Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Travelling: North Shore Restaurants

Fourth of July weekend, OSO, PiC, and myself went and rented a "cabin" on the North Shore. It was more like a house, but it was quiet, and ours for the weekend and for the most part we weren't bothered.

Mostly, in order to save on money as well, we cooked in the kitchen. But for one day, we drove into Grand Marais and messed around, ate at a couple of places, and generally enjoyed ourselves taking pictures.

Lunch was at Sven and Ole's pizza. Now anyone who has lived in Minnesota, and probably parts of Wisconsin and the UP as well have seen the bumper stickers for Sven and Ole's. This is the best advertising in the world for them because I remembered them, and decided that I wanted to see what was so good that people had permanently tacked these bright yellow stickers to their cars. It was well worth the attempt. I will put it in as some the better pizza I've had in Minnesota. It's not the floppy thin crust perfection that is a proper NY style pizza. But it was just a little bit bready. The quality of the sauce, cheese, and toppings (sausage and mushroom for us) all seemed to be pretty gosh durned good, dontcha know. And I'm fairly certain that should I find my way back to this cute little shore town in Minnesota that I will be having pizza here again. Also, the beers were very reasonably priced at $3.75 for a bottle in general. Though I imagine the lambics were more.

We picked up donuts at the World's Best Donuts for later because the pizza had filled us up greatly. They also turned out to be really good donuts. You have to get there early enough to get the right variety. When they run out, they run out.

We spent much of the rest of the afternoon wandering around town until it came to dinner time. Like going into an honest to god Ben Franklin store to pick up bug bite cream and conditioner.

Dinner time rolled around and we found our way to the Angry Trout. PiC is a fish fanatic in general, and had heard good things about this place from one of his friends before. We went in and found out that it was a place devoted to sustainable fishing and locavore foods. Right up our alley. The fish that they were serving were two of their typical three that come straight from Lake Superior, and we decided that even though they had other things on the menu, we needed to try their local fishes.

PiC got the grilled halibut and wild rice dish. OSO got the grilled trout and pesto pasta. And I got the fried trout and fries so I could have local fish 'n chips. Everything came with ginormous salads, and there were a bevy of salad dressings that we tried with them. The fish tasted like it had just been lifted from the water. Out of all the sides, I think we agreed that the pesto pasta was definitely the best, though they were all quite good. I was also surprised by how light the fish tasted even though it had been fried. I like the delicate touch they take with it there.

I can no longer remember PiC's beer, which was from Wisconsin, but I do know that OSO also had a Minnestalgia wine, which is local and usually fruited. I think hers was the raspberry mead. I got a glass of the Alexis Bailey Seyval Blanc. Both are on the sweeter side, but they were styles we were looking for that day and definitely enjoyed.

And we left there incredibly full. Definitely will also remember the Angry Trout for when we return to that area.

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