Chef Yia Vang’s long-planned, long-awaited formal restaurant, Vinai finally opened in Minneapolis this summer. Along with Diane Moua’s Diane’s Place (which opened in the spring), it immediately became the standard-bearer for high-end Hmong food in the state. Vinai’s opening got a fair bit of positive press, both locally and nationally. Along with Oro, they were included in The New York Times’ 2024 list of 50 best restaurants in the US (or whatever that list is supposed to be about). Well, we’ve been disappointed before by Twin Cities restaurants that have received both local and national acclaim and so it was not without trepidation that I made a reservation in September for dinner at the end of October (by which point I figured the restaurant would have worked out any kinks). We descended on them for that dinner this past weekend. I am very happy to tell you that it was one of the most enjoyable meals we’ve had in the Twin Cities this year. Here are the details. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: October 2024
La Luna, Manso Sahuayo (for Minnesota Agave Society)
It’s been a while since my last mezcal review. This is not because I have stopped drinking mezcal. I’ve been drinking mezcal quite regularly, in fact. But on account of the fact that I am trying to keep the number of open bottles of any type of liquor on my shelves down at a manageable number, I have not opened any new bottles of mezcal in a while. Well, not till last week. My most recent opening is a La Luna release. As it happens, my last three mezcal reviews were also all of La Luna releases; Cupreata, Manso Sahuayo and Tequiliana. This latest was also distilled from Manso Sahuayo but was not a general release. It was bottled for the Minnesota Agave Society, a group based up in the Twin Cities. I recently established contact with a member of the group but I haven’t had time to actually ask about how this bottling came to be (or if they’ve bottled any/many others). I purchased my bottle from Surdyk’s in the summer but it’s also available at other Twin Cities liquor stores (I’ve seen it at South Lyndale Liquors as well). I rather liked my previous bottle of Manso Sahuato (that was Lot 23; this is Lot 76), finding it to be an earthy change of pace from the other mezcals I’ve had. I’m curious to see what this one is like. Continue reading
Spoon and Stable V (Minneapolis)
I put Spoon and Stable in the “once a year” tier in my Twin Cities Fine Dining Rotation a couple of months ago. It was then drawn to my attention offline that it had been two years since my last report on a meal there. To address this situation I made a reservation for dinner there to celebrate the missus’s birthday earlier this month. We descended on them with a couple of friends we have eaten there with before and had a meal that was both very good and simultaneously an illustration of why I have them in the “once a year” tier in the aforementioned rotation and not at a higher frequency. Allow me to explain. Continue reading
Laphroaig Cairdeas 2024, Cask Favorites
Well, I finally found the 2024 Cairdeas in the Twin Cities. I don’t mean to suggest that it had been hard to find until now. For all I know, it’s been out and easily available for a while. It’s just that I had not looked. But a week ago I stopped in at South Lyndale Liquors to buy some salumi (yes, I now go to liquor stores to buy cured meats) and when I took a look at their single malt whisky section, there it was. $85 was the price, I believe—quite reasonable in the current market. I noted two things of interest right away: 1) this is the first Cairdeas since 2011 (at least) to be packaged not in a tube but in a box; 2) it has an age statement. Personally, I prefer tubes to boxes but, really, who gives a fuck? The age statement is interesting though. Not just because it’s 10 years old but because of the way it’s supposed to have been put together. Apparently, this year’s Cairdeas is comprised of whisky from casks of the previous cask strength Cairdeas incarnations of the Triple Wood and PX releases. Why is that interesting? Well, the Triple Wood Cairdeas was released in 2019 and the PX in 2021. So either they’ve vatted leftover Triple Wood casks that were a few years older than 10 years of age with PX casks that just hit that number or the Triple Wood Cairdeas was very young indeed in 2019. Well, I guess that’s not really very interesting. More interesting, or rather, amusing, is that Laphroaig is now apparently approaching the Cairdeas releases the same way I approach bottles I’m not terribly enthused about finishing once they enter the home stretch: by mixing them together and hoping for something more interesting than the originals. Let’s see if that’s what we have here. Continue reading
Dosa Point (Menlo Park, June 2024)
Here is the last of my reports from our side-trip to Northern California in June. As you may recall, we drove up to San Francisco from Los Angeles. On the way up we spent two nights on the central coast (I had reports on Mexican meals in Santa Barbara and Morro Bay). After a few days in San Francisco (meal reports here, here, here, here, here and here), we drove down to Menlo Park for a couple of days. We stayed with old, dear friends from my college days in India. We mostly ate at home with the exception of one lunch eaten after a long hike among the redwoods in Wunderlich Park in Woodside. We were hungry and stopped on the way back at a South Indian place a hop, skip and jump from their place: Dosa Point. Here’s a quick report. Continue reading
Andale, Three Years Later (Richfield, MN)
I think I’d said last week that this week’s Twin Cities restaurant report would be of either a dinner we ate at 112 Eatery last month or the dinner we were scheduled to eat (and did eat) at Spoon and Stable this past weekend. Here, accordingly, is a quick report on lunch eaten at Andale Taqueria in Richfield in August. You’re welcome. This was a quick lunch eaten after a family trip to IKEA. We chose it over Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce and had zero regrets about having done so. This is not a slam on IKEA’s Swedish meatballs and lingonberry sauce, which we enjoy greatly when we partake; it’s just that on this occasion we were in the mood for something with some spice to it. The prospect of also stopping in at Andale’s adjoining mercado sealed the deal. Continue reading
