The Place for Aging Hippies

Burger Moe's
242 7th Street West
St. Paul, Minnesota

(between Kellogg Boulevard & Grand Avenue)

This was a random stop for us, just a place along the route we took from the Minneapolis airport, heading to Wisconsin. Turned out to be a good choice. It's a good-sized place indoors, with a substantial bar area and several smaller rooms devoted to dining; but at this magnificent time of year, the gorgeous patio on the side and back of the building was the only area in demand.

It's a very attractive area, with colourful umbrellas decorated with various exotic beer logos (Burger Moe's has something like 60 brands on tap), plus the giddy explosion of  flowers that defines this part of the country. But the most remarkable thing about Burger Moe's was the crowd of customers who appeared, all at once.

We were in our seats in the nearly-vacant patio about 3.30pm, perusing the menu of fried appetizers and burgers, when the waitress said, "You know about our special, don't you?" No, we said; we didn't. Turns out that, on Mondays, all their burgers are $5 from 4pm. They have a tremendous selection of burgers, too, well beyond your standard variety of cheeses and peppers. I was tempted by the coconut burger, but figured that, all things being equal, the best bet would be to partake of the Kobe. After all, how often can you get a half-pound Kobe beef hamburger for only five bucks?

To kill the half-hour we had to wait for the special to kick in, we ordered an appetizer of cheese curds to tide us over. These local favourites are the layer skimmed off the top as cheese is made in the thousands of dairies around Wisconsin and Minnesota. They squeak. The flavour is sort of like a light version of cheese, Cheddar in this case, and they are eaten plain or fried. At Burger Moe's (as at many places in the area) they're coated in a beer batter for frying, and come out light and puffy and slightly sweet, nothing like the odious fried cheese sticks ubiquitous at chain restaurants across the country.

On an impulse, I ordered a peanut-butter-and-jelly milkshake, which came at the same time as the cheese curds. Probably not something I would make a habit of ordering, but it had piqued my curiosity, now satisfied. It did genuinely taste like peanut butter and jelly; it was thick and rich and oh, so sweet: too sweet, in fact, and between that and the cheese curds, it's no surprise that I wasn't able to finish my burger.

What does that mean?

The great characteristic of Kobe beef is its tenderness. But when you grind it up for burgers, you pretty much lose that feature; it's not much different from plain ol' American beef. But you can still tell the difference; Kobe beef is, even ground, a little more tender than what we are used to, and has a slightly better taste, and is a little juicier. I'm not sure I'd think it were worth the $10.50 price tag it normally carries on Burger Moe's menu, but for five bucks, it's a steal, a fact not lost on the clientèle around us.

Because, at precisely 4pm, it seems a sluice gate opened somewhere, and fifty-something folks, the men with grey beards and pony tails, the women with sandals and faded jeans, began streaming into the patio from the street. They filled almost all the tables on the very large patio, and every one that I overheard, disdaining a menu consultation, ordered a Kobe beef burger. The kitchen may as well have not offered any other sandwich, and don't I feel validated.

I'm sure a younger crowd comes out later in the evening, after the early-bird special is over and the grandparents have gone back into hiding, but they don't know what they're missing. Five bucks, for a great burger (and it's even better, left over), with a good order of fries (regular or sweet-potato), is a real deal. An excellent deal.



Hypothesis Proven True!

The Pirates! Band of Misfits
starring the voices of Hugh Grant
   Martin Freeman
   Imelda Staunton
   David Tennant
   Jeremy Piven
   Salma Hayek
   Lenny Henry
   Brian Blessed

Directed by Peter Lord

I've long had the theory that no movie is so bad that I would feel cheated after seeing it in a dollar cinema. Turns out I was right.

This claymation movie might be entertaining for little kids, and even some adults; my best friend thought it was hilarious. I thought it was silly, and no better; the jokes were predictable (though I did chuckle one time), and the 3-D* was irksome: the film was worth a dollar to see, though I do begrudge the theater that extra two bucks.

Well, at least now I know what Lenny Henry's been doing, since Chef! ended years ago.








* A propos of nothing, last night I was watching a Fourth of July fireworks display after the San Antonio Scorpions - F.C. Edmonton game at Heroes Stadium, and a kid behind me said, "Wow, Dad! It's like it's in 3-D!" 

Best of Its Kind, So Far

The Amazing Spider-Man

Starring Andrew Garfield
   Emma Stone
   Rhys Ifans
   Denis Leary
   Martin Sheen
   Sally Field

Directed by Marc Webb

What's amazing, in a way, is that the movie industry could re-tell the same story it told only ten years ago, in a pretty good movie with Toby Maguire in the title role, and do it with almost no real risk of failure. (I know: there are movies that lose money, probably most of them. Occasionally there is even a blockbuster that loses money, an Ishtar. But when you get right down to it, there are only two kinds of movies that lose money: bad movies, which is most of the losers, and good movies that are not widely promoted. And everyone in Hollywood knows this franchise is a cash cow; just the litigation shows that.)

What they've done is go back to square one, inventing a new back-story for the character of Peter Parker. This time, he's looking into a small mystery left by his late father, and gets bitten by a spider in a genetics lab. The super powers he acquires, combined with his own remarkable technical abilities, not to mention the ability to sew better than any other straight teen-aged boy, turn him into the hero of the film.

Most of the comic-book characters portrayed on screen these days seem to depend entirely on special effects for the entertainment values. Not so this Spider-Man film. There is actual craft evident throughout the film, and more-than-merely-capable performances from almost all the players, even in the small roles. Garfield is believable as the skinny high-school kid with hidden depth, and is still believable when he engages his dragons. Stone is believable as the brainy hot chick (a role that probably came somewhat naturally to her), and Martin Sheen absolutely becomes the principled father-figure, Uncle Ben. Rhys Ifans portrays the villian sympathetically, so we're not too disappointed when he survives the film to set up a sequel (after the credits start). And Denis Leary manages to hold his tongue just enough to keep the film's PG-13 rating, while still exuding his trademark bile until [Spoiler Alert] he finds salvation on his death bed.

The film is good enough, too, for us to overlook a few incongruities. Just how many shells can the police chief's shotgon hold? How did Spider-Man get his mask on, when he's hanging from the bridge with the kid with one hand and the rope with the other? How does Peter Parker manage to encounter only blond long-haired thieves? And what are all those crane operators doing at work at that hour of the night; aren't they Union?

In the end, though, it's the quality of the special effects that keeps us buying in to this film. They are mostly done seamlessly, except for one scene (about a second, maybe two, long) in a longer fight sequence that seemed somehow less-well-crafted. The detail in computer-generated images, of water, of reflections, of shadows, is still amazing to me and, I suspect, to many other viewers. When you pair that with a good story, well-told, we don't really care if we've heard other versions of it before.