Moose & Sadies: Minneapolis, MN

by Deanne

Moose & Sadies: Minneapolis, MN

Another Monday off from our running our cafe, led Steve and I to Minneapolis/St. Paul to pick up Joia Soda Pop and to visit United Noodle (that fun Asian grocery store that Francine introduced us to after she returned from living in China.)  We also had time to visit a new-to-us cafe. We selected Moose & Sadies because it was located near one of our stops and the online menu looked interesting.

Review: (Real Local Cooking’s criteria)

Localness: 3

Moose&Sadie’s supports local/sustainable/organic purveyors and on  their website they have a list with some links: 

Larry Schultz:  organic chicken and eggs
Tim Fischer:  hormone-free/humanely-raised pork
Riverbend Farm: organic produce

Flavour: 3

We ordered two items and were quite satisfied.  We had a Black Bean Burger with chipotle gouda, roasted green pepper-avocado spread, vidalia onions and alfalfa sprouts on a toasted bun and a salad called Greens Vinaigrette.  The burger did not have quite the right bun.  It had too hard of a bite for the squishy-ness of the black bean burger. Imagine this… pick up the burger, take a bite and black beans land on your new shirt.  You get the picture. The burger was good and flavorful and in my opinion needed a soft bun rather than a hard roll.  We solved that small challenge by eating the burger with a fork and noshing on toasted hard roll with our hands.  

Even though I rate the flavour as a three, to match our criteria, I would come back again to try other items.

Pleasant Surprise: Yes

Our last trip to the Twin Cities got off to a bad start with a disappointing visit to a restaurant that was highly rated on some of the online communities. We were served greasy, sloppy food.  It wasn’t even worth mentioning or remembering.  This food was enjoyable and didn’t leave us feeling like we needed a shower to remove all the grease.  It made for a great start to our day off and our little adventure to the cities.

Comfort+Coziness = The C factor: 5

Awesome is the best word to describe the service.   I say that because that word was used three to four times  by my order taker during the process of ordering. 

The decor of the place is a two tone, cool cucumber green with my all time favorite decor choice: painted brick.  The white brick with matching white painted exposed beams added comfort. 

We ate outside in the sun on a perfect summer day.  Not hot, not cold and no bugs.  What is more perfect than that? 

The server who delivered the food was not Ms. Awesome, but she was equally friendly and exuded her own form of awesomeness. 

Overall Rating: 11+

Moose & Sadies, in the warehouse district of Minneapolis is a place we look forward to stopping the next time we are in the neighborhood.

Verdant Possibilities: A Midsummer Minnesota Garden

by Deanne

While we are in the midst of running our café for the summer, I have fallen into a pattern of reporting what is called a Solar Forecast each morning on my business facebook page. I thought of the idea from the title of a children’s book called: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. 

It is a playful way to share our our featured wraps, rice plates, and soups.  The “weather” sometimes reflects the real weather and often describes other things that are going on in our space.

Today I wanted to make a post to describe the state of our garden and I thought of the word verdant to express what is going on in the raised beds next to our restaurant. According to this online dictionary verdant means:

 

1 a : green in tint or color

b : green with growing plants <verdant fields>

2: unripe in experience or judgment

I think both definitions fit our garden. It is green with growing plants and I am unripe in experience or judgment when it comes to growing things. Luckily I don’t do the soil amendments and planting.  I leave that to my husband who studied soil science and agronomy.  

So far this year my job has been to pick berries, peas, and beans.  I do it in the cool of morning while my amateur agronomist  is inside sheeting dough for our wraps. 

But even then, I am not sure when to pick things. 

Does anyone know when green beans done? 

Photo credits:  Amanda Petersen Photography