Dari-ette – St. Paul, MN

Since I moved to the Twin Cities, I’ve wanted to try a “Hot Dago” sandwich – even before I knew what it actually was. I’d ask people, “Isn’t that kind of racist?” They would usually reply, “Sure, but it’s also delicious.” In the Twin Cities, these sandwiches are legendary – to the point where D.Rough’s family has Hot Dagos for all kinds of family get-togethers. But it’s alright, her family is Italian!

So you know, a Hot Dago is a sandwich with Italian sausage, marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, and served on …. Wait for it… FRENCH bread. Seriously, that’s how I’ve seen it described on menus. How did those pesky French people overtake a nationally recognized food of the Italian people? I’m not sure either.

I scored a LivingSocial.com coupon for the Dari-ette, which I had heard has fantastic sandwiches. I have managed to stall long enough that I was in danger of losing the deal due to the Dari-ette closing for the winter. It is a drive-in kind of place, so when it gets cold, it sucks eating food in your car in a parking lot. We finally found a night where we could go, so D.Rough and I hopped in the car and headed over to the middle of this residential neighborhood in the Dayton’s Bluff area.

We pulled up to the menu (I didn't pull up close enough, which is why D.Rough is OUTSIDE the car ordering - hahaha) and decided what we wanted. We thought we’d start with some cheesy garlic bread and then I, of course, went with the Hot Dago, which the Dari-ette calls the Italiano. D.Rough decided on the meatball sandwich. I also wanted a rootbeer float and D.Rough got a cherry 7up. You yell your order into the menu board and the mystery people inside begin making your food. It wasn’t long before they brought the things out for us.

The garlic cheesy bread was actually quite delicious. Not a huge amount of cheese on the bread, but it was just about right to taste everything. The great part is actually the sauce. We joked about the place selling the sauce by the gallon (it’s on the menu like that), but after we tasted it, we seriously considered buying some. It was really quite good.

We thought it odd that they brought out the drinks INSIDE a paper bag (pronounced “bayg” in Minnesota, if you didn’t know) that had been stapled closed. Of course that was a recipe for disaster and the lids were off and my float was a little bit spill-y. I managed to survive and get most of the beverage into my mouth – hahaha.

The sandwiches were worth making the special trip to the Dari-ette. D.Rough’s meatball sandwich was super tasty. The meatballs were rather large and had mozzarella cheese on them. Then the delicious sauce was all over that. The whole thing was served on giant slices of French bread, which was also delicious. It’s hard to beat something like this.

When I opened up mine, D.Rough commented that that really wasn’t a Hot Dago. Apparently, the differentiating factor of a Hot Dago is the sausage on the sandwich is in patty form, NOT in link form like the sandwich before me. I really wasn’t terribly concerned, since the whole thing was delicious. It’s basically the same sandwich as the meatball sandwich, but you get halved Italian sausage links instead of meatballs. It still has the mozzarella cheese and the sauce on French bread. And it is still amazingly delicious.

My only complaints about the sandwiches are the fact that it’s ridiculously messy to eat in your car and also that the bread eventually gets super soggy with the sauce all over everything. Both of those things are easily overlooked when you’re eating it though. So I don’t really have any ACTUAL complaints.

The whole operation is overseen by an Italian lady ordering around a bunch of high school kids who wait for their parents/friends to pick them up when the place closes. We were the last customers for the night, so we got to see the place shut down, clean up, and send kids home.

Apparently, Guy Fieri likes to go here when he’s back in Minnesota. It actually surprised me how good it was, and the kitsch factor of the drive-in restaurant is always a fun time!

Top 5 things about the Dari-ette
1. Italiano (apparently a bastardized Hot Dago)
2. Meatball sandwich
3. Cheesy garlic bread
4. Lots of delicious things on the menu
5. Drive-ins are super fun!

Bottom 5 things
1. Super messy to eat in the car
2. Bread gets soggy from all the sauce
3. Drinks placed in stapled paper bag
4. Seems they close when they stop being busy each night
5. It’s terribly difficult to find due to the spelling that I can’t ever remember

Dari-ette Drive-In
1440 Minnehaha Ave E
St Paul, MN 55106