Tori (Ramen) - St. Paul, MN

This old train car (literally an old railway passenger car) has been a few restaurants in the past. Probably more than I even know. I know I went here when it was Chris and Rob's. But, Tori (formerly Tori Ramen when they were up in the Summit Hill area of St. Paul) has taken it over and given a totally new vibe and menu. They consider themselves noodle specialists and it shows in the menu they have put together. I know this opened up during the pandemic in this location, but for some reason, it has taken me a bit to get here.

The inside is… unusual… in that it has a sort of dining room in the train car portion, then a very small bar area – apparently housed by local regulars – and then there’s this unusual area with one of those open-atmosphere garage doors that sort of spreads out onto the sidewalk. Not complaining at all, but I just didn’t want you to walk in expecting a traditional 90-degree-angles everywhere situation. 

We were seated pretty quickly and spent some time deciding what we were going to get. The menu has a handful of delicious sounding starters, a list of various ramen dishes – the items in red are the ones that are spicy – and then some add-ins. Super easy to understand. They’re also known for pretty advanced cocktails, so I went with the tiki-est of the drinks “Will There Be Rum?”, and the server assured me that yes, it DOES have plenty of rum. D got a strawberry lemonade. We opted for some cold sesame noodle to start and then D got the Dra(MN) – which is the chicken noodle, miso, and bali ramen’s combined – and I got the Com Saw Mi Da, which is chili crisp, gochujang, chicken, and a soft egg.

Drinks were fantastic. The strawberry lemonade was sweet, but not too sweet, and downright refreshing. The Will There Be Rum drink was an excellent tiki-style drink and it was a challenge not to drink it down in like three drinks. Would highly recommend this one.

The sesame noodles were perfect. A nice tall pile of noodles and red cabbage and cucumbers with tahini and black sesame seeds (the most evil of the sesame seeds). Not necessarily spicy, but there was some zing there somewhere. We slopped tahini sauce all over table by sharing this one, but fighting over a dish just means its really good and fight-worthy. You should try this one.

The ramen arrived more quickly than I expected, which ruled. The rich broth in both of our bowls looked the same, but this proved to NOT be the case. The Dra(MN) had a little bit of heat (it was in the spicy section of the menu) and had really good flavor. Lots of tahini flavor from the bali, without it being too peanut butter-y, and a surprisingly generous portion of noodles. Really good dish. 

The Com Saw Mi Da was incredible, though. Plentiful noodles and lots of chicken, but the broth was so tasty and spicy. Growing heat, too. By the end, I was sweating. This place doesn’t mess around. Both ramen dishes were some of the more memorable ramen dishes I’ve had, so we will definitely go back here again.

A couple of random notes about this place:

• This place is great for vegans and vegetarians, and they’re willing to make changes to dishes to make sure you’re happy.
• I heard the table next to us say they had called “bullshit” on the heat level and ordered the Fire Shoyu and the Vegan Fire Shoyu. Both of them commented to the server that they may have ordered outside of their expectations and it definitely wasn’t Minnesota hot. Hahaha
• This place has a reallllllly weird vibe. Like Portlandia almost-jokingly quirky atmosphere. Apparently, on weekends, they’re open until 2am still serving ramen, but they have a DJ and it turns into a club atmosphere. Super out-of-the-box. Just didn’t want to forget to mention that it won’t be a chill Japanese restaurant vibe here.

Neither of us could finish our ramen, and we brought a whole additional meal of leftovers home. You can also have them throw in some extra noodles for like $4 and bring some home to reheat with your leftovers. …which I did. And they were so good the next day.

I would definitely recommend this place and I’m looking forward to going back and trying some different dishes, but I doubt anything is going to beat what I got this first time.

https://toriramen.com 

2023 Minnesota State Fair - St. Paul, MN

The 2023 Minnesota State Fair saw me doing a lot more prep than I had in a while. I had things printed out; a definitely list and a maybe list; a map with stars on it; went to bed early so I could wake up on time; and probably some additional things that I’m too embarrassed to write about. But, good news for you, this year’s visit was a raging success (AGAIN). I’ll give some pretty quick descriptions of things I tried and then try to leave you with a top 3 or 5 list to help some of you out that have asked for my favorites. Reminder that these are my opinions and I’m not trying to run anyone out of business or upset anyone. Just my personal thoughts on the specific day that I went in the specific mood I was in. 

