Andrew Zimmern: Escape from the Bizarre

I have a day job as a food professional. Several, in fact. But most often when I dine out, I do so as a civilian, not as a food writer, chef, or TV travel dude. These days I find myself eating out out of necessity and nearly exclusively as a hungry husband, harried multitasker, and starving father. What used to be a five-night-a-week restaurant habit has dwindled to once- or twice-a-week, and rather than hitting the new hot spots and looking at my meal with a critical eye, I frequent restaurants that my family and I love. But I only have one vote. Check that.
I am just the driver and reliable payment resource. So here is a list of my favorites, tempered through the prism of my new criteria. We like restaurants with honest, well-made food, we like to be served in a manner consistent with the food style, and we all must find something to eat, and that means our three-year-old too.

Our favorite Middle Eastern deli, Abu Nader, is in our neighborhood, and we eat there about once a week. Our son loves the tabbouleh, the falafel, and the pita—handmade and baked twice daily. Sandwiches and the homemade turnip pickles are delicious and the Ailabouni family makes a killer panoply of hand pies. The sfeha (made with ground meat and raisins), the feta and hot pepper, and the spinach pies are faves. (One pie is perfect for a kid’s meal.) Hummus is light and airy. Baba gannouj is so smoky and intense you can’t believe it’s made from eggplant. No meal is complete without honey-drenched, nut-tastic baklava.

Brasa is my favorite new restaurant of 2007, and my son and I hit it for lunch as often as we can. This is the only place I have ever been where the chef/owner (Alma’s Alex Roberts) encourages young customers to crawl on the wooden banquette seats. We love the convenience of takeout, available by the plate or pound. Latin American spice-rubbed roasted chicken and pulled pork are centerpieces of this humble eatery carved out of a gas station, but the collards, grits, and other traditional rotisserie sides are stellar.

A longstanding date night for my wife and me, Café Lurçat has everything we like in a restaurant—simple, well-prepared food that is easy to decipher, a wonderful view, crisp twinkly décor, and great service. We like the à la carte–style menu—sides are a must. Apple-manchego salad (a classic), pot roast, miso-glazed sea bass, seared ahi with lemon confit . . . the list of favorites goes on. The room is well run, and we never feel lost here—nothing is worse than feeling like no one cares about you once you’ve ordered.

Corner Table, despite the amazing amount of press it garners, is still the best-kept secret in the Kingfield neighborhood of south Minneapolis. The room is simple and spare, and chef-owner Scott Pampuch’s food showcases the best of Minnesota field and farm. Pampuch delights in weekly and seasonal special events that are justifiably famous, from beer dinners to Sunday vino + vinyl nights to fancier wine events that the restaurant hosts, but it’s the stellar burger, the grass-fed beef, and the superior gnocchi that keep the cognoscenti coming back.

Wandering through El Burrito Mercado is as much fun as dining there. Where to begin? There’s a deli where I can buy tamales to load up my freezer or grab some guacamole and salsas to throw on a buffet. There’s a market with miles of aisles of Mexican and Latino products, a butcher shop, a bakery, a restaurant, and most importantly a café that serves some of the best Mexican food in town. I like it for a late breakfast of chilaquiles, the puerco cuisado verde and moles are top notch, and the “come for lunch, leave with marinated skirt steak for dinner” options make it a winner.

A relative newcomer to the Twin Cities sushi scene, Fuji Ya St. Paul across from the Minnesota Children’s Museum, makes for a great family night. Chef-owner Wei Wang is always in the kitchen and regularly brings in some pretty cool fish for those who ask for it (or are smart enough to order off the small daily specials board posted in the sushi bar). Our son loves the Japanese cartoons running on the hi-def TV almost as much as we love the gyoza, ginger salad dressing, katsu-don, and the awesome raw fish selection. In a town where all the sushi bars serve the same food, it’s the extras here that make it a regular stop.

I Nonni is the best Italian restaurant on the St. Paul side of the big river, and many of the dishes are the best you will find locally. The room is odd—it looks more like a Woodbury living room than a restaurant—but the food is so fresh and well-made you forget you are in Lilydale. Seared bacalao with tomato, olives, and capers, perfect calamari fritti, braised veal shanks, and squash ravioli with brown butter are some of our favorites. The wine list is nationally renowned. Best of all, if you eat early enough you can stop by the adjacent market (Buon Giorno Italia) and take home some rare Italian cheeses or salumi for a nosh later.

Jun Bo is one of the newer Chinese restaurants in town, but we became early regulars. The restaurant is huge, some 500 seats, and that means our son can run around as much as he likes and not cause much damage. The rolling carts flit around day and night, heavy with assorted dim sum, and the Champagne short ribs, Peking pork chops, and crispy Hong Kong–style shrimp, lobster, or crab are addictive.

A family-run Eastern European deli that has been making its own smoked meats and pastries for generations, Kramarczuk’s is one of the best food halls in the state. The Krakowska sausage alone makes it tops in my book, but there are about thirty sausages and cured meats to choose from. The recent expansive makeover included the new café, where you can sample everything from stuffed cabbage to real wurst to Czech sausage griddled and served with house-made sauerkraut. Orest Kramarczuk is there all the time, keeping a hand on the tiller and making sure every customer feels like family.

