Bike to dinner: A course for your courses

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Dawn Brodey
The chariot of the dining bicyclist.

The Twin Cities are regularly voted among the most bike-friendly in the country. Bicycling.com currently has us in the #1 spot although we regularly swap the prestigious ranking for second place with Portland, Oregon.

Similarly, publications such as Travel and Leisure also have the Twin Cities and Portland sharing top spots for best cities for foodies.

The situation has us asking two big questions: One, how do we get rid of Portland; and two how do we best pair our Cities' tremendous and unique opportunities to bike and eat out?

Biking to dinner can be a trick. Does the establishment have a bike rack? Will my helmet hair and wrinkled right cuff solicit snubs from the other diners? Do they serve Surly?

Well Hot Dish cooked up a sample course for your courses: A scenic, bike-friendly, 10-mile loop with recommended stops for beer, apps, dinner and, since you've earned it, dessert. On your next date night, why not ditch a couple of wheels and take this road less traveled.


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Butcher & the Boar's pastry chef opens Black Walnut, a pop-up bakery

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Courtesy Black Walnut Facebook page
A new venture from Sarah Botcher, popping up all around town

Though bourbon, big portions, and beer gardens may be the most talked-about attractions at Jack Riebel's Butcher & the Boar, a recent James Beard Award semi-finalist in the Best New Restaurant category, early on we also recognized there's something special going on in the pastry station. Southern-inspired desserts with retro flair -- like grasshopper pie, molten s'mores, and banana pie with gingersnap cookie crust, playfully presented -- are the sweet and simplistic finish diners so desire after a meal of big grilled meats.

The doyenne of desserts at Butcher & the Boar is chef Sarah Botcher, a transplant from San Francisco, California, where she spent time at Tartine, a celebrated organic-focused cafe and bakery. Now that she's settled in and Butcher & the Boar is a screaming success, the time seemed just right to launch her new venture, Black Walnut Bakery. 

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Gather's chef-in-residence for May, Jim Christiansen of Union

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Sasha Landskov
Gather by D'Amico hosts Jim Christiansen tomorrow night
The first Thursday of every month, Gather, the D'Amico owned restaurant inside the Walker Art Center invites a celebrated local chef to take over the kitchen for one night. This month Jim Christiansen, head chef at the downtown hot spot Union will be making two complimentary small dishes. Plus, there will be a special cocktail they will be making to pair with these dishes.

See Also:
Chef Chat, Jim Christiansen of Union
Chef Chat, Josh Brown of Gather

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Eatiply: Eat a meal, donate a meal

Categories: Foodie News, News
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You decide it's time to donate to charity. So what do you do? Likely reach for your wallet or try to squeeze a couple of volunteer hours into your busy schedule. That's simple enough, but what you probably don't know is that giving back is now as easy as going out to eat.

Thanks to a new local organization, fighting world hunger is as easy as doing what you love-- eating, with no extra cost to you.

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Seward Cafe now open until midnight, serving wine and beer

Categories: Foodie News
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Julia Merle-Smith courtesy Seward Cafe
Seward Cafe collective members raise a pint.
Fans of the Seward Cafe's granola ethos, colorful walls, and sprawling patio have long been disappointed by its breakfast-and-lunch-only offerings (and hours). But for the past week, people passing by the cafe's spacious Franklin Avenue corner lot have had to double take: Yes, there are lights on inside past 3 p.m. (actually until midnight, six days a week). Yes, those people are eating from an all-new dinner menu. And yes, they're drinking wine and beer.

"So far at night it's been overwhelmingly positive," says Nils Collins, the longest-standing member of the 13-to-15 person collective that owns and runs the cafe. "Every day more people stop in who are surprised that we're open, or who have never been here because they work 9 to 5."

See also:
Best Vegetarian-Friendly Restaurant - 2012: Seward Café
Birchwood Cafe comes one step closer to expansion


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Food Network casting call for Minnesotans to star in new show

Categories: Foodie News
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Coming soon to a food court near you

Have you got a restaurant dream? Is it a concept that would work well inside a mall? Ever wonder what Tyler Florence looks like really up close? Your time has come. The Food Network is throwing out the nets, hoping to catch its next cooking competition hit. Here is your chance for a close-up:

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ReviewerCard: "$100 for a lifetime of preferential treatment" [VIDEO]

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Via ReviewerCard Facebook page
ReviewerCard: Shameful? Or really, really shameful?

Last month local critic and Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern discussed the user-generated review forum Yelp on his podcast Go Fork Yourself. He heavily criticized the website's exploitative nature, saying,"Yelp has become dangerously unstable, because clearly they have people abusing the system, who are using the Yelp name to go out and graymail and blackmail restaurants." Though he said his initial stance on the concept was softer, Zimmern now places himself firmly in the hater camp. "Yelp is on my shit list,"  he says.

Perhaps your personal feelings about Yelp are more ambivalent, but when it comes to ReviewerCard, the latest service/gimmick/torture device being marketed to amateur reviewers, food industry professionals from Eater writers to LA Times columnist David Lazarus to local restaurateur Stewart Woodman are understandably all riled up and weighing in with their reactions. 

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Do food trucks hurt skyway restaurants? Downtown Food Committee to address the issue

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Brian Garrity
Skyway retailers are calling a meeting tomorrow to discuss whether food trucks are given an unfair advantage
Are the food trucks that Minneapolis diners seem to love so much causing undo harm to existing businesses? Are they given an unfair competitive advantage by the state that traditional brick-and-mortars can't compete against? A group referring to itself as the Downtown Food Committee seems to think so. This Wednesday it will be holding a meeting open to all downtown retailers to discuss the issue.

The group is raising the idea of whether food trucks have created a competitive environment in which they are unable to effectively compete and are seeking ways to "improve the food truck ordinance so it works better for the residents, workers, food truck owners, and the restaurant owners in downtown Minneapolis," according to the flier they put out for Wednesday's event.

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Sameh Wadi named Gather's first Chef-in-Residence for 2013

Categories: Foodie News, News
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Sasha Landskov
Gather will host Sameh Wadi and other local chefs during the 2013 season

Gather by D'Amico at the Walker Art Center will once again run its popular Chef-in-Residence series, in which the restaurant invites a local chef to create two new dishes on Gather's menu on Thursdays throughout the month that chef is hosting. Gather just announced its late winter/early spring lineup, and it looks exciting and diverse as always.

Here's more on who and what you can expect to see at Gather over the next three months:

See also:

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World Street Kitchen restaurant is now open

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World Street Kitchen's brick-and-mortar space "quietly" opened this past weekend

The Twittersphere ran rampant this weekend with word of Uptown's newly opened World Street Kitchen. The new restaurant is based off of chef Sameh Wadi's locally renowned World Street Kitchen food truck, which serves a collision of global street foods incorporating Wadi's Mediterranean influences.

Chef Sameh Wadi and his brother Saed Wadi are responsible for local favorite Saffron Restaurant & Lounge in downtown Minneapolis. Chef Wadi was also a contestant (the youngest in the competition's history) on the Food Network's popular Iron Chef America.


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