The latest from Twitter: @Peace_Coffee plays cupid with “Caffeinate Your Cutie,” @triplerockmpls is serving @surlybrewing Mild at $3.50 a pint, @bittercube celebrates the long-anticipated opening of Eat Street Social, and @Masu_NE will feature a suggestive little Valentine’s Day roll through Tuesday.
Becca Dilley / Heavy Table
First, the elephant in the room that is Ann Arbor, Michigan — Zingerman’s Deli. On one hand, this Ann Arbor-based nationally known retail giant has put this small college town on the gastronomic map. On the other, it is challenging to compete with such a successful business on their level, so what else could Ann Arbor offer for foodies except a series of (amazingly tasty and well-curated) Zingerman’s experiences?
As I found out on a trip to the city this December: quite a nice mix of things, actually. The most interesting little finds revealed some key strategies for standing out in the heart of Zingerman’s home turf. (For details on this press trip, see the end of this story.)
Becca Dilley / Heavy Table
1. Just Don’t Care
Perhaps an unexpected approach, but the old-school doughnuts and shakes offered at Washtenaw Dairy (a business that hasn’t bothered to replace its missing sign for 20 years) take you right back to the small town Ann Arbor must once have been.The doughnuts were light but yeasty, classic American breakfast fare, perfectly executed.
Newer on the scene, Ayse‘s Turkish Cafe offers complicated flavors, simply prepared and nicely executed, finished off with Turkish coffee and Middle Eastern desserts. Fresh acid flavors (pomegranate seeds, olives, lemon juice) give its food a zesty kick.
Becca Dilley / Heavy Table
2. Go Super Local
The Ann Arbor Farmers Market in the Kerrytown neighborhood (above) stands as a local food mecca and also an incubator of new food businesses. Close relationships between businesses make for great innovation — The Brinery, featuring naturally fermented vegetables, is a natural offshoot from local farms (like Tantre Farm), which often have a glut of cabbage or cucumbers perfect for preservation. Brandon Johns, chef / owner of Grange Kitchen and Bar, shops the market, works with local farmers, and serves a nearly unbelievable 90 percent local menu. (For comparison, most serious locally sourced restaurants are striving for a 50-70% local share). Of the collaboration, Johns said, “Now we are a community.” Smart use of local farm ingredients (like a fried pig’s head and popcorn dessert) make Grange stand apart from other high-end restaurants in downtown.
Becca Dilley / Heavy Table
Becca Dilley / Heavy Table
3. Go Simple
Chef / owner Eve Aronoff (above, right) opened Frita Batidos after running a fine dining restaurant for years in Ann Arbor (she was also on season six of Top Chef). The cuisine of Frita Batidos might be best described as Cuban street food, filtered through Miami, and translated to the Midwest. Simple, bright flavors and a casual vibe make this a stand-out restaurant — and it was packed with a mix of students and locals. Guacamole (below) was like tasting fresh, perfectly ripe avocados (in mid-December, mind you). The flavor was simple, pure, unfooled-around-with, and fresh with a little heat. Continue reading Five Lessons from an Ann Arbor Food Tour »
Jill Lewis / Heavy Table
I love cheese. I grew up in Wisconsin. But apparently, my knowledge about Wisconsin cheese could fill just one hole in a 200-pound wheel of emmentaler. That was one of the many things I learned during my recent three-day, all-cheese-all-the-time tour of southern Wisconsin, courtesy of the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, with a group of food and cheese journalists, bloggers, authors, and mongers. The tour coincided with the third annual Wisconsin Cheese Originals festival in Madison, where we had access to 40+ Wisconsin cheesemakers eager to share their expertise — and samples, of course. If you’re interested in a blow-by-blow review of the weekend, come to my house and be prepared to stay for the better part of the day. For those of you with less time, I present my top five takeaways from the trip, excluding the various wedges I smuggled across the border, of course.
