Stock and Bond in downtown Minneapolis
BY DEBRA KEEfER RAMAGE
Openings, closings, and other changes
Once again, I don’t have a lot of new openings to tell you about. In fact, only one, plus one re-opening.
The new place is downtown, in the former Bank restaurant space inside the Westin Hotel. It’s called Stock and Bond, which sounds like an upgrade to Bank. They offer heritage steaks, whatever those are, parkerhouse rolls, and expensive whiskeys.
Tiny Diner is the re-opening, which occurred in late June. Here is a paywall free link to the MSP Biz Journal piece on it: archive.ph/jTk3A. The gardens were revamped by the original designer, and the original chef came back, so it should be the same, pretty much. Is it? Skip below to the mini-review to find out.
Cub Foods in the Midway neighborhood of St. Paul closed Aug. 2 with the loss of nearly 100 good union jobs.
Hors d-oeuvres made with lab-grown salmon
News of the World of food
The Vegan Chef Challenge is underway as you read this. This is an initiative of Compassionate Action for Animals where local restaurants, both vegan and non-, put up a signature vegan dish then diners try as many as they can fit in before voting online for the best. Each vote, or tag of of your challenge meal in a social media post, is an entry in a prize draw. Go to caa.mn/twin-cities-vegan-chef-challenge to get started.
Lab-grown salmon is now available in Portland OR! Grist has a review of the place serving it along with a survey of current lab-grown meat technology and cases for and against. Link – tinyurl.com/DKRatSSP-labsalmon.
Sean Sherman and his nonprofit NATIFS have been in the food news a lot. He has a new book out (Turtle Island) along with co-author Kate Nelson, as well as new projects in the works. Nelson wrote all about it in Civil Eats (civileats.com, May 20), and Nylah Iqbal Muhammad also covered the same topics for a June 6 piece in twincities.eater.com.
Both Racketmn.com and twincities.eater.com have hot takes on the newly announced State Fair foods. I am not a lover of the MN State Fair as a food source (gasp!! deport her now!) with all its fried stuff and pork and beef and sugar and chocolate, but I know a lot of y’all are, so have at it.
Opinions, we have a few
Civil Eats had a very interesting piece called “Ten ways to offer food mutual aid” where activist and author Robin Greenfield “offers his suggestions for strengthening your community through food.” I couldn’t help thinking as I read this
New State Fair food for 2025 includes caramelized banana ube syrup lumpia
that a lot of these things, or things like them, are already happening in the Twin Cities. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just join in. It has ideas like seed libraries (check), composting initiatives (check), public school gardens or urban farm youth projects (check), and public-use fruit trees (check).
Here’s another plug to read and maybe even join and support Civil Eats. They are doing a stellar job countering the RFK, Jr.-originated malarkey under the Trump administration, and fearlessly reporting on things like labor violations and ICE raids and climate emergencies. Just type civileats.com into your browser to access.
Executive Chef Vernon Defoe of Gatherings Cafe, the eatery inside of the Minneapolis American Indian Center on Franklin Avenue, is profiled in a piece in Twin Cities Eater. Read the piece here – tinyurl.com/DKRatSSP-Defoe.
Chef Vernon Defoe of Gatherings
Mini-review – The return of Tiny Diner
Yes, Tiny Diner has returned, but only five days a week (Wednesday through Sunday) and only for breakfast / brunch (7 a.m. to 2 p.m.). They are hopefully going to have some evening pop-ups and special events in the near future. Breakfast was not TD’s strongest suit in my opinion, but their eggs are always fresh and perfectly cooked, and their coffee is good.
I was accompanied by my frequent designated pork-eater Samuel D. who actually did eat a strip of the fancy heritage breed bacon. I had hot Earl
Tiny Diner solar patio and permaculture
Grey tea and the cream-cheese green onion scramble with grits. It was as good as I remembered it to be. Samuel, who had not been to Tiny Diner before, had huevos rancheros and a milky iced coffee drink. He said the rancheros, a diner acid-test, was OK, but not going to displace his best-of. So, OK, we were not wowed. But it’s a diner! You don’t want gourmet stuff, you want cheap, but with quality, consistency, and good vibes. Check! And welcome back, I hope you stay.
