I’ve recently hit a euphoric peak regarding the fixed price, “Date Night” menus that keep appearing around town and, as is my way, I must share the happiness.
I’ve enjoyed the Tuesday Date Night menu at al Vento twice now. There’s nothing about this arrangement that isn’t awesome. A mere $20 gets you a four course, stomach-distending meal in an exceptional restaurant.
Now sometimes al Vento tries to sneak in a little too much eggplant on these fixed price menus, so if like me, eggplant causes you to experience an intestinal tsunami, it would behoove you to check the menu before you go. That said, my most recent Date Night visit to al Vento was exceptional start to finish.
I opened with the stuffed mushrooms (walnut, with parmesan and marinara), which I erased from my plate as thoroughly as one can without resorting to a tongue cleaning. The next plate, a small Caesar salad, was subtle while still nailing it. For the pasta course I chose the generously portioned pappardelle with braised pork ragu tomato and procini. The pork was tender as hell and the ragu had an unusual but excellent sweetness, as if (just guessing here) a modest amount of cherry reduction had been mixed in. Dessert was a selection of gelato and sorbet, from which I chose the cappuccino gelato.
It was just wonderful. And not exactly a secret. The place was jammed. We just barely got away with not making a reservation, but next time I won’t be so cavalier.
There was only one, huge disappointment in the evening – an equally mouthwatering fixed price menu was happening simultaneously at Kings Wine Bar! Their Tuesday Date Night menu has three courses, plus dessert, paired with a wine flight. Total: $45 for two people!
-2nd course- Baked herb crusted mozzarella, slow braised tomatoes, balsamic syrup paired with Pedroncelli Rose
-3rd course- Seared salmon, chick peas, swiss chard, grilled beets, chipotle red wine reduction paired with La Playa Sauvignon Blanc
-or-
pan seared NY strip, fingerling potatoes, bleu cheese paired with Pedroncelli Cabernet
-Dessert – Banana chocolate bread pudding, ganache, ice cream paired with Dr L Riesling
So missing out on that really sucked, but there are more Tuesdays where that came from and I’ll be duly stalking the Kings Date Night menu for more magic combos.
Incidentally, al Vento’s sister restaurant, Rinata, has a similar fixed price menu deal on Sunday nights. Keep a look out or get on their email list and have the happiness delivered to you.
[Disclosure: The owner of Kings Wine Bar is a friend of mine.]
Hey non-native Minnesotans, what were some of your most profound “Whoa, I’m really in Minnesota” moments after you arrived? Let me guess:
• When you bought a parka
• When someone offered you lutefisk
• When you were gravely advised on which shovel to buy
• When you very quickly realized that vaguely attentive driving habits were the norm
• When you met someone named ‘Leif’
These things simply don’t happen anywhere else – except occasionally in Norway – and are in fact all part of Minnesota’s rich cultural identity.
For decades I thought there were only a couple Leifs in Minnesota. And to make matters worse, those other Leifs all sacrilegiously pronounced their names like the word ‘leaf’. (Indisputable fact: it’s pronounced like the word ‘life’.) I felt as if I was almost singlehandedly carrying the burden of one of Minnesota’s dying cultural traditions.
But then, thanks to Facebook, oh magical Facebook, an idle search one day revealed that there are TONS of Leifs in Minnesota! Walking around, oozing state heritage, smelling of stoic manliness and pine trees…
And many of these Leifs are much younger than I, meaning, that’s right, a Leif Renaissance!! Our path to Leif extinction has been narrowly averted. But for how long? Will other brave parents name their children ‘Leif’, continuing the state’s solemn tradition and dooming their sons to at least 16 years of cruel and unimaginative taunts by their mouth-breathing, zero-contributing peers? We can only hope so.
As part of the effort to preserve our state’s prized heritage, I would like to formally propose that Governor Dayton declare December 16th “Leif Day” in Minnesota. Government offices will shut down, parking meters won’t be enforced, a parade, naturally, will be held – say, on Hennepin Avenue, between 12th Street and Washington.
