education, Food, Gatherings, Uncategorized

My Favorite Restaurant

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Today’s post is from Steve Grooms

Last September I joined a group of friends who met when we lived together in a dormitory at Grinnell College. David, Jack and Ralph flew into Saint Paul from Boston and the District of Columbia so we could relive old times. Because David made a fortune in the scented candle business, he happily funded the reunion. We would dine in a restaurant two nights. My suggestions about places where the food was good and inexpensive were laughed off. For David, cost is no object. He is used to the very best when dining out near his primary home near Washington, DC.

Since cost was not a factor, I had another suggestion. WA Frost and Company is a splendid old restaurant on Selby Avenue in the Cathedral Hill district. Built late in the 19th century in the Richardson Romanesque style, the Dakota Building, the home of the restaurant, now exudes the charm of an early time. While I had not eaten there in many years, fond memories of the place allowed me to hope it would not disappoint David or my other friends on this special occasion.

The restaurant was as lovely as I’d remembered. The building features arched windows, copper cornices and walls of sandstone and brick. Giant fireplaces provided light and warmth for diners. The room itself was so quiet we could all speak at normal volume as we told stories about our shared past. The wait staff was deft and unobtrusive. The bounty from the kitchen was so good that we kept saying, “This is the best ___ I’ve ever had!”

We had the sort of evening one remembers with a romantic glow. We had expected a great deal, but WA Frost delivered more than anyone could have hoped for. It was perfect.

Other restaurants can be excellent in other ways. The header photo shows Mickey’s Diner, which in its own way is perfect. You don’t go to Mickey’s expecting the elegance and refinement we had at WA Frost, but my last visit to Mickey’s was all we’d hoped it would be.

What memories do you have of a special restaurant, diner, food truck or family eatery? Or do you remember a restaurant that was so bad you can’t forget it?

86 thoughts on “My Favorite Restaurant”

  1. I just want to recognize that this post obviously was written by Steve and not as it appears at the top by Renee. I know this is an unintentional oversight, and one Renee or perhaps vs can fix?

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  2. I consider myself fortunate to have had my share of memorable dining experiences. Unfortunately, many of the restaurants where these took place, now exist in memory only. By the end of this pandemic, whenever that might be, I’m afraid there will be even more that have closed for good. Fortunately, as Jean-Paul Richter once said: “Our memories are the only paradise from which we can never be expelled.”

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  3. I think my parents would not have been very happy if I had lived in a dorm with three guys in Iowa when they thought I was at a nice Lutheran women’s dorm in Moorhead.

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  4. We ate in some wonderful restaurants in Montreal each time we were there. While some Baboons might be surprised, Fargo/Moorhead has some really nice eateries, too. One of our favorite Indian restaurants is there, along with a place called Mezza Luna.

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  5. Winnipeg was a real treat for me, as there were restaurants ran by people from all over the world. We especially liked tha Portuguese fish restaurant, the multitude of Chinese restaurants , and the Maharani Curry Palace.

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  6. RIse and Shine Baboons,

    Archies Waeside Inn, in my hometown of LeMars, Iowa, holds my favorite memories and a BEARD award, as well as a visit and review from Jane and Michael Stern. It still stands, run by two of Archie’s grandchildren, Bobbie and Lorrie Rand. Lorrie was a classmate of mine.

    Archies hosted first dates, prom dinners, celebrations and funerals. If you go there, you can order the special off-menu steak, the “Benny Weiker.” My father loved this place. So did my Grandma. We ordered takeout from Archies for A family celebration of some kind. We did it that way because both Dad and Grandma were in the nearby nursing home and could not leave. If we brought The food to them, they could participate. At this time Grandma was in her late 90’s at the end of her life, she did not eat much. Dad no longer talked much at all. However, that night they both cleaned their plates, smacking their lips with relish. They loved it. And I love the memory.

    I hope Archies is doing OK. They are located in the very conservative part of Iowa that supports #45, so probably business has not changed much because I hear that part of Iowa is disregarding the COVID danger. Sigh.

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  7. We rarely go out in our town, as the choices are pretty limited. There are two very good Mexican restaurants ran by families that serve quite lovely dishes.

