A spread at Tavola
A spread at Tavola.
It's the height of summer and the best week of 52. Summer Restaurant Week kicks off on Sunday and you have nothing but good deals and good meals in your future. Let's get cracking!
NEWBIES
Giulia, the stunner of a downtown Italian restaurant in The Emery hotel, is new to the RW. Their $30 dinner includes a killer heirloom tomato salad for starters, but you'll have some serious decision making to do between the perfect cacio e pepe and the salumi pizza for your second course. Actually, also the chicken al forno with fiddleheads and peas. There's nothing but win in that second course.
PLate on Main is doing the good work over in Prior Lake. The new eatery is here for the first time with a $35 dinner that could bring you seafood chowder, scallops with asparagus and risotto, and a nice hunk of tiramisu for dessert. Add a 3 course wine pairing for $15!
I have a bit of love for The Dough Room in Wayzata, which is in for a $20 lunch and a $25 dinner. The move is to order that tagliatelle with bolognese at dinner, it's a lush meat sauce over perfectly toothy noodles.
BEST of the REST
Al Vento answers my plea of "why isn't there more eggplant involtini around??" with: here. On the $35 dinner menu, yo.
Baja Haus is like summer all year round, but particularly so when you can pop in for a $35 dinner that might include poké, ceviche, and tres leches. Also worth shouting for: $15 mezcal flight optional upgrade.
You know Cafe Lurcat has a new chef, Jordan Swiler, so maybe this is your best chance to take him out for a test drive. The $35 dinner has me looking at watermelon-tomato gazpacho with shrimp, Korean bbq'd salmon with black rice, and that Amish chicken with farotto.
I feel like the kids at Cast & Cru are reading the summer skies correctly. I am totally picturing myself eating a $35 dinner of lobster agnolotti with sweet corn puree, grilled leeks, and fried artichoke leaves before tucking into a lemon panna cotta with blackberries, blueberries, and lemon verbena.
Is it time to go back to Chino Latino too? I'm rather feeling those Szechuan cold noodles with cucumber and chili oil and the fried chicken steam buns on the $30 dinner menu.
Kiddos, this is the last Restaurant Week that Corner Table will ever have. It may already be too late to get a rezzie, but you can always try for walk in bar seating and your last shot at carrot soup with saffron yogurt, a lamb empanada with zucchini gazpacho, and the legendary will-be-missed sweet potato doughnuts. I'm not crying, you're crying.
Downtown Mpls. lunchers will continue to love the meat + 3 option on the $15 lunch menu at FireLake Grill House. My play: go on Thursday for shaved prime rib + popover + asparagus + glazed carrots. DONE.
Look, of course you can Freestyle burger or turkey burger it up on the $35 dinner menu at Freehouse, but why wouldn't you go for the true sandwich of summer: BLT-A, bacon, lettuce, tomato, avocado, basil mayo on good bread?
I hear talk that the Vat 17 burger, currently an option on the $35 dinner menu at Holman's Table, is something to behold. Regional Revier Farms beef is topped with Deer Creek Vat 17 cheddar, plus candied bacon, garlic mayo and arugula for a rightly beefy bite. Sure, start with a beet salad.
We've all had bastardized versions of caprese salad by now, so why not indulge in one that has proper credibility. I Nonni's running a $35 dinner menu with a caprese decked with local heirloom tomatoes, sweet basil, burrata cheese, capezzana olive oil, and cyprus black lava salt like a boss. And that lemony, prosciutto wrapped chicken saltimbocca is a worthy follow to that.
If you haven't dipped into Kado No Mise yet, this is your moment. For $35 dinner, you get a few sampler plates, which includes the beautiful chawanmushi egg custard I love so much, a taste of lush wagyu beef, a four piece nigiri flight, and cute little mochi rice cakes.
You can test your luck first with some one-armed bandits, but know that there are a few sure things on the Mystic Steakhouse $35 dinner menu. Chilled sweet pea soup with sous vide salmon is a smart way to start, followed by braised pork belly bucatini with sauce espagnole or crispy fried quail with warm bacon and potato salad.
Get off the dock and into Octo Fishbar this week for the 4-course $35 menu! A chilled seafood tower is your starter (hello salmon poké, oysters, and crudo) followed by steamed mussels, rock shrimp pasta, and a whole fish. You can't catch this meal in a lake, TG.
Go check out the new digs at Pig Ate My Pizza during deal week! For an easy $25 dinner you can choose some sass in the form of pork nugz or guanciale fries, but I must tell you how smitten I am with the house Caesar salad. Go figure. Then pick your own pizza from the list, and if you're feeling pickles, that Bay o' Pigs pie is a stunning homage to a Cubano.
There's something about the grilled pork and nectarine panzanella (with sauce zhoug and caulilini sweet stem) on the $30 dinner menu at Sanctuary that's been buzzing in my brain all week.
Feeling this half-day Friday plan: Pop down to Tavola (next to Finnegan's) for the $25 3-course lunch menu. Start with a garlicky Caesar, then relax into some fettuccine carbonara with peas and guanciale, end with rhubarb semifreddo. Head next door for a beer, as the weekend has already started.
The $25 lunch menu at Hewing Hotel's Tullibee is calling me in a MN summer way. Thinking about starting with charred sweet corn salad with fava beans, and moving on to the Wild Acres chicken salad sandwich, yes with grapes and almonds. Classic as the Old Fashioned I will be day-drinking with it.
I can't tell you why yet, but you should clearly go try the Hangover Burger that's on the $25 dinner menu at TC 400 Tavern this week. Not just because it's a sloppy, beefy masterpiece with a fried egg, bacon, pepper jack cheese, avocado, smoked gouda cheese sauce, and Cry Baby Craig’s aioli. But you'll want to have knowledge of this burger before August. Trust me.
The $35 dinner menu at Urban Eatery feels like a good attempt at a backyard barbecue (in the midwest sense where we mean just grilling things). Fresh guacamole, half rack of ribs, beef kabobs or grilled shrimp tacos are all options that assure you no bugs, no drink uncles, and no cans of Natty Light littering your yard.
