February memories: Best of the Best, Food & Wine and Doolittles doin’ it right

DEJU VU ON FEBRUARY FUN FOOD & WINE…Ah, fond food memories! I keep smiling when I think about the great food events in town during our chilly month of February. No wonder Minnesotans don’t head for a sunny, warm getaway, eh? And is it’s a good thing it was leap year with that extra day in February cuz every single day was needed to squeeze all the foodie fun into the month of a jam-packed calendar. Not only did we anticipate and enjoy three annual holiday food favorites from Valentine’s Day to Chinese New Year to Mardi Gras, but February also hosted our industry UP Show (with a great Foodservice News-sponsored Executive Forum luncheon) and two more annual foodie favorites with Food & Wine events, sponsored by magazines, Minnesota Monthly and Mpls/St.Paul. If that wasn’t enough, Restaurant Week wrapped up the month with great lunch and dinner specials too, so I ate my little heart out all over town to support some of my favorite chefs. Yummy! Aah, the things a girl does for love. Burp!

One Monday, when the Walker Art Center is usually dark, it became center stage for the Best of the Best kickoff event, presented by Mpls/St.Paul to spotlight their Annual March issue with Best Restaurants, headed up by Editor Brian Anderson and his team. For more than two decades, the magazine has saluted a Restaurateur of the Year as well as the winners of their readers poll of “bests” in dozens of categories from best view, to best pizza to best wine list and more. In the ’80s, the awards party grew with the public eventually invited a few years back for a small fee and the proceeds are now earmarked for Second Harvest Heartland. When it outgrew their early restaurant settings, they moved into party venues like the McNamara Center, and last year it became a multi-level affair at the new Guthrie Theater with well more than 1,000 guests.

This year, more than 1,500 eager foodies showed up at the Walker for the elbow-to-elbow fun feasting. The setting was a perfect spot to stage their award event with three levels of walk-around-tasting tables featuring more than two dozen friendly local chefs from downtown Hennepin hot spots like Solera, Chambers, Lurcat, the new r.Norman’s and Saffron, the Melting Pot, Bellanotte, Oceanaire, 20.21 (of course), and around-town favorites from Lord Fletchers to Wildfire to Napa Valley Grille at the Mall of America and Crave in the Galleria and their new neighbor on France Avenue, Via.


SO WHO WAS THE BEST of the BEST?...The well-deserved winners were the friendly duo of Anoush Ansari and Hadi Anbar, principals in Hemisphere Restaurant Partners. They both have a great background in the biz and locally hands on from D’Amico’s Catering to Morton’s Steakhouse. Then these guys got the itch to do their own thing in 1996 when they transformed Mozy Jahanguiri’s Seagull, over at Pillsbury Center (now called U.S. Bank Plaza) downtown, into Atlas, famous for some of their Persian-style, fire-roasted meats.

During the past decade they opened a skyway Good-to-Go version above Atlas, and then opened the popular Mission in 2003 in the old Aquavit setting in the IDS tower. They also operate a casual kabobs dine and carryout spot called Kabobi in Eden Prairie and opened the fashionable new Via this past fall in Edina, across from Southdale Mall. Their patio oasis at Via won kudos immediately with its fire pit and waterfall setting the scene, protected by a wall of green shrubs from the France Avenue traffic. They are currently developing another new concept named Flame (yes-with more roasted meats) near Rosedale that will open next month. And keep your eyes on I-394 just west of General Mills where the old Cattle Company restaurant has been sitting vacant for sometime. They may or may not develop that one too. Cheers to you and your teams.


FOOD & WINE MEETS MACY’S…There was more foodie fun when Minnesota Monthly hosted their 14th Annual Food & Wine Experience the same week at the Convention Center. Their new February 21 kickoff (previously Girls Nite Out) turned into a smashing multi-level walk around for both sexes at the downtown Macy’s store, dubbed Macy’s Gourmet Gathering. It set the stage for a wonderful weekend of feasting and great wine sipping with dozens of tasting and wine tables. They opened up the store and had demos starting on the lower level with guest cookbook authors. The tasting table action went from the lower level kitchens to the third floor Oval Room with a martini bar and desserts. You could even shop while you sipped if you wanted to—no holds barred. More fun than Rodeo Drive.