    It is even less likely we will go out any time soon, as Husband’s fancy schmancy smoker/grill arrives today, and he already has countey style ribs thawing.

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  8. When I was in advertising, I ate, at dinners with the client, in some very fancy restaurants where everything was on the expense account. I couldn’t tell you now the name of any of them or what I ate. The restaurants that stay in my memory were not because the food was so exemplary but because the mood, the atmosphere and the food were all in concert.
    One example: when we were in Wales, toward the end of our trip, we were staying in a small village called Llangattock-Lingoed, on the east side of Wales near Offa’s Dyke. It was early November and it got dark about 5:00 PM. As we discovered when we got there, the village was about a mile down a single track road and several miles from any larger town. There was no way we were going to drive anywhere in the dark for dinner. Fortunately, in the village was a combination B&B, pub and restaurant called Hunter’s Moon. The place itself had been built in the 13th century and it had been recently restored by an enterprising family.
    We could walk there. When you enter Hunter’s Moon, you come in through the pub. At 5:30 or so, the pub was quiet and the man at the bar greeted us and saw us to a table in the corner of the adjoining room, which was separated from the pub by a fireplace open on both sides. We were in no hurry and the restaurant seating was mostly empty, so we could settle in and take our time. One of the daughters of the family was our waitress. She was friendly, helpful and unobtrusive. The food was excellent but what made the experience memorable, aside from the relief in not having to drive anywhere, was that as we sat there the pub filled up, the patrons in high spirits over some sort of lottery that was being held, and we were able to sit on the other side of the fireplace in an atmosphere, intimate for us but with the high spirits of the place in the background.

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    2. I had thought that under this post Steve would chime in about a restaurant that we both loved, caravanserai. They’ve been gone for a while now but in addition to their great Afghan food, they had an a Normas amount of personality. Lovely decor big comfy cushions on the floor with low tables and it was a hoot to watch them slap the dough to the side of the tandoori oven to bake.

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  9. People would be amazed, I think, by the radical changes that reshaped the Twin Cities restaurant scene. When my family got here in 1960, fancy dining mostly meant going to the priciest steak house you could afford. In 1967 that was still mostly true, although Charlie’s Cafe Exceptionale was known for a variety of good dishes. Snooty friends claimed the Twin Cities had only one good restaurant, Charlie’s, in the mid-1960s. Impecunious friends treasured Charlie’s in off-hours, when prices were low.

    I just came across a list of great Twin Cities restaurants that are no longer with us. The list includes Aquavit, La Belle Vie, Cafe Brenda, Charlie’s, the New French Cafe and Nankin.

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    1. As some of you may know, the namesake and owner of Cafe Brenda is Brenda Langton. What a remarkable career that young woman has had.

      I first encountered her in the small, vegetarian cooperative restaurant – the Commonplace. It was located in the Dacotah Building adjacent to W.A. Frost in a rather peculiar space. The space itself was pleasant and well lit, but it took some doing to get to it.

      As you came in the front doors to the building, you had to enter another narrower door on left side of the hallway and go down two or three steps and make a left turn into the dining room.

      The place was run by a bunch of very young hippies who apparently took turns doing the various jobs of cooking, serving and whatnot. Brenda was one of them. She had just returned from spending some time in Greece, and was apparently smitten with the freshness of their cuisine.

      A year or two later, at the age of twenty-one, she opened her own restaurant – Café Kardamena – in that same space. Café Kardamena shared the back end of the patio with W.A. Frost, it was a lovely place. I grieved when she decided to move to Minneapolis and open Cafe Brenda in 1986. Cafe Brenda, of course, went on to a successful 24 year run before she closed it.

      But she wasn’t done yet. She co-founded the Mill City Farmer’s Market and Spoonriver, the restaurant adjacent to the Guthrie Theater, in 2006. While she closed the restaurant last year after a fourteen-year run, she’s still involved in the farmer’s market. She has written several cook books, and teaches the occasional cooking class. At this point she’s only 63 years old, I wouldn’t be surprised if we haven’t heard the last of her.

