Dara and DeRusha on The Belmore/New Skyway Lounge

Jason DeRusha and Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl are in agreement this week: The Belmore/New Skyway Lounge has a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad name. Also it's confusing and insider-y, and if you really want to know what it signifies, Dara breaks down its hipster/old-school Minneapolis origins for you, in a still kind-of convoluted history that involves the old Skyway Lounge (a strip joint) and the New French Bar (a shuttered café in the warehouse district where Belmore's chef, Doug Anderson, once was a regular).

But if you can manage to say the name five times fast and get past it, there's good food to be had, at an incredibly reasonable price point. Dara waxes poetic about the brunch blintz:

Holy frijoles. A home run, a knee-weakening triumph, an oh-my-God-tell-everyone-you-know moment. It's a big, sunny, eggy crepe topped with brandy-caramelized buttered bananas and a generous dollop of ricotta-cream, and every bite is just so eggy, buttery, rich, and yet, plain and humble, that you just want to go crazy because if anything this simple could be this good, then everything should be.

DeRusha also points out the atmosphere, saying that the room has a "wow factor": "It made me feel like I was in a super-cool restaurant in Seattle—the kind of place that isn't trying too hard, it just makes you feel comfortable." He also liked the bao bun and the pizza, but he said the Hong Kong noodle dish was salty enough that it was better left to the late-night, post-bar crowd. Both Grumdahl and DeRusha are pretty psyched to see the butterscotch pudding from Nick and Eddie (Anderson's former kitchen) resurfacing on the menu.

· Too Early Review: The Belmore/The New Skyway Lounge, Home of the Best Blintz In MN History [Dara]
· DeRusha Eats: The Belmore/New Skyway Lounge [TC Taste]

[Photo: The Belmore/New Skyway Lounge Facebook Page]