Last year I stumbled upon the “Belle” espresso by a micro-roastery in California while browsing the internet. There was a “coffee guru” guy (Kenneth Davids) and his website called “coffeereview.com” and the Belle espresso beans from the Klatch Coffee in CA got the highest ever score (94 points) by him. Davids described the bean as ”

So I ordered just to see how good it was and it turned out to be the best choice for my Ascaso machine. Ever since I bought that machine in 2006, I have used many different kinds of beans - Intelligentsia’s Black Cat, Barrington Coffee Roasting company’s Gold espresso, Peet’s, Gimme! Coffee’s Leftist, Counter Culture’s Toscano and Rustico, Batdorf & Goodman’s, etc. So far the Toscano from Counter Culture was my favorite, but this one provided a bit more depth and body than the Toscano. (Also the price and the shipping method used to be nicer.) It really tastes like chocolate and brandy, with really sweet smell of caramel.

The package used to look like the picture on the right side - now they have changed the packaging and their website outlook. Sure, the bag looks more modernized, and the website has a lot of useful information and cool facts about the company. The sad thing is that the price changed (upward), too. The Belle used to cost $12.95 for 1lb (about 450g), but now 12oz (350g) costs $11.95, which is similar to the Counter Culture Coffee’s pricing. Klatch still ships via USPS, and it’s much better than the usual UPS ground shipping.

Next beans to try are - Stumptown Hair Bender and Terroir.

I made this noodle for a party and many people wanted the recipe. It’s my variation on the Szechuanese Tan Tan Men and spicy cold noodle. You can vary the topping and the amount of seasoning according to your taste!

1) Cook the noodle:Thin Spaghetti noodle, cooked al dente and drained/ washed with    cold water.

2) Prepare Topping: Cooked chicken, cooked tofu, peas, asparagus, red bell peppers,  etc. (whatever you want!) Plus liberal dose of toasted white sesame seeds

3) Make the dressing - this is the basic proportion. You can alter the saltiness, spiciness, and the amount as you go. This can easily be doubled.

2 TB soy sauce - Kikkoman is good all purpose soy sauce. Also Sam-pyo soy sauce from Korean grocery stores is good

1 TB Creamy peanut butter

1 TB Peanut oil and 0.5 TB canola oil (or 1.5 TB canola oil, if you don’t have the peanut oil)

1 TB Chili sesame oil (less if you don’t want it too hot) - get Korean Chili sesame oil from CJ Baeksul or Haioreum brand/ or Japanese chili sesame oil from S&B

0.5 TB Asian toasted sesame oil - get any Japanese or Korean brand, not the unrefined sesame oil

2 TB Unseasoned rice vinegar - get any Japanese or Korean rice vinegar. Mitsukan is good and easy to find.

1 ts Sugar (or more)

2 TB thinly sliced green onion and 2 cloves garlic, minced+2 pinches of ginger powder or 0.5 ts of minced ginger

Mix all the sauce ingredients and taste/ adjust seasonings to your taste

4) Mix the noodle with 2/3 of the dressing and put the topping. Drizzle the dressing over and serve! (You may garnish the topping with crushed peanuts or more green onion slices.)

Enjoy~~

Last year I participated in an amazing fund-raising event called “Gourmet Soup Kitchen.” It was for the homeless shelter in Fargo, and was organized by Linda Coates and other wonderful people of this area. I was one of the chefs who donated 5 gallons of soup, and I made the “Nuro-men” which is Taiwanese national beef noodle soup. My soup was the first to run out (partly because I did not make the full 5 gallons..) and a lot of people asked for a recipe. It is really easy to make but you do need a specific spice packet that’s shown in the picture. If you can’t find it, you may substitute it with some star anise, clove, ginger and cinnamon.

Ingredients:

1 pack (about 1.5 lb), Beef boneless short-rib

0.5 lb, Flank steak (This is for more flavorful and less oily soup. You can replace it with more short-rib meat.)

4 garlic cloves

1-2 TB Canola oil

1 rock sugar clumps, about 1 inch diameter (or a few small pieces of rock sugar)

2 TB rice wine (Mi-Chiu is good. You can also use sake or dry sherry. Do NOT use Mirin, which is the sweetened rice wine!)

1 soup packet labeled as “Spice for Spiced Food” from Taiwan - this you can find in Asian grocery stores. This soup packet contains cinnamon, cloves, star anise.

