Mudd Room – Mendota, MN

The Mudd Room is a speakeasy-style basement bar that’s done pretty darn well. It’s basically through the side door of Lucky’s 13 Pub in Mendota (NOT Mendota Heights). I was worried the entrance was going to be a bit more hidden, but they dumb it down pretty well for folks. Inside the door, there’s a phone on the wall that you’re supposed to pick up and it gives you a code. I’m not sure if it worked, because the door was slightly ajar, but we managed to find out way inside. You go down the stairs to a dimly lit, but beautiful bar and small dining room.

The bar is lit up red and looks really classy. There’s fancy bottles and booze infusions happening, so you know they’re making some good cocktails. There’s also a small stage for bands or solo acts – which is why we had popped in – and an occasional television showing old-timey shows. The bartender was very good and helpful (and patient with us). I can’t remember his name, but he was making sure everyone was well taken care of.

This place also has a “chef series” where they steal fancy chefs from local establishments and give them reign to do whatever they’d like food- and drink-wise. This month’s chef is Shane Oporto, formerly of La Belle Vie and Octo Fishbar. There are also some killer chefs coming up that you’re going to want to check out. Shane Oporto was rocking
a sort of Asian-inspired cocktail and food menu and really knocked it out of the park. (There are also regular menu items that the Mudd Room always has, which also sound amazing.)

We literally ordered one of each of the menu items Oporto had created. Pork belly steamed bun, shishito peppers, cod sandwich, and gyoza. But we started with some fancy cocktails. I got a Mudd Room Press – pineapple vodka, muddled cucumber, soda, and a splash of Sprite. D. got a Charlie’s Rita – El Jimador tequila, Tattersall Orange Cream, lime, and pineapple juice (she skipped the usual muddled jalapeno). The drinks were amazing, as you’d expect. They were both completely getting us ready for summer. Refreshing and strong – we had seen some comments about the drinks being strong, which is accurate, but that’s how we pour them at home, so it works out.

While we waited for our food, we listened to the musical stylings of Denny McGovern, playing all kinds of really solid songs from the 60s-90s. Some Eagles, Tom Petty, and related artists. Great work, Denny.

 

Our food looked amazing when it arrived. The pork belly was perfectly cooked, and covered in Bulldog Glaze (hopefully, FROM the Bulldog) and Japanese mayo. Since it’s a relatively small items, D and I had to do our best to share.

The shishito peppers were more up my alley than hers. They were served “elote style”, which I think means with some mayo and cheese, as well as Bonito flakes and furikake. I really liked these little bite-sized peppers, especially because about one in 5 peppers really packed a kick. I pretty much ate about 90% of the order, since D passed them my direction to focus on other items.

The cod sandwich sounds like it might not be stand-out, but it was really awesome. It was a fried cod filet with curry coleslaw and Japanese pickles. We both really liked this one and it’s a pretty generous portion.

The gyoza are like almost bite-sized dumplings filled with pork and ginger sauce. The dipping sauce was also magical and I ended dipping pretty much everything into it.

D had finished the first beverage and needed another – she went with the Tokyo Tea (Oporto’s nod to the Long Island Iced Tea) with gin, vodka, sake, rum, Midori, and ginger beer. I got the New York Sour – Redemption Rye Whiskey, housemade sour mix, fresh lemon & lime, egg white, with a red wine float.

We had a great time eating killer food, listening to great live music, drinking crafted cocktails, and just chilling after a long Thursday. We are looking forward to more amazing artists, both on stage and in the kitchen. I love this concept of showing off some local talent and letting them get a little mad-scientist in the kitchen. Brilliant. We’ll be back!