Mandarin Kitchen is a typical Twin Cities Chinese restaurant. Hundreds of menu items, but only fifty or so worth eating. That said, most of those dishes at Mandarin Kitchen are addictive, which makes it one of our regular haunts. Weekend brunches offer some of the best dim sum in town, the fish tanks lining one side of the restaurant are filled with crab, lobster, shrimp, and whole fish, and anything from the tanks can be steamed, fried, or wok-tossed to order. Don’t skip the steamed live shrimp or ginger-scallion-tossed Dungeness crab. The noodle dishes are excellent as well.

Manny’s is one of the best restaurants in the Twin Cities, period. There are very few that offer such reliable service, well-made food, and a great vibe. I would just as soon eat a meal in the bar at Manny’s than anywhere in town. The porterhouse and rib eye are our favorites, but the tenderloin and veal chop get high marks as well. Sides are very good, and the hash browns with onions and bacon are iconic. At Manny’s, they understand the meaning of the word regular, but first-timers here rave about the complete experience as well.
In cold, wintery Minneapolis, an airy, sunny oasis is a godsend. Masa, a D’Amico creation, hums along even when busy, which it often is, and for good reason. I am a stickler for authenticity and the recipes here, despite the glitzy surroundings, are the real deal. Freshness and honest flavors are reflected in every dish. The salsas alone make it a favorite, but the taco platters, ceviches, salads, and carnitas sandwich are must-eat dishes. Mole poblano is arguably the best in town, and the snapper Veracruzana shouldn’t be missed. I adore the flan, but most of my guests simply order another margarita.

Morton’s is my favorite restaurant for steak, but it also has a superb crab cake, luxurious appetizers (check out the shrimp or smoked salmon), and the Morton’s salad is one of my regular lunches. But the steaks are what you come for, and they deliver. The strip is the best of its kind, the porterhouse for two is ideal for couples who agree on temperature, and the lamb chops are melting. Creamed spinach and the various potato sides are second to none. Order molten chocolate cake when you sit down so you don’t talk yourself out of it later.

There’s really only one must-eat Indian restaurant in town, NalaPak, which offers nuanced and complex regional fare, cooked with a respect for authentic regional styles. It serves the most varied menu of fully flavored Indian vegetarian and vegan cuisine in the Twin Cities, but its emphasis is on Southern Indian cuisine so the dosai are as good as these paper-thin curled lentil-and-rice crepes get. At the $10 lunch buffet, choose from more than two dozen items, all made in small batches. The samosas, chutneys, chat papri (small wafers with vegetables and herbs), and uthappam (open-faced Indian crepes) are great starters. The paneer dishes with homemade farmer’s cheese are superb, and the bread selection is deep—I love the paratha and the chappati, both perfect for sopping up every last bit of curry,of which the eggplant version is the tartest and spiciest in town.

112 Eatery is special. Three years after it opened, it still has the buzz and vibe, the energy in the small room is still fun, owners Isaac Becker and his wife, Nancy St. Pierre, are still there most nights, and the food is fantastic. The sides (cauliflower fritters, escarole with anchovy, fries) are justifiably famous, but several dishes are as good as food gets in this town, from brick-pressed chicken to sweetbreads with clams to handmade pastas. Several dishes, such as the fried-egg–harissa sandwich, are not only big hits with the late-night crowd, but are indicative of the casual food revolution in town. Though small plates are now cliché, Becker was the first locally to reject the wagon wheel portions synonymous with Minnesota dining.

Perched across the street from the Guthrie is Spoonriver, Brenda Langton’s newest restaurant. Spoonriver is self-described as serving natural cuisine, but I think of it as modern American. Who doesn’t want to eat simple, healthy, well-prepared food? Chef Lisa Carlson and pastry chef Carrie Summer are turning out some of the best grub in town. In summer, there are market delights such as watermelon-and-heirloom-tomato salad, in winter, a divine pâté and a glorious duck confit en salade. The lamb burger and beet ravioli are pretty darn good too, but it’s sitting in the restaurant gazing out on the street scene that makes you think Minneapolis is exactly where you want to be at that moment.

Teahouse offers what I think is the best Sichuan food in the state. The spicy cold noodles rival the best sold by the street hawkers in the central market in Chongqing. The first thing you do is ask for the Sichuan menu, a separate short primer to the best the restaurant has to offer. I love Dan Dan noodles simply dressed with chili oil, the spicy and mouth-numbing Chong King chicken gan bian–style (dry-tossed in a wok with sweet and hot chilies), and the bamboo shoot tips, served cool in a tart sauce with an intense chili finish. The dishes I can’t shake are sautéed fish fillets with pickled vegetables and the awesome shredded pork in garlic sauce—a mellow sweet-hot dish, salty and slippery, with the dragon’s-breath smoke of the wok’s heat still clinging to it. And the whole family can eat here for $40.