Secrets of the City

Every place I have ever been in St. Paul smells vaguely of urine.

Think maybe that is it?

It has more vibrant residential neighborhoods than Minneapolis, better public schools, more responsive city government, and more charm.

Whatthehell does he know? Minneapolis has charm out the wazoo.

Maybe people in St. Paul get the trots if they’re not eating comfort food.

Are you sure it’s the restaurants that smell?

maybe because St. Paul people don’t like paying $30 for an entree?

Wow, finally some honest, thoughtful talk about the St. Paul restaurant scene.

We live in downtown St. Paul, and as pro-STP as I am……I say the best restaurant in STP is right in my own damn kitchen!

There is always an inferior twin, and earlier this year, wasn’t there the meme that *Minneapolis* couldn’t support upscale dining?

I think the last two posts are probably telling Mr. Adam Platt why Pigseye can’t sustain an upscale restaurant scene. The residents are cheapskates.

No grad schools in the downtown area to get young professionals to eat down there? Or no real business district? Or people who work in St. Paul go straight home to Eagan (I bet a lot of people who work in Minneapolis live around the area)?

My solution to fix everything: St. Paul needs a large college downtown. That’ll get more businesses down there, more restaurants, etc. Back in the day, it was all the rich folk who lived up on Summit hill, and it seems like that’s still where all the action is.

Well, Metro State’s main campus is near DT St. Paul…but I don’t know how many live around there…

$30+ for an entree is fine when the food can back that kind of price. Don’t create a restaurant and fill it with $30 entrees that aren’t worth 1/3 of that and expect people to continue to eat there. I’m quite tired of entering a restaurant and finding the food to be overpriced only because of a desire to be price-competitive with other overpriced restaurants in town.

I can’t don’t even know how many times I walked down Grand Avenue and after deciding on Axel’s Bonfire for the third time in the last month that I think to myself that Saint Paul needs about 4 more restaurants that you can get for at for $10-$15/plate tops.

Generally speaking, St. Paulites are not pretentious people. Most of us have lived here most of our lives. We have other, more interesting things to do with our disposable income than to spend it in a resteraunt.

Minneapolis is made up of people who are primarily from somewhere else … usually some one-horse town outstate or the dakotas, or worse yet, Iowa. These people have a lot of catching up to do vis a vis civilization. These are the people, typically renters who have very little else to spend their time and money on, who seem to be clamoring for the trendy eateries.

That said, we eat out every Friday night at one of 6-8 different places that are known for good food at reasonable prices. We see the need for fancy resteraunts like the Lex or Kincaids’s as someplace for our teenagers to go on prom night.

And the person who smells urine when in St. Paul should check her own drawers. She’s probably experiencing the normal human reaction of possibly running into mazasapa on a St. Paul street.

I can tell you what’s wrong: Saint Paul has a minority voice of closet fascists in charge. Mostly the yuppie crowd out there. They are anti-business, anti-change, anti-fiscal responsibility, anti-rational, anti-socialized, and anti-democratic; they are however pro-big government, pro-bureaucracy, pro-financial irresponsible, pro-nanny state, pro-secretive, pro-class envy, pro-racists, and pro-self-righteous. These are the ones that are ruining Saint Paul, not the typical general city population.

And to suggest that either Saint Paul is not pretentious by population standards, according to maz view, or it smells like urine from the perception of raindog66, should considered themselves as both dishonest and seditious by moral content. Hence, I’m sick of the arrogant attitude by both political sides, regarding my hometown; I don’t like my mayor or the city council members either, but it is worse when outsiders and smug folks from out-of-town can come up with the audacity about the inner city lifestyle, mostly attacking the blue collar population.

So pack up your flip flops and L.L. Bean clothes and purge yourselves guys! Go crawl under your rock and stay there for the rest of your asshole lives! Most of us don’t need pricks like you.

What, like no plce in Minneapolis ever closes?

Yea, downtown Saint Paul is a pretty quiet after 5. One anecdote does not a solution make, but . . .

Wintry afternoon a couple of years ago, a few months after Fhima’s opened, Mrs. OctaneBoy and I and another couple saw all this blue light pouring out onto Sixth Street and decided to poke our heads in the door to see what’s what.

The host/maitre’d dude was pretty busy playing kiss-kiss with three tipsy and and seemingly overdressed (for Sunday afternoon about 4:30) women in their 40’s and finally got around to asking us, essentially, why we were there. We told him we saw the new place, were looking for some drinks and early dinner. After staring at us for about 5 seconds he clumsily and pretentiously implied that Fhima had some manner of dress code. We had all just come from Park Square Theater, which is not the black-tie Ordway, but none of us were ragged, torn, rumpled, stinking or shod in Randy Moss jerseys, so whatever what up his ass is unknown to us to this day.

