It’s January. It’s cold. It’s easy to cocoon inside and skip eating out.
But I’d like to challenge you to visit your favorite restaurant this month — it’s often the hardest one for these small businesses.
If you need some inspiration, or if the holidays were hard on your pocketbook, my husband and I have been checking out some date-night specials around town.
Here are three places that we thoroughly enjoyed.
Crasqui
Farro risotto from Crasqui on St. Paul’s West Side. (Jess Fleming / Pioneer Press)
The Wednesday date-night special at this fabulous Venezuelan restaurant gets you a three-course meal for $55 apiece. And bonus: Bottles of wine are half off.
Everything chef Soleil Ramirez is putting on a plate is worth your attention, so it’s best to order two different dishes from the choices offered for each course and share.
We started with both a silky, savory-sweet butternut squash soup and a fresh, bright arugula salad, and transitioned into crisp, corn-dough empanadas stuffed with melty cheese and black beans and a succulent goat-meat dumpling.
For our final course, we savored a tender, well-seasoned New York Strip steak served atop a rich, leek beurre blanc sauce with some melt-in-your-mouth potatoes and a veggie-packed, filling and nourishing farro risotto.
Though we definitely didn’t need dessert, I couldn’t resist one of my favorite sweet treats in town, cocotero — a coconut cake mixed with coconut flan and topped with an airy coconut cream. It’s worth every calorie.
Crasqui: 84 S. Wabasha St., Suite 3, St. Paul; 952-600-5578; crasquirestaurant.com
Tongue in Cheek
A fried chicken bun from Tongue in Cheek on St. Paul’s Payne Avenue. (Jess Fleming / Pioneer Press)
This East Side gem is one of my favorite places to go when I’m craving vegetables, because chef Leonard Anderson has a way of making the most healthful plate so delicious you forget it’s good for you.
Bonus: They have an excellent date-night special that’s available every single day they’re open. For $99 you get two drinks, two teasers (tasty amuse-bouche-type bites), four shareable small plates and one dessert. It’s the perfect amount of food, and great for a date night because who doesn’t love to share with their sweetie?
We loved everything we ordered — from corn ribs (now out of season) to a fresh, deeply umami daikon pad thai to crisp smashed potatoes smothered in a zippy horseradish aioli and fried chicken in a steamed bun (you know, for balance).
It’s a choose-your-own-adventure dinner that is affordable enough to repeat regularly.
Tongue in Cheek: 989 Payne Ave., St. Paul; 651-888-6148; tongueincheek.biz
Whiskey Wednesday at Emmett’s Public House
Food and whiskey pairings on Whiskey Wednesday at Emmett’s Public House on St. Paul’s Grand Avenue. (Jess Fleming / Pioneer Press)
OK, this one isn’t labeled as a date-night special, but it made such a fun night that I had to include it here.
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The restaurant pours four different whiskeys and pairs them with four small portions of food, served on a cute little shamrock board, all for just $40 apiece. The portions (both whiskey and food) are generous enough that we probably could have shared one order, too. As it was, we ended up bringing almost half of the food home.
We tried Connemara Peated Single Malt, Bushmills Black Bush, Bushmills 10-year Single Malt and Powers John’s Lane 12-year Single Pot Still, four whiskeys that we probably wouldn’t have ordered on our own. The restaurant gives you little cards for each whiskey, so you can suss out the tasting notes for each. In addition, you get a menu that tells you why each food pairs with each whiskey. Our favorite pairings were fish and chips with the Bushmills 10-year and a rich shepherd’s pie with the Powers John’s Lane.
When you go, the menu and the whiskeys will be different, which is part of the fun!
Emmett’s Public House: 701 Grand Ave., St. Paul; 651-225-8248; emmettspublichouse.com
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