Jill Lewis / Heavy Table
1. Cheese mites are real
Jill Lewis / Heavy Table
We visited the cheese cave of Willi Lehner (right), a second-generation cheesemaker whose Bleu Mont Dairy turns out an amazing bandaged cheddar. When Lehner was walking us through his cave in Blue Mounds, he showed a sample of the muslin bandage he uses and mentioned that his is heavier than the kind other cheesemakers use. Why? someone inquired. To keep out the cheese mites.
Yes, apparently, mites are everywhere, including the rind of many cheeses. Some cheeses, like the French mimolette, rely on the cheese mites to burrow holes in the rind while the cheese ages, allowing it to breathe. But Lehner doesn’t want the mites near his precious cheddar, so he uses a thicker bandage and smears it with lard. The lard helps the bandages from drying out too fast — that’s key when the cheese will age for two to three years in a 1,600-square-foot cave with a 12-foot ceiling. Though Lehner has a good handle on the cave’s temperature (it ranges from 48ºF to 58°F year-round) and humidity, he uses time-tested techniques like bandaging to ensure his cheeses age well. We got to sample some two-and-a-half-year cheddar, and its crystallized, caramelly, mite-free bite demonstrated that it’s worth the extra cloth and effort.
2. Cheese prime-time is right now
You might think spring, when cows give birth, would be the best season for milk yields, but look to the opposite side of the year for cows to produce the best milk for cheesemaking, according to Jeff Wideman, a master of cheddar and Monterey jack cheeses who heads Maple Leaf Cheese Cooperative in Monroe. In the warm spring and summer months, cows drink more and eat less, which results in fewer solids (fats and proteins) in their milk. But in October and November, the cooler weather gives the cows a better appetite, and it shows in their milk. Whereas this summer Wideman got 9.4 pounds of cheddar per 100 pounds of milk, this fall he’s getting a pound more cheese from the same quantity of milk. Wisconsinites have another reason besides the start of football season to welcome fall — more cheese for game-day treats.
Jill Lewis / Heavy Table
3. Super-aged cheeses are worth every penny
In the time it takes for Tony Hook, owner of Hook’s Cheese, to produce his coveted 15-year cheddar, he could make anywhere from 60 to 90 batches of your typical mild cheddar. Instead, he chooses to take up valuable space in his facility to test his cheesemaking skills over the course of a decade and a half, softly shepherding a young cheddar to the creamy, almost candy-like confection that retails for up to $60 / pound. If one thing goes wrong along the way — the cheese dries too fast or the flavors go in the wrong direction — that’s years worth of work gone down the drain.
“You can salvage cheese, but you can’t bring it back to age. You can sell it as mild. If worst comes to worst, you can sell it to make processed cheese,” Hook said. “You can insure against fire and recalls, but not aging.”
So while you may initially balk at the price tag, the 15-year cheddar almost seems like a bargain when you consider the gamble it took for Hook to bring it to market. Luckily, such a rich, flavor-filled cheese is one to savor in small doses, so you don’t need to buy an entire pound to be satisfied. Drop your daily latte habit for a week to purchase your chunk of cheddar. It’s the best dairy trade-off you’ll ever experience.
4. Cheese + Scotch = all kinds of awesome
Jill Lewis / Heavy Table
I am not a Scotch drinker in the slightest. My preferences lean toward wine and the girly drinks, but I decided to throw caution to the wind and signed up for the cheese and Scotch pairings seminar offered at the Wisconsin Cheese Originals festival. Gregory Long, a spirits master at Vom Fass and a cheesemonger at Fromagination in Madison, lent his pairing expertise to four Scotches and four Wisconsin cheeses — and proved a few skeptics at my table wrong. Rather than overpowering the cheese, the Scotches provided a complementary tipple when matched with the right slice. The smoother, sherry-aged whiskys, like an 11-year-old Blair Athol, echoed the sweet nuttiness of the Emmi Roth Gran Queso, while Roelli’s Dunbarton Blue, with its earthy, salty bite, stood up to the smoky, tobacco-infused, 12-year Caol Ila.