Furthermore, unofficially, December 16th, will also be declared “International Hug a Leif Day,” just in case I’m out of town.
Please show your support for “Leif Day” and “International Hug a Leif Day” by signing in the comments area below. I will present the signatures to Governor Dayton and Buddha and we should be good to go for at least an informal 2011 celebration at Grumpy’s on Washington this Friday.
Thank you for generously supporting our cherished state heritage and well-deserved recognition of our hard working, heroic Leifs.
No one remembers exactly when Matthews Park started opening their multipurpose room to a small, ragtag group of geeks and students every Monday night, so they could have a free, massive, indoor, high-ceiling place to practice throwing and catching more objects than they had hands with which to do so. What I know for sure is that I started attending these casual sessions circa late summer 1982, which everyone agrees was probably only a few months after its inception.
Nearly 30 years later, it’s still happening – and it’s still free.
The Neverthriving Juggling Club is a place where new jugglers practice, old jugglers socialize and ill-prepared non-jugglers get props thrust into their hands and a lesson, no matter how strongly they protest.
It doesn’t get much more wholesome than this. Free juggling lessons, free practice space, without having in bring your own equipment (at least not initially), open to all ages. Moreover, when you decide you need to take a break from dropping things and picking them up off the ground, the free entertainment of watching some of the best jugglers in the country practice and goof off is the juggling equivalent of watching the sound check at Lollapalooza.
As we careen into yet another rumored-to-be long and brutal winter, this weekly indoor escape and excuse to wear a tank top is pretty hard to beat. And did you know that juggling actually makes you smarter? I kid you not.
The Neverthriving folks are also largely responsible for putting together the annual MONDO Jugglefest, one of the largest, annual gatherings of jugglers, unicyclists and yo-yo enthusiasts in the country, coming up on February 17-19, 2012.
Further to the previous promise of free entertainment at Neverthriving, here’s a video of me and MPLSSteve doing, well, the uniquely ungraceful yet lively thing that we do best, passing six clubs.
Remember Slackerology? My probably best-selling, award-winning, religion-changing, planet-saving book proposal may have fizzled out on the desks of 26 editors, to the detriment of all society (history will vindicate me), but I’m still living and honing the theory every day.
[If you need to get up to speed on the modern, minimalist lifestyle I’ve cheekily labeled ‘Slackerology’, you can read about it in great detail here, here, here, here and here or read an incredibly condense explanation here.]
Further to that, I recently had the occasion to do a detailed calculation of my annual living expenses for the first time (oddly) since moving back to the US and, while I knew the number would be low, the total shocked even me.
What is Meet Plan Go? It’s an evening of illuminating information and discourse on the feasibility of career-break travel and round-the-world trips, held nearly simultaneously in 17 North American cities. If you’ve ever dreamed of escaping your cubicle to strike out and discover the world on your own terms, this should be Item 0 on your task list.
Being that career-break travel, commonplace nearly everywhere outside of the US, can be an intimidating prospect, we’ve pulled together a varied panel including world travelers, a financial planner and career-break veterans.
As fun and physically attractive as last year’s panel was, this year’s panel is a massive improvement. In addition to me, career-break traveler-turned freelance travel writer, there’s Julie DuRose, a recently returned, solo, female career-break traveler; Layne Kennedy, jet-setter and distinguished photographer; and Kara McGuire, personal financial columnist for the Star Tribune.
Cumulatively we are a veritable career-break travel super group, think tank and military junta all rolled into one. Our coming together will change the world in ways none of us can yet imagine. Historians will study and debate the event. Commemorative coins will be minted. Villagers will sing songs about us in the mountains of northern Laos.
Also, there’ll be $4 taps and $5 wines.
Needless to say, if you have any interest in career-break travel, you really don’t wanna miss this.
If you need further encouragement about the feasibility of career-break travel, check out the 2010 cover story I wrote for vita.mn “Choose Your Own Adventure,” featuring quotes from our very own Julie DuRose.
