We didn’t eat out in the Twin Cities this past weekend because we weren’t in the Twin Cities this past weekend. If you pay attention to my posts on Instagram you’ll know that we were in New York and New Jersey for a few days. We ate out more than a couple of times on that trip and reports on those meals will start showing up on the blog once I get done with my remaining reports from our summer’s travels in Japan, South Korea and India. Today, however, I do have a Twin Cities report for you, as per usual. That’s because I had a report in my back pocket from August and September. We had lunch together as a family at La Hacienda back in August between errands in Minneapolis; and then a few weeks later I went back by myself on the way back from an outing to get some knives sharpened (at Eversharp Knives). Here is a quick look at both meals together. Continue reading
Category Archives: *Food
Hot Grainz IV (St. Paul, MN)
We left home on Saturday with the intention of meeting friends for lunch at a new(ish) Lao restaurant in St. Paul. Alas, we arrived to find they were randomly closed that day. To salvage the situation we headed to Hot Grainz, a mere 10 minutes drive away, down the other end of W. 7th St. We arrived to find some sort of art extravaganza in progress in the larger Schmidt’s complex. This meant we had to park quite a bit further away in the complex than we had on our first visit to their new location; but we did find parking easily enough. As we walked up to the restaurant, our hearts sank: there was yellow construction tape across the windows! Were they shut too? Thankfully, no: it turned out to be part of their Halloween decorations. Having been properly frightened we needed some good, hot food to restore us. And so it came to pass. Herewith the details. Continue reading
Gwanghwamun Gukbap II (Seoul, July 2025)
As I head into the home stretch with my meal reports from our week in Seoul in July, here is a very quick look at our last dinner in the city. For this meal we went back to a restaurant we ate at in February 2024: Gwanghwamun Gukbap. The restaurant is located off Gwanghwamun Square and is known for its gukbap (clear broth with rice). In 2024 we had gone there specifically to eat the gukbap, and we did eat it. But we didn’t go back this on account of the gukbap. In fact, we didn’t even order it at this meal. No, we went back for two other dishes: another that we had eaten and loved at our previous meal and one that we had very much regretted not ordering at that meal when we saw it going out to tables all around us. Were there any regrets at this meal? Read on to find out. Continue reading
Apgujeong Miyeokguk (Seoul, July 2025)
The Seoul reports roll on. Apgujeong is the name of a neighbourhood; miyeokguk (or mieyok guk) refers to seaweed soup. Apgujeong Miyeokguk is the name of a restaurant in Apgujeong that specializes in Miyeokguk. We only went to Apgujeong, a part of the tony Gangnam district, once during our longer stay in Seoul in 2024—it’s where we went to watch the second Dune movie—and didn’t eat there. But we had a post-lunch meeting there in the afternoon on the day after our arrival in July and it seemed easiest to grab a bite somehere near the meeting. We’d not actually planned to eat at Apgujeong Miyeokguk. We were looking for some fried chicken place or the other but it didn’t seem to be where the map had told us it would be. Walking around, we passed Apgujeong Miyeokguk. It looked busy and it looked good and so we went in. And it was indeed good. Here is a quick look at our meal. Continue reading
Legendary Spice 4 (Minneapolis)
About 10 minutes into lunch at Legendary Spice this past weekend, the missus turned to the rest of us and said, you know, this might actually be the best Sichuan restaurant in the Twin Cities. We were dining with friends who are core members of our Grand Szechuan crew and none of us could quite muster up a rebuttal. The truth is both restaurants are very good indeed. But we eat at Grand Szechuan very often and have developed a deep familiarity with their menu. This familiarity, tended over more than a decade, has bred love, not contempt; but it is true that Legendary Spice’s somewhat different repertoire of Sichuan dishes sometimes feels fresher by contrast. This was certainly the case on Sunday when not one dish was less than excellent. Here are the details. Continue reading
Manbae Arirang (Seoul, July 2025)
Back to Seoul. My previous report from our visit to the city in July covered a dinner centered on grilled pork. Today I have for you a lunch centered on pork, but this time it’s not grilled. We were at a branch of Manbae Arirang, a bossam specialist. Manbae Arirang has been around since the late 1980s and are known for their near exclusive focus on bossam or boiled/simmered and sliced pork, eaten with a range of condiments and wraps. This is one of my very favourite Korean dishes/meals. Manbae Arirang apparently uses a special cut of Korean pork belly for their bossam and are known for a lighter, non-greasy take on the dish. There are a number of branches scattered around the city. We were at the Gongdeok location, getting in quick lunch before a spot of business at the nearby Fulbright office. Continue reading
