Grand Cafe Important restaurants keep exploding all over the Twin Cities. Grand Cafe joins the list that includes Spoon & Stable, Heyday, Bellecour, Corner Table and many new to the scene like Kado No Mise and Martina, that are proof positive Minnesota is ground zero for some of the best food in America. Photograph… Read More →
On’s Thai Kitchen Located in Midway on University Avenue, On’s Thai Kitchen always makes it onto my list of top 10 favorite restaurants in the Twin Cities. There are many excellent choices for Thai cuisine in my hometown, but none transport me to Thailand quite like On’s. The 105-item menu has many recognizable standbys like fresh herby… Read More →
Pho 79 As the cold weather settles in, all I’m craving is a steaming bowl of pho with rich, flavorful beef broth. Lucky for me, the Twin Cities are a pho-lover’s paradise. And in a town chock-full of great Vietnamese restaurants, it’s difficult to name the best, so I won’t go there. What I can… Read More →
Young Joni Young Joni’s presence on my list of must-try restaurants should come as no surprise. What chef Ann Kim and her team have accomplished is exceptional and worthy of all the national attention—which includes recognition from GQ and Eater as one of 2017’s best new restaurants in the country. And while this may be… Read More →
Pan-Fried Black Pepper Shrimp Chef Floyd Cardoz shares his recipe for simple pan-fried black pepper shrimp, adapted from his latest restaurant Paowalla. Located in NYC’s Soho neighborhood, Paowalla is a celebration of modern Indian cuisine specializing in the subcontinent’s vast library of breads (paowalla translates to “a person who makes and sells bread”), from the… Read More →
Kramarczuk’s Sausage Company Kramarczuk’s is an iconic Twin Cities restaurant and deli, serving Eastern European sausages and comfort classics for more than 50 years. Wasyl and Anna Kramarczuk moved to the United States from Ukraine in 1949. In the 50s, they bought an established butcher shop in Northeast Minneapolis, started making sausages and quickly became… Read More →
Birchwood Cafe Few Minnesotans have done more for local farmers and purveyors than Tracy Singleton. You can bet everything served at her iconic Seward restaurant was grown organically, sourced ethically, and hails from some cool Midwestern farm. She’s long been an industry leader in sustainable, eco-friendly practices, and has used her restaurant as a vehicle… Read More →
Wise Acre Eatery It seems just about every restaurant claims to be farm to table. In the case of Wise Acre, it’s part of the business plan. Depending on the time of year, 75 to 95 percent of ingredients originate on sister business Tangletown Gardens’ 100-acre farm in rural Plato, Minnesota, including Scottish highland cattle,… Read More →
Authentic Vietnamese Food at Quang Home to a vibrant Vietnamese community, the Twin Cities are a pho-lover’s paradise. Quang Restaurant is family owned-and-operated, always packed and serves some of the best traditional Vietnamese beef noodle soup in America. Don’t let the line out the door scare you away—even at their peak hour, the wait will… Read More →
Southern Soul Food Takes Root When you think about Minnesotan food, the first thing that comes to mind is… well, anything BUT fried chicken. Lucky for us Northerners, chef Thomas Boemer filled the city’s Southern-food-void with crunchy, succulent Tennessee hot chicken, Johnnycakes and crispy pigs’ ears. They’re also serving one of the best burgers in town… Read More →
Impressive Valentine’s Day Recipes A love of good food is universal, it’s what connects us all… trust me, I’ve spent a lifetime trying to prove this very point. So this Valentine’s Day, skip the dinner reservations at a fancy restaurant and practice the art of seduction from the comforts of your own kitchen. Here are… Read More →
What is the best thing you ate while filming these episodes of Bizarre Foods? The classic fixins’ from the inside of the hog at Gerald Lemoine’s farm in Moreauville, Louisiana. They shoot a hog, clean all the entrails and collect the blood. The hog goes on the spit, split-open to be turned into their version of cochon… Read More →
Celebrate Chinese New Year With These Recipes Chinese cooking has complex, technique-driven elements, which makes it a bit daunting for the average home cook. But, practice makes perfect. Get a great cookbook, and cook a new dish twice a week. Next, make sure you have the right equipment (a good wok, a bamboo steamer) and the… Read More →
Where to Eat Doner Kebabs & Burgers in Kreuzberg No neighborhood exemplifies a city transformed quite like Kreuzberg. Located in the heart of Berlin and formerly surrounded on three sides by the Berlin Wall, this area was once one of city’s poorest and known to attract artists, punks, squatters and immigrants. Today, it’s one of… Read More →
Caribbean Brilliance at Fish, Wings & Tings London is fast becoming one of the best restaurant cities in the world, and it’s not just because of Harrod’s Food Hall or stalwarts like Fergus Henderson’s St. John (although I can’t go to London without eating at both), there is culinary brilliance happening in unexpected places. If… Read More →