1/2 cup soy sauce

1 lime, sliced and 1 tomato cut in half

Chopped green onion and cilantro for garnishing

Dried Asian Noodle - not egg noodle or thin noodles. I used Korean Udon noodle (Choripdong brand). Japanese udon noodles would work, too.

Taiwanese chili sauce for extra spice (optional) - get the “Ichiban hot chili and garlic paste”

How to Make:

1) Cut the meat in 2-3 inch cubes. Pat with kitchen towel and get rid of any blood.

2) Slice the garlic.

3) In a large Dutch oven or Le Creuset pot, put the cooking oil and heat up the pot.

4) Put the meat and garlic slices. Stir until the meat is a bit browned and garlic is fragrant.

5) Stir in the rice wine and mix well

6) pour enough water to cover the meat and 1 inch more/ put the soy sauce, rock sugar and tomato.

7) Lower the heat and simmer for about 1-1.5 hours until the meat is really tender.

Put the sliced lime and put into the soup and simmer for 30 minutes more. Taste the soup and put more soy sauce and sugar according to your taste.

9) Cook the noodle and drain according to the package.

10) Put the noodle in a deep bowl and pour over the soup. Garnish with green onion and cilantro and serve hot. Enjoy!

I have been drinking only espresso macchiato and lattes for the last 3.5 years with my own espresso machine and grinder. (My husband drinks dripped coffee, and I sometimes drink a bit of what he brews.) However on a hot summer day like today, iced coffee seems to be so much more appealing, and I decided to follow the method that’s introduced at the Counter Culture Coffee’s website. (Counter Culture Coffee makes one of my favorite espresso beans, Espresso Toscano.) And the result? The BEST iced coffee I have ever tasted! It’s also much lighter tasting than iced Americano, which is made with espresso shots and ice/water. Also it gets the most aroma from the beans, and it tastes much more fresh than a lot of iced coffee that you get from the commercial places.

You can find the original instruction here:

http://www.counterculturecoffee.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=574&Itemid=

I used a coffee stand that my dear friend Robert Scott - a dentist, flutist, and a beautiful wood-worker - made for me last Christmas. It’s supposed to be a Costa Rican chorreador stand, but I think it works much better for this recipe. You can make your own following the direction here: http://www.runnerduck.com/coffee_maker.htm You can buy one at www.chorreador.com as well. (Of course the one that I bought in San Jose was much cheaper, but I am thrilled that you can finally order one in the states.)

Here is how I did:

1) Hang the coffee basket and filter on the chorreador stand (or find a similar way to suspend a basket above the glass that you’ll use for the finished coffee).

2) Boil enough water to fill a tall glass - you won’t use all of it, because the glass will have ice in it.

3) Put 3-4 tbs. of freshly ground coffee in the filter.  Today I used Coffee Klatch’s Ipanema Dulce.

4) Fill a tall glass to the top with ice cubes, and put it under the coffee basket.

5) Slowly pour the hot water over the filter.  Watch the coffee level in the glass so it doesn’t overflow.  You’ll wind up using less water than you would if you were making hot coffee with the same amount of grounds, to compensate for the dilution that happens when the hot water hits the ice cubes.

Enjoy!

Yes, that’s right! A Korean grocery store, not an Asian grocery store - here in Fargo!

I love eating all kinds of food, but I am a Korean at heart (naturally) and I crave Korean foods periodically. It’s been wonderful living in Fargo, but the grocery situation has not been too hot. I have had to order so many times from H-Mart online, which is highly over-priced, whenever I needed Korean pepper paste (Gochu-jang), Korean style noodles, etc.  But now with the help of this  little store, I won’t need to order anything from H-Mart for a long time.
This store is called “Everyday Mart”, and is located on the 10th St., between 7th and 8th Ave N. There used to be a sign that said “Maeil Mart” (in Korean) for a long time without anything inside the store. I saw an “Open” sign lit when I was driving a few weeks ago, and today I decided to check it out. It is operated by two very nice Korean ladies, and they have walls of nicely arranged sauces, oils, soups, seaweeds, pastes, rice, noodles, instant ramens and udons, flours, ready-made soups and other prepared foods, canned fish, etc. Also they have a freezer/ refrigerator section with various kinds of Korean style frozen  dumplings, frozen fish cake, jars of kimchi, a few side dishes (seasoned dried radish, seasoned sesame leaves, spicy salted squid  and so on) and some frozen fish, meat, and seafood mix. There’s even a wall of various teas from Korea. They also stock a few Japanese sauces and other Asian ingredients such as Sriracha sauce and fish sauce.

