Colossal Cafe - Minneapolis, MN

The first thing that hits you when you walk in the door of the Colossal Cafe is the diminutive size of the dining area.  It's tiny! The accompanying photos probably don't really convey this.

As you step up To the counter they have some of their signature deserts called "flips" under glass and under your nose to tempt you. Flips are basically whipped cream in a pastry shell. The strawberry flips have sliced strawberries half sunk into the cream. I didn't try them but they look delicious.  On yelp someone made a comment about how good the walnut and brie flappers were.  I don't know if they meant flips.

What the dining area lacks in size, it makes up in quaintness. There were fresh flowers on each table.   The tables are close together so, its easy to make friends with your neighbors, and we did. 

This is a friendly neighborhood restaurant.  Young moms walked up, unstrapped and picked-up their youngsters and left their strollers outside while they communed with other young moms and their kids inside.

I had the Tunisian pumpkin spice soup and the Meatloaf sandwich.  The pumpkin soup was thick with a tiny bit of spicy heat to it.  The heat was not in a Cajun pepper kind of way, more like a Mediterranean food kind of way.

My neighbor said that he was originally from Egypt and makes this soup at home all of the time.  It is very healthy according to him.

Not all of the food served at the Colossal was probably all that healthy.  One of the tables was being served a breakfast biscuit.  This thing was an egg/flour monster.  I wasn't sure if she was going to eat it or if it was going to eat her.  It was huge!  I'm afraid to know what the calorie and cholestorol count on that beast was.  It did look decadently good though.

The meatloaf sandwich was like nothing that I've ever had before.  It was a mix of meats to begin with.  I think it was pork and beef with some kind of spices, maybe parsley and pepper.  The bun was really good bread; like a pretzel bun without the thick kosher salt.  They threw on some alfalfa and other green leafy stuff.  But, what really made this special was the cranberry chutney sauce.  It made the sandwich kind of like a Thanksgiving sandwich if you had meatloaf for Thanksgiving dinner.  The citrus flavor of the cranberry chutney was in perfect contrast to the savory meat flavor and consistency. 

One meatloaf patty would have been plenty but, they give you two.  I was not complaining.  It all comes served with some kettle style potato chips and baby pickles. 

Service was good.  The wait-folks were friendly and helpful. 

They only accept cash or local checks.  No credit cards accepted.

Food, service and atmosphere were everything that you would expect from a triple-D restaruant.  I would give Colossal Cafe a 9.8 on Bill's Triple-D scale.  Definitely worth checking out.


Colossal Cafe - Minneapolis, MN
1839 East 42nd Street
Minneapolis, MN 55407
(612) 729-2377
http://www.colossalcafe.com/

Psycho-Suzi's Motor Lounge - Minneapolis

Psycho Suzi's is a northern exposure tiki bar. There is lots of bamboo and kitschy polenesian statuettes and beach paraphernalia everywhere.  The lights are turned down low to make you feel like you are at a luau.  There were lots of island drinks with colorful little umbrellas in them flying by on serving trays. I was suspiciously alone at my table as the intrepid individual business traveler. Most of the other tables were filled with groups of revelers.

You can order a pu-pu platter, sandwiches, pizza or any other type of bar food that you want. I opted for the pizza. I chose the Hawaiian pizza in keeping with the Polynesian spirit. They call it their “Paradise City.” It had canadian bacon, pineapple, pineapple rum-soaked raisins and red onion.

The pizza was pretty good but, the service was a little bit weak. I think that because I was just a table of one and I was only drinking diet cokes that my waitress was probably preoccupied with better paying tables requiring more frequent calls for replenishment. I had to waive at her a few times to gain her attention. If I was not on a triple-d mission to review this restaruant then I might have just picked up and walked out after having to wait so long to get an order in.

I would give this place a 4 out of 10 on the triple-d scale mostly because of the service. They will be moving locations down the street as of this writing. Hopefully they will revamp the whole operation at that point. Maybe I just had a stroke of bad luck one night. Who knows?

Kramarczuk Sausage Company - Minneapolis

The Kramarczuk Sausage Company is very different than most triple-d restaurants in that it is neither a diner, a drive-inn nor a dive but, it was funky enough and good eats enough to pop up on my radar screen.

The first thing that you notice when you walk in is that it is a European butcher shop.  They have all kinds of meats, mostly sausages that were prepared according to mostly eastern European recipes.  There are a lot of other dry and canned products that came from Europe.

The other side of the store is a cafeteria style restaurant.  The food is all eastern European derived dishes.  I got the combination plate on the advice of the girl behind the counter.  Not only didn’t I know what most of the items in the chafing dishes were, I couldn’t even pronounce the names of almost all of it.

The combo plate consisted of three different types of pyrogies, some sauerkraut, a big cabbage-meat burrito-type thing and your choice of sausage.  It was all covered with a hollandaise sauce.  I got the Ukrainian sausage.  It also came with sour cream  To wash down the meal, they also offer a selection of East European beers.  I got the Zywiec.  It was a pilsner with kind of a beer-spicy taste.  It reminded me of Urquell from the Czech Republic.

