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

Estelle – St. Paul, MN

It’s my birthday week, and D.Rough is really good at spoiling me. She managed to get a reservation at this restaurant in the Tangletown/Macalaster/Groveland neighborhood area. I’ve been reading things about this place, so I was really excited to check it out.  This place is roughly focused in southwest Europe – think Italy, Portugal, and Spain mostly. It’s tough to get a table here and the bar-side of the restaurant is first come first serve, so it can be a challenge to get in here from 4-10. 

We started with some cocktails – D got the regular sangria (the seasonal sangria had too much going on for her particular mood), and I got a nice Sasseo Primitivo red wine. Both of us loved our respective openers. It was hard not to. 

The menu has so many delicious items on it that it’s difficult to decide. Small plates, small sandwich-y thigs, and bigger portions. We knew right away we wanted the Patatas Bravas, but then we also wanted the Arancini, and then we threw on some baked oysters, too!

The Patatas Bravas arrived first and were pretty much the star. The roasted potatoes are covered in a homemade picante tomato sauce (that’s the brava sauce) and then drizzled with a lemon aioli. There were some minor squabbles about who was going to each the last remaining potatoes, but since it was my birthday, I played that card. Bam. 

The oysters were also delicious. I enjoy a baked oyster from time to time – takes that snot texture out of it a little bit. They were cooked in a chorizo butter and covered with spinach, parmesan, and breadcrumbs. Totally delicious. 

D.Rough and I are suckers for any type of arancini (Italian fried rice balls). These were perfect. Small little mozzarella filled balls of happiness. Every time I have these, I wonder why I can’t buy them in a five gallon bucket. 

I also needed a new glass of wine, so I got a glass of Udaca Dao from Portugal.

Making decisions on the larger plates was a little more difficult. We had to make strategic decisions. But we powered through and came up with splitting an order of Creste De Gallo – housemade noodles with jalapeno pesto, almonds, lemon, and parmesan. And the Fideuà – fideo-style noodles, with clams and shrimp, ham hock, white wine, tarragon, and parsley. 

The Cresto De Gallo was fantastic. The jalapeno pesto wasn’t spicy, but had a very surprisingly light jalapeno flavor, and paired well with the lemon and parmesan. The unsung hero of this dish was the almonds. Delicious flavor and a fun crunch to this dish. The more of this we ate, the more flavors came through and it just got more and more delicious. Loved this dish.

The Fideuà won the night, though. So many flavors in this dish and it was very rich and hearty. The shrimp and clams were little surprises of flavor in the dish, but they flavored the whole dish. The seasoning on this dish was so good and substantial – not an afterthought or subtle at all. I’ve been dreaming about this dish since we ate it. Sooooooo magical.

Since it was a birthday celebration, and my wife is Italian, we had to order cake. D.Rough got the Blood Orange & Olive Oil Cake and I got the Cereal Milk Soft Serve. 

The Olive Oil Cake had some white chocolate, cardamom, pickled citrus, and tuile and was really pretty to look at. We thought it was a tad heavy on the olive oil, but the citrus part was really delicious. 

The cereal milk soft serve was awesome, though. And, a really hefty portion (maybe because D.Rough spilled the beans that it was my birthday). The cereal they used was Cinnamon Toast Crunch, so it was sweet and delicious, and it was topped with chocolate-covered cinnamon toast crunch – brilliant idea. This was sooo delicious. I’m glad I caved and ordered it.

www.estellestp.com

3 Dots & A Dash – Chicago, IL

Most of you know D.Rough and I have a deep love for tiki drinks – think rum and fruit juice on a Polynesian island. We’ve tried to find a way to get to Chicago’s 3 Dots & A Dash for a few years now. We finally made it happen!

A lot of tiki-lovers have issue with this place because it’s loud and expensive, but we didn’t care. We saw a few comments that said you should get a reservation if at all possible, so we did long ahead of time. Even so, we could only get a spot at 10:30pm, which was fine by us. 