Things are about $1-3 cheaper (depending on what you are buying) than H-Mart online or the Asian American grocery store on Main.) - I am going to be a happy cook in the kitchen!

P.S. They keep only napa-cabage that’s needed for making kimchi or bean sprouts in the vegetable section. This is a store for sauces, seasonings, basic grains for cooking Korean style food, not a store for fresh produces.

707 10th St
Fargo, ND 58102-4319
(701) 232-2266

The owners of Leela and Thai Orchid opened a noodle bar called “Drunken Noodle,” on NP avenue (the old Green Market location) recently. Drunken Noodle is a name of a Thai noodle dish. I read about this dish in “Bon Appetit” magazine a few years ago - that it is a very spicy noodle that makes you drink a lot of water afterward, hence the name. Drunken Noodle serves not too spicy drunken noodle along with several noodle dishes and pasta dishes. This restaurant used to be the Green Market. It is spacious and simply decorated. All the dishes are under $7, and food is served super fast. Pad Thai is too sweet for my taste, and the drunken noodle dish has too much jalapeno taste in it (and a bit too salty). But Bah Mee Gaeng (Coconut soup with noodle) is tasty, although it sometimes contains too much fish sauce. This restaurant is open until 3am on Fridays and Saturdays. Someday I will go there at 2am, eat the Bah Mee Gaeng super spicy, and then head to Fargo Coffee Co. for some espresso..!

Update (Sep. 21, 2009) - I went to the Drunken Noodle at 12:30am on September 19, Saturday, and it was packed..! Amazing. I wonder if it’d be the same when it’s -30F outside.

Another new restaurant is Kobe’s. I visited that place three times with my husband and friends, and my husband decided that he never wants to go back. It is a nice place for family gatherings or experiencing “hibachi” (the fire show and everything), but not for sushi - especially the rolls. They are big but not a lot of fish slices are used (the proportion between rice and fish seems off in general). Sushi rice seems to be poor quality (somewhat gummy and sticky), and all the sauces they use for rolls and appetizers are too sweet (and mayonnaise-based.) Service is friendly and fast/ prices are not bad.

Update (October 2009) - I convinced my husband once more to visit Kobe’s with some of our friends. It was rather a disappointment, and I don’t want to go back there, either. Rolls are covered with too much sauce and rice is still gummy, grilled dishes are too sweet (especially their teriyaki sauce - too gluey and has unpleasant taste). Kobe’s website states that the chef at Kobe’s consider the rolls are “all about sauces.” Well, there you go. I think I will pass on those sauces and eat something else. Salmon Passion was pretty good, but that was the only thing that we liked among about 6 dishes we ordered that night. Kobe’s  is doing really well, though. I think it hit the right note with a lot of people, just not with me or my husband.

Update #2 (December 2009 and January 2010) - Wasabi restaurant opened at the back of Drunken Noodle. I like a few of their rolls (Nothern pacific and spicy salmon). In my opinion it is better than Kobe’s as the balance between the rice and other ingredients is much better, and the overall taste is cleaner, but I have not ordered their nigiri or sashimi. (In fact I almost never order Nigiri sushi or sashimi in any of the small city sushi places. Most of these places use frozen fish and pre-cooked or prepared ingredients. I suppose you can choose for yourself whether to eat frozen fish in sushi or not. I have eaten a lot of sushi and sashimi in various places from Japan to New York City, and I know what I like and what’s worth my money.) Wasabi now also serves Korean style Galbi (or Calbi - short ribs marinated in sweet soy mixture and grilled) and Bulgogi. Galbi was pretty good (standard restaurant taste, so to speak), but Bulgogi was a bit too salty and the meat was not of a good quality. Because of these grilled dishes, the restaurant smells a little bit more like a Korean BBQ place. They also added a few lunch box items. Bulgogi lunch box is $9 (Galbi box is $15), and it comes with soup, rice, 2 pieces of California roll, fried chicken pieces, salad, and bulgogi or galbi. Decent taste and decent price that’s worth a try. I would not say it’s a great restaurant, but it’s in downtown -and I love Fargo downtown!- and it’s nice enough. So I will probably go back there again when I have some roll-craving or seaweed salad craving..

Many people think that sushi = raw fish. But! Sushi just means “vinegared rice” in Japanese. (I am not Japanese but that’s what I learned from reading lots of Japanese cookbooks.) So anything with vinegared rice, whether with raw fish on top or not, can be called as sushi.

