Spoonriver

A Happy Hatch Day to Liz. I'm just going to go ahead and publish on the interweb her age: 40. I think she is handling it well. I think the word "aplomb" is a good one to describe it.

Speaking of Liz, this is a wall post that I got from her:

at 6:17pm on May 15th, 2008

What about our lovely meal at Spoonriver?

Indeed, what about our lovely meal at Spoonriver?

Sometimes, when the light is low and I have forgotten my mini tripod, the pictures take a lot of finessing before they are CM-ready. It's funny because this gives rise to a phenomenon where all my lunches get posted quickly (sunlight = good light, no finessing), whereas my dinners take longer to go to press. Not that it's that much finessing. It's seriously just clicking, like, 3 buttons in Picasa. But still.

Also - isn't "Finesse" a type of shampoo? Whatever happened to that shampoo brand?

Before I get too off-track and risk Tinx saying, "You're so random" from across the living room as she reads my posts on her laptop, let me get back to Spoonriver. It is a resto in Minneapolis, and the fancy meal that Liz took me to whilst on my visit there (...in January...sometimes when finessing is saved for later, the entire post gets forgotten about...)

Liz's kids were safely with their excellent sitter (whom they were trusting, for the first time, to actually put their kids to bed rather than just the post-school-fun-crafts-type of babysitting. I was honored that our meal was that important). We were joined by the sweet Alfred (a mutual friend) and by Liz's husband Jamie. Alfred ordered the above cocktail, which is so amazing it deserves its own paragraph for the description.

Fall Monk: Butternut squash martini, Benedictine, Frangelico, and maple syrup, with a toasted walnut rim.

I'm sure you can imagine how good this tasted. I love egg nog and it tasted like egg nog to me. But if you hate egg nog, don't worry - the others at the table didn't taste egg nog at all.

Ok, like "finesse," the word "nog" is looking funny to me now.

To start, we ordered the Caspian, pictured top - Humous and roasted red pepper walnut spreads, vegetables, olives, foccacia. There were more exciting apps, but after much angst, Jamie decided to combine two appetizers into his entree, so we were anticipating tasting his food.

The humous was great but we were all feeling polite about the accompanying bread and were smearing it on the veggies, which was not as great of a combo. If I could nitpick this appetizer I would say that the crostini was in the weird middle ground between regular soft and appropriately toasted, and the red pepper spread was just this side of slimy (rather than smooth walnuty) but it had a very delightful carbonation fizziness to it.




You know when someone else orders something that you instantly crave? This is Liz's Fischer Farms Pork Tenderloin with miso caramel glaze, apple slaw, and root mash. ROOT MASH! I mean, what the hell was I thinking not ordering this? Goddamnit. I had one bite of everything on her plate, and briefly considered knocking my own entree onto the floor and getting it replaced with this pork dish. Failing that, I could always knock Liz unconscious and steal her food.




Luckily, I was then distracted by Alfred's Minnesota Lamb and Vegetable Stew in Moroccan flavors. Spoonriver is organic and all that, but surprisingly un-local. Good for Alfred, therefore, for choosing this. I contemplated stealing a taste, but he was kitty-corner from me, and it looked just too too complicated to get a perfect bite without hacking at it with a knife. Pity. It's 10:30 pm right now as I write and with no dinner in my tum, I would give anything to have a taste of this.




Jamie ordered both the Savory Wild Mushroom & Pistachio Terrine with fruit chutney, mustard sauce, croutons, and cornichons as well as the Quesadilla with local free range smoked chicken, greek Keseri cheese, mango, and cranberry coulis. No amount of finessing could make my quesadilla photos presentable. The terrine was a bit dry (I would have gone for the Wild Acres Duck & Chicken Liver Pate myself - no prospect of dryness when there's liver involved). However, the terrine is nowhere near as dry as my "dinner" is a microwaved Boca burger with ketchup on top, so I should just shut the fuck up.

Oh, also - cornichons: surprisingly tasty.



So what did I order? I went local as well, with the Minnesota Farm Raised Lamb Burger with house Bois Boudran sauce. Bois Boudran sauce = schmancy ketchup.

Initial thoughts: Why is this patty so shriveled? Looks dry. Why the fuck are there tortilla chips on this plate? Weirdage. I should have fucking gotten the pork tenderloin.

Then, these thoughts: Holy flavorful! How did they put so much flavor into this? One ounce of this lamb basically necessitates its own bun! Oh, and what is this ketchup-like substance? Oh, my goodness! I'd like to take a pint of this home and eat it with a spoon, like soup!