Sangeetha (Delhi, July 2025)
This was my first trip to Delhi with the family on which we did not eat a single meal at Cafe Lota. This is not because there’s been a decline in quality at Cafe Lota since I ate there in March. It’s because parental complications on the day we met the friend I/we always eat lunch at Cafe Lota with meant that we had to be back home not too late in the afternoon. And so rather than drive all the way to Pragati Maidan from Gurgaon, we shaved 40-60 minutes off the round-trip by driving to Green Park. Our destination? The first Delhi outlet of Sangeetha, a Chennai-based South Indian chain with a very strong reputation. Continue reading
Hwapo Sikdang (Seoul, July 2025)
Back to Seoul. So far I have reported on meals eaten during our week-long visit in July that centered on fried chicken, noodle soup and dumplings, naengmyeon, and the pleasures of Gwangjang Market. Here now is a report on the first of two meals centered on what in the US is one of the most iconic genres of Korean food: grilled meat. Arguably, in the US Korean bbq is mostly identified with grilled beef, with pork as a sort of handmaiden. Beef is probably in the ascendancy in Korea as well but, unlike in most American cities with established Korean communities and food scenes, there are a large number of establishments that focus on pork, and specifically on Korean pork. We happened on one of them, more or less by accident, while wandering the area around Namdaemun Market in seach of dinner: Hwapo Sikdang. Continue reading
Inja (Delhi, July 2025)
This meal represents one of the worst choices I’ve made in recent trips to Delhi. Not, I hasten to clarify, on account of the meal itself. No, the terrible decision was to make plans that needed us to drive from Gurgaon to Friends Colony on a weeknight. No one who lives in the Delhi NCR will be surprised to hear this but it took us more than two hours to get from DLF Phase 1 to Friends Colony. Total distance? 16 km or 10 miles. After this ordeal the dinner, at Inja in the Manor Hotel, would have needed to have been very good to not be disappointing. I am happy to say that it was indeed very good. Almost as happy as I am to say that the return journey took only 45 minutes. Read on for the details (on the meal, not the return journey, which was uneventful). Continue reading
All Saints (Minneapolis)
All Saints opened in North East Minneapolis just about four years ago. They received acclaim from the local press almost immediately. Cynics—not me, of course—might say that it’s hard to find a high-end restaurant in these parts that hasn’t received high acclaim from the local press. But in this case the acclaim from the press was matched by a number of regular readers of this blog who wrote in behind the scenes to recommend I eat there or to ask why I hadn’t already eaten there. The answer to that question is partly that the thing that had impressed itself on my mind from the early press was that this was a restaurant with not much meat on the menu. Now, I like my vegetables but when I go out to eat I do like to have a number of fleshly options. And so they receded from view a bit. When I looked at their website again recently I noted that the menu is described as “veg forward, meat friendly”. Perhaps this slogan has always been on the menu but I’m not sure what it means right now when 50% of the menu comprises meat dishes. Well, one of the things it means is that I made a reservation and we finally descended on them this past weekend, accompanied by a couple of friends we eat out with often. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Mizo Diner 2 (Delhi, July 2025)
I ate at Mizo Diner for the first time in March 2024 and I had it on my list of my favourite meals of the year. I’d hoped to get back there during my solo trip to Delhi last December but it didn’t end up happening. And it didn’t happen on my solo trip this March either. But in July I finally made it back again. I don’t think it will end up on my list of best meals of 2025—there’s a bit too much competition in the casual/affordable category from our Japan trip—but it was a very good meal again. Back in 2024 the missus and I had met an old friend there. This time we took the boys along with us, being more confident a year and a half later that their palates had expanded enough for them to enjoy what for them are the more unfamiliar flavours of North East Indian food. It was a good bet: they loved it too. Herewith the details. Continue reading
Grand Szechuan, September 2025 (Bloomington, MN)
I regret to inform that till this past weekend it had somehow been almost five months since we’d last eaten at Grand Szechuan. I blame our summer travels and the fact that most of the friends we typically go there with were out of town when we got back. On the other hand, I am very happy to inform that is now only three days since our last meal at Grand Szechuan. We went back for lunch this Sunday with most of our aforementioned crew of Grand Szechuan regulars and did our usual excessive order. We got a mix of all-time favourites and dishes that we had not ordered in a while. Do I need to say that it was an excellent meal? Well, it was. Continue reading