The relevation, though, belonged to the marriage of a 7-year-old Ardmore with Bleu Mont’s bandaged cheddar (right). The herbal, semi-peated Scotch went head to head with the sharper aged flavor of the cheese, making me want more to drink and to nibble. No Scotch resides in my liquor cabinet now, but if I add a bottle, Ardmore it will be. The cheddar, of course, is a mainstay.
Jill Lewis / Heavy Table
5. Pigs eat better cheese than most people do
Jill Lewis / Heavy Table
At Uplands Cheese Company, where wunderkind cheesemaker Andy Hatch turns out his award-winning Alpine-style Pleasant Ridge Reserve, we got the season’s first taste of Rush Creek Reserve. The cheese, modeled after the French Vacherin d’Or, develops such a luxurious, liquidy paste that it must be eaten with a spoon. As we rushed to sample of dollop of the young Rush Creek, Hatch took his own taste and deemed it a work in progress. “This batch will be for the pigs,” he noted.
Are you kidding me? Deliver this sumptuous, smoke-tinged cheese to a bunch of pigs? I don’t think they appreciate the craft and care that went into such a prized wheel. Andy, I don’t care if the Rush Creek isn’t top-notch — send it to my newly created Asylum for Wayward Cheeses, where I will lovingly tend to the needs (aka eat them with relish).
It turns out that less-than-perfect cheese is not the only product the pigs at Uplands get to enjoy. The leftover whey also makes it into their troughs, and you can find Uplands’ whey-fed prosciutto at Madison restaurants like L’Etoile. I can’t vouch for it personally, but my best friend / co-blogger Colleen thought it was stellar enough to convince her pork-loving husband to move to Wisconsin from Washington, D.C.
Note: The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board covered all travel, accommodations, and dining expenses for the three-day tour, but all opinions are the writer’s own.
Aaron Fenster / Heavy Table
Though it may seem odd to cover street food this late in the season, you should trust that we have our reasons. This surprised us as well: We couldn’t believe how many new street food operations have popped up since this summer. Some Twitter chatter about truck inspections also implies that more will be coming, and sooner than later. (Also see our master directory of Twin Cities street food.)
We recently checked out five newcomers: YumMi, Cave Cafe, Messy Giuseppe, Get Sauced, and Origins Coffee & Tea. (Due to circumstance or just ill luck, we’ve never been able to intersect with Scratch Food Truck. But may God hunt us all if we do not hunt it to the death!) The mercury may be falling swiftly, but many purveyors are going to be braving it as long as they can, in true hardcore Minnesotan fashion.
YumMi
Emily Schnobrich / Heavy Table
YumMi, run by culinary grad Hoa Nguyen and ex-corporate guy James Schanen, covers the classic Vietnamese banh mi sandwich. They sell four variations with adorable monikers: the Korean-style beef Moo Mi ($8), sweet braised pork belly / shoulder Oink Mi ($7.50), five-spice chicken Peck Mi ($7), and lemongrass-soy-marinated tofu Bean Mi ($6.50). They shy away from tradition, which could be a good or bad thing, depending on how much you love jalapenos and pate. Watch for seafood options and hot drinks as they plan to blast through the winter. Since their debut on October 13, they’ve camped out on Nicollet Mall & 11th St. in Minneapolis.
Cave Cafe
Aaron Fenster / Heavy Table
Ethiopian native Teddy Negash’s truck is all over St. Paul this month — we’ve spotted them outside MPR’s headquarters, in Rice Park, outside the St. Paul Police Department, and at Bandana Square. Negash has been hustling around the city to promote his “20 For East Africa” initiative, in which he has pledged to donate 20 percent of the truck’s profits to famine relief efforts.
Though the truck totes “Afro-Italian fusion” as its specialty, it seems to skew more toward Ethiopian food with some nods to American classics, such as burgers ($5.50) and Philly cheesesteaks ($6.50). We tried their chicken curry ($9), a decent mix of veggies and really tender chicken served over rice. Hands down, the best part of the dish was the herbed flatbread, which is also the medium for the truck’s wraps.
