Here is a quick little bit of a tip:
Go to Pho Tao Bay on Nicollet and 29th and get a table. Order the Beef Jerky Papaya salad. Also, consider a Bun noodle salad with some grilled pork and shrimp. It is number 37, in case you don’t feel like opening up the menu. They have plenty of options besides this, including some fantastic weekend specials, so explore if you are feeling adventurous. Definitely worth exploring the menu. Order a nice bubble tea, or whatever beverage you like. Then wait.
Within 5 minutes, you will have sitting in front of you one of the tastiest salads this side of of the Mekong Delta. Imagine, if you will, a pile of shredded unripe papaya bathed in a delicious variation on the ever present nuoc cham, topped with bright red strips of cured beef and crumbled peanuts. What you are imagining may well be heaven. Sink your teeth in to this perfectly balanced congregation of flavors, and decide for yourself if this is heaven, or perhaps the closest thing we have to heaven, here on this mortal coil.
Shortly thereafter, they will bring you the number 37 if you asked for it. Very simple noodle salad with tons of fresh herbs and more nuoc cham. Pork, sliced razor thin and gently charred, is laying on top of the bed of noodles right next to a skewer of sublime grilled shrimp. This combination is absolutely fresh, luscious, and worth traveling great distances to acquire.
If you go once, you will want to eat it everyday. Consider yourself warned.
-shogunmoon
Citypages - Best of 2004
Pho Tau Bay
2837 Nicollet Ave.
Minneapolis
612.874.6030
My brother really likes boats, and really really likes the zipping around Lake Minnetonka in his 26′ Four Winns cruiser. One of the fun things you can do at this bastion of outrageous wealth and decadence is stop by an establishment called Lord Fletchers Wharf. Lord Fletchers has boat docking, and some nice beer on tap, including Boulavard Wheat Beer. Not at all a terrible place to get a beer. If you know what is good for you, however, you will stay the hell away from the bar menu.
You want to know the best place to get ripped off in the twin cities metro area? Look no further then the Bar at Lord Fletchers Wharf. Not that that higher prices should be a surprise to anyone. Lots of ultra wealthy people cruising around on expensive boats and all that. Unfortunately however, the locals are apparently too soused to be able to identify horrible bar food when they taste it. In an era when even the CC Club sports an actual printed menu and quasi edible food, you would thing an august location on Lake Minnetonka would at least pretend to have a competent burger. Seriously, they are not all that tough.
Sure, they do offer fine dining upstairs, but after giving the bar a few chances, why would anyone even bother with it? I kid you not, I have had better food at Subway. I am fairly certain the bar chow comes out of the same kitchen as the fine dining menu… I wonder if they have a special low rent ground beef that they use especially for the Wharf? I wonder who exactly they are trying to please with the soggy and bland nachos they slop out? Maybe they soak the chips in water, so that people without teeth can enjoy them. I also wonder why they bother with guacamole… avocados are somewhat expensive, so maybe skip serving the flavorless guac, and use the money saved to get some decent ground chuck.
I mean really. I do not mind an overpriced cheeseburger, but lets make it decent, ok? You would think that all these wealthy people would know about good food, since they can afford to eat whatever they want. Apparently not.
-shogunmoon
Nice. Everyone’s favorite food writers, Jane and Michael Stern, were in town early August.
Who are these people? Well, they appear on Lynn Risotto Caper’s “The Splendid Table” as well as in the pages of Gourmet Magazine. These are the people who start almost every one of their segments on The Splendid Table in slow, over dramatized voices with something along the lines of, “Lynn. You. are. NOT. going. to. believe. this. We, found, THEE BEST, hotdog. in New Hampshire.” If it isn’t hotdogs, it’s maple syrup or killer pancakes or some such. The fact that these people have managed to get on the payroll at Gourmet Magazine AND MPR is quite outstanding. I gotta start writing better. I could scour the nation and the world for Thee. BEST. Vietnamese. Food. EVER… mmm.
Anyhow, they went ahead and visited a few places here in Minneapolis, including:
Hell’s Kitchen
Been meaning to get in here, despite it being my least favorite of all “cuisines”- breakfast food. I have heard that it is a) very good breakfast and b) Very expensive. Although I rarely eat breakfast food (unless the wife makes it or I am held at gunpoint), the Hell’s Kitchen take on it looks pretty freaking awesome. I would love to nosh on toast infused with bison sausage, nuts, spice and coffee, mere minutes after waking, for example. One thing I do eat breakfast-wise is Huevos Rancheros… and Hell’s Kitchen looks like the place to get it. Yum.
Convention Grill
No idea. Never heard of it.
Bread & Chocolate
Bread & Chocolate, and its parent Cafe Latte, are the darlings of Grand Avenue in Saint Paul. It makes no sense. First off, they are expensive. Secondly, they pass off super lame foods as some kind of culinary achievment, so that wealthy stay-at-home moms with limited culinary interest feel like they are being adventurous while they sit around and cluck about the safety of their children. You know how Saint Paul has been trying like hell to prove to those of us from Minneapolis that they are not a culinary black hole? These two places are why. If I ran Zander Cafe, I would put this entire intersection to the torch.
Oh, in the interest of full disclosure, many people love the desserts these places conjure up. Hell, I have not set food there in years… maybe it is better now. Still, you can quote me on this one- “Cafe latte sucks.”
Mavericks
No idea about this place either… thank god for the Sterns. They seek our best grease pits so we don’t have to. Looks pretty tasty actually.
Saint Paul people should have something to get super angry about… the address listed says Minneapolis, and it is clearly in Saint Paul! If anyone from Saint Paul sees this, the Sterns best get ready to be careful around the inbox for a few days, because they will probably get excoriated en masse by a cadre of raging Saint Paul apologists. Saint Paul evangelistas are almost as bad as Macintosh fanatics. (Again, with the full disclosure, I am a Mac user.)
Speaking of insane Saint Paulites, I am curious if anyone else in Saint Paul is as confused as the guy we adopted our awesome third cat Flash Gordon from. A few years back, when the wife decided that we needed another cat, she found this cute little grey fellow at Pleading Paws Pet Rescue. So I call for directions, and the following ensues: (Ps, yes that is Flash Gordon, just waking up from a nap on some nice warm laundry.)
“So, where do you live?” asks me.
“We live on Grand, in Uptown.” says dude.
“Ok, cool, that is right near us. North or South of Lake Street?”
“No no, east end of Grand Avenue, Uptown” responds dude.
“Doesn’t Grand Avenue run North - South”
“Grand Avenue in Saint Paul. Uptown, you know?”
“You mean Cathedral Hill right? The eastern part of Grand Avenue?” I grew up in Saint Paul, and I know the city layout better than most.
“Yea, same thing. Uptown.”
At this point, I am perplexed. I have never ever heard of any area in town called Uptown, aside from the traditional Lake and Hennepin area. “Ok, got it. Say, are you from the Twin Cities? When you say Uptown, most people think of, well, Uptown. Calhoun Square and all that.”
“I am from Saint Paul, and I have always called it Uptown.”
Yea, ok wanker. Whatever.
Makes sense I guess, since the guy turned out to be an ad dude, and had a Mac prominently displayed in his apartment. I bet he loves Cafe Latte as well.
-shogunmoon
