Weekly highlights: new menu and chef at King’s Wine Bar, Reel Deal at Chino Latino, and some great dishes at Chimborazo

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 Had a fun time last Sunday at King’s Wine Bar’s open house – got to meet their new chef, Andrew Kraft and sample some of the new dishes on their menu.Last year, when Kraft was working at tony Manhattan restaurants, he told a reporter that his ambition was to move back to his native Minnesota “help mold the food scene there. ” To judge by the tastes he and his staff dished up for the spillover crowd who showed up for the event, he’s off to a good start. Some of the old King’s Wine Bar favorites are still on the menu – like the deviled eggs, tater tots and roasted chicken with German potato salad, but some of the new additions take the menu in a more adventuresome direction – like the fish tacos with spicy lime aioli, , swordfish with wild rice tabouli, and a very refreshing tomato melon salad with cucumber, basil, ricotta and white balsamic vinegar. Everybody seems to be serving steamed mussels these days, but Kraft’s preparation, with roasted corn, tarragon and smoked paprika is one of the most interesting and tasty I have had in recent memory. On Tuesday nights, King’s offers a four-course date night tasting menu for $45. Check their Facebook page for details.  Chino Latino’s newest Reel Deal is a sushi sampler – white tiger roll, mango shrimp caterpillar roll, wasabi tuna drano balls, and chipotle salmon roll ($29), plus two mojitos and two movie tickets for the Lagoon or Uptown theaters, all for $40. Continue Reading

Sunday night is date night at Rinata in Minneapolis

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So, where do you like to go when you don’t feel like cooking? I don’t mean special occasion places, just places where you can have an enjoyable dining experience without spending an arm and a leg.Last Sunday, we got into another one of those Sunday night situations where we just got back into town, and it’s 8 p.m., and neither of us feels like cooking (which sort of makes it sound like we both do the cooking, but actually, Carol does 99 percent of the cooking), so, we decide we’re going to dine out, which leads to the “where do you feel like going?” phase of the conversation, which can usually last for a good 20 minutes to half an hour.One thing we didn’t want to do is have spend $80 for a just-okay-nothing-special small plate dinner for two like we did the other night at a wine bar in our neighborhood. (All the way home, I kept thinking, we could have gone to Rincon 38. We seem to be having that experience a lot lately.)Then, all of a sudden, Carol comes up with a brilliant idea: how about Rinata? They do that $20 per person four-course date-night thing on Sunday nights.And so we did. Continue Reading

Food finds: Cajun food truck, Dongpo pork and Taiwan noodles

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My latest food finds include a Cajun food truck in downtown Minneapolis, Dongpo pork on University Ave., and mock pork in a basement locale in Eat Street. “Look for the crawfish flag,” Tim Glover told me. He doesn’t serve crawfish etoufee every day, but when he has it on the menu at his Cajun2Geaux food truck, you can spot the big crawfish flag flying from the radio antenna. But finding the truck is the first challenge – he isn’t in downtown Minneapolis every day, and he doesn’t have a fixed location – so you have to check the Cajun2Geaux.com website or his Twitter feed, @Cajun2GeauxTim. The menu changes from day to day, but he always has shrimp po boys ($10) and jambalaya ($4/$8), and he usually has red beans and rice, and sometimes chicken and sausage gumbo. I caught up with him recently in front of St. Olaf Catholic Church on 2nd Ave. Continue Reading

Bite-sized Minneapolis food news: Crescent Moon’s Iftar, pizza night at Sun Street Breads, Vo’s Vietnamese Cuisine, Rincon 38’s new happy hour and more

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I stopped by the other night to check out the Iftar buffet at Crescent Moon, the Afghan restaurant on Central Ave. in northeast Minneapolis. Iftar is the traditional meal that ends the daily fast during Ramadan, the Muslim month of dawn-to-sunset fasting, and Crescent moon is one of several local restaurants that offer Iftar buffets.The Crescent Moon’s nightly Iftar dinner is held in the restaurant’s third-floor banquet room, an opulently appointed room with brocaded curtains, white linens and even a mirrored disco ball. (The dinnerware for the buffet is less opulent: styrofoam plates and cups, and plastic cutlery.) Ramadan follows the lunar calendar, so its dates according to the Gregorian calendar change every year. Since Ramadan this year falls in mid-summer, it’s a long fast—at Crescent Moon, the buffet service didn’t start till after 9 p.m. The large hall was nearly full when I visited, with a festive crowd that looked to an outsider like a cross-section of the local Muslim community—at one table, a group of men who might have been Somali or Sudanese, speaking a language I couldn’t identify, at another a group of young women wearing hijab, speaking un-accented English, and at other tables, men and women who could have been from Pakistan or India. The spread offers a big variety of traditional Middle Eastern and Afghan fare: everything from hummus, baked eggplant and rice pilaf to lamb shank, chicken and kebabs of ground beef and lamb. Continue Reading