After our entrees, Jamie got all excited. "If we skip dessert, we can get home in time to give the kids a good night kiss before they go to bed!!!" To which Liz said, "I'm not fucking skipping dessert!" which is why I love her.




Spoonriver's website is failing me now by not listing their desserts. But so are my iPhone notes, which end after "...toasted walnut rim." Great. My note-taking abilities died with the cocktails, apparently. Well. It is clearly some sort of mousse. With chocolate shavings. And what is that? Pineapple? No, mango. Peach? What is that? Also, there appears to be some...poo? Just kidding. That's clearly caramel. I do remember the poo being the most amazing part of it. As we dug our spoons through the goo, the caramel became even more poo-like by smearing up the sides of the glass.

After dessert, we contemplated walking around the Guthrie (immediately across the street). This conversation, however, put such a pained look on Jamie's face (10 minutes to bedtime! STILL time for a goodnight kiss!!!!) that we skipped it. We rushed home, where Jamie successfully planted kisses on their totally unappreciative boys' faces.

Spoonriver
750 S 2nd St.
Minneapolis, MN 55401
612.436.2236

Frogo - Rhymes with Frodo

Frogo is a new, under-chattered frozen yogurt joint that opened just two blocks from my house (Stalkers: 1, Janet: 0). Tinx and I were coming back from school laaate, and even though she had to pee something fierce, she obliged my wishes and went there with me. We weren't even sure if they were open, but indeed it is open until 11 pm weekdays, midnite on Saturday, 10pm Sunday (this is not yet etched on the doors but that's what the hours are).

The decor was the requisite ultra sleek / ultra modern combination, though Frogo has a million plasma screens on the wall. One of these was playing what looked to be a Michael McDonald concert, which gives them major points if they are being ironic, a la 40-Year-Old Virgin, but major minus points if it was just straight up.


Tinx had done some earlier reconnaissance and discovered that their berry yogurt is fantastic. So I followed suit. Hers sits front; mine in back with the kiwi.

Frogo attempts to differentiate themselves by using fructose. Not high fructose corn syrup, which is the root of all evil according to some, but bonafide, true fructose. An information sheet detailing the benefits of fructose (doesn't spike blood sugar [in fact, fructose is metabolized without the use of insulin so it's good for diabetics], helps you feel full, "healthy," etc.) sits on the counter.

The kiwi was underripe. You shouldn't need your teeth for kiwi - just your tongue. But that is nitpicking, I gues. The yogurt itself is not quite "like Yoplait, but frozen!" like Tinx claimed, but is exactly in between Red Mango and Pinkberry in terms of its tart/ice-ness.

To be honest, I was really distracted while eating it, because we were (albeit nicely) accosted by an Asian dude named Jason - the owner. I am usually a little more on the down low when it comes to snapping photos, but at 10pm on a weekday I really didn't think that any higher-ups would be around (indeed, upon first glance, it was just two really cute employees who looked like they should be working at Abercrombie instead). He just appeared out of nowhere.

Jason: I noticed you're taking pictures. Can I ask you why?
Janet: Oooooh, well, you know, it's a hobby of mine - I just like to take pictures of my food.
Jason: Oh, because you know you're taking pictures of my store, too, so I was just curious you know why is this girl taking pictures?
Janet: Haha yeah well it's just what I do. Haha I'm not a journalist or anything. [Hello defensive.]
Jason: [Not buying it for a minute] It's ok if you want to take pictures and put it up on a blog. I just wanted to tell you more about our product.
Janet: Well you can tell me about it if you want but I'm not a blogger or anything! [Dig dig dig]
Tinx: Giggle. [Squeezing legs together to avoid peeing]

So he told us about the miracles of fructose, the fact that he got out of a career in banking to open this shop, chatted with us about what we did (he's a fellow UCLA alum!) and then offered us another yogurt. I had hit my sweetness threshold .75 yogurts ago, so I declined, and Tinx did as well. So then he gave us...free crack tea!



If you read the few reviews of Frogo on the interweb, people talk more about the coffee than the yogurt. This tea was fucking awesome. You don't often see people's eyes light up when they sip on iced tea. But Tinx (despite her full bladder) bounced up and said, "MMM!" so I tried it as well. Tangy, but not sour. Mellow, but not sweet. Full of crack, but not heroin.

The reason we think it is full of crack is because (a) it tastes so good, and (b) Tinx was ricocheting off the walls of our apartment when we got home [I took mini sips and saved the rest for the following morning - so fucking AZN].

I hope they make it, because the employees, beginning with Jason the owner, are so nice, and their products are good. And Silverlake is far too far to go for crack - this is much more convenient.

Frogo
1300 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90403
310.395.6794