Hi there, I'm Mike. I'm not a professional writer or a professional food critic for that matter. I'm just a regular guy who likes to eat at different places (and especially places I see on TV) and I thought I would let everyone out there know what I think. Thanks a lot for reading.
So, after our outing to Mickey’s Diner and a restful night’s sleep, we met some friends the next day and toured the Wabasha Street Caves. This was a great tour of some man made caves that were previously a speakeasy, a dance club, a disco and a former hangout of John Dillinger. It was a very interesting tour that I would suggest for anyone in the Twin Cities area.
Well after that, we of course needed some lunch.With the group we had, which consisted of adults and kids, it was decided that the best place would be to head back to Davanni’s. They have a great “party room” that was the perfect gathering place and left a little room for the kids to be kids.
Well, since the last time I got a hot hoagie, I decided to go with a pizza this time.I switched it up, but guess what Joan got. That’s right, her famous Turkey Hoagie. They have three sizes of pizza and the 7.5” solo is perfect for one person (as the name suggests). They have three crust options: thin, traditional and deep dish. Now, I’ve always liked the thin crust the best so that’s what I ordered. There’s something about tasting the sauce and toppings rather than a bunch of dough. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take a big piece of deep dish when I’m in Chicago, but for the most part I’ll stick with thin. As far as toppings, I’m a sucker for pepperoni and mushroom. That goes all the way back to my father who religiously ordered “peppy-mush” pizzas. I decided to add a little more on this one and ordered their “Works” which came with pepperoni, sausage, hamburger, mushroom and red onion. Here’s what it looks like:
We just had to add the same garlic cheese bread we had last time as well. The pizza was just enough to satisfy but not so much that you’re stuffed. I know for Joan, the only thing you should get at Davanni’s are the hoagies, but if you’re looking for something different the pizza is a great option too.
After our great lunch, we needed to get something for dessert. Down the street is one of our favorite places for dessert, Culver’s Frozen Custard. Now if you haven’t had frozen custard before, it is similar to ice cream but so much better. Custard must have egg yolks in it to be called custard and it is served at a higher temperature than ice cream. That means you can eat it and eat it and never get that ice cream headache. Now there is one place in Milwaukee that has the best custard anywhere, but you’ll have to wait for my next trip to Brewer country for that review. Culver’s started in Sauk City, Wisconsin and has now expanded to all over the Midwest. Also recently they have been expanding more out west. The closest one to us here in Las Vegas is in Phoenix, so we jumped on the chance to get some great frozen custard. When we go to Culver’s, there’s only one thing to get, the Caramel Cashew sundae. Here’s what it looked like:
The Caramel Cashew sundae starts with a rich and creamy scoop of their vanilla frozen custard. This stuff is much smoother than ice cream. There are none of those ice crystals that you inevitably get in even the best ice cream. Then they add a rich caramel sauce and a handful of whole cashews. They finish it off with a cherry on top for good measure. The saltiness of the nuts matches really well with the custard, more so than just plain old peanuts.I guess I’m glad we don’t have a Culver’s here in Vegas because I could eat one of these every day of the week. They do have a lot of other sundaes at Culver’s as well as a custard flavor of the day, but next time you’re in a Culver’s, try the Caramel Cashew, you won’t be disappointed.
Next up, my first taste of a Twin Cities classic.
