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| The Tiki Drinks at Psycho Suzy's |
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| Dinner at Psycho Suzy's |
In the early seasons of DDD Guy featured a number of locations in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota (MSP). There were at least two of them that when I saw the episodes I said to myself, "I need to try that place!" There are more than 10 places in the area so it would be a very aggressive plan to get to 13 places in a few days. Originally I was planning to go there on a Thursday morning and fly back on a Sunday morning. As I looked at the flights, the normal routing from Dulles to Minneapolis via Chicago, since United didn't fly nonstop at the time of my trip. I also thought that I could use the stop in Chicago on the way home to hit a few places in the Chicagoland area. As the trip got closer the flights didn't look good at all (I fly standby so when flights are full I get left!) so I needed to rethink my flight plans. As an airline employee we get some discounted tickets on other carriers and so I looked around and saw that Delta had the only nonstops from Dulles and that the flights looked pretty good so I got what we in the airline industry call "ZED" fares on Delta. I left on a very rainy Thursday morning on the 630am Delta Connection nonstop flight. After arriving into MSP I got the car and went into the city to get going. I headed into a small place in the University of Minnesota area called "The Weinery". This place is very amazing, on the show and in my visit, the place is a one man show. One cook who also acts as the server and he makes everything from scratch, if you order slaw he doesn't pull out a big tub from the cooler but pulls out the cabbage and makes it from scratch. The food was very good and I was very impressed. I then headed to an interesting place makes their own sausages and specializes in Scandinavian cuisine. "Kramarczuk's Sausage Company" is a restaurant-deli and has a huge assortment of products. I tried a dish that is like a huge Swedish Meatball and it was good and very filling. The staff is mostly family and seemed a bit cold. They looked at me at some trepidation on how I found them and why I was there but the owner came over and signed the book. I was there early in the day and would like to try it sometime when it was going full speed. After resting a bit at the hotel and making a quick stop at the Mall of America I headed to a very eclectic cafe called "The Modern". It is a quaint place and I got a soup and a specialty drink there and I would say that the prices were a bit higher than I would like to pay, it seemed from what I could see form the others as very good. I headed to dinner and one of the places that was a reason to make this trip and it has probably the best name of any DDD location. "Psycho Suzy's Motor Lounge and Tiki Gardens" is one of the most unique places that you could try and was housed at that time in an old A & W Drive-In (it has since moved to a larger location. The owner (who unfortunately was out a the time of my visit) goes to Tiki Conventions to supply the restaurant with lights and Tiki Cups for the exotic drinks. I just had to get the Cream Cheese Rollups and Deviled Eggs (how cool is that!) along with a Tiki Drink. They also feature Fried Snickers bars, but that was way too much and figured I had tried enough.
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| Al's Breakfast in the Dinkytown area of Minneapolis |
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| Al's James Beard Award (the Academy Awards for Restaurants) hangs over the grill! |
The next morning I headed out very early (530a) to go back to the U of Minnesota area to go to the second placed that made me make this trip. "Al's Breakfast" is a great place, but get there when it opens at 6am or expect to wait! I got there at 6am and got one of the last seats in this place. Al's was built many years ago in an alley so it is small and narrow and seats about 25. Al's owner Doug is quite the character and his restaurant has won a James Beard Award. The Beard is like the Academy Awards for restaurants and the award is tacked up over the flat top grill! In front of each seat is a pad of paper the server takes your order on the pad and away your order goes. It was a fun place and I would go back there any time I am in the area. I headed up to a place called "Emily's Lebanese Grill". Emily's looks like a house in a neighborhood. I tried the Lebanese Burger and it was very tasty. While there I noticed alot of cool photos all around, all from Lebanon. There was an older gentleman there wrapping napkins and he came over and showed me all shorts of photos and maps of Lebanon, it was Emily's dad! The thing that really surprised me was that there are mountains and ski areas in Lebanon, I would not have believed that if not for seeing the photos. This is a very homey and friendly place. I then made a road trip out to a town called White Bear Lake. I had visited White Bear once before as that is the town that my younger brother, Chris, had gotten married as it is the hometown of his wife, my sister-in-law Angie. She told me that the place I would be visiting "Donatelli's" was a hangout for her in her high school days. The food was good Italian but, although it's not a chain, it reminded me of a good Italian place that can be found all over the place (we have Giovanni's in Leesburg). I ended tha day having dinner with a good friend of mine that lives in the area, Ilene met me at the "Town Talk Diner". The place was packed and I would say it is a "Yuppie Diner" The food was good and I really enjoyed catching up with a good friend and it is really great to be wioth others when most of the time you're by yourself, so thank Ilene for such a great time.
My MSP trip was half over but I had another full two days of visits so stay tuned....
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