Top 5 things about The Mudd Room

1. D and I did not agree on the order of our favorites, but we DID agree that there wasn’t a bad menu item that we ordered. My vote order was cod, peppers, gyoza, and bun. D’s vote order is bun, gyoza, cod, and peppers

2. Great diverse menu for both the chef series and standard menu

3. Cocktails and the gent that made/served them

4. Atmosphere – dark and mysterious, but very clean

5. Live music never hurts

 

Bottom 5 things

1. No reservations, but you SHOULD be alright

2. If you have trouble seeing menus when there isn’t light, you’re going to need to turn on your cell phone light

3. Only open Thursday, Friday, Saturday (but they do open at 4 those days, so you can maximize your drinking time)

4. Nothing else is negative here

5. N/A

 

https://www.facebook.com/MUDDROOMSPEAKEASY

Intronaut, Scale the Summit, and North – Skyway Theater – Minneapolis, MN

This show opened with a local band called Red Shift. They’re a fairly young/green band, so they’ve got some stage presence issues (like looking at each other when someone misses a note, and also their stage banter). But on a plus side, the bass player plays with his fingers, instead of a pick – kudos to you and awesome for showing off some natural bass playing skills. The drummer has also got some mad skills. I couldn’t tell if the guitar player had skills because he had pretty bad guitar tone that didn't cut through – this is a regular issue I have with bands. Drop the mids out and it sounds great in your mom’s basement, but doesn’t cut through in a crowd setting. Bummer. The singing wasn't my favorite – there was a lot of singing, an most of it wasn’t confident enough to pull it off successfully. Their yelling vocals were actually really solid, so I was a bigger fan of those parts. The guitarist moved around on the stage, but the bass player didn’t. The music had good timing stops and change ups, which is only going to get better. They’ve got a talent for writing music, but details like the non-confident singing and guitar sound hurts them a little bit.

North was up next. They’re sort of a slow sludgy metal band from Tucson, Arizona. Normally, when I see that many guitar and bass pedals, it means they aren't going to move. Generally. And in this case, it was pretty accurate. The band plays with lots of delay with held out chords to make it sound full, which it did. The sound was massive. Just a little un-interesting to my ears. Really great drumming and quality guitar sound, though. A crusty guitar tone was perfectly suited to this style and there were no pedal mishaps. (8 pedals per player means 8x – times two – the chance something will go wrong.) The bass sound was also super full with a little bit of crunch. Drums sound was actually awesome and I was impressed with his set. I wish everything wasn’t the same speed, but that’s sludge metal for you. Not my style at all. But they are good at it. I’m glad I got to see these guys.

Scale the Summit was the third band. I’ve heard of them, but hadn’t really listened to them. I found it amusing that they were selling guitar tabs (presumably from their own songs) at their merch booth. They took forever to set up – the guitarist had a computer and large rack system which took too long to set up. The drummer had a sample-machine and a large trigger system, which took too long to set up (and then the drums didn't sound great during sound check). The best part was they got frustrated at the sound guys before they even started. My solution? Don't have so much shit and the sound guys will be able to help you. Even before they started, I knew these guys were bitchy and pretentious (I just call it like I see it – you want to write a nice review, start your own stupid blog that no one reads, like I did). Once they started, it was clear these guys were incredible musicians. Like Berklee School of Music incredible. Like practice scales and sweep picking and arpeggios all the time incredible. Even the bass player was top notch and clearly comes from a jazz background. Always right in the pocket and tight with the drummer. But he was sooooo loud it overpowered everything. I tried near the stage and back further in the crowd. The bass was just so loud. They bring their own sound guy which usually means the mix is good, but I think the house sound guy could have made it sound better. The guitarist with the normal guitar (the guitarist with the computer set up had a headstock-less sparkly small guitar that looked like a children’s toy) is the underrated hero of this band. Super solid skills and took him almost no time at all to set up his rig. But the entire band was playing a game of Arpeggio-Hero. So much noodling and no actual songs. It seemed like they played forever, but also the same song. I wish they would have used the pick sometimes, but most of what they played was tapping arpeggios out on the fretboard (look at the photo above, where everyone has both hands on the neck of their instruments). It’s very gracious of them to offer tablature on how to play their songs (yes, that was sarcasm). Clearly, these were four soloists from Berklee School of Music, but for my money, I’d rather see Animals as Leaders, The Contortionist, Born of Osiris, or even Joe Satriani (he's playing in St. Paul, by the way) – at least there’s an actual song. Oddly, the crowd was really into these guys, I guess they like the noodling. Hell, I’ve got a degree in music performance and I rolled my eyes through most of the set.