Until next time,
Mike
The Particulars
Restaurant: Davanni’s Pizza and Hot Hoagies Location: 310 White Bear Avenue, St. Paul, MN55106 Website: http://www.davannis.com/ Date of Visit: August 27, 2011 Time of Visit: Around 1:00pm, Lunch Has It Been On TV?: Not that I know of
Restaurant: Culver’s Frozen Custard
Location: 2065 Old Hudson Road, St. Paul, MN 55119 Website: http://www.culvers.com/ Date of Visit: August 27, 2011 Time of Visit: Around 2:00pm, Dessert Has It Been On TV?: I Don’t Think So
If you remember from my last entry, we were at Target Field for the Twins/Tigers game. The game is over, we’ve taken the light rail back to our car and we’re ready to head back to the hotel. Well, we decide since we really only had an early breakfast and the late lunch, and since we’re still kind of on west coast time, we should get something more to eat before we retire for the evening. Well back home in Las Vegas this is an easy proposition. You can find food open all night (or at least very late) around every corner. In St. Paul (and most cities for that matter) places actually close. Well if it’s late at night and you want something to eat in St. Paul that means a trip to Mickey’s Dining Car Mickey’s is an old fashioned diner. It’s not large at all; in fact I would say it’s downright tiny. We counted 16 stools at the counter and they have 4 booths that will seat another 16. We were there around 11pm or so and the place was packed. At times you have to stand in the door and wait for a seat. Fortunately for us, a booth had just opened up when we arrived and we jumped on it. Here’s a quick look at the counter from our booth:
Now everything here is strictly old school. They have no computer system, they take no credit cards and there is no fancy back kitchen. Mickey’s is on the National Register of Historic Places and as I would find out the next day, that basically means you can change NOTHING about the place. It makes it difficult on a functioning business, but Mickey’s does it well. I don’t think they would want to change if they could. It’s part of the charm of the place. You see all kinds here. As I said we were there around 11pm and we saw a group of friends in jeans and T-Shirts, a couple that was dressed for a formal affair, a group that had more tattoos and piercings than a rock band and gentleman in a suit and tie that came in and sat at the end of the counter and wanted to be everyone’s best friend. He knew exactly what he wanted to order and judging by how he ordered, I would say that he’d been there many, many times before and would probably be back many, many more times.
Now, as I perused the menu, I wanted something old school diner and something a little unique to Mickey’s. I found the perfect item, the Classic. The Classic is a cheeseburger served with a few hashbrowns and a little mulligan stew. Here’s what it looked like when it came out:
Now, you’ll notice that, according to the menu, those are “a few” hashbrowns. There was nothing overly special about any item on this platter except the fact that you were sitting in Mickey’s eating them. The burger was good. The one thing about it was that on the edge of the bun, some of the mulligan stew was seeping into the bun and it gave it a nice gravy taste. The hashbrowns were very good again with that great flattop crust on one side and the tender potatoes on the other. The best part about the entire dish was probably the mulligan stew. This is kind of a specialty of Mickey’s. It was a wonderful beef stew type dish with, as you can see, large chunks of vegetables. The carrots and potatoes were not too firm, but not to mushy either. You got that great firmness when you bit into them.
When we finished our meals, we both had the feeling. You know the one, where you’re not quite full, but don’t need a whole other entrée. Maybe what you need is dessert. Yes! But you don’t need a whole dessert. Joan and I decided to share a piece of apple pie with a scoop of ice cream. Be sure to ask for the pie warmed. It’s just right and melts the ice cream just a bit while you eat it. If you ask for a piece of apple pie, warmed, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream at Mickey’s, here’s what you’ll get:
We made short work of that and were on our way back to the hotel. When in St. Paul, please make it a point to get to Mickey’s. They are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and have been for 70 years.
Next up, a return visit and dessert at a regional place.
Until next time,
Mike
The Particulars
Restaurant: Mickey’s Dining Car
Location: 36 W. 7th Street, St. Paul, MN55102
Website: www.mickeysdiningcar.com
Date of Visit: August 26, 2011
Time of Visit: Around 11:00pm, Late night snack/meal
Has It Been on TV: Several Times. I saw it on Alton Brown’s “Feasting on Asphalt 2” on Food Network but they have been featured on many more shows as well as appearances in several movies and TV shows set in Minnesota.
Every time we make a trip back to St. Paul there are certain places that we MUST go. After we awoke from out mid morning, red eye flight nap, we went to one of those places. We took the short drive from the hotel down to Davanni’s Pizza and Hot Hoagies. They have 21 locations spread throughout the Twin Cities area and Joan remembers vividly going to this location near her house and another down around the University of St. Thomas where she went to school. As the name suggests, they have pizza and also hot hoagie sandwiches. They don’t have subs as I have been told on many occasions, they have hoagies. Now I really don’t see the difference here. It’s bread stuffed with meat and veggies, it’s a sub; it’s a hoagie; it’s a hero; it’s a grinder. This one I know I’m right about. (Stay tuned in a couple of posts for one that I’m wrong about).