It has a sort of speakeasy feel, with an entrance in an alley (although, it’s pretty well marked once you’re in the alley), and a dark staircase into the basement (once you get past the bouncer). If you don’t have reservations, be prepared to stand outside in a line about 200 people long waiting to get a standing spot near the bar – just letting you know. 

When you walk down the staircase, you’re facing a beautiful glowing wall of skulls, which is sort of a signature feature in the place. Very tasteful and fun, in my opinion. There’s a spot to stand near the hostess stand where we waited a couple of minutes for our table to be made ready. Everyone is so nice here!

As I said, if you don’t have a reservation, you don’t get a table. GET A RESERVATION. There is a long row of 4-person tables in the middle of the dining room and then larger booths and spaces for parties along the walls of the dining room. It’s very well decorated and definitely has a relatively authentic (but upscale) tiki feel to it. Yes, it IS loud, but it’s a combo of both music and talking energy, which we thought was enjoyable. Sorry, old people, it isn’t a quiet 1960’s Polynesian basement den with calming ukulele sounds in the background! The server we had was pretty fantastic and went through the layout of the impressive menu. Single person drinks on these pages, multi-person drinks on these pages, ridiculously expensive drinks (like $400 or served in a pirate ship with a full bottle of rum) on these pages, specific fancy sipping rums on these pages, food on these pages, and merchandise on these other pages.

D.Rough and I had intended to keep it tame and have one or two single-person drinks. That was the PLAN. Every drink on this menu sounds amazing, however. But we started tame. D.Rough got an Aloha Felicia and I got a Fat Bottom Mermaid. 

These drinks showed up VERY quickly, which was amazing. (Note: a lot of the drinks are made in the back of the house, since the bartenders serving non-reservation people can’t keep up with the crazy demand of the tables, so you won’t get to see your drink being made, if that’s your thing.) Both of these drinks seemed to be tailor-made to our tastes. Mine was rum and crazy fruit juices, and D.Rough’s was rum and crazy coconut and other juices. Completely different tasting drinks and we loved both of them. In fact, they were some of the best tiki drinks we’ve ever had.  They’re probably pricy for drinks at a tiki bar in say Omaha, but in Chicago, this is how much drinks cost – deal with it.

The night was going well. We were happy with our drinks, with our server, with the random people talking to us as they walked past, and with our entire situation. We looked at the single-person drinks, and then a little deeper into the menu and decided that since we were here and it was sort of a special destination for us, that we should possibly take advantage of the circumstance and get something special. We literally wanted every drink on the multi-person drink pages, but we finally decided on the Bali Bali – rum, Armagnac, gin, and various juices – but for 4-5 people. Also, the picture on the menu sold it, as well. 

It arrived just as fast as the other drinks, but it was bubbling and glowing and “smoking” all over the place from the dry ice. People from around the bar literally came over to our table to take photos and video of it – really one of the most impressive drinks I’ve ever had. AND, it was D-LISH-OUS! Sure we were getting a little crazy with our ordering, but we felt like this was worth it, even for the presentation alone – not to mention the taste was way better than we expected.

We polished that drink off and thought we had better order some food, since we didn’t appear to be slowing down. We ordered the Lanai Luau Chips. These seemed like they might soak up some booze! They’re like vegetable pork rinds (which I’m sure just horrified a bunch of my vegetarian friends), served with a delicious mango guacamole. There were more of them than I thought there would be, but we definitely finished them off. Really tasty snacks.

We weren’t sure the chips were going to be enough so we ordered the Thai Fried Chicken…. and then some more drinks. I got the Saturn & Negroni and D.Rough got the Idle Hands Do The Devil’s Work. Again, these drinks were perfectly suited to our regular drinking tastes, except they were monumentally better than what we normally drink. The Saturn & Negroni is gin, homemade orgeat, and tropical juices and the Idle Hands is like a classic non-blended daiquiri, but with banana rum. Both were killer. And the Thai Fried Chicken was much better than we thought it was going to be. Great fry on the outside of these chicken pieces and just a tiny bit of spice in the wonderful glaze that was on them. We’re really glad we got these! 

