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Dining With Dara: Food At Music Venues

Posted at 12:24 PM on July 14, 2010 by Jill Riley
Filed under: Dining with Dara


This week, Dara chatted with us about music venues that have great food!

The Dakota:
Jack Riebel is one of the most talented and well respected chefs in the Twin Cities. He won this year's Minnesota Food and Wine Experience Chef Challenge, he used to be a chef at Goodfellow's, and headed the Stillwater La Belle Vie for a while.
This weekend, they're having a free - that's right, free! - Jazz Fest with free concerts from noon to ten o'clock at night. There will be about a million activities for everyone: Jazz everything from experimental to very traditional (Adam Levy's new electronica folk project Liminal Phase, hip-hop artist Desdamona, the newest talented Neville family member, Charmaine Neville, Cuban pianist Nachito Herrera) and great food for adults, and then all these activities for kids, a Heart of the Beast puppet-making workshop, face painting, jugglers, stilt-walkers - pretty amazing. It's all to celebrate the Dakota's 25th Anniversary.-Dara

First Avenue:
First Ave just opened a restaurant inside called: The Depot! It's already becoming kind of famous for its bacon-wrapped, deep fried hot dog called the Diamond Dog, but they also have a lot of vegetarian options, like portabello mushroom sliders, giant State-Fair sized portions of French Fries, served with Mayo, if you want,just like you're in Belgium! And all in all this is good news for everyone except the downtown Pizza Lucé. -Dara

Honey:
Across the street from Nye's is a newish fusion restaurant called Ginger Hop (it's sister restaurant to Uptown's stylish northern Thai spot Chiang Mai Thai) and below Ginger Hop is: Honey! Used to be the old Jitters. And now it's a groovy jazz lounge with a mellow, international focus (French Café Accordion music, "Gypsy Jazz", R&B covers, things like that) sexy cocktails like "death in the afternoon" (absinthe and Champagne) , live shows and a pretty great menu: Asparagus risotto, a chocolate tasting menu, it's not the best food in town but it's really fun. -Dara

Sauce Spirits & Soundbar:
The food thing is becoming more and more important for music spots, Sauce Spirits and Soundbar opened at the corner of Lake and Lyndale with a pretty elaborate menu for a bar that has shows - I like their red sauce and anything that's drowned in it, like their chicken parmesan sandwich. It's definitely not: Drive in from Minnetonka to go to Sauce Spirits and Soundbar, but if you're at a show and didn't have time to eat dinner it's just unspeakably convenient. -Dara

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