Most fun was seeing all the people, from the guest cookbook authors to the smiling chefs from A to Z. It must have been a very busy week for our working chefs who had to man their kitchens and set up for two off-site food shows as well. Uffdah! I also got to meet one of my favorites: Ms. Marjorie Johnson, alias Jay Leno Roving Reporter. She is the 4-foot, 8-inch tall dynamo, always in a bright red dress or red apron who has buzzed around the State Fair for decades, winning hundreds of blue ribbons for her baking. She also gave humorous baking demos on the Rosie O’Donnell TV show, and has just published her first cookbook, “The Road to Blue Ribbon Baking” with a forward by Rosie no less, and 100 of her blue ribbon winners. She can inspire everyone to cook and her enthusiasm reminded me a bit of her very tall counterpart—the late Julia Child. I had the luck of dining with Julia a few times and could see the same sparkle in Marjorie’s eye as I saw with Julia. Keep your eyes open for more of her on Leno soon.

And the last but not least the final week of February was the wrap up, with Restaurant Week co-sponsored by American Express. Forty great restaurants around town offered drop-dead prices for two- and three-course lunches and dinners. Who could resist eating themselves through the week in support of our local chef teams? Bravos to all the busy chefs and local supporters around town who ate to give your support.


DOOLITTLES DOIN’ IT RIGHT…from their new “do” in Golden Valley with a colorful glass lobby with red awnings and the gold & glass enclosed four-season porch to their new logo—Doolittles Woodfire Grill—they’ve taken flight into the future and they’re doing it right. They also added a sparkle to my eye after a lunchtime visit with one of my all-time favorite chefs, young and talented Tuan Nguyen who joined this four-restaurant Doolittles team this past year as corporate chef. Nguyen grew up in Wisconsin, then trained with Wolfgang Puck for nine years in Las Vegas and moved back to Minnesota to raise his family and cook at California Café and Napa Valley Grille. I noticed Tuan also had a sparkle in his eye as he told me more about their new menu transitions from the initial Air Café concept to the more casual upscale Woodfire concept along with partner and COO John Sheehan.

Like the old Doolittles Air Café, the Woodfire Grill still celebrates the first 50 years of the romantic and nostalgic era of aviation, which was set by founding partner Lynn Reimer (who is a pilot) back in 1989, but now includes many new amenities found more predominantly in upscale casual restaurants. The remodel includes wood paneling, rich wood louvered window and panels, and the clean modern seating (complete with black napkins) showcase the new format well. Most notable, according to Nguyen and Johnson, is the evolution of the menu to include wood-fired meats displayed openly on a large, wood burning rotisserie alongside the open kitchen. I spotted dozens of their Golden Plump chickens on the rotisserie (they go through nearly 70,000 chickens each year) and their signature Gerber Poultry’s Amish Country Chicken Wings (the full double jointed wings), which are rubbed with 14 herbs and roasted over the open flames. When your order is placed, they glaze the rotisserie wings with a homemade, honey-herbed sauce and toss onto the grill before plating up eight of these folded neatly onto the platter. These smokey, sweet-herbed babies snap into 16 edible pieces of fall-off-the bone tenderness. Delish! A whole meal in itself, and a perfect signature item for their flight-themed menu. No wonder they sell over 35,000 pounds of wings (135,000 orders). It’s this attention to detail for each order in preparation and presentation that won my heart. You’ll see the same hands-on treatment with their delicate, parmesan crusted walleye fingers, to die for, with more homemade sauces. Other favorite items include spit-roasted chicken, grilled beef tenderloin, and fall-off-the-bone St. Louis-style ribs and more favorites. They also have a great selection of salads, burgers and sandwiches—many of which use the tender rotisserie chicken—and special entrée choices ranging from a grilled hanger steak to a rotisserie leg of lamb.

And one more big surprise for me? More than 30 choices of wine by the glass. They pour more then a dozen flights of four two-ounce pours. “We’ve found our guests love this flight option for wine sampling,” Sheehan said, “and it’s great for new wine drinkers wanting to get a feel for various wine styles.” They also offer $2 off any wine flight on Thursdays from 3 to 10 p.m. Wow! Put that on your calendar. You really can take flight at Doolittles—without a pilot’s license. Cheers!