Albany, Oh Albany!

     Thanks to my friends Laurie and Mike, I've never eaten badly in Albany.  If we go in one direction we come to a restaurant called Creo'.  Like my all time favorite restaurant in Worcester, MA, now long gone, it's in a shopping center.  Above, their avocado tart with grilled lobster tail and asparagus.  Something else I miss out west: having to choose between Atlantic Salmon and Irish Salmon. Washed down with a blood orange margarita, I still had to wonder if was back in California.

     If we go in the other direction I eat the Albany Country Club Chopped Salad, whose secret is the way the bits are tossed with Russian Dressing.  To me it is a regional specialty, because this is the region where I was introduced to it!  And in case you were worried about my exercise regime,  know that I followed on foot as Mike and Laurie played nine holes of golf!

More Haute Dishes

Couldn't resist taking my cousin and her mid-western bred husband to Haute Dish; they don't get into at night.  I need not have worried that husband would be offended by HD's tongue-in-cheek renditions of middle-coast classics.  After his Duck in A Can, he was in love.
My love affair of the moment is with lamb and HD's Lamb x Five satisfied my Bah Bah jones.
Did I forget to mention that the evening before I drank something called a Minnesota Mule from a copper mug?

Ah yes, local organic vodka with a twist of ginger.
There was bio-tech scientist sitting next to me who said I was passionate about food.
Minneapolis = the next Northern California....

Read more about Haute Dish and the MN food scene here.

Minneapolis and Me

     You are surrounded by farms and forests. Morell mushrooms grow wild. Freshwater fish leap in the lakes.  Minneapolis is food crazy, and has a sense of humor.  Proof: a restaurant named Hell's Kitchen. Maybe it is called that because it is on the basement level. Maybe because they like to hot up the sweet potato fries.  It is the place nearest to my hotel that serves a Walleye BLT. If you don't know what walleye is, you never spent a summer in Wisconsin or MInnesota, as I did.  This is more than a fish sandwich.  I won't get it back in Fogville, because we have no nearby fresh water fisheries.  I'm told that the best place to get a Walleye sandwich is any dive bar; Hell's Kitchen was just fine, thank you very much.

     When your name is Lucey, a hamburger named the Jucy Lucy is must-try-it-at-least-once.  Again, everyone has a favorite place for it:  The 5 8 Club, Blue Door Pub, and the original, Matt's.  Matt's is just above dive bar, more like neighborhood tavern. Truly it is the grill that makes this burger. The bun is squeezy soft and after you wait a few minutes to let the very hot cheese inside the Jucy Lucy cool, the bun absorbs the ooze.  The burger has that veteran grill crunch on the outside.  I'm proud of my namesake.

     What should we call the casseroles and covered dishes of memory?  Church Supper Food? It's back.  Consider Tater Tot Haute Dish, from the restaurant of that name.  Best braised short ribs ever, side-by-side with real potato croquettes and topped with a few fresh green beans and morell mushrooms.  If I have to explain that haute dish is a play on the way Minnesotans pronounce hot,  you've stopped listening to Prairie Home Companion.  The ability to laugh at your self, Minnesota's gift to the world!