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.
Sarah McGee / Heavy Table
On Saturday, April 21, Harriet Brewing and friends got down all day for their first annual Sol Bock Revival, a parking lot party that celebrated the initiation of the brewery’s summer beers (like Sol Bock) and the retirement of its wintery ones (like Elevator Doppelbock). Local craftsmen, jewelry makers, artists, musicians, three delicious food vendors, and the surrounding community convened to drink, mingle, and pound huge nails into tree stumps (try that after three glasses of beer).
The crowd was like rainbow confetti. From Harriet Brewing Principal Pete Loeffler’s gaudy tunic and corkscrew curls (“I’m the Prince of Beer!” he told me), to a bartender’s glistening purple bob, colors and psychedelic-flavored ephemera glowed around the edges of a gray, soggy day. Children scurried underfoot and guests gravitated toward the open taproom, which felt a lot like a sweet basement den, the walls covered with the original painted versions of Harriet’s swirling, beer label art.
Sarah McGee / Heavy Table
Ginny Herman, Harriet’s official Maître d’ and jack-of-just-about-everything, says the brewery and the event are all about community. “It’s the theme of our statue [behind the brewery],” she says. Artist Sara Fro says that almost every vendor at Sol Bock has some kind of personal connection with the guys behind the beer. Herman was acquainted with owner Jason Sowards’ wife, and Fro used to nanny for Harriet’s label artist, Jesse Brodd. “It’s such a different environment [at Harriet],” Fro says. “It’s welcoming; it’s nonjudgmental.”
Sarah McGee / Heavy Table
And the food was good, too. Gastrotruck, Glaciers Cafe, and 3 Tiers Bakery were there selling beer-laced versions of picnic favorites. A tender, melty smoked pork belly from Gastrotruck was braised in Harriet’s citrusy Wodan Weizen, topped with earthy kimchee and served on a fluffy white bun. My favorite bite was Glaciers Cafe’s sort of jacked-up take on an ice cream float. Heaping cups of thick vanilla custard, served dripping with a syrup of reduced Elevator Doppelbock, were rich with toasty, cocoa-y depth and just a zing of boozy, grown-up bitterness. They should serve it all summer long.
Like the event, its namesake is fun and easy to drink. Harriet’s limited-time-only Sol Bock is their take on a Maibock. It’s sweet, bright, and malty, and, as Herman says, “I could drink six of them.” It’s easy to go overboard when the drink and the company are so good and so warm.
Sarah McGee / Heavy Table
Harriet Brewing, 3036 Minnehaha Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55406; 612.225.2184
Sarah McGee / Heavy Table
Peace Coffee’s South Minneapolis roastery played host this Saturday evening to more than 300 guests and 22 local purveyors of food and drink at the fourth edition of the North Coast Nosh sip-and-sample. Music and a lively crowd fed a warehouse-party vibe, and fine eats from Minnesota and Wisconsin fed the guests. (Tickets are now on sale for North Coast Nosh V at Open Arms on Aug. 17; for more on Peace Coffee, check out our profile, our cinemagraphs, and photographer Becca Dilley’s making-of post.)
Sarah McGee / Heavy Table
Staffers from Peace Coffee hosted three 15-person cupping classes (above top and bottom right) and made pour-over coffee for all the evening’s guests.
Sarah McGee / Heavy Table
Above, from top down and left to right: Cookie Cart (teamed up with Cedar Summit Farm milk), Chowgirls grits paired up with Sadia’s Gourmet Sauce, Gastrotruck sliders being made, Sadia Abdi from Sadia’s Gourmet Sauce, the sliders (ready to eat!), Harriet Brewing, Bliss Granola samples with yogurt, and the granola displayed in bags.
Sarah McGee / Heavy Table
Above: HeathGlen’s Blueberry Lavender Merlot Jam, Gai Gai Thai hot sauce paired with Patisserie 46 pastry, Summit Stout floats with Peace Coffee-flavored Izzy’s Ice Cream, Lucid Brewing, charcuterie from Three Sons Meat Co. (formerly Green Ox), Bogart Loves doughnuts, chocolates from Patisserie 46, Cocoa and Fig oatmeal peanut butter sandwich cookies, Four Daughters wines, pretzels from Common Roots, the mascot for Cakedy Candy Bars, Alemar Bent River Camembert on bread, and Caves of Faribault blue cheese.
