Tootsie Yr2: Minneapolis, MN part 1
**PSA: Since this is my last week on tour I'm really going to town in Minneapolis! The posts will be LONG but there will be lots of fun pics. Hope you've enjoyed the journey!**
Wow, here it is: the final week of Tootsie the Musical!
What a wild ride it's been.
I remember being shocked to get the call to go on tour, two years after sending a portfolio to the touring company and receiving no response. And on the tail end of the pandemic too.
And I received the invitation to go on tour during a weeklong visit with my dad and stepmom.
Not knowing that it was the last time I'd ever see my dad.
He died of covid while I was in rehearsal in Rochester.
Honestly, this entire tour experience has been overshadowed by his death.
That's not to say it's good or bad; it just IS what happened.
I shouldn't deep-dive into that right now; we have this last week, and I want to enjoy it to the fullest before launching bittersweet and emotionally charged introspections. (*end thinking out loud*)
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We had a late start out of Madison, riding a charter bus to a Walmart in the middle of nowhere before continuing on to Minneapolis.
It was dinnertime when we arrived, so instead of getting groceries I called an Uber to get across town to moto-i for ramen.
The Uber driver and I struggled to find the restaurant; it didn't have a front at all, just small sign that we eventually saw on the third pass. It had just hit 5pm so there were only a few people there, all of them sitting at the bar. I was invited to join and did.
A glance at the sake menu told me I'd be getting a flight. moto-i is the first sake brew pub in the United States, so of course it's all their own sake that you can try neat or in cocktails, and they have it on tap. I don't know much about sake and a flight seemed the obvious choice for trying several kinds without exceeding the calorie count of a glass of wine.
Here is the top portion of the sake menu, I chose the top three to try.
"seimaibuai" refers to what percentage of the rice grain remains after polishing, before brewing begins. Sakes with a higher seimaibuai percentage has more rice grain remaining, therefore more fats and minerals and proteins, and therefore will not be as "clean" or "refined" but may have more "character". Sake with a lower seimaibuai is more clean and refined in taste, is considered "premium", and is obviously more expensive because of the work involved in reducing a rice grain to nearly nothing before fermenting it.
The "7+", "5+", etc numbers indicate the dryness or sweetness or whatever.
I'm not good at distinguishing that with wines either, and find it depends more on what I want to drink that day anyway as opposed to an overarching perference, so I ignored that number today.
The flight:
I tried them in the order that they were presented, left to right, with a rinse of water in between.
Each one was very distinct, and all of them were wonderful.
The one that I would have ordered had I not gotten the flight was the Omachi, made with heirloom omachi rice.
And as it turned out, that one was my very favorite! It smelled fruity, almost like banana chips, and tasted very clean to me despite being 70% seimaibuai. It was also unpasteurized, which the bartender explained adds a LOT to the flavor profile and kind of makes everything pop.
The other two were also good, with the Tokoloshe being similar to the omachi but definitely with a sort of piney scent, and the sweetness was different somehow...less fruity and more earthy maybe? Hard to describe, it was just different. The "Another Dalliance" was my least favorite, it was less sweet and seemed harsh compared to the other two, and it also did have some floral scents and flavors which are not my preference anyway. I guess I don't have a very refined palate :p
Just after I'd tried each one twice, my ramen came out. And it was beautiful.
Maitake abura ramen: brothless ramen, maitake mushroom, chili oil, ponzu, mushroom oil, roasted vegetables, pickled red onion, scallion, poached egg. Tasted just as good as it looked. Savory and a little spicy, lots of great textures from all the different vegetables. And that egg may as well have been a dessert, it was so custardy and perfect, coating all the chewy noodles.
I took my time eating and enjoying the gradually building warm pleasant buzz from the sake.
When it was time for the check I asked for a bottle of the omachi.
