QFanatic BBQ and Grill - Champlin, MN

The first thing that hits you is the unmistakable BBQ smell from the ovens. I went to Qfanatic on a cool fall evening. The strong BBQ smell was especially pungent in the crisp Minnesota air.

It was a serve yourself type of place where you place your order at the counter and pay then take your cup and plastic card with a number on it back to your table.  The service was very friendly none the less. The waitress greeted me with a big hello and asked if it was my first time here.  I got the feeling as though she probably knew most of the regular customers.  The dude that delivered the food was also very friendly.

They had old Mississippi blues tunes and newer Stevy Ray Vaughn music playing over the speakers.  It fit a BBQ place but, not in Minnesota.  It just seemed out of place.

I ordered a side salad to start off my meal but, there was enough food there for it to be a meal itself.  The salad had a very nice vinaigrette with gorgonzola and walnuts.  Everything was fresh and well prepared.  I liked it.

I also ordered the BBQ honey ham sandwich.  You get to choose which BBQ sauce you get.  Most BBQ joints will have all of them out for you to try or mix and match as you like.  So, that was a little bit of a downer.  The chef does make recommendations right on the menu.  So, I went with one of them.   It was the mustard BBQ sauce.  I was glad that I chose it because it was really good.  It had a bit of a hot kick to it while also being a bit sweet and fruity.

The ham had a very unique smokey smell and taste to it.  It immediately caught my attention when I put the sandwich up to my mouth.  My nose intercepted the delivery and I diverted to smelling the sandwich for a minute to let the aroma soak-in.  The only thing that I can think of is that the smell and taste must come from smoking the meat with local wood.   The shreded versus sliced ham also enhanced the aroma, I think.

The wedge fries were a little a little disappointing.   They were pruned like they had been sitting around for a while before being plated.
 I'm giving Qfanatic an 8.4 because they had a couple of culinary fails.  It is still worth checking out, and I'm glad that I did.

QFanatic BBQ and Grill
180 Miller Road
Champlin, MN 55316
(763) 323-6550
http://qfanatic.com/

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/

Donatelli's - White Bear Lake, MN

When I walked through the door and saw an ice-cream parlor, I didn't expect to be dining on Italian food.  But, if you pay attention then you'll notice the daily specials posted on the wall which clearly have nothing to do with ice-cream.  Donatelli's was not a diner, I didn't drive-in so,  that leaves dive.   I didn't think that it was that much of a dive, just a little confusing.

Being originally from New York, I think that I have a pretty good handle on what an italian restaurant is supposed to be.  So, to add to my confusion, the smells of pizza from the ovens was noticably abscent. I could see the ovens on the way to the back of the restaurant but, no baking bread and tomato scents.  Still confused.

My patience with the place was well rewarded however.  First, hospitality to be really good.  In fact, I found the hospitality everywhere in Minnesota to probably be some of the best in the whole country.  People are just genuinely nice.

Then, I experienced my first bite.  I ordered the baked linguini carbonara.  WOW!  Very rewarding indeed.  It came out piping hot from the oven on a second cooler plate that you could actually look at without getting third degree burns.  It was cheesy, smokey and chewy all at once.  The smoke flavor coming from the bacon was perfect as was the amount of cheese charring from having been baked.  The peas added just a bit of color and chimed into the mix also perfectly.  OK, any previous dining sins had just been forgiven.

I've had linguini carbonara plenty of times before and it really wasn't like this.  I didn't get lost in Donatelli's carbonara sauce.  Usually, the carbonara sauce is the most dominant thing on the plate at most italian restaurants.  Donatelli's carbonara sauce just brought out the best from the homemade pasta, chicken, bacon and peas. 

I was enjoying this plate so much that I actually temporarily forgot how other restaurants prepared the meal.  This just seemed like the way it should be.

As the plate cooled down, you could start to really pick out the individual flavors. Chicken was sliced fairly thin and the bacon fairly thick so that they were both about the same size.  The bacon was more chewy than crunchy and it was very lean.  

There was no bread brought out before meal. But my meal came with bread.  I found it to be a bit disappointing.  It had the soft wonder bread crust instead of the hard Italian bread crust.  The taste was kind of blah also.  I only took one bit of bread.  I absolutely did not go away hungry though.  The linguini was really filling.  I couldn't eat all of it.

I'd give Donatelli's an 8.8.   The pasta alone is worth driving out of your way to find.  Go there hungry!

