Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/author/jeremy-iggers/page/14/)
Jeremy Iggers recently retired as executive director of the Twin Cities Media Alliance. His newest project is a website called www. GlobalTwinCities.com. He lives in south Minneapolis with his wife Carol and two cats.
I’m still feeling a little grumpy after my opening day visit to PrimeBar, the new chain restaurant that replaced Il Gatto in Calhoun Square. The grumpyness isn’t really about the food — which was actually pretty good — as it is about the chain-ification of Hennepin-Lake. Crate and Barrel (CB2). Victoria’s Secret. Urban Outfitters. Columbia Sportwear. Jimmy John’s. Timberland. North Face. Continue Reading
Another sign you’re getting older: every time you walk into a new restaurant, you get a twinge of nostalgia. The new restaurant in this case is the Mosaic Cafe, which opened a couple of weeks ago in the space that previously housed the Glaciers Cafe. Continue Reading
I faced an ethical dilemma in writing about Chimborazo, the Ecuadorian restaurant at 29th and Central Ave. Continue Reading
Have you been attacked while riding your bike on the Greenway, or anywhere else?
Monday morning shortly before 9 a.m., riding to work on the Greenway, I found the road partly blocked at 14th Avenue by half a dozen kids – some teens, some probably younger – standing in the middle of the road. I said something like, “hey, you can’t block the road” as I went around them, and then one kid threw a rock at me, hitting me in the upper body.
I stopped a few yards ahead, not sure what to do. Continue Reading
Being a cheapskate at heart, I am always on the lookout for ways to save on dining out. I don’t like to use coupon deals like Groupon, because they seem like such a bad deal for the restaurants, which typically only get around 25 percent of the face value of the coupon. It feels especially tacky to use a coupon at a restaurant where I know the owner or the chef.
But there are other ways to save money on dining, and now that I am no longer dining on an expense account, I am becoming a bit of an expert on them: happy hours, cheap date nights, and movie nights. Continue Reading
It wasn’t until my third visit to Icehouse on Eat Street that I discovered where I actually was. As I was leaving, I happened to ask the hostess whether the sprawling warehouse-y space had actually once been an icehouse.
“Yes it was, and after that it was a deli. And then it was empty for a long time.”
A deli? What deli? Continue Reading
Birdhouse on Hennepin, Stewart and Heidi Woodman’s new organic/sustainable restaurant, opened very quietly last week in the former Duplex space at 2516 Hennepin Ave. Minneapolis. I stopped by for the press sneak preview on Thursday, and then returned for brunch a couple of days later. I like what I have tasted so far, and I like the concept. The Woodmans (Woodmen?) aren’t the first chefs in town to embrace the idea of local and sustainable, but in their new restaurant they are also featuring an approach to menu design that embodies the wisdom of Michael Pollan:
“Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” Continue Reading
I tend to get grumpy about Indian restaurants because so many of them offer nearly identical menus, and preparations so similar that it seems like if you have tasted one lamb vindaloo or chicken tikka masala, you have tasted them all. The restaurants that feature Nepalese or Tibetan cuisine offer a little more culinary diversity, along with many of the same Indian standards as everybody else. Continue Reading
How do you pronounce “gastro-pub?”
I mean, should the accent be on the first word, gastro, connoting culinary sophistication, or on the second word, pub, as in public house, traditionally an English drinking establishment? Continue Reading
There is something blunt, almost brutal, about the name of Jack Riebel’s new restaurant The Butcher and the Boar. While most meat emporiums take names that distance themselves a bit from the living animal (The Capitol Grille; Morton’s Steak House), the Butcher and the Boar conjures a confrontation that is going to end badly for one of the parties. There will be blood. And sausage. And wild boar ham and head cheese. Continue Reading