Taste the Future

Has anyone seen one of these new Coca-Cola Freestyle soda fountains yet?

Meaghan and I ate at the Noodles in Plymouth tonight and got to use one for the first time ever. It looks like they've been slowly spreading across the country for the last year or two, so maybe I'm completely out of the loop and they've just taken forever to make it all the way to the Great White North. If you can't tell from the picture and didn't bother to click the link, the big deal is that this is a digital soda fountain with touch-screen selection that can mix and match 100+ flavors of soda. So if you've been dying to find easy access to some Vanilla Coke or Coke with Raspberry (really?), look no further.

We didn't notice the machine was there until after we ordered, so all I can tell you so far is that it dispenses water like a pro.

Mmmm... Molten Cheese...

I've suddenly realized that I've been letting all of my food-motivated readers down, as I haven't commented on an area restaurant in well over a year. Let me amend that by telling you about a little place called Matt's.

A mere ten blocks east of us, Matt's is a small and simple bar. However, unlike most bars Meaghan and I actually like to go here. Why? The music's not too loud and the food is actually good. The philosophy seems to be, "We don't do a lot, but we're sure going to do it well." Take a gander at their menu:


Seven sandwiches (four of them burgers), french fries, and drinks. That's it. You might be asking yourself what the heck a Jucy Lucy is. Think of a double cheeseburger, but instead of laying the cheese on top of the beef wrap it up inside one giant patty. Cook until the insides are liquid, bubbling perfection and top with onions. Sound good? You're not alone. If you're ever in the neighborhood, we'll go grab some burgers.

Hushpuppies!

I was trying to think of some way to come back to the Tower with a splash, and it took care of itself when I had dinner on Tuesday night.

After three months of living in Minneapolis, I have finally been to Seafood To Go. Most who have seen the shabby facade, adorned with outrageously bright posterboard ads are afraid to enter (you know who you are), but not me. I snuck in the door Tuesday night right before the closing time of 8:30 to partake of some fine aquatic cuisine.

Ambience is not the strong suit at STG. The insides consist of a very small room, a counter where you order food, six chairs for waiting, and dozens more garish posters advertising the various contents of their menu. If I didn't think it was rude, I would take a bunch of pictures so you could see what I'm talking about. Instead, you'll just have to get food with me next time you're up in the big city.

I thought I had maybe taken a wrong turn at the ammo shop and gone to Jan's Chow Mein instead, as I was greeted at the counter by a small Asian woman. It turns out that STG has more worldly cuisine than you would expect. In addition to standard seafood fare (shrimp, fish & chips, etc.), there are Cajun, Southern, and Asian foods on the menu. They also claim to have the best chicken wings in the Cities since 1990. Here's the takeout menu as proof.

I'm a sucker for food from the American South, so I got the cajun red fish dinner with a side of one of my favorite foods in the world, hushpuppies. The fish was just so-so, but the puppies were dynamite. Even Meaghan agreed that we'd have to go back for more some time. When we do, I'll be sure to try those wings instead.

The Big Move, Part 2

Only a month late. Oh well.

5/19/2007 - Loading and Unloading

After averting a near disaster by picking up our U-Haul truck on Friday, all that remained was the physical loading of said truck, driving to Minneapolis, and unloading the truck. Now I know that Meaghan and I must be two of the strongest people in the world, but we have a lot of stuff. More stuff than we could probably shuttle in and out of a house twice in one day. So in order to manage the job, we enlisted the help of 12 extremely nice friends. Thanks Brett, Jeff, Mike, Kim, Tony, Urrv, Andy, Brett, Matt, Laurel, Chris, and Alaina. We really couldn't have done it without you. (Thanks, too, to Carol and Isaac for moral support and mad sidewalk chalk skillz.)

The help was so incredible that we managed to tightly pack the entire 24' truck with all of our earthly belongings in a mere hour and a half. Chris and Urrv's pack job was amazing, especially given how few things we had available to provide padding. After a quick lunch at Subway, the caravan hit the highway.

This possibly took longer than either the packing or the unpacking phase. I don't know if you've ever driven a fully laden U-Haul before, but man does it chug up hills. There's not exactly any Pike's Peak in between Rochester and Minneapolis, but we were topping out at 45 MPH trying to get up some of the larger rises. As a result, the first part of the caravan got to our new place a good half hour before the truck did. To kill time, the early arrivers apparently had some adventure trying to help a random woman turn off her two car alarms... or something like that. I wouldn't know, I was driving the truck. (Incidentally, not a day has gone by without a car alarm going off for minutes at a time at some point.)

Once we finally got there, it only took another 90 mins to unload everything into the house. Well... almost everything. Our new house was built in 1907, so it's safe the say that the width and angles of various doors and halls aren't up to modern building standards. Miraculously, with a little cajoling everything fit with the exception of our queen-size box spring. We figured that might happen, so it wasn't a big deal. It was only another week of sleeping on sleeper sofas before we were able to get our half-queen springs from Slumberland.

After a day's hard work, we all went over to Pizza Luce on Lyndale. (Thanks for the idea, Kim.) They have an interesting array of pizzas to choose from, all of them good. We'd been to the one in St. Paul before, but it's good to know one is so close by if we're ever in the mood.

"Rice Man" to Open Friday

Just a quick blurb to let readers know that the restaurant affectionately named "Rice Man" is supposed to be opening on Friday. You can check the details at the Post-Bulletin business blog. We'll have to get some people together and go check it out.