How queer-friendly cartoon 'Danger & Eggs' shook up kids’ TV →

October 17, 2018 by Hannah Sayle

Bigotry, it’s been said, is a failure of imagination.

Could the antidote be a daredevil girl and a nervous egg named Phillip?

DD Danger and her ovular friend spend their days in Chickenpaw Park, tumbling through adventures faster than DD’s daredevil dad—slung up in traction and muffled by a too-big neck brace—can squeak out an objection.

Mostly, DD leads the charge, while Phillip, wearing knee and elbow pads and yellow rubber gloves, tries to stave off catastrophe. They travel down the “Tube of Pain” waterslide and encounter a boy who’s been missing for 25 years; they outwit a rogue satellite that wants to trap and keep them as friends; they evade the drooling office zombies of the “Parks and Paperwork Department.”

Review: Hai Hai is a blissful, breezy paradise in northeast Minneapolis →

October 17, 2018 by Hannah Sayle

You know that Dolly Parton line about how “it costs a lot of money to look this cheap”? The secret of northeast Minneapolis getaway Hai Hai is like that: It takes a lot of work to look this effortless.

With their second restaurant, Hola Arepa and Hai Hai owners Christina Nguyen and Birk Grudem have shown a shrewd, near-scientific grasp of how to make a restaurant go. Here we are, blissfully munching on crispy fried tofu with a creamy lime leaf sauce and swirling the lychee in the bottom of our sangria as if this tropical oasis had just sprouted from the concrete. Of course it didn’t. Meticulous planning and streamlined logistics turned this former strip club, 22nd Avenue Station or “the Double Deuce,” into a lush indoor paradise and bustling patio, where the drinks are swift and the food is too.

Photos by Lucy Hawthorne.

Review: Why we've fallen for the marvelous Martina, the Twin Cities' Best New Restaurant →

October 17, 2018 by Hannah Sayle

There was a time when you could dump some garden-variety ice in a glass, swirl it around with the right ingredients, and I’d knock it back with grateful satisfaction.

That was before Martina, where each drink is made with its own particular type of ice: crushed, cubed, stamped, and slivered. No number of slapdash drinks can unring that bell.

But why gush over ice when we’ve just freed ourselves of winter’s frosty chains? Because details like these define Martina.

The cocktails, most around $9 and many with house-made vermouths and tinctures, come with a garnish or straw (glass, bamboo, colored paper) that feels distinctive and special. And oh, that ice: A giant cube in the Old Fashioned is branded with a copper stamp, perhaps the mark of some cloak-and-dagger society we’re dying to join. The Coffee Sport, a high-proof house-made version of a coffee liqueur, is served with two miniature, perfectly hewn cubes, and in the Promiscuous, a wafer-thin raft of ice floats on the surface. The Naked Ballerina #2 brims with pebble ice, the kind that makes a satisfying crunch when you stab your straw into the glass.

Photos by GRF.

Review: Tim McKee’s Octo Fishbar is unlike almost any other place in Minnesota →

October 17, 2018 by Hannah Sayle

If to dine well is to be transported, then forgive me when I briefly wonder: Where the hell am I?

Coming up for air in the middle of a crab-leg-cracking feast, finding myself surrounded by a kaleidoscopic jellyfish mural, a neon-red crab sign, and a shark suspended from the stories-high ceiling, I realize I’ve lost all sense of place and time. Not only because a perfectly steamed crab has that transcendent effect on me, but because Octo Fishbar, Tim McKee’s anchor restaurant in the new Market House Collaborative, is unlike any other place in Minnesota.

In the Market House building in Lowertown, the former home of Heartland, a single floor is host to three, soon to be four, operations: Octo Fishbar in the open atrium, the face-to-face counters of Peterson Farms meat and Almanac fish in a little market nook, the inimitable Salty Tart bakery in a separate cafe space, and in due time, the second location of Birch’s on the Lake, a brewpub for which McKee will handle the menu. If that isn’t dizzying enough, the clusters of seating in Octo Fishbar’s open space create distinct dining environments.

Photos by Lucy Hawthorne.

Review: Make time for the simple sophistication of Kado no Mise →

October 17, 2018 by Hannah Sayle

So, you eat your sushi with your hands. Chopsticks fumble around between your fingers like skis tumbling down a hill.

Sometimes you bravely ask for a fork.

We don’t care. We also don’t care if you like cream cheese in your rolls, or mayonnaise or extra firecracker sauce and crispy tempura crumbs. You are in charge of your sushi destiny and we spit wasabi in the eye of anyone who tells you any different.

Photos by GRF.

Review: Wait time gives pause for reflection at Bardo →

October 17, 2018 by Hannah Sayle

At Bardo, your reservation comes with a warning: “Please be advised that we only hold late reservations for 15 minutes and do not seat incomplete parties.”

Fair enough, considering the razor-thin margins of running a restaurant and the demands of a small dining room. Bardo’s intimate space, in the former Rachel’s on East Hennepin Avenue, certainly presupposes a tight turn of tables and a smoothly operated seating chart. Its elegant double-sided bar welcomes guests and takes up a third of the room; behind it is a cozy, sometimes brimming seating area for diners with reservations.

But what reciprocity, if any, exists with this 15-minute warning? One Friday night, rushing to make our reserved time, lest we lose it to the table vultures of Bardo’s hypothetical scenario, we found ourselves not welcomed to our seats, but crammed into a front entryway, where we were told it would be 15 minutes or so before our table was ready.

Photos by Alma Guzman.

City Spaces: North Minneapolis Tudor has all the hygge of a North Shore cabin →

October 17, 2018 by Hannah Sayle

Home is where the hygge is.

Especially if your home looks like a perfect North Shore retreat, bright and cozy, with a wood fire crackling and a blueberry galette in the oven. Shauna O'Brien redesigned and renovated her north Minneapolis house to be an ideal place for that Danish practice of enjoying simple pleasures -- or partaking in another Nordic tradition, Shauna's favorite, the Swedish fika: a cup of coffee, a sweet treat, and a break from the day.

Photos by Lucy Hawthorne.

At J. Selby's, find seriously good vegan takes on the meaty meals you love

October 17, 2018 by Hannah Sayle

If you have forged a blood bond with an order of carnivorous brethren and will only ever use the word “vegan” as a punchline, please stop reading.

This really isn’t for you.

If you are vegan, or curious about veganism, or even willing to try something different: Welcome. We’re here to talk about J. Selby’s, the plant-based eatery that opened this spring in St. Paul.

Photos by Lucy Hawthorne.

Café Racer and the simple, radical act of giving food away for free →

October 17, 2018 by Hannah Sayle

“Often times people don’t want to see a soup kitchen in their neighborhood, for whatever reason.”

It’s a balmy late-August afternoon, and Luis Patiño has taken a break from the kitchen at Café Racer to sit on the restaurant’s shady patio.

“Somehow, even if they might themselves need it, the idea of a soup kitchen there to help them is a disparaging thing,” he says. “Society has created that image. And that’s understandable.”

Photos by Alma Guzman.

Discover down-home French cuisine at St. Paul tavern Bar Brigade →

November 29, 2017 by Hannah Sayle

Good restaurants make good neighbors.

We mean the walkable, walk-in joints, those cafes and candlelit nooks flanked by tree-lined residential streets. Seek comfort here from the deluge of sleek concept restaurants. Find the perfect antidote to strip malls and miles and miles of commercial zoning pimpled with chain restaurants and big-box retailers.

Bar Brigade, in the former Luci space in the Highland Park neighborhood of St. Paul, is such a place.

Photos by Lucy Hawthorne.