Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [160]
All this excellent Roadfood is dished out by a staff of white-uniformed waitresses who are utterly efficient and, in our experience, omnipresent. It was Lynne Rosetto Kasper, host of NPR’s The Splendid Table, who said we needed to go here, and while Lynne is best known as an expert on Italian food, this suggestion alone earns her an exalted chair in the Burger Lovers’ Hall of Fame.
Hell’s Kitchen
89 S. 10th St.
612–332–4700
Minneapolis, MN
BLD | $$
Our first visits to Hell’s Kitchen were for breakfast—some of the best breakfasts anywhere. Every table is supplied with chef Mitch Omer’s magnificent preserves and marmalade and extra-luxurious chunky peanut butter, which are themselves a compelling reason to eat at this downtown hot spot. Among the stars of the morning menu include huevos rancheros of the gods—a huge plate of food that includes spicy beans, eggs, cheeses, sour cream, and fresh salsa on a crisp flour tortilla. Rosti potatoes come alongside, too; and they are available as a dish unto themselves. Chef Omer’s rostis are less like the Swiss spuds that are their namesake than they are glorified hash browns, the shreds of potato mixed with bacon, onions, chives, and scallions and grilled in sweet cream butter. A few other breakfast specialties: lemon ricotta hotcakes, extra-spicy maple-glazed bison sausage, and a quarter-pound caramel pecan roll featuring extra-crunchy pieces of nut and a refined glaze that is a sweet tooth’s dream.
The most unusual and perhaps the most delicious dish on the breakfast menu is Mahnomin Porridge, a recipe that the promethean Mr. Omer came up with from reading accounts of native Cree Indian meals that featured wild rice. His version includes nuts and berries and is topped with maple syrup and cream. What an amazing hot cereal!
The lunch menu is every bit as inviting. How about a walleye BLT made with cornmeal-dusted fillets and lemon tartar sauce instead of the homemade mayo the kitchen uses on its regular BLT? Who wouldn’t love the ham and pear crisp sandwich on sourdough bread, draped with a mantle of Swiss and fontina cheeses? We instantly became addicted to the house Bread Bucket, which is all the chewy, freshly made baguette you can eat served along with sweet cream butter, Omer’s preserves, and peanut butter.
Rather than rave on, let us simply say that if you are in Minneapolis and want to wow your taste buds, go to Hell’s Kitchen. It is inspired and inspiring.
Lange’s Café
110 8th Ave. SE (Route 23)
507–825–4488
Pipeston, MN
Always open | $
The moment we walked into Lange’s Café, we looked at the case of caramel rolls and knew we had hit pay dirt. And sure enough, as we ate our way through as much of the menu as possible, we swooned with pleasure over and over again. Beef is the entree not to miss. Listed as roast beef if it comes on a plate with mashed potatoes, green beans, and gravy, and as hot beef if it is served in a sandwich with mashed potatoes on top and gravy all over, it is pot-roast-tender and deep-flavored. Mashed potatoes are the real thing; dinner rolls that come alongside are freshly baked.
The caramel rolls that so many people eat for breakfast must be sampled anytime they are available. They are immense blocks of sweet, yeasty dough—about three inches square—and they are bathed in buttery warm caramel syrup that has a burned smack to its sweetness.
Now, we have saved the best for last: sour cream raisin pie. It’s a specialty of bakers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa, and over the years we have made it our business to sample every SCR pie we come across. Lange’s is built upon a custard that is dense, packed with raisins, creamy and sweet with the sour-cream edge that makes its sweetness