 

Bacon-wrapped waffle dog from Nordic Waffles. Really fantastic. French fried onions and pickles really made this thing pop. Note: the bacon was super floppy, which is how I LOVE my bacon, but I heard some people with differing opinions about crispiness complained. Better than expected.

 

Hot honey sticks from Blue Barn. Pretty good, but not magical (which is what the Blue Barn generally delivers to me every year). This is fried halloumi cheese cut into fry shapes. Little bit of honeycomb crumble, and also maybe some honeycomb cereal? It also had some spicy dust and honey. Not as good as I wanted them to be. 

 

Dill pickle cheese curd tacos from Richie’s Cheese Curd Tacos. Cheese and lettuce in a fried shell – I mean what’s not to like? You get to choose between a drizzle of ranch or raspberry sauce. I got one of each but wish I got two raspberry ones. These were really good. Better than expected. If you like plain stuff get the ranch. 

 

MinneCookieDough pie from Minneapple Pie. I’m going to preface by divulging that I’m not a pie eater. I don’t like the crust. I’m weird, I know. So, the crust already put me off. That being said, I’m a cookie dough fiend. The cookie dough was warm and gooey, but a little boring. Not sure if it wasn’t well-mixed or floury or something. The ice cream was standard, but went well with the hot cookie dough. Not the worst thing, but don’t need it again. 

Chicken momo with tomato chutney from MomoDosa in the Midtown Global Market area. If you haven’t had momo before, they’re like little steamed dumplings filled with various minced vegetables or meats – these had chicken. I was a little bummed that these started out a little plain-tasting. But then, the chutney adds some pop and then you realize the chicken has delicious flavor and seasoning. This was a slow build, but I ended up really liking this. It’s like getting through the first couple of episodes of a tv show before you realize it’s incredible and you’re hooked.

 

Crispy lutefisk steamed buns from Shanghai Henri’s. This was going to be my maiden voyage into the realm of gelled and lyed fish – sounds delicious, right? A lot of Scandinavians think so, so I had to give it a shot. The smell was enough, honestly. I should have stopped there. And, there are FOUR steamed buns in this box they give you – that’s generous even for state fair standards. The first bite tasted like fish for a second before it ruined everything in my mouth. Then I couldn’t get the smell off my hands and kept burping it up until I drowned the flavor with like six beers. Glad I tried it, but no thank you, Swedes. 

 

Pickle fries from Mike’s Hamburgers. Meh. These were pretty floppy and the batter wasn’t very flavorful. The dipping sauce was good, though. I think I had just built these up in my head, since I’ve had some pretty stellar pickle fries before.

 

Birramisu cream ale by Indeed Brewing. Not the best. It needed more of every flavor. Was supposed to have coffee, chocolate, and vanilla, but I only tasted a hint of those things.

 

Walleye fritter pops from Giggles. Sadly, just ok. Something you’d get in a bar up north and then you’d say “sadly, just ok”. Again, the dipping sauce is the most noteworthy part. That was pretty stellar and I want that on a couple of other things.

 

Kirby Pucker lemon blueberry sour ale from Eastlake Brewing. This is just a really good beer. It was a pretty hot day, so this went down reallllllll smooth.

 

MN Brew Together IPA collab from Modist Brewing and Fair State Brewing. This is a pretty decent west coast IPA. I’m not a beer snob, but I did like this one a lot.

 

Strawberry Short Cake’d Up lager from Mankato Brewing. Great beer! You can taste the strawberries and again, in the heat, this beer was absolutely perfect. 

 

Root beer float from 1919. Delicious. It just always is. This is pretty much the one place that I return to every year at the fair. It doesn’t take up much room, and I love 1919. 

 

Duck Duck Blue Duck boozy blueberry lemonade from Surly Brewing. Super good and comes with a salted foam top and a tiny blue duck souvenir. It was a good showing, and I am glad I got this one. 

...And, a quick visit to pet some dogs. 

Maui-Sota Sticky Ribs from RC’s BBQ. These ribs had a really good sweet glaze, rather than sauce. I’ve got to say, the ribs are always good here – I don’t know why I forget that, but I’ll try to be better about it. 

 

Ginger Suntan from Schell’s Brewing. This is a sort of strawberry rhubarb mule-style beer. Interesting and refreshing. I like it when Schell’s gets adventurous.Speaking of adventurous…

 

Peach-E-Keen Berliner Weiss sour ale by Schell’s Brewing. Very good beer with just the right amount of sour and tons of peach flavor. This one is hidden behind LuLu’s Public House right next to the Schell’s booth – don’t miss it!