Minneapolis bites: Bluestem Bar & Table, Sandcastle, and 3 Tiers

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Finally made it over to Bluestem Bar and Table, the cozy little bistro tucked away behind French Meadow Bakery & Cafe. BB&T and FMB&C share a kitchen, and you can actually order anything from the FMB&C menu at Bluestem, but Bluestem offers tableside service and its own menu of more upscale preparations.First impressions: I was charmed by the looks of the place—mustard walls decorated with aspen, a big turquoise bar at the center, a few booths with tabletops of salvaged wood along the side, and another dining room hidden away in the back. The menu has a strong emphasis on local, sustainable and organic, featuring beef from Grass Run, poultry from Wild Acres, eggs from Larry Schultz Organic Farm, etc.We only sampled four dishes, and three of them were winners: the apple bleu salad, tossed with almonds and St. Pete’s bleu cheese ($7/$11); the very lively trio of rustic tartines topped, respectively, with hummus and avocado, jalapeno artichoke and wild Pacific smoked salmon ($10); and the handmade ravioli, filled with mascarpone and finished with white wine, thyme, lemon and heirloom tomatoes ($16).The one disappointment was the cornmeal-breaded fried chicken, served over an organic corn waffle with chipotle hot sauce, pink peppercorn syrup and creme fraiche ($12); a striking presentation, but the chicken and the waffle were both quite dry. Still, it’s a promising start, and I would gladly return to try some more items from the menu, such as the pan-seared scallops with sweet chili sauce ($12), the duck confit flatbread ($11), or the French omelette with asparagus, Gruyere and wild mushrooms ($10). Doug Flicker is a tough act to follow—especially if you are Doug Flicker, one of the Twin Cities’ most highly acclaimed chefs. Continue Reading

Date night at the Lowbrow Cafe

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I’ve grown rather fond of the new gastro-pubs, but what I really like about the Lowbrow Cafe is that it isn’t trying to be one of them. No macaroni and cheese with truffle oil. No duck confit banh mi sandwiches. Lowbrow isn’t stuck in the past, but the core of their menu is classic Americana — chili, burgers, fries, and even fish sticks and deviled eggs. Even the more contemporary offerings, such as fish tacos and the fried tofu sandwich steer clear of trendiness, and there’s a nice selection of vegetarian dishes, including a very tasty tempeh Reuben, (kind of like a turkey Reuben, but with a lighter karmic load) and a pinto and quinoa veggie burger (both $9.25) . Continue Reading

Origami Uptown joins the Izakaya crowd in Minneapolis

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Origami Izakaya: can the Japanese restaurant be saved?I don’t know if you have noticed this, but a lot of Japanese restaurants have started adding Izakaya to their name, or their menu, or both. I’m not sure which came first, but we now have Zenbox Izakaya; Wasabi has added an Izakaya and hot pot menu, Obento-ya has an Izakaya happy hour menu; and Masu Sushi and Robata has a separate Izakaya list. The newest addition to the Izakaya crowd is Origami Uptown’s new’s late-night Izakaya menu. Izakaya, according to Wikipedia, is “a type of Japanese drinking establishment which also serves food to accompany the drinks.” What it means locally is a bunch of menu options that go beyond sushi, tempura, and pseudo-Japanese hibachi cooking.Why izakaya? Why now? I have a theory. Continue Reading

Sea Change’s happy hour, Psycho Suzi’s patio, and roasted goat at the An-Nuur International Restaurant

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Highlights of a week of eating: Let’s see—Sunday night Carol took me out for Father’s Day for dinner and a show. The real highlight was actually the show, Clybourne Park at the Guthrie. It’s one of the best plays I have seen in years: a sharp, funny, serious play about race that had the audience laughing out loud (and squirming in their seats). (Read Jay Gabler’s Daily Planet review.) But the late night bite next door at Sea Change was also a treat. Sea Change offers a happy hour every night from 8 to 11 p.m.  (and also Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 3 to 6, and Mondays from 5 to 6.) We split an order of fries, a cup of bouillabaisse ($6), crisp fried calamari with curry aioli ($7), and a shrimp cocktail ($8), all beautifully presented and robustly flavorful.I gotta say, June, July, and August are about the only months of the year when I don’t wish that I was sitting under a palapa someplace tropical and sipping a tiki drink. Continue Reading

Bubo test – online resume

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To create your video resume, click on Record video, and then answer the following questions: What is your name? Where do you live?What kind of work are you looking for?Where did you go to school?What work experience do you have?What are your best qualities as an employee? What obstacles have you encountered in looking for a job? You will have three minutes to complete the resume. You can re-record your answer as often as you wish.   // Continue Reading