Cannon Beach Hardware & Public House - Cannon Beach, OR

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dead Man's Isle - Astoria, OR

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

Apostle Supper Club – St .Paul, MN

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

http://www.apostlesupperclub.com

Apostle Supper Club

253 Kellogg Blvd. W.

St. Paul, MN 55102

The Rib Co. - Twentynine Palms, CA

I had read about this BBQ place when I was planning our trip out to Joshua Tree, and it got really good reviews. It was, of course, a hundred degrees when we stopped by this place and there was a guy working the grills with a smile standing outside in the heat. That’s a good sign. Plus the folks working the dining room inside were also very happy to see us.

 

The menu is more expansive than most BBQ places I’ve seen. Tons to look at, so when I saw there was a rib sampler on the menu, I decided to go with that, even though I knew it was going to be way too much food for me. It comes with a half rack of each of the five types of ribs, some sides, and corn muffins (with honey butter) – I got baked beans and mac and cheese. D ordered a combo meal with a half rack of triple threat ribs and pulled pork. She also got fries and mac and cheese for the sides. Well played.

The orders came out and they were massive. The rib sampler was piled high with meat. I’ll show you two photos, so you can get a good perspective. The overhead shot doesn’t do it justice until you see how high the stack is. I know what I read on the menu, but I still assumed it was going to be two or three of each kind of rib, not a half slab. It was, in fact, a half slab of each kind. In order of my favorite style: Triple Threat, Baby Back, Beef, St. Louis, House Rub. And please understand that fifth place on this list is still way better than most ribs I’ve had. These folks know what they’re doing. No wonder that guy working the smokers and grill was so happy. The baked beans were better than average and the mac and cheese also above average. Nothing here was meh, truly.

 D was happy with her Triple Threat half slab and the pulled pork was really flavorful with no gristle or fatty parts at all. And her fries were pretty solid, as well. Nothing out of a bag here. 

 

Tremendous showing all around here. And the best part was we literally had enough food left over for two additional meals. So three meals-worth of food for one visit – the other option might be to bring 6 of your closest friends to help you out. 

 

I would absolutely recommend this to anyone who likes BBQ and I look forward to heading here again the next time I’m in town. It was way better than expected!

 

The Rib Co

72183 Twentynine Palms Hwy.

Twentynine Palms, CA 92277

Croft Kitchen - Crosby, MN

 D and I were in the neighborhood and looking for a quick snack (not a full dinner), so we decided to pop into this local bar and grill we’d been in a few years back. This place has gotten a recent remodel and looks fantastic inside. New floors, tables, and booths go a long way into brightening this place up and refreshing it. There’s also a really surprisingly improved menu available. Super impressed with the offerings here – including the tap list.

 

Additionally, they do some special menus. I’m very interested in the Cajun menu special nights and an upcoming Italian menu special nights. Looks like this refresh didn’t stop at the front of the house – well done, whoever helped upscale this place!

 

We ordered the Armadillo Eggs and Spicy Cauliflower. And a couple of beers, obviously. The Vikings game was on, which meant they had half price appetizers, so we accidentally timed it really well, showing up when we did. And to kill time, D got to check out some claw machines, which is a hilarious draw, but apparently, it works.

 

The Armadillo Eggs were surprisingly delicious. I thought they were going to be a simple jalapeno popper, but they weren’t. Hear me out: the jalapeno is stuffed with brisket and cream cheese, then wrapped in Italian sausage and bacon, and then smoked and glazed with BBQ sauce. Honestly, this was leaps and bounds better than a jalapeno popper. They’re an appetizer, so everything is small, but don’t let that fool you – it’s about balance. Sure, if it was softball-sized and deep fried like a state fair monstrosity, it would be some sort of food challenge, but this has great ratios where you can taste everything. Loved how well put together these things were. 

