A great way to end the day
After a relatively sad food day Friday, with chunks of veggie skins in my food and bad coffee at a classic St. Paul restaurant, we set out for a late dinner somewhere....anywhere.
We started in St. Paul and then crossed the river to see if Minneapolis could bring us out of our food funk. We landed on Minnehaha quite a few blocks south of Lake Street. We passed The Howe Daily Kitchen & Bar. John drove about a block more and we decided to circle the block and see if we could find a parking spot. Yup, our decision had come down to 'where can we find a place to park'.
Not 1 but 2 parking places emerged. Okay...decision made.
We wandered in and even though there was quite a full house, were seated immediately (I think the restaurant seating gods were on our side...a couple moved from a table to a booth they'd been waiting for....so we lucked out and were seated at their table).
Instantly, glasses of water appeared at our table, along with food and drink menus - even though we were the geezers in the room (we'll say more about that in some future post--let's just say, at least geezers know how to use a fork and napkin ; o
Yes, a menu with some real non-bar food choices. Even several tasty vegan options. We selected an appetizer of two kinds of hummus with several kinds of veggies and pita bread. Then we decided to split the Korean BBQ short rib made with short rib from the Herbivorous Butcher. Then I threw in a small salad with honey mustard dressing to compensate for two days in a row of eating loaded hash browns (my liver applauded!).
The food arrived within just a couple of minutes. Beautiful.
The hummus plate had hummus and curry hummus with veggies and pita arranged beautifully. This was a great opener. The small salad was standard baby greens, but they had clearly taken a giant red onion and sliced it into the finest tiny rings I've ever seen. You could cut it into tiny pieces so that you could add just enough onion to each bite. The honey mustard dressing was delightful.
John and I split the Korean BBQ short rib sandwich (and let me just say, split doesn't mean half and half!). The bites I was able to acquire were fabulous. (we were comparing to our disappointing visit to J Selby...they also use 'meat' from the Herbivorous Butcher...but their presentation was a hot mess (actually a lukewarm mess). So this was a good comparison. The 'meat' was tasty with great texture. The chipotle sauce added just enough 'kick' to balance the sweetness of the slaw topping. I'm always disappointed in the factory white bread buns (this one kinda disintegrated quickly, too) but the ingredients in the sandwich made it easy to overlook the flawed bun. We included a side of fries.....coated for a nice crisp finish...tasty enough to make you eat a few too many.
This was a very positive way to finish the day. Our server was efficient and we spent a few minutes talking about other food places...sharing recommendations. She also asked us if we might be coming back in the future, and gave us a frequent diner card that gives a 5% discount most of the time and 10% on Thursday. The Howe is in the restaurant group that includes Stanley's NE Party Room across from our regular favorite place---the Marina Grill and Deli on Lowry and University in Northeast (don't confuse this with the Big Marina Grill and Deli; that's another story).
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