There is a lot happening in my life over these years living abroad but at times I feel obligated to keep this blog alive just because I love writing and enjoy having people stop by and share this experience with them. Two days ago, I have this opportunity to enjoy a unique tour in the city of Minneapolis. Do you know that Minneapolis made up from two language? It is Minni from Dakota origin meaning water and Polis from the word city in Greek. You put two together and it came down to meaning City of water. Interesting...and yes I learned that from the food tour. At first I have the impression that the tour will include sampling lots of food and drinks in town. I was blown away with the concept, we get to walk around one of the historic districts in town and learn a little bit of the history of the building and establishment.
Enough rambling, here goes....
We were driven down to a specific location to meet our tour guides. We started of at D'Lish, which is an indoor farmers market. The idea came up when the owner thought of bringing fresh food and produced indoors so we can all enjoy them throughout the year. They sold organic jam, preserves, grain, dairy and baking ingredients. There is a small coffee stand where you can get your fix while shopping too. We were offered a local cheese, wheat cracker, horseradish cheese and brownies. See Photos here:
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| Our tour guide, Becca is awesome. She has a "story teller" skills that reel her audience in and keep their attention with her many fun trivia about the building that we visited. |
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| D'Lish offer catering service and Cooking class too. I especially love the local cheese, horseradish cheese is pretty good too but much tastier with the wheat crackers. |
We walked quite a bit in this tour which help offset the amount of food we samples in the way. The walks actually fit all level of health and we tend to have mini-stop to learn about some historical structure along the way.
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| At Federal Reserve bank was a park with many interesting modern art. |
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| Grain Belt Beer sign by the Mississippi River was once the biggest neon ad in the US back in the days but it soon was taken over by other bigger signs. Hennepin Ave Bridge was the first structure ever built on the Mississippi river in US. |
Next we stopped by at Kramarczuk Deli, a Ukraine bakery (215 east Hennepin), the original owner Wasyl Kramarczuk along with his wife Anna opened this little deli back in 1954 after many years of hard work. They escaped their war torn home country in the hope of new life in the States. They worked 4 jobs between them to raise money so they can own a business cooking homemade food for just like back home. After the having failed the first business attempt, Wasyl found this little store and the owner sold it to him for few hundreds dollar then. No longer wish to partner with anyone, Kramarczuk remain a family business until today. They are famous for their homemade sausage recipe, made from original Ukrainian heritage. You can also enjoy the sausage at Twins game.
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| Varenyky is made of cheese, potatoes,meat, sauerkraut and sweet cheese stuffed in delicious dumpling wrap with sour cream sauce. |
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| Famous Ukrainian sausage |
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| This Ad outside the store was painted since this Deli opened half a century ago. |
Punch Neopolitan pizza is a trendy wood burning pizza place in town. The idea was conceived when John Soranno and his wife were on their honeymoon in Italy, they got lost while looking for food and saw this long line outside a pizza place and decided to wait and find out what all the hype about the place. It was a wood burning pizza place and the concept blew their mind. When they came home to the state, they decided to open a pizza place, hence Punch Neopolitan Pizza came to life.
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| All Punch Pizza place has unique tile covered wood burning pizza made by the owner, manager and employees of Punch Pizza. |
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| Delicious pizza with blackened crust gave such unique flavor. |
Gorkha Palace serves Nepali, Indian and Tibetan food. The owner Rashmi named the place after a magnificent palace in Tibet. We were served Vegetable fritters and the famous momos while enjoying the ambient inside this unique restaurant.
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| Vegetable fritters |
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| Momos is a dumpling stuffed with yak meat and Himalayan spices. |
Gardens of Salonica is quaint little cafe at 19th Fifth Street that offer Greek food for those who loves sampling Mediterranean cuisine. We enjoy 3 type of their famous desserts and while at it, we get to see some modern art sculptures that were commissioned specially for Gardens of Salonica.
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| Clockwise from Top: Chocolate Hazelnut Boughatsa, Lemon cream Boughatsa and Baklava. |
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| We don't know what this hanging sculpture means, the artist simply say they are what you wanted it to be. In my case, just a gnarled roots that were hanged up in someone's ceiling. |
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| This beautiful Church of Our lady of Lourdes has French influent design. The unique thing about this church besides its historical significant is that the women in the church would make their families special French Mince pies and were available for sales for the public. |
Note: Don't forget to bring bottle of water with you since some place doesn't serve water during food sampling.
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