Somehow, I talked D.Rough into getting another drink with dry ice in it – I’m sure I’m SUPER smooth and convincing when I’ve had eleventeen drinks. So I ordered the Shotstopus. 

It’s basically shots of 151 rum and juices but served on an awesome octopus display with dry ice. D.Rough was ready to be done when it came out, so I basically drank both shots (slowly, so I could actually taste how amazing they were). And they were awesome, in case you were wondering.

At this point, I was feeling on top of the world. SO much so that I spoke German with our server – who was originally from Germany. Fact: I don’t speak German. (To be fair, I took German in college for a bit, but that was a hundred years ago and I’ve lost it all…until I get a “few” drinks in me”)

Thankfully, D.Rough talked me out of ordering any more delicious drinks. She’s the brains AND the looks of this operation. She asked if this is a regular occurrence when I find tiki bars with my friends while I travel around the country for roller derby tournaments. (She’s an actual athlete that takes care of her body while the rest of us schlubbs regularly request late check-out of hotels and eat Advil like M&Ms after tiki nights.) So I suppose I’m more “in practice” than she is. That being said, no one was surprised when I woke up the next morning in our hotel room (thankfully) fully clothed and cradling the TV remote like it tried to get away from me during the night. Worth it. Worth every penny of the most expensive tiki night we’ve ever had. So much fun!!! 

And then the following morning, D.Rough and I continued the tiki fest by putting fun tiki garnishes in the copious amounts of water that we needed to drink!

You will be amused to find out where we went for lunch the next day on our way out of town…… hahahaha

www.threedotschicago.com

Mi Casa Tapas Bar – Frankfurt, Germany

I always do my food research before going to a new city (or even a city I’ve already been to). I wanted something special for my last night in Germany and I stumbled across this small Tapas place that was well-reviewed and sort of an out-of-the-way gem. I knew this place was a haul, so I hopped in a cab from the hotel and drove for like a half hour – yeah, it was out-of-the-way.

I asked for a table for one, which is always funny. They always ask if I’m meeting someone and I assure them I’m solo. I got a nice table by the window. I looked at the wine list since I was in the mood to do some damage. I ordered a bottle of nice Tempranillo – Preferido Tino 2014. My server asked if I was meeting someone. I said no. She asked if I wanted the whole bottle. I said I did. She paused. Then she went back behind the bar to find me a bottle of wine. Another server brought out my wine and my original server stopped him before he got to my table with two wine glasses. I couldn’t make everything she said to him, but he was just as confused why one person would order a bottle of wine for themselves. Eventually it made its way to my table and was delicious.

I ordered some Brot und Aioli (bread and aioli) and a plate of Serrano-Schinken with Melone (Serrano ham with honeydew) for an appetizer. It came out pretty quickly while I decided what I was going to eat. The bread was the rustic kind that was super dense with a thick crust. Perfect for this aioli I was given.  But, the ham and melon was amazing. I love meats wrapped around melon (insert joke here), but this was exactly what I needed to celebrate a successful trip to Germany (along with a bottle of wine for myself). Very bright melon flavor with a dark rich ham slice always cheers me up.

I flipped through the menu, but I saw what I wanted written in pen on the mirror on the wall in front of me. The Tapas plate for one person – the Diverse Küche.  

It had Oliven (olives), Teigröllchen mit Schafskäse (filled pastry rolls with sheep’s cheese and herbs), Hähnchen grill spieß (grilled chicken on skewers), Calamari Ringe (battered squid rings), Datteln im Speckmantel (bacon-wrapped dates), Runzelkartoffeln (roasted salty potatoes), and Hackfleischbällchen (a meatball in a tomato broth).

Everything was fantastic, but of special note was the meatball and the pastry rolls with cheese.  Btu honestly, I’d order this exact same thing again next time. It was so good and filling. I ate everything.

And I drank everything.

