Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [159]
It’s a sweet story for those of us who prize eateries with genuine character over those cookie-cuttered in the corporate boardroom, and the fact is that the glazed and cake donuts, sweet rolls, maple-frosted long johns, and cookies at Bloedows (rhymes with Playdoughs) deserve their renown. We found out about the place thanks to Roadfood.com tipster Vanessa Haluska, who directed us to a Bloedows’ specialty, the peanut butter roll. It’s a big, circular pastry made with sweet dough and swirled with peanut butter where you might expect cinnamon. For PB lovers it is a very large taste of heaven, and so we salute Vanessa, who described this charming place as “the best small-town bakery that I have ever visited!”
Cafe Latté
850 Grand Ave.
651–224–5687
St. Paul, MN
LD | $$
We arrived in St. Paul mid-morning and headed straight to Grand Avenue for an early lunch. We had the cafeteria line at Cafe Latté all to ourselves. The ready-made salads were laid out, pretty as can be, as were ingredients for the made-to-order ones. If you like Caesar salad, this place is a dream, because you can get the classic version as well as a Caesar supplemented by artichoke hearts, Greek olives, or sliced tomatoes. Each individual salad is made to order, so you can specify if you want a little more of this or that. Breads from the prodigious bakery in the back of the store are arrayed along the line and regal cakes were on display at the beginning.
We’ll be drooling on our computer keyboard if we try to describe too many of the cakes, so let’s just say that the turtle cake, an intense mountain of chocolate, caramel, and pecans, is monumentally good. Other available layered chocolate wonders are chocolate-chocolate, orange blossom, German chocolate, and chocolate banana.
Whether you are in the mood for cake or a salad, a sandwich and soup, or just scones and espresso, this is a fine, inexpensive place to enjoy yourself.
Convention Grill
3912 Sunnyside Rd.
952–920–6881
Minneapolis, MN
LD | $
Here is a great American hamburger. Not the biggest or the best-dressed, not stuffed with foie gras like the $100 oddities made by show-off chefs, not so lean it’s dry nor so greasy it is unctuous, this is a thick, bun-size patty sizzled to crusty perfection on an extremely well-oiled grill. It oozes juice and radiates beefy savor, and is especially good topped with a mantle of melted cheese and presented California-style (with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise). Other available toppings include bacon and mushrooms, or you can have a Plaza Burger, which comes with sour cream, chives, and chopped onions and is sandwiched in a dark bun. The menu boasts it is just like the one “featured in the Plaza Tavern of Madison, Wisconsin,” but anyone who has eaten the original (Wisconsin) wouldn’t be fooled. We much prefer the regular Convention Grill hamburgers.
For burgers alone, we’ll happily make the pilgrimage to this 1934-vintage diner in Edina, but we can guarantee our California cheeseburgers will be accompanied by French fries. Beautiful fries, cooked until honey-tone brown, each portion a mix of cream-centered, full-size sticks and darkened crunchy little twigs and burnt ends of potato debris from when the spuds are hand-cut in the kitchen.
On the side you want a malt. Huge and so thick that they must be spooned from their metal beaker because pouring is impossible, Convention Grill malts are available in a rainbow of flavors: chocolate, wild blueberry, butterscotch, strawberry, coffee, banana, vanilla, caramel, honey, hot fudge, butterfinger, mint, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. For fifty cents extra, you can have fresh banana added. The only problem with ordering a malt is that it makes it less likely you will have the stamina to have