Now, Joan having been here, oh about a jillion times, know exactly what she wants. For her, at Davanni’s she has “that dish,” the one that you order EVERY time you are there. For her, it’s the hot turkey hoagie. Now for me, I’ve only been a few times before so I peruse the menu. They have pizza, they have hoagies, and they have pastas and calzones and salads. I decide to defer to Joan’s judgment on this one and get a signature hot hoagie. I scan down the list of options and settle on the roast beef. We go up and order our two hoagies and a full order of garlic cheese bread just for good measure. Then we take our seat. You sit in anticipation and wait for your name to be called over the PA system. Finally we hear “Joan your hoagies are ready.” I spring up and find a tray waiting for me on the counter with two spectacular hoagies and an order of cheesy garlic bread. When I get back to my seat, here’s what I have:
I have to say that there is something about the bread that they use that makes this sandwich (and all of their hoagies) so good. It’s baked in their own bakery exclusive to Davanni’s. It is very soft but not so soft that the sandwich falls apart. The veggies they use are top notch and there is just enough mayo on there to give it great flavor and not drown out the meats. The garlic cheese bread is nothing too special but it does make a great add-on to any sandwich or pizza. They serve it with a side of their marinara sauce which makes a great dunker.
As I said, with 21 locations across the cities, you should be able to find one close to you no matter where you are in the area. Check it out, you won’t be disappointed.
After our wonderful late lunch, it was time for some Major League Baseball action. Now I know you don’t know much about me yet, but I am a HUGE baseball fan. My team is the Milwaukee Brewers and they do make one trip a year to Minnesota. They were not, however in town this particular weekend, but as a general baseball fan, I was eager to check out Target Field, now in its second year. I won’t say too much about the stadium since this is a food blog and not a baseball blog, but it is a very nice new stadium. I think that they should have looked for some sort of retractable roof solution there in Minnesota. The weather was absolutely perfect the night we were there but in April, I can imagine some pretty miserable nights.
As far as food, as with any ballpark, there is plenty to eat there. We kind of browsed all of the stands but having just eaten at Davanni’s, we weren’t too interested in a big dinner. We did have tickets on the club level and there are a couple nice lounge areas on that level. You have concession stands and a nice place to sit and eat. Here’s just a quick look at one of them:
Well, as I said we weren’t interested in a lot of dinner type food. Dessert type food however….. That’s another matter. We came across this stand while walking around:
TC Treats (as in Twin Cities) offers a variety of dessert items including gelato. Well when you have a lot of choices, you can’t just settle for one scoop. You need two. I selected two different flavors, Double Dark Chocolate and an interesting Sea Salt Caramel. I also selected a Killebrew root beer named after the late Twins great Harmon Killebrew. We found a table and here’s what it all looked like:
Now recently I have become very interested in salted caramel. It’s a wonderful combination of salty and sweet and this gelato was no exception. It was kind of a caramel gelato with little chocolate nuggets in it and that wonderful salty flavor throughout. The Double Dark Chocolate was just as it sounds, a wonderfully rich dark chocolate gelato with dark chocolate chunks laced in. Great treat before a ballgame.
In the end, the Twins fell to the Tigers that night but I did get to see the ballpark.
Next up, late night food at a St. Paul institution.
Until next time,
Mike
The Particulars
Restaurant: Davanni’s Pizza and Hot Haogies
Location: 310 White Bear Avenue, St. Paul, MN55106
What is it that they say about the best laid plans of mice and men? Well as you read in my last entry, Joan and I were headed to the airport and ready to get on a redeye flight from Las Vegas to Minneapolis. We had a hotel reservation for Friday night and the plan was to show up early at the hotel and beg for them to give us a room. Then we’d crash and sleep until lunchtime. Great plan, huh? We’ve done this before without any problem. I know, there’s a slight chance that they will have NOTHING clean when we arrive and we’ll be out of luck, but what are the chances that they were completely full the night before. Well, they were completely full the night before and had nothing clean to give us when we got in. So there we are sitting in the lobby trying to figure out what to do until someone checks out and they get a room clean.
Well Joan being from St. Paul says that we should get some breakfast. That sounded good to me. If we can’t sleep, we might as well eat. Joan loves Perkins restaurant and there was one right around the corner, so off we go to break my “no chains” rule again. We show up and there is not one car in the parking lot. Not a good sign. As it turns out, this particular Perkins is now closed. So we punch up the handy dandy GPS, put in “Perkins” and head off to the next nearest Perkins.
