Eating BIG in Minneapolis (and beyond)

Eating like a local:
Regional food specialties
- Exploring the North Star State

I took an end of the summer road-trip up to the Minneapolis area at the end of August. The purpose of this trip was to soak up as much summer as possible and I chose this part of the Midwest due to two things. I would be able to do some outdoor stuff and also get some good food. Minnesota has lot to offer from an outdoor perspective and Minneapolis just might be the second best food city in all of the Midwest. I listed it third behind Chicago and Detroit but second place could go either way in that one. I hadn't visited the Twin Cities since 2016 so it had been awhile and it had been even longer since I had visited in the summer which is the best time to go for obvious reasons. Here's where we ate... 

Sights from Minnesota 
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Al's Breakfast 

Our first stop is one of the 2004 winners of the James Beard ‘Americas Classics’ award. Al’s Breakfast in the Dinkytown neighborhood is the type of spot I typically like to check out while traveling but I hadn’t made it here on my previous trips so I made sure to fix that up on this one. The 14 seat diner sits on the University of Minnesota campus and is probably the most iconic eatery in town so be prepared to wait in line. It took about 30 minutes for me to get in but it was student move-in week so lots of college kids and their parents were also planning to eat there. I got the José which is real deal hash browns topped with homemade salsa, cheddar and two perfectly poached eggs. Since 1950. 

The José at Al's Breakfast 

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Owamni by The Sioux Chef 

If Minneapolis wasn’t so far I would’ve tried Owamni much sooner. The 2022 James Beard winner of the “Best New Restaurant” award wasn’t the only reason I decided to roll into the Twin Cities but it was one of the main reasons I wanted to roll thru. It’s ran by Chef Sean Sherman, a Oglala Lakota chef who only cooks with ingredients used before the arrival of the Europeans. So no wheat, flour, dairy, cane sugar, black pepper etc. It sits in a slick space along the Mississippi River and it’s considered the most prominent indigenous kitchen in the country. First up was Tepary Bean with pickled walleye, green beans, red onions and tostadas. Think of it as a mix between refried beans and hummus. It was the perfect starter on a very warm day. Moving on I was told the corn chowder is one of the most popular menu items so I ignored the fact it was 90° out. It too was really good, especially the fried wild mushrooms on top. I tried two of the taco offerings including the bison asada with pesto and guajillo salsa which was good if a bit dry but the corn taco blew me away. It was a flavor bomb of maíz starting with heirloom blue corn tortillas spread with a sweet corn jam topped with fried corn, popcorn and micro-greens from the Mississippi. This was as unique of a taco as I’ve come across in a long time. All in all this meal will be considered when I round up the best bites of 2023 in December. 

Lunch at Owamni
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Union Hmong Kitchen

Minneapolis and St. Paul are home to the country’s largest Hmong community so I got some Hmong food while there (but I missed out on some Somali food this trip). I ended up doing that at the Union Hmong Kitchen which is part of a food hall near Target Field. The Hmong sausage platter hit the spot on a hot day. Hmong sausage is similar in flavor to other SE Asian sausages though it tends to be a bit drier than the others from my experience with it. But it worked well when wrapped up with the purple sticky rice, Khao Sen rice noodles, pickled veggies and the lettuce that comes with it. 

Hmong Sausage Platter at Union Hmong Kitchen 
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Oro by Nixta Tortilleria

I always search out the best Mexican food and Nixta looked like a worthy stop. It’s an heirloom tortilleria that has a dinner spot next door where they serve a menu revolving around masa. The Molotes are little torpedoes of fried masa that come stuffed with picadillo and dressed with lettuce, Mexican dry aged cheese, salsa tatemada, and crema. I don’t think it would be possible to elevate the classic crispy taco any further than this dish did. I also got a killer veggie taco made with bok choy, huitlacoche - black beans, salsa macha, and pickled veggie relish. It’s a shame that Chicago really doesn’t have a spot like this when it comes to the heirloom tortilleria portion of the business so I brought a couple packs of their corn tortillas back with me. They're thick with a nice corn perfume. 

Dinner at Oro by Nixta
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Pumphouse Creamery 

The Midwest might be the best region for Ice Cream. I’ll hear arguments from the Northeast but that’s about it. I found Pumphouse Creamery searching for the areas best ice cream and there was a Reddit thread with lots of mentions for the fruit flavors. I tend to prefer fruit when it comes to ice cream and gelato so I decided to check them out. All of the fruit flavors are made with local fruit from nearby farms including a blend of honeyberry and raspberry crisp of which ice cream dreams are made of.

