Zelo

The choice for the out-to-eat birthday meal was Zelo. More to come, but to sum up: YUM-O. By far the best dining experience all around that we've had in a LONG time.

That was Dh's start to this post, now I will follow it up with more succulent details.

On my birthday morning I went to Details spa in the Highland Park area of St. Paul. I had a wonderful massage and facial. In this state of bliss I went to White Rock Coffee Roasters for a delicious, just right, not too bitter, not too sweet cafe miel. Just reading about it is going to spur me to go back there post-post to have another. Granted that they're open of course.

I picked Zelo for a birthday meal when I had read about it in the Mpls St. Paul "Best of..." magazine edition. It had all sorts of good things to say about the atmosphere, and the food. I love eating food in beautiful artsy places, so I though great food in a lovely place- sounds great to me.

Zelo exceeded my high expectations by far. I believe we had Matt for our waiter, and he took excellent care of us, and was quite helpful. I couldn't decide between shrimp pesto flatbread with organic goat cheese, or pesto crusted sea bass on a bed of wasabi mashed potatos with a thai chili beurre blanc, or another fish that I can't remember all of its details, but it sounded really great too. Plus, I really wanted to try this "organic goat cheese.' I asked our waiter if there was any way I could have just a little goat cheese with my salad. He said they could do that, and I was very happy.

I had been "carbed-out" lately, and did not want another pasta or even a sandwich. We did order the low-carb salad with egg, pancetta, chicken, lettuce, and smoked mozzarella cheese. He also brought a small plate of nice little blobs of the goat cheese on the side. They were rich and creamy, not crumbly like the goat cheese that I buy at the store. That and the salad was really great. All the salad ingredients were the perfect bite-size pieces. No awkward bulky lettuce sticking out of your mouth at this restaurant!

For our main course Matt the waiter helped use to select the pesto-crusted sea bass. Every bite of it was to be savoured, the light pesto crust, the tender sea bass, the zippy wasabi potatos, and the thai chili beurre blanc. Wow. It was the kind of thing that you eat that makes you virtually speechless.

Oh, I forgot to say that I was eating all this with a pomegrante Izze Fizz, pomegranate sparkling drink with a limon vodka accent. That was nice and light tasting.

Previously while at White Rock I read about the budino chocolate cake with homeade vanilla bean gelato and a piece of almond brittle. Since it was chocolate cake I really wanted to try it. Until I had this cake at Zelo I thought Buca had the best chocolate cake (till they changed the Buca cake). It was very rich and chocolatey, and I had to try the hot chocolate with organic whipped cream, too. It also was splendid. They use two types of cocoa in it to make it extra good.

So, do go there, especially if you are a foodie. We went for lunch and split the small salad, and the fish was a special dish, so it cost more. It was a beautiful, artsy restaurant with magnificent food, and service to match.