Centro

Centro is a quick service taco joint in Northeast Minneapolis. We find ourselves in this area a lot, but did not realize exactly where it was. You order at the counter or  sit at the bar and food and drinks are delivered to your table. The process works quite well.

The chips and guacamole were really excellent. Great flavor. Some guacamole can be way too bland! This was not. The chips were the thicker style, like you would get in Mexico.

John had one carnitas en adobo taco (pork), one pollo a la plancha taco (chicken taco) and one chorizo taco.

I had one carnitas en adobo taco and one papas con chorizo taco. Both tacos were excellent and had tons of meat in them. The chorizo was spicy, but in a wonderfully perfect way. These were some of the best tacos we have had outside of Mexico.

I think we really need to try Popol Vuh, which is the fine dining sit down restaurant in the same building as Centro and the same chefs. I suspect we would enjoy it a lot.




Centro
1414 Quincy St NE
Minneapolis, MN 55413
Phone: (612) 345-5527
https://popolvuhmpls.com/centro/#tacos

Windmill Cafe

The Windmill café in Savage is not fancy. The parking lot is gravel with a fair number of weeds. The inside is pretty basic too. However, since there are not a ton of great breakfast options in the area, it ably fills a need to solid breakfast food. We only had to wait a few minutes for a table at mid-morning on a Sunday, which is not bad.

John had his favorite standard breakfast, hamburger steak, eggs, hash browns and toast.

I went with the Windmill combo that included pancakes, hash browns, eggs and bacon. I really wanted to try the pancakes. They were decent pancakes, if a bit on the cakey side. The hash browns were definitely legit and solid.

I would not go out of my way to visit the Windmill café, but if you live nearby or a re in the area, it is solid choice for basic breakfast food. The service was brisk and efficient.




Windmill café
5367 State Hwy 13
Savage, MN 55378
Phone: (952) 895-1869
Website not working

Beast Barbecue

Beast Barbecue is s fairly new restaurant in Northeast Minneapolis. I think the building used to house a sports bar. It made some list of top BBQ places, we checked it out.

I had the one meat platter pork ribs, jojo chips and toast. We were disappointed to see that the jojo’s were not more similar to those at Ted Cook’s. Therese were essentially potato chips. Not sure what is jojo about them really. (Google tells me that jojo’s are actually potato wedges, so neither local jojo is accurately named.) The ribs were solid. I was not bananas about the sauces. The spicy one was the best one probably.

John had the two meat platter with pork ribs, brisket, jojo chips and coleslaw. John liked the coleslaw quite a bit. I thought his brisket was very tender and delicious. I’d get that next time instead of the ribs.

The service was fine, we did not have any issues at all. The parking lot in front is a bit small, but there is a lot of parking on the side street next to the building.



Beast BBQ
825 E Hennepin Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Phone: (612) 584-3657
https://beastbarbecue.com/

Peeps Hot Box

We stopped at Lake Monster with Maya recently and saw the Peeps Hot Box truck was there. I could not resist giving it a try.

John had the loaded french fries. I’m not even sure what these were all topped with, but the fries tasted hand cut and were super crispy and fresh. The sauces were all deleicous too.

I’ve heard a lot about their cream cheese wontons since this truck hit the streets a couple years ago. They lived up to the hype. The wontons were very crispy with lots of cream cheese inside and some pretty adornments also. These are worth finding this truck!

We loved both items and it made a great mid-afternoon snack while at the brewery.



Peeps Hot Box
Twitter: @PeepsHotBox
https://www.peepshotboxusa.com

Kansas City trip report - 7.03-06.2019

Over the Fourth of July weekend we took a road trip to Kansas City, Missouri. We had been tossing the idea around for awhile since we wanted to go check out some of the barbecue places in the area.

 We stopped at a Maid Rite in Ankeny, Iowa for a quick meal. 

 Sorry for the partially eaten sandwich photo. The sandwich wasn't bad, just a bit bland.

We stayed at a Residence Inn in Downtown Kansas City near the convention center and the Power and Light District. It was an interesting hotel in that the same building also housed a Courtyard by Marriott. We used Marriott points and got a very large room.

The trolley ran down the street just behind our hotel and it was free to ride and ran quite frequently, so we used that quite a bit to get around short distances.

Tom's Town Distilling Co. was just a couple blocks from the hotel, so we went over there for a drink after we arrived and unpacked a bit.

Interior of Union Station in Kansas City. A nicely restored building that apparently sat unused for some time. The trolley started and ended here.

 We had breakfast at Harvey's inside Union Station. The food was great and so was the service.

Our planned activity for the day was to go to Kauffman Stadium for a baseball game. It was raining, so the game started a couple hours late. Luckily, our seats were near a covered area with a server, so they seated us out of the rain. We had a $20 food and beverage credit with our tickets, which was nice.

We took an Uber to and from the game. A nice guy gave us a ride on a golf cart from the stadium exit to the ride share pickup area. It would have been a bit of a hike through the huge parking lots.

We decided on dinner at Jack Stack Barbecue. They had a long wait, but we managed to score seats at the bar after just a few minutes.

We shared Jack's best dinner with crown prime beef rib, baby back ribs, and beef burnt ends. I didn't love the burnt ends, they were dry. The crown beef rib was just OK also.

We stopped at Up Down, a video game bar on our walk from Jack Stack back to the hotel and spent some time playing games and enjoying beverages.

John had never been to a Waffle House, so went to a Waffle House for breakfast. It was good breakfast food at affordable prices, as all Waffle Houses are. The service was fast and efficient.

 Larry the Cable guy has a whole line of foodstuffs. Fascinating! 

We spent some time visiting the Word War I museum near downtown Kansas City. We could not go into the tower as it was closed due to rain. The museum was interesting and had a good overview of the war.

To enter the museum you walk over a glass bridge with poppy fields beneath. It is very pretty in person, but did not photograph very well.

We stopped a Boulevard Brewing for a beverage. They had a lot of interesting types of beer available that we were not even aware they brewed. The tap room was very spacious.

We had lunch at County Road Ice House in the Power and Light District. We were told this was the same barbecue you can get at Oklahoma Joe's, which is the BBQ place in a gas station. We drove by the gas station location and the line was gigantic even at 2pm in the afternoon, so we checked out the Power and Light location instead. The ribs were good and the brisket was very good.

We did a trolley tour of the city which began and ended at Union Station. It was a decent tour, but not quite as interesting as I had hoped. We did get to see the dog park/bar/restaurant down by the river and the Country Club Plaza area, with a neat outdoor mall.

We had dinner at Q39. We had made a reservation in advance, which was a good thing, because there were ton of people waiting for tables. I had the brisket BBQ plate.

John had the ribs BBQ plate. Both were quite good. A lot of the barbecue sauce in Kansas City is of the ketchup and molasses variety, which makes it a sweet sauce oftentimes. I'm not sure we love a ketchup based BBQ sauce it turns out.

We found the only tiki bar in Kansas City.  It is in the basement of a Hop Cat. Luckily, we arrived somewhat early, so we were able to get in without a reservation and we got a spot right at the bar.

The drinks were very good quality and some were rather fun. The tiki glasses were not too exiting, so I did not get one.

 monkey picture in the Tiki Cat bathroom

 We stopped at Torn Label Brewing before calling it a night. 

I got my Cracker Barrel fix! Yes, I have a secret love of Cracker Barrel. We stopped at one outside of Kansas City for breakfast. It was solid food, just as I remembered.

We drove through the western edge of Iowa and up to Okoboji, Iowa to visit our friends Kristin and Chris on the way home. We stayed with them on Saturday night and drive the rest of the way home on Sunday.