Aberlour 20, 1990 (Single Malts of Scotland)
Last week I reviewed a 19 yo Lagavulin released in 2015. This week I have for you a review of a 20 yo Aberlour released in 2011. This was bottled by Single Malts of Scotland, which was then just one of the Whisky Exchange’s labels. Some years later they spun their independent bottling concern off as a separate concern, Elixir Distillers. But back in December 2011 when I purchased this, all of that was some distance in the future. And you’ll know 2011 was a lot more than 13 years ago when I tell you that this 20 yo single cask whisky at cask strength from a well-known distillery cost all of $77. Well, I’ve finally got around to opening the bottle. As always, I have no idea why I waited so long, especially as I rather enjoy bourbon cask Aberlour—see here, here and here for a few reviews. Most official releases from the distillery involve sherry maturation; in fact, I can’t remember trying an official bourbon cask release that was not a hand-filled distillery exclusive. Alas, when I was at the distillery in 2018—when I did one of their tours with a friend—they did not have any casks available for hand-filling, leave alone any bourbon casks. Anyway, let’s get to this one now. Continue reading
Henry’s Cuisine (Los Angeles, June 2024)
Okay, let’s get back to California in June. I still have one more report to come from our trip within a trip to the Bay Area (when last seen, we’d eaten excellent dim sum at City View) but I’m going to scoot back down to the greater L.A metro, where we spent a few more days after driving back from the north. Our first meal out after our return was eaten with old friends at Henry’s Cuisine in Alhambra (in the San Gabriel Valley). We had actually been scheduled to eat dinner there with them before we left for the Bay Area but those plans had to be scrapped. I’m very glad we made it in after all for this was an excellent lunch. Here’s a quick look. Continue reading
Grand Szechuan, October 2024 (Bloomington, MN)
My last two Twin Cities restaurant reports have been from the high end of the market: Oro and Tenant. Let’s now go back to the more affordable end of the price spectrum. Price, of course, has no necessary bearing on quality or enjoyment of a meal; and it certainly doesn’t when the affordable meal is at Grand Szechuan in Bloomington. As I’ve said before, it is our family’s favourite restaurant in Minnesota, and is the place we eat at more than any other. It having been a dangerously long time since our last meal there (about two months ago), we went back this weekend for a bit of a blowout lunch. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Lagavulin 19, 1995 for Feis Ile 2014
I still haven’t gotten my hands on a bottle of the Feis Ile release I was expecting to review this fall. I am referring, of course, to the 2024 Laphroaig Cairdeas. For all I know, it’s been in Minnesota for a while: I just haven’t stopped in at a liquor store for a while—if you’ve seen it around somewhere locally, please drop me a line. In the meantime, here’s a review of a Feis Ile release from ten years ago. You are welcome. This was Lagavulin’s release for 2014. The total release was of 3500 bottles, which tells you a number of casks were involved—as your average sherry butt holds between 475-500 liters. Those casks were all European oak sherry casks and were all filled on January 30, 1995, which would make this whisky 19 years old. When sherry cask Lagavulin is good, it’s really, really good. Such were the 2013 and 2015 Feis Ile releases, both of which I’ve reviewed on the blog (here and here). I’m also remembering the 12 year old Lagavulin for Friends of the Classic Malts, which was also a 1995 distillation and which might also have been from European oak casks (I’m too lazy to go down to the whisky lair and check the label on my last surviving bottle). Anyway, let’s see what this one is like. Continue reading
Oro III (Minneapolis)
It’s been a big year and change for Oro. They opened in the summer of 2023 and at the end of the year were named the Restaurant of the Year by the Star Tribune. This spring they were on the shortlist for a James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant (in the entire country). And just last month they landed on the 2024 edition of the New York Times‘ The Restaurant List, which they describe as a list of “[O]ur 50 favorite places in America right now”. It was already not easy to get prime time dinner reservations in Oro’s small dining room and now it’s going to be that much harder. Thankfully, I had made reservations for our next dinner there not too long after our second visit in July (the first was last November). And so this past weekend we ate there for the second time this year. Did we enjoy the dinner as much as we had the the first two? Read on to find out. Continue reading
September/October 2024
Another month in the books and it was yet another month of high traffic on the blog, with the highest-ever totals registered for monthly page views and unique visitors. I have no idea what’s driving all this traffic. I’d like to believe that the world is finally waking up to my genius but it’s probably just a combination of some transient Google algorithm quirk and the automated WordPress.com SEO tools doing their thing. I certainly have not been doing anything differently this year. I post on the blog and add links to my Twin Cities restaurant reports to a few Facebook groups and that’s it; in fact, I’ve even stopped posting links on the blog’s own Facebook page as the site made it really difficult to do so a few months ago. And it’s not even Twin Cities restaurant reports that are driving the traffic, as you will see below. Once again, the most viewed posts of the month were travel reports from outside the US and I have not been plugging those anywhere really. Whatever the reason, the stats for 2024 as a whole are already past 2023’s numbers, with a whole quarter of the year still to go. So, what were people looking at the most in September? Continue reading