Trendy Does Not Equal Good…

29-30 March 2024

One of the things you notice if you travel a lot is that when you rely on stuff you find online when you do your food research, you get some gems – and you get some duds. I’ve had plenty of duds recently, and sadly, I have to add two more now. And these are all “trendy” places.

If you read my previous review on that excellent dinner at Kado no Mise in Minneapolis, you’ll note early on I mentioned I had lunch at a trendy place that went rather subpar? Sadly the place in question was the highly-raved Union Hmong Kitchen.

I got there not long after it opened on this Friday and ordered. It was quiet as it was early, so I just chilled out trying to plan what I was going to do due to the ice changing my plans. Then my lunch arrived.

My heart sank. The pork belly looks sad, really sad. They were some of the worst roast pork belly I’ve had. Stringy, at times all fat, and almost no flavour. It’s like someone forgot to season this. This does not even compare to the amazing Hmong pork belly I’ve had at places like Union Market in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, which had some of the best Hmong meats I’ve ever had, or more recently, Hmong Express in Appleton, Wisconsin.

I will say the sausage, which I took away, was far, far better. But this belly dish was just a cry for help, I’m sorry. I love Hmong meats, especially the pork belly, but this looks ridiculously lame compared to the stuff you can get at any small Hmong store in Wisconsin.

The next day I headed out of icy Minneapolis before dawn, as I planned to spend part of today in northern and north-west Iowa. I was amazed that merely 15 miles south of the Twin Cities there was very little snow or ice left. So I had a very productive day as I moved south, then south-west, then west through Iowa and eventually into South Dakota.

I drifted into my destination, Sioux Falls, at an earlier than expected hour, so I had time for a late lunch. I have this love for chislic and would grab it at every opportunity I get, so I decided to try this place called Urban Chislic.

I hesitated because it was featured on that crappy “DDD” show hosted by that gasbag who I will never forgive for what he said to me the night my restaurant closed. But I nevertheless took out an order each of the beef and lamb chislic and opened them up. Honestly, it don’t matter which one this was cuz they looked the same.

My heart sank again. This was really poor. Once I bit into it, I was even more sad. They forgot to season it. I called for no sauce because that’s the tradition, but these were dead plain. Worse, it was cold, 90 seconds after they brought it out from the kitchen? This also tells me they are not making these fresh. The lamb suffers more with that bad temerature than the beef, but both were awful.

Well, I got burned on both of these. Sad, as these places have amazing potential with great concepts, but the products I received are half-assed at best, shows no care. It won’t put me off pork belly, Hmong food, or chislic, but it will put me off these two establishments next time I visit Minneapolis or Sioux Falls.

Sigh…

Union Hmong Kitchen (Lake Street)
901 West Lake Street
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Urban Chislic
431 West 85th Street
Sioux Falls, South Dakota

As Bad As Their Namesakes – Review: Taft-Díaz

3 June 2023

I flew into Albuquerque for a short rest from a very busy few weeks at work. Memorial Day weekend was not very restful, but the trip to Kentucky and surroundings was nice (except that last dinner at previously-reliable Seviche). Yet I didn’t wind down, and this was the reason for this trip to the Southwest.

Instead of staying in Albuquerque upon arrival, I headed south towards El Paso – the largest metropolitan area in the US I’ve yet to visit. After this, it’ll be Spokane and Amarillo I think… It was a good time to clear my head, which I definitely needed. Got to the border city with plenty of sunlight, and it was still ablazin’. Got to do a few things I wanted to do that afternoon, so very much worth it.

I got near my downtown hotel and there were tons of blocked roads due to a downtown street festival. Oh goody, pounding music until past midnight. My hotel was not bad, a restored old office building that was rather charming. I relaxed before I had to head to dinner across the street at Taft-Díaz – a restaurant named for the two presidents who held their historic cross-border summit here and across in Juárez in 1909.

As a historian, a restaurant named Taft-Díaz would get my attention. However, when I walked in, I realized all it was was a gimmick. Inside the chic Stanton House hotel downtown, I walked into a modern mess – with dive-bombing chandeliers. Yes, you read that right.

I offered to sit at the bar but they said the service is better at the table. Well, I see why…the restaurant was absolutely empty on this Saturday evening. I don’t know if it’s because of the event nearby, or the price point here. Wow, looking at the menu I was thinking this looked more like NYC or Boston with those numbers.

I ordered a cocktail and looked over the menu. After a little, it arrived. Not bad. But then my server, probably bored, was becoming a little pushy about me ordering, constantly asking me every other minute. So before I had a chance to relax after this long afternoon with a nice cocktail, I ordered just to get him off my back.

The bread was much needed, as I’ve not eaten all day. Nothing special, but in about 10 minutes I would be so glad they were there… Eventually I switched to a wine and my starter arrived, the so-called “Mexican butter” on the menu.

I was excited, but then it all went south very quickly. The problem is that the marrow is very liquidy and having poorly-made porous tortillas just makes this a complete mess to eat. Frankly only 1 of the 4 tortillas (this first one) was fit for purpose.