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      1. I adored Café Brenda. When I moved to the Twin Cities in 1983 there were certainly more vegetarian options here than had been in Milwaukee (or anywhere else that I had been), but a restaurant that basically catered to vegetarians was a novelty. And one that I was really glad to find.

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    2. I ate at Aquavit just once. How could I not? I found it ridiculously overpriced, and never went back.

      La Belle Vie was wonderful, though I liked it’s original location in Stillwater better than the fancy digs at 510 Groveland. I’d probably rank it as the best Twin Cities restaurant I have eaten in.

      I loved the New French Cafe, it had such an old world charm, and the food was top notch.

      I never ate at Charlie’s, though of course, I’ve heard and read about it. The Nankin I’ve eaten at a couple of times, both before and after it moved, and frankly, I was not impressed by their food, at all. Didn’t seem authentic to me. I’m surprised it would listed among the best restaurants in Minneapolis.

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      1. I agree again. Nankin was popular because of location, longevity and maybe because it was the only Chinese restaurant for many years that was more substantial and ambitious than the typical Ma-and-Pa small places. I’ve forgotten the name of a wonderful Chinese restaurant in St Louis Park in the early 1980s. Village Wok was very good for a long time, too.

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        2. There was Jack Yee’s in Hopkins.
          When I worked downtown, I occasionally ate at the Nankin. It was just an oversized chop suey house. OK as long as you knew what to expect,
          Authentic something maybe, but not Chinese.

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        3. The Nankin was the favorite restaurant of one the law firm’s founding fathers. Every year for their anniversary, he’d take Betty there for dinner. Here’s this pretty well-to-do lawyer, taking his wife to a third rate Chinese restaurant for an anniversary celebration every year. I don’t think I’d have lasted very long in that marriage.

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        5. Does anybody remember the name of that huge drink that they used to serve st the Nankin? The one that came in a small swimming pool?

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  10. Years ago, before Highway 61 was improved and made safer with the two tunnels and widening of the road, there was an excellent restaurant called, I believe, The Cliff House. Just north of Two Harbors at Silver Cliff, it was small, intimate, had a great view of the Lake partially obstructed by trees in summer. I remember having a scrumptious broiled lake trout. There was a small gift shop on the premises too. We only dined there a handful of times but it was one of those special trips we’d make from our home in Carlton or Cloquet back in the late 70s-early 80s.

    I could write a book about all the special, memorable restaurants I’ve eaten at. Another MN restaurant that comes to mind is the old Dakota Jazz Club in Bandana Square. Along with a great meal you got fantastic music from local artists or national touring groups/combos.

    Had the best roast chicken, and a bottle of Domaine Serene Pinot Noir. That wine will knock your socks off if you ever get a chance to try it. Used to be reasonably priced. The “everyday” Pinot is $30 or more. Their good stuff is pushing $100. But their Evenstad Reserve (the good stuff) is usually up there in quality with the best Pinot’s (aka Burgundy in France) in the world. The winery is in Oregon, and the owners are MN transplants. The winery is stunning and worth a visit too.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  11. One of the restaurants we ate at in Montreal served a fish dish with lemons to squeeze over the fish. The lemon halves were chastely wrapped in cheese cloth so that the seeds wouldn’t fall into the fish.

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  12. There are a few that come to mind – in 1969 San Francisco there was a little Indian restaurant called the Good Karma Cafe – it was probably the combination of going with new friends from my apartment building, eating Indian food for the first time, and that whole counter-culture atmosphere of the place (and that time). It may have had low tables and floor cushions, but I may have that confused with elsewhere.

    Same summer I also had the best burger in the world at the Bratskellar in Ghiradelli Square. There you had the feeling you were part of the young singles scene, and there was a great selection of wine and beer.
    Ooh, and not really a restaurant, but I remember eating my first Chao Siu Bao from a sidewalk take-out place in Chinatown. Sigh…

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  13. I never went to restaurants when we lived near Dinkytown, but I’ve twice eaten at a wonderful hole-in-the-wall with iconic status: Al’s Breakfast. It has international fame although it only has stools for 14 customers, and anyone eating there will probably stand in line for awhile. If you’ve never gone, think about trying it!

