A fairly amazing-sounding Better Beer Society brown bag series event at Butcher & the Boar, some revised menus at local restaurants, a local foodie’s epic Mother’s Day feast, tasting notes for Summit Pilsner and Steel Toe’s Provider, the Star Tribune’s Taste 50, and a new urban farm in Minneapolis.
Via the infallibly accurate source of an email forwarded by a relative: “ESPN is reporting that Brett Favre has retired and will settle in the Minneapolis area where he will co-own a bakery with teammate Adrian Peterson. Their specialty will be turnovers.”
Did you miss Sameh Wadi’s appearance on Iron Chef? @StribTaste summarizes with a short video and @CoastalSeafoods offers sale-priced Spanish mackerel to reenact Wadi’s performance at home. @BlueDoorPub donates the proceeds from a special wine list this Saturday and Sunday to a Haiti relief fund, @T_McKee enjoys his meal at Piccolo, and @SalutFranceAve publicizes Parasole chefs’ upcoming appearances at the Minnesota Monthly Food & Wine Experience.
The Strib has the story behind Sauce Spirits & Soundbar’s busted window [via bring.mn], Rick Nelson likes many aspects of OM other than the plus-sized side dishes (“resigned nods to Minnesota tastes”) and the decor (“a vast, gloomy, generically decorated basement”), there’s a hell of a lineup over at the soon-to-open Haute Dish, a Fitger’s Brewhouse beer called the 90999 Pils that’s raising money for Haiti, Mecca presents five things she’s loving about the local food scene (two of which are dishes from Subo), Teddy loves the Rachel at Bad Waitress, Iggers joins the growing outraged torch-wielding mob of villagers storming Piccolo in protest of its tiny tiny portions, Rachel Hutton calls the proposed Northeast Pierogi sculpture “an awful metal lump” (the evidence appears to be on her side), and a good rundown of upcoming area restaurant openings.
Jena Modin / Heavy Table
Damn Good Food may be the title of the Hell’s Kitchen cookbook, but damn good food is missing at the new HellBurgers in Duluth’s Canal Park. The former Hell’s Kitchen closed at the turn of the year, as part of an effort to transform the high-end breakfast spot into a burger-focused lunch destination. It reopened on Jan. 14 with the menu painted on the door and bright green painted on the walls. The renovation has led to large improvements in the marketing and aesthetics of the restaurant, but the quality of the food could use an overhaul of its own.
The menu says that the burgers are “award-winning,” but there’s not much to back up the assertion on the plate. The Inferno Burger ($10), one of the restaurant’s most popular burgers, is cooked medium with melted pepper jack cheese and comes with raw red onions, raw jalapeños, tomato, and lettuce. The bun is slathered in “honey-chipotle sauce” that is more reminiscent of Arby’s sauce – it’s one-dimensional, sweet at the expense of deep flavor. All the burger’s heat comes from the raw jalapeños that overpower the underripe tomato, raw onions, and whitish / yellow lettuce.
Jena Modin / Heavy Table
The Devil Dog ($8) is a “Chicago-style Kosher foot long,” but after the the relish-soaked bun falls apart and shrivels up in the basket, you are left with two six-inch hot dogs that call to mind the warm water bath at a service station more readily than they do a Chicago foodcart.
Jena Modin / Heavy Table
You can avoid a relish-soaked bun if you order a corn dog ($7), but if you are looking for the sweet, salty, and balanced taste that you get at the Minnesota State Fair, you are better off waiting until August. The corn dog is made with a homemade batter that turns into a crusty, oily shell that protects a foot-long hot dog on a shish kebab skewer. The tiny bit of stick poking out of the end is nearly impossible to hold onto — leaving you to pick the whole thing up with your hand, thus defeating the stick’s purpose entirely.
The bright green wall and projection screen have given the restaurant a new allure, but the food is far from award-winning or satisfying. With the legendary cashew burger at the Anchor Bar in Superior, or the wild rice burger at the Brewhouse, or the Big Daddy Burger, or even one of the new Five Guys, it is worth going somewhere else.
310 Lake Ave S
Duluth, MN 55802
218.727.1620
HOURS: 11am-midnight daily
OWNER: Mitch Omer
AVERAGE ENTREE: $9-$11
BAR: Full
A Seinfeld-inspired — but not so much that legal action needs to be taken — cafe is now open in White Bear Lake. SineFellas (2202 5th St., Suite 22, White Bear Lake, MN) is owned by the folks behind The Chocolate Spoon Cafe. Looks like they’ve got egg creams… kinda. They’re called “New York Creme Sodas” and they feature cream as well as milk. Web and graphic designers are highly encouraged to visit the cafe’s website.
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