A Local’s Top Recommendation for Medellin Tune in for Andrew Zimmern’s Driven by Food: Medellin, Tuesday August 30 at 9|8c on Travel Channel. Nestled in the gorgeous Aburra Valley in northwestern Colombia, Medellin has come a long way since it was dubbed the most dangerous city in the world during the reign of Pablo Escobar.… Read More →
Eat Andrew Zimmern’s favorite fair foods and share your pics for a chance to win. There’s a reason Andrew finds himself at the Minnesota State Fair for every one of its 12 days: the food. Sure, every year brings new booths to peruse and novelties to try, but nothing beats traditional state fair chow from… Read More →
Where to Eat at the Minnesota State Fair I love the Minnesota State Fair so much that I try to go all 12 days. Every year there’s a list of new food booths, serving all types of novelty deep-fried on-a-stick creations, but I’m a traditionalist when it comes to state fair chow. What’s the key… Read More →
The Best Thing I Ate Last Week (And the Week Before That) By Andrew Zimmern Of all the great regional Chinese cuisines, Sichuan food has a special place in my heart. While we don’t have as many great Chinese restaurants as I would like in Minnesota, we do have a few that absolutely blow me… Read More →
My Top Restaurant Recommendations for Rio Rio de Janeiro has a beat all its own; it’s a city that moves you. From Sugarloaf Mountain to Copacabana Beach, it’s easy to see why Rio is one of the most visited cities in the Southern Hemisphere. Cantinho das Concertinas The large CADEG market is filled with hundreds… Read More →
Austin City Bites By Bob & Sue A weekend in the country’s fastest growing city (which embraces its reputation for being weird, as well as the Live Music Capital of the World) included memorable dinners at a prominent food critic’s three favorite restaurants: Qui Credit: Nicolai McCrary Philippine native Paul Qui delivers an eclectic combination of… Read More →
Rustic Perfection Chef Jonathan Waxman’s 13-year-old West Village restaurant is as casual and gorgeous as he is… no joke. My pal of many decades is in his prime, swarthy, and greyed out like a sexy Gandalf. In fact, Waxman just won a Beard Award for Best Chef NYC thanks to his culinary wizardry—you see what… Read More →
An Insider’s Guide to Rome A Rome-based Italian-American journalist, Katie Parla lives and breathes Roman culture and cuisine. Originally from New Jersey, Parla graduated from Yale with a degree in art history, before pursuing a sommelier certificate and master’s in Italian gastronomic culture. She’s written and edited more than 20 books, including the ebook Eating &… Read More →
The Twin Cities’ Best Vietnamese Restaurants Home to a vibrant Vietnamese community, the Twin Cities are a pho-lover’s paradise. And in a town chock-full of great Vietnamese restaurants, it’s difficult to name the best. From fantastic noodle soups to Banh mi sandwiches, bao to broken rice platters here are our favorite Vietnamese spots. Quang If… Read More →
Santa Monica’s Rustic Canyon By Bob & Sue Chef Jeremy Fox (ex-Ubuntu and Manresa) offers creative dishes and a thoughtful wine list in this trendy, casual restaurant. Vegetarians will love the beets with quinoa, avocado, blood orange and pistachio; the fresh peas with pecorino, mint, black pepper and red wine vinegar; and the white yams… Read More →
City of Gold Premiering in Minneapolis this Friday, the documentary City of Gold explores Los Angeles through acclaimed restaurant critic Jonathon Gold’s eyes. Gold changed the world of food writing. Over the past couple decades, he’s made it a point to seek out extraordinary food in ordinary places. By uncovering and writing about restaurants that… Read More →
Deli-Style Corned Beef By Andrew Zimmern Brining your own corned beef at home is easy, all you need is the right equipment and time. Beyond the pink salt, which can be found at a butcher shop or on Amazon, you probably have the spices in your cabinets already. Once you taste the real deal, you’ll… Read More →
What Not to Miss in Austin The co-owner of Salt & Time, Ben Runkle is Austin’s leading meat purveyor. What was born from Runkle’s passion for Old World charcuterie, turned into the city’s first whole carcass butcher shop and salumeria when a partnership with Bryan Butler developed in 2010. The pair are committed to sourcing animals… Read More →
Eating at California’s Five Michelin 3 Stars By Bob & Sue With the elevation of Manresa to three stars for 2016, Northern California now has five of the 13 Michelin 3-star restaurants in the United States. We ate at all five in nine days during our recent anniversary celebration in January. These five great chefs… Read More →
The Future of Restaurant Reservations Chicago restaurateur Nick Kokonas co-owns Alinea, Next and The Aviary with chef Grant Achatz. After recognizing the downfalls of traditional restaurant reservations, Kokonas set out to transform the industry with his ticketing system Tock. Similar to buying tickets for a concert or sporting event, Tock creates a transparent and seamless booking… Read More →