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    2. I remember Al’s when Al was still in charge. His nephew Phillip took it over and then Phillip was bought out by one of my college roommates, Doug, and a partner. My old roommate was the chef and a James Beard winner. He just recently retired and sold out. At one point, probably in the late ‘70s, I designed their menu. That was before computers and I liberally used rubber stamps in the design.

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      1. I don’t know if it’s still the case, but the names of many of the menu items at Al’s, like The Lenny and The Spike were taken from the names of employees during Phillip’s tenure. I knew most of those guys.

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    3. Oh come on, you must have gone to Mama D’s? And let’s not forget Mama Rosa’s on Cedar-Riverside. Now that was pretty low brow dining, with Chianti bottle candle holders on the tables and plastic grapes vines crawling all over the white lattice work. It was a fun place while it lasted.

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      1. I used to love the grilled Italian sausage sandwich at Mama Rosa’s.

        When I worked at Art Materials in Dinkytown I used to lunch at Sammy D’s fairly often. Mama D had this outside reputation as a warm and generous motherly type but she treated her waitstaff so viciously it was embarrassing to eat there. Sammy D had some connection with the Mafia. I had heard the Chicago Mafia. Once when I went there for lunch, the curb outside the restaurant was lined with white Cadilacs with gold ornamentation. In the back room at a long table were a group of men including Sammy D. The guy at the head of the table was addressed as “Big Luigi”. The guy next to him, who was as wide as he was tall, they called “Runt.” We tried not to look like we were eavesdropping.

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      2. You’re right. Actually, Sammy D’s was the only restaurant we patronized in the early years. Mama D (Jenny) was a larger than life personality. The food was great and the prices low. I’d sure love one of those Chicago style beef sandwiches with hot sauce again..

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        1. You’ll appreciate this, Steve. Sammy D’s connection with the mob was confirmed to me by Dennis Bursch, who was Mike Justen’s partner in Oblivion Records, operating out of the Scholar Coffeehouse. Dennis was a friend back in those days. He produced Leo Kottke’s first album, the one with the armadillo on the cover.

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    1. I liked the bar at Forepaugh’s, but there was something odd about their dining spaces. Never felt quite at ease there.

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  15. Rapid River Logging Camp outside Park Rapids Mn for breakfast. All You Can Eat served family style at long wooden tables on tin plates. The coffee always seemed hotter and the milk colder in those tin cups. The river trails were great fun for the kids. Dinner would be back at nearby Itasca Park Douglas Lodge. Wild rice soup and fresh fish. We had reservations at the cabins there in late August just before school started. Smores at night in our fireplace “restaurant”.
    And then there was Shakey’s Pizza downtown Fargo. Sauerkraut/Canadian Bacon on perfect crust. Killer stuff!!

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    1. That Rapid River Logging Camp sounds like fun. I brings to mind a place we went to a couple of times back in Southern Illinois. Ma Hale’s was a restaurant in Grand Tower on the banks of the Mississippi River. Lots of students would drive there for Sunday afternoon dinner of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and coleslaw – all you could eat for little money. It was served at long wooden tables, and you sat on benches with whomever. I understand that Ma Hale’s closed about ten years ago, but it sure was a fund place to visit.

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      1. This reminds me of the River Mill Café back in the 80s – Galesville, WI – beautiful old building, great atmosphere, and you could have a burger while listening to the likes of Greg Brown if you worked it right.

        Now there is the Trempealeau Hotel a half hour from there – very good homemade food and live music on weekends.

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        1. Trempealeau Hotel is noted for its walnut burgers and walnut balls, sort of like Fitgers is know for its wild rice burgers. I remember once, maybe in the late ‘90s, we ate there and the hotel was advertising that the band Steppenwolf was playing there on the weekend.

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    2. There was a similar logging camp restaurant in Hayward Wisconsin for many years. I don’t know if they were open for breakfast but my family went for dinner at least once every vacation. The same as you described, with the long tables and the tim mugs for milk and coffee and everything served family style. I particularly remember the glaze donuts that were a part of every meal.

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      1. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Lowell Inn and its famous Matterhorn Room. That’s where my erstwife and I dined the night we got married. I wish I remembered it better, but the combination of fatigue and wine make that meal a sort of foggy dream.