Okay prettyboy, you’re too cool for us Saint Paul clods. That’s fine; it’s your place, but now it’s late summer 2007, I’m still enjoying myself out on the town and you have never been more out of business.

To David Fhima and all the other Professionally Beautiful Restauranteurs and Pretend Club Owners within shouting distance: If you wish to turn a profit in downtown St. Paul, you better figure out who’s there, who’s not, and what people want. Great Waters, Kincaids, The Liffey, Sakura and Axel’s are all very happy to continue to take our money.

Maz, I laughed out loud at your final sentence!

“Saint Paul has a minority voice of closet fascists in charge. . . . They are anti-business, anti-change, anti-fiscal responsibility, anti-rational, anti-socialized, and anti-democratic; they are however pro-big government, pro-bureaucracy, pro-financial irresponsible, pro-nanny state, pro-secretive, pro-class envy, pro-racists, and pro-self-righteous.“

Well, yeah, but the Legislature HAS to convene in St. Paul. It’s the capital.

“And to suggest that either Saint Paul is not pretentious by population standards, according to maz view, or it smells like urine from the perception of raindog66, should considered themselves as both dishonest and seditious by moral content.“

Thankfully, St. Paul still has its bars, eh, Yogi?

I think it’s nice the people in Small Paul are happy with what they have and don’t aspire to anything more.

Some of the best food and value in St. Paul restaurants is in little ethnic places. We had dinner at Little Szechuan at Western and University – they close between 3 and 5 – the ambience clean, bright, unpretentious, the food first rate, the prices reasonable, the service excellent and good beer choices. Another good place for food but not for decor is Thai Bazil, West of Dale on University. When Mai Village is good it’s great, but the service can be hit or miss.

Saint Paul restaurants like A Rebours and Fhima have suffered from uneven food and service – Fhima was pretty, and when good very good, but sometimes the staff were more interested in their own lives than in my lunch or dinner – and those chairs were sheer indulgence on the part of the designer. Guacamole on South Robert is good but lousy ambiance, Black Sea on Snelling great value but no alcohol and cramped-if-friendly, there’s a newish Korean Place with a Q in the name nearby, with a creat seafood pancake, but creepy decor. Kincaids is dependable, but pricey and predictable. Highland Grill is good bistro food, priced right, but the brittle decor and noise and close quarters turn me off – as do those fingered-by-the-previous-party forks and knives in the malt cups and the gross terrycloth towels instead of napkins. Cafe Latte is good for after work (nice nice wine) or lunch, but there’s not enuf hot food for a real dinner. Bonfire is good food but self-consciously camp decor. Well, you can get good eats in saint paul, but great dining is pricey and largely limited to the westerly zipcodes, alas.

We seem to attract a fair amount of posing restaurants – places that want the diner to get with their vision instead of getting with the customer’s project. And we do have a screwball central planning mentation that keeps the retail district dead and even chipotle closing at three in the afternoon downtown. Politicians shouldn’t try to run other people’s businesses – the foodies suffer.

“I think it’s nice the people in Small Paul are happy with what they have and don’t aspire to anything more.“

To the extent that the word “more” in your sentence means “overpriced”, or “copied badly from real restaurants in real cities out east”, or even “condescendingly slid across to you by overpuffed servants who misunderstand their role and significance in your life”, yeah, it is kinda cool.

“We seem to attract a fair amount of posing restaurants – places that want the diner to get with their vision instead of getting with the customer’s project.“

If the concept being pushed is the product of minds more used to the bigger towns, that would make sense. In the puddle that we call St. Paul, you can’t afford to attract only one out of every five thousand diners for the evening, or at least you only need buy one chair. In a much bigger pond, you can do that – put your own fantasy out there unapologetically – because “one out of five thousand” will still give you a night’s business.

“condescendingly slid across to you by overpuffed servants who misunderstand their role and significance in your life”,

No condescension on your part though, huh, bobby?

A waiter used to be a profession. Still is in some places.

Generally speaking, St. Paulites are not pretentious people.

Except when your trying to be pretentious in your upretentiousness. I know this game, Maz.

Classic passive aggessive behavior. Minnesota through and through.

Not suffering fools lightly is not the same as being pretentious.

