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Tag Archives: Saint Paul

Yarusso Brothers Italian Restaurant, Saint Paul, MN



Yarusso Bros. Pepperoni Pizza, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

Lesley and I decided to check out Yarusso Bros. Italian Restaurant as she’s a current and I’m a former Saint Paul resident and neither of us had been before. Yarusso’s, as it’s more commonly called, has been around for 75 years and many people regard it as an staple of old Saint Paul restaurants. The building is recognizable with a Statue of Liberty on top if you drive down Payne Avenue.

Yarusso’s was brought up in a thread on MNspeak and Steve Sundberg chimed in that they are “more famous for their giant meatballs and garlic bread than they are pizza.” I would attest that this is likely true as when we arrived we didn’t see any pizza at all but many people dining on pasta.

We each ordered a Brewer’s Cave Golden Caramel Lager as their menus indicated they were related to the brewer. It wasn’t our favorite beer but couldn’t exactly put our finger on as to why. Brew52 has more on this beer, including my short experience with it. I’ll order it again the next time I’m back. We also got a basket of slices of white bread and bits of butter in pre-packaged containers.

Our pizza arrived it looked a lot better than we expected. The pepperonis were good and it was loaded with cheese. Topped with some grease but not overwhelming. There wasn’t much sauce but most notable was the crust: it was surprisingly thick and crispy. We had a hard time comparing it but we kept agreeing it was most like a higher end “self-rising” frozen pizza. We felt bad with that comparison because the pizza was actually good, but it wasn’t good enough to avoid the similarity.

One of the owners or managers stopped by our table and asked if we wanted some free carrot cake as well. A nice little bonus.

Overall, not bad. Yarusso’s is a well established, family owned and operated joint in Saint Paul and worth a visit if you haven’t been. If pasta’s your game, you may want to try that instead of the pizza as that’s what their known for. Also, for their 75th anniversary they’re having “1930’s costume night” on the first Thursdays of each month. Sounds like a hoot.

Yarusso Brothers Italian Restaurant
635 Payne Ave
Saint Paul, MN 55130
651-776-4848

Posted 28 April 2008 § Food, Drink and Dining § Pizza § Saint Paul ‡ Comments (2) ° Also tagged: ,

Green at the Artists’ Quarter



Rob Dewey of Green, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

While many people say that Saint Paul is dead after 4:30 P.M., residents and regulars know its secrets. There’s jazz on Monday nights at the Artists’ Quarter with Rob Dewey and his band Green.

Green goes on stage around 7:30 P.M. The crowd is usually small but a good mix. It’s not uncommon to see a few local residents, a couple suits and ties after a late day, people dropping downstairs after dining at Great Waters above and artists and poets scribbling in notepads before the open mic night after the show.

Depending on the night Green may be a three or a four piece act. Rob might be behind the Artists’ Quarter’s Yamaha grand piano or he may bring along his Fender Rhodes keyboard or a synth. They put on a good mix of original jazz pieces and improvisations as well as their take on jazz classics. Sometimes they’ll throw in an unsuspecting cover that you wouldn’t expect to hear at a jazz club and you’ll be surprised how they pull it off so well.

The kicker: it’s a free show (if you buy two drinks). One of Saint Paul’s secrets.

Green - Something - Live at the AQ (MP3) [via]

Artists’ Quarter
408 Saint Peter St
Saint Paul, MN 55102
651-292-1359

Posted 15 April 2008 § Art, Music and Film § Saint Paul ‡ Comments (1) ° Also tagged: , , ,

Great Waters Brewing Company, Saint Paul



Four Cheese Pizza at Great Waters Brewing Company, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

Great Waters Brewing Company is known for its beer. They always have a good selection of cask conditioned and pulled beers. I’m not into all of them but what keeps me coming back is their willingness to try a bunch of different styles and they switch out their seasonal beers frequently. Sometimes they put out a really fantastic brew. Either way I love drinking something new when I’m there. I’m a big fan of Great Waters.

