Solera

So my post about Solera has to begin a number of years ago. Specifically, I’m going back to 2004. This was the year that the hubby and I decided that we were tired of the same old restaurants. Minneapolis/St. Paul magazine published their Top 50 restaurants and we decided to “work the list.” Every week we would pick a different restaurant from the list and make reservations. Thus began the love affair of trying new restaurants. Now we never did hit all 50, we’re both not big sushi fans and several of the restaurants are focused on that cuisine. However, we did hit a fair share of the list and most of the Top 20. The one exception – which is still on the list is Canoe Bay in Wisconsin. That would require a likely stay overnight due to the drive, so we haven’t gotten there quite yet.


Which brings me back to Solera, after our first visit to this Tim McKee restaurant, I fell in love. As Reservations for One indicates, the Chorizo Stuffed Dates are an all-time favorite of mine. Now when you are working the Top 50 list and new restaurants continue to come and go, it is hard to always get back to restaurants that you’ve tried already. Solera is one of those that I make exceptions for. I’ve been there for birthdays, before a play, after a concert, happy hours, and just because. Now I still don’t go on a regular basis, but in the last 6 years I’ve been there a number of times.

When visitors come to town, this is one of the restaurants I always want to take guests too. My girlfriends from high school have been there….unfortunately one HATES goat cheese which was very disappointing given my love of the dates. We are still friends though; I just know we have our differences. One of the more memorable excursions was when we took my parents to Solera after a Garrison Keillor show. My dad is “vanilla,” plain and simple. He likes vanilla ice cream, regular coffee – no snooty latte or cappuccino, he’s a meat and potato man through and through. My mom on the other hand enjoys trying whatever we suggest and is more open to new foods. When I mentioned Tapas to my parents, I think my mom was intrigued and my dad was skeptical. We got them to go and my dad absolutely LOVED this place. My mom enjoyed it, but the surprise of the evening was how into the various tapas and the experience my dad was. (I will have to say this was after seeing Garrison and guest performer Wilco, so he was in a pretty decent mood.) It was a lot of fun and the food was great as always.

Which brings me to my recent visit…Reservations for One and I went there after work one evening. She has a great review of the dishes we tried. Please check out her blog for the specifics. I do depart from her on the Chorizo Stuffed Dates review. When you have the creamy goat cheese, who cares about whether there was enough Chorizo in the mix. They were still as good as ever! (And thank you that I got the extra one!) They no longer offer the breadsticks with Serrano ham, cheese and honey. That was also a great dish and I was sad to see it go. Every dish we tried was great. What’s awesome about tapas is if there was a dish you didn’t care for as much, you order another. It’s not like you are stuck with a full meal of something you don’t like. We also enjoyed a nice glass of Rioja which paired well with the items we ordered. I agree with the review of the dessert dish – the chocolate was just not quite sweet enough.

I would encourage you to give Solera a try if you have not already. As for me, I will be back and will order Chorizo Stuffed Dates as my first tapas.

Happy eating!