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  16. In thinking more about this topic, I find that most of the really fine restaurant memories are from my first time at a new ethnic restaurant, or celebrating some special occasion with a good friend. Here are some more of the ethnic:
    – Oo Da – Cedar-Riverside African (Ethopian?) restaurant in 80s
    – Japanese rest. on about 3rd Street Mpls down by the Mississippi (also 80s – Fuji Ya?)
    – discovering Northern Italian cuisine at Mary’s Restaurant in Greenwich Village
    – ceviche, and fish tacos at multiple places in Puerto Morelos, Mexico
    – Norwegian kumla in Story City IA (just off I-35, apparently not there anymore)

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    1. Odaa, a few doors down from the Cedar Cultural Center, was the first Ethiopian restaurant I tried and loved. I have since discovered a couple in St. Paul, Fasika on Snelling Ave. and Demera on Unversity Ave. W, and they’re very good, too.

      And Fuji-Ya when it was located right on the Mississippi River was wonderful. I loved that location.

      Anyone remember GuadalaHarry’s and Pracna on Main?

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      1. Muffuletta’s was such a nice little place. A summer evening on their very civilized outdoor seating was divine. A couple of times when I was there, GK and his wife were at a neighboring table. Everyone, of course, let them eat in peace.

        On one special occasion the Danish American Center rented the place for a private buffet dinner. The occasion was a visit by the Royal Danish Ballet. The dancers all joined us and reveled in the strong Danish community here. One memory stands out: One of the rather well known male dancers, apparently was impressed by the size of the bowl of fruit salad and exclaimed: “Sikke en balje!” in his finest Copenhagen dialect. What a tub! We all cracked up, apparently he had forgotten that most of those around him understood Danish. To this day, when some of us see a large bowl of anything on a buffet table, we’ll exclaim: “Sikke en balje!”

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    3. There was an Italian restaurant in Stillwater long ago called Vittorio’s. I believe that one was northern Italian also, The food was quite good, as I recall, and the location was charming, in a cave in the river bluff.

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  17. If we include outstate restaurants, I have to mention the Scenic Cafe on old Highway 61 just a few miles north of Duluth. They shut down for the pandemic, but I trust they’ll come back to life when they can. Wonderful food!

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  18. I may have told this story before, if so, and you remember, I apologize and you can skip the rest.

    For our twentieth anniversary, husband wanted to treat us to a really nice dinner, but he wanted it to be a surprise, so instead of asking me where I wanted to go, he asked for suggestions from Anne Mikkelsen, our friend who is a French trained chef. Anne, bless her heart, didn’t know of husband’s propensity for avoiding expensive restaurants and had given D’Amico Cucina in Butler Square high marks, and convinced him to make reservations.

    I, of course, had no idea where we were going, but when husband pulled into the parking lot across the street from Butler Square, the number of choices were starkly reduced, and when I guessed that we were going to D’Amico Cucina, where neither of us had ever dined, I became somewhat concerned. I warned him that this was going to be expensive, but he waved it off as if he knew what he was doing.

    When we arrived at the restaurant, we were greeted with great fanfare and immediately led to a fine table. Promptly a waiter arrived with a bottle of champagne, courtesy of Anne, and a handwritten note presented with great flair by the waiter: “Congratulations and lort i lommen,” it said. This happened to be the only Danish phrase Anne knew, and both husband I just about fell out of our seats with laughter when we saw it. The waiter didn’t quite know what to make of our reaction, and asked if he had gotten the message wrong. We assured him he had not, and that we would tell him at the end of our dinner what the message said.

    The remainder of the dinner was uneventful but quite lovely, though I have no recollection of what we had. When we departed we told the waiter that “lort i lommen” means shit in your pocket. We later learned that Anne, when she had called the restaurant to order the champagne, had told them that husband was a renowned Danish artist and to treat us with due respect and extra care.

    I can’t attest to what a normal dining experience at D’Amico Cucina was like, it was the only time we were there, but I do know if they thought you were a renowned Danish artist, you were treated extremely well. Husband had just sold an old Suburban for about $250.00 a couple of days prior. He likes to say that a dinner at D’Amico Cucina cost what some people pay for a car.

