Broder's Pasta Bar

Occasion: Family dinner

Location: Broder's on Penn Ave South in Minneapolis (broders.com)

Edibles: clams in white wine; sausage pizza; caprese salad; pasta with salad greens, asparagus, chicken, mascarpone and balsamic; lobster fettucine; pappardelle with wild boar ragu; lemon ricotta cheesecake and tiramisu for dessert

Musings: I would totally eat at Broder's if it was in New York - and that's pretty much my highest compliment for out-of-town eats. The restaurant was bustling and close to full occupancy even at 5:30, and it's not hard to see why. The décor was clean and modern with some kitschy touches - I loved the metal collanders used as lampshades. The prices were more than reasonable and every dish was outstanding.

The pizza had a wonderful yeasty crust and I couldn't resist a second slice. My favorite of the pastas (all fresh and homemade) was the pappardelle, but an honorable mention goes to the chicken one. It had a lot of surprising ingredients that could have disastrous together but which, instead, melded together into a very unusual and refreshing dish. A great gastronomic mind conceived that dish.

Highly recommended!!

La Belle Vie

Occasion: Family dinner
Location: La Belle Vie on Groveland Ave in Minneapolis (labellevie.us)
Edibles: five-course tasting menu - gougères and a tuna amuse bouche to kick off; scallop crudo with fennel; skate with an artichoke ravioli; poussin with fava beans and ramps; a Mediterranean-y lamb dish; mascarpone cake with rhubarb compote for dessert, and petit fours

Musings: Tasty, but another restaurant for the anorexic model in your life. The portions were teeny tiny - I've never before, for example, been served a single poussin breast. There was between two and three bites of every protein. At $65 dollars a head, they really should be more generous with their serving sizes.

Dining room was a bit stiff and formal, the sort of place you might take your grandmother for a special occasion. The bar / lounge looked a little livelier, but only works for smaller parties. As I said, the food was good and certainly elegantly prepared but I was disappointed with the overall experience.

Baker's Square

Occasion: Search for nostalgic pie from my dad's student days / post-hike snack
Location: Baker's Square on W. 66th in Minneapolis
Edibles: pie all around - Hawaiian strawberry for my dad, blueberry for my mom, key lime for my brother, cherry for my sister, and strawberry cream cheese pie for me

Musings: My top priority for this Minneapolis trip was to get some of this pie, if it was still around to be had:

(Yep, that's me, circa 1982. A pie fiend since toddlerhood.)

Didn't help matters that my dad can't remember the name or location of the place. An old geezer running the tram at Lake Harriet thought it might be Baker's Square, so we checked it out.

Sadly, I don't think this is the place. You walk in, and it doesn't even smell like a bakery, i.e., like you could gain 5 lbs just from inhaling deeply. It's a Denny's-type chain and, while the pie was okay, it was hardly a slice of heaven that a person remembers fondly thirty years later.

Pie from my childhood, are you still out there somewhere?

Zelo

Occasion: Dinner with my sister
Location: Zelo on Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis (zelomn.com) - blog goes on the road!
Edibles: fried calamari app to share; my sister had a salad with shrimp, goat cheese and pine nuts; I had linguine with local ham and baby peas in a cream sauce

Musings: With family members flying in from LAX, EWR and YVR, logistical difficulties were bound to arise. My flight and my sister's landed mostly on schedule, but the folks and my brother got seriously delayed out of Vancouver. So much for a family dinner on Friday. Still, after a lunch / snack consisting of airplane pretzels and a little container of bland pasta salad smuggled on board from my office cafeteria, I was determined to have a nice dinner. And a big glass of wine. (Traveling on a long weekend BLOWS.)

The lady at our hotel's front desk recommended this place. Certainly not my first choice for local info, but Zelo turned out to be pretty decent.

[Incidentally, I have yet to find a good shorthand way to describe exactly what it is I'm looking for. Namely, a place that's nice but not too fancy or expensive, where the menu is small and seasonal and the chef is creative, but not weird, and cares deeply about what comes out of his kitchen. What I'd like to say - but can't because it would make me sound like a tool - is, "I live in New York City. I know from good food."]

The Italian was solid. The serving of calamari was huge and came with a nice garlicky aioli for dipping. The half portion of my pasta was plenty, as is almost always the case with cream-based sauces. My sister's salad was a little puny, but the shrimp were good.

Here's the unexpected part. We looked over the menu to see what we could get for takeout for my parents. "Anything Asian?" asked my sister. "I doubt it - this is an Italian restaurant," I replied. But lo and behold, there was a Thai shrimp noodle dish and an Asian sesame salad with chicken. My mom quite liked both. Not a bad start to our trip.