Got an email from someone over at the Bloated Belly, and it looks like a cool Minneapolis based food blog. Since us amateur food writers have to stick together, they get the plug:

http://bloatedbelly.typepad.com/the_bloated_belly/

Hey folks, new site, new host! Still need to make it prettier and all that.

Last Thursday, I joined Scott McGerik and his lovely wife Kat for a trip to the new North East fine dining hotspot, Fugaise. Scott has a cool idea in which some Minneapolis “Bloggers” get together once a month, eat some good foods, and then write about it. He likes to call this concept Dueling Reviews. Perfect for me, since I have a tendency to not eat out as much- this gets me out a little more. Also, I am something of a connoisseur of that which is inexpensive, wheras Mr. McGerik is prone to lavish sushi endeavors. Somewhere in the middle of this, we have the makings of a good dinner club.
So, enough with the details! Lets get on with the food, shall we?
Locating Fugaise is an interesting, almost legendary, endeavor. Despite the fact that the restaurant faces bustling Hennepin Avenue, and has a large awning with “Fugaise” lit up quite brightly, it is STILL hard to find… mainly because the word “Fugaise” is in a scripty font that is hard to read from a distance. For the record… next to the Bibelot and across University from Surdyk’s. Then, entering the door under said awning gives one a certain “the search continues” sort of vibe. I felt like I was Captain Adama searching for Earth or something. Er, wait… to much Galactica. Inside the door is a longish hallway, with a host station at the end. I had finally made it.
At the slick 3 seat bar, I finally meet our local legend Scott McGerik in person. He is someone that, in my own way, I am a big fan of. I have been searching restaurant write-ups for the past few years now, and when I look someplace up, Scott.McGerik.com is typically within the top three results, along with long time local gourmet fans Renee and Steve. It is the influence of reading these posts, along with the Grub Report and Watierrant.net, that Mose and I decided that we should just go ahead and add a little twin cities commentary of our own. Also, Scott and Kat used to live in northeast Minneapolis, but have since relocated to South Saint Paul… close to where I spent my tumultuous teen years. In the mean time, Christie and I have relocated from Uptown to Northeast… So, I feel that it is my duty to help represent Northeast. That is not to say that Scott and Kat are not opposed to investigating their old haunts…
Anyhow, they sat us, took orders, brought us drinks and our appetizer, then left us alone. Scott and Kat ordered mussels, and allowed me to poach a few of them. First time I have had mussels. Can you believe that your intrepid superstar mega-minnapolis hipster cuisine guide has NEVER enjoyed MUSSELS before? Well, I am here to tell you something you probably already knew- they are good. Fugaise serves them in a nice paprika and bacon broth. I ate my first mussel without the sauce to get a feel for it, then followed it up with a second mussel sunk in the delicious sauce. Wow… now we really have something. Yet another bit of anecdotal evidence that bacon makes everything better.
Now, I have to disclose something. When sampling a new chef driven restaurant for the first time, I am always tempted to order the pork loin or tenderloin dish just to see how they do it. Pork tenderloin can be very fun to cook once you understand that it is a blank slate, ready for your very whim to guide it to the point of delicacy. This evening, I declined my basic instinct to go with the chefs delicious sounding Pork Tenderloin with Stuffed Savoy Cabbage, Apple-Apple-Celeriac Puree, Grain Mustard Sauce. It wasn’t easy, but I pulled it off.
What I did decide to order was the Ahi Tuna, and it was something. At first, I tasted it, and was underwhelmed. Another bite, and I start to enjoy the juxtaposition between the raw center and the crisp, salty crust. Another bite, and I REALLY start enjoying it. Very tasty. Though I have little experience eating at french style restaurants, I can say that I have chomped my share of the fare at the sushi joints around town enough to know when seared tuna is good, and this was. Definitely vastly superior to the seared tuna one would find on an appitezer menu around town. Served on a bed of Cranberry Beans with chorizo and a roasted pepper sauce, this was definitely something to write home to mom about.
The thing about french food is that ultimately I know perilously little about it. It is very simple food typically, with the focus on masterful preparation and fresh high quality ingredients. Oh yea, and using a lot of crazy organ meats… although Fugaise has very little of the traditional French Bistro cuisine that the likes of Tony Bourdain and Fergus Henderson champion. As a cook, I personally tend to go for the more complicated spice rubs, and love the punch in the face one gets from my jerk pork tenderloin. French food seems to be more along the lines of Vietnamese food perhaps, with the emphasis on fresh subtle flavors.
So, that is my completely unprofessional take on Fugaise. Fantastically good food, if you are feeling like splurging.
-shogunmoon
PS Oh yea, we also went out to Erte’s Peackock lounge for desert. It was good. I was drunk by that time. Like most Northeast establisments these days, they have Bell’s Two Hearted Ale, the finest of all hoppy high octane brews. And they served up some good dessert. Gotta get back to Erte for some red meat eatin sometime soon.
Fugaise
308 E Hennepin Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55414
(612) 436-0777
www.fugaise.com
Erte
1304 University Ave NE
Minneapolis, MN 55413
(612) 623-4211

Sorry about the lack of posting this week! I have been focused on writing songs for my wonderful rock and roll band. Yes, everyone that lives in Minneapolis is in a band.