In the latest development defining me as a leading Skyway posterboy, Architecture Minnesota magazine followed me around one afternoon and shot video of me discussing my Skyway lifestyle. The video is a promotion piece for their Videotect video competition “Exploring the Built Environment,” the first subject being the Skyway.
Through what I’m sure was laborious and careful editing, they succeeded in not making me look too crazy:
Perhaps you’ll recall a few weeks ago when I didn’t leave the Skyway for two weeks and blogged about it in great detail. The article I wrote on the strength of that stunt is now live:
Not long from now, the planet’s space agencies will start recruiting people for the first colony on Mars. Colonists will need to be comfortable functioning in close quarters, endure extended periods indoors and survive on less-than-scintillating food options. Where will these hearty colonists be found? NASA? The Biosphere? Or some other place where tens of thousands of people happily go about their days in comparable surroundings?
Read the whole article here. Or grab a paper copy (one for every friend and acquaintance should do), so as to give the appearance that my articles are wildly popular.
If this is your first “Two weeks in the Skyway” post, you might like to start here.
YMCA: Though I’ve walked past it at least 20 times, my brain never registered the fact that the downtown YMCA has a very prominent Skyway entrance. It couldn’t be more obvious. But that’s how it goes when you’re walking through the Skyway (at least that’s how it goes for me). All concentration is devoted to getting your destination without getting lost, so even a huge entrance and a giant sign can go unnoticed – for years. Taking advantage of a friend’s generous guest pass offer, I toured the Y’s facilities and made lavish use of the pool and whirlpool.
The Y is impressively outfitted. In addition to the pool and whirlpool area, they have a sauna, steam room, basketball courts, racquetball courts, a running track, spin classes and the full arsenal of free weights and state-of-the-art weight machines. A month-to-month membership is only $62, which can be dropped to $42 if your insurance provider offers a heath club credit. What with the meager “fitness center” in my condo group, and my long lost love for racquetball, I’m very tempted to join.
End of the confinement: This will be my last post on my Skyway confinement. My two-week interval expires at 7:20 tonight. Like most Sundays, there’s not much going on within the confines of the Skyway and so I don’t have much planned. I’ll plunge into the system when the doors open at noon, do one last bit of aimless wandering, stop at Target for groceries and hoof it back home in time for the Celtics/Lakers game.
At 7:21pm, I suppose I’ll step outside for a few cleansing breaths, but quite frankly I don’t really want to do anything, at least not right away. There’s nothing that I feel like I’ve been denied during the past two weeks. Indeed, the confinement and research kept me surprisingly occupied, trying new eating options, assessing happy hours and investigating tips by a variety of other Skyway users. The whole experience has left me in more reverent awe of the system than ever. And I was already kind of a scary Skyway enthusiast before this little stunt began.
Last night, my final full night of confinement, in a bit of perfect timing I watched the film “Waydowntown,” a dark comedy about four people who live and work in downtown Calgary, who bet each other a month’s salary to see who can go the longest without going outside the extensive Plus 15 skyway system. The film opens on their 27th day of confinement and they’re all starting to come unwound to varying degrees. By the end of the movie, which largely takes place during the lunch hour, all but one of the characters suffer moderate psychotic breaks and race outside.
I can’t speak for the mental challenges of a competitive confinement, but these two weeks zapped by so fast, with an utter lack of hardship, that I barely noticed that I was confined at all. A surprisingly full life can be enjoyed within the confines of the Skyway. It feels as if I could easily go three, four or eight weeks or more. Apart from my social life taking a serious hit, I don’t see why not. But that, of course would be crazy – at least in summer.
If this is your first “Two weeks in the Skyway” post, you might like to start here.
