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Archive for November, 2010

Dive Night ~ River Garden Bar

Posted in Dive Night, tagged , on November 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Our Dive Night experience taken on the Friday before Halloween with Ruthie and Ray started out at Psycho Suzi’s Motor Lounge.  That was definitely an experience of the good kind.  The thing is, we were in Nordeast, old stomping ground for Husby and Ray, and we couldn’t leave the area without stopping by to call on Tony Jaros.  OK, we couldn’t really visit Tony Jaros because, well, he’d dead.  More specifically, the River Garden Bar.  Yikes.

For those of you who are totally out of the loop (like I am), this bar is home to The Greenie.  I’ve heard about The Greenie for years from Husby.  Apparently Ray has reminisced about the River Garden and Greenies too.  It’s a stiff drink, but you’d never know it because it is so dang sweet and tasty.  So without further adieu I give you…The Greenie.

All I can say is, the River Garden Bar is a place where people go to get drunk.  It is also a trendy stop for people who think it’s quirky to go into dive bars just to drink up the atmosphere.  It’s got character and characters.

This guy was constantly on his phone, but could only see it with one eye closed.

Husby and Ray loved returning to their old stomping ground, the River Garden Bar.  Apparently it is one of those places where you can go back and relive those days of yore because it hasn’t changed a lick in decades.  Ruthie and I loved sitting at the bar making up stories about all the other people, speculating about who will go home with whom, what they do for a living, and what their lives are like.  Of course we would label them with names like The Russian, Staring Guy, Artsy Girl, and Tight Lips.  Great fun.

There were also a bunch of mice who came into the bar.  Humans dressed as mice.  I don’t know if they were supposed to be rats or mice.  Doesn’t matter, they were a very fun bunch and I just had to take a picture of a couple of them before we left.

I’ll remind you we were out the Friday before Halloween, so I assume these guys are dressed for that occasion and don’t normally go out in their black long underwear, white gloves, and mouse ears, but I could be wrong.  They were much fun, no matter what.

So all I can say is the dive dining and drinking for October was quite an experience.  The food at Psycho Suzi’s was great, the Greenies* at River Garden were great.  Of course the company of Ruthie and Ray can’t be beat.  It was the most memorable Halloween weekend I’ve had in a long time.

* The River Garden Bar also makes Blueys (sp?), Pinkies, and Purpleys (again, sp?).  The Blueys taste like Sweet Tarts, and uncannily so.  If you drink too many of all of these drinks you will no doubt barf rainbows.

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Dive Night ~ Psycho Suzie’s (the old one)

Posted in Dive Night, tagged , on November 12, 2010| 2 Comments »

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about Dive Night with Ruthie and Ray because, well, it’s been a while since we’ve done it.  You know how life gets sometimes.  That’s what’s been happening with us.  Because it has been a while since the last Dive Night we decided to do it big.  The best place to find a dive in the Twin Cities?  None other than Nordeast!

I’m not too familiar with the northeast Minneapolis, but I don’t get out much.  Those of you who know anything probably know about the place we chose as our monthly dive.  Psycho Suzi’s Motor Lounge.

Psycho Suzi’s used to be an A&W Rootbeer stand.  They’ve given the old drive-in quite a substantial makeover.  Think tiki.  We went the Friday before Halloween, so the place was decorated for the holiday and some of the patrons were in costumes.  All of that just added to the fun.

 

The employee of the month is featured prominently next to the restrooms.  I especially liked her quote.

And the bathrooms were aptly labeled.

They even serve exotic Polynesian drinks in volcano cups.

But enough about the decor.  Let’s talk about the food.  Oh, the food.  We started with appetizers, fried cheese curds and Brown Sugar Babies.  The latter are bacon-wrapped smokies with a bourbon brown sugar glaze.  OMG.  And the cheese curds had the most delicate, tempura-like batter that was unlike any I’ve had before and were served with a marinara sauce.  Personally, I thought the dipping sauce was unnecessary.

On to the main course.  I’ll confess I was a little disappointed that everyone wanted pizza.  Pizza?  Well, little did I know that Psycho Suzi is known for her pizza.  I went along with the majority’s consensus and each couple chose a different one.  I’m so glad we got pizza.

These may look like ordinary pizzas, but they were far from it.  The crust was deliciously thin and crispy.  Ruthie and Ray ordered the Four Barrel pizza, which has spicy sausage, red onions, roasted red peppers, and feta and mozarella with the house red sauce.  Husby and I ordered The Barris with caramelized onions, sun-dried tomato, oregano and goat cheese.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a pizza that diverts from the standard Domino’s-type.  Not that there’s anything wrong with Domino’s, but they don’t roast peppers, they don’t caramelize onions, and they sure as heck don’t use feta and goat cheeses.  All of us sampled each pizza and all of us liked both.  Well, I more than liked.  I wondered where this pizza had been all my life.  At Psycho Suzi’s all along.

Check out Suzi’s website ~ it’s as entertaining as the ambiance, service, and clientele of the restaurant.

We couldn’t end the evening with Psycho Suzi’s.  After all, we’d been having that life thing I was referring to earlier, and it had been so long since the four of us had been out.  We found a way to ward off  Stay tuned for Part 2 of this Dive Night post and find out where we partook in a little nightcap.

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