Midtown Global Market

Visited on Saturday, January 8th with Janelle, Jen and Brynn

Ben's Review

Erin had arranged to meet up with a couple friends at the Midtown Global Market last Saturday for an indoor photo taking session. Annie and I tagged along for the food.

We arrived at 10am and the place was nearly deserted. I had assumed that it would be a busy place given that it’s one of a few (only?) market type places that one can enjoy indoors during the Minnesota winter. By the time we left at noon it was certainly filling up, but nothing like the weekday that I came for lunch about a year ago.

In addition to being a fun place to kill some time, the Midtown Global Market has an abundance of ethnic food options. Erin got some Mexican food to share with Annie and while I was floundering on what to get, Erin suggested Manny’s Tortas as she’d heard good things and wanted to sample some of my lunch.

I headed over to Manny’s and looked over the options. A torta is simply a sandwich with varying styles, from their web site:

All tortas are prepared with cheese, tomato, lettuce, onion, avocado, jalapeño peppers, refried beans, chipotle pepper mayo.

In addition to the ingredients above, you can select a meat for your sandwich. Recently becoming a lover of the Cuban sandwich, I went with their Cuban torta. It takes about five minutes to make the sandwich, and since it wasn’t busy at all I didn’t have to wait long. The torta was delicious, which makes sense becaues you can’t really go wrong with that list of ingredients. Erin was particularly surprised at how spicy it was, must have been the chipotle mayo.

While Manny’s Tortas is comparable to fast food in the sense that you just order at a register, pick up your food, and then eat in the common area, there isn’t a whole lot of depth to the service, but I will say that they were very friendly and were happy to explain what a torta is to me. There is another location on Lake St. at Bloomington Ave.

Because the locations aren’t convenient for me, I probably won’t be having another torta anytime soon, but certainly not for lack of quality, highly recommended.

Service: Friendly, knowledgeable employees.
Food: Delicious tortas, and not much else on the menu. They know what they’re good at.
Drinks: Soda, water, coffee, hot chocolate. They do have Mexican sodas though, which implies sugar as opposed to corn syrup.
Ambiance: Hard to gauge since we were at a larger venue. Midtown Global Market has a great ambiance on a Saturday morning though. Very low key and friendly.
Convenience: Plenty of buses on Lake St. and they have a parking ramp across the street that they will validate parking for if you buy something.

Erin's Review

As I explain more in this post, I'm involved in a photo group of sorts with a few coworkers. We've been lamenting the lack of color and warmth for photographic opportunities lately, so we decided to head to Midtown Global Market in an attempt to beat the blahs of January. There are quite a few different eateries in the market - some places that are more like grocery stores, and others that have take-out. They apparently have live music quite often, have a program called "Wee Wednesdays" for kids on Wednesday mornings, as well as many other events. They also DO in fact have high chairs in their main seating area - I saw at least 8 or so. We weren't sure of this before leaving, so in case anyone is wondering... yes. They have them.

I had never been to Midtown Global Market at all before, so I was quite excited to check it out. It really is a cool spot, especially in the dead of winter. We got there right at 10 and just walked around taking photos for awhile. There were so many food options that it was hard to decide what to go with - but I knew I wanted to share my food with Annie so that limited me slightly. Although she'll eat pretty much anything at this point, it at least needed to be something she could eat without TOO much of a mess. While I was deciding, I did pick up an iced Vietnamese coffee from Pham's Deli which hit the spot. We have made hot Vietnamese coffee at home before, and I love it.

There were a few signs around the building saying that City Pages had given a few of the eateries awards in their "Best of" issue - one of them was Taqueria Los Ocampo, for Best Mexican - that was good enough for me! I went there, and chose a chicken quesadilla, which came with beans and rice. I'm pretty sure I was one of the first people ordering of the day (it was around 11am at that point), so they prepared my order quickly. The quesadilla came with lettuce, cheese, sour cream and chicken in the inside of the tortilla. I would have preferred more cheese, but overall it was great. The two salsas that came with the dish were both too spicy for my taste, but I'm not a fan of spicy food at all, so that's no shock. Overall the food was solid - I'd go there again if I was in the mood for Mexican food, but it's nothing I'm dying to go back for - I'd much rather try other things at Midtown Global Market first. Annie loved it, no surprise there!

As soon as I saw Salty Tart Bakery, I knew I'd be having a treat of some kind after lunch, so I had been looking forward to that the whole time. Lunch was really just a means for me to get to dessert anyway. I chose a Passionfruit Cupcake and it did not disappoint - the cake was soft and light, and there was a passionfruit filling that was delicious. It was topped with some kind of vanilla frosting with flecks of vanilla bean in it. I liked the frosting, but it didn't adhere to the cake very well, and came off in kind of a chunk a few times. Certainly nothing that bothered me too much.

I loved our outing to Midtown Global Market - if we ever have a free weekend morning again this winter, I'd definitely return!

