The Fargo Marathon is this weekend, Saturday May 22! I signed up for the 2-person relay with a friend of mine but have not trained myself all that much. So I plan to make it up by eating lots of pasta before Saturday! I have written a few things about restaurants in the Fargo-Moorhead area on this blog, but today I will present a list aimed at fellow marathoners and runners in search of good carb-loading/ pasta options.

Stella (Formerly Isabella) - 608 1st Ave. (close to Broadway) 701-365-0608

Stella’s is my (and my husband’s) favorite choice for Italian food and pastas, period. Their Ravioli, Pappardelle alla Bolognese, Spaghetti puttanesca (all $13), Rigatoni con porcini ($18), Seafood spaghetti ($21) are all very delicious and reasonably priced. I know they use San Marzano whole tomato cans for their tomato sauce, which makes a big difference. (I persuaded Tony to sell me a can once and made a great Bolognese sauce with it!) Their strengths as a restaurant are how well they do the simple things - the basic pasta dishes and simple tomato sauce that make or break any Italian kitchen.  Chefs here are not afraid of using a lot of garlic, and Stella’s pasta dishes are never salty or soggy. All dinner pasta dishes come with marinated vegetable appetizer, bread, and salad. Be aware that the service can be very slow, and the owner has a “personality.” Oh, and for their food the wine list is a bit sad. But the word is out - today (Monday, May 17th) I reserved a table for Friday (the day before the marathon) at 7pm, and already the restaurant was almost totally reserved for marathoners and carb-loading parties!

Toscana - 202 Broadway N. 701-235-9100

A lot of dishes here tend to be salty these days. (It was not the case when they just opened, but it has become that way and I don’t like it as much as I used to), but all the pasta dishes are reasonably priced and some of them are still pretty good. My husband likes their gnocchi, and I like their Piselli e prosciutto pasta. Their Arrabbiatta used to be good, but these days it’s too salty and too spicy for my taste. Also their shrimps (in any dish) tend to be too watery. Service is better than Stella’s.

Spitfire- 1660 13th Ave E. West Fargo. 701-478-8667

This restaurant is mainly a rib/roasted chicken joint, but 5-6 pasta dishes are on the menu. (BTW- their ribs are the best in town, if you would rather eat protein than carb.) My husband and I have tried their Diablo pasta with sausage, chicken and shrimp a few times, and it’s cheesy, peppery and tasty. Big portions, and satisfactory taste. Not anywhere near being “authentic Italian” but it’s good. Through many trips, I have not been disappointed at this restaurant, except getting a sad salad once. This would be actually a good restaurant to go after you run a marathon.

Granite City - 1636 42nd Street S. 701-293-3000

It’s been a while since I ate at GC, as they took some things I liked off the menu and their food tends to taste as if it comes frozen or pre-cooked, but a lot of people seem to like this restaurant. This place has 7-8 pasta choices on the menu, and almost all of them are parmesan or pesto-based. I recall trying a seafood pasta special, and it was not bad. Good beer selection and nice atmosphere.

Santa Lucia

This claims to be a “Mediterranean” restaurant. I ate at this place a while ago once, and today I went back to check out again. Spaghetti with bolognese sauce and meatballs (about $13, salad separate at $2.95) was not good at all. It had a very strange canned tomato paste flavor and was really salty, with very dry meatballs. Their Penne Arabbiata with shrimp ($14.95) was better, but it was also on the salty side. Both dishes were gigantic. You can probably go to this restaurant when you don’t want to go to Olive Garden/ when other restaurants are full.  I suspect that the Greek dishes on their menu would be more successful.

There are a few other non-chain restaurants with pasta menu, but I have not eaten their pasta dishes:

Sarello’s is a very nice Italian restaurant in Moorhead (28 Center Ave. Moorhead, 218-287-0238), but the only pasta dishes on their menu are Lobster Ravioli ($24) and Penne Arrabiatta. ($17)

Basie’s is also a nice restaurant inside the Ramada Plaza Suite. (1635 42 St. S. 701-281-7105) I have eaten their steak and fish dishes, and they are what you expect from this kind of restaurant. It would not be my first choice of restaurant, but it has nice service, good food, and good menu. They feature 5 very interesting pasta dishes. (Thai red curry sauce on Linguini with crab and mussels/ gorgonzola cream sauce over linguini to name a few)

Doolittle’s - 2112 25th Street S. 701-478-2200

Doolittle’s pastas all have Alfredo-type sauce, so I have never ordered a pasta dish here. But their food is usually quite good, and the portions are big. Oh, and their kitchen is open until 11pm, which is a bit later than the norm for Fargo-Moorhead.

