Mecca Bos

A cooperative convenience store. With a dining room. And classes.

Some things in life are non-negotiables. Toilet paper, tampons, pints of premium ice cream, cat food, nicoise salads. Wait, what?

If a co-op squished itself into roughly the confines of a convenience store, or better yet, a New York City bodega, and then added a bar, a tight little bakery, made to order salads, paninis, and burritos, plus wi-fi and classes on how to brew your own kombucha, well, we'd pretty much call it heaven. But you can call it the Wedge Table.

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Wedge Table on Eat Street Now Open With Grab-and-Go Market and Cafe

Mecca Bos

Mea culpa Musubi

One of the cardinal rules of food is not to "yuck" somebody else's "yum," a pretty tricky proposition for a food critic. That said, one should at least try the yuck prior to, you know, yucking it.

Last week I got into some hot water for making assumptions about the intersection of big ag products like Hormel and ethnic food traditions. Musubi is nothing more than Spam sushi, the beloved Hawaiian food tradition, with a cool name. I promised I'd research and try it, a practice one should always adhere to before any sermon. And so I did.

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The Spam Food Truck Brutally Spurns the Twin Cities

Like the holdout punk house that refuses to gentrify along with the neighborhood, the Country Bar was always that reliable dive with the cheap, strong pours, the greasy chicken wings (and greasy atmosphere), and the great jukebox. It's been shuttered for more than a year, without much in the way of an alternative for hard-drinkin' good times in the area.

Good news, hearty imbibers, we shall meet again under the brown and orange awnings, as early as this summer.

See also:
Best Dive Bar Minneapolis 2012 - Country Bar and Grill

Photo courtesy of Keepsake Cidery

Beer lovers in the Twin Cities are taken care of, but many cider drinkers are wondering when the taps will turn toward their tastes. After all, Minnesota is known for its dynamic orchard industry.

This summer, Keepsake Cidery will marry local orchard and cider in a collaborative venture with Woodskeep Orchard in Dundas.

See also:
Sociable Cider Werks Hoping Cans Will Bring Cider to a New Audience

Photo courtesy of Heartland Facebook Page

Heartland chef/owner Lenny Russo is a busy man. He's approaching the 13-year anniversary of his Midwest-focused restaurant Heartland along with the five-year anniversary in its present location, he's opening a new quick-service wine bar (projected opening, May), he's making sausages for the Saints Ballpark. He's representing Minnesota in the World Expo Milano 2015, a global showcase where more than 140 participating countries will show the best of their technology that offers a concrete answer to a vital need: being able to guarantee healthy, safe, and sufficient food for everyone, while respecting the planet and its equilibrium. He will be presenting two dinners at the James Beard Pop Up Restaurant (he is also a 2015 Beard nominee).

And, he's got a new cookbook. It drops in stores in October, but you can pre-order yours on Amazon now. "I'm like Sisyphus," says Russo.

See also:
Heartland Restaurant and Farm Direct Market: The tour

Mecca Bos

Prairie Dogs is now open late, until midnight every night. So let Pliny the Elder ease you into morning with a booze-absorbent foie dog.

Bust out the calendar for this one, and the big red sharpie, and the pocketbook. There's lots of good stuff to see, do, eat, drink, and buy this week and all summer. Here are 10 we like.

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Brown Liquor Is for Ladies: A Women's Whiskey Event in Wayzata

Mecca Bos

The prep kitchen at Brasserie Zentral, Minneapolis's big, serious, continental cuisine fine-dining powerhouse, is underground. It's one of those underbelly of the beast numbers, like in great big old hotels, where all the serious business gets done -- the dish pit, the walk-ins, the dry storage cages that get locked up by night, the wine cellar. There are no windows, and it's an austere, not particularly cheerful place. But there in the corner is a flash of color. Pastry chef LaShaw Castellano prefers to call her little slice of the kitchen "The aquarium," and it sports squishy fish decals. I'm a little incredulous. Russell Klein is famously one of the most no-nonsense, some say brusque, chefs in town. He cut his chops in New York, let's just say. "Chef lets you get away with that?"

"Oh yeah," she replies, like it's no bid deal. Inside, it's quiet and peaceful. The whole place pops with color like a still life of a pack of Lifesavers, so I'm not surprised when I ask her to define her culinary style: "To infuse it with as much surprise and color as possible."

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Get quick breakfast, lunch, and an exemplary blueberry muffin at Cafe Zentral

Loren Green

Keeping up with the newest beers and breweries in the Twin Cities is like a full-time job. Minneapolis's newest brewery, 56 Brewing, will add to your workload this week, offering a preview of their lineup at Grumpy's NE and pouring all four of their flagships at a discounted price.

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Northeast's Newest Brewery Will Offer Subscriptions for Beer

Forget the taproom, Sidhe Brewing Company, set to open on St. Paul's East Side next month, knows it's about getting the beer into the marketplace. They aren't letting the hold-up of their final taproom inspections get in the way, either. Instead, they're taking their beers next door to El Señor Sol for a series of tap takeovers, which started last weekend and will take place again this weekend, April 24-25.

See also:
Sidhe Brewing's Kathleen Culhane on the craft brewing "boys' club"

Photo courtesy of luvafoodie.com

Call yourself what you will -- foodie, gastronome, gourmet, gastronaut, epicure -- the general public might just call you annoying. Why? Because when we get among our people, there's no getting us off of the subject of eating and drinking. Are you grating Himalaya sea salt with a microplane? Because I am. Did you see the way Spoon and Stable side-plated that canapé? Crazy! Mexican Coke is going to corn syrup! The horror! And now, your date, the plastic surgeon who never eats anything unless it's Paleo, is glazing over like a donut. This is never gonna work out.

Time to shut down that Match.com and head over to Luvafoodie.

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Cheap Date Night