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

The end is nigh - and so is a new beginning. I've had a good time blogging for Secrets of the City, and its predecessor, The Rake, but the time has come for me to move on. Starting sometime next week - check back here for details - I'm going to start blogging for the Twin Cities Daily Planet, and  also re-launch my website/social network for foodies, TCFoodies.com.

I called Raghavan Iyer to find out about his new restaurant project, OM, scheduled to open in late May or early June in the former Nate's clothing store in the Minneapolis Warehouse district, but first he wanted to tell me about his cookbook, 660 Curries: The New York Times, NPR, Boston Globe and Food and Wine have all named it as one of the b

If I hadn't gone last month to Kim Ode's Edesia Cookbook Review group I would never have found out about Nina Wong's upcoming Hot Pot dinner at the ChinDian Cafe.

If I had been thinking, I probably would have asked my mother-in-law to please pack me a lunch for the flight to Tampa. Elmarie usually has some homemade meatballs in the freezer, and she makes terrific kolaches and the world's best potato salad. But I didn't think of it, and so we left the farm yesterday morning for the airport with about 150 miles of road ahead of us, and not a place between Protivin, Iowa and MSP where you can pick up a decent box lunch - at least not on a Sunday morning.

I finally had a chance to stop by for lunch at the Seward Co-op at 2823 E. Franklin, just down the street from its original location. It's bigger and better and a lot shinier than its predecessor, and most important, it has an expanded deli section, with more salad bar and hot food selections than before.

Wow. What's a restaurant like you doing in a place like Chanhassen? It's almost a rule of gastronomy that you can't find great ethnic restaurants in far-flung exurbs, so I was a bit skeptical about reader Dave B.'s assertion that he preferred the Szechuan cuisine at Tian Jin in Chanhassen above Little Szechuan in St. Paul, or the Tea House in Plymouth. (Dave asked me to not use his last name, because most of his friends don't know that he is a closet foodie, and he wants to keep it that way.)

I went out last night to check out Mort's Deli in Golden Valley. It's nice to see an independent restaurant like Mort's open up in the midst of suburban strip-mall-and-chain-restaurant hell, because independent restaurants tend to have a little more character and personality than the chains. Not to mention better food.

The menu for the second seating last Monday was considerably more elaborate than the first.

For the 4:30 seating, diners were served chicken Alfredo, vegetable soup, fresh fruit and cookies.

Okay, we resolved on our trip to Singapore that once we got back home, we would finally face up to our new economic circumstances and start dining out less and eating more peanut butter sandwiches - if we can find peanut butter that is safe to eat. Except there is one tradition that we are not going to let go of, which is our annual Valentine's Day dinner at the Atlas Grill, 200 S. 6th St., Minneapolis, where Carol and I had our wedding reception and dinner.