I had researched the brewery before this meal and figured I might want to take a bottle home...but hadn't planned on the sake that I preferred being UNPASTEURIZED. There was a bit of debate between the two bartenders about whether unpasteurized sake would be any good after a three-hour flight to Florida, but after a lot of Googling the consensus was that it was worth a try. If the temperature changes too much there's a possibility that the flavor will change, or worst case scenario the bottle will go bad (it will be obvious if this happens.) But I think if I wrap it in a cold gel pack it will at least survive the flight, then at the airport assuming it didn't shatter in my luggage I can pull it out and get it in a bag of ice or something.
Even if it's all for nothing, I'll consider it a charitable donation to a REALLY good restaurant and brewery :)
After that I caught an Uber to Whole Paycheck to do my shopping with my pleasant buzz.
I was very well behaved and only got bare basics, knowing that I'll be eating out a lot this week.
Then I walked home and unpacked, and fell asleep.
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Tuesday, breakfast and chatting with siblings and making plans with a local friend.
For lunch I walked about 1.5 miles to Kramarczuk's, an Eastern European deli, bakery, restaurant, and market.
Obviously a well-established local spot with a mix of locals and tourists in line for the restaurant.
I started with the deli/bakery/market.
The bread and pastries looked beautiful but I didn't buy any; again, trying not to overbuy with all the eating out.
Big selection of imported and house-made meats.
The krakowska sausage is their house specialty; it's a lean smoked pork sausage with pepper, coriander, allspice, and garlic, served as a cold cut because it's so honkin' big. I decided to try it on a sandwich for lunch...but not before picking up a piece of house-made "ptasie mleczko", or "bird's milk" candy to eat at home.
The sandwich: sliced krakowska with lettuce, tomato, pickles, havarti, and garlic mayo on rye bread.
It was VERY good. Mild and smoky and very flavorful. Creamy havarti cheese and garlic mayo were a perfect match (I got the mayo on the side so I could control the quantity.) Served on the house caraway rye, it was awesome. I also got a side of red cabbage braised with apples and spices, the perfect slightly sweet flavor to go with the smoky sausage. Very successful meal!
I badly wanted a piece of kielbasa as well, and a stuffed cabbage, and their homemade corned beef, and, and...
but I gotta have self control. There are a lot more restaurants to try this week!
Back at the hotel I tried the bird's milk candy.
It was really interesting, kind of a cross between a homemade marshmallow and a soft meringue. There was a tang to it that I found out later comes from sour cream. Light and fluffy and very enjoyable.
After that I got cleaned up and got ready for sound check.
We are playing an Orpheum here in Minneapolis, so it's an old "theater palace" circa 1920s.
This one hasn't been maintained all that well tbh--it's VERY musty in the pit--but it's still a beautiful theatre and it's awesome that it's been preserved at all.
Ceiling:
Day and night views of the marquee:
Sound check was fine, and the show was great because it was a full house and a rowdy fun-loving audience. The best kind!
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Wednesday I woke up excited because today I get to eat at Owamni!
I have been trying to get a reservation here for MONTHS.
It's a very special restaurant, so I'm gonna expound on it a bit more than usual.
Owamni is a Native American restaurant, serving food that is as close to actual Native American cuisine as you can get without going to a reservation. And even then (as owner Chef Sherman explains in interviews), a lot of Native Americans have lost or forgotten their pre-European culinary culture due to the abuses, relocations, and genocides suffered by indigenous peoples over the years. Sherman himself grew up eating US Government-provided commodity rations, because that was all his family could afford.
It is REALLY hard to get a reservation at Owamni for several reasons:
A) the Chef/Owner just won the Julia Child award a few days ago,
B) The restaurant won a James Beard Award last year,
C) they recently had a fire and were closed for several weeks which pushed back all of their reservations, and
D) all of the above is making it impossible to get a reservation right now.
All of that is, of course, very exciting. But the REAL big deal about this restaurant is that this is a cuisine that has almost been lost, and Sioux Chef Sherman is singlehandedly bringing it back, bringing awareness and accessibility to a culture that is on the verge of being lost. He did insane amounts of research, interviewing Lakota Sioux tribe members and digging through archival material to find out what indigenous people would have eaten, how they would have prepared it, and even how they would have harvested it. And his cuisine strives to replicate that. There are no "colonialized" ingredients like dairy, beef, refined sugars, or wheat. His dishes are based on what would have been available to Native Americans: corn, wild-harvested rice and herbs, game meat, seasonal berries and seeds, fish and shellfish, and wild and cultivated greens and grasses. More people are going to be able to try Native American food thanks to his monumental efforts.