Sarah McGee / Heavy Table
by Jill Lewis on March 20, 2012
Zoe Prinds-Flash / Heavy Table
On an night known for green beer and unabashed drunkeness, the civil crowd at the Luck of the Locavore dinner at the Chowgirls Parlor in Northeast Minneapolis demonstrated that you can celebrate the holiday without smelling like the floor of an Irish bar the morning of March 18. Instead, popular caterers Heidi Andermack and Amy Brown invited diners into the elegant, green-accented event space next to their catering kitchen for a holiday-themed meal with Irish-American essentials — whiskey, corned beef and cabbage, and Guinness — and local touches. And from the satisfied faces of Andermack and Brown’s guests, no one looked like they were missing the boisterous drinking fest just a few blocks away.
Zoe Prinds-Flash / Heavy Table
Luck of the Locavore is just one of the many special meals the Chowgirls offer throughout the year; just last month they welcomed diners to a Locavore Love Affair for Valentine’s Day, and fans can look forward to Mother’s Day brunch and a summer solstice supper in the coming months. The seasonal dinners give Andermack and Brown a chance to try out new recipes and reach an audience who may not have sampled their wares at local events (including our own North Coast Noshes). But the real pleasure fell to the guests who ate, drank, and grooved to the reggae tunes off Andermack’s iPad. Irish? No, but it effortlessly echoed the laid-back vibe of the dining room.
Zoe Prinds-Flash / Heavy Table
Starter: At first glance, the ploughman’s platter of Dubliner Irish cheddar and Minnesota-made St. Pete’s blue that kicked off the meal looked a little skimpy, but it proved just enough to tame pre-dinner hunger without making you too full to enjoy the rest of the meal. One always appreciates a quality cheddar like the Dubliner, but the real star of this platter was the blue, which paired perfectly with the sweet onion jam and house-made soda bread studded with juicy raisins. If more food wasn’t on its way, it would have been extraordinarily easy to make an entire meal of those three items. The soda bread was hearty yet still retained a delicate crumb, and the jam’s thick sweetness made it clear that these onions had been expertly caramelized. Our chosen accompanying cocktail, the Three Gingers, blended house-made ginger ale with Kieran Folliard’s 2 Gingers whiskey, lemon, and lime juice. The zesty ginger ale tempered the bracing punch of the whiskey, making the drink a satisfying sipper as the meal continued.
Zoe Prinds-Flash / Heavy Table
Fish: Grilled salmon glazed with the 2 Gingers whiskey and Ames Farm honey led the list of entrees, and it would be hard to find a fresher piece of fish in town. The sticky-sweet glaze couldn’t hide the fillet’s boisterous, uh, salmon-ness, and that’s a good thing. The salmon was wolfed down almost as fast as the side of colcannon featuring sauteed kale and potatoes – the salty / creamy mixture proved to be addicting. Continue reading Luck of the Locavore St. Patrick’s Day Dinner at Chowgirls Parlor »
Kate N.G. Sommers / Heavy Table
First I got the email. Then I got the tweet. Then I got the link and raced to fill out my reservation form. Then I got the other email. And finally, I got the call.
All that just to eat Valentine’s Day dinner alone. It was worth it.
All of Clandesdine’s dinners begin this way: with the table tennis game of communication. But after that, who knows how it will end? The February dinner I attended, for example, ended with an announcement from the chef, Brook Collins, to keep an eye out for her soon-to-come grasshopper tamales food cart serving — you guessed it — grasshopper tamales.
The once-a-month gathering is like a Top Chef challenge gone terribly right. A different menu, a different chef, a different location each month. February’s dinner was the fourth so far and the first hosted outside of someone’s home. Nationally, underground dining clubs take many forms; some are for-profit, some involve artist partnerships, and some feature foraged food.
Kate N.G. Sommers / Heavy Table
The whole thing feels a little illicit, and, in fact, its organizers are still working out the specific legality of it all. Since the events are private and donation-only (suggested donations range from $18-25 a person), they seem to skate by everyone’s best interpretations of the codes. But I can’t shake the feeling I’m doing something kind of revolutionary when I pull up to The Donut Cooperative in the Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis. There’s a small crowd outside the shop but I’m not convinced it’s the right place until I see the Clandesdine sign out front.
“I think confusing people is really important,” explains Eli. Eli is the one who calls you after you’ve made your reservation. He just wants to get to know you and confirm the details, but the conversation will feel like another round of reservations, because maybe you didn’t quite pass the first one.
Eli and Ella have known each other since high school, and Clandesdine is their collaboration. See, Eli went down to South America, his cousin has a CSA down there, and it really got him thinking about how we interact with our food. “As soon as I got home,” he says, “I texted Ella. I said, ‘I have an idea, let’s meet.’” He tells me about the three nodes: the consumer, the chef, and the producer. He tells me about creating a space, about strangers eating in another stranger’s house. “I think that’s pretty profound,” he adds.
