MACARONI # 62     Spring 2004

Restaurants

Northeast Minneapolis is a wonderland, a wilderness, a section of the city which has been civilized, but not yet unduly gentrified...which means that there are good and intimate places to eat there. It also happens to be near where I live.

There are a clutch of good eateries in what we refer to as the Surdyk's neighborhood—Bobino, Gardens of Salonika, Pizza Nea, among others—and the cafe Modern has long since become an institution further up University Avenue. Two newer restaurants lying further afield offer equally affordable and enticing meals, although they differ considerably in tone.

Surrounded by laundromats and paint stores, Pop! sits on a street-corner on the top of a hill on a largely residential stretch of Johnson Avenue. It's a narrow place, brightly painted inside with yellow and orange, and there are reproductions of Pop art classics hanging on the walls. A dividing wall runs down the middle of the room to form two galleries, one of which has a waiting area, a few tables, and the long exposed kitchen, while the other holds most of the tables. The divider has a large window in it, however, and this gives the place a feel of both openness and intimacy. It's well-lit—there are tall glass windows on two sides—the wait-staff is cheerful, and the clientele includes families with children, teenagers on dates, and retired couples who may have arrived on foot.

The menu reflects a slants toward the exotic side of down-home cooking, with beans of various kinds, Israeli cous-cous, and sausages appearing prominently on the menu. Latin American dishes like Matambre with garbanzo beans, and Ropa Vieja (braised shredded beef) sit side by side with Swedish meatballs and lingonberries, and Shiitake-stuffed, Nori and wonton wrapped salmon in a coconut-curry sauce. I couldn't tell you whether Pop's Matambre actually comes from the muscles on the surface of a cow's abdomen, Argentinian style—I suspect it's just a piece of flank steak—but in any case the intent is clear: to make unusual dishes that are also affordable. In this the chef at Pop seems to have largely succeeded. Everything I've had there has been tasty, and no entree on the menu is more than $14, while sandwiches run in the $7-$9 range.

Among the truly refreshing things about Pop is the wine list. Connoisseurs will no doubt be disappointed, but simple folk like us can easily appreciate the wide selection of wines from Chile, Spain, New Zealand, the Pay d'Oc, and Washington State in the $4-$6 per glass range.

The buzz, the friendly people, the decor at Pop! all contribute to a pleasant dining experience—and incidentally, the restaurant also serves what must be the city's widest selection of bottled soda—known to folks in this part of the world as “pop.”

Yet my candidate for supreme neighborhood eatery remains the Sample Room, which opened last year on the banks of the Mississippi, in a narrow bar that was formerly the Polish Palace.

You drive up to The Sample Room along the river, past Elsie's Bowling Alley, The Yacht Club (where are all the yachts? Where's the water?) Gaby's (Gaby Hayes, that is) and Dick's Dagos and Drinks. You enter the darkness of a long free-standing brick building, and are immediately swept up by the intimacy of the place. A bar to the right, a row of booths to the left, three tables with stools in the middle, and a number of lower tables in front of the tall open windows looking out on the sidewalks of Northeast. The menu is organized around small portions of things, and although they don't use the name, these dishes are closer to tapas in concept than many of the tidbits served in more ostentatious Spanish places.

The "sample" dishes are divided into categories--cheese, meat, vegetables, seafood--and the list takes up half the menu. You can order individual portions or sample plates, and the place also offers daily specials and a few choice salads, sandwiches, and entrees.On a recent visit we ate a selection of vegetable pates (mushroom, black olive, zuccini) and a plate with crab cakes,country pate with mustard and cornichons, and very thin slices of meatloaf drizzled with what must have been a long-simmering sauce. It was not an enormous amount of food, but it's the kind of food that you enjoy bite by bite, because it carries the added pleasure and interest of unexpected richness and subtlety.

I am a big fan of the Sample Room Caesar Salad, which has a thick sharp dressing and perfectly firm potatoes and asparagus. The meatloaf with carmelized onions and a mushroom/shallot sauce is also a consistent winner. I might also mention the roasted vegetables in garlic oil and the chilled Guinness marinated Flank Steak with a citrus currant cucumber sauce. I have never ventured near the Baked Green Lip Mussels covered with blue cheese and bacon, though the prospect is tempting. But however toney a dish may sound, no dish, plate, or sampler platter that I've ordered has strayed very far from the Sample Room's down-home location and mystique. You can see the chef, (who bases his sauces on a long-simmering veal stock), greeting patrons at the door or helping out in the miniscule kitchen, with his ponytail and baseball cap, and as the place fills up, night after night, you can be sure that he's proud of both the integrity and the success of his friendly and affordable neighborhood creation.