Anyhow, I promise that the posting madness will resume soon. I have some wine write ups coming- an amusing fact considering that about all I know about wine is that I love the stuff most of the time, and that there are a lot of good $8 bottles to be had. You can also count on a recap of tonight’s “No Reservations” with my man Tony Bourdain. Maybe I will do a brilliantly witty 8 page play by play ala Television Without Pity… er, then again maybe not.

I would also like to leave you with this very simple recipe that was in last months Gourmet… simple and outstanding!

Beef Pinwheels with Arugula Salad

I made these tasty little buddies with a simple egg fried rice for lunches in ye ole Bento Boxes, and let me tell you they were wonderful. I LOVE flank steak. It has a very strong beef flavor and frankly, if pounded out nice, barely needs any salt or pepper. These pinwheels, having been wrapped with prosciutto and provolone, had plenty of salt to help clog your ticker anyway, so enjoy!

-shogunmoon

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of waiting tables for a living, Waiter Rant has a tutorial on
the proper etiquette for paying your tab. My favorite is Number
3:

"Don’t fight over who’s paying the bill. Sometimes your friend wants to pay for dinner. I say let them. However, if you anticipate a "fight" over whose the more generous party please keep the waiter out of it…"

This actually happened to me while minding the register at Café Latte - a cafeteria style restaurant in St Paul where I used to work. These two nut jobs were squirming all over each other trying to get to the check, holding up the line and causing a scene in the process. I suggested that if they really wanted to be all Minnesota Nice about it, they could have both paid and let me pocket the difference - A tripple win situation as far as I could tell. Unfortunately, logic did not prevail and I ended up snatching the closest guys credit card while rolling my eyes a little.

Waiter Rant - Check Please

I was using thee old search function of the interweb to look up a restaurant I wanted to mention in the post I am working on about Vietnamese cooking, and came across this fun illustration of “Eat Street” in Nicollet mall, complete with photos.

Maybe some day, I will add photos. I do have a camera. Unfortunately, it comes with the red eye feature. By that, I mean it gives everything red eye. It would probably give a pile of basil and a granny smith apple red eye. F##k it, I am a writer! Someone else can take the photos. I’m busy, dammit!

Plus, I met the guy once, so what the hell. He is also good for fun political discourse.

I feel like I ate a horse

This will be a quick lesson right out of the Arrogance is Bliss category. It is time to turn my pretentiometer to 10!

I would like to address something that
many perfectly nice people don’t seem to understand. If you are eating at a restaurant that has a half way competent chef, you order what they make, and you eat it, onions and all. Think about it- if you bought an album, would you ask the band to mix out one of the lead guitars for you because it is
too hot?

If you are the sort of person that asks to leave the onions off- EAT
AT HOME. Or, go someplace like Subway that caters to people who have
no idea what good food tastes like. Another idea would be the Old
Country Buffet.

If you have no respect for the chef, there is no reason for you to be
eating the chef’s food. Either order the chicken, or go to a
restaurant that has a chef you respect. The same goes for garlic. If you
are such a baby about your breath that you can’t even have a little
garlic, then why the hell are you even eating out? There are fancy
restaurants for people like you- they are called steak houses. They
serve meat with nothing but salt and pepper. They will also serve
you, at your request, the kind of mashed potatoes that have been
skinned, pureed, and mixed with several pounds of delicious butter. They’re
perfectly tasty and absolutely unchallenging to the palate.
These items have probably been on the menu since the Ford administration,
and there is no chance a place like this will attempt to get "fancy"
on you by adding such nefarious things as garlic, jicama, cumin or
chimichurri.

The reason for all of this is simple- when a menu item is created by
someone that knows what they are doing, they like to take the time to
balance the flavors. Sweet complimenting salt. Onions and garlic as
well as fresh herbs, citrus, and broth are balanced out to create
something that is designed to come together like a sympathy on your tongue,
until some arrogant know-it-all diner who is worried about his / her breath
messes it up.

Now, if you are stuck on a date at a place that doesn’t have "normal
food," order whatever looks the least offensive. Then, when you get
it, close your eyes, take a bite, and chew. Do not look at the the
crazy vegetables and onions in there. Just eat it. If you avoid
ordering anything that is called Sashimi, tartare, or is a
crustacean, you should be able to choke it down. That way you might
have a chance with the date. Trust me, people who like to eat "fancy" or
complex food want someone to join them in their enjoyment.

In summary, fake it till you make it! If you force yourself to eat
something a few times, you will acquire a taste for it. By the end of the
dish, you may even like it.

Funny website.

The Stained Apron

This is where mosemose and his buddy off the rails will post about such illustrious topics as good food we have eaten, fantastic new businesses that have opened, and whatever else we want to chat about. Since we live in Saint Paul (mosemose) and Minneapolis (Off The Rails) a large percentage of our posts are likely to be centered around the twin cites area here in our beloved rustic minnesota.