Lastly, Speak Easy is a locally owned restaurant in Moorhead with an extensive pasta menu and a cute, old-fashioned deco. However their food is not something that I would recommend highly. Their spaghetti with meatballs was only marginally better than Olive Garden or other not so high-quality chain restaurants.

Well, good luck to everybody who’s running! I hope it will be warmer than last year!

The 10th Fargo Film Festival opened today and it will continue until the 6th. (Check out http://www.fargotheatre.org/) I have lived in the Fargo-Moorhead area for almost 3 years now, and I want to share some of my favorite things in this place with whoever is visiting town for this wonderful event. (I hope this will be useful for any future visitors, too.)

1) Enjoy more culture - Fargo has so much culture especially for its size - classical music, jazz, theater, musicals, visual arts, and so on. There are wonderful organizations such as the FM Symphony Orchestra, Fargo-Moorhead Opera, Fargo-Moorhead Community Theatre, and Theatre B to name a few. Three colleges (Concordia, Minnesota State University-Moorhead, and North Dakota State University) all have their own arts calendars, packed with orchestra concerts, band concerts, chamber music concerts and theater productions. Pop and rock events go on at the Fargodome and the Civic Center. High school productions are also very high quality and vital to the community. There are also several dance schools.

General Event Calendar can be found at the Culture Pulse Page: http://fmarea.culturepulse.org/ This is a page where anybody can upload information on any cultural event, but it is not entirely thorough.

FM Symphony: Master Works Series, Family Concerts, and Chamber Music Series http://www.fmsymphony.org/

FM Community Theatre: boasting 12 productions a year, this theater works with local talents and schools. http://www.fmct.org/

MSUM’s Cheryl Nelson Lossett Performing Arts Series: Performances ranging from Ladysmith Black Mombazo to the Guthrie Theatre’s Romeo and Juliet. http://www.mnstate.edu/perform/

Concordia Performing Arts Series: Another great performing series at a great price. http://www.cord.edu/Offices/Cultural/performingarts.php

FM Opera: Celebrating its 41st season this year with La Traviata, La Boheme and Amahl and the Night Visitors. http://www.fmopera.org/

Here is my personal invitation for this week: a fascinating presentation of abstract aesthetics in artwork and chamber music is scheduled for Thursday evening, March 4, at 7:30pm on the Gaede Stage at MSUM. Featuring the 8th Street Quartet of the FM Symphony and two guest musicians from the St. James-St. Benedict Universities.

2) Browse Downtown - Walking along Broadway is a joy. There are so many beautiful galleries and precious shops. Here are some of my favorite spots on Broadway (and a few off-Broadway as well) starting from 6th Ave N. down to Main Ave.

Beyond Running: a cozy and serious running store that’s a big part of the Fargo Marathon. They have a regular Tuesday running club and other activities such as marathon training and yoga classes. Nice shop to browse through, too.

FunkyJunque - this is a very pretty shop. It’s like a picture from Mark Bailey’s “Simple Home” came alive. This store has charming accent cushions (felt cushion adorned with leather, saying things like “brrrrr”), a surprisingly good collection of blouses and sleep-shirts, cute gift tags and white colored plates, and other home-furniture items.

Zandbros Variety - a bookstore/gift shop, featuring an interesting collection of books (good cookbook collection, too), funny cards, cool jewelry items, bath stuff, plates, and a few clothes and bags. It’s a great store for getting gifts, girls and boys alike.

Lena K - this store has lots of pretty tops by designers such as Vince and Rebecca Taylor, designer jeans, flowing and sexy dresses, and several Juicy Couture items. Price is on the high side, but there are always some really nice sale items. If you find your size, it’s your lucky day! I also like their small jewelry collection.

O’Day Cache - this jam-packed store recently expanded to accommodate a lot of furniture from China, including some very cool antique tables and beds. It’s a good store to go to if you need a gift but can’t come up with a good idea. This store also sells Vosges chocolate, which I love, at a reasonable price. *Majority of the items on sale come from China, so many of them are not the best quality. But still pretty and fun.

