Reservation for impressing a foodie: Piccolo

Don't let its unassuming neighborhood location do a number on you, or the small-scale setting (just 36 seats). Big things are happening inside tiny Piccolo. Thrilling things, actually. The menu's 16 or so choices are designed to encourage and facilitate a build-your-own degustation experience, and chef Doug Flicker ups the ante by giving popular tastes a much-needed boot in the backside. Smoked eel, tripe and other Minnesota-menu rarities blossom under his fertile imagination. He is, after all, the chef who turned scrambled eggs and pigs' feet into one of the city's most talked-about dishes.