TLC Café – Eden Prairie, MN

I had driven by a small realtor-sized restaurant sign in the grass outside this nearby industrial strip mall a hundred times and never heard anyone talk about the TLC Café. Well, since it’s one minute from my work, I decided I would find out about this place. To find the TLC Café, you have to turn into the industrial strip mall and drive down a narrow alleyway like you’re going behind it to the loading docks. That’s where TLC Café is at. You won’t see it until you’re right on top of it. 7264 Washington Avenue S. in Eden Prairie, but the GPS will get all kinds of confused because TLC is behind all the buildings.

The inside looks like an industrial warehouse with some sheetrock thrown up for walls. It’s painted and decorated nicely, but it’s kind of like a movie set - look above the walls and there’s exposed beams and wiring and girders for another 20 feet. There’s a good sized eating area in and amongst large cases of silverware and plates and other things I’m assuming they use for the catering side of the business. It’s a really odd environment.

You order up at the counter when you first walk in. You can see the sandwich options on the menu boards above the counter and there’s a good variety of standard deli sandwiches and then some more advanced options to order. I ordered a Grilled Supreme Focaccia. However, they were out of focaccia, so I got it on multigrain wheat. It’s a bit confusing here after you order. You can grab yourself a drink and chips and then you pay. Then you go back to the pick-up window and wait for your sandwich to appear.

The sandwich was a regular-sized sandwich but it did look quite tasty.

It was turkey, ham, tomato, pepperjack cheese, chiptle mayo, and of course bacon. I think it was around $7 for a soda, chips and a sandwich. The bread had a nice coating of butter from the grilling it and the meat was really good. Nothing fancy, but it was a good sandwich. Regular Lay’s chips rounded off the meal and there was a hidden pickle (twss) underneath the paper of the snack plate it came in.

This place won’t blow you away, but it’s a good sandwich and it’s super close to my work. I’ll probably go back, now that I know where it’s at and can find it.

Top 5 things about TLC Café
1. Decent sandwich
2. Really close to work
3. Good variety on the menu with some daily non-sandwich specials
4. Staff are really nice and friendly
5. They have Dew

Bottom 5 things
1. It’s a standard sandwich and chips for $7
2. They were out of focaccia
3. This place is super hard to find
4. Bit confusing for a first-timer
5. Feel like I’m eating in a warehouse because I AM eating inside a warehouse

Izzy’s Ice Cream Café – St. Paul, MN

I’m going to write this in the style of the most hilarious conversation I’ve heard in a while. M. Edium (age 4) was telling EyeHeartPizza (age significantly older than 4) all about seeing Disney-Pixar’s UP and why it’s different than Wall-E. He ended every sentence with “And guess what?” which would bring an immediate response from EyeHeartPizza of “What?” This went back and forth for like 10 minutes with seemingly hundreds of you-know-what-followed-by-what exchanges. EyeHeartPizza is quite good at this game.

We needed post-dessert dessert after eating dessert at Luci Ancora. And guess what?

What?

We went to Izzy’s in St. Paul. And guess what?

What?

They have like 30 flavors of homemade ice cream including a couple vegan friendly ones like soy peanut butter. And guess what?

What?

You get a scoop of ice cream (or two) and then they put a tiny scoop on the top called an Izzy so you can try another flavor. And guess what?

What?

If you get a sugar cone, they put a malted milk ball in the bottom so it doesn’t leak on you when you get to the end of the scoop. And guess what?

What?

If you get your ice cream in a cup because you’re spill-prone like me, they still put a malted milk ball in the side of the cup. And guess what?

What?

The malted milk ball is clearly not a Whopper and is pretty gross. And guess what?

What?

I got liquor flavored ice cream – Cherries Jubilee with an Irish Moxie (Irish cream) Izzy. Wurd. And guess what?

What?

EyeHeartPizza got latte ice cream and she had a Cream Cheese Izzy (why does that sound dirty?). And guess what?

What?

It’s decent ice cream, but I still stand by the fact that the Twin Cities has mediocre ice cream. It’s the best I’ve had HERE, and I can see why people rave about it if they haven’t had Whitey’s in Illinois, but it’s still just average. And guess what?

What?

I just realized EyeHeartPizza has the mental debate skills of a four year old.

