Once in a while, you save up enough scratch to go get something a cut above the delicious fare of some of my VERY FAVORITE restaurants, such as T.G.I. Fridays, Chili’s and Cheesecake Factory. Once in a while, because it’s your anniversary, you have to go for something a little more interesting.

(Realizing that some folks reading this may not be familiar with my cynical nature, I must add this disclaimer: I believe the only way we can save our sick society is to put chain restaurants like that to the torch -shogunmoon)

For this event, we went to Auriga, a Minneapolis fine dining stalwart that has had a real chef since long before Wolfgang Puck and Jean Gorges showed up on the scene. They took care of us nice. Brought us free glasses of champagne, and gave us good wine service to go along with the meal.

Here is what the gave us:

Amuse
Smoked Scallop Carpaccio, pickled
Watermelon Rind, spicy pepper and Watercress

First Course
Risotto of fresh local Cepes and Chevril and Grapeseed oil

Second Course
Seared Ahi Tuna, Onion Marmalade Fava Beans, Bacon,
Sea Urchin Emulsion

Third Course
Seared Foie Gras, Caribe Potato Latke and Fig Mustard

Fourth Course
Broiled Lamb Loin, Heirloom Tomato, Black Olive
Artichoke Bariqoule, and Pan Sauce

FIfth Course
Valrhona Chocolate Mousse Cake
With Bittersweet Chocolate Sauce,
Flour De Sel and Chocolate Rice Crunch

I really loved the Amuse, and the Risotto was great, though slightly salty.

After that, things quickly ascended towards culinary nirvana. Christie favored the Foie Gras dish, and my personal nod went to the Lamb.

The dessert may well have stolen the show. Words cannot possibly describe the outstanding creations brought to us! Looking at the Auriga website, I noticed they have a new pastry chef, by the name of Khanh Tran. That name seemed really familiar to me. Turns out, she just vacated her post at Levain. (And is a CIA graduate with a great deal of well documented expertise.)

Interesting, because Christie and I basically flipped a coin over whether to go to Levain or Auriga for this very night out.

Levain next time, but I doubt the dessert will be as good…

The final three courses were enough to make me wonder where Auriga had been all my life. Thankfully, where it has been for the quite few years now, overlooked by me. I mean, really. It has been on my top three list for years, but I just never crossed the river… what can I say? I live near Modern Café.

-shogunmoon

Auriga Restaurant

Restaurant Levain

A little missive from our friends at Slow Foods USA. As a card carrying member of Slow Foods, I feel it is my duty to pass the word along. Slow Foods is a very cool project.

Dear Slow Food Friends,

Our convivium now has a Web site. It is only a beginning, of course, and will be updated often. The address is
www.slowfoodmn.org

The Local Slow Foods listing is just a start. We certainly did not mean to slight anyone, and haven’t yet added every location we know of. We’d like to include additional businesses and small farms in Minnesota and the surrounding states that adhere to the philosophy of Slow Food International. Please send suggestions!

The Featured Producer page will change every six weeks or so, and we will try to cycle through our members and friends, giving preference to those who have something newsworthy at the time. I have put up some text about our Terra Madre delegates for now and plan to feature Shepherd’s Way, which is still having post-arson difficulties, next.

My son designed the site and uploaded it, donating his time, and my husband made the first changes. I have spent many hours this week figuring out how to add text with the quotation marks going in the right direction and without text like ø&¶§æ showing up.

I hope you enjoy the site.

Best wishes,
Jane,
(Editor)

I just finished reading Dara’s review of Spoonriver, Brenda Langden’s new health-food restaurant in Downtown Minneapolis, in this week’s City Pages. In it she comments on the meager selection of health-food-specific, fine-dining restaurants in the Twin Cities. Although, I’m not certain it would be considered fine dining, I felt the need to give a shout out to Ecopolitan, one of my favorite places to go when I have been treating my body like hell for too many days in a row.

Ecopoltan is one of the first restaurants in the country, and to my mind, the only restaurant in the Twin Cities to offer an entirely raw vegan menu. Raw means exactly that, no cooking of any kind. Food is prepared using blenders, food processors, and dehydrators; the idea being that cooking strips food of vital nutrients while introducing toxins into our systems.

The restaurant is located in a remodeled South Minneapolis duplex on Lyndale Ave near The Wedge. The interior feels very much like dining at someone’s home. Half the tables are of the typical wood variety, while the other half were created by placing glass table tops over giant flower pots filled with sand which produces a nice aesthetic. Sunlight streams in through the many windows during lunch time, and even the paint on the walls is organic, done in friendly muted pastels.

The menu is divided into traditional categories. Appetizers are mostly patés of mashed nuts, seeds, vegetables, and herbs served with crackers made out of flax seeds that are ground into a paste and then spread out onto a dehydrator tray until they are crisp. Entrees are raw versions of conventional menu items you might see anywhere. The burrito filled with curried sprouted garbanzo beans and vegetables is wrapped in a lettuce leaf instead of a tortilla. The noodles for lasagna and spaghetti marinara are made out of specially cut zucchini. Sauces are purées of fruits and vegetables served cold. Deserts consist of cookies and pies made out of fruit (both fresh and dried), and nuts. To drink there are several varieties of organic wine and dozens of fresh smoothies and squeezed fruit and vegetable juice.

I usually order the lunch special which is served anytime and consists of a huge salad spilling over the plate and a slice of “living pizza” for $8.95. Calling it pizza is a bit of a stretch, but it was delicious all the same. The crust is made with sprouted buckwheat and almonds mashed into a paste and spread on a dehydrator tray, similar to the flax crackers; The result is somewhat similar to an unsweetened pie crust. This is then topped with different combinations of vegetables, nuts, cold pressed olive oil, fresh herbs and spices. There are about 5 varieties, my favorite so far is the pesto.

The service is generally helpful and attentive and servers seem genuinely passionate about the food and the philosophy behind it. The one unfortunate thing is that regardless of how busy the restaurant is they only seem to staff one server at a time, so I would recommend bringing a good book or conversationalist along with you as the food can take a bit long to reach your table at times.

Ecopolitan is owned by Doctor Tel-Oren, a holistic medical doctor, nutrition scientist, and university professor. In addition to the restaurant, the space also contains a small shop selling eco-friendly products like hemp clothing, and organic cleaning products; An infrared sauna which is supposed to be better for you then the traditional variety; A Juice bar where you can pick up fresh juice and smoothies to go; And an “oxygen bar”, which is actually just a funky machine that looks like this that sits in the corner of the juice bar .