The Tilted Tiki - Stillwater, MN

D.Rough and I have a certain passion for tiki bars. So when we heard one had opened up in nearby Stillwater, we knew we had to check it out. We popped over after dinner and found what looked like a former Irish pub that had been converted to a sort-of island feel. There were bright lights and dark wood and some stained glass dividers – so a little less tiki than we’re used to.

We read the story of the bar on the back of the menu, and were amused to see that the inspiration for this specific tiki bar was a recent trip to Florida (which is pretty far from French Polynesia, if you’re wondering). They had also gone to Hawaii, in all fairness at some point, but the original inspiration was Florida. Which means this place is a little more “island” than “tiki” – in our humble opinion.

We ordered a couple of drinks and after about 20 minutes the server came over and apologized for how long the drinks were taking (we heard another server doing the same thing to a couple of other tables). We waited a while longer before one of them came out, then waited a little longer until the second one came out.

They weren’t good. I remember seeing “mystery ingredients” somewhere on the menu, which I’m sure is built into every tiki drink ever made. But whatever that mystery was, made what should have been various rums and various fruit juices, taste really bad. We drank most of our drinks and left.

Not one of our favorite tiki bars, in case you’re wondering.

www.thetiltedtiki.com

Conch Republic Grill – Redington Beach, Florida

D.Rough and I were passing through the area during lunch and the “conch” part of this bar and grill caught our attention. We’re both big fans, so we knew we had to pop in and get some lunch. All of the seats outside were taken, which was fine because I was hella-sunburned (don’t ask). We pretty much wanted everything on the menu, so we decided on an appetizer sampler. It had conch fritters, buffalo shrimp, and deep fried zucchini and a bunch of dipping sauces. Hard to go wrong, frankly.

But first… beach cocktails!

The conch fritters were just ok – they could have used a bit of seasoning in the batter, but they weren’t terrible. They came with a spicy remoulade sauce, which helped, so they ended up being alright. They were about average, as far as conch fritters go.

The buffalo shrimp was the best part of the plate. Really great sauce on these and it didn’t taste like it was from a bottle. We pretty much fought over who was going to eat more of these.

The zucchini was good at first, but then became pretty soggy once we hit the half-way point. I really liked them a lot at the beginning of the meal, but when we came back to them, we were both a little disappointed. 

This is one of those places I wouldn’t make a special trip to, but I’d certainly go back to if we were in the area and needing some food (and cocktails). Just an average giant beach bar and grill.

www.conchrepublicgrill.com

Aku Aku Tiki Bar – Orland, Florida

When I’m out of town, I generally do some research on food places and if I can find one, I try to get to whatever tiki bar is in the area. Orlando (surprisingly) doesn’t have a lot of tiki bars, but apparently, we picked the best one. It’s set off the main street, so it’s easy to miss, but we tracked it down on a slow night. There were only a couple of people inside, so the bartender (Joe)(the most amazing man on the planet and a hell of a bartender) made sure we were well taken care of.

Joe recommended drinks for us and told us about all these fabulous off-the-menu drinks that they bring to cocktail contests and win with, but haven’t gotten around to putting them on the menu. If you go here, ask them about some of their incredible drinks they have back behind the bar that they don’t really have a lot of names for.

I can’t tell you a lot of the names of these drinks, mainly because Joe kept them flowing. He would tell us about a drink and it sounded really…uh…unusual (I’m being tactful). But then he’d offer to make us a sample (shot sized) to convince us. And EVERY one he made was better than the last. He had one he made with soy sauce and maybe brown sugar that was amazing, but the best one of the night was something involving a banana-infused rum and some sort of chocolate/coffee-hinted drink. I know I was expecting something sickeningly sweet like 99 Bananas, and it wasn’t that at all. It was made with like dehydrated bananas dropped in rum and took a lot of effort. Joe really knows his craft and I’m glad he was our bartender that night.