Continue reading The New Food Truck Roundup: Fall Edition »
by Kevyn Burger on October 5, 2011
Ross Yates / Heavy Table
Increasingly, it seems food fortunes are won catering to Ladies Who Lunch. If I wanted to go out for a bite with my mother and daughter, I could think of dozens of suitably charming bistros, where both the space and the food would be light and pretty.
It’s trickier to get it right with Dudes Who Dine. As the oldest of two daughters, I grew up the pretender to the throne: the son my dad never had. When dear old Dad came to visit, I wanted to take him and my son out for a manly midday meal, just us guys. Dad (pictured above) is a retired phys ed teacher and Son is a bike mechanic. They are not afraid of sweat, grease, or meat. (They like it when I idealize their masculinity.)
I wanted a place that catered to guys. Nothing fancy. No light rock, no menu created by a chef and a graphic designer, and no servers who introduce themselves and rhapsodize about sauces. No themes, other than a sports vibe. If there was anything French on the menu, it should be the fries and the brand name on the mustard — which should be sitting on the table.
Ross Yates / Heavy Table
I asked around and two places kept popping up as solid candidates. The Gopher Bar in St. Paul (which The Heavy Table memorably sketched and reviewed), and Mac’s Industrial in Minneapolis.
The Gopher Bar was recently named as a contender for the “Manliest Restaurant in America” by Men’s Health, a magazine that appears determined to give guys woman-sized body image issues, judging from its preoccupation with the male torso. On a corner in downtown St. Paul, The Gopher Bar is wedged between two masculine businesses: a locksmith and a janitorial supply shop. It’s dark, even at midday. Three mounted deer hang over the bar, appearing to stare at the Confederate flags on the opposite wall. The back of the bar is lined with pro-gun, anti-immigrant, anti-Obama signs, slogans, and bumper stickers.
We plopped down and our waitress passed out menus. She asked if we were ready to order before we glanced at them, a sure sign she’s used to regulars who arrive knowing what they want.
I asked for a cup of coffee, and she gave a curt shake of her head.
They weren’t out — they don’t have coffee. Ever.
They don’t have plates, either. The waitress smoothed a square of waxed paper on the table in front of each one of us and left us to make our decision.
What they do have are beer, fries, onion rings, and Coney dogs. While we debated how many Coneys to order, our waitress delivered a tray full of them to the uniformed National Guardsmen at the table next to us. The Coneys were stunning, arriving posed in a frilled paper canoe and a load of onions, chili sauce, and with or without cheese.
Dad had his without cheese, and my son had his with. They handled their dogs with reverence, but quickly went to work. Processed meat such as this is meant to be gobbled, not savored. The Coneys went down their intergenerational hatches in four bites each. Same story with round two.
“I’m impressed,” said Dad.
“I could eat at least four of these,” said my son.
Ross Yates / Heavy Table
I thought the toasted, buttered bun gave each bite a pleasing textural complexity that bumped it up to first rate status. My dog was not quite hot enough, but I decided not to complain. Continue reading Where the Boys Are: The Gopher Bar and Mac’s Industrial »
by James Norton on September 21, 2011
James Norton / Heavy Table
For better or worse, Door County, WI, is getting progressively less wild.
When my father was a kid vacationing in Door County, he and one of my uncles got ahold of an all-too-functional bow and arrow set, which they decided to investigate in a quiet area behind the cottage. Being kids, they conducted an experiment: They shot an arrow straight up to see where it would land.
But something unexpected happened: The wind caught the arrow and blew it straight over the cottage and out of sight. They ran, frantically, to the front of the cottage, and there it was… sticking vertically through one of the lawn chairs out front. Unoccupied, as it turns out.
