[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: February 22, 2008]
Where were we? Yes, in icy Minnesota, eating walleye "fingers" at a bar which, when I returned the next night, had ominously closed down.
We should learn more of the legendary walleye, for we shall meet it again before my tale is done. It is a freshwater, pike-like fish, native to Canada and the northern United States. It has no fingers.
It is fished commercially around the Great Lakes and forms - I was to learn - a cornerstone of Minnesotan cuisine.
Take yourself back to the days when online food forums were not the obvious source of dining advice. Chowhound was not even a year old when I first hit St Paul, and certainly I'd never heard of it. Nor did I happen to know any Americans who could give me personal guidance on entertaining myself in the land of several thousand lakes.
Zagat was the obvious solution. I've not kept the 1998 Minnesota Zagat in my collection, nestled alongside Zamyatin, but I do recall that I simply chose the restaurants with highest food ratings as my dining destinations. This taught me a lesson I have carried with me ever since. A New York score of 28 is not equivalent to a score of 28 in Minneapolis, Denver or Salt Lake City.
The exercise began at the St Paul Grill (and was to continue there frequently, as I moved into the hotel above). I think this was the highest, or second-highest rated restaurant in the city - a clubby, masculine tavern room with booth seating right off the hotel's main bar.
The menu was, let us say, not foppish. I ordered salad, steak and fried potatoes. This was one of my more successful meals here: "good" steak, according to my notes, although the fries were "poor". I drank beer.
Next day was downtime, and still carrying the persistent remnants of the respiratory illness developed the previous December, I set about sight-seeing. It was a cold day, and grey, but snow-free. I tried very hard to approach St Paul's looming Catholic Cathedral on foot, but rather like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the more you walked the further away it got. Perched atop a hill, it continually receded behind by-passes, bridges and highways.
I gave up. Circling around I finally found a sight to see. The home of the Prairie Home Companion. I stood and stared. I am not a big Garrison Keiller fan.
Back at the hotel, after weeks of constant travel and poor health, I finally collapsed and spent nineteen hours in bed. I awoke in a sort of dazed depression with which - perhaps unfairly - I still associate that bleak northern city.
When I could eat again, I ate on consecutive days at the St Paul Grill. I can only be candid and say that the word "vile" appears in my diary alongside a specialty of the house: pecan walleye. This dish will live forever in my memory. The humble walleye pike, not the world's most exciting fish, rendered unpalatable by the application of a sweet nut crust.
Quite disastrous, as was the sticky horseradish mash, bathed in cream, which supported it.
As far as I can recall, I was compelled here again the next evening by clients. As my journal fairly comments, serving French onion soup lukewarm is a "remarkable" thing to do. But it was not beyond this kitchen.
It followed up with a flavor-free veal chop, but surpassed itself with a side of potato gratin which was quite one of the most disgusting things I've ever been served. Mashed potatoes "mixed with chunks of cheese" - yes, chunks - and "topped with a crumble". Breadcrumbs I suppose. The sheer gluey horror can scarcely be conveyed.
A fellow guest pressed the merits of a Californian Pinot Noir - Steele, year unknown - which reminded me of Ribena.
Things could only get better, and I was relieved to eat dinner the next day in Minneapolis. Who suggested it, I don't know, but I found myself in an unpretentious bistro called The New French Café in some dark and deserted quarter of the city. There were some unusual entries on the menu, and I ordered with trepidation: but there was a capable cook in the house.
"Potato duck confit almond cookies" was an appetizer I've long thought of recreating, but never have. Large, pliable cookies, not sweet, studded with pieces of potato, shreds of braised duck, and nuts. It worked.
I must have been nervous, because I took duck again for my entrée, this time roasted with wild rice. I also seized command of the wine-list, and from the American choices picked a Chalk Hill Chardonnay, and a west coast Pinot I knew I liked, the '93 Domaine Drouhin.
Scanning Zagat again, I picked an alternative high-rated contender for my last night in St Paul, the appropriately named Carousel - a revolving restaurant at the top of the Radisson Riverfront. Yes, a revolving restaurant, and I should know better.
For some reason - tradition? whim? - the crab cakes arrived flat as pancakes. Roast pheasant was unobjectionable, although we shall never know why the menu described the accompanying potatoes as "fresh". Perhaps there are days on which they served the "stale" ones. In an excess of garnish, a four grain pilaff showed up too, along with some random boiled veggies. A Mondavi "Coastal" Cab with this, and milk chocolate brownie - my goodness - with Kahlua ice cream to follow.
It hardly overstates the matter to say I sped to the airport the next morning, having already booked my homecoming dinner at San Domenico. But my escape was short-lived.
Ten years on, the St Paul Grill appears unchanged, the Carousel still spins atop the Radisson Riverfront, but the New French Café is now part of history. The Minnesota Monthly recalls:
"Lynne Alpert and Pam Sherman brought a new level of French dining to Minneapolis in 1977 when they opened their café in the Warehouse District. Authentic café au lait, baguettes, terrines, and crème caramel were just a few of the basics beloved by the see-and-be-seen crowd. Over the years, these classic items were joined on the menu by the current chef’s progressive creations. Thom Lowe, who was owner and chef of the New French when it closed in 2001, created the popular Souffléd Lemon Custard." cite