I chatted up a family that was having dinner because I was drunkenly drooling over the paella that had been brought to their table. The mother asked me a question in German and recognized my butchering of the language as American, so she politely spoke with me for a few minutes. About how good the food was at this restaurant. I needed to head back, but I really wasn’t feeling a cab ride filled with motion-sickness-inducing weaving and starting/stopping activity. (Did I mention I had an entire bottle of wine?) So I walked. I knew roughly where I was going and my phone GPS was actually working quite well in Frankfurt, so I hoofed it.

Hoofed it much further than I anticipated, but I needed to walk off some food and wine. So it happened to be like 2.5 miles and an hour and a half stroll in the dark. Probably one of the best walk-abouts I've had in a long time. Worth it and well-needed.

A night or two ago, I walked by a REALLY fancy restaurant on the south bank of the river – the old town of Sachsenhausen. It stuck out to me because it was a REALLY upscale restaurant, but had a cartooney chicken logo on the sign. It’s called Coq Au Vin. I’m not usually a dessert person, but I was going to rock this entire night in all things culinary. I had already knocked out a brilliant dinner and now it was time to blow up the dessert course after walking 1.5 hours to get there.

All the tables in the place looked full, so I grabbed a seat at the bar. Based on the number of people at the bar (zero) and the look on the server’s face (confusion), people don’t sit at the bar at this restaurant. I saw a chair at the bar, so I’m sitting at the bar. When the server recovered he was actually quite polite and talkative. Maybe he’s been dying for someone to sit at the bar and chat with him since he started – I’ll just go with that. It was dessert, so I ordered a dessert wine – a sweet Gewurtraminer from Spitz & Fils. I love me some Gewurztraminer and this one hit the spot. I asked for the dessert menu and found what I was looking for. It was basically a ridiculous dessert sampler with everything imaginable on it. I’m sure it was for a table of 8, but I didn’t care. I ordered it. The server asked if anyone was joining me (I get that a lot, to be honest), and I assured him I was celebrating – so he filled me wine glass back up to the top – I like this guy.

It has a small crème brulee, mousse au chocolat, profiterole, sorbet, and Tagedessert (dessert of the day).  The mousse was actually chocolate and vanilla mouse, which was wonderful. There were three different sorbets (lemon kiwi, and raspberry). The profiterole was dipped in chocolate and covered in almonds – delicious. The crème brulee was wonderful, like they always are when YOU get to break your own shell. But the sleeper dessert was the dessert of the day – strawberries in a rhubarb sauce. Trying to determine the translation of rhubarb from Germany to English was a bit of an adventure, but we figured it out and this thing was magic. 

I absolutely killed this entire plate (and multiple glasses of wine). 

The server was extremely gracious and thanked me for coming in. I really feel like the weirdness caused by me sitting at the bar sort of broke down a barrier. We’re both in a better place now (that may have been the gallon of wine I drank that night). All in all, I feel I did justice to what I refer to as the celebratory dinner experience. Nailed it.

(Yes, I know I combined Spanish dinner with French desserts, but frankly, I eat what I want.)

St. Genevieve – Minneapolis, MN

D.Rough and I decided to go someplace a little upscale for our 4th anniversary dinner. I’d like to start a  trend that we go out to eat 4 times for our fourth, 5 times for our fifth, and so on, but I don’t think it will fly. St. Genevieve sets aside a small portion of its table for reservations, and then the rest are walk-in seating. We weren’t lucky enough to get a reservation, so we took out chances and showed up unannounced. There was a 90 minute wait on a Wednesday, so be ready for that. thankfully, there is a wonderful store next door to do some shopping and kill some time.

Once we got seated, we were really impressed with the place. Very nice without being snooty and the windows in the front open up onto the sidewalk for a really open atmosphere. It was pretty slick. This is the kind of place that not only has a nice wine list, but also a nice champagne list. D.Rough enjoys champagne more than most, so she ended up getting a nice glass of it. A glass which she thought was $9, but didn’t know that was for a half glass. (And, I didn’t tell her until afterwards, since it was our anniversary and we shouldn’t be watching our pennies.) It was a Chigny les Roses from Montagne de Reims. I got a really heavy red (Languedoc Roussillon) from that I loved, but D.Rough thought it was too meaty for her.