Top 5 things about Izzy’s

1. Izzy scoop is a great idea
2. Malted milk ball cone plug is a great idea
3. Lots of cool fun flavors
4. You can eat inside the scoop shop when it’s raining (like it was)
5. EyeHeartPizza paid

Bottom 5 things
1. Gerd loved her some ice cream and we would have gone back to try every flavor before she confirmed Whitey’s was better
2. Ice cream is still mediocre
3. Malted milk ball tasted pretty bad
4. EyeHeartPizza didn’t even get a malted milk ball (she complained about getting the shaft despite the fact that she hates malted milk balls)
5. I know I’ll end up back here at some point if I get a hankering for mediocre-but-still-beter-than-everywhere-else-in-the-Twin-Cities ice cream

www.izzysicecream.com

Luci Ancora – St. Paul, MN

Our dinner plans fell through for the night, so we hopped on line and found a really good sounding Italian place. And since I know that it angers M.Giant and Trash when I go to St. Paul, Luci Ancora was perfect. We got reservations since sometimes Sunday nights can be busy around dinner.

We got there a tad early, but the hostess gave us menus and asked if wanted drinks. We scoured the menu for a bit and got seated shortly after that. The inside is really nice, although a bit smaller than I expected. But the fact that there were large parties (one was a group of 50+ people at three long tables), made it seem like it was packed and really loud. The waitress ran through the specials and took our orders. EyeHeartPizza went with the Caesar Salad and the Ravioli con Napoletana, and I decided on the Risotto con Fagiano and the Agnello Due Volte (lamb).

The Caesar salad was a decent salad, although it’s difficult to do something flashy with a Caesar salad. It was fine though. The risotto that I got was really fantastic. It was Arborio rice with braised pheasant and butternut squash. It was almost like a super thick soup, and really tasty. The pieces of pheasant were really flavorful. I’d recommend this dish to just about anyone.

The second course came out and I got a piece of EyeHeartPizza’s ravioli. It was good but not fantastic. Like EyeHeartPizza said, the ravioli part was really good, but the sauce wasn’t great. Still good overall. The lamb was absolutely fantastic. It was three lamb chops and then also braised shank sort of chopped up and in jus, and it came with saffron whipped potatoes. The chops were awesome and the shank pieces were super tender. The potatoes were an excellent complement to both lamb flavors. I finally got a dish better than EyeHeartPizza.

Since the food was fantastic, EyeHeartPizza decided she needed dessert. There were a couple of things that sounded good, but since I had no say in the decision, we ended up with blueberry and apricot cheesecake. It was delicious. I only needed like 2 bites, but the rest of it miraculously disappeared on its own.

Really, you should go here.

Top 5 things about Luci Ancora
1. The 2 different kinds of lamb
2. Risotto
3. Blueberry apricot cheesecake
4. Ravioli
5. Atmosphere – it’s classy without being pretentious

Bottom 5 things
1. Gerd and EyeHeartPizza would have gotten along splendidly, especially eating Italian food
2. It was pretty loud in there because of the giant parties
3. There were a lot of things I’d like to try there
4. The sauce on the ravioli could have been better
5. No Dew

www.ristoranteluci.com

Sambuza Grill – Minneapolis, MN

EyeHeartPizza assured me she was feeling adventurous tonight, so I suggested Russian food or East African food. She said African sounded good, so I tried to find Safari. Safari had an express food booth in the Midtown Market, and both Gerd and I loved the food there. I wrote down the address for Safari and we headed out in the rain.

When we got there, we saw the place had changed names to the Sambuza Grill. It was still serving East African food, so we thought we’d better try it. We walked in and sat down and the waiter brought us menus. I’ll be honest (as usual), the menu didn’t really have much on it that seemed specifically African. Lots of chicken sandwiches, wraps, and various curries. I saw like three or four things on there. (I checked online and there seemed to be more than I remembered seeing on the menu in the restaurant.)

The guy brought us silverware and a banana for each of us, but we were unsure of what to do with the bananas – eat them now? Eat them with the food, eat them afterwards as dessert? Still no idea. EyeHeartPizza ordered the curried chicken and I couldn’t decide whether to get the Goat Curry or the Sambuza KeyKey. The waiter said to go with the Goat, so I did – and he suggested having it spicy, which I did. The waiter then returned with some soup which he said the name of, but I didn’t catch. It was green and thick and really good.

The food came a short while later and looked delicious. Both meals came with a big portion of rice. The curried chicken was a whole mess of chicken and green peppers in yellow curry. The goat was a big pile of various bones and meat with some onions and peppers.

The goat was seasoned and cooked really nicely. It was a bit gristle-y but the meat was still good. There were a lot of bones to work through as well. I ended up using my fingers a lot and biting through each piece pretty carefully. The meat had a pretty good zip to it and tasted great, despite the bones.

The waiter came back and asked us if we didn’t like bananas, so I guess that means we weren’t supposed to wait that long to eat the bananas. Maybe with the meal itself or maybe with the soup. I tried the last couple bites of mine with the banana and it actually killed some of the spice, but also added a really good flavor. I wish I had tried it earlier. I ended up finishing what EyeHeartPizza couldn’t eat, and once again, her’s was better than mine. I think I’ll go with the chicken if I get back here again.

