Lyon, 2012

Lyon was a terrific place.  Our first time in France, we didn't know what to expect.  We found the people warm, the food warm and inviting and the city beautiful.  From the medieval neighborhood to the street market every day except Mondays (picture below), we loved every inch of it (or every centimeter, since they use the metric system).

I do have to say that the French would be very surprised in learning what has been done around the world musically in the last 30 years.  I say this because all their radio stations and restaurants/bars play music almost exclusively from the 60s and 70s.  I think they would enjoy all the new music.

We ate wonderful things all over Lyon, but if I had to choose one, it probably would be this.  Pork meat encased in a pastry with aspic on top.  The one in the picture was purchased at the street market, but you could find them everywhere.  Instead of pistachios, you can find mushrooms or peppercorns, etc.  All delicious.  We are going to have to try more of France...

Another Night at the Butcher Block

Last Tuesday we visited the Butcher Block with our good friends Debbie and Steve.  This Minneapolis Rome inspired trattoria is just a few blocks from home, so we make our way to this terrific establishment every few weeks and never regret it.  

The place is welcoming and cozy, very fitting to the Northeast scene.  Chef Filippo Caffari (formerly at I Nonni) is a skilled master butcher that really knows his way around the kitchen.  His tomato sauces have a perfect balance of sweetness and acidity (my bet is on San Marzano tomatoes as the key ingredient).  You cannot go wrong with anything that has them.  

Sharon had Gnocchi with Wild Boar Ragu that was heavenly.  The gnocchi were light and tender and the ragu was hearty enough to stand on its own as a dish.  A very balanced dish.  Debbie's Spaghetti and Meatballs (made with pork and ricotta) were plentiful and a testament to the mastery of chef Filippo's tomato sauces.

Steve and I ordered the Veal Liver Marsala (I have to confess that is what I usually order.  In fact this dish made its way into this blog on an earlier although rather brief post.)  This is the only place I have visited where you are asked for temperature on the liver (medium-rare for me).  The tender veal liver is served over mashed potatoes and accompanied with the most delicious Marsala wine sauce.  Topping the liver with sautéed crimini mushrooms really highlights the earthy profile of the dish.  I can't recommend this dish enough.  

Last Tuesday we didn't have appetizers, but from previous visits I can really recommend the Grilled Octopus (a favorite of Sharon's) and the Eggplant Saporite, served with artichoke, fennel and gorgonzola.  The Butcher Block is nothing if not consistent (one of the best compliments I think you can give to a good restaurant).  It really never disappoints.  I know we will make our way back there before too long.

Chef Filippo Caffari and his kitchen crew

Filipino at Minnette's

In an unexpected turn of events, Minette who is usually in Georgia by now, makes a short return to the Twin Cities to receive her son, back fro Japan, where he is stationed with the Navy.  Better yet, she extends a last minute invitation to eat sue Filipino food at her house.  We can't possibly pass on this opportunity.

As usual at Minette's, we enjoyed great wine, terrific food, and heart warming conversation.  The only drawback of the evening and that Buzz had to stay behind and couldn't join us.  

Here are a few pics taken before everybody started digging in (yep, I had them wait as I took the pictures).

Rice noodles with chicken.  Filipinos squeeze a little lemon and add
a little soy sauce over the noodles.  Terrific!

Tapas: Marinated and sautéed beef served with fresh tomatoes.

Caramelized onions cooked in the drippings from the beef.
A perfect toping for the tapas.

Home made spring rolls.  In my opinion the best item of the day.

Redeemed Masu

A few months back I did a review of Masu as it was opening its doors.  While I tried to make it a positive review, several of my readers (I know, I was also surprised to learn I had several readers), read between the lines and came back to me with comments such us: "so... you didn't like the place, right?"  Indeed I was not impressed, but I wanted to like them badly being so close to home.

Last Monday, a few friends and I went for a new visit to Masu on our way to Jazz Central (which btw, just posted a few pictures on their website taken by yours truly).

I started with a Miso soup.  I was feeling a tad tired from a full day at work and thought its warmth would be comforting.  It was.  The soup came promptly and had good appearance and taste.  The soup was good, but miso soup is not particularly difficult.  As long as it is not salty and dis not come from an envelope with freeze dried tofu, it will probably be OK.  The true test would come with the entree.