Local Honeyberry and Raspberry Crisp at Pumphouse Creamery 
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Boomin Barbecue (Hudson, WI)

Our next spot is a bonus stop of sorts. According to Daniel Vaughn, barbecue editor at Texas Monthly, you can find Minneapolis's best bbq in Hudson, Wisconsin (30 mins east). I guess the city made it a real bitch for Boomin Barbecue to operate its smoker thanks to stupid municipal laws and what not so they said f-ck it and moved their business to Hudson where they park said smoker in the lot and setup shop in the kitchen of Nova Bar. It's a great partnership and with the surrounding landscape it feels like you could be somewhere out west. I enjoyed a smoked beef and cheddar sandwich on special. 

Smoked Beef and Cheddar at Boomin Barbecue 
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Meister's Bar & Grill (Stillwater)

I was falling in love with all the river towns on this trip. Stillwater is a lovely little river town that reminded me alot of Galena. It sits on the St. Croix River about 30 mins northeast of Minneapolis so it’s basically a suburb. We stopped in at an iconic German bar that sits in a residential neighborhood. Meister’s is a typical Wisconsin tavern that happens to be across the river in Minnesota. The kitchen is the grill behind the bar and the ground beef is supplied by a local butcher as are the brats. The signature Burgermeister is a bacon cheeseburger with fried onions and high quality bacon bits. Thick chunks of extra smoky bacon are mixed into extremely well melted cheese acquired by placing the top of a pan over the burgers when the cheese goes on - a very good bar burger. The brat comes in patty form and is squeezed in-between locally baked marbled rye with Sauerkraut and Swiss. All of this is fresh cut fries on the side shows this place still does things the old school way. Since 1948.

Lunch at Meister's Bar & Grill
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Nelson's Ice Cream (Stillwater)

After lunch we went over to the historic Nelson’s for some ice cream. I’d heard they pack it on big here but was not prepared for what I was given after I ordered a small cup of rum cherry. I was convinced he had misheard me as this was easily enough ice cream for two and then some. I got a kick out of the kitchen sink they have outside so customers can wash up after eating as they give you so much ice cream there’s no way that some of it doesn’t melt and end up on your hands. Since 1923.

Cherry Rum (small) at Nelson's Ice Cream 
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Bev's Cafe (Red Wing)

We drove down to the shoe making town of Red Wing one day for breakfast and also to get stuff from the farmers market which was said to be a good one and it was but it was also pretty small with no more than ten vendors on a Saturday. My love for regional food led us to Bev’s Cafe where they make gritwurst or gritzelwurst as it was called in the German butcher shops of the upper Midwest way back when. It’s a mix of pork meat and oats and or barley and it’s very similar to Cincinnati’s goetta. Not bad but it could’ve been crisped up a tad bit more and some seasoning wouldn’t have hurt it either.

Gritwurst at Bev's Cafe
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Hanisch Bakery and Coffee Shop (Red Wing)

Bakeries are another one of the Midwest's food strengths. There seems to be a longtime bakery in pretty much every Midwest town. In Red Wing, Hanisch Bakery is that spot. It’s been around in one form or the other since 1961 when it started out as Pirius Bakery. They have a ton of stuff on offer so I went ahead and asked the lady behind the counter what the most popular donuts were and I ended up with a couple Long Johns stuffed with cream and also a couple or the cherry donuts. 

Donuts at Hanisch Bakery and Coffee Shop
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Kings Place Bar & Grill (Miesville)

I was able to add a few spots from Minnesota to my always growing Midwestern burger database. The second of them was King’s Place Bar & Grill in the tiny town of Miesville (Pop. 125). It’s a popular spot with bikers and often mentioned as the home to Minnesota's best burger. They offer more than 100 different options but me being a bit of a burger purist I went with the California Burger from the ‘King’s Originals’ which are the burgers that started it all back when it was just a small general store with a few burger options. It starts out with a 1/3 lb hunk of beef that’s lightly smashed on a small and always packed flattop, this place stays busy. It comes dressed with lettuce, tomato, and mayo on a lightly toasted bun. It was just about perfect which means it got a B+ on the burger grading scale. This means it was very good and gets honorable mention status among the country's best burgers. 