Nene Chicken (Seoul, July 2025)
Let’s keep the Seoul reports rolling. When last seen we were eating noodle soup and dumplings at Myeondong Kyoja. Today I have for you a fried chicken report. We ate fried chicken on a few occasions on our previous, longer stay in Seoul in Feb/March of 2024. One of those meals was at an outpost of one of the major fried chicken chicken chains, Kyochon. On this trip we ate it at an outpost of another major fried chicken chain, Nene Chicken. Kyochon was founded at the start of the 1990s and Nene Chicken was founded at the end of the decade. While perhaps not quite as well-known in the US as Kyochon and some of the other major players that have set up franchises here, Nene Chicken has a very large presence in South Korea as well as in East and South East Asia (and also Australia, New Zealand and Canada). Most importantly for our needs, they had a location a couple of minutes walk from our flat in Cheongpa-dong. Continue reading
Myeongdong Kyoja (Seoul, July 2025)
My previous report from Seoul was of dinner at Nampo Myeonok. That meal was centered on naengmyeon. My report today is of a lunch at another of Seoul’s venerable restaurants. This meal was also centered on noodles and noodle soups, none of which were naengmyeon. We were at Myeongdong Kyoja, a restaurant, famous for their food and also for only having four dishes on the menu between April and October (and only three between November and March). We were there in July. There were four dishes on the menu and there were four of us there to eat, and so we got one of everything; it was the right thing to do. Continue reading
Moti Mahal (Gurgaon, July 2025)
On Tuesday I posted a brief report on lunch at one of the Gurgaon outposts of the North Indian restaurant, Daryaganj. Most of the post was in fact taken up with their battle with the more established restaurant, Moti Mahal, specifically over the ownership of the claim to have originated butter chicken and dal makhani. You can (re)read that post to catch up on the saga but the key facts are these: Moti Mahal was founded in 1947 by three partners, one of whom, K.L Gujral was long-identified with the restaurant and credited as the inventor of butter chicken. The grandson of one of the other partners, K.L Jaggi, opened Daryaganj with a partner a year after his grandfather’s death (and 27 years after he’d exited Moti Mahal) with the marketing claim that it was in fact his grandfather who’d originated butter chicken and dal makhani, thus claiming that history for his new restaurant. A court case later both restaurants are now claiming to have done so. At the M3M IFC complex in Gurgaon they’re doing so within a few hundred feet of each other and 10 days after eating at that branch of Daryaganj we went back to M3M and ate at Moti Mahal. Revisionist/competing historical claims aside, which did we like better? Read on to find out. Continue reading
Tenant XIV (Minneapolis)
We ate a very good dinner at Tenant in June before heading off on our summer travels. At the end of my report on that meal I said that we hoped to be back later in the summer to eat the current version of their tomato water course. That tomato water course—more a genre than a specific dish—is one of our two favourite culinary ways to mark the transition from late-summer to fall in Minnesota; Alma’s chilled corn soup is the other. We ate the corn soup at our dinner at Alma in August; and I’m happy to say that when we did make it back to Tenant a couple of weeks later there was indeed a tomato water dish as part of the proceedings. I’m even happier to say that both it and the menu as a whole were excellent, surpassing our previous dinner. Here are the details. Continue reading
Daryaganj (Gurgaon, July 2025)
Revisionist history has been rife in Indian politics for some time now; and so it seems only fitting that it should now also be present in the restaurant world. I am referring not to the many lies Indian restaurants put on menus about village recipes and chefs’ grandmothers but to a very specific and high profile controversy between two Delhi restaurants: Moti Mahal and Daryaganj. The name Moti Mahal may be familiar to you if you have read up on the history of North Indian restaurant food. It was founded in Daryaganj in Old Delhi in 1947 by three friends who had left Peshawar for Delhi during Partition. This is the restaurant at which the previous night’s tandoori chicken was recycled into a rich tomato gravy, thus giving birth to butter chicken (they also lay claim to dal makhani). This has been accepted history for some time now. Well, until 2019 anyway. That’s when a new restaurant named Daryaganj opened, which also claims to be the inventor of butter chicken and dal makhani. Now, you may be wondering how a restaurant that opened in 2019 can lay claim to dishes that everyone agrees another had been making since 1947. That’s where things get spicy. Read on. Continue reading