We started off the day by heading over to the Midtown Global Market for lunch. It's essentially like a Cost Plus World Market + Food Court rolled into one. We sorta wanted to start off our trip with something ethnic since we have a lot of fatty American comfort food planned for the rest of the trip.
But we really didn't expect to find a gyro of this size. AND it was extremely delicious. The meat was so tender & juicy and it wasn't too salty either. Seriously, this thing was enough to feed both Kevin and me. It was filled with like 98% meat and hardly any veggies. This thing was slightly larger than a burrito from Chipotle.
While we were scoping out our options, we passed by this Italian ice place and I was totally like…"We NEED to go back there for dessert!" So after we were done devouring that monster of a gyro, we went to get some Italian ice. It was $2 for a single scoop (which was actually really two scoops) and I could choose up to two flavors so I got the pear + ba da bing cherry. The pear was really refreshing and, strangely enough, kinda resembled the texture of an nice bosc pear. And the cherry was a nice contrast to balance out the sweetness of the pear. Oh, and did I mention it was 32 degrees outside while I was enjoying this inside?
Kevin decided he was going to be cool and get lemon frozen custard all for himself. Well about 3 bites in, he tapped out and couldn't eat anymore. I looked at him and was like…I thought you were just gonna split the Italian ice with me? And he was like…but the custard sounded so good! He then asked me to help him finish the 85% of it that was left. And all I can say is that thing was DENSE. We turned the cup over a few times to test its denseness and at no point did it even budge.
From there, we headed over to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to walk off all this food. We drove through neighborhoods full of Victorian and Brownstone homes. Some were quite beautiful while others seemed to have fallen under disrepair. Since arriving here, we've struggled to find a radio station to listen to in the car. While searching for stations, I always feel like the radio is trying to trick me into listening to Christian Rock. Luckily, I found a college radio station that's actually quite good. Radio K boasts to be "The REAL College Radio." If that's the case, I don't want to know what fake college radio is like.
Kevin was very disappointed that there wasn't any snow, so I took him to the park where he could play with leftover ice. But I did not approve of him throwing said leftover ice at me. No, that's *not* how you have a snowball fight.
Of course, I was super smart and left both my earmuffs & gloves back at the apartment. So I was just about ready to get out of the cold and migrate somewhere warm. We took a trip over to
Spyhouse which has been on my list of places to go since before we left LA.
They proudly serve up coffee from
Verve,
Ritual, and
Coava (the first two being California roasters). I got the newest addition to their menu: the Tokyo Rose Latte. It was a latte with condensed milk and rose syrup, and it was totally delish! Kevin got the Mata Hari Latte which was a latte with almond syrup, honey, and cinnamon. Also, totally delish! Coincidentally, those are the two drinks everyone talks about on Yelp.
We then decided to just wander down Eat Street (a 17 block stretch of mostly food places on Nicollet Ave.) for a bit to scope out potential lunch places for the next 9 days. There was a good 2 blocks worth of Vietnamese places if we happen to crave some phở while we're here.
We got to the end of the block with this auto shop when we decided it was time to go back to the apartment. We just loved the very Pac-Man-esque signage.
We had a pretty awesome day and today really set the pace for how the rest of the trip is going to go. And we're pretty excited about it.