California Burger at Kings Place 
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House of Coates (Coates)

Final stop on the mini Minnesota burger tour took us to another tiny town called Coates (pop. 161) about 20 mins northwest of the previous stop. The House of Coates is the type of bar you tend to find in the upper Midwest in that its an outdated place that caters to the motorcyclers in the summer and to snowmobilers in the winter plus thirsty people passing by all year. It’s got a very Northwoods feel with a tended to pull tab booth inside and a fantastic neon sign outside. They’re known for half pound burgers including the Swanee which is a bacon cheeseburger with fried onions and a side of pickles plus a cup of blue cheese dressing. We weren’t asked how we wanted it cooked so I guess medium is standard which is better than well done but not as good as medium rare so that was my only complaint about an otherwise formidable bar burger. That's it for this trip. 

Swanee Burger at House of Coates
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See ya next time @chibbqking

Roadfood in Southwest Wisconsin

Eating like a local:
Regional food specialties
- Exploring Wisconsin's Driftless Region 

In my opinion the Midwest is at it's best during the summer months when you can really take full advantage of the Great Lakes and such. But fall is wonderful too when the colors start to change and cider donuts start to pop up at roadside stands and the likes. These are the best times to jump in the car and take a ride around a region typically considered a flyover zone. I did so recently with a weekend trip up to the Driftless region of Wisconsin which is a great place to visit in summer and fall. 

Pics from Wisconsin's Driftless Region

The area is a topographical and cultural region consisting of southwest Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and the extreme northwestern corner of Illinois. It was never covered by ice during the ice age so it lacks the glacial deposits known as drift. It’s more like New England than the typical flatland of the Midwest. Our homebase was Cashton which is in the heart of Driftless Wisconsin located about 40 minutes east of La Crosse. The area is home to Wildcat Mountain State Park as well as the Kickapoo Valley Reserve plus a handful of cheese factories and Wisconsin's largest Amish community. It was pretty cool getting to stay at an Airbnb on a corn farm in the middle of it all. The towns of Viroqua and Westby were 5 and 10 minutes away and each of them are cute places worth staying in if you can find the right spot. Popular activities in the area include some super scenic drives through the rolling hills and canoeing, trout fishing, hunting and some snowmobiling during the winter. It’s also a great replace to sit back and relax. There was something very soothing about sitting on the porch of the airbnb and listening to the sounds of the Amish horse buggies riding by. Oh and the summer sunsets are absolutely spectacular in these parts.

Sunset in Cashton

Food wise this is a pretty desolate area and with that your options are a bit limited. But La Crosse (Pop. 52,000) is close and each little town has a handful of places plus there’s some great butchers and grocery stores carrying locally grown produce. We cooked a meal or two at our place each day after stopping in at Prem Meats in Spring Green and Mr. B’s Smokehouse in Hillsboro on the way up. We got some high quality stuff including steaks, brats, ground beef, bacon. The Viroqua Food Co+op grocery store was a pleasant surprise for local produce and quality products. Plus local farmers sell their stuff at roadside stands and such. You can also stock up on cheese at handfuls of creameries each of them producing something that's won awards somewhere. I should make note of the curds from Old Country Cheese in Cashton which are the squeakiest I’ve ever had. The key to these is staying away from the curds they keep in the fridge and buying the packages on the table up front. The squeak is at it's peak when the curds are at their freshest so you want ones that are still warm.

Pics from the Driftless 

Activities wise we got rain on a couple days but managed to check out most of the popular outdoor spots the highlight of which was a cruise down the Mississippi River from La Crosse into Prairie du Chien. I’ve always been fascinated with river towns especially those on the Mighty Mississippi and we had perfect weather that day. There’s plenty of state parks and places to sit on the river as well as some cool bars and restaurants found up and down both sides of Minnesota and Iowa and Wisconsin.

Pics from the Great River Road 
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Ring's Bar (Plain, WI)

First up was a return to Ring’s in Plain, WI. One hour northwest of Madison on the outskirts of the Driftless Region. It's one of a handful of candidates for my best burger in the state, and the country by extension. What makes these great is the old school broiler device used to make them. That and the fact the beef comes from directly across the street from Straka Meats. Also of note is the locally baked bun that’s soft but stable enough to hold all the liquid that seeps into it. These are thick and juicy and come with a hearty slice of Wisconsin cheddar plus house pickles, onion, brown mustard. Since 1951.