That pretty much sums up why I practically cheered when my reservation request finally went through a few days ago after TWO MONTHS of trying to get in!
So I walked to the restaurant and got there right at my reserved time.
I was surprised to be sat at a table instead of the bar, with a great view of the Mississippi River.
The restaurant is bright, minimalist and clean.
I wanted to order the cured salmon with huckleberries, but they were out.
Second choice was the elk taco with slaw. Out of that, too. GOD I hate covid and the aftermath of covid.
I went with the Garden Salad, the bison taco, and a house-made birch beer.
The salad and birch beer came out first.
Ingredients listed were dandelion greens, chickweed, onion, cricket, and maple chipotle pepita dressing.
But there were other ingredients too, green leafy plants that I didn't recognize, and fiddlehead ferns, and sunflower seeds.
I was really impressed with all the flavors of the greens. Some were hard to chew and bitter/nutty, others were soft and sweet, and others were either herbs or had a strong flavor like herbs. The crickets were super crisp and crunchy, slightly salty and a good texture along with the sunflower seeds. The amount of dressing was perfect, and it was tangy and a little sweet from the maple.
The birch beer was a little disappointing, but I'm from Pennsylvania so I might be spoiled. Birch beer, to me, has a kind of spicy-mint flavor that naturally comes from birch bark. This tasted more like maple (I'm assuming that was the sweetener used). It was still good, just not really birch beer imo.
The taco looked super simple, and I didn't have high expectations, but it was very good as well.
The bison meat was tender and flavorful, seasoned with warm spices and definitely smoked.
The pesto I suspect was made with pepitas and maybe sunflowers, it was really thick and nutty and good.
And the red sauce was amazing, I'd buy that bottled! It was slightly spicy and vinegary, but also definitely had some sort of berry or fruit because there was a sweetness that made it so awesome. And the corn tortilla smelled SO GOOD, even before biting into it the smell had me drooling. It was very fresh with a great roasted corn flavor. Loved it!
The salad and taco went very well together, and overall this was a huge treat and a privilege, to eat something so carefully researched and thought out. I even noticed the tomato in my salad and asked myself, "Would Native Americans have had access to tomatoes?" and after Googling found that the answer was yes. What a great experience, and I left feeling refreshed and not overfull.
From there I Ubered to Midtown Global Market, which turned out to be a little disappointing.
It was inside this huge imposing Deco building.
Most of the wares shops were clothing and jewelry. It was nice to look, but I didn't need anything.
Also most of the shopkeepers seemed bored or annoyed to be there, probably because it was a weekday and business was slow.
I quickly found the Indigenous Food Lab, which is Chef Sherman's new test kitchen inside the market.
It's a large space with a Native American restaurant, test kitchen, and merch stand.
All of the merch was either from Native producers or local producers.
I came here specifically interested in the tea that Owamni uses in their restaurant, which is made locally.
They didn't have sample sizes, so I took a risk and got a bag of maple sarsaparilla. Hopefully it's good!
I walked through the grocery sections and there was some interesting stuff but nothing mind-blowing.
All The Eggs, and lots of fun drinks:
Right before leaving I noticed bottles of camel milk in the freezer! Finally! I've been wanting to try camel milk all tour!
Excited to try it in a few days when it thaws.
Back at the hotel I relaxed and practiced Spamalot and chatted with Jameson as he made his way to the airport.
He's traveling to London to see the Cubs play and Queen perform! I'm very excited for him and hope it's an epic adventure!
The evening show went well, I'm really liking these enthusiastic crowds in our final week!
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I had some plans for the next two days, but there's a friend in town who wants to hang out so we'll see what she wants to do instead.