The place filled up with upstairs residents (Aku Aku is on the bottom floor of an apartment building, so the residents use it like their living room and Joe knows all of them by name), and became a lot more hopping, but Joe took time to come hang out with us and sit around and talk music with me. I’m sure I have a photo of the 13 or 14 rum drinks we had, but I can’t find it. Thankfully, D.Rough was driving home and making sure I celebrated my birthday properly. I assure you I will go back to Aku Aku every time I’m in Orlando. It’s in the top 5 tiki bars I’ve been to in my entire life. Thanks for KILLING IT, Joe.

www.akuakutiki.com

Frenchy’s – Clearwater Beach, Florida

D.Rough and I took a little beach vacation for my birthday this year and ended up on the Gulf side of Florida. Clearwater Beach has a great little set of related restaurants called Frenchy’s – Frenchy owns like 8 restaurants in the area and they’re all different atmospheres, but all with delicious food. We popped in and had to wait a bit for a table since it was pretty packed (mainly with boaters from the marina next door). 

We grabbed a couple of cocktails since we were on vacation and scoured the menu. We knew we needed fried food, and thankfully, that’s a big part of the menu here.

We got some conch fritters and a couple of Kalik beers – our staple diet from when we were in the Bahamas. It brought back some good times… sigh.

We decided we needed to split an order or garlic crab fries and a fried grouper sandwich. I’m glad we did, since all of the portions are pretty generous. It was just about the right amount, and tasted great. 

The garlic crab fries are garlic fries with crab meat on top - REALLY great!

The breading on the grouper sandwich was fantastic, but still let the fish flavor come through.

Top 5 things about Frenchy’s

1. Conch fritters

2. They have Kalik!

3. Garlic crab fries

4. Fried grouper sandwich

5. Really nice servers and staff

Bottom 5 things

1. It’s pretty crowded and loud

2. I hope you’re in the mood for fried (thankfully, we usually are…)

3. If you’re anti-chain, this may not be your place, since they own MANY restaurants in a one mile radius

4. Nothing else is bad!!!!

5. N/A

www.frenchysonline.com/locations/frenchys-original-cafe

East Side Club Tiki Bar - Madison, WI

We were in town for a roller derby tournament and you know what that means ...... TIKI BARS!!! We always try to find the town's tiki bar when we're on the road for roller derby. Madison had one fairly close to the hotel we were at, so a couple of the guys and I drove over there.

When we arrived, we discovered the East Side Club was hosting a wedding inside. So we skirted the main building and followed the signs to the tiki bar, which was behind the main building. It isn't much of a tiki bar, to be honest, but it does have some of the prerequisites: super awesome bartender and rum. She whipped us up a couple of mai tais and we headed out to the patio area to view the beautiful giant lake in the middle of Madison.

Fortunately, we got our painfully uncomfortable stupid adirondack chairs just in time as some of the wedding folks began to spill out into the tiki bar area and down by the water. No big deal. In fact, we lasted at least oen more round before the torrential downpour happened:)

Overall, not impressive, but it did the job. If that's all Madison has in the way of tiki bars, then it'll have to do. It definitely treated us right.

Mobile Work-From-Home – Minnesota

I am thankful every day that I have the flexibility and opportunity to work from home sometimes. This comes in handy when I need to meet service people at my house, need to make to a doctor appointment near my house, need to let house guests in who arrive during the day, need to work and not infect co-workers in the office with my sickness, when there is a blizzard and I don’t feel like a 3-hour commute, or when I accidentally oversleep. I can be just as productive as I am in the office. I know not everyone has this option, but I am thankful that I have it.

So this year, I decided I needed a change of pace from my regular sitting on the couch upstairs, or sitting on my couch downstairs, or sitting at the desk in the make-shift office I never use. I’ve got a wi-fi enabled laptop, so I intend to use it. Some people go to a local coffee shop to work, but I personally don’t like coffee, and watching the parade of people can get too distracting for me. So I’ve decided to work at my friends’ houses. I can work just as well from their couch or dining room table as I can from my own. Was I worried about being distracted and not getting as much done? Yes, but I was willing to give it a shot and see what happens. I’ve worked from my parent’s house when I’ve had to make emergency trips back to Illinois, so this should be no different, right?

I’m not going to post every time I work from someone’s couch, but I wanted people to know this is a really fun and legitimate work option. In fact, I have friends who are now considering setting up times for friends to come over and work from their couches and maybe house-sit cats/dogs/jelly fish or meet service people they have coming over when they can’t be there. I think it’s a great idea, which is why I’m sharing it here.

I worked from my friends’ Trash and M.Giant’s couch and they set me up with a sweet card table and some snacks. Both these people work where I do, so it was a safe trial to see what I could get done. It worked out splendidly, since I had some face-time with Trash to discuss a project we were working on together.