 Mau specializes in Sushi and Robata.  Robata are small dishes (almost tapas style) that are skewered and grilled in a hibachi sort of contraption.  I didn't know it then, but in our trip to Japan, Sharon and I visited a Robata restaurant in Kyoto where we had a great meal and tried the grilled rice balls (Masu's version pictured at right), that were served as a side dish. 

For the entree I chose one of their Teishoku (set meals).  This is sort of like a bento box without the box.   At $20 a pop, it seems like a good deal.  Mine included Pork Katsu, Shrimp and Vegetable Tempura, 3 Sashimi, Zucchini Robata and Yaki Onigiri.  I found the pork to be a tad on the dry side (perhaps overcooked), but the sashimi was fresh, the tempura well down and not greasy in the least.  My Zucchini Robata was rather simple.  Terry and Maureen's, who ordered the one with asparagus looked much better.  They ordered the salmon Teishoku, of which I had a taste and was pleasantly surprised by its freshness and perfect temperature.  The center was juicy and cooked to perfection.  

All and all Masu is not my favorite place to have Japanese, but it is definitely a good spot to try something beyond sushi and noodles in the Twin Cities.  I's give them three and a half stars out of five.  Had I eaten the salmon and asparagus, they might have taken four.

Rosa Mexicano

Last night Birdie and I went to an art show at a law firm that was showing works by Mat Ollig (an artist friend of Birdie and really worth checking out).  Following the show, we headed to try the new kid on the block, Rosa Mexicano, on the corner of Hennepin and 6th.  

The place looks great, very open, bright and certainly a happening environment.  We had a reservation but had to wait a little at the bar, where we had a drink while waiting and gave Mat time to join us.  I was surprised by a rather short wine list, but the pino noir I had was excellent.

We agreed to seat outside to shorten the wait. That proved to be a good choice, it was a great night.  Warm and with a nice breeze.  The waitstaff was friendly and attentive, but the star of the night was the food (good thing at a restaurant ;-)  

We started with a hamachi tartar with watermelon, cucumber and jicama served with a tomato habanero sauce and jalapeño ice.  The fish was sufficiently fresh but the best part f the dish, in my opinion was the jalapeño ice (a little bit of what felt like spicy pepper sorbet).

We followed the tartar with Tuetanos Rostizados (roasted bone marrow) served with garlic toast and a chipotle-piloncillo sauce.  The bone marrow was smooth and silky (as it usually is, no much merit on that), the sauce was sweet and spicy and helped cut the fatty flavor of the marrow.  Overall a successful dish.  

And as the picture shows, I even convinced Birdie to try it (I can't believe that married to Kim, the man that will eat anything,  she never had before).  She enjoyed, as did Mat.

The best dish came after that, the Chamorro (pork shank) was large enough to feed two people.  Served with rice on the side, the shank had jalapeños and beans (and I think mushrooms).  The pork had a crispy exterior and a nice juicy and very flavorful interior, almost as tender as carnitas.  Really a terrific dish.

The second entree we shared was Chile Rellenos (stuffed chiles).  These are dried peppers that are rehydrated, stuffed with meat and roasted.  Overall not bad, but I would have enjoyed them with a little bit less meat inside and perhaps something else like rice or some veggies.

Overall a good start for an area of Hennepin that needs a little revitalizing.  The price point was higher than I expected, but low enough to allow them to fill up a restaurant of their size.  Very much worth visiting again.  Hopefully next time with Sharon when she is back from San Francisco.

Celebrating Joy's Birthday at Saffron

Sharon and I got together last night with Mike, Anita, Tim and Joy to celebrate Joy's one of many annual birthdays at Saffron.  She has an in with the owner and chef and arranged for a tasting menu with wine pairings that truly dazzled our palates.

The pictures below show each of the eight courses,  but make no justice to the flavors and the impeccable wine pairings that chef Sameh Wadi selected for the meal.  They also leave out the very friendly and professional staff (including Alberto and Horatio) and front-of-the-house man (and chef's brother) Shahid Wadi, who visited our table frequently to add to the evening's delight with his affable personality and good humor.

It was also interesting to learn that Saffron will be visited today (Saturday Oct 1), by Al Jazeera, the Arabic news network to record a special on this very fine establishment and purveyor of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine.