Cheeseburger at Ring's Bar
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Footjoy Farm (Cashton, WI)

It was a Friday Fish Fry when we drove up but the Driftless Region is home to a handful of pizza farms which are popular on weekends in the warmer months. So the truth is the best fish fry's are closer to the Great Lakes and not all the way over here near the Mississippi where most spots serve cod and a few do catfish but there’s no signs of lake perch and few when it comes to walleye. So I decided to check out a Pizza Farm which are popular in these parts. They’re exactly as they sound. This one is also a brewery and the beer is very good but the pizza is why I visited. It’s a base of sourdough made with Ingmar Red and Edison White Wheat sustainably grown on their local farm. Most of the toppings are also locally sourced while the pizza options range from traditional to chef driven. I’m a purist with pizza but will venture out of my comfort zone at places like this so I landed somewhere in the middle as far as the style goes. A supreme is served up with sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers, black olives, red onions, and mozzarella cheese and I mean no shade when I say that it reminded me of what Digiorno Pizza wants to be. Don’t get me wrong I’d eat this again without qualm but I haven’t had a frozen pizza in a decade and it’s been longer since I ate a Digiorno but that’s what I thought of with this. Maybe it was the supreme toppings or bc this pizza was one of the sturdier versions I've come across in the same way a frozen well done pizza comes out. 

Supreme Pizza at Footjoy Farm
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Neuie's Vogue (La Crosse, WI)

La Crosse is a river town and a brewing town which means there's a ton of bars. I can't confirm this but someone there told me they have the most bars per capita but lots of spots lay claim to that fact. What I can confirm is that at one time La Crosse held the record for most bars on one street in the Guinness Book of World Records. Before riding down the Mississippi we got some breakfast at one of the towns many watering holes. Neuie's Vogue had a nice setup paired with a typical menu that included at least one item you wont find elsewhere, their famous Flash Burger. It's a hamburger steak smothered with mushrooms, onions, green peppers, jalapenos, bacon and cheesy hash browns. Pic'd below is the medium sized offering (the entire length of a full size dinner plate). You could tell this was cooked with care. I ate half of it and was stuffed. Wisconsin bar food is in a weight class all it's own. 

The Flash Burger at Neuie's Vogue
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Pete's Hamburger Stand (Prairie du Chien, WI)

One of the main reasons for my visit to the Driftless was so that I could revisit Pete’s Hamburgers in the Mississippi River town of Prairie du Chien (seriously). Where do we begin with this one? For starters it’s what I believe to be the 2nd oldest hamburger stand in the country dating back to 1909. They make the burgers the same way today that they did back then as the stand and it's old time cooking method is grandfathered in with the town. Fresh balls of beef are cooked on a steaming hot flattop in a puddle of water and onions unlike anywhere else. The end result is a flavor bomb of grilled onions and beef that can’t be beat. No cheese here as cheeseburgers weren’t a thing when they opened 113 years ago. You can add ketchup, mustard, or horseradish mustard but they’re best enjoyed in an unadulterated manner. It was twelve years between visits but they were exactly as I remember them to be - the best hamburgers. I don’t care if the price has almost doubled ($3.25 in 2010) I would pay double today’s price as there’s nothing else like these limited edition burgers available weekends only while the weather is warm.

Hamburger from Pete's Hamburgers 
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Borgen's Cafe (Westby, WI)

The word Westby is Norwegian for "Western City" and Westby Wisconsin is a town where many Norwegians first settled going all the way back to 1848. The town of just 2300 celebrates it's Norwegian roots with statues, gift stores and restaurants like Borgen's Cafe. I decided to try their homemade meatballs in gravy served with lefse on what felt like the first day of Fall. Lefse is a Norwegian style flatbread that can include riced potatoes as well as butter, milk, and lard. This was pretty good comfort food but not anything worth going out of the way for. The lefse was pretty plain. 

Meatballs with Lefse at Borgen's Cafe
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Rockton Bar (La Farge, WI)

Our final stop was another spot I was very much looking forward to checking out. Sunday Charcoal Chicken in the Kickapoo Valley Reserve is a thing and that's bc at the end of every week this bar in the middle of the Driftless Region grills up anywhere from 100 to 200 lbs of chicken attracting bikers, canoers, campers and locals alike. I was a bit disappointed that there was no chicken on the grill when I arrived but the smell of it was was obvious as was the taste which was full of smoke in a way that can only be achieved with live fire being used. The chicken itself was a really good quality but I wanted some jerk sauce or nam jim jaew to go with it. Charcoal chicken dinners have become popular in these parts and I’m pretty sure Rockton Bar is the reason why. It was rather dead on my visit around noon on a Sunday and I soon realized that was because the Packers were playing at 3:15p. 

Pics from Rockton Bar's Sunday Charcoal Chicken Dinner
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Note: Click HERE for a Google Maps Guide to all the spots featured in this post.

See ya next time @chibbqking