My own days as a kid vacationing at Glidden Lodge on Whitefish Bay were less mischievous, at least from a “deployment of lethal force” perspective. But my brother and I always had the feeling that we were free while we on vacation: Video games weren’t yet portable and the cottages at Glidden Lodge were crude and open to the elements, so we had the feeling of being outdoors for the duration of our stay.
James Norton / Heavy Table
Food was never a big part of the trip. Hamburger stands and supper clubs were the mainstays; we’d make s’mores in the fireplace of our cottage. I remember the ice cream-filled cream puff at the Lodge restaurant being an annual favorite.
By contrast: Back in Door County this month as part of a Door County Visitor Bureau press tour (full details at the end of the story*), our first meal after arriving was at Parador, the new classically styled tapas restaurant in Egg Harbor.
What are tapas doing in Door County, previously known for Al Johnson’s Swedish pancakes and homemade cherry bounce?
Google Maps / Heavy Table
And how did these tapas come to be legitimately tasty?
And what’s the deal with all the olive oil shops and wineries in a region with a climate almost but not entirely unlike Napa or Italy?
A fine question. Not surprisingly, Door County has evolved rapidly to keep pace with the often well-heeled visitors from Milwaukee and Chicago who buy up its waterfront homes, fill its marinas with $750,000 yachts, and keep its pricey restaurants and gift shops in the black. Some of that change has been wonderful and refreshing, some has been grimly necessary, and some has been perplexing, but the overall impact has been to leave the peninsula a marvelous place to vacation and dine, if you keep your wits about you.
SPAIN UP NORTH, VIA PARADOR
James Norton / Heavy Table
As a point of reference: While honeymooning in 2007, my wife and I stayed at the Parador (state-run national heritage hotel) in Ronda, Spain. The hotel room’s two balconies overlooked rich pasture land dotted with small farmhouses and a gorgeous crest of mountains, affording one of the most beautiful views we’ve ever enjoyed. The interior decor of the two-story apartment was spare and impeccable. Breakfast was a dream: cafe con leche, fresh fruit, fresh orange juice, local pastries.
Naturally, the dinner at the Parador restaurant in Egg Harbor didn’t compare to the one in Ronda. It was actually much better. By some quirk of lazy management, the Spanish hotel was serving aggressively priced fancy food served by classically snooty waiters made from lousy ingredients by indifferent chefs. Dessert, which looked great on the menu, emerged as a sub-McDonald’s level ice cream sundae with at least one human hair on it. From appetizer to dessert, Becca and I moved in turn from doubt to shock to horror to hilarity.
Geiger & Associates
Door County’s Parador reminded me far more of the tapas bar we found across the street and down the block from the Spanish hotel – a joint packed with locals that served up simple, nicely balanced bites of food for a reasonable price. While Parador in Door County is a bit more fine dining-oriented than many of its Spanish cousins, it has much in common with them in terms of the flavor profiles of its dishes and its dedication to using fresh ingredients; this makes it all that much more remarkable that the chef, Michael Reid, has never been to Spain. His work stands up with the real deal.
On the night we arrived, Parador was offering three sangrias, including a red, a white with lime and cucumbers, and a sparkling featuring cherry juice, cava, and another Spanish wine. We tried the sparkling sangria and thought it terrific — well balanced, refreshing, light with a bit of bite to it, and not oversweet.
Bacon-wrapped dates ($7) came with a brandied reduction and were pleasingly rich, with the right mix of smoky, sweet, and salty flavors.
A tortilla española ($5, a potato, onion and egg omelet) was also spot on, mellow and soothing.
Geiger & Associates
A Basque apple tart for dessert fell flat in terms of flavor impact, but a queso de cabra ($7, a combination of melted Wisconsin goat cheese and tomato sauce served with garlic toast) was a hit. And a goat cheese cheesecake (above) with impeccable Spanish peanut brittle set our table full of food writers atwitter.
Parador, 7829 Hwy 42, Egg Harbor, WI | 920.868.2255
COLD FISH, HOT FLAMES, AND A SOMEWHAT CONTROLLED EXPLOSION: THE FISH BOIL
James Norton / Heavy Table
What is a fish boil? Cross a plate full of fish with the buttery goodness of lobster with the ending of just about any Die Hard film, and you’ve got a pretty good approximation.
