Great Escapes 2008: Duluth-Superior

Since you’ll see it as you’re pulling up to Eddie’s and wonder what the story is, I also recommend the Choo-Choo Bar & Grill. It’s a large old railroad car well-settled on its frame, offering breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But the $8 all-you-can-drink tap beer (6 p.m. to close, Wednesdays) appeals to a, shall we say, special kind of up-north crowd.

The Twin Cities slow-food crowd has been hip to The Boathouse on Barker’s Island for a while now. On pleasant nights, it is arguably the best al fresco venue in the area, with quiet, lapping water, gulls, and long, lingering sunsets. We’re hitting 75 percent on food and service. Three times were flat-out terrific. One, with an unexpected party of seventeen overwhelming the staff, was comically bad. But that happens to the best of them.

Likewise in terms of rave reviews from true gourmets, Le Bistro is currently the best in show, maybe for all Twin Ports restaurants. Across the street from the courthouse and a straight shot over the Blatnik, Le Bistro is new within the past year. If a couple of nightcaps with the regulars at the eighty-six-year-old Belgian Club back out by Eddie’s pushes your comfort envelope a bit too far, Le Bistro is an oasis of big-city elegance in a proudly blue-collar town.

The Red Mug coffeehouse, Superior

The best (relatively) new coffeehouse in Superior is The Red Mug, a cozy basement space in a fortresslike building full of arts organizations. Wi-fi. Frequent live music. Comfortable.

One of two staples of every pass I make through Superior is Globe News on the main corner of Tower and Belknap. It’s a well-stocked newsstand/goofball tsotchke/used CD-DVD operation: The Atlantic cheek by jowl with Guns and Ammo and genuine foam Cheeseheads. Perfect, in a very Superior sort of way. And if you get there by noon, there’s still a chance of scoring one of a half-dozen copies of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

The other must-stop is Superior Meats, one of those word-of-mouth diamonds in the rough for the kind of locally processed, marinated steaks, chops, ribs, smoked bacon, and the like that never fails to impress your friends. (And what else is entertaining all about, really?) It may not look like much, and if Superior is Duluth’s homely sister, Superior Township, home of Superior Meats, is . . . well, let’s resist that sort of analysis, shall we? The place is just an old IGA supermarket, but trust me, it is well worth the half-hour it’ll take you to swoop over from Duluth and score a couple of rib eyes to cook over an open fire (oh, baby!) or back home the next day. Did I mention the bacon?

DULUTH

Grandma's Ice Cream Boxcar, Canal Park

The reasons to stop in Canal Park are obvious enough. To paraphrase Willie Sutton, you go there because that’s where the bridge and the water and the ships are. Canal Park is where the food and stuff are—I’ve never made it through without a stop at Duluth Pack, the outdoor gear emporium. But from the tony east end to the more industrial west (at the bottom of the hill on I–35), Duluth has a remarkable assortment of character-rich venues, most with that uniquely Duluthian amalgamation of aging, lefty hipsters, iconoclastic college kids, deep-woods- and deep-water– inspired artistes, hard-drinking working stiffs, and various refugees from “the insanity” of congested hellholes like . . . well, like the Twin Cities, if you ask them.

Being cold and dark as Duluth is for long chunks of the year, independent coffeehouses have become a fundamental force coalescing all the Duluthy factions listed above. But Beaner’s Central, three blocks off the Central exit at the bottom of the I–35 hill, may be the premier neighborhood caffeine depot/music venue of the moment. As an espresso junkie, I regard Beaner’s lattes as third only to those at Five Brothers Deli in Key West and Broadway Coffee in Kansas City in terms of perfect thick froth, topping exquisite, roasted flavor. (This is very high praise. Broadway made NBC Nightly News not so long ago.) Even better, Beaner’s deli and panini sandwiches are crisp, light, and flavorful—several quantum steps up from “bar food.” Music at Beaner’s tends to be of the sensitive singer-songwriter acoustic school, which may not be to everyone’s taste. But the upside is that it isn’t too loud, so you can sip and exchange sotto voce conversation.

Most passing Twin Citians are vaguely aware of the Amazing Grace Coffee House in the basement of the DeWitt-Seitz Building in Canal Park. Walk in anytime of the year and it’s like warping back somewhere before the Summer of Love. Maybe even before Jack Kerouac. You never knew so many pounds of dreadlocks could fit under so many UMD Bulldog stocking caps. I swear there’s a combo-platter side altar down there somewhere, with a hundred flickering votive candles for saints Bob Marley and Woody Guthrie.

The range of Canal Park action is best exemplified by the renowned Club Saratoga, which is one part jazz club (3 to 7 p.m., Saturdays), one part blues club (6 to 10 p.m., Sundays), and seven parts strip club (at some point every day). While the Paulucci empire has refurbished the rest of Canal Park in the name of good taste and family-friendly propriety, “The Toga” has endured, untouched by the hand of intrusive rectitude.

The dining options around Canal Park are plentiful, including mainstays Grandma’s, Little Angie’s, and Bellisio’s. Recently, Twin Cities favorites Mitch Omer and Steve Meyer opened a Hell’s Kitchen.