Still on the list, though:
- Herbivorous Butcher for vegan deli meats
- The free art museum
- Creme brulee crepes (with LOADS of Lactaid)
- Our closing night party, which is actually Thursday night
Wow, here it is: the final week of Tootsie the Musical!
What a wild ride it's been.
I remember being shocked to get the call to go on tour, two years after sending a portfolio to the touring company and receiving no response. And on the tail end of the pandemic too.
And I received the invitation to go on tour during a weeklong visit with my dad and stepmom.
Not knowing that it was the last time I'd ever see my dad.
He died of covid while I was in rehearsal in Rochester.
Honestly, this entire tour experience has been overshadowed by his death.
That's not to say it's good or bad; it just IS what happened.
I shouldn't deep-dive into that right now; we have this last week, and I want to enjoy it to the fullest before launching bittersweet and emotionally charged introspections. (*end thinking out loud*)
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We had a late start out of Madison, riding a charter bus to a Walmart in the middle of nowhere before continuing on to Minneapolis.
It was dinnertime when we arrived, so instead of getting groceries I called an Uber to get across town to moto-i for ramen.
The Uber driver and I struggled to find the restaurant; it didn't have a front at all, just small sign that we eventually saw on the third pass. It had just hit 5pm so there were only a few people there, all of them sitting at the bar. I was invited to join and did.
A glance at the sake menu told me I'd be getting a flight. moto-i is the first sake brew pub in the United States, so of course it's all their own sake that you can try neat or in cocktails, and they have it on tap. I don't know much about sake and a flight seemed the obvious choice for trying several kinds without exceeding the calorie count of a glass of wine.
Here is the top portion of the sake menu, I chose the top three to try.
"seimaibuai" refers to what percentage of the rice grain remains after polishing, before brewing begins. Sakes with a higher seimaibuai percentage has more rice grain remaining, therefore more fats and minerals and proteins, and therefore will not be as "clean" or "refined" but may have more "character". Sake with a lower seimaibuai is more clean and refined in taste, is considered "premium", and is obviously more expensive because of the work involved in reducing a rice grain to nearly nothing before fermenting it.
The "7+", "5+", etc numbers indicate the dryness or sweetness or whatever.
I'm not good at distinguishing that with wines either, and find it depends more on what I want to drink that day anyway as opposed to an overarching perference, so I ignored that number today.
The flight:
I tried them in the order that they were presented, left to right, with a rinse of water in between.
Each one was very distinct, and all of them were wonderful.
The one that I would have ordered had I not gotten the flight was the Omachi, made with heirloom omachi rice.
And as it turned out, that one was my very favorite! It smelled fruity, almost like banana chips, and tasted very clean to me despite being 70% seimaibuai. It was also unpasteurized, which the bartender explained adds a LOT to the flavor profile and kind of makes everything pop.
The other two were also good, with the Tokoloshe being similar to the omachi but definitely with a sort of piney scent, and the sweetness was different somehow...less fruity and more earthy maybe? Hard to describe, it was just different. The "Another Dalliance" was my least favorite, it was less sweet and seemed harsh compared to the other two, and it also did have some floral scents and flavors which are not my preference anyway. I guess I don't have a very refined palate :p
Just after I'd tried each one twice, my ramen came out. And it was beautiful.
Maitake abura ramen: brothless ramen, maitake mushroom, chili oil, ponzu, mushroom oil, roasted vegetables, pickled red onion, scallion, poached egg. Tasted just as good as it looked. Savory and a little spicy, lots of great textures from all the different vegetables. And that egg may as well have been a dessert, it was so custardy and perfect, coating all the chewy noodles.
I took my time eating and enjoying the gradually building warm pleasant buzz from the sake.
When it was time for the check I asked for a bottle of the omachi.
I had researched the brewery before this meal and figured I might want to take a bottle home...but hadn't planned on the sake that I preferred being UNPASTEURIZED. There was a bit of debate between the two bartenders about whether unpasteurized sake would be any good after a three-hour flight to Florida, but after a lot of Googling the consensus was that it was worth a try. If the temperature changes too much there's a possibility that the flavor will change, or worst case scenario the bottle will go bad (it will be obvious if this happens.) But I think if I wrap it in a cold gel pack it will at least survive the flight, then at the airport assuming it didn't shatter in my luggage I can pull it out and get it in a bag of ice or something.