I’ve also been severely spoiled by my good friend Margs. She also works from home and is a militant hospitality-ist (is that a word?). She’s got a comfy couch and was working right next to me on her own projects for her job. I brought my fuzzy slippers and made myself right at home.

Remember, I said she’s a super hospitality person? She made a mid-day snack of pierogis, which were fantastic. Totally not necessary not expected, but it ruled.

Then, she had some soup that she needed to use or throw away – again, I came in handy for that. Yeah, sure, I’ll eat delicious mushroom soup! And of course, I’ll eat some rolls with it. Happily.

I was always under the watchful eye of her cat, as well.

Finally, at the end of what turned out to be a super-productive day, she provided cocktails. Again, way above and beyond, but that’s Margs. She’s a giver and happy to have the company of another creature that sheds hair all over her couch.

Seriously, folks, look into this and see if any of your friends are up for hosting your mobile work-from-home campaign. I will be doing this all summer at various friends’ houses.

You’re welcome.

The Copper Hen – Minneapolis, MN

D.Rough and I thought it would be fun to take her sister, SalsaSandwich, out for a nice birthday lunch. Mainly, we knew Copper Hen had brilliant desserts, which is a favorite of both my wife and sister-in-law. The Copper Hen is a very quint “farmhouse-chic” restaurant and bakery with farm-to-table food and a nice-but-still-casual atmosphere. 

The first thing you see when you walk in the door is the dessert display case. It’s got all kinds of upscale and unique cupcakes and cookies, and even some gluten free items. I’ll get to the desserts later, but here is a photo of SalsaSandwich in front of the case. It’s hard to tell whether she’s getting a closer look or genuflecting to the dessert gods for this bountiful dessert manifestation.

The menu has some delicious looking cocktails and a decent beer and wine list. I went with a Bauhaus Uber Duber Bock, and D.Rough got a super delicious fancy Cosmo Chemistry, and SalsaSandwich got a Coke.

The menu has plenty of things to choose from, all of which sounded good, so I felt pretty good when we had it narrowed down quickly. D.Rough and SalsaSandwich were going to split a classic rustic pizza and also a Cheddar Ale Burger. I had the server help me decide between the Pot Pie and the Mac and Cheese. He talked me into the mac and cheese, but added steak on the top – I’m not sure why he and I aren’t best friends at this point.

The Cheddar Ale Burger got a decent review from both D.Rough and SalsaSandwich. They liked it and it was plenty juicy, but I think both of them have had better burgers. Lots of onions and neon orange cheese looked a little unusual to me, but I was happy letting them enjoy it amongst themselves. 

The pizza got some pretty rave reviews (and I even had a slice of this one). I think it’s the cheese mix that made it so good (it usually is) – although, I say that anytime there’s pecorino cheese on something. But, it’s a nice rustic cracker crust and the right amount of toppings. This is a great pizza that makes me want to try some of their more unusual pizzas.

The mac and cheese was absolutely awesome. It’s baked and has breadcrumbs on it, so you know it’s already delicious. It’s a bechemel cheese sauce, so it’s nice and thick and it’s the squiggly cavatappi noodles which rule. The steak on top was just an added punch that made the whole thing even better. I didn’t share much of this with the rest of the table.

Of course, we were all full, but decided to get a little dessert for the road… and wait, maybe just a little something to split for D.Rough and I. So you know, The Copper Hen usually has some sort of boozy cupcake. And by boozy, I mean they have a little booze injector built right into the cupcake. See the photo.

You squeeze the plastic tube and booze goes right into the already moist cake. Brilliant! It’s served in a little jar, which is very farmhouse and cute, but honestly, the cupcake is delicious, and I’m not even a cupcake fan (for clarification, I AM a booze fan, however). 

We had to get a couple more non-boozy cupcakes for the road, since it was SalsaSandwich’s birthday. I don’t even know what these cupcakes were, but they looked fantastic. 

I think you’ll be pretty happy at The Copper Hen, no matter if it’s for lunch, dinner, brunch, or just dessert. It’s pretty fantastic. 