Deets

Midtown Global Market

Lake St & 10th Ave

Minneapolis

Pepitos

Visited on Monday, December 7th

Ben's Review
To celebrate our last baby class on Monday night, Erin wanted to go out for dinner beforehand. We'd had a lot of Asian food lately so she wanted something different. Trying to find a place to go that was not Asian and relatively close to the hospital turned out to be more challenging than I would have guessed. We eventually settled on Pepitos in south Minneapolis that had some good reviews as being a friendly neighborhood Mexican restaurant.

Our class started at 6:30 so we got to the restaurant around 5pm to ensure that we'd have enough time to eat and make it to the hospital. Predictably, Pepitos was nearly empty when we arrived so getting a table was not an issue. The interior of Pepitos looks like you would expect a forty year old Mexican restaurant to look, with fiesta colors on the walls and dim lighting (the dim lighting in many restaurants always frustrates Erin's picture taking).

I quickly scanned the beer list after we got seated and noticed that the beer list was not extensive and was on the pricey side. Also, the happy hour is only in the lounge so the deals did not apply for us. I decided on the tall (25 oz) Summit for ~$6.25 only because it was a better cost-per-ounce than the pint. Our server came back with the disappointing news that they were out of Summit, so I downgraded to a pint of Newcastle (not being a huge Newcastle fan). This turned out to be a good decision later on.

After munching on some delicious tortilla chips with mild and hot salsa, we were ready to order. I went with the tamale plato with pork, under the house specialties, and Erin had the nachos lupitas that were recommended to her by a co-worker. After ordering I thought we would have some time to nibble on some more chips and sip my beer, but I think our food came out 3-5 minutes later, it was shockingly fast. Fast to the point where I was skeptical about the food, like maybe it was premade. I'm not saying it WAS premade, it just seemed to come impossibly quick. This was the reason that the pint of beer was better than the 25 oz glass. I finished my food well before my beer to begin with, so nine more ounces would have just been annoying.

My tamale was good, but not great. I liked the beans and rice on the side better than the actual tamale. The tamale was a little dry and just tasted kind of bland. There was no way Erin was going to finish all of her lupitas, so I had a couple of those as well and they were delicious, much better than the tamale. The lupitas are like big nachos on pieces of flaky dough instead of tortilla chips. It's technically an appetizer but is certainly big enough for a meal. I had several bites of Erin's and she still had two leftover by the time we were done.

Since we got our food so early we even had time to head over to Turtle Bread Co. for some cheesecake. I had never been to Turtle Bread, but I thought it was a fantastic place, there is no divider between the kitchen and the seating area which gives it an interesting layout. The cheesecake was so good, but we were so full from dinner that we couldn't finish the shared slice. Great way to finish up a meal though.

• Service: There was a bit of a language barrier between our server and us, but she was friendly and kept the water coming for Erin.
  
• Food: My tamale was just OK, the lupitas were excellent.
  
• Drinks: Not a good beer list and it was overpriced. They obviously have a good choice of margaritas if that's your thing.
  
• Ambiance: The ambiance was nicer by the time we left as it was starting to fill up. Pepitos is family friendly and seems like a nice neighborhood place to hang out.
  
• Price: While I thought the beers were overpriced, the food certainly is not. My tamale was $9 and Erin's lupitas were $7. Even with the beer this is the cheapest dinner we've had in awhile.
• Convenience: They actually have valet parking, which is great, luckily we found a spot right outside the restaurant. Pepitos is on 48th & Chicago so there must be some public transit options as well.

Erin's Review
Pepitos has been on our list since the beginning - clearly it's been around for a long time, but neither Ben or I had eaten there before, and a few people I know recommended it when we started the blog. I had read mixed reviews online, so wasn't really expected much. We got there super early, and the ambiance was definitely lacking then, but picked up as the night went on. I don't even normally drink much, but I was definitely craving a margarita that night! Maybe because we had our last baby class to go to, and I knew that would make it more interesting ;)

My co-worker Jen and several yelp reviewers recommended the lupitas, so I went with that without much deliberation. I love nachos anyway, so it seemed like a win-win. I got them with black beans, but there are many other topping choices available. The chips and salsa we munched on while we waited were great - I wish we had gotten some queso dip too, but I couldn't even finish my lupitas so that probably was a wise decision.

As Ben mentioned, our food came out lightning fast... yes, we were the only people eating probably, but still - a little too fast for comfort! Our food was piping hot when we got it - my plate was so hot I couldn't touch it. The lupitas came with 2 tiny (think the paper ketchup containers at McDonalds size) sides of sour cream and guacamole. I could have definitely used some more of those, I probably could have gotten more if I asked, but I just made do with what I had. I really liked the lupitas a lot - the "chips" were softer and thicker, and it was a nice change from traditional nachos. The sliced jalapenos on top gave just enough heat and flavor to the dish.

We definitely had a pleasant experience at Pepitos - we are not often in that area, but if we lived over there, I could see us going back for the affordable, fairly good food and friendly atmosphere. I definitely wouldn't make a special trip, though - to me, it didn't seem to be much different than Mexican chains such as Don Pablos, except that it is more affordable.

Deets
Pepitos
4820 Chicago Ave S
Minneapolis