Also, a side detail. The coasters under your water glass are color coded for the servers. Red for tap/still water, and blue for sparkling/bubbly water. Genius time-saver idea!

The menu is quite French, so if you can speak any French at all, it may help you decipher some of the things. We do alright, so we ended up not starving – hahaha. We ordered some pomme frites (French fries with béarnaise aioli) and some Morels with Parisian gnocchis. St. Genevieve is also known for its Tartines (sort of a fancy open-faced sandwich), so we went a little extravagant and got the foie mousse tartine. We decided to split a large plate, so we didn’t over eat – we got the pork dish.

The pomme frites were awesome. Very crispy and the béarnaise aioli was good enough, we probably should have ordered another container of it so we didn’t have to ration it so much. Seriously good version of elevated French fries.

The morels were fantastic. I’ve never had morels before, but I know people fist fight over them in the woods. I know a lot of people that hunt these things and I’m glad I finally got to try them. These were fantastic and served with some of the best, lightest, fluffiest, creamiest gnocchis I’ve ever had. There was a sherry reduction on them and also a bit of fried chicken skin. Really? Yes, really, and it was awesome. It’s a pricy appetizers because of the morels, but it was really good.

The tartine was one of those things that I really liked, but D.Rough didn’t care much for it. A little too rich for her taste. A generous slathering (sorry for not using a more fancy word) of foie gras mousse on top, and then topped with some tarragon and pistachio. The kicker was the green strawberries, though. They were a really nice sweet tart pop in this dish. Really fantastic.

The pork medallions were really top notch. The pieces of pork were served together with some pieces of pork belly, but if you ate the together, it was quite a different flavor and texture combination. It was served on a small bed of cheese grits along with an onion puff and kind of a celery remoulade. The onion puff was referred to in another review as a grown up funyun and it was a pretty apt description. IT was also delicious. I think D.Rough got too much of the pork belly and wasn’t expecting it, but I really devoured this thing. One of the better pork dishes I’ve had recently.

Did we need dessert? No. Did we get it anyway? Yes. D.Rough went with the butterscotch crème brulee and I got the orange chiffon. I didn’t even really know what orange chiffon was, but it sounded intriguing and I was in the mood to gamble.

The orange chiffon was like nothing I’ve ever had before. It was sort of a fluffy cake with blood orange reduction drizzle on it. It also had black sesame macarons on it, as well as… wait for it… fennel sorbet. The cake was delicious, especially with the blood orange sauce on it. And the black sesame macarons were also good, but the sorbet I struggled with. Seriously struggled with it. I tried really hard to like it, but I just couldn’t. I almost ate all of it, hoping it would change my mind, but it didn’t. It was the most bizarre thing I’ve eaten in a long time. It was like a pizza flavored black licorice sweet ice cream. I’m sure it was fantastic and very high-brow, but it was rough for me.

Thankfully, D.Rough’s was mindblowing. The butterscotch crème brulee was quite good. Impressively good, if you must know. It had banana malt ice cream on top with cacao nib brownie pieces and caramel corn. This thing was an immensely elevated crème brulee. Get this thing.

Top 5 things about St. Genevieve

1. Pork medallions with pork belly pieces

2. Morel mushrooms with gnocchi

3. Butterscotch crème brulee

4. The atmosphere here is energetic and loud and open and fun, but still very upscale

5. The wine and champagne list is pretty baller

Bottom 5 things

1. Fennel Sorbet

2. D.Rough would put the tartine here, but I liked it

3. Be ready for the price tag, but it was worth it (just be careful on the wine ordering)

4. You’ll likely have to wait in line, unless you email the place weeks in advance

5. There isn’t a website (use FaceBook, yelp, or various articles to learn more)

St. Genevieve

5003 Bryant Ave. S.

Minneapolis, MN 55419