Thai Princess
Taking on the Twin Cities one bite at a time
Friday night I had a powerful craving for some Cheng's Garden take out (612.821.1111) Back when I lived in the shining valley of the Phillips neighborhood, I'd discovered this great little hole-in-the-wall Chinese food take out place. It's a family run joint in the strip mall across from Ghetto Kmart and the little girl that used to do her homework in the corner is now running the cash register and answering the phones in Mandarin, Spanish or English. Cheng actually remembered me when I went in there - which was awesome. I remember when I had to tell him that Steamed Dumplings had dumped me, and it would only be a single order of Pork Fried Rice from here on out. Or his confusion when I showed up with Sweet & Sour Chicken, who would eventually become Mr. Pork Fried Rice Combo. It was great to be there and I laughed at myself for how nervous the city used to make me. (Understandably, I moved from the sunny country side to North Minneapolis gang warfare to crack house Phillips. I was a little jumpy in general.)
I was able to try to the new Taste of Thailand in downtown Minneapolis when Eric & I got together for lunch yesterday. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I've really never gotten the whole Taste of Thailand thing. A lot of friends of mine went to Mac and went there with a near religious frequency, but every time I ate there I was profoundly underwhelmed. Still, it's a new restaurant in downtown and I was dying for a little food and company.
What is UP with this place? Why can't they pull it together. I'd heard the Doug Flicker from my dear, departed Auriga was working the kitchen at Mission American Kitchen these days. First, I sent over one of my unsuspecting coworkers, but one whose taste I trust and he reported back that it wasn't all that great. The food was still where it's been stuck for what seems like ages - it's just not that great!
I've got a fever and the only prescription is... a road trip!! Obviously, I'm dying to take advantage of the convertible weather if I'm willing to travel to Wisconsin in a rain storm for a burger. Lucky for me, I had a friend, I had a reason and I had some extra vacation time to take. J.Lo and I knew that we were going to go somewhere this weekend, but where? There were so many options? That's when I remembered about this. The Judy Garland festival happened to be the same weekend in my lovely hometown of Grand Rapids Minnesota!
We walked through this door and into the kitchen of the bakery. We were both a little embarrassed and mostly confused. "Is... is it okay that we're... here?" Laura asked. Everyone working there was so friendly. They just ushered us down a hall and into the front of the bakery. I was hoping that they would have this bread that I've been missing terribly. At the Virgina Coop near where my Grandma lives they would get bread from these guys that was blue cheese, wild rice bread and it is incredible. The blue cheese gives it this sourdough tang and the wild rice adds a nice woody flavor, but it isn't overly grainy or sour. It's delicious and I was sad to learn it's only made on Thursdays. Dammit! What they were running on special was a tomato Parmesan bread and a rhubarb fritter bread that looked tempting, covered in white icing. The tomato bread was riddling with tomatoes and glossy with gobs of cheese. I purchased one of each. The girl behind the counter recommended wiping the icing off and using the rhubarb bread for French toast. She said it makes the absolute best French toast. Hmmm, I'd have to try that. After tasting the tomato bread I wanted to make a soup to dunk it in. This stuff was outstanding, herby and comforting. Man, I wish this bakery was closer. Elk River is not someplace that I really want to spend a lot of time.
We were both famished and decided to try a place called Daddio's. It was overly kitchy and the food was... meh, it was okay. Nothing all that great. I have a feeling that we should have ordered the shakes, but I couldn't bring myself to say "shake" after staring at this Elvis thing the whole time. I get where they're going, but this just wasn't working for me. As we left I saw a bar/grill right next door, dim and smokey. THAT'S where we should have gone for lunch! No more eating anywhere without a full bar!
It was a gorgeous drive up and the perfect day for it. We were rockin' to Madonna and reliving glory days, bitching about work and laughing in the wind. Good times. J.Lo's a good road tripper.We arrived at the Sawmill and quickly unpacked. I was so anxious to get out and show her around town - which took all of five minutes. We went to the mall, which is just sad. There's a book store, a Vanity and the jewelry store that my childhood's friend's dad owns. That took all of 10 minutes. We walked across the street to see if Janicky's Bakery was still there. They make the best donuts that I've ever had, but they were already closed. Apparently, G.R. closes at exactly 5:30 p.m. Pretty much the whole town is just done at that point. We drove around more until Laura shouted "Wine Bar!"