On the way, we pass this place called The Little Oven. Joan mentions that they have breakfast there and asked if I wanted to stop there instead. Now here’s where I remember the words of my mother. I don’t remember how old I was but I was pretty young. We were traveling and were in Golden, Colorado. It came time to eat and my younger brother and I of course wanted to go to McDonald’s. My mother insisted that we go somewhere with more “local flavor,” somewhere we couldn’t go at home. Growing up in a town of 18,000 people, even we had a McDonald’s. Now being kids we thought the suggestion of “local flavor” was quite ridiculous. Let’s go get our Big Mac and enjoy it. No, we need “local flavor.” So we head to a place called the Golden Ram. I will never forget the Golden Ram. When we walked in the door we couldn’t see the other side of the restaurant because of all the cigarette smoke (remember the days when you could still smoke in restaurants?). Standing for only a few minutes waiting for a hostess, it was decided that we would not be dining at the Golden Ram. Now, I don’t remember where we ended up eating that day but I know it wasn’t the Golden Ram and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t McDonald’s either. We never let my mom live that one down. How silly to seek out “local flavor” when McDonald’s is right there. For years and years after that we would bring up the Golden Ram and we all knew what we meant.
Well, many, many years later and now my mother somehow seems so much smarter. Now I like finding those things that you just can’t get at home. That’s why now, when given the choice, I tend to shy away from Applebee’s, TGI Friday’s and the like because you can get those in any town across America (heck, even my hometown of 18,000 has an Applebee’s now). Amazing how the older you get, the smarter your parents become. This is one of the main influences behind the “no national chains” rule.
So, let’s get back to The Little Oven.Joan remembered this as simply a pizza place when she was growing up but knew that they had branched out to other items as the years went by. This is now a wonderful little corner restaurant open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We were there for breakfast on a Friday morning and the place was pretty busy. At one point there were no open seats. There was one large group of what appeared to be construction worker eating breakfast before they headed out. There were several tables of retired guys hanging out for eggs and coffee. Joan mentioned that her father hung out there from time to time, but being it was a little after 8:00am, we were probably past his time there. Here’s a quick view of the dining room, looking in from the door:
Well I took a look at the menu and saw something on the “Specials” sheet that I just couldn’t pass up. I saw the “Around the World” Breakfast. This breakfast comes with two eggs, potatoes, toast and three types of sausage. How could I pass that up? The sausages were a southern sausage, a Bavarian sausage and a Venetian sausage.Here’s what the whole thing looks like:
Now, the one complaint that I would have is that by piling the toast on top of the eggs and potatoes, they picked up a good deal of steam and kind of made it soggy. It wasn’t inedible by any means, but if you’re looking for good crisp toast, you might want to ask for the toast on the side. The potatoes were wonderful. They had that great flat top crust on them and then had just enough pepper and onion mixed in. It was still mostly potato but the peppers and onions gave it just a little more zing. The sausages were vastly different from each other which gave you a great variety of flavors. The “southern” tasted more like a traditional breakfast sausage that you might be used to. The Bavarian had a milder taste more like a bratwurst. The Venetian was a little spicier like an Italian sausage. Overall it was a very satisfying breakfast and a wonderful little old school restaurant. In fact, they still write their tickets out by hand; no computerized receipts here.
If you’re in St. Paul, check out The Little Oven. All the particulars are below. Breakfast in the morning, pizza and Italian food in the evening.
Next up, back to the plan for lunch after some much needed rest in our finally available hotel room.
Until next time,
Mike
The Particulars
Restaurant: The Little Oven
Location: 1786 East Minnehaha Avenue, St. Paul, MN55119
Website: www.thelittleoven.com
Date of Visit: August 26, 2011
Time of Visit: Around 8:00am, Breakfast
Has it Been on TV?: I Don’t Think So.
OK, here we go. My first real restaurant/food review and….. I’m breaking one of my rules right off. OK, here’s the deal. This isn't really a “travel” review. This is a kind of “pre-travel” review. I mentioned before that Joan and I were going to travel back to the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. Well we have our three dogs and when we travel they have to go off to “camp.” We kennel our weimaraner Max and our beagle Roscoe at our regular kennel here in Las Vegas. But, our basenji mix, Murphy is getting up there in age (almost 18 now), so we have her vet watch her when we’re gone. What that really means is that we have two drop-offs to make.
