Longfellow Grill and Associates

Longfellow Grill

Rating 4 1/2 stars

Address: 2990 West River Parkway, Minneapolis, MN 55406

Phone:(612) 721-2711

Prices: $5-18 per plate

Hours:

 

	7:00 am – 10:00 pm

The Longfellow grill and similar Highland grill, and Edina grill are awesome places to eat out with your kids.
They almost always have tables available and will bring you a high chair, they offer outdoor seating in season.  Their bathrooms are clean and offer changing tables in both men's and women's bathrooms.  They offer a nice selection of healthy meals for adults.  But here's why they really get 4 1/2 stars - they offer healthy meals for kids too!  It's not all chicken fingers with french fries, spaghetti, and pizza.  They will serve your little one grilled chicken, vegetables, and fruit.  These come on a kid-friendly plastic tray nicely divided for your military style eaters.  They also will bring a kid sized drink in a plastic cup with lid and straw.
The wait for food is fairly standard of blue plate dinners, not too long, but it isn't a fast food restaurant.  They will do take out orders.
Why 4 1/2 stars?  They frequently offer what I find to be some very weird and unappetizing food combinations on their menu, like pancakes stuffed with pretzels.
Favorite dishes include - black bean salmon with asparagus and faro, taco salad with beef, and turkey cobb salad

No Coast Craft-o-Rama 2012

The No Coast Craft-o-Rama is coming around again!
This will be my third year going and I am psyched.
This event takes place at the midtown global market next friday and Saturday 12/7-12/8.
Check their website for details.
http://nocoastcraft.com/
I would say in past years I have been able to get 75-80% of my holiday shopping done at this thing.
They feature local artists and craftspersons selling their wares.  Items are mostly things like t-shirts, scarves, mittens, baby clothes, small toys, jewelry, tchatchkes, and the like.  Last year a guy was selling guitars he made out of boxes that were fully electric.  You never know what you might find.
The best thing is it's all local, and they do not play christmas music!!!  Which for those of you who don't know is awesome for those of us who like to give but don't celebrate christmas, and/or can't stand christmas music.
I can't tell you enough how great this is.
Very kid friendly, they may have a band playing, there are big bathrooms with changing tables and a comfortable place to nurse in private.
Also the excellent cuisine of the global market is at your disposal.
See you there?

Italian Pie Shoppe Review

Review for
Italian Pie Shop on Grand

1670 Grand Avenue

Saint Paul, MN 55105

(651) 221-0093

Two and a half stars
Price for a family of 2.5 $25 dinner

Food: Pizza and pasta.  Pizza was fairly good, nice stringy cheese, sweet tasting sauce, and nice crust.  Toppings are definitely fresh not from the can.  Pasta don't bother - you could do better with a box of cremette and a bottle of ragu, my toddler who loves all pasta was perfectly happy.  Milk was available for kids although served in a large mouthed canning jar - which is probably someone's idea of a joke (what's the worst possible container you could serve a drink to a toddler in - heavy, glass..)

Service: Indifferent and slow.  Do not show up hungry.  I think they had to go milk the cows to make the mozzarella or something.  We were there over an hour.  Maybe I'm a spoiled New Yorker but I've been to plenty of pie shops that make great fresh pizza and don't take that long.

Price: Ridiculous.  A basic pizza is roughly $15, each topping is $2.50, so if you like to add veggies or meat tack on an extra $5-10.  What?  When did mushrooms become so expensive?

Kid Friendliness: Medium to moderate.  It was noisy so no one will notice your noisy kid.  Requisite crayons and coloring menu provided.  Usual children's menu choices of high carb, high fat, high protein meals, no healthy options at all.  They do have high chairs.  NO CHANGING TABLE.  Also they play sports on TV so my son was squirreled around in his chair half the time trying to see the TV instead of paying attention to his dinner.

In summary - would I go out of my way? no.  Would I go back if I was in the area and felt like a slice of their pizza instead of PUNCH? yes.

Izzy's Ice Cream

Izzy's Ice Cream on Marshall Ave in St Paul is a fantastic place to go for ice cream

2034 Marshall Avenue  Saint Paul, MN 55104 (651) 603-1458

Here's why
1. The ice cream is great
- just don't order vanilla - their only dissappointing flavor yet
2. They provide small and kid friendly portions - an izzy scoop which is about 1 oz of ice cream, and a kiddy scoop which is about 3 oz, as well as various other regular sized ice cream scoops.
3. They have a family friendly and neighborhood friendly atmosphere, you can even sit at the tables outside and eat your ice cream, what could be better than that?
4. They are located just a few doors down from Choo-choo bob's.  If you have a kid that likes cars or trains and have not been to choo-choo bob's you need to seriously drop everything and go right there.
Why go anywhere else when Izzy's has it all?
Cheers
Minneapple Mom