 

Cheescake Curds from LuLu’s Public House. These were really quite good and come with some powdered sugar and a killer strawberry dipping sauce. 

 

Cocobanana (chocolate banana ale) from Modist. Super good, especially with a chocolate rim. A lot going on in this one – pineapple, banana, coffee, chocolate, vanilla, and sugarcane. This was a very welcome surprise.

 

Galabao steamed bun from Union Hmong Kitchen in the Midtown Global Market area. Hmong-style buns are different than other countries’ buns and are a little larger. These were filled with spiced pork and egg (like hard-boiled egg, so be ready for that). It was very good, but too much bun – maybe I just didn’t want the filler, since I had limited belly real estate at this point. The sauce was ridiculously good and had some heat (the people at the booth were warning the Minnesotans – probably wise). These were good, but I ended up eating the filling out and less than half of the bun. 

 

Babe’s Blueberry & Maple golden ale from Spiral Brewery. This one DOES, in fact, taste like blueberry pancakes. Not sure what I expected, but that’s what it is.

The Funnel Never End strawberry funnel cake beer from Elm Creek Brewing. I loved everything about this beer, especially the strawberry goo and powdered sugar-rimmed cup. Just really good. 

 

Al Taco Baba from Baba’s. These aren’t like a taco, so be open to this. These are little puffed pita pillows on a stick in a bowl of delicious hummus, harissa, spiced barbacoa, corn, queso fresco, chili dust, and some hot sauce. This was actually REALLY good. Better than I’ve had in some restaurants! Speaking of which, Baba's just opened a brand new restaurant in Minneapolis, so go check them out.

 

After having written this all out, I realized I went heavy on the strawberries and pickles this year (thankfully, not together). But overall, I feel pretty good about this showing. I got to try a lot of different things and even a few things I stepped outside of my comfort zone on. Though, the state fair does bring out my adventurous side – and also breaks the part of my brain that tells me to stop eating, also.

 

Happy to debate any of these opinions with you over a beer that you’ve bought for me!

 

Top 5 food items at the 2023 Minnesota State Fair (that *I*tried)

1) Bacon-wrapped waffle dog from Nordic Waffles

2) Dill pickle cheese curd tacos from Richie’s Cheese Curd Tacos

3) Al Taco Baba from Baba’s

4) Chicken momo with tomato chutney from MomoDosa

5) Cheescake Curds from LuLu’s Public House

 

Top 5 beers I had at the Minnesota State Fair

1) The Funnel Never End strawberry funnel cake beer from Elm Creek Brewing

2) Cocobanana (chocolate banana ale) from Modist

3) Strawberry Short Cake’d Up lager from Mankato Brewing

4) Peach-E-Keen berliner weiss sour ale by Schell’s Brewing

5) MN Brew Together IPA collab from Modist Brewing and Fair State Brewing. 

 

Estimated numbers from the day:

Food items: 12

Beverages: 11

Calories consumed: +10,000?

Pounds gained: 16.4

Blood sugar: 592

Money spent… let’s not talk about it

Cholesterol: 750

Blood pressure: 115/75, if my doctor asks

Cannon Beach Hardware & Public House - Cannon Beach, OR

I read about this place in Cannon Beach, Oregon, that has combined a hardware store with a bar & grill situation. It sounded too good to be true, but when QuarterBoy and I were out on the Oregon coast, I knew I could get him into a hardware store pretty easily. If they had beer and food there, he’d be up for that kind of pleasant surprise. The place is a legit hardware store complete with all kinds of drill bits, screws, saws, belts, clamps, clothing, cords, and everything else you might need in a hardware store. It isn’t a large store, but I would for sure shop here if I lived in town. The appeal of having someone get up from their table while you looked through various drill bits and tools is really appealing to me.

QuarterBoy and I needed some beer, which is handy because this place is also known as “Screw & Brew”. I got a Lug Nut Lager from Tap 29, and QuarterBoy got a pFriem Pilsner. Both great lighter beers and both welcome after the drive from Portland in the rain. The food menu is bigger and more appetizing than you might expect – especially from a hardware store. 