Platt left out quite a few good “sophisticated food-focused restaurants” that happen to be in St. Paul. Off the top of my head, I count La Grolla, il Vesco Vino, Luci, Luci Ancora, Punch, and Little Szechuan. Could it be better? Yes, but it’s not as bleak as he makes it sound.

Part of St. Paul’s problem is the residents’ desire to cast it with a sort of folksy Leave-it-to-Beaver wholesome downhome image. To paraphrase Maz, “Minneapolitans sip margaritas and St. Paulites drink a beer after mowing the lawn.” This sort of image, projected from one of the great defenders of St. Paul, may be the sort of “Proudly Provincial” attitude that Platt is hinting towards.

If people from Minneapolis were really that sophisticated they’d drink Cosmopolitans or Mojitos.

And there’s lawns here too. Ours is getting too long.

Waitering still is a profession, Rat, but when I hit “nice” spots in Mpls, I run into a disproportionate number of supercillious twits who have seen too many movies featuring the caricatured hostile French waiter and who seem to have wholeheartedly embraced that persona as their career ideal. The best of experiences comes when the waiter acts both as a welcoming host on behalf of the restaurant, and as my quasi-agent, familiar with what his place has to offer and happily eager to figure out with me which among the choices will best match my desires. Want to act all cold and haughty? Fine, but please take those other tables way over there.

“Proudly Provincial” = not trying to be something you’re not.

“Oh, I think you can do without that. Your words come back to me when I look at a new sportcoat. Good Scottish tweed, it costs $130, and when I try it on, it makes me feel smart and lucky and substantial, but your right, I can do without it, and so I will. Your can get a perfectly good one at Sears for half the price. If if bought the $130 one, pride would leak in and rot my heart. Who do I think I am?”

From: Lake Wobegon Days

And what’s with waiters/waitresses who don’t write down your order, no matter how complicated? Am I supposed to be impressed that they’re going to remember all that? All it does is make me nervous that the order’s going to be screwed up, while it projects a “your patronage isn’t all that important to us so why should we care if we get it right,” kinda attitude on the part of the establishment.

The whole Prairie Home Companion thing makes St. Paul an epicenter of affected pretentiousness. This may be despite the general populace, though.

Perhaps the problem with fine dining and night life in downtown St. Paul is that the main events it hosts and is known for are episodic and are typically family or government centered. Not a recipe for a sparkling and innovative night life. And, the biggest draw of the city, it’s river view, is inaccessable or obstructed by industry, parks or, now, housing.

The whole Prairie Home Companion thing makes St. Paul an epicenter of affected pretentiousness. This may be despite the general populace, though.

but i love that. it gives the city character (and something to endlessly complain about)

In the olden days, waiters and waitresses wrote things down on a pad, and handed that note to the cook. Today, they enter it into a computer shortly after leaving the table. The ones who work for a while find that they don’t have to write things down, as they just have to enter it in a computer. The ones who write stuff down are new…

granpa tony’s pizza makes up for the lack of everything else in saint paul. Not enough single girls either. when i was livign there it was lonelyville.

Look over at someone’s Friend Bill – maybe a poet could convene a Better Saint Paul seminar…

“This guy does write good poems. Most of what I can find online, anyway, I liked.

It looks like he lives in Saint Paul – so that’s something good about Saint Paul – and if he cooks, he’s probably making the restaurant scene more tolerable, too.

I’m going to see if I can go steal the books…
»» Submitted by »»» Riverbed at 8:39 AM on September 13″

I spent 10 years in SW Mpls and 10 years in NE and Uptown. Now I’m in St. Paul (Mac Grovelland). St. Paul kicks ass.
I have to laugh at the ignorance of the pro Mpls posters. Minneapolis is McMinneapolis. St. Paul has character and charm. Plus, an abundance of pub/bars that serve food well past midnight.
Minneapolis tries to be Cosmo. Comes off like Des Moines trying to be Cosmo.

Then why is it when everyone whips out their cell phone during a connecting flight at MSP they never say “I’m in St. Paul?”

“Then why is it when everyone whips out their cell phone during a connecting flight at MSP they never say “I’m in St. Paul?”“

Same reason most of them hit a McDonalds sometime in the next week.

The ones who work for a while find that they don’t have to write things down, as they just have to enter it in a computer. The ones who write stuff down are new…

That’s what I kinda figured. But you can’t tell me that I’m the only patron who has the reaction I described. Someone should share that with the staff.

A good waiter can/should remember orders for six with up to three variations/special orders. A bad server uses a notepad and says “hold on while I write this down.” A lot of the skill in waitering is memory/recall. Recall of the menu and wine list, and recall of the clients’ orders. A server can be as welcoming as mom, but if they screw up your order or feed you misinformation, then they really suck imo.