The best part of Scale the Summit’s set was right after they stopped playing. Someone next to me said "Shit. Those guys played ALL the notes. What's Intronaut going to do." Hahahahaha. Brilliant.

The band I was really there to see was Intronaut. They’re considered a prog metal band out of California. I’ve seen these guys quite a few times and they kill it every time. I’ll be honest, I’ve totally got a man-crush on the bass player, Joe Lester. He plays a fretless five string (left-handed) bass, using his fingers, and everything he does is magical. I was on the left hand side of the stage right in front, so every time he looked at his fingers, he was pretty much in eye-line with me. Like a complete dork, every time he played a walking bass line, I smiled. I got a head nod or two, since he knew I was watching him. I truly believe he’s the best bass player in hard music. Seriously. He’s up there with Robert Trujillo, Steve DiGiorgio, and Stephan Fimmers. Both guitarists do an amazing job of both playing actual songs, but also setting a mood. The group’s last album has steered toward the sing-y side of the spectrum, but it fits them so well that I don’t hate it at all. Last but not least, the drummer doesn't have a non-badass switch. He plays crazy fast during some slow parts and doesn't ruin the feel. He’s ultra-solid and despite playing incredibly intricate drum parts, I can’t ever tell if he loses a beat or gets off course. A true professional. I love seeing these guys play live.

Bane and Axis – Triple Rock, MN

I’ve never been a huge fan of the band Bane, but a friend of mine had an extra ticket to see them on their final farewell tour. They’re a pretty influential band in the positive (or “posi”) hardcore scene, so I thought I’d better check them out one last time. I’d seen them before, but it’s been a few years, so why not!?

The opening band was a band out of Florida called Axis. Actually, these guys were pretty awesome. Lots of energy and good (i.e. professional) equipment. These guys were all over the small stage at the Triple Rock and lots of folks in the crowd knew their stuff. I’d better check these guys out on CD – hopefully, this isn’t THEIR farewell tour, as well.

Bane took the stage and sounded fantastic. They’ve got great energy – it also helps that everyone in the crowd knew all the lyrics, so when the singer was sick of singing, he just held the mic out for the crowd to sing. The band is great at what they do. The singer, in typical posi fashion, had a lot to say about the state of the world, the state of the people dancing in front of the band, and a lot of other topics. That’s all well and good, but I come from a more negative hardcore background where you show up to see bands and knock people down. It’s not bad, it’s just a different style than I’m used to. I’m an adult and know when not to roll my eyes. Again, this band is dead solid and looked like they were having fun on stage – that’s all I ask.

Slayer, Testament, Carcass – Myth – Maplewood, MN

I’m one of those old guys that still listens to loud music. So when I heard Slayer was coming to town, I knew I’d not be the oldest one at the show. I immediately bought a ticket. And, it was a great line-up, as well. Some sweet bands I used to play a lot when I was a radio DJ back in Davenport, IA.

Carcass was pretty good. I like their older stuff more than their newer style, but they’re great musicians and have great presence on the stage. They’ve been doing this a really long time, so they’ve no doubt got their style and stage antics honed in. They played a lot of newer songs, but peppered in a few of the older ones.

Testament never disappoints. Chuck Billy hasn’t lost a beat, despite some health issues and being one of the older guys. Still has some solid pipes. Also, it’s good to see Alex Skolnick (aka Alex Trebek) still shredding like he’s 18. I always forget they came from some thrash-era styles of music, so it’s got that fast running tempo in most of their songs. I really enjoy these guys live (and have for like 25 years…).