I made one of the non-fish sushi with fried and seasoned tofu pouch a few days ago for a party, and it was so popular. It’s served as “Inari sushi” in many Japanese restaurants, and the version I served is my mom’s version for picnic. A dear friend wanted the recipe so I tried to write down, but I make this dish without measuring so add the seasonings a bit at a time and taste-adjust! (You always need to adjust the seasonings to your taste even if you are using the measuring tools..) I am writing this post for my dear friend Neil.

Ingredients:

About 2 cups Cooked short grain rice - I like Kagayaki brand. (Most Asian markets will sell this brand) or Organic Sushi Rice from Lundberg. It’s very important to use the right kind of rice! The best way to cook short grain rice is to use a rice cooker. It costs around $50-150 (depends on the brand and the extra functions), and it’s one of the most useful things in your kitchen if you like eating Asian food. (Cuckoo brand from Korea and Zojirushi from Japan are the best.)

3 TB Sushi Vinegar or more - You can make your own sushi vinegar by mixing 4TB rice vinegar, 2 -3 TB sugar (according to your taste), and 0.5 TB salt. (Many recipes have different ratios of Vinegar-Sugar-Salt, so you may need to experiment to find what you like.)  You can also purchase Japanese ready-made sushi vinegar or seasoned vinegar from Asian markets. (Marukan or Mitsukan brand)

1/2 carrot and 1/4 yellow onion (1/2 if the onion is small), finely chopped - stir fry with a bit of salt in a wok or fry pan until the onion is translucent. My mom also added seasoned ground beef (with soy sauce, sugar, pepper, garlic, and sesame oil). You can add chopped daikon pickles, stir fried shiitake mushrooms, and cucumbers as well. Just make sure that the rice is the main ingredients, not the other stuff.

Fried and seasoned tofu pouch - you can buy it from any Asian markets. I prefer Korean version from Pulmoowon - this is smaller and less sweet/ comes with vinegar and seasoning mixture. For Japanese version, look for a round can that says “Inarizushi No Moto” -Hime brand is good.

How to Make:

1) Cook the rice - make sure you don’t put too much water. Sushi rice should be on the dry side, not on the watery side. You may put a piece of kombu seaweed or spoonful of sake for more flavor, but you don’t have to.

2) Stir-fry the chopped carrot and onion in 0.5 TB or more canola oil (or grapeseed, corn, soybean oil. Don’t use Olive oil) with a bit of salt. This should not be too dry or too oily. Set aside.

3) Take out the tofu pouches from the can and put them in a colander. Run hot water to wash out excess seasoning and then drain. Be careful not to tear them! If using the Korean kind, follow the package instruction and use the vinegar mixture inside.

4) Put the cooked rice into a large bowl, and mix with sushi vinegar. Be careful not to break the rice! Swing a fan or a plastic panel over the rice to get rid of heat and moisture.

5) Mix in the cooked carrot and onion.

6) Take the tofu pouch - be careful not to tear it - and put a spoonful of rice into the pouch. This sushi does not require wasabi and soy sauce. Perfect finger food~

I often think that running a great restaurant is somewhat like being a good musician. It’s so hard to do it well, and it’s even harder to do it well for a long time without losing the quality. It also require so much more than just good food or good technique - one wants to find some kind of magic, or personality, or feeling in good restaurants and good performances. And it makes people happy. (Plus same food and same performance may result in different reactions because everybody has different opinions.)

Silver Moon Supper Club is one of those restaurants with such charm and personality, located on Roberts Street in downtown Fargo. From outside you only get to see their impeccably clean kitchen. It does not even have a sign. I discovered this place while walking on the Roberts Street one day, and I thought it was a catering service with a small room for simple “suppers.”  But when you enter the door, you will see a spacious, beautiful place bubbling with laughter, smile, noise, and general happiness. This place is decorated mainly black and white/silver, but in a really pretty way. The chandeliers and wine-glass looking lights are sparkly and bright in a non-overwhelming way. It’s polished but not the way that makes you uncomfortable. I love the water-fountain looking wall that’s below the separate dining room upstairs. The silver moon mobile hanging from the ceiling in the hallway is a nice touch. (I hear that this restaurant is paying a tribute to an old restaurant with the same name that was in Moorhead in the 60s, and the decoration is inspired by that era.)