QuarterBoy wanted a Ecola Burger (named after Ecola State Park up the road, not the virus) and I needed a hot pastrami sandwich, with tots. These lunches were no joke and we both commented about how we shouldn’t try to finish these sandwiches. Only one of us listened to that advice…. I tried to stop and even the tots filling me up weren’t enough to stop eating this large pastrami sandwich. It was really tasty and had some delicious melty provolone on it. QuarterBoy’s burger was covered in Tillamook cheese and he made plenty of approving sounds as he ate as much as he could. 

This place is really great food – I might even say the restaurant is better equipped than the hardware part of the store, but even the hardware part has plenty of items. It just isn’t a big box store with absolutely everything. Plus, there’s the whole “can you get up from your lunch while I look at these tape measures, please?” situation that cracks me up. Still, worth the visit to tell people you ate in a hardware store and loved it. 

And, as a bonus, it's basically a block from the beach where Haystack Rock is - the rock in the ocean that you see in The Goonies!

Cannon Beach Hardware & Public House   
1235 S. Hemlock St.
Cannon Beach, OR 97110

Dead Man's Isle - Astoria, OR

As most of you know, I love a tiki bar. Anything that encourages rum and fruit juices to flow down my throat is going to be a winner every time. Dead Man’s Isle wasn’t open the last time I was in Astoria, evidently because they opened in 2022. The décor and the feel are pretty fun and the staff were perfect!!! We happened to be there on the chef’s birthday, so he was sitting at the bar sharing drinks with friends and seemed like a great guy to have around (or a round with).

 

The menu is pretty extensive, both with drinks and even with the food items (more than just appetizers). I started with a Rum Barrel. As often happens, the bartender warned me this was for like 2 or 3 people, to which I replied “yup”. It does have 4 or 5 shots of rum in it, but it also has a bunch of juices and ice and garnishes, so it’s basically healthy. It really was delicious, and I’d recommend this one to anyone.

Since I wasn’t driving, I opted for a second drink – Nielsen’s Blood – rum, brandy, blood orange, falernum, and ginger beer. I was looking for something unusual, and the bartender (Audrey, I think) recommended this. It was fantastic and I enjoyed it so much. Just a few bubbles form the ginger beer and the combo of rum and brandy is always delicious. 

The place has an impressive collection of merch, including t-shirts and tiki mugs – including in a tiki vending machine! Be sure to stop next doo at Muntiki for some seriously upscale and unique tiki mugs. You won’t be sorry you did. 

Looking forwarding to hitting this tiki bar up every time I’m in Astoria! Gold star for you fine folks!

Dead Man’s Isle
1239 Duane St.
Astoria, OR 97103

Apostle Supper Club – St .Paul, MN

 

We finally booked a double date with SVB and the Weathermatologist, after months of me forgetting to check my calendar and confirm days that actually worked for all of us. I take full responsibility. There’s a new supper club in downtown St. Paul, right across from the Xcel Energy Center, and somehow we accidentally managed to pick a night where nothing was going on at the X, so we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves. 

 

The website says it is a 1960’s Palm Springs inspired supper club, piano lounge, and tiki bar. And it’s also a funny coincidence that D and I were recently in Palm Springs at various tiki bars, so we have a close comparison. But it definitely has that feel once you get inside. 

 

The first thing you’ll notice is that there isn’t a parking lot. I’m not sure why people get so bent out of shape about that, especially since this is a downtown metropolitan area, where tons of restaurants exist perfectly fine without parking lots. There’s multiple parking ramps right across the street, so just suck it up and park there. If it’s an event night, you’ll just have to suck it up. Welcome to the big city. 

 

Once you walk inside, you’re already getting vintage vibes. Tufting on the green leather door and some seagrass behind a modern tiki painting. I’m already digging it. You’ll walk into a lavish and beautifully dark piano lounge. There are multiple rows of chairs and stools circling the piano player (who was slaying the night we were there). 

You can see the tiki bar on the side as you walk in, as well. There are rolling garage doors that undoubtedly lead out to an outdoor space. In the rear of the restaurant, there’s more of a dining room feel and you can also sit near the kitchen area and watch the goings-on there. Just make sure you get reservations, as this place fills up. 

