The swampy summer created havoc at restaurants across the Twin Cities after weekend storms. Thanks to power outages, Sunday and Monday services were canceled at Diane’s Place, the popular Northeast restaurant from chef Diane Moua. Meanwhile, her neighbors at Baker’s Field Flour took advantage of their wood-fired oven and baked in the dark on Sunday, but closed on Monday. TokiDoki Burger and Ramen Kazama, from chef Matthew Kazama, were still waiting for the lights to come back on as the week started. And Sea Salt weathered power outages late last week, but started this week with a small kitchen fire, which curtailed their menu late Monday.
In St. Paul, Crasqui from Soliel Ramirez was knocked out by the storm and vandalism; plants were stolen and outdoor furniture damaged. Salsa Collaborative canceled their Monday night residency at Black Stack Brewing after a power outage wiped out their food inventory at their commercial kitchen space. And over in Edina, Mr. Paul’s Supper Club canceled Sunday dinner, and Sweet Science Ice Cream was also down a day of scoops, but rallied by Monday.
Perhaps the most heartening story of the Minneapolis culinary community was at a sushi pop-up scheduled for Sunday evening at Picnic in Linden Hills. The restaurant hosts chef takeovers every Sunday, and July 14 was Sushi by Baaska, from chef Baaska Tegshbileg. With a cooler filled with prepped fish and a forecast in the 90s predicted, service became a ticking timer worthy of an episode of “The Bear.”
“It was about 6 a.m. when I got a call that the power was out at my commissary kitchen,” said Tegshbileg, whose tiny operation is just him and maybe his fiancée. He hauled over to the kitchen and loaded up the fish from the (thankfully) still-cold coolers. With a pit stop at Cub for ice, he made it to Picnic, where the restaurant’s coolers were saved by generators.
In the dark kitchen, he worried over the product, “I was talking to Pete [Nguyen, Picnic’s general manager], I’m not feeling great about doing dinner. Should we call it off? He was like, ‘I think we can turn this situation around and do a lunch pop-up.’ The whole neighborhood had no power. Everyone was out and walking around.”
After a few Instagram posts, orders started rolling in and friends arrived at the back door to pitch in. The owners of Càphin, the coffee shop and truck, his friend Chef E, as well as his commissary neighbors Bao Bao Buns joined in to help support the service.
The sushi had to be arranged and served on disposable plates and containers since there was no dishwasher. Still, the orders flew out the door from neighbors who saw the Instagram post and others who were just out and about without power at home.
Nguyen said everything was gone within two hours.