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      1. It’s an expression used only in the part of Denmark that husband comes from. I had never heard it before I met him. He uses it essentially as an expression of frustration when something hasn’t gone according to expectations.

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      1. Thanks, Steve, but truth be told, I’ve said very little about the food in any of them. Don’t know what kind of information you’ve deduced?

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  19. I ate at Chez Panisse once but not in the downstairs, which was prix fixe, I think, and more reflective of Alice Waters. We ate upstairs and ordered off a menu. If I remember correctly, we had calzone. It was not exceptional.

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    1. When a restaurant is as hyped as Chez Panisse, it’s hard not to disappoint. I’ve eaten there, too, and while it was a great meal in the downstairs, I’m not sure it was worth the hassle or expense.

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      1. Funny coincidence. Just last week I watched a Netflix series I suppose you could call it, Fat Salt Acid Heat. I haven’t read the book yet but I couldn’t pass by the show. The host/author trained at Chez Panisse.

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        1. That’s a charming series. We’ve watched it twice in the last couple of years. That’s one of the great things about getting old. When we run out of things to watch that we like, we can just start over on series we’ve watched before and they’re like new.

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    2. Our first neighbor in the house to the east of us was a waitress at the Blue Horse. There was absolutely nothing about her that would have persuaded me to go there. What was it like, Bill?

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        2. It’s an interesting exercise to look back at your teen-aged self from the perspective of your older self, isn’t it. Speaking for myself, I know it elicits quite a few cringes, but mostly a lot of smiles and head shaking.

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  21. I may have mentioned my two favorite meals of all time before. The amazing part about these two meals is that they were both in wineries and both in Italy. The first one was many years ago at the Santa Benedetta winery outside of Rome. They set L the buffet table with the most amazing little meats and cheeses and vegetables and breads (some with olive oil, some with olive oil and garlic, from the olives that they grew there at the vineyard. The restaurant was on the second floor of the main building with all open windows onto the Vineyard. It was amazing. This was the same place where the little chef came out from the kitchen after the meal to make sure that we liked her tiramisu, which of course is the best tiramisu I have ever eaten.

    The second meal was about three years ago in a winery on Mount Etna in Sicily. It was family style but it was the same unbelievable array of meats and cheeses and breads and olives and an enormous amount of fabulous wine. The chef also came out at the end of the meal and in a life changing revelation, filled cannoli table side for us.

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    1. Sound divine, vs. Another example that memorable dining needn’t be complicated or expensive if all of the ingredients are right.

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  22. Another, now defunct, wonderful small restaurant was The Barbary Fig on Grand Ave. The owner and chef, Hadj-Moussa, closed the Mediterranean restaurant in 2016 after a 27-year run. Originally from Algiers, Hadj’s cooking was fragrant with herbs and spices, but never hot. I discovered it about a week after if opened, and it quickly became my go-to restaurants when I wanted a relaxed, flavorful, and unpretentious meal that didn’t cost an arm and a leg.

    Since closing, Hadj has done several pop-up cooking stints at Cooks on Payne Ave., another tiny place with a lot of character and good food. During the pop-up dinners that are announced in advance, it’s like old home week. Hadj, with his usual huge grin on his face, comes out of the kitchen periodically to greet his old customers and friends. Lots of hugs and smiles. These pop-ups are usually sold out in advance, and it’s great to see a small restaurant on St. Paul’s East Side full on a week night. He’s also available to do catering, or at least I hope he will be once we’re clear of this pandemic.

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  23. There was a restaurant in Bandana Square years ago called Polly’s Slow Food Restaurant. I believe there was also one in West St. Paul, but I remember the Bandana Square one best. The food was simple, but everything was prepared with great care. I remember having an English muffin there that was just the best English muffin you could imagine.

    I had some very nice meals at Muffuletta too. And I do remember Guadalaharry’s.

    There is a restaurant in Fergus Falls called Mabel Murphy’s. I remember going there, probably forty years ago, and having a cod dinner with drawn butter. If you took leftovers home, the waiter would wrap them in foil and form the foil into a swan. Très élégant.

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