Top 5 things about The Copper Hen

1. Baked Mac and Cheese

2. Desserts

3. Classic Pizza

4. Crafty cocktails

5. Cheddar Ale Burger

Bottom 5 things

1. Parking can be a challenge on Eat Street

2. By the time you buy 300 desserts, the bill will add up (otherwise, it’s really reasonable)

3. It’s a slow-casual restaurant, so be ready for a more relaxed time frame

4. It’s just rude to put the dessert counter right at the front, so all you think about is dessert the entire time you’re eating your other delicious food – I’m SOOOO kidding

5. Totally a minor thing, but I wish there were more photo of the food on the webpage (just ignore me. I just had a really hard time finding any downsides to this place)

www.copperhenkitchen.com

Hoban Korean – Eagan, MN

D.Rough and I had both heard really amazing things about this place from a number of articles claiming it was the best in the Twin Cities. I hadn’t heard any friends talk about it, but it was in a further suburb, so I suppose I should have factored that in. We also heard they have karaoke attached to the restaurant, so we thought we’d better go check that out.

 

We went and checked out the Karaoke rooms while we waited for our table to be ready. They have four rooms of different size and they will bring you drinks and appetizers to your room, which sounds awesome. Looks like this could be a potential evening activity with some of our ridiculous friends…

The restaurant seated us in the large dining room, which was full. We scanned the menu and tried to figure out if we should go adventurous or play it safe. We decided on a safe appetizer and adventurous entrees. We got some spicy chicken wings to start. Then we got Meat Jun (sort of like a fried meat/bulgogi pancake), and also Hot and Spicy Octopus.

The chicken wings were really pretty darn good. Even better than I suspected they would be, since sometimes, Asian restaurants like to overcook the chicken and hope the sauce covers it up. These had a lot of meat on them and the sauce was really tasty and not very spicy. Just a little bit, but for Minnesota, that’s a lot. We both really liked these wings. 

The Hot and Spicy Octopus was next. We both love octopus, especially fried and grilled. I know Minnesota doesn’t have a huge bumper crop of octopus usually, so it was a gamble, but we were both up for it. It looked really pretty on the plate, so we were excited to check this dish out. D.Rough took the first bite to test it out. It was a small piece and I could tell by her face she wasn’t thrilled with it. Then I could tell, when she wasn’t through chewing it 5 minutes later, that it might not be the best-cooked octopus we’ve ever had. It clearly wasn’t. I’ve never actually had octopus this chewy before and I was really surprised how long it took for each piece to break down. The sauce itself and the vegetables were delicious, but the octopus was basically inedible. It was like eternally chewing on pieces of rubber and eventually, both of our jaws hurt from chewing and we gave up on it. I’d suggest a different dish to my friends who end up going there.

The Meat Jun sounded delicious. It arrived and looked a little drab. It was a sort of gray-ish-brown color that didn’t look all that appealing (especially compared to the awesome photos on the website). We were hoping to get over the texture of the octopus by eating this – but that wasn’t going to happen. The texture of this was possibly even worse. The meat was extremely chewey, and whatever breading they used on the outside was basically uncooked flour, yet super greasy. We tried a couple different pieces to make sure we didn’t just get one piece of non-perfect beef. But the whole thing was like this. We just kept chewing and chewing. The flour-y breading made the whole thing worse, so we just ended up stopping.

We figured we might as well drink, just to help recover from this. We ordered a small pitcher of Soju. Actually, we ordered three or four different kinds of flavored soju and they would come back and tell me they were out, so we finally ended up with the mango soju. Which, frankly, was DAMN delicious. Yes, we loved the awesome little ice-filled pitcher that it arrived in at the table, but the flavor was perfect. We know we can’t pour our own soju, so we kept filling each other’s glasses. We’re both givers. And yes, it did help us a little bit forget how bad the meal was. A LITTLE.

