The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

Related Content

The convention center was predictably packed for the Food and Wine show this weekend. I managed to skulk through the aisles and saw some good stuff:

Top Bite: the Hope Creamery salted butter on a cracker. One simply beautiful, creamy bit of elegance.

Thousand Hills cooked up some crazy-good grass-fed beef hotdogs and burgers. You can seriously taste a light, grassy flavor and the amount of omega-3's are out of this world. This might be the easiest way to introduce grass-fed to your fam.

A few smart ladies have formed the Droolin Moose which puts some kicky packaging with snackabe snacks. The malted milk boulders are huge and thickly triple dipped in really good, secret recipe chocolate. Their website won't be up until March 3rd, but they do have a retail outlet.

Barebecue, bbq, whatever you want to call it ... was everwhere! Two standouts: Willingham's dressed some shredded pork with a kicky sauce and Big Jake's gave me a stingingly good meatball bathed in their bold sauce.

Sipping chocolate is all the rage, but Legacy Chocolate's Mayan Experience was the best ... dark and sweetly earthy, with a slightly spicy burn on the back end.

The restaurant booths were mobbed...Fhima's new Zahtar had a throng waiting for their Moroccan stew ... Common Roots had a creamy, wonderful cheese spread for bagel chips ... always dig the beef jerky from Dixie's ... nice little tuna roll from Midori's Floating World ... Vescio's has the most welcoming, homiest red sauce around.