Kabobs Indian Grill: In my continuing quest to copy Katie Cannon in every way (except for the baby incubating part), I followed her advice and visited Kabobs, located in the 4th floor Gaviidae food court. Here’s a veteran traveler tip for you (actually it’s something new travelers figure out within hours, but in case you’re traveling with slow learners), when you’re out looking for a place to eat in a new destination, a key indicator of whether a place is serving exceptional, authentic food or just gruel for rube tourists is to track how many locals are eating there. If there’s a standing sandwich board menu out front with food pictures, a bunch of people with guidebooks and daybags, and a guy whose sole job is to stand in the street and try to lure in customers (and if it’s within 50 yards of a major tourist site), keep walking. If it’s busy with locals and the servers don’t give two shits whether you stay or go, elbow your way to a seat. Well, frequent Skyway users will have noted the influx of Indians in downtown Minneapolis over the past few years and pretty much all of them were queued up at Kabobs and chatting with the servers like regulars when I arrived. It was very encouraging.
For $5, you get a single, all-you-can-carry pass down the varied buffet. Yesterday there were a number of rice, veggie, noodle and chicken dishes. In the interest of journalist investigation, I had the servers pile on a little of almost everything, including four pieces of naan, until I ran out of space. I can’t intelligently discuss Indian cuisine, so I’ll simply say that every single thing I got was delicious. All of it. Even the small pile of stuff with eggplant that I accidently agreed to take was pretty good. And it was spicy enough to make my nose run, but not make me run screaming from the food court and dive into the Gaviidae fountain. I was stuffed and happy. Kabobs may very well be the best eating value in the Skyway.
8th Street Grill: I had only figured out last week that the 8th Street Grill had a Skyway-connected entrance, so I was pretty amped to investigate what appeared to be a great happy hour. Though it was so busy we were in serious jeopardy of having to stand, we managed to grab just-vacated stools and consume several $4 Strongbows on tap and substantial quesadillas for $7, after the happy hour $2 price break. The best part is that happy hour is 3-7pm Monday through Friday and all day Saturday, so there’s ample opportunity, especially for self-employed Skyway enthusiasts, to cash in on these deals and stagger home without fear of being run over.
If this is your first “Two weeks in the Skyway” post, you might like to start here.
Hell’s Kitchen: Denied my Buddha-given right to huevos rancheros last Sunday due to limited Skyway hours, I tried again yesterday. Though, because I’m an adventure traveler, I decided to up the adrenalin factor by making the trip with a 2 and ½ year old car battery with legs named Jackson. It was Jackson’s first time in the Skyway and he shamelessly broke all the rules. Walking slowly, not holding doors, wanting to be carried… I was mortified, yet, oddly, all the people who observed this behavior smiled approvingly. So, apparently I’ve been doing it all wrong. While I’m out running errands today, I’ll most definitely be testing the “carry me!” theory on various people.
My huevos rancheros were predictably wonderful and Hells’ Kitchen, a place where I’ve received erratic service over the past two years, pulled out all the stops for Jackson and his mother. The slate is clean Hell’s. I’ll disparage your once cadaverous service no more.
Kieran’s Irish Pub: To be perfectly honest, I’m still not sure how I feel about Super Kieran’s, which opened in Block E last spring, abandoning the much loved old location which was subsequently transformed into the early-closing “Old Pub” (which has now tragically closed all together). The move meant the loss of the cherished Kieran’s intimacy, as well as their Strongbow on tap. (Actually, I don’t know exactly when they dropped Strongbow, but I’m sure, wherever I was, I spontaneously burst into tears.) These changes were two big loses for long-time patrons. That said, the food selection at the new location jumped in a gratifying direction and they wisely incorporated a Skyway-connected entrance for us Skyway ninjas. Obviously, more investigation is in order.
A long walk: I have, due to workload and social obligations, been remiss in what I hoped would be one of my regular routines during my two-week Skyway confinement, random exploration. As such, yesterday I made a point of shutting down the office early for a two hour walk while it was still daylight. Among other things, I visited and assessed the inventory in the recently opened Skyway Wine & Spirits in the Six Quebec building; the length of Skyway connecting the western parking ramps, the Target Center, the Twins stadium and the Orpheum Theatre; the tunnels under the Government Center and City Hall and the art display in the Thrivent building. I am very close to having stepped foot on nearly all 83 skyway bridges and visiting all four distant corners of the eight-mile system. Yet I’m still getting lost. I’m starting to realize this may never change.