And the food at Silver Moon is wonderful. The appearance of dishes served at the Silver Moon promises something good, and the taste usually lives up to that promise. (I don’t like restaurants with foods that try too hard to be something smart or different but poorly executed and taste bad. I would rather eat simply cooked steak or baked potatoes than poorly fried calamari in nori batter with mango and cucumber chutney)

I visited this restaurant once last year, when it had just opened, and once this year. And I ate dishes that I will remember with smile on both visits. Duck with campari-infused sweet potato was packed with unusual and pleasant flavors; shrimp cocktail with spicy mango chutney was so tasty and well balanced; Pork belly and pork rib dish with fried polenta and sauteed dark greens was almost perfect except the rib part was a bit dry; the shiitake mushroom rice pilaf (served as a side for their wonderful haddock dish) was fantastic. Complementary dinner rolls are served with cute and soft butter balls. These rolls are really dense and somewhat hard to eat, but tasty nonetheless. There is also a nice bar and the wine list is not extensive but nice enough.

Mr. Monte, who owns this place, is there to make sure that you are having a good time. He obviously LOVES this place, and so do I. I think it’s not been open for a year, and I really want to see it thriving for a very long time. I can’t wait to go back.

Minor imperfections - It is very loud. It’s a big space with high ceiling and wooden floor. You can feel that people are definitely having a great time here, but it’s really hard to have a good or soft conversation. The appetizer tray was pretty to look at and tasty but not as good as the dishes listed above. I did not care too much for their smoked salmon tower appetizer, either. Also the dessert is not that good. The tiramisu I ordered was too big, thick, and a bit dry. It also tasted more like cake with cream than tiramisu. I suppose I prefer purist desserts than innovative ones.. (I would eat a perfect creme brulee than a rosewater-infused or green-tea brulee!) Flourless chocolate cake was better than the tiramisu, but my friends agreed that the food was much better than the dessert. Lastly, their coffee is fine but not as good as the food. I wish they had a good espresso machine..!

Update on June 29, 2oo9 - Menu was significantly different! The Antipasto plate was better than last time. It had smoked salmon, pork belly (yum!!), brie and really nice gorgonzola cheese, spicy nuts, curried chicken salad, grapes, olives, potato puree with herbs and marinated artichoke, and crostinis. The dinner rolls were not as hard as last time and were very flavorful. I ordered a mixed green salad with lemon vinaigrette, berries, shaved manchego, caramelized onion, berries and hazelnut - it was one of the best salads I have ever had! The hazelnut was so crunchy and fragrant, the sweet flavor of berries and onion was balanced by the manchego cheese and the dressing. The whole thing was really refreshing, too. My husband’s romain salad with roasted jalapeno dressing and gorgonzola was great, too. For main dish I got the grilled lobster with sweet potato and apple salad and fried sweet potatoes. Lobster had wonderful smokiness from the grill and was really yummy with delicate lemon-herb cream sauce, but it was a bit hard to eat. Fried potato strips were amazing, but the potato-apple salad had a bit too much red onion to my taste. My husband got the Pork tenderloin special with lentil risotto and he loved it. For dessert, I got cream puff tower with mascarpone cheese cream and strawberries. It tasted so good, but the puff was on the dry side and not so puffed (it was more like dry elephant’s ear). Maybe that’s the style of Silver Moon’s dessert chef..? ?

Still it’s the one place I would go for something that I don’t know what it is. All the dishes are very interesting and different - not something that you have eaten before. But it’s a really nice surprise and pleasure.

Update in May, 2010: Someone asked me about their menu selections. Here’s what I remember from my 5 visits to the restaurant..

The menu is printed on a beautiful ivory paper, and changes seasonally.

Appetizers: $8-$15. Example: Cheese sampler, Antipasto plate, flat bread pizza, smoked salmon, etc. Also Silver Moon features very interesting and nice salads. All the salads I have ordered so far have been very satisfactory. (Caution: dressing with campari can be a bit salty and strong)

Usually 2 soup selections: $5-8. Hit or miss.

Main dishes: $22-$35. Example: smoked chicken, duck breast, grilled lobster tail, grilled salmon, other kinds of fish, pork belly, New York strip steak, etc. All main dishes have interesting vegetable components and sauces. Their duck dishes fish selections have been always good. Steak is hit or miss. I loved their pork belly dish (ate twice)..but it might be a winter item.

* House-made dinner rolls and small dollop of sorbet as a palate cleanser come with dinner.

Desserts: usually around $9-10. Desserts are not as strong as their other dishes in my opinion. They are always too precious and don’t taste good enough for the price tag. They don’t have espresso machine yet. OK coffee, and nice wine/ cocktail selections.

