Minneapolis! (Day One)

Well, I just this afternoon returned from my little Minnesota adventure. Dave went out last weekend for business and I flew out at the end of the week and joined him for a long weekend of running around the state.

The night I arrived, we picked up our rental car and checked into our hotel (The Grand Hotel Minneapolis, which was downtown) and were tired enough that we ordered up a huge room service dinner (they brought up four settings and four glasses, it was so much food) and had dinner and turned in for the night. Poor Dave had just finished a long, exhausting work week and needed a bit of a break.

Our first full day, we got up early and headed out to breakfast at a nearby restaurant called the Hen House Eatery.

We had a sassy waitress named Cookie (I don't think it was her real name), then we had coffee, of course, and we split a couple of egg dishes.

One eggs florentine with spinach, tomatoes, and hash browns and something called "ranchero tostadas" which was fried corn tortillas topped with refried black beans, eggs, queso fresco, avocado, cilantro, hash browns and salsa. It was pretty tasty. I'd go there again.

All of that was fuel for our morning plan, which was to comb the city looking at pottery. Our first stop was the Northern Clay Center.

Guillermo Guardia's Mochica (2011)

This place was awesome!

They have a huge glazing area, a clean communal studio area, lots of artists studio spaces that apparently house artists that get juried in, and a gorgeous gallery space where they have work for sale and work that is not necessarily for sale.

We walked around looking at everything and then we picked out a bowl and a pair of earrings to bring home with us.

After we left there, we went by a place called Dock 6 Pottery, which is the gallery space for a potter named Kerry Brooks.

After buying three plates and a mug, we crossed the street to a bakery called Turtle Bread and picked up a couple of iced teas.

It was not so hot as it gets here in New Mexico, but it was gawd-awful humid (humidity is something we don't deal much with out here), and I felt like I was melting. Our rental car's air conditioning got quite a workout that day.

We still wanted to look at pottery, so we went to check out a gallery called Evla. There we bought a single bowl. Just down the street from that gallery was another called The Grand Hand Gallery which was full of really beautiful pottery. We picked up a gorgeous wood-fired tumbler by Richard Bresnahan.

By then, our eyes were getting a bit crossed from looking at so much pottery, so we took a moment to go and have lunch.

Dave had this place, Pizzaria Lola, all cued up. When I asked if it was from the list of restaurant recommendations that his Minnesota coworkers had provided him with, he said no. He had seen it on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. So thanks, Guy Fieri. That was a good rec.

The place is owned and operated by a Korean immigrant, Ann Kim, and so the pizzas feature things like kimchee and Korean bbq. We didn't go for either of those, but opted instead for a shared starter of roasted cauliflower and Calabrian chile, then we split two pizzas, a fairly straight-forward Margherita and for something called "The Boise" with potato, gruyere, fontina, caramelized onion, olive oil and rosemary. 

And that is why I will never be a food blogger, because by the time I thought to take a photo of our lunch, that was all that was left. We had the remaining slices wrapped up for later.

By then, it was getting late. We still had time in the afternoon to do one more thing, so we talked about our two options: the Minneapolis Institute of Art or the Mall of America. I had been looking in galleries all morning and early afternoon and was ready for a different kind of cultural experience, so--yes--we headed out to the Mall of America.

When we got there though, I took one look at the place and decided against going in. It was too much mall for me--too much mall for anybody, I think.

Instead, we went to a nearby Ikea (where I've never been) and wandered around, pushing one of their odd shopping carts. We had a funny moment when we followed a sign saying "Exit to Marketplace" or something like that and found ourselves in an odd stairwell. I ditched our empty shopping cart in the stairwell and we climbed the stairs to the next level, looked around, and then went back downstairs. We bought a couple of cheap drinks (lingonberry soda or some such nonsense for Dave and a straightforward Sprite for me) and left Ikea.

By then we were both ready for a little downtime, so I suggested returning to the hotel for a bit.

After a few hours of rest in the calm, cool hotel, we headed out for dinner to a place called Hola Arepa where Dave had gone with his coworkers a few days before.

See that blue fence out in front? Dave nearly took that fence out trying to park our boat of a rental car (an enormous, white Chevy Impala) in the tiny lot.

We were still kind of full from our huge pizza lunch but of course we went ahead and ordered a huge amount of food for dinner.

We started out with a fried cauliflower appetizer (fried cauliflower, pickled tomatillo, lemon-parsley aioli, arugula and jalapeno) and then we split two arepas, one black bean and queso fresco (served with pickled cabbage, tomato, and grilled corn salsa) and one black bean and sweet potato (served with tomato, queso fresco, citrus onions, and green onion aioli). Both came with sides of yucca fries. And we ate all of it. But we did pass up dessert!

And then we rolled out of there.

We had gotten so much pottery early in the day that we started to talk about how we were going to get the pottery home. Dave had a huge suitcase, but it was already right at the 50 pound limit for baggage. I had a small suitcase, but it was packed tight, and the only other bag I brought was my purse.  We knew we were going to have to get another bag, so we decided to stop by a Target on the way home from the restaurant to see if we could find something cheap and cheerful to pack our pottery in for the airplane ride home.

Target was a bust though, which sucked. So we bought some snacks for later (because obviously we were going to be starving later) and came back to the hotel.

Oh, and before I forget, I will tell this story right quick.  We always always always leave a tip for whomever comes in to clean our room while we are out. I leave a note with the tip (so that they know it's a tip and not just money we left laying out) that says something like "Housekeeping--Thank you!" So I had done that earlier and when we returned to the hotel room, we found this bottle of Smart Water and a note:

It's hard to read, but here is a closer look:

(I love that it was personalized with a little drawing of a flower and a happy faced sticker in the corner.) In fact, when I leave a note with the tip, I usually get some kind of note back from the housekeeper wherever we stay.

You should try it on your next trip!

Next up: Minneapolis! (Day Two).