"What?"
"There's a wine bar back there."
"In the parking lot?" Still, this is me we're talking about, so I whipped around and we were able to find it. In the parking lot, across from what used to be Ogle's IGA is now the Rivers Wine Bar. I was surprised to see a couple of other people in there. We went in and bellied up to the bar. The guy who owns the place bought it with his wife, son (sitting there in a Tasmanian Devil T-shirt - how classy) and a couple of other investors. He said they had a lake house up there and had wanted to make a permanent move and loved going to Cesare's in Stillwater. I said I knew of the place - okay, lied and said I'd been there (almost went there, until I looked at the prices - yikes! I have to budget for those kinds of experiences.) He kept going on and on and ON about SAYsharAY! SAYsharAY!!!! Shut up already! Against our better judgement we ordered an Italian wine flight that was mostly undrinkable. The wine list was really inconsistent, too. They had Jacob Creek's Shriaz under something else that was priced at $12 a glass. That's an insane amount of money for a town of blue collar workers. That's for the tourists, which I guess I was.
We decided to order a couple of the amuses listed on the menu. And the menu did sound delightful, I just wasn't feeling up to spending that much money on what was supposed to be a low budget weekend. We ordered the crab cake and the zucchini rolls.
The crab cake was huge and stuffed with tons of crab. I'm not always a fan, but this was one of the better crab cakes I've ever had. This was NOT an amuse bouche, though. The thing was almost the size of one of these plates. It came with three little sauces, one was overly sweet, one was the sweet and sour sauce that comes with Sweet and Sour Chicken number 4 at the take out place by my house and the third was divine. I'm the Goldy Locks of dipping sauces. It was a pale, creamy green with just a teeny hint of wasabi on the back note. It was really good and I was still marveling at the fact that I'm sitting in a gorgeous little wine bar in Grand Rapids, MN. This is the town that I fled at 18, content to live in a camper with two of the filthiest dudes I've ever known and a busted, crusty, smelly septic tank. That was more appealing to me than stifling in this little burg and now I'm experiencing fine dining in that same spot? WHAT! I mean, I was about a block down from where my friend Jeremy got busted selling acid to some hair metal space case and I'm sipping a gorgeous little Sangiovese?! It was blowing my mind more than those four tabs of acid put that stoner kid over the edge. Wacky. I was jolted out of my reverie by the taste of the zucchini roll. These were wretched! They were seasoned with dried oregano and fennel seeds - ruining the creamy, mellow flavor of the goat cheese wrapped within them. Blech. It was beautiful, but it was getting to me and if this codger mentioned Cesare's one more time I was going to upend this carafe of old wine over his head.
Time to get real. We left and thanked the family for everything, and went to the Voo. The Rendezvous II is the most popular bar in Rapids for my age group. I thought it would be funny to go in there and see if we ran into anybody I knew. Unfortunately, it was still light outside and there was almost no one in there. Five dudes at the bar and an old couple dining in the back. We walked up to the bar and I asked the guy clutching a mug in one hand and a pitcher of beer in the other if anyone was sitting next to him - I was just being polite. I didn't ever think that he was sharing that pitcher with anybody. "You are." He answered. Just after I'd perched myself next to him he let out this terrific, "Blllllluuuuuuuaaaarrrrrrkkkkkkkkkkkkkk." Nice. I've met the Rapids answer to Springfield's Barney! It was obvious we weren't really welcome there. We just had one and left. I left shouting, "You haven't seen the last of us!!" But I'm all talk.
We went back to the Sawmill and planning on just having a couple then heading back to the room to order some pizza. As we were just sipping our first cocktail, two guys at the bar sent us over drinks. First a wine bar and now I'm getting hit on!? What? Where was all of this when I was working over my morbid poetry and crying to Counting Crows songs? (Because the Cure would be too obvious.) Turns out that they were a couple of farmers in for... something. I stopped listening after that. The one was drinking what I think was Reunitie out of a carafe (it was bubbly red wine, whatever that could possibly be) and the other guy was sporting an enormous silver belt buckle. Once Belt Buckle noticed my ring, he was done talking to me. I hung with the Mr. Reunitie for a bit, but he was pretty hammered. J.Lo and I were a little disappointed that there was no piano in the bar or anything. We'd read online that there was to be a Judy Garland song sing along. Up until now, there was very little evidence of this so called "festival." The bartender told us that there was a 40th birthday party going on and that was just about all Laura needed to hear. When she has a couple she loves to dance.