And the tortillas went downhill from this point (this below is one of the better ones)…

This is why I am so glad I had so much bread leftover to mop all this up. But the marrow itself was awful. Instead of letting the flavours of the marrow rise, there was so much acid introduced on this dish (not listed as an ingredient in the menu as the only thing they claimed on it was “togarashi”) that just destroyed it. Either it was a kitchen F-up or they had inferior quality stuff they’re trying to mask.

Either way very not pleased about this dish. Could have been so good, but done so badly. I’m starting to get why this place is empty…

My mood soured as my distracted but pushy server came back and asked how it was, I mentioned not that great and he basically formulaically mumbled “that’s great” and walked away. This FoH is a mess too…

Eventually I got his attention again for more wine before my main arrived. What is it? It’s actually black cod…or at least that’s what they said it is.

Scraping off the burnt semiments I see my fish, but I barely taste it.

Black cod has a very nice, distinct flavour, but this was a terrible preparation. A very oily fish does less well in a rich sauce like nantua, which fought it for palate prominence. An additional own-goal of a problem is that the fish was basically unseasoned, so the natural flavors of this rich fish was wasted and the sauce overwhelmed the fish. This would have been better with a plainer fish like halibut. Again, this dish show both poor planning and poor execution combined into a mess that caused me to lose what’s left of my appetite.

Frankly the best thing this evening was the chunks of cauliflower embedded in this nantua. The mixture of peppers was also far better, but I gave up on this whole dinner.

And this server was starting to annoy me with not listening and just walking away, so screw dessert and an after-dinner drink. When the bill came, it was far higher than a night out in Chicago, Dallas, Denver, etc – even without dessert and after-dinner drink. No wonder this place is empty. I think half this bill is to pay for those awful dive-bombing chandeliers that come down on unsuspecting diners.

Probably the poorest restaurant experience I’ve had since 2019. I got hooked by the name, but I should have been more careful. After all, pseudo-dictator Porfirio Díaz died in exile in France, and Taft came THIRD in his re-election bid in an election fail of all times.

If Lockbox in Lexington a week earlier gave me reason to cheer boutique hotel restaurants, this place just sunk it. Just avoid this place and go get some real food.

Taft-Díaz
Stanton House
209 Stanton Street
El Paso, Texas

A “WTF Happened to This Place” Roadtrip Part 2 – Review #4: Parlor Market

25 September 2019

That Tulsa stop and deflating dinner at Juniper did not help as I headed east the next day. A dreary and stormy day through Arkansas, I reached Little Rock. An excellent BBQ dinner (will chronicle this later), and the following day I continued my south-east trek into Mississippi. I eventually snaked along the Mississippi River on Route 1, eventually reaching my destination of the evening — Jackson.

I always have a very soft spot for Mississippi, probably my favourite place to visit in the South. Jackson I particularly enjoy, especially Parlor Market. I’ve had several excellent meals here over the years, and I was looking forward to another good night — so I can forget about that Tulsa mess.

I arrived on a quiet Wednesday evening and took my now-usual seat on the far edge of the bar. I relaxed, knowing the bar works at a relaxed pace here. Eventually I ordered a drink and an opener, and the former arrived. Nice and refreshing as usual. Then my starter arrived…

I’ve always enjoyed their roasted oysters and these were quite nice. Plump and flavourful, a wonderful start to the night. I had put an order in for a second and third dish, and I relaxed with another drink. And after awhile, they…yeah…THEY appeared…

Here’s the octopus puttanesca, which wasn’t supposed to show up at the same time as my second (which explains the bad focus, sorry)…

The soft-shelled crabs…which was supposed to be my second. To his credit the bartender apologised pretty quickly as he saw what happened and realised he messed up on the order. They offered to take one back but at this point it’s not worth it.

Unfortunately, neither dish was very good. The soft-shell crab was over-breaded and lacking in flavour; I felt I was eating very expensive batter…

The pasta was cooked very poorly in this mess of a dish, so I basically picked out the octopus from the dish, which was at least done well enough. The rest of it was a salty-yet-extremely-bland mess, with the pasta sticking together like sheets. Very disappointing in so many ways…

Frankly, even if I took up their offer to take back the crabs for later it wouldn’t have made a difference since the pasta was a mess, and the very overpriced crabs wouldn’t have improved. For the second sit-down dinner in a row, by skipping the previously-excellent duck to try something new, backfired terribly badly.

What compounded the problem at that point was the service from the bar, which is (and has always been) slow, has turned into a crawl and the bartender had disappeared for an extended amount of time. They had earlier offered to comp a dessert, which I turned down as I just wanted to get going. To their credit they did comp one of the glasses of wine I had — so at least they did something right compared to Juniper the other night. But with the bartender’s long absence I gave up on the after-dinner drink idea and just settled up.

But this was disappointing, especially when I made Parlor Market a destination restaurant so many times. It failed me tonight. It seems rather chaotic service-wise, even more than usual, and unfortunately it was the first time the cooking failed. I guess this kitchen staffing crisis is as bad down here as up north…

I walked out of Parlor Market so sad, knowing I will not return again…

Parlor Market
115 West Capitol Street
Jackson, Mississippi