Brasa

As some of you may or may not know, I'm into food. Pretty into it. I've had the good fortune to travel a lot, and in my travels I've gotten hungry. It's been a rather unemotional time for me, watching restaurants come and go through here; it always seems that food in the midwest is a tandem of quality and inaccessibility, unlike what you find on the coast. I can't eat at JP's, Alma, or La Belle Vie every night, sorry. Contact me about donations, though.

It just so happens, though, that the last time I really got excited about a restaurant, it was soul food. I used to be neighbors with Big E on Loring Park. I could walk up the back porch stairs and order red beans and rice, greens, catfish, fried chicken, pork, etc.- until his electric stove set something ablaze. Not an advantageous position to put yourself in when looking to eventually legitimize yourself in the restaurant industry, but whatever. I think his restaurant, amongst other things, got shut down because he didn't pay his electricity bill.

But last night, after dilly-dallying for several weeks, I ate at Brasa.

Yes, that event deserves its own paragraph. All I'll say is this– simple food, done incredibly right. Local, organic, slow-food. I've eaten wonderfully like this in Portland, OR to New York– the idea that slow-food is a southern-only tradition is simply obsolete.

GO!