The hunt for late night happy hours

Elizabeth:

I've always loved the concept of happy hour, but when you work in the suburbs it's tough to take advantage of the downtown happy hours very often. That's why I've decided that my new focus is going to be finding the best LATE NIGHT happy hour in the Twin Cities.

Late night happy hour. What a great idea! And I'm not talking about late night drink specials on First Ave. I'm talking about the pairing of yummy appetizers with interesting drinks and cheap, good wine from some of the area's finer restaurants. It's still a concept that is catching on, but I lately discovered that Saffron (across the street from the popular 112 eatery) is one of the early adopters. Other early adopters include Azia, Temple Bar, and Dakota Jazz Club.

Eric and I had tickets to the theater on Friday. When the show starts at 7pm on a Friday, it doesn't leave much time for a romantic pre-show meal. So Eric decided we would make it a Seagull sandwich - sandwich our trip to the Seagull with visits to a couple different happy hour spots.

First on the list: Spill the Wine. http://www.spillthewinerestaurant.com/

I've been to Spill the Wine a few times and this visit lasted only 30 minutes. Rather than go into a detailed review, I'll focus on the key happy hour highlights. But I will say that I've been impressed with the dinners I've had the past few times I've visited. And the cheese plate is incredible.

Spill the Wine happy hour highlights:

• 4pm-7pm Mon-Friday. I wish more places extended happy hours to 7pm.
• $15 bottles of wine. There are typically 4 white options and 4 red options, and the best part is that you can cork the bottle and take it with you if you don't have time to enjoy the whole bottle.
• $3 draft beers.
• $5 appetizer choices. I think these may change each week, but last night the options were bruschetta or fried calamari. We chose the bruschetta and it was delicious! Pieces of tomato and mozzarela marinated in balsamic vinegar, served over a piece of grilled bread that had an olive tapenade on it. The dish was drizzled with an amazing balsamic vinegar reduction and a light pesto sauce. Overall, I wish they had more options on the happy hour appetizer menu, but since we were there for such a short time it was okay.

Rating: 2 tines for the happy hour. Dinner rating TBD.

The Seagull was excellent - and Ian McKellan had an old man afro! 3 hours 20 minutes later, we're back in the car and heading to our next happy hour spot: Saffron. http://www.saffronmpls.com/

Saffron late night happy hour highlights (they also have an earlier happy hour):

• 11pm - 1am on Fridays and Saturdays
• $5 glasses of wine. 4 to 5 options for red and white, plus a couple sparkling options. Bartender is super friendly and let me try the wine before he poured me a glass. Love when bartenders do that.
• I think they have other drink specials / beer specials, but I can't remember. Eric's favorite on the cocktail menu was the Harissa Mary. The bartender claimed this drink was his proudest accomplishment on the menu. Think bloody mary to the middle eastern extreme - they puree tomatoes with spicy red peppers, garlic, harissa, and other spices to make a bloody mary mix with great flavor and heat, but not too overpowering. Again the bartender poured a sample for us. Eric thought it was delicious, but thought he might enjoy it more over pasta as opposed to an entire pint glass of it with vodka.
• $3.50 happy hour appetizers! This is the best part of Saffron's late night happy hour. There were six choices: fried eggs with caramelized onions and sweet potato (served with harissa aioli), kofta meatballs (lamb and beef), pomme frites, charmoula burgers (mini burgers marinated in charmoula - a spice blend made from 22 different spices), lamb BLT, and vegetable & rice croquettes. We selected 4 of the six. Overall, we liked all four of our choices but the Lamb BLT was the most distinctive. House cured lamb bacon served on toasted challah with a pesto aioli. YUM. The eggs were suprisingly flavorful and perfectly cooked sunny side up with a soft yolk. The onions and sweet potatoes were cooked in right on top of the white. We had high hopes for the charmoula burgers and the meat was good but we couldn't really taste the complexity of the 22 spices. Kofta meatballs with a harissa jam (can you tell this place loves harissa?) were tasty, as well. For $3.50, this is the best late night food I've found in the T.C.

Rating: 2.5 tines for the late night happy hour. Dinner rating TBD.

My search for late night happy hour spots continues...will keep you posted on what I find!

Chris comments on 12/14/07:
I was reminded of this post when I recently learned that the new Red Stag Supper Club is apparently open until 2AM, seven days a week. No details yet, but they supposedly have a "late night" menu which may or may not also include drink specials. I know that the late night menu at Barbette (also a Kim Bartmann establishment) has some great $5 appetizers -- mussels, oysters, frites, cheeses, etc. -- so I'm hopeful for Red Stag's as well!

We will have to try it and report back.