So, our dogs have been dropped off and we still need to pack. We don’t want to cook tonight. So, where do we go? Here’s where I break my rule. We go to Sweet Tomatoes. Now this is somewhat of a national chain. I know, I know, I know, I said I wouldn’t do national chains and here I am right off of the bat.
Well, Sweet Tomatoes is, as they call it, “The Salad Buffet Restaurant.” It’s all-you-can eat and it’s specialty is salads. Also know that the first Sweet Tomatoes restaurants are known as Souplantation. Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes has 122 locations in 15 states so I guess it’s not truly national. I can skirt the rule. *Whew*
One of the reasons that we wanted to go to Sweet Tomatoes tonight is that it was nearing the end of the Cuba portion of their “Around the World in Eight Tasty Weeks.” There are four different regions, two weeks each. I had tasted some pretty good Cuban food the last time we were in Miami (sorry, before I had the food blog idea. Next time around though) so I wanted to sample what Sweet Tomatoes had to offer.
I have to say that it was not exactly Little Havana in Miami, but it was quite good. When you first enter the restaurant, you head down the first salad line. In this line, there are all the traditional salad bar ingredients here as well as a number of pasta salads, potato salads, jello and the like. You then pay for your meal and then are seated. During slow times, you are free to sit anywhere you wish. During busy times, a host or hostess will seat you in order to keep the seating orderly and to avoid people wandering around looking for a place to sit.
Now, I mentioned that we were there during their Cuban week. There were three special Cuban dishes in the first line and of course I had to sample all three. I took a bit of the special Havana Banana salad, the Chorizo, Potato and Lime Salad and the Cuban rice and beans. I also put together a “regular” salad with some lettuce, carrot, mushroom, hard boiled egg and bleu cheese crumbles. I topped it all off with blue cheese dressing and croutons. Here’s what it all looked like when I sat down:
Overall, the salad was, well… a salad… It wasn’t wonderful, it wasn’t bad. The Havana Banana salad was very nice. The bananas were actually crunchy banana chips that added a wonderful crunch to the salad. The dressing also added a wonderful citrus hint. The potato salad was advertised as a Chorizo, Potato and Lime salad. If I had one complaint it would be that they needed a bit more chorizo. The beans and rice I felt had the perfect balance between the two. Not too many beans or too few. The rice had that great Cuban taste to and the beans just added the right amount of give to complement the firmer rice.
OK, it’s time to move on. Remember this is all-you-can-eat. Of course that is a double edged sword. Good thing, you’re not locked into just what they bring; you can eat more if you want. Bad thing, you’re not locked into just what they bring; you can eat a LOT more if you want. So, I moved on to the bread and salad area.
In this area, they serve a variety of soups, usually 4 or 5, a variety of breads and muffins and also some hot pasta dishes. In this area I grabbed the two Cuban specialties. The first was a Chorizo and Sweet Potato Soup and the second was an open faced version of the traditional Cubano sandwich. Then I turned and saw something that no one can pass up when it’s seen on a buffet line. Macaroni and cheese! It is physically impossible to pass by and NOT take some. So when I returned to my seat, it all looked like this:
The soup was very flavorful. As you will find out in reading this blog, I am not one for super spicy foods. The chorizo in this soup gave it just a bit of a kick but it was not overpowering. In my opinion, it was just enough. The Cubano again was not like getting one in Little Havana in Miami, but for what it was it worked really, really well. The bread was a simple focaccia bread. There were chunks of ham and pork to match the ingredients in an authentic Cubano. The thing that put this bread into the superb category was the pickle and mustard. There was just enough pickle on it to give you that tangy flavor but not too much that it turned it into a pickle sandwich. It was the same thing with the mustard. There was a just enough as a base on the bread and not enough to overpower the entire sandwich. As far as the macaroni and cheese, the sauce could have been a bit tighter but over all it was very good. The pasta was just al dente enough to soak up the cheese sauce.