Slayer kills it. Every show. They’re not running around like monkeys or jumping off things, but they’re in the upper echelon of incredibly influential bands for a reason. Solid playing and larger than most stage presence, even while standing there looking angry. I know they lost one of their founding members a few years back, but they still pulled off every song with perfection with the new guitarist. The singer and bass player, Tom Araya, has a giant white beard and black hair and still sounds fantastic. I am always bummed when I see the band without Dave Lombardo on the drums, but Paul Bostaph is flawless – I love watching both of them play equally, to be honest. But apparently, Dave Lombardo is touring with Suicidal Tendencies (who were playing the Myth the next night, oddly enough). Slayer puts on a pretty impressive show and I’m always happy to shell out some cash to see them. That being said, I still won’t shell out $80 for a Slayer sweatshirt, no matter how awesome it is.

Bad Movie Night (Heavy Metal Theme) – West St. Paul, MN

The Bad Movie Night theme this time was heavy metal. We usually do a potluck-style dinner ahead of time and people bring food items related to the theme. I encouraged people to dress in all black and bring some creative foods for us to eat. People got realllllllly creative with this theme, and I’m really glad.

Just to gloss over the movies, I showed Rock N Roll Nightmare about a Canadian rock band (yeah, hilarious, right?) who goes to record an album and slowly gets picked off, one-by-one. The second movie was Detroit Metal City – a Japanese film about a kid who really wants to sing trendy pop music but secretly sings in a scary death metal band to make ends meet in the meantime.

But the real treat of the night was the food. I’ll point out that we’ve never had anyone bring a cake to Bad Movie Night before and this evening, we had FIVE cakes. Hilarious.

I’ll start with the best one of the night. A Black Metal cake.

D.Rough tried to cut into it to dish it up and the knife clunked. She looked around to see if anyone had seen her cut into this what was going to be a terribly overbaked cake. Everyone saw it. UnicycleJoe had frosted an upside-down cake pan with black frosting. CLASSIC!!!! No actual cake was involved in this thing. Just frosting on a metal pan. Brilliant idea, Joe. You win.

Rum to the Hills cake from JessSayin’ and FireWally. This thing was amazing!!!!

Rocky brought Head-Bangers and Mosh.

I made Hail Seitan for our vegan friends.

B.Sweet brought Bull’s Blood – some wine from Hungary (do they even make wine there?).

D.Rough made a Blood Red Velvet Cake with Celtic Frost-ing (she’s the best lady in the world).

Hüsker Stü made a vegan black cake with a sri racha pentagram and candles in the corner called Cain's Sacrifice – awesome!

ShotgunMillie brought raisins, since they’re high in iron – a heavy metal. SVB made heavy metal cupcakes with metal colored frosting. And, we broke out the candelabra and red table cloth to make it official.

Such a good night. I’m honored to have so many creative friends.

Wrestlepalooza III – Minneapolis, MN

D.Rough and I have some really fun friends who like to watch wrestling. Not the stuff you see on TV, but the amateur stuff where people try to kill themselves getting noticed by the people who do wrestle on TV. There is an outfit called F1rst Wrestling that puts on a serious wrestling-themed party at First Avenue. They bring in bands and burlesque dancers and the whole thing is sponsored by PBR. It’s incredibly fun.

D.Rough has been to ALL of the events, but this is only my second. I was super excited based on the events at the last one. And as a bonus, we got to hang with D.Rough’s cousin Nolan, which we need to do more of, apparently.

I can’t possibly get into all the details of what transpired, but I’ll give you some rough overviews and hope that is enough to convince you to go to this thing next time it’s in town. Don’t think of it as wrestling, where you point out how fake everything is. Think of it as a huge party where some guys beat up on each other and you get to yell wildly inappropriate things at people standing ten feet from you.