Even if it's all for nothing, I'll consider it a charitable donation to a REALLY good restaurant and brewery :)
After that I caught an Uber to Whole Paycheck to do my shopping with my pleasant buzz.
I was very well behaved and only got bare basics, knowing that I'll be eating out a lot this week.
Then I walked home and unpacked, and fell asleep.
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Tuesday, breakfast and chatting with siblings and making plans with a local friend.
For lunch I walked about 1.5 miles to Kramarczuk's, an Eastern European deli, bakery, restaurant, and market.
Obviously a well-established local spot with a mix of locals and tourists in line for the restaurant.
I started with the deli/bakery/market.
The bread and pastries looked beautiful but I didn't buy any; again, trying not to overbuy with all the eating out.
Big selection of imported and house-made meats.
The krakowska sausage is their house specialty; it's a lean smoked pork sausage with pepper, coriander, allspice, and garlic, served as a cold cut because it's so honkin' big. I decided to try it on a sandwich for lunch...but not before picking up a piece of house-made "ptasie mleczko", or "bird's milk" candy to eat at home.
The sandwich: sliced krakowska with lettuce, tomato, pickles, havarti, and garlic mayo on rye bread.
It was VERY good. Mild and smoky and very flavorful. Creamy havarti cheese and garlic mayo were a perfect match (I got the mayo on the side so I could control the quantity.) Served on the house caraway rye, it was awesome. I also got a side of red cabbage braised with apples and spices, the perfect slightly sweet flavor to go with the smoky sausage. Very successful meal!
I badly wanted a piece of kielbasa as well, and a stuffed cabbage, and their homemade corned beef, and, and...
but I gotta have self control. There are a lot more restaurants to try this week!
Back at the hotel I tried the bird's milk candy.
It was really interesting, kind of a cross between a homemade marshmallow and a soft meringue. There was a tang to it that I found out later comes from sour cream. Light and fluffy and very enjoyable.
After that I got cleaned up and got ready for sound check.
We are playing an Orpheum here in Minneapolis, so it's an old "theater palace" circa 1920s.
This one hasn't been maintained all that well tbh--it's VERY musty in the pit--but it's still a beautiful theatre and it's awesome that it's been preserved at all.
Ceiling:
Day and night views of the marquee:
Sound check was fine, and the show was great because it was a full house and a rowdy fun-loving audience. The best kind!
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Wednesday I woke up excited because today I get to eat at Owamni!
I have been trying to get a reservation here for MONTHS.
It's a very special restaurant, so I'm gonna expound on it a bit more than usual.
Owamni is a Native American restaurant, serving food that is as close to actual Native American cuisine as you can get without going to a reservation. And even then (as owner Chef Sherman explains in interviews), a lot of Native Americans have lost or forgotten their pre-European culinary culture due to the abuses, relocations, and genocides suffered by indigenous peoples over the years. Sherman himself grew up eating US Government-provided commodity rations, because that was all his family could afford.
It is REALLY hard to get a reservation at Owamni for several reasons:
A) the Chef/Owner just won the Julia Child award a few days ago,
B) The restaurant won a James Beard Award last year,
C) they recently had a fire and were closed for several weeks which pushed back all of their reservations, and
D) all of the above is making it impossible to get a reservation right now.
All of that is, of course, very exciting. But the REAL big deal about this restaurant is that this is a cuisine that has almost been lost, and Sioux Chef Sherman is singlehandedly bringing it back, bringing awareness and accessibility to a culture that is on the verge of being lost. He did insane amounts of research, interviewing Lakota Sioux tribe members and digging through archival material to find out what indigenous people would have eaten, how they would have prepared it, and even how they would have harvested it. And his cuisine strives to replicate that. There are no "colonialized" ingredients like dairy, beef, refined sugars, or wheat. His dishes are based on what would have been available to Native Americans: corn, wild-harvested rice and herbs, game meat, seasonal berries and seeds, fish and shellfish, and wild and cultivated greens and grasses. More people are going to be able to try Native American food thanks to his monumental efforts.