I spent a good deal of my 20s in Bloomington, Indiana, where I got my graduate degrees and met my husband.

Our main activity while we were dating was eating out in various little restaurants in downtown Bloomington. Bloomington has a huge selection of ethnic restaurants (especially along the 4th street), and many of them are very lovely and still in business. The last time I was in Bloomington was January 2008 when I visited for a solo recital. Here are some of my (and Ben, my husband’s) favorite places.

Downtown/4th street area/ Square

•    Le Petite Café – owned and operated by real French people! A charming, lovely place with great home-style French food. Weird hours, though. 308 West 6th St. ****

•    Runcible Spoon – very friendly yet strange deco. Really nice breakfast and coffee. Good place to just hang out. This one is a bit difficult to find…can’t explain. 412 E 6th St. ***+1/2
•    The Bakehouse on the Downtown Square – great baguette (Especially when it’s just baked in the morning!!) and good sandwiches. It’s a pricey place but baguette is priced nicely, and their breads are very good. But they have lost their quality ever since they opened the second store on the 3rd street. ***+1/2
•    Samira on the downtown square– OK lunch buffet. Rare Afghanistan cuisine with elegant atmosphere. The food is awesome but it’s a bit pricey during the dinner time. ***
•    Malibu Grill on the square – very good contemporary American food (good steak and brick-oven pizza). A bit pricey. ***+1/2
•    Michael’s Uptown Café – Great breakfast/ good lunch deal/ OK Creole food. Make sure you try their Cottage Cheese Pancakes! Expect a very long wait for breakfasts, especially during weekends. *** (A lot of people really like “Village Deli” for the breakfast, but I did not care for it that much.)
•    Soma café – very good espresso and smoothies. Operates La Marzzoco machine. This place smells funny, though. ***

Drinks and pub
•    Upland brewery 350 W 11th St. – very nice dinner menu and good beer. Good place to hang out! 350 W. 11th Street ***
•    Irish Lion – great appetizers! (fried potato balls with Irsh name and soda breads are awesome. Also they have nice buffalo wings – get the sauce on the side!) Nice beer selection/ great hang-out, post-concert place.  ***
•    Lennie’s on 10th St. – good beer/ good and large sandwiches. Their food in general is decent, although it could be too huge and bland. ***
Splurge
Restaurant Tallent’s – this one is very famous (even featured on Bon Appetite magazine) and is a unique restaurant. It’s really pricey, and some people have complained about not-great food, but we loved it. Worth visiting for special occasions. ****
Truffle’s – near Kroger. Nice atmosphere, contemporary American cuisine. I really like their soup and appetizers as well as creme brulee! If you see a side item named “Truffle Potato Crocket,” you must try it! ****
Limestone Grill – good steak and seafood place. A bit “old” people atmosphere, though. ***1/2
Scholar’s Inn – very nice atmosphere, but their food is more pretentious than delicious. Still it’s a nice place for a good mood. **1/2 (this placed is owned by Bakehouse people)

Others - not my favorite, but good enough places
•    Soban on the 10th St. – OK Korean food at reasonable prices. Self service. No BBQ here. I used to go here to get “Tokpokki,” spicy rice cake snack, and “Budae Chigae,” spicy stew with sausages, ham and kimchi. ***
•    Mama’s Korean Restaurant - Drive along the 10th street, and go until you see a square mall on your left side, near a grocery store. Very good BBQ stuff! Also grilled mackarel is very good. *** (There are quite a few new Asian restaurants near Eigenman that I have not checked out.)

Dagwood on Indiana Ave. – good sandwich place. Locally owned, and better than Jimmy Johns. Huge portion. ***+1/2
•    Casa Blanca on the 4th St.– a bit pricey, but great food. The owner is a bit greedy, which was a big drawback. The food seems to have dropped the quality a bit recently. Sad thing… ***
•    Little Tibet on the 4th St.– a very popular place, but the food quality is uneven. Lunch is pretty cheap, though. Their Pad Thai, Momo (Tibetan dumplings), and Ping Sha (Thibetan glass noodle dish) are good enough to try. ***
•    Anatolia Turkish Restaurant on 4th street is very good. Great bread and grilled stuff. ***
•    Esan Thai near the public library, on Lincoln – this restaurant used to be my favorite, but the food quality seemd a bit lowered when I ate there in 2008. Still serves really good Thai food. Service can be very frustrating. People seem to still like Siam House and the service is better there. Siam House Thai food is OK, but it’s on the salty side and it just feels like it comes from not-so-clean kitchen.  ***+1/2

Indianapolis Area
•    Capri’s Italian Restaurant near Keystone Shopping mall area– The best Bolognese sauce in the world! And the Bolognese is around $15. Also their lunch deal is pretty good. This is where Ben proposed to me, near the wine cellar!