Shannalee - another store with great and fun gift items. Clothes are a little bit over-priced and not my favorite style, but this store carries really cute T-shirts saying “I (love) Fargo.” * This store, Lena K, and O’Day Cache are totally girlie stores. If I were a guy, I would feel a bit out of place walking into these stores.

Boucle - a boutique-type yarn store that is just beautiful to browse through. I don’t knit, but I went to get some things for my sister in law who does. * Since I don’t knit, I have no idea if this shop is a high-end shop or over-priced, etc.

Ecce Gallery - relatively new gallery that also houses a yoga studio. They feature local artists as well as commercial items by Alessi and Jonathan Adler. I like the way this gallery feels, and I love the fact that there are things that I can actually BUY!

Plains Arts Museum - this small but beautiful arts museum is located a few blocks west of Broadway on 1st Ave N. The 1st floor has a small Yamaha grand piano, and quite a few concerts happen here. Museum gift shop is also nice.

Fargo Public Library - a few blocks off from the Broadway, east on the 1st Ave N. This newly completed library has a wonderful bright and fun feeling to it, and is a very friendly place for anybody who likes libraries and books. There is also a Dunn Bros. cafe inside the library that has free Wi-Fi!

Vlana Vlee - another shop that opened recently. It’s a glitzy+girly shop with amazing quantity of “stuff” -all kinds of stuff ranging from baby-shower gifts to a chunky dinner table. It’s a fun store to browse.

Antique on Broadway - this is a huge store filled with antiques (and some items that just look old).  Fun place to look around. I recently popped in because a very long train was passing by, and I could not stand in the freezing air any more! I ended up browsing for about 30 minutes, and bought really cute copper water wagon figurine that now complements one of my mantel-top picture frames as well as a salt and pepper shaker, all for $6.

Off-Broadway, please come visit the Roberts Street Chapel on the corner of 4th Ave and Roberts Street. Marjorie Schlossman’s artwork will brighten up even your gloomiest day!

P.S. The West Acres Mall Area is not that special (it’s just like any other mall in small and medium sized cities in the States), but there is a special shop called “Stabo” inside the West Acres shopping center. I fell in love with Porsgrund (Norwegian bone china company) in this store, and they also carry other European gift-items including key-chains by Troika. (They are the best!)

3) EAT! - Please see my posts about Fargo’s restaurants.

http://jihyechang.com/wisdom/2009/04/10/my-favorite-restaurants-in-fargo-moorhead-area/

http://jihyechang.com/wisdom/2009/06/28/fargos-newest-excitements/

4) Have fun - I am not a person who goes clubbing or drinks much, but I know that the HoDo has a good night scene. Also there is a multiplex on 25th Street south of Main Ave. called “The Hub” - that place gets packed during the weekends. Also downtown has many bars and jazz-concert clubs. For families, there is the Red River Zoo (have not visited but people seem to like it).

In the middle of July, Broadway goes crazy with the Street Fair - endless carts selling hand-made jewelries, artworks, small furniture items, clothes, foods, etc. I did not get to see it in my first summer, but I enjoyed it immensely last year. If you are in town during the summer, it’s a must-see!

Moorhead has an interesting place called the “Hjemkomst Heritage Center.” It looks like the white sails of a big ship, and I thought it was an actual Viking museum.  Instead, it’s  a memorial that permanently stores the Hjemkomst Viking Ship built by Moorhead resident Robert Asp and his family. They sailed to Norway on this ship in 1984. There is also a replica of Hopperstad Stave Church in Vik, Norway outside the center. This church is used often as a wedding chapel. During the summertime, the center hosts a Scandinavian festival and a Viking festival, and there are yearly exhibitions and special events.

Oh, and there is a Curling Club (!!!!!!) by the Fargo North High School, and people do snow-mobiling, ice-fishing and hockey during the winter time. There is even a street-side hockey rink on the 12th Ave N. I still remember the first time I saw several kids playing a game in -20F weather. It was like watching a scene from “The Saddest Movie in the World.” It was so cool.

Also people have told me that there are so many beautiful lakes within a 2 or 3 hours of Fargo-Moorhead.  I must experience it this summer.

Well, I think I will now go check out the Fargo Film Festival schedule and see which ones I enjoy the most.

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.

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..