from Ramadan crowds. Might be great for break-the-fast.
We'll be breaking the fast at Los Andes, the new Ecuadorian restaurant on Lake Street. Not too Jewish, but seems like a good place to feast.
Restaurants near Milford Plaza, 45th between 8th and Broadway?
Hello Chowhounds - I know there is so much to choose from in this neighborhood. Looking for reasonable breakfast and dinner options. Italian is always a favorite. Is there anything not to be missed?
WHO SELLS TRI-TIP BEEF IN MSP?
How about flatiron steak? I have a hard time finding that.