•    Bando restaurant – on Pendleton Pike. Very good Korean food!

Tuna Appetizer at Monk's Pub

I have lived in Fargo-Moorhead area for about 1.65 years, and there are a few really good places for dining and having fun. One of my favorite restaurant is Sushi Time, and I found this place through someone’s blog. So I thought I would share my thoughts so that someone else can visit a great place in this area.

Silver Moon on Robert St - very well executed fine dining experience. It’s been open for less than a year (today is April 10 2009), but it seems to be thriving. Dessert menu was a bit disappointing but the duck dish (with campari infused sweet potato) my husband ordered was amazing. Great salad, great atmosphere, and great service. A bit loud, though. (no section or walls inside the restaurant, high ceiling, live performance. Hence lots of noise)

Update (January 25, 2010) - visited a few more times after posting this, including tonight. Still wonderful, some dishes are a bit too salty. My husband’s braised sort rib with gnocchi was wonderful. Still not happy with their dessert..

Stella’s (formerly Isabella’s)  - my favorite Italian place in town. Their food has a lot of garlic and a lot of tomato so some people may find it a bit strong, but I love it! Their appetizer tray, lasagna, seafood spaghetti, zuppa di pesce, and grilled sausages with peppers are fantastic. I also like their bread, especially when it comes fresh and warm from the oven. Nothing special, but good basic loaf to soak up oil, vinegar and lots of sauce from your plate. Nice chocolate cake and cheesecake for desserts. (Their tiramisu is a bit heavy on the alcohol side.) Service can be slow. Toscana is also an OK Italian restaurant in downtown, but they have very weird hours and their food tend to be really salty. I like their gnocchi and pea and ham spaghetti for a quick lunch. (Lunch pasta dishes are usually $7-8)

Usher’s/ Monk’s Bar - Best sashimi-grade tuna dish in town. (I tried sashimi tuna dishes in all the restaurants that I visited in this area.) They serve Tuna napoleon as an appetizer, and it’s $16 -But it comes with 6 big chunks of really good-quality tuna, slightly seared, with some spicy aioli and fried wonton wrappers. It’s better to order it from the Monk’s bar, not from Usher’s. You can have it as a main dish and add a soup or something, instead of ordering a main dish.  Good beer selection. Good atmosphere. Other dishes are OK. I love the atmosphere in the Usher’s dining room - nice wood interior with big windows.

Update: Monk’s Bar has Happy Hour from 3-6pm, and all the appetizers are half price. The garnish and presentation was different during this summer from the winter, but still delicious.

Maxwell’s - the best Creme Brulee in town. (And one of the bests I have had - creme brulee is one of my favorite desserts!) Main dish can be on the salty side. But they have great service and atmosphere. Special occasion pre-fix menu is fun, but maybe not that special. (And good things run out - we could not get the fried banana dessert on Valentine’s day.) Nice to place to try/ very good wine list.

John Alexander’s on Main Ave., Moorhead - right next door to the Juano’s. Nice atmosphere, nicely written menu. Their best meal and best deal is Sunday Brunch, not their lunch or dinner. (Hamburger and fish & chips are good, but other items may bring you a big disappointment.) I always have hard time deciding what to eat for brunch, and buffet is a bit too much for me. Here you can choose one from yogurt, granola and fruit sort of thing and then select your main dishes such as omelet and pancake.

HoDo - this place has a really nice feel to it, but I don’t care so much for their food. It’s always trying too hard to be cool and the flavor of dishes is always off a little bit or lacking something. I like their mini-desserts because of their fun size. Sorbet is the best choice. (Meyer Lemon sorbet was good.) Cool place to hang out and drink, although the bar area is a bit too loud for my taste.

Monte’s downtown- I have been there 3 times now and every time I didn’t get impressed. Maybe it’s because I always go there after their dinner hour and get appetizers and left-over kind of soup..? Nice service.

Sarello’s in Moorhead, near the mall - I have been there only once, but it seemed to be popular and it was good. To me this restaurant was a bit over-priced, but the service was really nice and food was very well prepared. I had a seabass with cornmeal crust which was nice enough but not memorable like some of the dishes I had at the Silver Moon. I don’t even remember what my husband ordered here..! Nice bread and butter. It feels a bit boxy and crowded. (Probably because the space used to be an office.)