Then why is it when everyone whips out their cell phone during a connecting flight at MSP they never say “I’m in St. Paul?”

Well, because St. Paul is in Ramsey County and MSP — while technically not part of Minneapolis — is in Hennepin County? (Most of the current airport property was actually once part of Richfield, not Minneapolis.) Plus the national media has an irritating habit of referring to anything in the Twin Cities as being “in Minneapolis,” e.g. the Mall of America. It’s no wonder non-Minnesotans are so confused!

One thing I wonder is, why, if St. Paul is supposedly so great, all its best neighborhoods – Highland Park, Merriam Park/Mac Groveland, St. Anthony Park – all border Minneapolis?

The last I heard most restaurants failed in the first five years regardless of location.

I’ll take downtown Saint Paul over downtown Minneapolis every day of the week. I love the quite ambiance, free parking, and lack of a Block E complex.

There are a lot of gems and some great established places in Saint Paul e.g. The Saint Paul, Trattoria Da Vinci, or newly opened and totally amazing Margaux’s.

And if this is to be a Saint Paul vs Mpls contest I’d like to point out people that eat in Minneapolis are all “eee eee eee eee” while people that eat in Saint Paul are all “ooo ooo ooo ooo”.

The yummiest restraunt in Saint Paul is El Burrito on Cesar Chavez in West Saint Paul. It may not be fancy, but it’s delish.

“One thing I wonder is, why, if St. Paul is supposedly so great, all its best neighborhoods – Highland Park, Merriam Park/Mac Groveland, St. Anthony Park – all border Minneapolis?“

It’s easier to taunt you from there.

if St. Paul is supposedly so great, all its best neighborhoods – Highland Park, Merriam Park/Mac Groveland, St. Anthony Park – all border Minneapolis?

Those neighborhoods were there before mpls was. My house was built by a guy who owned most of the farmland … just west across the river.

The yummiest restraunt in Saint Paul is El Burrito on Cesar Chavez in West Saint Paul.

Next time you’re in that neighborhood, check out Boca Chica up the street. It’s terrific also.

people that eat in Minneapolis are all “eee eee eee eee” while people that eat in Saint Paul are all “ooo ooo ooo ooo”.

I certainly concur.

“Then why is it when everyone whips out their cell phone during a connecting flight at MSP they never say “I’m in St. Paul?”

Yeah, they should say, “I’m in Richfield”.

Great logic, though…

“Next time you’re in that neighborhood, check out Boca Chica up the street. It’s terrific also.”

Yeah, I like that place too. maybe I’ll go there for mexican independance day this Sunday.

“….people that eat in Minneapolis are all “eee eee eee eee” while people that eat in Saint Paul are all “ooo ooo ooo ooo”.

As far as I’m concerned, this is the best comment in several weeks. I have never eaten in St. Paul, but I can see how they’d be exactly like that over there.

Well, because St. Paul is in Ramsey County and MSP — while technically not part of Minneapolis — is in Hennepin County?

Do you honestly think that’s the reason? Is the guy from Albuquerque aware of that distinction?

Do you honestly think that’s the reason? Is the guy from Albuquerque aware of that distinction?

To the uninformed, and geographically-challenged, everything around here is in Minneapolis. Blame it on the national media, I suppose. Plus the name “Minneapolis” appears first when the airport name is printed or announced so chances are that’s what people will remember most often.

But, technically, MSP is its own legal jurisdiction — separate from either Minneapolis or St. Paul … or Richfield. It has its own police force, its own fire department, etc. IIRC, businesses in the terminals do not pay property taxes to any city but, instead, are billed by the Metropolitan Airports Commission.

On a related note: Is Sea-Tac really in Seattle or Tacoma proper? Do travelers there also get confused and say something is in Seattle when it’s really in Tacoma? Does Tacoma also suffer from a loss of recognition like St. Paul does?

I live in St. Paul. It’s awesome on that alone.

Boca Chica? Please. I eat there on the rare occasion when I want Mexican-American food, but if I want Mexican food in St. Paul, I go to La Loma on Payne  but wait  they started in Mpls!

I did just find a great spot in St. Paul  Café Bonxai, next to the Turf Club. Its sophisticated and comfort food on the same menu, it used to be Best Steak House, so they kept some steaks and pasta, but the Asian fusion stuff is awesome, and priced very reasonably.

I was sad to see that A Rebours closed  I went there the other day hoping for a new lunch spot, but the sign on the door said closed for the holiday, like three days after Labor day!?