That pretty much sums up why I practically cheered when my reservation request finally went through a few days ago after TWO MONTHS of trying to get in!
So I walked to the restaurant and got there right at my reserved time.
I was surprised to be sat at a table instead of the bar, with a great view of the Mississippi River.
The restaurant is bright, minimalist and clean.
I wanted to order the cured salmon with huckleberries, but they were out.
Second choice was the elk taco with slaw. Out of that, too. GOD I hate covid and the aftermath of covid.
I went with the Garden Salad, the bison taco, and a house-made birch beer.
The salad and birch beer came out first.
Ingredients listed were dandelion greens, chickweed, onion, cricket, and maple chipotle pepita dressing.
But there were other ingredients too, green leafy plants that I didn't recognize, and fiddlehead ferns, and sunflower seeds.
I was really impressed with all the flavors of the greens. Some were hard to chew and bitter/nutty, others were soft and sweet, and others were either herbs or had a strong flavor like herbs. The crickets were super crisp and crunchy, slightly salty and a good texture along with the sunflower seeds. The amount of dressing was perfect, and it was tangy and a little sweet from the maple.
The birch beer was a little disappointing, but I'm from Pennsylvania so I might be spoiled. Birch beer, to me, has a kind of spicy-mint flavor that naturally comes from birch bark. This tasted more like maple (I'm assuming that was the sweetener used). It was still good, just not really birch beer imo.
The taco looked super simple, and I didn't have high expectations, but it was very good as well.
The bison meat was tender and flavorful, seasoned with warm spices and definitely smoked.
The pesto I suspect was made with pepitas and maybe sunflowers, it was really thick and nutty and good.
And the red sauce was amazing, I'd buy that bottled! It was slightly spicy and vinegary, but also definitely had some sort of berry or fruit because there was a sweetness that made it so awesome. And the corn tortilla smelled SO GOOD, even before biting into it the smell had me drooling. It was very fresh with a great roasted corn flavor. Loved it!
The salad and taco went very well together, and overall this was a huge treat and a privilege, to eat something so carefully researched and thought out. I even noticed the tomato in my salad and asked myself, "Would Native Americans have had access to tomatoes?" and after Googling found that the answer was yes. What a great experience, and I left feeling refreshed and not overfull.
From there I Ubered to Midtown Global Market, which turned out to be a little disappointing.
It was inside this huge imposing Deco building.
Most of the wares shops were clothing and jewelry. It was nice to look, but I didn't need anything.
Also most of the shopkeepers seemed bored or annoyed to be there, probably because it was a weekday and business was slow.
I quickly found the Indigenous Food Lab, which is Chef Sherman's new test kitchen inside the market.
It's a large space with a Native American restaurant, test kitchen, and merch stand.
All of the merch was either from Native producers or local producers.
I came here specifically interested in the tea that Owamni uses in their restaurant, which is made locally.
They didn't have sample sizes, so I took a risk and got a bag of maple sarsaparilla. Hopefully it's good!
I walked through the grocery sections and there was some interesting stuff but nothing mind-blowing.
All The Eggs, and lots of fun drinks:
Right before leaving I noticed bottles of camel milk in the freezer! Finally! I've been wanting to try camel milk all tour!
Excited to try it in a few days when it thaws.
Back at the hotel I relaxed and practiced Spamalot and chatted with Jameson as he made his way to the airport.
He's traveling to London to see the Cubs play and Queen perform! I'm very excited for him and hope it's an epic adventure!
The evening show went well, I'm really liking these enthusiastic crowds in our final week!
------------------------------------------------
I had some plans for the next two days, but there's a friend in town who wants to hang out so we'll see what she wants to do instead.
Still on the list, though:
- Herbivorous Butcher for vegan deli meats
- The free art museum
- Creme brulee crepes (with LOADS of Lactaid)
- Our closing night party, which is actually Thursday night