Donatelli's
2692 East County Road E
White Bear Lake, MN 55110
http://donatellis.com/
651.777.9199

Blue Door Pub - St. Paul, Minnesota

I visited the Blue Door Pub on October 10, 2010.  This was 15 days before the episode on this place was due to be aired on the DDD TV show.  I sometimes wonder if the attention that the TV show brings to a restaurant might spoil it a little because of all of the extra customers that it brings.  That thankfully wasn't the case here.

The Blue Door Pub in St. Paul, Minnesota was another in long line of triple-d neighborhood bar restaurants.  They had free flowing beer and lots of burgers being served.

The burger that caught my attention was the Pad Thai Burger.  I’ve had Pad Thai plenty of times before but, I only knew it as an egg-noodle dish from Thailand.  I had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of having this on a hamburger bun.  The execution was really well done.  It was kind of like a really awesome egg sandwich.  They had a slice of thick-cut cheddar cheese on the sandwich which was a dominant taste that complimented the egg perfectly.  It was really innovative and expertly executed.

Also a mind-blower were the beer-battered green beans.  The concept of battering and frying green beans just seems weird.  Again, they were great.  The green beans had an intense green bean taste and were really juicy.  They are perfect for dipping into the ranch sauce that comes with them.

The service was excellent.  The waitress was super busy because we went there during the lunch hour rush.  That didn’t take away from her attitude.  She was super friendly and efficient.

I give the Blue Door Pub a 9 out of 10 on the triple-d scale. 

The Blue Door Pub
1811 Selby Ave
St. Paul, MN 55104
(651) 493-1865

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

The Nook - St. Paul, MN

The Nook in St. Paul, MN is a neighborhood Irish bar restaurant.  The waitresses all wear green t-shirts with Gaelic-type print.  There is a lighted Guinness sign right in the middle of the place.  It was a friendly restaurant but, this is a place where beer is consumed by the pitcher so, leave the kids at home or take them elsewhere.

There service was maybe not the best that night.  I got the original burger, a vanilla malt, onion rings and asked for A-1 sauce.  At first they didn’t have any A-1.  Then they scraped one up some from the kitchen.  An honest mistake – no big deal.  When I was ready to leave I put my credit card down to pay the bill and had to wait a LONG while until they picked it up.
 
They have several newspaper articles and local magazine covers framed and displayed telling about their many awards for best burger in the Minneapolis / St. Paul area.

The food was pretty good by normal standards but, by triple-d standards, I would say that it was just okay.  I have a feeling that they are known for their double-stuffed burger.  I thought about it but, I just didn’t have the appetite for it that night.  So, maybe this review isn’t being totaly fair to the restaurant.  But, the triple-d reviews aren’t always fair to my cholesterol level.  So, we’ll just have to live with some balance in life.

If you're in the area then I would give it a try.  If you have the appetite for the double-stuffed burger then let us know what you thought.

The Nook
492 Hamline Avenue South
St. Paul, MN

Dari-Ette Drive-Inn - St.Paul, Minnesota

Dari-Ette Drive-Inn in St.Paul, Minnesota was my first Triple-D drive-inn.  There have been plenty of dives, some of which were diners but, this was my first genuine drive-in.

I went there in the beginning of September which turned out to be about the nicest time to be outside as it could have been.  There were neighborhood people just walking up for ice-cream.

Dari-Ette kind of reminds me of a Sonic with a slower pace and much better food.  It is definitely a throughback kind of place.  They could have used this place in the movie American Graffiti.  Who knows, maybe they did?

There were some people just enjoying the evening outside their cars, listening to the car radio play while just soaking in the great weather. I could see how this might be a social meet-up place later in the evening.

I ordered the pork chop sandwich, jalapeno poppers and a vanilla milk shake.  I’ve had pork chop sandwiches before but, only at home using leftover pork chops.  This tasted like something I would have made at home.  It was served on thick toasted white bread, kind of like Texas Toast without the butter.  It had a little bit of mayonnaise and some lettuce on it: Very good.

The jalapeno poppers were the real treat.  Usually poppers are filled with cheddar cheese which I would have fully expected this far north but, these were filled with a light white cheese.  It might have been ricotta.  The real surprising thing though was that they served it with duck sauce.  The duck sauce really worked well with the poppers.  There was a little bit of spicy heat from the jalapeno but, most of it came from the sauce. It was a nice little Asian twist on the concept.

1440 E. Minnehaha Ave
Saint Paul, MN, 55106
(651) 776-3470

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.