Kate N.G. Sommers / Heavy Table
Eli, who asked that last names be omitted just in case it turns out they do cross a line sometime, is a gentle guy but comes on strong when he gets talking about food.
All the couples have found their way inside the tiny candlelight shop. With blinking strands of lights and hanging heart decorations, we’ve become a bit of spectacle for neighbors out walking dogs on a quiet winter night. I feel terribly in the know every time someone slows down to peer in the storefront windows.
The servers, the crowd, and the chef are all fairly young. At first, it feels a little like we’re waiting on supervision, but Ella has plenty of restaurant experience, and it shows.
Heavy Table contributor WACSO is working with Gallery 360 to present a show of his illustrations at the Birchwood Cafe. The opening reception (featuring drinks and snacks!) takes place at Birchwood this Thursday night from 6-9pm.
WACSO / handout
Becca Dilley / Heavy Table
Like Fogo de Chao, Solera, and Thom Pham’s Wondrous Azian Kitchen, the newly opened Rosa Mexicano strikes an ambitious profile on the Minneapolis scene — it takes ethnic food upscale and downtown and blows it out across a dramatic interior. That Rosa Mexicano (which is part of a national chain) is debuting a series of four seasonal and cleverly themed supplemental menus is further testament to the restaurant’s desire to stand out — it’s a flashy, splashy, ballsy move.
Last week’s press preview of the restaurant’s “Eclectic Cuts: The Art of Butchery” supplemental menu [PDF], which is available from Feb. 22-Mar. 11, showed off some of the strengths of the “go-big-or-go-home” approach to Mexican cuisine, but also exposed some of the weaknesses. Eclectic Cuts highlights hearty, winter-friendly tastes (ranging from veal tongue to pork cheeks to lamb neck) using cooking techniques (such as braising and roasting) and warm, comforting ingredients (like root vegetables and earthy sweetbreads) to match its flavors to the season.
The menu was created by the restaurant chain’s “culinary advisor,” the well-known pioneering California cuisine chef Jonathan Waxman, and executed in Minneapolis by the local location’s executive chef, Brian Pett (below). Transmitting the vision of a talented chef not on site is a risky prospect — executing another chef’s vision can play out like a game of telephone, with dishes becoming unbalanced as they are reinterpreted.
Becca Dilley / Heavy Table
At the outset of the meal, Chef Pett gamely guided the group through the evening’s dishes, but the menu’s Spanish often won the battle, most notably, the word “lengua” turned (appropriately enough) into an agonizing tongue-twister. And while you don’t need to properly pronounce a culture’s food in order to properly prepare it, it’s not a bad thing if you’re pitching the general public on your cooking.
The parade of six dishes (plus guac and a special drink) that arrived landed all over the map. There was a train wreck, there was a show stopper, and there were four dishes in between.
Becca Dilley / Heavy Table
The Rosa Mexicano philosophy on guacamole seems maladjusted at first — while it has a great deal of creamy, pure avocado smoothness and richness, you miss heat, and you miss acid and you miss… well, just about anything that gives a good guacamole a backbone of flavor and depth. But then you take one of the two salsas available at the table — the warmly spiced, almost smoky red salsa or the herbal and then intensely hot green salsa — and layer them over the guac, and, aha, you’ve radically improved it, on the fly, and at a ratio that’s precisely to your liking. A little fussy, but charming and ultimately effective.
Becca Dilley / Heavy Table
Tacos de Lengua (veal tongue tacos, $8 for two) brought together a fruit glaze, avocado, and seared tongue on a tiny tortilla to great effect. These were balanced, rich, and tender as the dickens, an example of how simple dishes made with good ingredients can shine.
Becca Dilley / Heavy Table
By contrast, Mollejas con Huitlacoche (crispy sweetbreads with corn smut, $10) were a disappointment. If you’re going to serve offal, serve offal — let the silky texture and richness of the organ meat take center stage. The thick, exceedingly crunchy breading on these sweetbreads meant that the coating was the star, but plain chicken would have been a more suitable stuffing for such a heavy jacket of starch. The huitlacoche brought a earthy punch to the plate, but didn’t interact particularly well with the fried nuggets that dominated the dish.
Becca Dilley / Heavy Table
Mejilla de Cerdo Guisada (braised pork cheeks served with a soft corn tamale, $19 as a dinner entree) is a dish that you just want to curl up in for the duration of the winter — tender, richly flavored hearty chunks of ancho chili-kissed meat served with delicate grits and a touch of tomato flavor to provide acid and sun. Does this dish alone justify a return visit to Rosa Mexicano? Perhaps. Perhaps it does. Continue reading The Eclectic Cuts Menu at Rosa Mexicano »
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