Well it was at this point that I noticed that I missed a special Cuban item on the first salad bar. There was a Cuban French dressing that somehow missed my eye. So, being an all-you-can eat restaurant I headed back through the line and put together a simple salad of lettuce, cheese and Cuban French Dressing. On my way back to my table, I passed the pasta station. Now, remember what I mentioned just above about things that are impossible to do. See what I ended up with when I ended up back at my table:
The Cuban French dressing had a wonderful hint of citrus. It was surprisingly light for being a French dressing. The Macaroni and Cheese…. Well you already know.
Well, the time had come to leave Sweet Tomatoes for the evening. We had a wonderful meal and….. Wait, there seems to be something missing. Something that I must have overlooked the last time I was up…. Oh yeah, dessert. The double edged sword rears its ugly head again. There was one Cuban specialty dessert and seeing that I had tried EVERY other Cuban specialty item, I HAD to dish up some banana pudding. Then… I needed one more thing. So, of course if you’re going to get one more dessert item, you actually make it two. One of the “breads” that they have in the bread area is a chocolate brownie. That goes in the bottom of the bowl and then topped with chocolate frozen yogurt and caramel sauce. Altogether it looked like this:
This is the bad part of the meal…. So wonderfully bad. Now when I think of banana pudding I really don’t think Cuban but southern. That really didn’t take away from the banana goodness that was the banana pudding. No vanilla wafers though. The brownie was very rich but not overly so. It was more of a chocolate bread consistency than the dense, dense brownie texture. As with any brownie sundae, the yogurt took the rich edge off the brownie and added a smooth creaminess.
Well that’s our trip to Sweet Tomatoes (I really mean it now). We were back home to pack and then off to Minnesota later that night (red eye flight). I know that this was a long post, but there was so much to eat there. I’ll try to keep the coming posts a bit shorter. Coming up will be all the places that we ate in the St. Paul area and there were quite a few. Also, included in the next few entries will be a description of our trip to the Minnesota State Fair. There are so many things to eat there that I will barely scratch the surface, but hey; I can only eat so much.
Until next time,
Mike
The Particulars
Restaurant: Sweet Tomatoes
Location: 375 North Stephanie Street, Henderson, NV89014
Website: http://www.souplantation.com/
Date of Visit: August 25, 2011
So, here we are. Here’s a brand new blog out in the big world of cyberspace. I know you’re wondering who I am and why I’m writing a blog. Those are fair questions. In fact I have been thinking about that last one myself.Well I’ll give you a little information now and as we get more and more into this thing, we’ll both learn more.
My name is Michael Clark and I’m 40 years old. I grew up in Ohio and moved to Las Vegas in 1999. I have been married to my wife Joan since 2006. That’s a very little about who I am. Why am I doing this? Well I like to travel and I like to sample the local foods. If you see something about a restaurant on the Food Network or the Travel Channel, I’m the guy who wants to go find all of those when I travel. So, I had this brilliant idea to write about all the places I go when I travel and put it out there for all of you to benefit from. Now, I’m neither a professional writer nor a professional food critic. I’m just a regular guy who will share his opinion and maybe it will give someone out there an idea of where to eat.
Here are some of the things that I will try to stick to when writing my new food blog:
-I will only write about places that we go out to. I won’t bore you with “We ate Hamburger Helper for dinner tonight.”
-I try to stay away from chain restaurants and stick with great local places (local flavor as my mother calls it). I will from time to time frequent local or regional chains and I’ll let you know about those as well. That being said, I can’t promise that I will NEVER go to a national chain restaurant. Sometimes that’s what there is and that’s where we go.
-I’ll try to post a blog entry for each place that we go. That means that it might take me awhile to get through an entire trip. As I mentioned before, I’m not a professional, but I’ll make it as entertaining as I can.
-I will attempt to include pictures of the things I eat so you can see as well.
-I will also let you know where the places we eat are located if possible so you can find them too. That’s kind of the point of this whole endeavor.
-As I alluded to previously, most of these posts will be from our various travels that we go on. I will post about a Las Vegas restaurant from time to time when we go out here, but most of eating out happens when we’re on the road.
I hope that you all enjoy reading about the places that we go to eat. I’ll keep writing as long as it’s still fun for me to write and fun for you guys to read.
First Up: My First Practice Blog
Next: A Trip back to Joan’s hometown, St. Paul, Minnesota