One last comment before getting to the menu... What really pleased me most about the evening (aside from the terrific company, which was very much expected), was the masterful progression of dishes that brought to the table an unparalleled crescendo of flavor and complexity.  We've had the opportunity to enjoy a number of tasting menus over the years and even on those that we enjoyed, we haven't always felt that the whole was as harmonic as it was last evening.  Our host had clearly put thought in crafting this menu.

And finally... the menu (my apologies for the quality of the pictures, I was using my iPhone and the flash did not trigger until later in the evening when the lights were dimmed in the dining room):

Amuse bouche: Crab salad over compressed  cucumber with radish and a jalapeño sauce

Salad: Heirloom tomato confit with fried goat cheese and truffle vinaigrette reduction

Soup: Garlic yogurt with smoked paprika,  corn, figs, kikos and a corn  cream poured at the table 

Fish: Monkfish with a jalapeño-tomato sauce, fingerling potatoes and golden raisins 

Poultry: Lamb sausage stuffed quail over farro tabouli and pirripirri sauce

Meat: Lamb belly with lamb bacon and a lamb reduction (that's three time lamb!) with chickpeas 

Apple caramel parfait

Chocolate ganache with caramel ice cream 

2011 Carifest

This year was no different than last and Carifest (the Caribbean festival that opens the fourth weekend in July between the Plymouth and Broadway bridges in Minneapolis) was pretty awesome.  The jerky chicken was spicy and smokey, but the real find were the beef patties (pictured below) which were flaky, surprisingly light and very juicy.  

Fideuá

Fideuá is a Spanish dish reminiscent of a seafood paella, but made with pasta instead of rice.  I attempted it last weekend and I have to say it came out beautifully.  What really made it was the fish stock, which rather than just using a little bit of fish sauce and water or buying the stock from the grocery store, I made it myself using some tilapia, a small lobster tail, some salmon and the shells from the shrimp that would be used for the fideuá (OK... I added a little bit of lobster base).  So, $15 later, I had two quarts of a pretty amazing fish stock.  I think totally worth it.  It could have been served as a seafood consommé. 

The other ingredients?  Some Chilean sea bass, shrimp, clams and mussels galore, red bell pepper, tomatoes, saffron and tumeric and of course, the pasta.  All cooked in the paella pan.  

Definitely a dish I have to try again soon.

2011 Phoenix Paella

Just a quick post to comment on this year's Paella Party at the Phoenix that turned out very, very well.  We had just over 50 invitees and even though we were rained out and ended up moving it indoors, it did not put a damper on the fun.  The food was good.  It is worth mentioning the red bell pepper and cilantro popsicles served as a palate cleanser and the paella itself, which had a nice socarrat (the caramelized crust of rice that sticks to the bottom of the pan).

To top it all, we had fabulous local Jazz singer Nichola Miller, who played two sets and liven up the afternoon.   

Cuban Sandwiches

Sharon and I partnered again with Mike and Anita to host a party in the building and invite a few of our friends.  This time, with the summer well on its way (or at least as far as it seemed we were going to get it), we decided to use the terrace and cook on the grill.

To make it easy on us, and be able to feed the almost 30 attendees, we decided to make Cuban Sandwiches.  With that excuse, we bought a few Cuban flags and made it a Cuba Libre party.  The excuse seemed to suit everybody.

The pork had a dry rub of powdered dry mushrooms, brown sugar, sweet and spicy Spanish pimenton (paprika), cumin seeds, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, salt and pepper.  Along with the pork and as the traditional recipe called, we included ham, cheese, pickles and mustard.  Instead of Cuban bread, we used French baguettes (the take and bake kind).  

The biggest problem we had was that we did not have a press large enough for the sandwiches (ore so since we had nine baguettes (including some that had just roasted veggies and chèvre).  To make up for that, we placed two cookie sheets upside down on the grill and buttered the top surface.  We then placed the sandwiches on top and then paced another two cookie sheets on top which were weighted with some brinks (I was told not to ask were they came from).

The result was terrific and very well received.  We also served a very fresh black bean soup sort of reminiscent of a gazpacho and more traditional black beans and rice with lots of cumin.  For dessert, we had a tres leches cake which the bakery decorated with another Cuban flag.  A great summer afternoon to remember.