The dishes were born out of the need to put food that would stick to the ribs of hard working people.  It was really filling.  I showed up really hungry ready to eat and I could just put a dent in the food put in front of me. 

There were some folks eating at the restaurant that were clearly visiting from some eastern European country and they seemed to like it.  If it was good enough for them then it was good enough for me. I’d rate it a 9 out of 10 on the triple-d scale.

215 East Hennepin Avenue
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55414
(612) 379-3018

Town Talk Diner - Minneapolis, MN

I’ve been to the Town Talk Diner twice now.  The first thing that hits you when you walk in is that this is probably a popular place to come just for drinks.  The bar area is tiny but there are lots of martini glasses filled with all kinds of neon colored concoctions.  Everything is well worn from a steady flow of human  traffic.

Town Talk has an industrial feel to it.  There is lots of stainless steel and exposed brick everywhere.  They even use stainless steel hose clamps like you’d find in Home Depot or a plumbing supply store as napkin rings.

Service was very good both times that I was there.  The waitstaff provides just enough service without over doing it.  You can sit and talk in peace for a long time if you want. 

My first time in, I had the brat burger.  This was the one that was featured on the TV program.  It was very good but definitely a heart attack on a bun.  It was a sausage patty with bacon and sour kraut on top.  It had some lettuce and tomato.  The bun was a thick soft bread bun.  The sausage had a bit of a spicy kick to it, kind of like a breakfast sausage.  It looked like a beef burger, so that’s what I was expecting when I bit in.  I wasn’t really all that impressed.  I’d call the brat burger a 4 out of 10 on the ddd scale.

My second time in I had the kitchen sink burger.  That is a basic bacon cheeseburger with some other stuff on it.  It came with a steak knife stabbed straight down into the burger.  The six-inch blade didn’t even pass all the way through the burger to touch the plate.  It was a lot of burger but very tasty.  Also a heart attack on a bun.  I’d score this a 7 out of 10 on the triple-d scale.  It was very good but not outstanding.

Both meals came with garlic fries.  My first experience with the garlic fries was mediocre.  I left expecting more from the fries.  They tasted very flat and ordinary.  My second time was differnent.  They seemed to have a bit more punch and I liked them a lot the second time around for some reason.   I’d score the fries an 8 out of 10.

A guy across from me got the onion rings and they looked like breaded versions of the onion rings that you get at a high-end Japanese hibachi grill all piled high like Mount Fuji.  They looked cool and the people seemed to enjoy them.


2701 1/2 E. Lake Street
Minneapolis, MN 55406

Emily's Lebanese Delicatessen - Minneapolis

I always feel good eating middle eastern food because I feel like I’m doing something good for my body.  A lot of the Triple-D restaurants serve tasty but, not necessarily heart healthy foods.  There's often a lot of red meat, salt and butter involved.

My experience with middle eastern is that it usually contains  a lot of fresh bean based dishes, smaller amounts of high quality meats, rice, tomato and salads.  Emily's was no different.

I ordered the Hummus appetizer and the #8 Lebanese Chicken & Rice with Lubin for lunch.  Lubin is yogurt.  It comes with Tabouli salad.  Tabouli salad is parsley, tomatoes, onions, cracked wheat and lemon juice.

The main dish of chicken and rice had thin slices of almond in it.  The yogurt was served on the side.  The combination of the starchy rice mixed with the citric yogurt was very good.

The more traditional way to prepare this dish might have been with pine-nuts instead of almonds.  That's what their menu says.  They had a sign up saying that they were substituting almonds in place of pine-nuts for some reason.  I don't know why.

The humus comes with flat bread and is practically a meal in itself.  I was making a concoction of humus and tabouli on the flat-bread and sliding some of that back while I waited for the main meal.  I had barely eaten any of it before I started filling up.  There was a lot of humus left over.  Humus is basically a garbanzo bean dip that you put on the tortilla-like flat-bread.

Like many Triple-D restaurants, Emily's is a neighborhood place.  Most of the people who sat down after me didn’t need to see the menu.  The whole restaurant is probably only 30 square feet inside.  They also had an outdoor seating area that isn't apparent if you walk up from the back parking lot.  The paneling was the pride of probably 1960.  There are faded framed posters promoting travel to Lebanon.  The Lebanese flag is thumb tacked to the wall.  There was a sign behind the cash register advertising the daily special: lamb’s tongues w/salad or soup $10.

I'm guessing that the neighborhood is comprised of Eastern European and Middle Eastern families.  There was a Catholic church a couple of blocks away that had a colorful dome roof that reminded me of architecture from that area.

I got turned on to middle eastern food when I used to visit Detroit a lot.  Some of the local folks there took me out to various middle eastern restaruants and taught me a bit about it.  I really developed a taste for it but, I don't get to Detroit too much anymore.  Emily's was a nice reminder.