The most recent addition to the “fine dining scene in Fargo” is Norman’s in West Fargo. They have great AV system and nice atmosphere, but the food is so huge and so expensive. (Every dinner item is a la carte, and you need to order even baked potato on the side for $7..! Salads are $8-9, onion rings $8) I think it’s a good place for big guys or family - to order a few appetizers and a few main dishes with some side dishes to share. Prime rib was amazingly juicy and tasty, so I went back for it once. Onion rings have very good texture, but are too oily and salty. Caesar salad was good but I would never pay $7 for just a simple mixture of lettuce and cheese with dressing while I am paying about $30-40 for my steak. (Ribeye and other cuts can go up to $41)

When you want to have good ribs or rotisserie chicken, Spitfire is a very nice place to visit. It’s locally owned and has a very pleasant, sporty, and comfortable atmosphere. Very good ribs and good desserts. Salad greens sometimes appear very sad and not-fresh, though. Doolittle is also nice for rotisserie stuff or other simple burgers and salads (Tuna nicoise salad is very good.) It’s spacious, friendly, and clean. Best of all, Doolittle’s kitchen is open until 11pm, which is rare in this area.

I also like Nichole’s pastry shop on 8th St. (off the Main Ave.) very much. It has really nice croissants and scones. Lunch sandwiches and salad are also reasonably priced and tasty. Nice tea selection and gelatos as well as beautiful chocolates (cocoa truffles!), but I don’t like their coffee too much. (They serve French pressed coffee. So it’s almost always fresh, but it’s just not my favorite type of coffee. Their espresso drinks are OK.) Their fruit pie during the spring-summer season is also nice. During the winter, check out the banana-cream pie and chocolate-sea salt-caramel tart -they are so yummy! Chocolate feuillentine is very good as well as chocolate caramel torte. I don’t like their cakes (vanilla cake, carrot cake, lemon curd cake, black forest cake are all OK but not great) or cookies that much, though. But it’s still one of the places in Fargo-Moorhead area that makes me happy. Very nice clerks, too.

Update (January 25. 2010) - Nichole’s is expanding!

One sad thing about being so far away from the ocean is that it’s really hard to get good sushi. Yuki Hana seems to be popular, but it is a mediocre place (or below mediocre) with overpriced items. Ingredients do not seem fresh (especially the teriyaki stuff - both meat and veggies) After a few visits, my husband and I decided not to go back.

Update (March 10, 2010): Yuki Hana has been closed for a while, but it will be open soon again. (Chef Sheng from Sushi Time got a job offer there.) Newly open Kobe’s is very popular, but I don’t like their sushi. It seems that the sushi rice quality is very poor, and the rolls are covered with too much sweet tasting sauce/ not enough fish in the rolls. Nigiri sushi is better, but still not good enough for me to go back. (I ate there 5 times, and I will probably not go back ever again..unless I have a friend who really wants to do the teppan yaki show.)

Another sad thing is that there is no decent Chinese restaurant in town, and there is no Korean restaurant. For Chinese food-cravings, I go to Little Szechuan in St. Paul. (My husband and I would make an excuse to go there!)

The Vietnamese place on the Main ave., Jade Dragon, is fine enough to visit when you are craving Vietnamese style fresh spring rolls, Pho, and Vietnamese iced coffee. Their rice vermicelli salad and stir-fried stuff are not as good.

For Thai food, Leela on the 25th Ave. is nice, although it can be too sweet sometimes. Black and white slices are good as well as angel wings (pretty spicy). My husband’s favorite is their mango-duck curry and my favorite is basil stir-fry with tofu and eggplant. Fresh spring rolls and Pad Thai are better at Thai Orchid in Moorhead. I also like their Spicy Catfish, House Special Noodles and Thai fried rice.

Update (December 2009): Thai Orchid has changed their recipes for a lot of things. I like the old flavors of the Tom Yum and Yum Nua better. Also the fresh chili sauce is a lot more spicy. Still the Spicy Catfish is good as well as the fresh spring rolls are good.

I find it interesting that there are not many McDonalds or Wendy’s in town and there is no donut joint.  (Krispy Kreme went out of business last year!) But I suppose that’s a good thing.

I just wish someone will open a nice Korean restaurant or a noodle shop soon! The best location would be the Bison Block on the 12th..