D and I got there early (intentionally), so we could check out the tiki bar, called False Eyedoll. The drink menu is slim, but does have a good showing – better than some bars that sort of have a tiki offering. They’ve also got a small snack menu that had some delicious sounding dishes (wings, smokies, tacos, pickle roll ups, etc.). I started with the False Eyedoll – rum, lychee, peach, pineapple, lime, and mango. D got the Pain Killer – rum, pineapple, coconut, lime, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Both drinks were actually quite delicious and didn’t come from a mix. The bartender did a heck of a job and kept us entertained, too. I blew through mine too quickly and had to order a Glove Drop – jalapeno-infused tequila, pineapple, and lime. I’m not a fan of “spicy” drinks (but I AM a fan of spicy food), but this was actually really good. Lots of jalapeno flavor, without the spiciness. I really liked this one more than I expected. Then our friends showed up, so we went over to our reservation-booked table – eatin’ time!

 

Before I go further, let it be known there is a fuzzy wall on the way to the restroom. I love a good fuzzy wall, ever since Get Him To The Greek came out. This one is pretty spectacular.

 

The menu is pretty interesting. Lots of upscale and cheffy dishes to choose from. We had heard the portions aren’t large, so we kept that in mind. D and I started by splitting the coconut miso noodle salad. We also ordered some crinkle fries, because why not? D got the halibut & caviar and I caved and went with the waygu manhattan steak (our Lyft driver asked me if I was getting a steak as soon as he heard we were going to a supper club, so he is to blame for planting the seed). The waiter kept getting a bit confused with our order for some reason, which was weird, since it was pretty straight forward, both ours and our friends. He came back to our table no less than three times asking what we had ordered. Hmmmmm. 

 

The server brought us a small table relish tray – various things like peppers and pickles and such. Good colorful showing to start with. We waited a bit for our food, which is fine, since we had plenty to get caught up on (see the aforementioned delay on me booking dinner with these wonderful people). The coconut miso salad arrived and it was FAR better than either of us expected. Noodles, herbs, cucumber, cabbage, carrots, edamame, and sesame seeds all combined into a pleasant hillock. And we both thought it was a pretty reasonable portion size. This was absolutely the best thing we ate at Apostle. Would recommend highly. 

 

I had to order another drink (since we took a Lyft), and went with the Passionfruit Collins – vodka, passionfruit, lemon, and soda water. Since I usually just get a Collins with vodka, I can’t tell if they’re usually separated like this one was, but the passionfruit puree was settled at the bottom and hard to stir, so I either got a mouthful of goo or a mouthful of straight vodka. Not sure I’d order this one again, even if that’s how the presentation is intended to be. Just weird.

We waited a bit more, and they brought everyone’s food out, but mine was not what I ordered, so they sent it back and said they’d start on my steak right away. Remember all the confusion at the beginning? That was part of it, although we had a pretty lengthy discussion of what temperature the steak should be cooked at, so I know what I ordered. D’s halibut was pretty small, especially for a pricey entrée. And it came with two asparagus sprigs. I know caviar is expensive, but I don’t get the impression this is the million-dollar stuff. The halibut was cooked about right, but even with the caviar and herb butter, the dish left a little bit to be desired. 

 

A little while later, the waygu steak showed up. I’ve had waygu steak a few times and this one was the ok-est of the ones I’ve had. It was cooked like I requested (thankfully), but there wasn’t a ton of flavor with it. The two baby bok choy stalks didn’t really add much to the presentation and the “chron sauce” that was supposed to be topped with herbs and capers (which it wasn’t) was unremarkable enough that I honestly couldn’t figure out what it was made of. The meat flavor was perfectly fine, but the most expensive item on the menu should probably knock my socks off, or at least make them itch.

 

We had to remind the waiter that our fries had never arrived. So, we ate those for dessert instead of ordering anything additional. The fries were actually cooked really well and perfectly crispy and salty, but I didn’t know until just now what the dip was supposed to be until I looked it up to remind myself. It didn’t taste like much, so I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be cheese or honey mustard or bechemel – it was supposed to be horseradish hollandaise, for what it’s worth.

 

We thought we were done with the mix-ups, until the waiter brought the bill which again, we thought was straight forward and didn’t have shared dishes, but had swapped some of our items. We didn’t even bother bringing it up and just figured it out amongst ourselves. We’re pretty easy going couples and just rolled with it and didn’t complain. But, when we left, the waiter said he hoped we enjoyed our meals and he hoped we got a better waiter the next time we were in. hahahaha. I’ve never actually had any staff say something like that before. I wasn’t even sure how to respond or if he was joking. But, probably an appropriate finisher to this extraordinarily lengthy and pricy meal that we could have expected. 

 

http://www.apostlesupperclub.com

Apostle Supper Club

253 Kellogg Blvd. W.

St. Paul, MN 55102