Road Dogs U.S.: Can this really be Minneapolis/St Paul?

After our adventures in Cleveland and the discovery of so many interesting neighborhoods and great food, we decided to explore Minneapolis/St Paul and see what we could find. What a surprise! When I moved from MSP MANY years ago, the city was just beginning to see a few Indian and Vietnamese restaurant opening. Today, everything is available.

With one of the largest Hmong, Laotian, Vietnamese, and Cambodian populations in the United States, we discovered the Hmong Market (Located across from some recreation fields on 217 Como Ave).

We drove into the packed parking lot and found a huge market with vendors selling everything from Hmong music and videos to traditional handicrafts to Western clothing, as well as a large indoor / outdoor farmer's market type place. The food court is located in the back of one of the buildings, and home to about seven or eight different vendors with names like "Thai Thai Daily", "Asian Special Drink", and "Mr. Papaya Kitchen.

"Papaya Salad"

We decided to try the Laotian “Papaya Salad”…a mysterious mixture of garlic, papaya and “special sauce” (made of things like shrimp paste, crab paste and fish sauce). It was brown and smelled awful and tasted even worse…a bit like eating a salad made with gritty mud.

We washed down the salad at The Finnish Bistro, the creation of Soile Anderson who moved to the States from Finland 25 years ago.

The "Finnish Bistro"

While most of the “Finnish Bistro” isn’t really Finnish, they did have “Pulla” – a wonderful light, mildly sweet bun made with cardamom.

Finnish "Pulla"

We made our way through Como Park and from St Paul to NE Minneapolis (“NordEast”). Years ago, Nordeast was a tired neighborhood, primarily Eastern European. Kramarczuk's Sausage and the nearby Surdyk's liquor store were the only major attractions. Today Surdyk's has moved from a storefront to their own giant building, the neighborhood has been almost completely rebuilt (the old IGA and strip mall are now a Whole Foods, etc). It’s definitely been gentrified. But Kramarczuk Sausage Co is still alive and well, dishing all sausages and all varieties of eastern European food.

Kramarczuk's

Kramarczuk's takes up two storefronts: on the right side is the actual butcher shop/grocery, filled with several refrigerated cases absolutely stuffed with every kind of sausage known to man.

The other half of the store is a cafeteria-style serving line, where you grab your tray, select your meal from amongst the various sausages, sandwiches, borscht, verenky, hams, and other specials. (Note- we ordered lots of sausage to take home….not so good. We ended up giving it to the campground owners. Must be an acquired taste).

We continued on Central Avenue and found “Little India”, a slice of the Mideast with Middle East restaurants and markets. We even found an Afghani Pizza place. The Crescent Moon is famous for its football-shaped Afghani pizzas topped with a spicy, gyros-tasting ground-beef filling and served with a cilantro sauce.

The Cresent Moon Afghani Restaurant
We ended the day at Psycho Suzi's, “the den of all things vintage-groovy”. Where else can you get a drink served in a ceramic coconut, parrot, or pirate's head, complete with paper umbrella—with your dog—while sitting on the patio under a thatch umbrella?