A plug on Facebook announced there would be a cat vs dog match (The Charismatic Canine: Yellow Dog versus The Crime Fighting Feline: Wildcat), which was absolutely awesome(ly hilarious). The dog had a puppy toy that the cat used to distract him. And the cat guy had the crowd chanting meow loudly and regularly. Classic stuff. Anywhere you sit or stand, you're going to be pretty close to the ring.

Pretty quickly, we realized there were really awesome places to stand right next to the ring. So, despite our fear of being sweated on, we moved in real tight-like.

Then, we got pushed aside as they brought out the ladders, folding chairs, garbage cans, and cookie sheets to hit each other with.

I got to stand right where the wrestlers come out after being introduced. I was mere feet from Sheik Ariya Daivari, who was boooooed loudly by the drunkenly racist crowd and cheered for by our friend Rocky.

We got to see the Minnesota RollerGirls Announcer John Maddening get kicked in the jimmy before being face slammed before our very eyes (yes, it’s fake, and yes, he DID actually get hurt).

Then, the Wildcat and Yellow Dog came back out to smack around the two kilted fellows by jumping off the speakers onto the floor and then flipping off the top ropes for the pin.

We also got to see Zero Gravity wrestle with the North Star Express, Playboy Pete Huge, 6% Body Fat Rob James, Horace the Psychopath, “The Anarchist” Arik Cannon, and a bunch of other people killing themselves for our entertainment.

Big thanks to the really fun burlesque dancers SweetPea and Queenie von Curves!

And an equally big thanks to Lipstick Homicide, a female fronted punk band from Iowa City, and Bloodnstuff from Minneapolis.

Seriously, that was some of the best fun I’ve had in a long time. I can’t wait until Wrestlepalooza IV!!!!!!

Hunan Garden – St. Paul, MN

Each year for D.Rough’s birthday, she picks a super fun place (usually at the last possible minute) to go for birthday drinks. This year was no different. She sent out the invite, tallied the yes responses and notified Hunan Garden – a place she and Rita had visited and had magical times. Just wait for the description.

I wanted to actually EAT at Hunan Garden, and we found out they stopped serving the full menu at 9:30pm. I rolled in about 9 and started to take the whole experience in. I’m probably going to ramble, but bear with me. It’s worth it.

Once you pick an entrance to the building (tucked away under a downtown skyway, the location is split into two areas. A divey restaurant that serves powerful drinks on one side – a divey bar that serves Chinese food on the other. I mean this place has the lights down lowwwww. Red-painted walls with Asian décor and yes, still somehow, you feel like you belong here. There’s no judging here. You just sit down, shut up, and eat or drink.

Then, you have the entertainment – “One Man Band” Ray Evangelista. One guy up the stage with a guitar and a rack full of accompanying top 40, classic rock, and old timey tracks. The guy can play that guitar too – I was honestly, quite impressed with his skills. The guy can also sing the heck out of these tunes. He’s got not music or lyrics in front of him and nails every song. He works the crowd a little bit and people are honest-to-god listening and paying attention and clapping and cheering when he starts and finishes songs. Perfect for this quickly-more-and-more-awesome establishment.

Then, you have the staff. Joe is either the owner or he runs the place like a boss. He’s the nicest and charming Asian man with long gray hair who doubles as chef and server, as well as host and drinking buddy. The bartender was a super friendly blonde woman who made sure I was taken care of and then made sure all the patrons were taken care of. Super nice, service with a wink, and knows how to pour a serious drink.

The restaurant seating area was closing down when I got there, but there were open booths in the bar area for me. I got a menu and figured out what I wanted. There’s a fantastic selection of appetizers, soups, and entrees on the menu and I decided to be gutsy and get something new – Plum Chicken and Shrimp. I also needed to check out some appetizers, so I got the Tibet Plate – egg roll, fried shrimp, hulla beef, paper chicken, and rumaki. The bartender told me she’d be right over, and I just hopped up from my table and went to the bar to order - save this lady a couple of steps and make her life easier. I had heard about the Volcano drink they have here, so I ordered one. She said, “You know that’s for four people, right?” I replied, “Yes, I do.” She smiled, nodded her head, and started mixing this huge bowl of rum, brandy, and pineapple juice. Awwww yeah.