I second that! St Paul’s awesomeness should not be in question as long as I continue to live there!

I never eat anywhere that is described as sophisticated. Also I hate the term Asian fusion. I feel like the food should be served in test tubes or something.

I feel you about the word sophisticated. I only used it because that’s what others had been using above, even in describing a mojito! Maybe I should have just said South East Asian, since it doesn’t seem to be just one nationality. It really is good food!

I want Mexican food in St. Paul, I go to La Loma on Payne

Try La Cucaracha on Dale and Grand if you want mexican.

La Cucaracha is Americanized Mexican food – they’ve been coasting for years. You’ve gotta go west side or Payne Avenue for the good, authentic stuff (El Burrito Mercado in particular), although I think Boca Chica is mediocre.

Mojitos and Cosmopolitans are sorority girl drinks.

By the way Maz, I’m with you 100% on your take of St. Paul vs. Mpls & some other things… your taste in Mexican food and politics is typically where we part ways.

Mojitos are sorority girl drinks? Tell me again, oh wise drink judge…what sorority did Earnest Hemmingway belong to? Perhaps it was Zeta Zeta Zeta…you know, for fucking, fishing and fighting.

Estoy de acuerdo con duderino. La Cucaracha es asi asi, y no es autentico. Si quieres comida autentica, @ EBMercado (menudo, tacos al pastor, green jaritos, hot churros) es el mejor en Los Cuidades.

It’s not really Mexican food if the cheese is orange and/or shredded like at La Cucaracha (on most menu items) and Boca Chica.

I miss Taco Pineda on Lake street across from the YWCA!!

A lot of Mpls restaurants could stand to stay open later too.

Well he was a drunk. His favorite drink was a daiquiri, another favorite of bleach blond bimbos everywhere.

Mojitos and Cosmopolitans are sorority girl drinks

Those babes in Sex in the City drank them. That’s how the got popular.

Well he was a drunk.

He was also Hemingway

It might be a girlie drink, but a well-made Cosmo is a pretty tasty libation.

Like the Martini, there are plenty of places to have a BAD Cosmo. Have a good one, just once, and you will crave more (same for the Martini). I make mine at home, with Oceanspray, orange liquor and Shakers.

I concede that Hemmingway was a brilliant writer and if you want to emmulate his drinking habits, fine. I still maintain that mojitos are the number one choice for bacherette parties.

There’s this place in Chicago called the Matchbox and they add eggwhites to their cosmos and manhattans and they are amazing.

the matchbox got its moniker because of its diminutive size (think Al’s Breakfast with just booze). It’s a wedge-shaped building (think Flatiron, but tiny) @ the 3 way intersection of Chicago, Ogden & Milwaukee just NW of The Loop (exit 94 @ Chicago Ave & go east 1 block and SE one block…or just get off the Blue Line @ Chicago Ave). It’s the only place I’ll drink a gimlet, as they use coddled egg whites, fresh lime juice and confectioners sugar…it’s like a plasmatic infusion of sweet and viscous limey booze. and their manhattans, served with Kirsch-drunk tart cherries will knock you off your barstool.

“It’s not really Mexican food if the cheese is orange and/or shredded like at La Cucaracha.“

Um, it’s not really Mexican if it has cheese that’s not sort of gray-white and sour and . . . uh . . . goatish, and if there’s meat, well, that explains why the cheese is running out, and if anyone tries to give you that hot sauce, remember that that just means that the meat went a little south a few days ago, and I don’t mean “of the border”, but they need to cut that kind of piquant, dead-skunk-on-the-side-of-the-road underflavoring.

You want real Mexican? You can’t handle real Mexican. Or at least you’d really rather not, because it’s tortillas that satisfy mostly by making you so damn tired of chewing you just quit, filled with soaked and boiled and soaked and boiled and soaked and boiled (”still hard, ma!”) beans smashed on a flat rock, fish parts if ya got em, and peanut butter if there’s any left. “Pico de gallo”? Sorry, cactus die there – tomatoes come in by plane for the touristas.

I used to live like a block from there and would go there often. Also loved their shrimp po-boys and their french onion soup.

And their chocolate martinis. My god. heaven.

One time I spent a hundred dollars there. That was a good night.

I take it Bobby’s never been to Oaxaca.

Well, not for the food.

peyote or fried grasshoppers?

The hemorrhaging continues: Margaux closed yesterday: http://www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_6888459

“The hemorrhaging continues: Margaux closed yesterday: “

Damnit! I was just there the other day and it was packed. What a loss of a great restaurant.