Re-cap on the last day of the year.

Snow storm, shmo-storm!

It was mighty crappy up in these parts on New Year's Eve, almost enough to make you want to stay in for the night...well, almost. My friend Elle and I and her friend Kim went to this really great place for Sushi in Mpls called Kikugawa. We had tuna, salmon, edamame, a cucumber roll, a caterpillar roll and a chef roll. Elle said she likes to order the Chef roll because you 'never get the same thing.' After experiencing it, I agree.
Just look at how gorgeous this roll was! We decided that Elle was the red section, Kim was the orange, and I was green (which is my favorite color for all of those who didn't notice my background colors!!) Anyways, this roll was to die for! Our server told us to eat it quickly, and the suprise for that was that it was a crunchy roll. Elle said there must've been strings of satay in it that gave it the crunch. Most excellent!


I must say that Kikugawa is the best sushi I've eaten so far in the twin cities, with Martini Blu coming in at a close second. Do not pass this place up! We sat at the sushi bar, and I wouldn't of had it any other way.


I love taking 'after' shots. MMM MMM GOOD.







After we were all pleasently full, we headed to the Loring Pasta Bar for some salsa. (not the kind you dip your chips) It was great! We got there pretty late, but they still put on a great show, as usual. We even got to see a performance by the Salsa Police elite. They all danced beautifully! Yay for sushi and salsa! Happy New Year!

Tea House Restaurant: where even the fortune cookie messages are good.

For anyone who lives in the Twin Cities or beyond, (depending on how far you will go for the greatest Chinese food ever), this is the place for you! This jive joint is located across from a movie theatre in a strip mall in Plymouth, but don't let that fool you. After you take your first bite, you will be on a whole new level.

My buddy Joe, his wife Jen, her Mom and her co-worker and I, had a tremendous experience just last night at The Tea House Restaurant. As you can see by the variety of dishes above, we were feeling no pain, actually we were feeling a bit euphoric after such a great variety of flavors, textures and spice content.

List-o-dishes: After throwing the Americanized menu to the side and cracking open the authentic one, I wasn't so sure what to order and wasn't feeling very daring so I went with the Mongolian Beef, which turned out to be incredible! Jen's co-worker went with a spicy sort of soup with tofu in it, called Family Tofu, which was very spicy, but not overpowering. They always have steamed rice readily available, of course, just in case anything IS too overpowering. Jen had Kung Pao chicken which was simultaneously tried by a handful of us, who all said, "mmm..this is great," and quickly gobbled up every last saucey peanut. Jen's Mom got the Chow Fun noodles, long and thick and not too chewy-just right. Joe got the spicy beef with 2 chilies worth of a spice level called Boiled Beef in Szechuan hot sauce, which I was a bit apprehensive about trying, but I'm glad I did. The complexity of the spice was out of this world, and again, not overpowering, but a lot stronger than the tofu one. The heat made you start to sniff, but not enough to make you run to your glass of H20 to kill the flame. Besides, it was too nice of a flame to kill! I grabbed another cucumber off the appetizer plate, called Sauced Cucumber to cool my palate instead. Then I had everyone who had already tried the spicy beef try do the same because the aftereffect of that combo was close to orgasmic...hehe...WELL!!--IT WAS!!

In the end, we all had leftovers and all left the restaurant feeling thankful to have had the opportunity to feel this highly recommended LOOOVE. We were now all witnesses to a place where we could feast and feast and feast, and not have the food kick our ass later..and did I mention that Joe cried? He did, because it was just that good. Or was it the spice? Hard to say.

This was the place of Sauced Cucumber after the fact:

One more thing: The salt and pepper and soy sauce provided at the table went untouched.