First things first, we have finished our Juicy Lucy Tour. I figured I would jump right into the important stuff. It's what you wanted to hear about isn't it? Sara and I decided that we would only do 3 stops for the tour since so many local restaurants/ bars are featuring Juicy Lucies on their menus. We decided we would got to the 2 establishments that claim to have invented the Juicy Lucy and then one who has apparently improved on the concept. As you may have read in the previous post, we originally stopped by The Blue Door Pub for lunch. (See September's post)
Our 2nd stop was Matt's Bar & Grill in St. Paul. Matt's is a dark little restaurant with the griddle behind the bar, a single lunch time waitress and no credit card machines so bring cash. The burger with grilled onions was a deliciously oozing mess that drenched the paper it was served on. The cheese was a little runny for me but the burger was good. Unfortunately, and Sara and I slightly disagree on this point, the service was just average, and it seemed like the entire establishment is run with the idea that they created the Juicy Lucy, it's that good, and so the the customer can deal with the inconvenience of no credit cards, a crowded restaurant and a small unfriendly staff. The burgers were good but they weren't that good.
Finally, we made it back to St. Paul - all of these visit's were done in a little over a month and a half - and stopped in for lunch at The Nook. A charming little bar that also claims to have invented these delicious burgers, has a friendly staff, and a bowling alley in the basement. Sara got the traditional and I got mine with pepper jack cheese. The burgers were plump, not as well done as some of the other places and the cheese was thicker leading Sara to hypothesize that they must use a cheese sauce. We never found out but we will return because the burgers were that good. The bowling alley looked fun - we didn't get a chance to play on our 1st visit - and we want to try the Spanish Fly burger which adds ground chorizo to the beef mix.
So, in summary, all 3 of the restaurants are local landmarks, and have their rabid, molten cheese-loving fans who swear that they serve the best Juicy Lucy in the Twin Cities. Our favorite Juicy Lucy was hands down from the Nook. We also enjoyed the garlicky blue cheese version served by The Blu Door Pub where we also hope to visit again and this time I will try the Jiffy Burger! Matt's burgers were good but we both agreed we wouldn't go out of our way to go back and eat there. Now that the food challenge is over maybe we'll start another. How's about lutefisk?
In other news, family-related, the Cobb girls got to head out of town for a Girls Weekend in Wisconsin with Grandma Linda, Auntie Di and cousin, Nikki. The ladies traveled up north east and into the Badger State for a few nights. They'd rented a cabin on a lake, and were looking forward to a weekend of bonding. I stayed at home with the dog and cooked for one, watched action movies, had a bonfire and enjoyed the quiet. I also managed to finish that memoir I was reading and start another book entitled Escape from the Deep: The Epic Story of a Legendary Submarine and her Courageous Crew:) I also decided to read a thriller/ scary book for the month of October and am not very far into Dean Koontz's From the Corner of His Eye.
Our Halloween plans are moving along nicely. Evie Sue was gifted a Princess dress by her great aunties, and is super excited. Sophia The 1st is the actual costume, and it is a wonder that we have been able to keep her out of the costume this long. She's actually lost and earned back the dress several times during the last few weeks due to her behavior; 3 year olds can be punks. Sara and I will be attending a Halloween Pub Crawl next week but our costumes are still TBD. I'm not sure where we will be trick or treating this year but I'm sure I'll be told the morning of. We've always trick or treated with Bennett & Savannah in Maryland so this will be different. Hopefully we can Skype on Halloween before the festivities so we can check out everyone's costumes.
A bit of interesting news, a non-fiction piece I wrote is going to be published, er um... posted on a literary website this month. Ampersandlit.com is a website that provides a place where writers and artists can share their work.. It's good exposure and I was interested in getting something out there. I wrote the essay after moving here to Minnesota and meeting new coworkers who often times were curious about me and my family. It felt good to write something and I have two other projects I'm dusting off for possible submission to a few theatre companies.
The search for a place to live continues. Maybe we'll buy a house...or
maybe not. We've been looking at a house for a few weeks now and we
both really like it. We've toured the house twice and now just need to
crunch some numbers and see if it's doable, not to mention applying for
the home loan. Stressful stuff, if you ask me but a necessary step. We'll submit the pre-screening paperwork and see if the house is meant for us. We'll keep you updated.
