Wonder what happened to Doug Anderson? He’s the guy behind Nick & Eddie—the Loring Park spot where you were guaranteed to run into Scott Seekins, one of my favorite places where JP Samuelson, Steven Brown, and Derik Moran all cooked!
Doug’s got a new place in the Warehouse District called The Belmore/New Skyway Lounge. I hate the name, love the place.
When my family went there before a Timberwolves game a couple weeks ago for an early dinner, the room has a wow factor. It made me feel like I was in a super-cool restaurant in Seattle—the kind of place that isn’t trying too hard, it just makes you feel comfortable.
Huge windows open onto North 4th Street (at 1st Avenue). The place was fairly empty at 5:30 p.m. on a Saturday, not surprisingly, but you should get over there and check it out.
The menu is all very reasonably priced—most dinner items are around $8-$10. I really enjoyed the bao bun; we had ours “Char Siu,” a barbequed pork dish marinated in a hoisin sauce and then roasted. The pork was shiny and sweet and perfect against that fluffy, delicious bun ($9).
We had heard the pizzas were good, and they did not disappoint. For $11, we had a nice-sized andouille sausage pizza. The sausage had a nice spice and the crust was perfectly crisp.
There was a Hong Kong noodle dish that had a lot of potential, but it was too salty for me (I told our server it would be ideal drunk food; he said he’d try to sell it that way).
For fans of Jessica Anderson’s desserts, her legendary butterscotch pudding is on this menu too ($6, and still delicious). There are only a couple tap beers, and they had two types of red wine when we were there, but it was a refreshing change from having to decide from 35 taps and 20 wines by the glass. The reds were both nice, both $8, and both served in a giant glass (“To make up for the lack of stemware,” laughed our server).
They’ve launched a happy hour from 4-7 p.m. with $2 tacos, $4 pizza, and a $9 appetizer plate, and they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, from 7 a.m.-2 a.m., Monday-Friday. They’ve got live music on weekends—you can keep up with that on their Facebook group page.
I’ll be back soon.
The Belmore/New Skyway Lounge
25 N 4th Street, Mpls.