Crescent Moon Bakery

We left Friday night on a mission: finding a place to have dinner that none of us has tried before.  A seemingly easy task for four people, but all proposals that we could think of had been tried by at least one of us.  We opted to drive down Central Ave to find a place.  On our way to a Thai place, we saw the Crescent Moon Bakery, an Afghani restaurant on 2339 Central Ave NE.

The multiple neon signs on the window were somewhat at odds.  One advertised the best pizza next to another one that read frozen pizza.  Anyway, after seeing the pictures on the entrance de decided to give it a try.

Not sure of what to order, we chose the sampler platter for four.  I should say the picture below is very misleading.  This was a HUGE platter.  The four of us ate to our heart's content and still took a to-go box that could have fed another two.

In addition to the food on that platter, the meal came with a salad and some pitas.  $60 bought us the meal for four and four bottles of water (no liquor, wine or beer).  Overall a great meal.  My favorite part was the roasted goat stew on the white bowl.  It was tender and juicy.  The lamb sausage (hiding behind the gyro meat at three o'clock on the platter), was nicely cooked, showing just a smidgen of pink in the center. 

We left with two gyro calzones to go (dinner tonight) and the desire to come back to try their award wining ethnic pizza, the house specialty, with Eggplant, Mushrooms, and Black Olives.

Update (May 15): Just yesterday we tried their signature eggplant pizza.  It was barely OK, sot as good as their more traditional middle-eastern food.  It was light (thin crust, no meat and not as much cheese as you usually see in American pizzas), but still not deserving of the Best Ethnic Pizza award it received.

Masu, The New Kid on the Block

The new kid on the block in Northeast is Masu Sushi and Robata.  How about that... Japanese no more than a few blocks from our bat cave.  The place is nicely decorated with an industrial interior (making it a tad loud due to the hard concrete surfaces) and plenty of colorful Japanese touches to get yo in the mood for sushi.  Particularly interesting is the wall at the end of the dining room entirely covered with the eyes of a Geisha.  Nice touch...

Masu Maki Roll - The house specialty

The place was packed for a Wednesday, but since they opened less than a week ago, it is expected (and I am sure hoped by the owners).  We had a reservation for 6 and ended up having 11 people, but still were able to seat without much of a wait.  The menu has a variety of sushi, small dishes and noodles.  Most of us ordered sushi to start and then some noodles.

The sushi rolls were good, although they were not entirely what I was expecting.  The house specialty and namesake (pictured above), has all its seafood cooked.  The shrimp tempura style, and the salmon very rare but definitely not raw.

Spicy Arctic Char Roll

The Spicy Arctic Char Roll was good, but it had so much cilantro that it was pretty much all yo could taste.  One of the things I like about sushi is that with the fish being raw and the few ingredients usually part of the dish, you have nowhere to hide bad quality ingredients and as a result you get some of the best seafood available.  This might have been the case last night, but the fresh seafood flavor was amiss.    

Pork Belly Ramen

Having recently returned from Tokyo and having enjoyed some great ramen noodles there, we put them to the test.  I ordered the Pork Belly Ramen and Sharon ordered the Tonkatsu Curry Ramen.  OK, perhaps it was not fair to Masu... still, they did not fair too bad.  The pork belly was very nicely cooked.  Fork tender and flavorful.  The poached egg was a vice touch, although I prefer having a soft-boiled egg as we did in Shinjuku.   Overall a very successful dish.

Tunkatsu Curry Ramen

Sharon's Tonkatsu Curry Ramen was also good also not quite as impressive.  The curry, usually the star of a dish with its pungent flavor, was rather mild, but the coating was crispy and the noodles and broth were appropriate.

Overall my review may come across as lukewarm, but I was pleasantly surprised with the place.  Service was very good (even for a new place that is usually trying to come to terms with their initial success), the portions were large enough, the prices appropriate and the decor inviting.  It is not their fault that they caught us just a few weeks from a terrific culinary adventure in Japan.  Being as close as it is to home it could easily become a regular hangout for us. 