We got our large amount of uneaten food boxed up, so it didn’t look like we hated everything, and left. We immediately threw away the food when we got home. I apologize to the people that enjoy this restaurant. We simply had a bad experience here, which significantly pales in comparison to many other Korean restaurants we’ve eaten at. We may go back for the karaoke, appetizers, and drinks, but I don’t know that we’re going to order much off the main menu next time. We really wanted to like this place, but it just wasn’t up to our expectations nor past experience. Bummer

Top 5 things about Hoban Korean
1. The Mango soju (not even our first choice and it was great!)
2. Spicy Chicken Wings
3. Karaoke rooms looked awesome and the kid giving us the tour was really nice
4. Great menu photos for every dish
5. All the dishes come with many small accompanying dishes of various radishes, vegetables, and kimchee
 
Bottom 5 things
1. Meat Jun
2. Hot and Spicy Octopus
3. Out of all the best flavors of soju
4. The service was noticeably slow – we weren’t in a hurry, but geeeez
5. I don’t like writing bad reviews – it always makes me feel bad

www.hobanrestaurant.com

The French Bulldog – Omaha, NE

I met my long lost friend from the Quad Cities, NoPants, in Omaha – she’s been going to school there and doesn’t get many visitors from back home. I met her a block from her house at this awesome little French bistro and charcuterie and cheese place called The French Bulldog. 

It’s got a small list of fancy cocktails and what better way to start your day than with a wonderful purple fizzy cocktail – which is what I got.  Purple Fizz. It was glorious.

We decided to get the Charcuterie and Cheese plate to share, even though I had been eating constantly for about 5 hours. Not joking. I was just going to sample various things while we got caught up on our lives. I know we got the Rillettes, the Corriander sausage, and the pate of the week, which was an Italian spicy spreadable sausage called Nduja. We also got the Little Darling cheese and the Grana Padano cheese. 

Shortly after, the server brought us a giant cheese board with pickles, mustard, and honey. It was fantastic. Our favorite part was the Nduja, in case you were wondering. It was really quite fantastic and fun to smash into various pieces of bread. Followed VERY closely by the Little Darling cheese (which I may or may not have convinced them to sell me a few chunks before I left).

NoPants also ordered some sort of tomato and basil quiche that looked delicious. I'm assuming it was delicious since she didn't even offer to share it with me. (I'm totally kidding, she offered, but I was full. Sometimes I exaggerate.)

The French Bulldog makes all of their own charcuterie there in house and has a nice window into the kitchen if you’d like to see who the sausage is made – not a metaphor, actually. It’s really a great place to have a nice cocktail and a pile of meat and cheese. 

www.frenchbulldogomaha.com

Reverb Lounge – Omaha, NE

After our complete fail at tiki-dom at the Firewater Grille, we headed to Reverb Lounge in the Benson neighborhood of Omaha. I had seen a few positive reviews about the drinks there, even though it’s a music venue and a regular bar. I even saw photo of tiki drinks there, so I knew at the very least, we could drink SOMETHING out of a ceramic vessel. The bar is a smallish place with a substantial looking bar in the center of one wall and separate doors for the music area. We grabbed a booth right when we walked in and scoured the menu – actual tiki drinks!!!

We had wasted precious time at the previous bar, so we needed to catch up. We all decided on our drinks and then discovered the drink for four people. I immediately got up and ordered a Kava Bowl for our table. I was going to head back to the table, but there’s something magical about watching an expert assemble a tiki drink, especially a large one. They actually put two people on the job, one mixing various rums and juices together and the other cutting intricate animal designs out of different fruits. People sitting at the bar eventually asked “what the hell IS that?”. Kava Bowl, people. Read your menu.

The thing gets a lime half filled with 151 on top, which they then light on fire. I paraded this massive flaming drink through the dining room like I was a priest from The Temple of Doom (Kali Ma Shakti de was going through my head the entire time). People noticed, to say the least.

We all dove into this drink with fervor. Yes, I said fervor. Mainly we just needed a drink to sip on while we were deciding what to get for the next drink.

I went with a Pineapple Boo Loo – a drink for two people which comes in a pineapple. Like an actual pineapple that they core out and fill with rum. Sadly, Reverb had purchased some faulty pineapples and I got the only actual pineapple that didn’t spring a leak. Cha-ching! Everyone else got their pineapple boo loo in a ceramic bowl. It still did the trick. We had a fantastic night and got to listen to a little bit of the band in the other room. Plus, both bartenders were really fun to chat with when it slowed down a bit in the bar.

We weren’t really done when the bar started to close up, so we went back to the hotel room and played Exploding Kittens and drank Flip’s Fireball and my Fruit Loop Vodka. We travel well when we go to roller derby tournaments. If you haven’t played Exploding Kittens (a card game), then you really should. 

Go check out Reverb Lounge, either for the music or the tiki drinks. We were really glad we did. 

www.reverblounge.com