Some of us are addicted to Angry Birds, while others enjoy a more cerebral weeklong Words With Friends match, or the lowbrow kick of instantly making our buddies morbidly obese with the FatBooth app. Like the multitude iPhone/Pod/Pad options, there are culinary equivalents to suit every proclivity, situation or need. Apps can be gastronomic teasers, cocktail snacks, a means to impress or a full-on meal. Which app is the "best"? That all depends on what your hungry heart desires.
Beets 2.0
If you want an app that you can photograph with your fancy new digital camera and post on Facebook to make your friends jealous:
Beets 2.0. • Heidi's • $8
If you identify as a new-school (2.0) foodie, you already know about the reopened Heidi's. Aesthetes will be rendered breathless by this Gustav Klimt painting of an appetizer that presents you with a sweeping magenta puree and perfectly seasoned mini-red and golden beet sandwiches, filled with billowy feta, "24K" carrot buttons, and a glassine parmesan tuille. A pickled shallot sauce adds luscious depth and plays with the flavors of the beets and feta to make one dazzling app masterpiece.
Chile en nogada from Cafe Ena
If you want romance, Enrique Iglesias-style:
Chile en nogada • Cafe Ena • $10.95
A roasted Poblano pepper stuffed with grass-fed ground beef, raisins, red onion and braised apples in an apple walnut sauce, drizzled with a pomegranate glaze. It is unexpectedly light and nuanced: sweet, nutty, sumptuous and perfect for feeding to your lover for an intimate Latin American flavor vacation. If Enrique had to try harder, this is precisely the kind of place he'd bring Anna Kournikova.
If you're just looking for a good time:
Ji's Roll • Mount Fuji • $11.95/$9.95 at happy hour
Japanese television and instrumentals set the stage for this shameless pleasure: a fancy maki roll with salmon tempura, spicy crab meat, eel sauce and spicy mayo. Mount Fuji specializes in fanciful, "French-style" rolls that make girly-girls go ga-ga. It is so sweet and naughty that you don't even need a partner to partake in this titillating reward.
If you are so deliriously happy that it's FINALLY (maybe) spring that you just want to EAT it:
Stir-fried green beans • Szechuan • $9.95
If spring conjures fantasies of bushels of pert produce, then this heaping pile of tender, garlic- and soy-glazed stir-fried green beans will make your dreams come true. They don't appear on their menu, so you'll need to ask for them. This is one of the top authentic Szechuan spots in the area, so consider adding some sweet, lushly chili-oiled Szechuan dumplings ($5.95) or buttery, pork-flecked dan-dan noodles ($4.95) and you have an app sampler built for a Szechuan-loving spring king.
If your personal heroine is Annie Potts' character, Iona, from "Sixteen Candles":
Brown Sugar Babies • Psycho Suzi's • $7.45
Dress in muumuus and Polynesian loungewear, bring your own Duckie and commandeer the perfect spot on the patio-of-patios in Northeast: Psycho Suzi's. Get sweet and strong tiki cocktails, preferably on fire, and then luxuriate over these lil' brown-sugar-gloppy, bacon-wrapped smokies that are irresistible and addictive in a so-wrong-it's-right kind of way. Kind of like John Hughes films.
If your mouth likes fireworks and parades:
Paapri chaat • Namaste Cafe • $8/$6 during happy hour (3-6 p.m. daily)
Chaat is an Indian or Pakistani street snack involving rice crisps or chips, garbanzo beans and additional toppings including yogurt, tamarind, coconut and mint chutneys, and mustard seeds. This cornucopia is simultaneously bright, sweet, crunchy, creamy, tart and herbal, generously adorned with cilantro and a mini-corsage of mint. Bring a friend, and welcome yourselves to flavor country.
If you want to elegantly munch with friends, al fresco:
Sweet potato fries with aioli • Duplex • $5.29
Come together for a heaping plate of vibrant orange fries, seasoned with kosher salt and accompanied by a silky garlic aioli. They are lovingly executed and dangerously addictive. Duplex offers the perfect patio perch for dining and imbibing while people-watching and being-watched in Uptown.
If your vegetarian friends keep telling you it is high time to give tofu a chance:
Sea salt & pepper tofu cube • Jasmine 26 • $6
Prepare to be surprised by this plate of flash-fried tofu cubes, potently seasoned and lounging on a bed of fiery-hot chili peppers and onions. This dish not only does tofu right -- crispy-fried with a custardy interior -- but it will also endow you with a newfound respect for that original tag-team of sassy seasonings: Salt-n-Pepa.
Seared scallops from the Sample Room
If you want to feel like you're in a fairy tale:
Seared scallops • The Sample Room • $11
The Sample Room is the perfect place to bring a group and order lots of small plates and wine flights, mix-and-match, and discuss. These scallops are tender and adorable, nestled into a squash puree and interspersed with pickled peppers, a delightful violet mustard with pureed raisins, and a sweet plum for good measure. Elk bacon completes this Aesop's fable, and if you close your eyes, I guarantee you will envision a stately elk proudly emerging from the mist, as in a Thomas Kinkade painting. The servers are very nice and helpful in creating your own culinary narrative, but pay no mind to Sir Walter Raleigh's smug visage from behind the bar, because he is really in no position to judge.
If you're a kitsch queen with a hankerin' for Asian:
Kabocha squash dumplings • Thom Pham's Wondrous Azian Kitchen • $9
Red glitter-upholstered Asian kitsch makes Wondrous the place to grab some fuel before catching a drag show at the '90s. Although Pham's cranberry cream cheese wontons are wildly popular, I recommend the road less traveled with these sweet and spicy squash dumplings. Spicy sesame oil, scallions and garlic to help balance the sweet filling and toothsome, glutinous casing.
