Travail team at ie Italian Eatery
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE
(Re) Openings and closings
ie Italian Eatery (4724 Cedar Ave., S.) is back, and it has “by Travail” appended to its name. The incredibly popular Italian fancy casual place was greatly mourned when the owner-couple, Eric and Vanessa Carrara, closed it. But restaurant group Travail stepped in and now it’s back. Racket covered the soft opening with one of the original eatery’s biggest fans and her verdict is: it smells the same, the spaghetti is the same, it’s pretty much the same. The full opening was Feb. 10.
Another South Minneapolis favorite reopened under new ownership just three days earlier. May Day Cafe was sold to its workers when the
Momo Café in NE
longtime owner wanted to retire. The cafe was closed briefly then reopened February 7. It, too, has retained almost all of its original recipes and treats. Its new slightly extended hours are 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., seven days a week. Video of the opening: youtube.com/shorts/7JYN_RJH-CM
Momo Café, a coffee and tea house with a Tibetan vibe, opened on Central Avenue NE in mid-February.
Herbie Butcher’s vegan fried chicken take-out on 48th Street, just west of Chicago Avenue will close for an indefinite time on March 30. Most, if not all, of its products will still be available from Herbivorous Butcher in NE Minneapolis.
Food industry news and views
Nupá in Rochester closed due to ICE arrests
Automations are rip-offs — for both workers and customers — according to The Nation and most customers. Electronic shelf labels that allow stores to raise prices on a whim, shopping apps that can mine your data, and facial recognition are some of the scary bits. See tinyurl.com/DKRatSSP-Automation.
An ICE raid in Rochester led to the arrest of two brothers employed at Nupá, a popular Mediterranean chain. The restaurant was forced to close because of it.
There has been a shake-up at the Twin Cities edition of online magazine Eater, one of my favorite sources of foodie intel (twincities.eater.com.) Although the online magazine continues to publish city editions, the staff is now a Midwest bureau combining Chicago, Detroit, and us under one editor. Former TC Eater editor Justine Jones quit just before the shake-up and was not replaced.
EATSS Indigenous Food event at the Guthrie
We note the passing away of Louie Sirian at 88, whom the Strib called “one of the last old-school saloonkeepers.” He was the owner of Lee’s Liquor Lounge for almost 40 years, and operated two other bars in the 1980s and 1990s.
Beyond Meat and the National Basketball Players Association (the NBA players’ union) has put out a plant-based cookbook featuring many Beyond products. It’s free to download. I did so; I like it. You can download it here: beyondmeat.com/en-US/go-beyond-the-buzzer.
The Guthrie was host to a unique and impressive fundraising event on Feb. 18. EATSS, an acronym for Epicurean Award to Support Scholars, combined an afternoon of tastings with an early evening concert by Rufus Wainwright. Funds were raised for the Native American College Fund. Chefs were Paul Natrall (Squamish Nation — owner of Mr. Bannock, Vancouver’s first Indigenous food truck), Anthony Bauer (Turtle Mountain Chippewa — founder of Traditional Fire Custom Cuisine), Andrea Condes (Andean Native, Caracas, Venezuela — founder of Four Directions Cuisine), and Nathan Davis (Turtle Mountain Chippewa — owner/operator of A’Wiisinin Food Truck).
Marios Artichoke Pizza
Mini-review#1 – Mario’s Pizza (St. Paul)
I went to Mario’s on an icy night in early February with the same comrade, Sam, as last month, as both my designated pork-eater and my designated driver. We were a bit nonplussed by the prices, but then even more so by the enormous size of the pizzas, which caused me to re-adjust my judgement of the price.
I had the Artichoke Pizza and a glass of a quite tasty Pinot Grigio. Sam had a fancy version of Pepperoni Pizza. Knowing we would both be taking home leftovers due to the largeness of the pizzas, I imparted Deb’s Law of Pizza — If it’s not good cold out of the fridge the next day, it was never good pizza. I got four more meals out of mine! Sam referred to my law as “the morning after test” (very poetic), and confirmed that the pepperoni also passed it. If you would like a traditional Sicilian pan pizza with focaccia-like crust, try Mario’s.
Mini-review #2 – CookUnity
I gave CookUnity, a ready-to-eat meal service, a try, but ended up canceling after one week due to frustrations with the website and interface. What attracted me to Cook Unity was that it is the only meal service that really ought to work for a single person. The minimum order per week is six 1-serving meals and you can skip weeks. But mainly, this is touted as a chef-driven meal program, with the names of the chefs on all the dishes. The meals were not bad, but there is only so high you can go with what’s essentially a 21st century non-frozen TV dinner. I was not that impressed.