Despite being bummed that I didn’t see anything I recognized from Safari on the menu, I was pretty happy with my meal. It wasn’t the best African food I’ve ever had, but it was good.

Top 5 things about Sambuza Grill
1. Chicken curry
2. Goat curry
3. Random soup
4. Banana was an interesting touch
5. All meals are under $9, so we ate for like $20 - wurd

Bottom 5 things
1. Gerd really wanted to try Safari, but we didn’t get to
2. The menu seemed to lack a lot of African dishes
3. I’m going to have to listen to Peaches complain that I intentionally ate goat
4. Wish I knew when to eat the banana (twss)
5. Now I’m worried the booth at the Midtown Marketplace is closed…

www.sambuzagrill.com

Log Ride - Mall of America - Bloomington, MN

Log ride. Horns up. Enough said.

Roat Osha – Minneapolis, MN

I had driven by this new Thai place in Uptown and it looked like a pretty nice place. I hadn’t really heard a lot of people talk about it and that worried me, but it’s been open like 6 months, so I cut it some slack. My friend EyeHeartPizza from Denver came for the weekend to visit and I thought we’d go there (mainly so I could check it out)(I’m selfish like that). I also wondered if this place was some sort of secret front for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, but it turns out it’s not. Although, I’m wondering if the signage the employees see is confusing whether it’s company rules or federal laws. Hmmmm. Something to think about (not really). It IS however run by the same people that put together Tum Rup Thai in Uptown, so it’s similar to that.

Roat Osha is very modern and clean inside and looks very nice – actually it looks more “nice” than it does “Asian”, but that’s totally unimportant to the story. We asked for a seat out on the patio since it was really nice outside. Super friendly host and subsequent waiter really got things rolling nicely. There were a couple happy hour specials, but none of them were really what I wanted, despite 2009 being the year of happy hour. (Happy hour isn’t the same without Gerd, I’m sorry. It just isn’t even close.) But they did have a significant girly drink menu and some decent wine as well. That being said, I stuck with water.

I ordered us some fresh spring rolls or maybe salad rolls or whatever they call them here. Rice paper skins wrapped around veggies and shrimp. These were quite tasty and came with a hoissin sauce and plum sauce maybe? I can’t tell. They both had peanuts on the top of the sauces, so it was hard to tell which one I was eating. They were both good though. I don’t think EyeHeartPizza had ever tried these kind of things before, so she was a tad unsure of them – but that didn’t stop her from putting back two of the four they brought us - before I could get my camera out.

I found a handful of things on the menu I wanted to try, but I finally decided on the Glass Noodle Stir Fry – Spice level 3 (middle of the 5 point scale). Of course Pad Thai is always an option, as is the Rad Na, but since EyeHeartPizza got the Pad See Ew (which was my second choice), I figured she’d not eat all hers and I’d get it anyway.

The food came out in a reasonable time, maybe even quick, but it was just after 5, so it wasn’t busy yet. My glass noodles looked delicious, although there was a mound of parsley piled on the top (weird). So once I pushed the green mountain aside, I was very impressed with this food.

There were plenty of chicken pieces in it and the glass noodles were super soft and tasty. And I’m happy to say that I should have gone with the spice level 4 on this. The only downside to this dish was the serious amount of onions they included. I’m not a fan of onions in the first place, but generally I can power through them in Asian food, especially since I like the flavor (I’m a texture guy). But this was overkill. Unless you’re a vegetarian/vegan, onions should be used for flavoring, not for substance (I’m not a chef though, so that’s just my personal stance). I left a massive amount of onions on the plate when I finished it.

As assumed, EyeHeartPizza got all nancy on me and only ate about half of her Pad See Ew, plus she thought the level 3 spice was too hot for her. So we swapped plates and I finished her meal. Actually, her’s might have been a wee bit better, but they were both really good. Thankfully, I took a photo of hers as well since she didn’t want to feel left out of the food photo shoot.

While this place isn’t going to be my favorite Thai place, it’s good and I’ll eat here again, I’m sure of it. Try it out and see what you think.

Top 5 things about Roat Osha
1. Pad See Ew
2. Glass Noodle Stir Fry
3. Salad Rolls
4. Really nicely decorated
5. Staff were really nice

Bottom 5 things
1. Gerd wanted to try every Thai restaurant in the Twin Cities and we never made it to this one
2. Too many onions
3. Sitting outside next to Hennepin at the tail end of rush hour gets really loud
4. I should have gotten at least a 4 on the spice level
5. No dew, only Coke

Lee & Dee’s Bar-B-Que Express – St. Paul, MN

HotGirlsBrother, Lo-Vee and I decided twice in the same week was NOT too much BBQ for us. HotGirlsBrother had stumbled across this place in St. Paul that none of our friends had ever heard of. Since HotGirlsBrother owed both of us dinner, we figured, even if it sucked baaaad, we wouldn’t be out any cash. For the record, this place did not suck – even a little.

