Maddy Hague

Target throws down a sweet gauntlet.

​Just when we'd finished marveling over Sweets Bakeshop's unconventional macaron menu and the convenience of Cocoa & Fig's Minneapolis Skyway macaron shop, hometown retailer Target enters the macaron ring. More »

Put on your buffet pants & grab the kids - we're going to Wendy's!

​Just in time for sweat-pants season, fast food also-ran Wendy's has debuted it new "natural"  fries. After spending an estimated $25 million on a new ad campaign touting the benefits of the skin-on, sea-salted crispies Wendy's is hoping you'll take a chance on change.
 
The prevailing ideas behind the campaign are that sea salt is better than processed regular table salt, there are more nutrients in the potato skins that are discarded by their competitors, the thinner cut fry will be tantalizingly tasty, and at least on the surface appear to be more healthful.  The only thing that really matters is: How do these new fries taste?  

More »

Jason Zabel

The McRib is even less delicious than it looks. Notice the gray meat. It tastes like gray meat.

​​​Yep, McDonald's McRib is terrible alright. I'm not writing this as a snob or an elitist or as someone who claims to never touch fast food or processed food or anything that hasn't come from the hallowed halls of The Wedge. These words come to you from the mouth of a pretty-regular Joe. If pork could be blended and re-flavored and solidified into a patty, then doused in an inoffensive BBQ sauce, and served to millions of Americans ... well, oh. That may be what we have here.
More »

www.tcho.com

Early on, San Francisco established itself as a hotbed of American-made gourmet chocolate, raising up the likes of Ghirardelli, Guittard, and Scharffen Berger. The city's latest entrant into the market, TCHO--pronounced "choh," as it's the phonetic spelling of the first syllable of chocolate--has taken a tech-geek's approach to the confection, on everything from its design to manufacturing processes. (For example, the company's product development phase involved issuing "beta versions" of its bars for sale with a request for feedback, then, a few days later, issuing a second version. A year and 1,026 iterations later, they had their first 1.0 bars for sale. I wasn't surprised to learn that one of the company's owners was the founding editor of Wired.) Anyway, TCHO is now being sold in Minnesota.

More »

Photo courtesy Summit Brewing Company

Summit's new 90/- Scottish Style Ale.

It seems Summit has outdone itself with its new 90/- Scottish Style Ale, the second installment in the brewery's Unchained Series. The delicious new ale features a robust, smoky flavor with caramel overtones and will see limited local release in six packs and on tap between now and the end of the year.

In advance of Monday's 90/- event at Cherokee Sirloin Room, Hot Dish talked with brewer Eric Blomquist, who oversaw the development of the new brew.

More »

Props to chef Justin Grecco of Grecco's on the St. Croix for getting into the entreprenurial spirit with his new product, Chef in a Box. Place your order online--Amish Chicken, $21, Lobster Gnocchi, $28, shipping not included--and you'll recieve the prepped fresh ingredients and an instructional dvd for how to prepare them.

Prices seem in line with what you'd pay for such an entree at a nice restaurant, but with Chef in a Box, you have to do the cooking and the cleanup...though it is cheaper than most cooking classes. Would you try Chef in a Box or buy your own ingredients and TiVo Alton Brown?

Though at $14.99 for 7 oz, its price is a little eye-popping, if you haven't tried it, give buffalo mozzarella a shot this summer when those tomatoes start coming in and you're starting to want All-Caprese-All-The-Time.

More »

Yeo's White Gourd Drink ("Authentic Asian Drink") is on sale for 49 cents a can at United Noodles. You can find it in the refrigerated beverage section, at the front of the store. At first, when I went to drink it, I thought I'd just done a bad job washing the glass, because the pale yellow liquid smelled salty, and vaguely familiar in a way (yesterday's lunch?). And I sort of pre-recoiled before taking a sip of it. But, as it turns out: stuff's delicious. Forks up!

More »

taberandrew/Flickr

Check out Heavy Table's James Norton choke back some unnaturally-hued Budweiser & Clamato in this two minute video for Chow.

More »

I found the Batter Blaster nestled between organic half and half and organic kombucha tea on the top shelf of the dairy case at Lunds.

More »