Shaken up in Japan

Yes, we were there during the earthquake and I have already told the story a million times, so I could not leave my blog readers (all four of them) out of the loop.  I will however get to that later.  I'd like to think that the good parts of the trip should outshine this horrible tragedy (if not in importance at least on leaving a positive impression).   Having finally found the time to write about our trip to Japan, the first thing that came to mind was our breakfast the first morning there.

We got there late the previous day and our host (my brother-in-law) had an oyster party going on.  The next morning we wanted to start our culinary experience with a bang.  We headed out to find a noodle shop an instead ended up having some rice with beef and green onions.  With a breakfast like that, the trip seemed to be off to a good start.

Out of all the things we ate, the most surprising one (not the one we liked the most, but the most surprising) was deep-fried seaweed.  It came to the table looking like a chunk of coal.  It had the airy consistency of a dense foam, but the flavor was something between the flavor of the sea and the flavor of something fried.  Delicious, interesting and very unexpected.  The perfect started for one of our best meals while in Tokyo.

The restaurant in question was in Roppongi, a very commercial, trendy and popular area downtown Tokyo (and conveniently a few blocks from our home there).

The interesting thing about this place was that they cooked their food in hay.  This produces a big, hot flame that dies in under a minute.  The result is deliciously charred food that is nice a rare on the inside.

Furthermore, the outside has some of the pieces of burnt hay that flew up with the flame, and did have a flavor that reminded you of fresh hay.

Pictured on the left was a great piece of bonito we had at that place.  You can see the effect of the fast flame on that beautifully cooked piece of fish.

This dish is also an example of the type of presentation you learn to expect at just about any restaurant in Japan: impeccable, attractive and incredibly appealing.

After a few appetizers, we entered the soup course.    A table-top burner is placed in the center of our table under a bowl of chicken stock.  Cut up chicken is added along with many veggies.  When you are full and can't thin of anything else, the waitstaff brings rice to the table and adds it to the remaining stock.  It's possible not everybody eats as much as we did, but then again, we were on vacation on our first trip to Japan.

Another excellent meal came a few days later at another restaurant within walking distance.  That was a night for Shabu-Shabu.  Shabu-Shabu is a Japanese dish of thin slices of meat and vegetables cooked at the table in a simmering pot of broth or water, then dipped into any of various sauces.  The name is onomatopoeic of the movement and sound the meat makes while dipped in the broth.

Our friend Emi invited us to come along to Shinjuku for lunch.  This is a large entertainment, business and shopping area where she lives and works.  She took us to a Ramen Shop where we had pork pot stickers and shared three different bowls of ramen noodles.  This is truly addictive and delicious in so many ways.  Served with the soup is a not quite hard boiled egg that had been cooked to perfection to maintain a soft center.  What a surprise!

Sushi consistently had great quality, presentation and surprisingly low prices (compared with our expectations, anyway).  Toro (tuna) is available three ways based on the fat content.  Pictured at right are fatty tune (bottom right) and a medium fat (center bottom).  I found medium fat to have the perfect balance of softness and tuna flavor.  The sweet shrimp (top center) was also a crowd pleaser.

We also had kobe beef served sushi-style.  A few times even saw horse meat available the same way, although with all the seafood options available, we mostly stuck to fish (pictured at the right is tuna with seaweed rolled in green onions).  We will remember those breakfasts for a long, long time.


The day after the Tokyo Marathon (the primary reason for our visit), we went to the Asakusa,  the center of Tokyo's Shitamachi and one of the city's few districts that have preserved a certain atmosphere of the old Tokyo.  We were cold and were looking for refuge from the rain and snow and found a noodle shop on the second floor of a building

The udon noodles with tempura shrimp we ordered were the perfect, comforting meal for a cold day.  The broth brought just enough saltiness to the dish to counteract the usually (to my palate anyway) bland tempura. This soul-warming dish gave us energy to keep walking for a few more hours until we just had it with the cold and just went home.

 In Kyoto, after visiting the imperial palace and the surrounding park, we headed out to dinner to a place that had primarily skewers and grilled/fried food.  We were the first customers and got to sit at the bar by the cooks and talk to them (or attempt to anyway).  Pictured are deep-fried chicken.  Delicious but probably as unhealthy as they sound.