We pulled up and saw hand painted signs and dry erase sandwich board out front. And we also saw you could eat inside. You could tell because they had booths, some of which were two-people booths up on a small stage - after you stepped over the steam heat radiator.

Normally we don’t, but as soon as we went through the door, we knew we would not get the full experience unless we ate in the restaurant. And this was decided BEFORE we saw the multiple photos of Don King and Ice-T eating at Lee & Dee’s. Yes, THE Don King (I’ll now remember him as BBQTip), and THE Ice-T (Cop Killa himself). And now that I’ve put that in this post, my friend Trash will drive to Lee & Dee’s even though she’s a vegetarian – she’s got a mad crush on Ice-T.

You can order at the window or sit down and they’ll bring you Xerox copied menus with stuff handwritten on them. We ordered our half slab rib dinners and then went back up when we remembered we hadn’t ordered drinks and then went back up when Lo-Vee and I remembered we hadn’t ordered cornbread. The lady brought us a pitcher of water and some mugs with people’s names engraved on them with dates. We’re not sure if the dates were days the people got married or died (same thing in my book – ha ha ha), but it was still creepy drinking out of Lamar’s mug or Travy’s mug. Also the water tasted terrible, so make sure you get something in a can here.

They brought our coleslaw out first, as sort of an appetizer I guess. I don’t eat the stuff, but both HotGirlsBrother and Lo-Vee really liked it. Lo-Vee suggested maybe they went to KFC each day and ordered a giant bucket of it and then served it as if it were their own (apparently, she’s a huge fan of KFC coleslaw). They both said it could use a splash more vinegar, but it was really creamy which I guess is good – I’m not a coleslaw expert.

Then they brought out our dinners pretty quickly (probably why it’s a Bar-B-Que EXPRESS). In the immortal words of my favorite mentally-challenged chef (Merril Howard Kalin) – Wowwie Kazowie!

These ribs looked fantastic. Totally slathered in sauce and really thick. You touched the rib with your fork and the meat slid off. These were not the overdone or dry ribs some places have. These were very juicy and tender ribs covered in a fantastic sauce. The more I ate, the more I loved them and I had already decided I loved them after the first bite. These ribs had so much meat on them that HotGirlsBrother and Lo-Vee pansied out and didn’t finish their meals (they went home in a box though – the ribs, not Lo-Vee and HotGirlsBrother). The ribs had some cartilage you had to work around and leave on your plate – now normally, I’d complain about that, but seriously, it did not deter one bit from these ribs. Besides, it was fun to see what shapes of cartilage would come out of your mouth after you sucked the meat off them. I think I found a Snork skull.

I’m going to super-gloss over the baked beans that came out with the meal, so as not to jade you away from the ribs. The beans were weirdly flavorless. HotGirlsBrother threw in what we assumed was buffalo sauce in a squeeze bottle on the table, and the only thing that did was make them flavorless with kick, which is a really weird flavor in your mouth. But forget I even talked about the beans.

The cornbread we got was really good. It was dry cornbread, so Lo-Vee didn’t like it, but she has bad taste in men AND cornbread (I’m hi-fiving myself for a brilliant multi-layered and multi-person burn – well played, self). I say it was dry, but it wasn’t dried out or crunchy. Just not fork moist. It’s how my Alabama grandma used to make it so I thought it tasted right on. And if they offer to bring you toast, get it. In fact, just ask for it. It’s better than Mr. B’s toast, which I referred to as crunchy butter. It is awesome.

Lee & Dee’s does not have wet naps or moist towlettes (my nephew The Stealth Buffalo calls them mouse toilets because he’s cruel and makes fun of his dyslexic friend with a hot mom). However, a paper towel – the roll is provided at your table – dipped in the terrible water works almost as good. And we definitely needed wet naps after this meal.

Bottom line – this place has moved to the top of the list in the Twin Cities Rib Quest. There are still a couple more places to try and retry for confirmation, but we’re close to the end people. And Lee & Dee’s just swept the leg, Johnny.

Top 5 things about Lee & Dee’s
1. Ribs – tons of meat and awesome sauce
2. Ambience – including Ice-T, Don King, and serious mom & pop homey feel
3. Apparently, the coleslaw was good
4. Cornbread
5. They have DEW

Bottom 5 things
1. Gerd would have loved this place and agreed with me about it being the best – I miss her agreeing with me and telling me I’m always right (…never happened…)
2. Flavorless beans
3. Awful water
4. Cartilage shapes
5. This place is not in my basement, where I would like it to be