Sunrise Donuts

Bloomington, MN



Who doesn't love donuts? It can be hard to find good donuts, though. You can get decent donuts almost anywhere, but good donuts... not so much. Sunrise Donuts in Bloomington is a good place to start in your search for good donuts. The faded sign and the old curtains hanging in the windows are a good indication that this place knows donuts. It's a tiny hole-in-the-wall at the White Bear Center on Lyndale Ave. The interior is straight out of the 70's with a few booths and some stools at the counter, the cafe style stools and short counter, where you can sit with a donut and coffee and read the newspaper. They even have a couple large donut photos hanging on the wall that have to have been hanging there for at least 30 years. The place seems to be owned and operated by a Vietnamese family. They open up early on weekdays, 5:00 or 5:30 am, and close at 11:00 am (or maybe 11:30). They are also open on Saturdays until noon, but I don't think they open until 7... maybe.

I have only had a couple of the plain old fashion donuts and a couple of the chocolate frosted cake donuts. Both the old fashion and cake donuts are crispy on the outside and very soft on the inside. The old fashion donut almost melts in your mouth once you get through the crunchy exterior. The cake donut's interior has a little more substance than the old fashion, but it is still very soft and moist. My wife loves the glazed old fashion donut, but I have only been there at about 11:00 on a Saturday. You need to get there earlier than that to hope to get a glazed old fashion. In fact, by that time there isn't too much left to choose from. These donuts are very good and easily beat anything you'll find in a grocery store. They may not be the best donuts ever, but the only donuts I've ever had that were better were from the Donut Drive-In in St. Louis.

Nick-N-Willy's Pizza

Bloomington, MN

Nick-N-Willy's Pizza is a small chain that was founded in Boulder, CO. They offer dine-in, take-out, and take-n-bake pizza. You can get any of the pizzas on their menu as a take-n-bake. What sets them apart from Papa Murphy's here is that they offer a more gourmet pizza, although they don't have anything similar to Papa Murphy's Chicago Style stuffed pizza. They have fresh basil, spinach, and garlic as well as sun dried tomatoes, feta, fontina, and provolone cheese, and many other fresh ingredients.

While their take-n-bake pizzas are good, pizzas baked in their own oven are very nice. They have a steel open flame gas oven (it looks like a brick oven, but with steel) that they bake their pizzas in. The crust that comes out of that oven is wonderful. It's crisp, yet very light and airy. I could probably just eat that crust and be happy, but topped with fresh ingredients and you have yourself a tasty pizza.

Also, if you're looking for a little dessert, their Cinn-N-Bites are really good. They are basically like little cinnamon roll balls, little balls of dough covered in cinnamon and whatnot, baked, and covered in frosting. Delicious. They also have an apple crisp pizza that I have not had, but it sounds like it has to be good.

5-8 Club

Minneapolis, MN

I've only been to the 5-8 Club three times. Every time I've had the same thing, a Juicy Lucy and onion rings with a cold Leinie's. I think most people who have lived in the Twin Cities knows what a Juicy Lucy is, but for the rest of you I'll let you in on it. A traditional Juicy Lucy is a burger stuffed with American cheese, so when it is brought to your table it's a burger with a core of molten hot, gooey cheese. It's a wonderful thing. The 5-8 makes it by crimping 2 quarter pound burgers around the cheese, they also offer Juicy Lucys with blue, pepper, and Swiss cheese, but those take a little longer because no cheese melts as easily as American cheese.

I've thoroughly enjoyed the food every time I've been there. The service can be a little spotty at times, but I've never had an issue with that. The 5-8 is a no frills, seat yourself, neighborhood bar type of place and you just have to love that. I have not been able to confirm whether or not it is a 3.2 bar.

The 5-8 claims to be the "Home of the Juicy Lucy", but that is a hotly contested issue between the 5-8 and another south Minneapolis bar, Matt's Bar. Another hotly contested issue is how to actually spell Juicy Lucy. At Matt's, they leave the "i" out. There it's a Jucy Lucy. I have yet to make it to Matt's. There are a number of other bars and restaurants around the Twin Cities that offer Juicy Lucys as well.