We ate tapas-style mostly picking items from the appetizer menu.  There was no fish available on the menu, but we had chicken livers on a skewer, grilled mushrooms and (pictured) chicken thigh meat with union shoots.  The dishes just kept on coming as we took pictures, drank beer and sake and ate to attempt to keep up.

Just about everything on the menu was grilled in a tiny hibachi-style grill.  This place, the chef told us, usually fills up later where the locals come after work and have drinks and order some apps to go along with them.  The grilled ball of rice was an item we HAD to try.  A crispy, salty (from soy sauce) exterior and a soft center made it fun to eat.

Also in Kyoto, back from the Inari temple, we were looking for a place to have lunch.  A freshly made, still-warm rice cracker served to buy as a bit of time as we selected an eatery.  From the many restaurants we saw among knife and chopsticks shops, there was one that keep appealing to us because of an old, wiry japanese woman grilling eel right outside the door.

We also liked the place because it had Japanese-style sitting (on the floor with a low table in between us).  It took us several attempts to get the eel, but it was worth the effort.  So much so that we ended up having it twice.  Barbecued eel is probably the one dish that most differs from the one you can get in the US.

On our train ride to Hiroshima, we noticed the little boxes of food that just about every passenger had and started to eat as soon as the train started moving, so on the ride back we got one to see what the rave was about.  The cold lunch box was definitely not the best meal we had, but was fun to try and kept us busy for a portion of the four hour train ride.

Our last full day in Tokyo we went to Ginza, a big, upscale shopping and business district that we had to visit before leaving.

To the northwest, there is a series of restaurants below an elevated railroad track with the look of the old Tokyo.  We stopped for a bite and ordered the item pictured at the left without knowing what it was.  It was the size of a small cantaloup and had fish and veggies mixed and deep-fried together.  Interesting, but basically fried food...

We decided to follow that by a more elegant (i.e. less fried) meal.  We chose the top of a large department store right at the main Ginza crossing.  we has a tasting menu that satisfied our appetite and left the impression we were looking for our last day in Japan.  The picture at left was our favorite dish, tender pork with veggies (so much so that we ordered it twice).

On our way down from that restaurant (12th floor), we started to feel the ground shaking and our building swaying.  The earthquake lasted for about 90 seconds and it caught us (of all places) in the glass and pottery area of the store.  Inventory crashed around us as we tried to keep our feet on the ground.  A second aftershock got us just a few floors below.

As we got to the street, we saw large numbers of people outside.  The Tokyo Metro was closed, taxi lines were endless and busses where packed, so we opted to walk back home using a subway map as a guide.  We weren't alone, half of tokyo walked home that day.  Most impressive was the calm and composure seen on every face we saw during that 90 minute long walk.  Without a doubt, these are remarkable people.

When we finally got home we were glued to the TV.  Slowly, those that had planned to come for dinner started to trickle in (all walked).  Emi had offered to cook our last dinner in Japan.  We were happy to learn that she did her shopping before the earthquake hit.

Emi (pictured at left proudly showing us a knife she had just bought) and a friend cooked for us one of the best meals we had during our trip (quite the challenge as the pictures and descriptions above probably suggest).  The meal had multiple courses served family-style at the same time (outside of tapas, probably the best way to eat).

There was a seaweed salad with lotus flower root, a heavenly rice also with some seaweed and little pieces of pork (ham?).  One of my favorite dishes that evening was a fish that was vey quickly marinated in soy sauce and ginger and then sauteed on a pan (pictured).  The soy sauce gives it the great color you see in the picture.

Another dish that I still remember was w=some thinly sliced pork that Emi cooked simply under a broiler.  The pork had been marinated in miso and a sediment that remains after sake is made.  The exterior was caramelized and a little crispy (particularly where the fat was).  The interior was juicy and tender.  A terrific meal to end a great trip. 

Now, I could not end this post without taking some time to thank our host.  Edu, my brother-in-law and friend, was a great host.  As much as we didn't want to impose during our visit, he made sure we never left the door without some advice on where to go and what to see.  He opened his house and his heart and guaranteed we had a superb time.  Edu introduced us to his friends and spent a great deal of his free time showing us around Tokyo or helping us plan our trips to other areas of Japan.  Bro, thanks for making us feel at home and welcome.  Mi casa es su casa anytime you decide to come by Minneapolis or wherever we happen to be.  I hope it won't be long.