Weekend up north

As I suspected before going, our trip to Minneapolis to see friends was primarily spent eating and drinking, which I thoroughly enjoy!

Friday night we started at Barrio Tequila Bar. This is a Macho Camacho made with blood orange ancho 1800 with a splash of cava. I also had a Mama Cita made with tequila hibiscus punch and cava. Both were good, but a few people at the table had the Enter the Dragon margarita made with passion fruit and muddled with hot peppers and it was very good!

Next we headed to Palomino. The giant lobster raviolis were amazing as we the appetizers, soup, salad and drinks. To say I had a food baby at the end of the night is a gross understatement!

On Saturday, we were understandably slow to get moving. We made it to Ikea around noon and I managed to leave with under $250 worth of stuff - mostly fabric for totes for my Etsy shop. We did get the pillows, a dutch oven and tea jars I mentioned in this post.

French Meadow Bakery for lunch included a salad, mac & cheese and a HUGE piece of triple chocolate cake with delicious frosting shared between three of us. If I lived in the area, I'm afraid I'd never leave there. We missed the breakfast by a few minutes, but my friend tells me it's even better than lunch.

The afternoon included some resting, looking through recipe books and a trip the grocery store to pick up some things for Sunday brunch - because we obviously had some sort of eating disorder while we were there.

Saturday night we went to Chino Latino for dinner and drinks. It's sort of a fusion of Asian and Latin American cuisine. Typically, I'm more of a vodka tonic kind of girl, but I ordered a Kama Sutra Mama to drink. It was so pretty and festive that I felt like I was on a tropical vacation instead of 250 miles north of home. By far the most impressive part of the meal was the Good Time Dynamite Scallops with Japanese sioli. Very spicy but perfect when paired with the fried wonton skins. Yum!

On Sunday morning, Cavan and Scott made us breakfast: orange craisin matzo pancakes and scrabbled eggs with leeks and fava beans. Yum! I knew we ate a lot this weekend, but when I write it all down like this, I fear we look like gluttons. Ah well, it was fun and delicious!

On Sunday we went to the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory. Our friends that we were visiting got married in the conservatory and it is a beautiful place.

Did you know that allspice is an actual plant? I didn't. I'm not sure where I thought allspice came from. I guess I thought it was a blend of all spices? Not sure. But now I know, and you do too, if you didn't already.

There is a sloth that lives in the conservatory. He was napping, as I assume he does almost all the time. It was kind of like Where's Waldo because we knew he lived there but we couldn't find him until the very end.

The zoo has a decent size primate area. We saw three gorillas. They are so massive and expressive. It makes me sad to see them penned in but how else are people supposed to learn about them, fall in love with them and then make an effort to protect them in the wild?

Thank you, Cavan & Scott, for a great weekend!