Tucked and hidden in a back page of their menu under “Sandwiches, Etc.,” is a four cheese pizza. It’s not a pizza you’d expect to find at a brew pub: no sauce and they chose provolone, asiago, bleu and mozzarella cheeses. It’s sized around 12 inches like a neapolitan style pizza but it’s much heavier. The crust is thicker and the cheese is piled on liberally. While this pizza lover has enjoyed this entire pizza in one sitting before, it is a bit much sometimes for one person. Last night I shared this as an appetizer with a friend and it worked out great for both of us.

Great Waters’ pizza is easy to hold and pulls apart nicely from the other pieces even though they’ve melted back together in the time it took to go from the kitchen to your table. This pizza is certainly almost all cheese and you can easily taste through all four of them. It’s a good blend and the aftertaste is especially biting. The crust is a bit plain but doesn’t take away from anything — the focus here is the cheese. It’s a fantastic compliment to a pint or two.

Great Waters Brewing Company
426 Saint Peter St
Saint Paul, MN 55102
651-224-2739

Posted 15 April 2008 § Pizza § Saint Paul ‡ Comments (2) ° Also tagged:

Sophia & Emma - Como, Saint Paul

Sophia & Emma

(Post originally on Minnesota Meow)

Names: Sophia and Emma
Nicknames: Sophia: Pretty Little Princess; Emma: Emmakins, Bad Little Bitch
Born: Probably sometime in 2000
Lives in: Como, Saint Paul
Lives With: Christine Killian

Sophia was rescued from the Animal Humane Society in Golden Valley when she was about eight weeks old. She had a pink collar and Christine used to take her to work. “She slept on my desk,” I’m told. When Sophia wasn’t at work, she was a regular misbehaving kitten making messes and shredding stuff. Christine recalls, “I couldn’t play with her enough — she would never get tired. I used to try keeping her from taking naps so she would sleep all night or whatever. Did not work. I had a feeling she was lonely during the day.”

So soon after, she visited the humane society again and found Emma. Apparently, Emma was living in garages in Newport. She had a litter of kittens that were all taken in to the humane society as well. Emma was in a cage and meowed at Christine so they went into a meeting room and she licked her hand. Then Emma got to go home with Christine and be Sophia’s friend.

They’re good buddies but not always the best of buddies. They run around together and chase each other. They sometimes argue about who gets to sit in the toy box. Both Emma and Sophia like toys and Emma will even jump to great lengths to nab a flying object. Humorously, Emma cries loudly and follows Christine around when she sings and Sophia likes to stick her foot in the water dish and fling water everywhere. “It’s hard to get mad at that.”

Christine is a Research Scientist at Thomson Corporation and a Certified Flight Instructor. She also writes at Aviatrix Logbook.

See more of Sophia and Emma in their Flickr set.

Posted 11 January 2008 § Cats ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:

The UpTake’s New Digs



Noah Kunin with The UpTake, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

Last night I crashed The UpTake’s Correspondents’ Meeting to check out their brand new office space. The last time I saw them was at their fundraiser in October.

The UpTake is a media and technology services organization that publishes and trains citizen journalists with a strong focus on video. While there are a lot of citizen journalists and unaffiliated bloggers, videographers and writers out there, there are not many part of an organized group. The UpTake is trying to fill that gap and already is doing a great job. They have correspondents in Minnesota, Colorado and Iowa and they’re growing quickly. The UpTake helps people develop and capture stories as well as train people on equipment, software, journalistic ethics and storytelling. They’re also a backbone for people that need help covering stories, editing and publishing. The UpTake also keeps track of events and stories so multiple people aren’t covering the same thing. It’s a pretty interesting model.

Their angle is to cover what the mainstream media isn’t covering or can’t cover or don’t cover enough of. One figures, it wouldn’t be as valuable for citizen journalists and The UpTake to cover what is already being covered elsewhere, right?

While not really a political organization, their focus now has been on covering local and national politics. Their new office is located a block away from the Xcel Energy Center, where the Republican National Convention will be held in 2008. You can see the whole center from the roof too. A former dentist office, it has at least 12 rooms which will be converted into editing suites, offices and small studio spaces.

A couple friends of mine are deeply involved and I’ve been impressed with the organization. They really know what they’re doing and are ramping up very quickly. They’ll be a big player around RNC time.