The typical fish boil involves potatoes, peeled onions, and circular cross sections of Lake Michigan whitefish cooking in an old metal cauldron heated by burning wood. As the fish cook, they release oil, which foams up to the top of the roiling kettle and mixes with bits of soot. Ingenious Door County residents (reputedly following an Icelandic tradition established on Washington Island off the northern tip of the peninsula) figured out a way to clear off the foam and make for a tastier supper: Just superheat the fire and boil over the kettle.
The solution to heating up the fire? Throwing kerosene directly onto the flames. The resulting fireball soars as high as a dozen feet into the air and the overflow of water from the kettle extinguishes the flames beneath. Dinner is served.
Courtesy of Geiger & Associates
Dinner is also quite good. The onions are caramelized and pleasingly sweet and tender. The potatoes are plain but perfectly cooked, and easily enhanced with hot sauce and / or salt. And the two pieces of fish each diner receives are moist and tender and mild, reminiscent of lobster when doused with the house-made drawn butter sauce. Waiters offer to assist you in deboning your fish, and their assistance should be accepted; the whitefish pieces are laden with bones, but they can be cleaned quickly by an expert. Continue reading Should You Find Yourself in Door County, Wisconsin »
John Garland / Heavy Table
The State Fair is over. The cavalry of Park and Ride buses have gone, so too the type of gridlock on the streets you only see in zombie films. Yes: The Como and St. Anthony neighborhoods are habitable once again. This is good news for the workers in these office park-laden areas because there are some great lunch spots on these back streets – a few of which the Fair makes somewhat difficult to get at. Try one of these five lunch bites, none of which comes on a stick, next time you’re in the area.
Donburi at Obento-Ya (1510 SE Como Ave, Mpls., 612.331.1432)
One doesn’t expect to find a fun, classy Japanese bistro tucked back there on Como Ave. Shouldn’t a place like Obento-Ya be right in the middle of Dinkytown for all to see? Actually, that’s probably for the better, otherwise you might not be able to get a seat at noon.
My favorite seat in the house is on the left side of the bar for a hypnotic view of the robata grill. Though they’ve recently removed their delicious robata from the lunch menu, there is still some great midday eating to be had. You can hardly go wrong with their tasty bento. But take note of the day’s lunch special, especially on Tuesdays or Fridays when it’s Donburi.
On Tuesdays, the Katsudon ($10, pictured below) is a wonderfully starchy crowd pleaser. It’s a breaded pork cutlet, fried, then sliced open for an egg to be sautéed inside. The egg retains a little runniness which drips down into a bed of sweet rice with onions. Friday is a similar rendition with chicken. It’s savory and rich, and it comes with a cup of some downright delicious miso soup.
California Cheeseburger at Manning’s (2200 SE Como Ave, Mpls, 612.331.1053)
No lunch spot looks as comfortable on Como Ave. as Manning’s, from its weathered facade to its wood paneling adorned by old sports page clippings. Sitting down in one of the ancient red leather booths (seating yourself, as is their custom), you look around and surmise that very little about this place changes. Well, they don’t serve 3.2 beer anymore, but they’ve been flipping burgers at 22nd and Como since 1932.
There’s something decidedly awesome about a joint where the “California” Cheeseburger ($7.75) still merits its own line on the menu, despite the fact that it only differs from a regular cheeseburger by a slice of tomato and some iceberg lettuce.
But these are seriously good burgers by any standards. The hand-shaped irregular patties feature a nice crust and come grilled perfectly to order – medium rare here is actually medium rare. The bun is pillowy yet substantial enough to hold the juicy burger. In a city where the burger scene is ruled by one crazy jucy lucy iteration trying to outdo the next, the burger at Manning’s is a welcome throwback.
John Garland / Heavy Table
Recent Comments