The 5-8 Club has a unique history. It was established in 1928 at the height of Prohibition and operated as a speakeasy. At the time, it was a stucco sided house out in the country. The house had an underground garage where cars could pull in and unload their illegal hootch without being seen by police. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the 5-8 Club went "legit" and became known for their burgers and beer. Now they have two other locations, 5-8 Tavern & Grill in Maplewood and the 5-8 Bar & Grill in Champlin.

Potstickers, Pork Burgers, & Sweet Potato Fries

Last weekend we decided to try our hand at making some potstickers. We ended up using Alton Brown's potsticker recipe, for the most part. We used an orange bell pepper instead of red, because there was a run on red bells at the grocery store, and we used sea salt instead of kosher, since we already had sea salt, and cut the amount of salt. We also used a cayenne pepper sauce in place of cayenne pepper, since we already had that as well.



They turned out to be pretty good. They certainly aren't authentic (I don't know that the Chinese cooked with ketchup.), but a very good Americanized version. In the future, I think we would use a little less ketchup and more hot sauce (that may be different if you used cayenne pepper and not hot sauce). We also mixed together some soy sauce with honey and drizzled that over the potstickers before we ate them. That really added something to them and would give you another reason to cut the salt in the potsticker recipe.

A couple days later I used the rest of the ground pork and made pork burgers. The ingredients were similar to that of the potstickers. I used green onion, orange bell pepper, chili powder, salt, pepper, and some worcestershire sauce. Those were very tasty. I also made a side of sweet potato fries, which are pretty simple. I just drizzled them in olive oil, added just a little bit of salt, sprinkled on a little bit of paprika and cinnamon, use more paprika than cinnamon, and tossed them. I baked them at 400 for about 30 minutes stirring them around every 10 minutes.

Donatelli's

White Bear Lake, MN

Friday night we went out to Donatelli's with a couple friends. Donatelli's is a little Italian restaurant located in an innocuous strip mall in White Bear Lake. They also offer American food. You can't hardly be a family restaurant in Minnesota without offering some kind of hamburger, but Donatelli's actually has many burger options, many of which are Italian inspired and use monterey jack and mozzarella cheeses. They also have American and Italian sandwiches and wraps... but that's not why you came. The appeal of Donatelli's is their homemade Italian food. They make it all by scratch, including the pasta.

We found out about this place from Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives and we knew we just had to make it there sometime soon. The place is pretty little and there isn't much room to wait for your table, especially when it's February outside. They do have ice cream right up front, so you can stop in to get ice cream to go and they also have a couple coolers with pizzas, pastas, sauces, etc. that you can pick up and make at home. After a brief wait, we were seated at a table in the large group/busy night overflow room and not in the main dining room. We could have held out for a booth, but it was our understanding that the food came to both booths and tables, which it did.

My wife and I put together a game plan. We were each going to order something different and share. She had been craving some manicotti, so she ordered the baked manicotti, and I ordered the baked mostacolli. Most of the pasta dishes come with the option of meatballs, Italian sausage, or meat sauce for a small up-charge. Since my wife isn't a huge fan of sausage and heartburn, she got the meatballs and I got the meat sauce. The game plan fell apart as soon as the food arrived. I did get a bite of the manicotti and some meatball (the meatball was awesome) and she got a couple bites of the mostacolli, but we were both fully enjoying what was in front of us that neither one of us cared if we got any more of the other dish. The red sauce was killer. The mostacolli was cooked perfectly and topped with mozzarella and sharp cheddar and baked. Then some grated parmesan was added at the end. The sharp cheddar really completed the dish. Those bites that included everything were just fantastic. I haven't been that into a pasta dish in a long time, if ever.

Donatelli's also offers pizza, which I understand is also really good. But that will have to wait for another time, assuming I can resist the lure of the mostacolli.