The spicy cauliflower is like deep fried buffalo cauliflower, so don’t mistake this for healthy. The fry on this was impressive and there’s plenty of buffalo sauce all around the cauliflower inside. It’s served with a side of avocado ranch, which I could have drunk by the gallon. It’s the perfect dip for these little gems. 

 

I’m really impressed with the apps we got here. It’s clear the menu has been elevated and there’s some care that goes into the food prep (including plating, which D cares about more than I do). I’m glad to recommend this place now to friends that are up in the Cuyuna Lakes area for mountain biking or disc golf or camping. It’s got so much more going for it now, and we’re looking forward to going back and trying out some larger menu items. Great job on the update, Croft Kitchen!

 

Croft Kitchen

7 1^st Avenue NW

Crosby, MN 56441

Quick Review: Nova Bar - Hudson, WI

This less of a review than a plug to go check out this place. The former Nova Wine Bar and Restaurant in Hudson has opened up as a local drinking establishment called Nova Bar. It’s in the same building as Casanova Liquors (also known as the beer cave), so many of you already know where it’s at. So get this – liquor store in the same building, DQ 200 feet away, Air B&B across the street, and beach walkable. Sounds like we’re going to be spending a lot more time here…

It’s got a great cocktail list (the owner and his wife can pour a kick-ass Painkiller), has wine by the glass, robust whiskey/bourbon/scotch collection, and offers a really impressive craft beer list. They also have Miller High Life on tap at all times, for those of you that partake. 

The place is decorated in a pretty whimsical and fun way (just use the same decorations for the holidays up through mardi gras!) and everyone in the place is genuine and fun. They also offer various food trucks and pop-up situations, so you can often grab a bite to eat there. Check out their Instagram page for updates – that seems to be the best and most often updated. No full-time kitchen offerings, but they’ll feed you once in a while and you’ll just have to focus on drinking. 

Go support this business. Check out their cocktail list and drink specials. I bet if you bring them a funny story or video on your phone, they’ll be happy to return the favor. They’re great folks!

Phi Chay Thai Cuisine – St. Paul, MN

 

D and I wanted to check this place out, since we saw it had changed names/ownership. It used to be called Supatra’s and we really liked that place. So, we had high hopes as we went into check out this new iteration. 

The person working the register and hosting was really polite and helpful. And the interior of the restaurant looks like they didn’t change it a huge amount, so it still felt home-y. The menu is very large, so it took some time to narrow down what we wanted. We went the adventurous route today and tried some things we wouldn’t normally get. 

We ordered the Salt and Pepper Tofu Puffs, Coconut Curry Noodles with Chicken, and Pad Woon Sen, (stir-fried silver thread noodles) with pork. 

The tofu puffs arrived quickly, and piping hot. The little cubes of tofu were fried crispy and came with some peppers and onion, and also two dipping sauces – one was a rice wine vinegar sauce and the other was a peanut sauce. The tofu was seasoned with salt and pepper and the fry on them was perfect. I liked the peanut sauce a little more than the other, but both were very good. Really a much better appetizer than we expected. 

The coconut curry noodles were different than we expected. D took a bite and said, it’s sort of like the Thai version of macaroni and cheese. The noodles were in a very mild and light curry sauce with a couple pieces of broccoli and chicken. The sauce was good, but didn’t have much kick, despite us ordering it medium. However, D added a scoop of the dried pepper that was on the table and it totally changed this dish. Made it much better and more flavorful. Even seemed to bring out more of the curry flavor. This dish ended up being really good, after we massaged it a little bit. 

The Pad Woon Sen was perfect right off the bat. A rich brown sauce coated all the silver thread noodles and vegetables. It had good spice level to it and the pork was really delicious, as well. I always wish there was a ton more when I’m done eating it, even though I was super full. This is one of those dishes that I would probably order again and I’m not usually an -order-the-same-thing-twice kind of person. Really good. 

Overall, an impressive showing from Phi Chay and an excellent replacement for a restaurant we really loved when it was around. We’ll be back here again.