Minneapollis

Tracy T. wrote:
>I'm off to Minneapollis in a few weeks. I'll be staying
>downtown.  Can anyone recommend some local
>eateries?  I'm partial to Thai, Japanese and Italian,
>but pretty much like anything.

I don't have any suggestions for Thai and Japanese.

One Italian restuarant I liked several years ago was Pronto Ristorante.  I think this was in the Holiday Inn on Nicollett near Orchestra Hall.  I don't even know if they are still in business.  They had very good food and service (maybe too good) and the prices reflected that.  This is close by for downdownt Mpls hotels.

Another well-liked Italian restuarant is Ciatti's.  They have several locations in the twin cities including one not far from Pronto on either Nicollet or LaSalle. They are less expensive than Pronto, but, I feel, their food and service isn't quite as good.  This is also close by to downtown Mpls hotels.

I would recommend Cafe Brenda on 1st Ave North.  While not a vegetarian restuarant, it is vegetarian friendly.  They serve some dairy and fish, but (I think) no meat.  I have only been there a couple of times but have found the menu to be imaginative and the food is always prepared with very fresh ingredients.  This is also close by to downtown Mpls hotels.

Another place I like, though farther away, is Caravan Serai (sp?) in the Highland Park area of St. Paul.  They claim to be the oldest Afghani restuarant in the US.  They serve a variety of styles of middle eastern food including Afghani, of course, Pakistani, and North Indian.

Paul Allen

Tracy T. wrote:

>I'm off to Minneapollis in a few weeks. I'll be staying
>downtown.  Can anyone recommend some local
>eateries?  I'm partial to Thai, Japanese and Italian,
>but pretty much like anything.

Good Japanese (teppanyaki and sushi) can be found at Ichiban at 13th and Nicollet Mall, right downtown.

Best neighborhood for lots of wonderful restaurants within a few blocks is south on Washington Ave to the West Bank. From downtown proper it's a longish walk (1.5 or two miles), a quick cab ride, and an easy bus trip. My favorite restaurant in the Twin Cities is there: Odaa. They serve Ethiopian food -- a platter of this flat millet bread covered with little puddles of lentils, vegies, several kinds of meat, etc. It's served with rolls of the same millet bread and you use a pinch to pick up the bite. Served communally at your (great with friends; less good with business associates); no untensils provided.

The West bank also offers vegetarian hippy food (with live acoustic music evenings) at the worker-owned New Riverside Cafe, Thai at the Diamond Thai, good spicy Tex-Mex at the Cedar Cultural Center (also a local folk music venue). There's a new Cuban restaurant that I've heard good reports on in that neighborhood, too.

The Warehouse District, across Hennepin from  the rest of downtown, boasts a really good steak place called (I think) J. D.'s Hoyt's Roadhouse. It's also on Washington Ave., north of Hennepin. They served wonderful cajun blackened stuff last time I was there, and the salad course is a really nice relish tray. Good beer selection, too, as I recall. Origami, in the Warehouse District is the hot new sushi place.

A final recommendation: Tang's, on Hennepin and maybe 13th. I had lunch there a couple of weeks ago, and it was really good, really interesting nouvelle Oriental. The ginger popcorn was worth the trip all by itself.

Enjoy!

Oh, and Shinder's Bookstore (corner of eighth and Hennepin) stocks out-of-town newspapers.  You can pick up Sunday's Toronto paper there, certainly, and maybe the Ottawa paper, if you're in town then and feeling displaced.

Karen.