If you're a robust Germanic lager drinker, and an appetizer without a drink is like the sound of one hand clapping:
Ham and sauerkraut balls • The Black Forest Inn • $5.75 for three
Order a pitcher of Spaten and a round of these dense, piquant balls. Smear them with the Forest's lip-smacking, Bavarian-style, coarsely ground mustard. Whatever you do, make sure there are enough balls for all. You definitely don't want to leave anyone hangin'.
If you enjoy solitude, rainy days and Russian literature:
Borscht • Moscow on the Hill • $4.95
When the existential stirrings strike, grab your tattered Nabokov paperback, and head to this Cathedral Hill institution for a hearty bowl of beet, potato, cabbage and dill-laden borscht. Add a snort of horseradish-infused vodka and ruminate. Na zdorovie!
The Devil's Eggs from the Strip Club
If you like deviled eggs, but that doesn't mean you're not a man:
The Devil's Eggs • The Strip Club Meat & Fish • $4.50
These are not the Holly Homemaker variety of deviled egg -- the renegades at the Strip Club are the kind of guys who love Jameson with their brunch. These devils are piped with a pretty but potent curry/chili oil/scallion mixture, and some are rebelliously dyed Manic Panic pink with pickled beet juice. Ask Ryan to mix you a libation (try "The Deceiver") and prepare to be thrilled.
If you're going to see "Arsenic & Old Lace" at the Guthrie with your date and your date's classy granny, and you want an app that performs multiple functions simultaneously:
Raw oysters • Sea Change • $1 each (select varieties, during happy hour) to $3 each
Impress Granny with a Jonathan Swift quote ("He was a bold man that first ate an oyster!") while hoping that the bivalves' purported aphrodisiac effects and Sea Change's sustainable seafood philosophy will work their magic on your date. Allow Danny, the nicest barman in the oyster biz, to school you on the nuances of brine and the East vs. West coast mollusk rivalry while you sit enveloped by sea-foam greens and glimmering grays. Did you know there is a serious 2Pac vs. Biggie rivalry over which coast produces the tastiest mollusks? My fave, the Big Rock, an East Coast gangsta, is lightly briny and ends with a comforting warm-bread flavor and aroma, deliciously complemented with a jalapeño sauce.
If you're a D.I.Y.-project enthusiast:
Kaffir peanuts, Asian pear salad & pulled spicy chicken steamed buns • Moto-i • peanuts are free; salad is $7/$3 at happy hour; buns are $3/$1.50 at happy hour
Moto-i offers an extensive happy-hour app selection, so you can construct your own mini-meal from apps. Munch on the complimentary vibrant kaffir and cayenne peanuts with a salad of refreshingly sharp mizuna greens, sugary walnuts and shaved pears deftly dressed in orange vinaigrette. Throw in some steamed buns -- your own personal cumulus cloud, melded with tingly hot and sweet pulled chicken and bright cilantro.
If it is breakfast, but that doesn't mean you don't want an app:
Toasted sausage bread • Hell's Kitchen • $3.95
This fantasy toast is laden with bison sausage, currants, pecans and black coffee, and will make you feel like you're sitting on a crocheted afghan next to a fireplace in a maple- and cinnamon-scented log cabin. Bonus: dense homemade peanut butter, blackberry-ginger jam and blood orange marmalade condiments.
If you are a foodie-zombie:
Lamb brains • Saffron • $5
Members of the foodie undead can be placated here. And it's not the whole brain, just a perfectly spiced, crispy-crusted lobe, exactingly complemented by cherry tomato confit and garlic, with a taste that is creamy and vaguely reminiscent of seafood. Chef Sameh Wadi's understanding of spice is enchanting and rare, and the bar will transport your palate to even more far-flung Mediterranean locales with unique, spice- and herb-infused cocktails. Come for the brains, stay for everything else.
If your interest in apps is predicated on the sudden biological imperative to eat something after you have downed too many rum and Cokes:
The entire Liquor Lyle's happy hour app menu • Liquor Lyle's • $19.75 for 14; $1-$2.50 each during happy hour (10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri. and 11 p.m.-1 a.m. Sun.-Thu.)
Lyle's has a long list of shockingly cheap but perfectly respectable apps, including tacos, myriad "bytes" and everything in between. The crispy, salty, deep-fried green beans with ranch ($1) provide an ironic juxtaposition of green vegetable and deep-fried solace. My fantasy shotgun-wedding reception would be held at Lyle's, and I would order the entire happy-hour app menu for $19.75, monopolize the juke and go completely buck-wild. Sigh.
Vege-Sampler from Fasika
If you emerge from the Ax-Man in St. Paul with a tracheotomy cannula, a neon safety vest, petri dishes and an anatomically correct doll torso (i.e., you are drawn to the exotic and have a problem with decision-making):
Vege-Sampler • Fasika • $14.50
Dazzle yourself with a platter of Ethiopian delights cradled on injera-fermented, pleasingly sour spongy bread. Use your finger-utensils to mop up bitter greens, curried vegetable stew, and tangy lentil and split-pea dishes laced with smoky berebere.
If you're biking down Nicollet Avenue, ravenous but broke because you accidentally spent all of your money on appetizers for an article you are writing, and you need something to tide you over until you can get back to the mac and cheese stockpiled at headquarters:
One chicken wing • Shorty & Wags Original Wings • $1.40 for one wing • small sweet and sour sauce, 45 cents
Make a pit stop and treat yourself to a big, juicy, Chinese five-spiced wing dunked in sweet, tangy heaven. Hallelujah, there's even an app for that.
WHERE TO GET GREAT APPETIZERS
- Psycho Suzi's
- The Bulldog
- The Sample Room
- Moto-i
- Pizza Luce
- Chino Latino
- Solera
- Bar 508
- Barrio
- The Independent
- Add your own responses...