While she and Belt Buckle were cutting a rug in Trina's honor (the only reason I remember the birthday girl's name is that they were giving out chocolates with her picture and name on them. About a dozen of those ended up in our room.) I met this guy!
No not the front blurry guy, the back image that looks like a scene from one of those Haunted House shows on the Discovery channel. (Drunk Picture Taking is added to the list of don't do after Drunk Dialing and Drunk texting.)
It was the Scarecrow!! And the guy was HILARIOUS!! Totally in character. I chased the poor guy all over the hotel trying to get a decent picture and he didn't call security on me or anything! After that little escapade I had a warm, fuzzy feeling and started to theorize what it meant for me to be there at this time in my life. Embarrassingly enough, I wrote all this stuff down and NO I'm not gonna tell you what it says because it's more embarrassing than my 8th Grade diary. It does remind me that I parted ways with Mr. Reunitie by telling him we'd meet him in the hot tub. And the telling last line, "But the real question of the night is, where's Laura?" Laura had danced the party out and I was wandering back to our room when I found her under Belt Buckle's tender care. He was helping her back, but she couldn't remember what room we were in. I got her back to our room and left her in the bathroom for what I swear was just a second. She must have sat down and pitched forward in that time, because she was laying face down when I checked on her. I tried to pick her up but she looked at me and said, "Joy? No." I tugged on her again. "No.... Joy? No." Like she knew something that I didn't - like I was the one being unreasonable here! So, there I left her. I gave her a pillow, though, which shows I'm not a total witch (Wait? Am I the Wicked Witch of the East? Cool!) And this was only the beginning.
I was surprised when Laura joined me for breakfast the next day. She looked a little pale, but other than that, ready and rarin'. She ordered what's gotta be the greatest hangover breakfast ever, the "Farmer's Breakfast" of hash browns, scrambled eggs and shaved ham doused in "cheese sauce" which you know is just Cheese Whiz. But, wow did that look like it was gonna cure what ailed her. Then it was back in the car to show her some of the sights. For the first time, I was able to drive all the way to where my house used to live. I felt like I'd finally been able to let go of some invisible burden I'd been carrying with me for years. It felt good to be home. Or at least near to home. I saw a feather on the ground and picked it up. I don't know why, but it felt significant.
"Ew!! Is that bird feather?" Laura said from the car.
"Yeah."
"Put it down! Rabies!"
"What?"
"Rabies! Birds can get rabies."
I looked at the feather and looked at her. "What?"
So, safe from rabies, Lyme's disease, poison ivy and dutch elm, I put the feather in the trunk.
On our way back to town, after driving out to see my best friend Aisha's parent's farm house, my mom and sister called to tell me that they'd just arrived at the hotel. Sweet! We picked them up and headed for Sammy's pizza. This is my favorite pizza - and our favorite mozzarella sticks. They make them there. Everything here is wonderful and it's just my favorite ever. The Italian sausage is made from scratch, there and peppery, fennelly perfection. The crust is thin, crispy and light with just gossamer layer of cheese. Oh, how I'd missed this place.
Oh, that's right! And the frosty root beer was just incredible. That's Julie up there, my sister. She has a couple tattoos, but is very sweet, really. Great fingernails.
Ah, yes, my hungry little travelers. What you see before you is a cheeseburger, but AH! Be warned my darlings, this! This is no ordinary cheeseburger, oh no. What lies beneath this floury light bun is wrapped in mystery -- shrouded in secrecy and not for the faint of heart. To achieve the grandest of goals - the first bite of infamy, HEAVEN and the power that roils the mighty Mississippi you must first embark on a journey of great danger and possible sunburns. It is many miles in a land far, far away where the fries aren't sweating in grizzled grease under a midday sun. No, no these little crispities are unlike anything that you will taste in this world. But hush! What makes you so certain that this is your quest? Danger! River! Birds of prey swirling the skies above! Do you have the wherewith all to make it from your sheltered Minnesota home to the wilds of Southwestern Wisconsin, down the Great River to the safe haven held within the Monarch?