Victors 1950’s Café - Minneapolis

Victor's is a Cuban restaurant.  It is a bit edgy.  If you are afraid of places with graffiti on the walls then this is not the place for you.  The waitresses were all very nice and attentive.  I never saw the dry bottom of my water cup.  They wore cute 1950’s Lucy style dresses and aprons that showed off their tattoo sleeves very well.  Latin music radio is played over the speakers and candles were lighted in front of the plate on display with the picture of Jesus and an angel on it.  There are lots of cool pictures from Cuba around the restaurant.

The booths are wooden with colorful Latin tablecloths.  The booths, walls and ceilings are covered with lots of messages and free expressions of love and war.  One of the messages was “Viva La Cuba!!  Huesa La Vista Fidel.”  There is a poster of a young Fidel Castro with a Soviet Star and the writing is all in Russian.  Right next to that one is another picture of an older Fidel shaking hands with Pope John Paul.

The menu is very Cuban.  Plantains are in several of the dishes.  There are four types of rice that you can order up with your meal.  I had the white rice steamed with a hint of olive oil. 

The crab cakes appetizer was really good.  They were very light and served on a bed of lettuce with a drizzling of some kind of cream sauce.

The Salmon main dish was served on a bed of spinach with a mango sauce and a slice of mango across it.  The rice was white rice with olive oil and it was all served with plantains that had a sweet sticky glaze of probably the mango sauce.

It was well worth the visit.

[UPDATE - Feb. 2012]

I went back to Victor's in February 2012.  The place hadn't changed one bit in the two years since I was here last.  They even sat me in exactly the same spot as last time.  

My previous trip here was for dinner.  This time I came for lunch and had the Sandwich Cubano.  This was a pork, ham and swiss cheese sandwich with pickles and mustard on a bread that is shmushed in a hot press like a grilled cheese sandwich.  I picked the pickles right off of my sandwich just because I can't stand pickles of any kind.  Once that was out of the way I dug in. 

Cuban food to me is very sweet.  This sandwich was no exception.  I'm not sure how they make meat sweet but it was, and very good by the way. 

I got it with the Yuca Frita which the waitress explained was kind of like stringy potatoes that are deep fried like french fries.  They were indeed as advertised.  They didn't have that heavy obviously fried taste that french fries usually have.  They were lighter and again probably a bit sweeter than regular potatoes.

I didn't die but, after half the meal was over the waitress came by and asked how we liked the Yuca.  THEN she explained that the yuca is actually a poisonous root in nature but the cooking process takes the poison supposedly out of the food.  Okey dokey, thanks for that timely bit of news!

The plantains were every bit as great as I remembered them.  They were both sweet and succulent at the same time. The sugars in the food form a wonderful almost creme brulee-like glaze when pan sauteed.   It is really like a desert. 

I got one of their Cuban Coffee's to go.  Wow!  Now I know why the American federal government won't let us travel to Cuba.  It must be a plot by the Starbucks corporation to keep this secret away from us so that we continue to buy their coffee in ignorance.  It was really strong (the way I like it) but very smooth and flavorful.  Not even a tiny bit bitter.  Really good quality stuff.

The last time I was here, I hadn't yet started to rate my dining experiences.  Victor's is a solid 9.9 on my triple-d scale.  The food is absolutely killer, the atmosphere is over the top cool and interesting and the service was really very good.


Victors 1950’s Café - Minneapolis
3756 Grand Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55409
612-827-8948
victors1959cafe.com

Modern Cafe in Minneapolis

I went to the Modern Cafe in Minneapolis in August 2010.  I had the meatloaf sandwich and the vegan soup.  It was kind of a ying-yang thing, I suppose the healthy vegetables offset the meat/carb celebration.

The meatloaf sandwich was probably one of the best meatloaf anythings that I've ever had.  It had two strips of bacon on a couple of relatively thinly sliced (probably quarter-inch) pieces of meatloaf.  They used a little bit of mayonnaise and the bread was a really good quality white or possibly potato bread.

They claim that that they try to use organic ingredients.  So, it probably wasn't normal white bread.  It tasted pretty good in any event.  The vegan soup was really pretty good also.  The vegetables were still "snappy" so they had to have been really fresh.  The soup had a little bit of a spicy hot kick to it which surprised me because in the northern US most restaurants tend to shy away from spicy kick without giving fair warning first.

The location was in kind of an artsy outer-ring of the city center location.  There were a few galleries, art and printing businesses in the area. 

The restaurant itself was pretty much standard diner on the inside.  It was not very elaborate at all.  Just some basic booths and table and chairs. 

The service was pretty good.  They guy who seated me said that he would send over one of his "friends" to serve me instead of using the term "waitress" which I thought was kind of cool because I think that he might have been the owner. 

It was a relaxed placed.  A nice neighborhood restaurant.  There was a birthday party going on for a little girl, probably about 3 years old.  She was there with her mom and some of her friends, none of which were younger than probably 80 years old.  They all wore silly paper party hats and were having a grand time.



This is definitely worth checking out if your in the neighborhood.