Pasta e Piselli at the Four Seasons’ Riva Terrace in Minneapolis. (Sharyn Jackson/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Light, luxe, a little transportive. That’s pretty much what I want out of a poolside rooftop terrace lunch at a hotel like the Four Seasons, and the pasta e piselli ($26) from Riva Terrace delivered. For this ultra-fresh pasta dish, al dente thumbprints come in a clear, savory broth, punctuated by nubs of guanciale and confetti shavings of Tuscan pecorino. The dish is scattered with pea shoots and little purple flower petals that make it almost too pretty to devour. More than traditional pasta e piselli (aka, an Italian soup of little pasta tubes with freezer-bag peas), this brought back memories of a tortellini in brodo I had in Bologna more than a decade ago that has a permanent spot in my personal food hall of fame. When you wish you could take a bath in a brodo, you know you’re on to something.
Side note: Don’t sleep on the pizza fries ($14). They’re just fries — really good ones — seasoned with nostalgic, dead-on pizza flavor. (Sharyn Jackson)
Injera roll sampler with spiced red lentils in berbere spice, chickpea stew and split pea stew from Blue Nile Ethiopian Restaurant in North St. Paul. (Nancy Ngo/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
When exploring a new menu, sampler platters are a great way to get the lay of the land. And Blue Nile Ethiopian Restaurant (no relation to the former Blue Nile in Minneapolis, in case you’re wondering) in this east metro suburb has that in spades.
In addition to hearty samplers of stews and braised dishes in the entree section that are served with injera flatbread to scoop them up with, this spot near Hwy. 36 and Geneva Avenue also offers an appetizer version. For $10, you get three types of vegetarian stews rolled in injera, cut into bite-sized pieces. It came with a nice range of flavors — Misr spiced red lentils in traditional berbere sauce that had a kick, Shiro chickpea stew that was rich and creamy, and a more neutral Kik Alicha split pea that tasted homestyle.