The Volcano is serious. If you’ve been to Psycho Suzi’s in Minneapolis, you’ll recognize the Polynesian tiki bowl it comes in. There’s a spot in the middle that you pour Bacardi 151 into and then light it – that’s the volcano part. Then, I saw her pour the 151 all over the top of the bowl – intentionally – to make this thing even stronger than it already is. Like I said – a serious pour. Plus, this bowl of liquor is delicious. If you’re not going anywhere for a few hours, you should get one. They are head-spinningly inexpensive.

Joe brought out the appetizers and then scuttled back to the kitchen to finish the entrée. I dug into the various fried bits on the plate. The breaded and fried shrimp was decent. Nothing fancy, but fried shrimp is always good, as long as it’s cooked all the way through. The rumaki seemed to have an evil number of toothpicks in it (be sure to find them all before you bite into it), but had a decent flavor – although a little cold on the inside for my taste. If you don’t know, rumaki is bacon wrapped around chicken/duck liver and water chestnuts and then fried. Sometimes good, sometimes not good. The paper chicken was interesting and not like anything I’ve had before. It’s a piece of chicken cooked inside an aluminum foil triangle pouch – this was just ok and I had some concerns about the temperature of this one, as well. The Hulla Beef is a skewer of beef – nothing special, as far as I could tell. Good flavor, but not much pizazz. The egg roll was actually quite good and cooked perfectly. Good amount of ingredients on the inside and the shell was light and crispy. Plus, I think I got a bonus cream cheese wonton, which was really quite good.

The entrée came out next and looked pretty good. It smelled even better. The plum chicken and shrimp is in a brown garlic gravy with a bunch of water chestnuts and caramel walnuts. Wow, this was better than I was expecting. The shrimp was good and not fishy, the chicken had no gristle or tough pieces, and there was plenty of rice to accompany the dish. I should have ordered it spicy, but even without the zing of peppers, this dish was a nice surprise – especially with the gamble I took of getting something new.

By the time I was finishing up dinner, the birthday party crew was rolling into the Hunan Garden, ready for drinking. Which is exactly what happened. A ton of appetizers were ordered and a Volcano or two. …And, Joe may or may not have done some shots with us…

People kept asking – why don’t we know about this place???? There were comparisons drawn to the Red Dragon in Upton Minneapolis due to the tiki drinks and Chinese food, but this place has more panache and fewer people. It also has some of the best signage known to man hung on the inside. I shall give you a few examples:

As people were wrapping up dinner, Joe brought us out some fortune cookies from his secret stash. These are only for the most fun customers.

We shut down the bar that night, which was awesome on so many levels. One of those levels was NOT the fact that I had go to work in 4 hours and then immediately drive 7 hours to Chicago the next day. Still, WORTH IT. And I look forward to going back. This place is a gem in the downtown St. Paul area, and so amazing just for the entire experience. Sure you CAN find better Chinese food if you wanted to, but why would you when you’ve got all this awesome rolled up into one incredible place. I’ll vote for Hunan Garden (though my phone keeps auto-correcting it to Human Garden) every time!

Happy birthday, D.Rough!!!

Top 5 things about Hunan Garden

1. Atmosphere – without question. This place rules

2. Staff – Joe and the awesome lady bartender were fantastic hosts

3. “One Man Band” Ray Evangelista

4. Plum Chicken & Shrimp

5. Volcano drink for four

Bottom 5 things

1. Cold Rumaki

2. Cold Paper Chicken

3. Downtown parking with some shifty characters roaming around

4. Some people want to drink and be left alone… until they drink 8 too many and want to be your friend (amiright, Boom?)

5. The bartender brought me 4 straws – as if I were going to SHARE that delicious Volcano with people. hahahahaha

www.hunangardenstpaulmn.com