UPDATE: The UpTake partners with Veracifier

theuptake.org

Posted 13 December 2007 § Media, Blogging and Technology § Saint Paul ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:

Google Street View Twin Cities

Google Street View

As Julio Ojeda-Zapata posted last night and wrote in today’s Pioneer Press, Google Street View launches today in the Twin Cities. If you’re not familiar, you can now look at an address from the street. For example, here’s my house. Notice my poor lawn care but my lawn gnome is hanging out!

This lead me to wonder, when were all these photos taken? The State Theater is advertising shows for very early August 2007, right after the 35W bridge collapse on August 1st. You can drive under the 35W Bridge and you can actually drive on it too, seeing some of the construction equipment. Here’s a shot of the skyline from the bridge with a portable toilet in the foreground. This is probably only days before it collapsed. Rows of news vans line Main Street SE after the collapse.

You can drive through the Lowry Tunnel and you can see storm damage in Acacia Park Cemetery. Take a stroll up US52 over the Lafayette Bridge into Saint Paul. If you keep clicking the NW arrow you can chase a light rail train in reverse. There’s some workers rebuilding East Lake Street.

For more in Saint Paul, check out the state capitol but you can’t see the forbidden-to-photograph oven at Punch Pizza.

Surprisingly, a lot of Highland Park isn’t available for Street View as well as White Bear Lake. But you can visit St. Olaf College down in Northfield. Here’s a guy that looks like he just left Sex World. Heh.

They have my office to see too. One of the owners parked his Mazda 6 out front and my manager’s VW Bug is in the lot. Who knows where my car is!

Find anything interesting strolling around Street View in the Twin Cities? Please comment! Remember when linking Google Maps, click on the “Link to this page” link to get the proper URL.

Posted 11 December 2007 § Media, Blogging and Technology § Minneapolis § Saint Paul § Travel and Transportation ‡ Comments (27) ° Also tagged: ,

Spaz - Dayton’s Bluff, Saint Paul



Spaz on Flickr

(Post originally on Minnesota Meow)

Name: General Spaz Mauw, Mayor of Mauw Mauw Town
Nicknames: Peanut, Mauw, Mauw Mauw, Turdbump, The General
Born: Summer 1998
Lives in: Dayton’s Bluff, Saint Paul
Lives with: Ang Dezelske

Spaz was a feral kitten born in the courtyard of a Washington state apartment complex and saved from the fate of animal control. She didn’t adapt very easily to a life of shelter and regular servings of food and was always trying to run away, even up inside a recliner. Even though she warmed up to Ang, she remained very shy of other people, sudden movement and loud noises. She still runs under Ang’s bed when new people come over, a door is slammed, if the vacuum cleaner is out, a truck drives by or when someone stands up.

Spaz likes to spend her afternoons on the window sill if it’s sunny or curled up on her pillow on Ang’s bed. Sometimes she sits on top of the refrigerator. Spaz has been loving Ang’s new home in Saint Paul because there are so many ledges, counters and things to climb and sit on! She chases things only she can see and loves the “hand under the blanket” game. When Ang comes home from work she likes to roll around on the floor at her feet, meowing. Spaz likes to spend quite a bit of time by herself but deep down she’s a snuggler. Just not for too long. At bedtime, Spaz turns the hallway, living room and walls into a racetrack and a sofa into a jungle gym before snuggling up with Ang for the night. She is also the “Queen of General Mauw’s PooPing Palace.”

One day, while Spaz was curled up on top of the refrigerator, she presumably dozed off, rolled over and fell! My refrigerator is inside a pantry that is about 6 inches wider than the fridge, but the opening is smaller than the inside, and only about as wide as the fridge. Meaning, she was now stuck between it and the wall. Thankfully, she was totally okay and not hurt! She really knows how to get herself into trouble.

Spaz lives with Ang who is a Project Coordinator in Provider Relations at MN Department of Human Services by day and runs Overheard in Minneapolis after hours.

More photos of Spaz can be found in Ang’s Spaz photo set as well as Aaron’s Spaz photo set.

Posted 02 November 2007 § Cats § Saint Paul ‡ Comments (2) ° Also tagged:

RNC Welcoming Committee

Those kids are definitely getting hit with batons, no way around it.

–Taylor in response to me instant messaging him today’s post about security from the “RNC Welcoming Committee”.

Posted 09 August 2007 § Saint Paul ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: , ,