Dining Diary: Don’t miss Woodbury’s new Italian restaurant, and Dark Horse is back in Lowertown

It was a typical busy summer weekend for me But less typical especially lately was that I attended soft openings for two east metro restaurants Dare I say things are looking up in the restaurant world Dark Horse Bar Eatery The Dark Horse Burger at Dark Horse Bar Eatery in St Paul Jess Fleming Pioneer Press I really loved this West Seventh bar and was so sad to lose its adorable urban patio and at ease atmosphere when it closed this winter Happily the owners of Can Can Wonderland and St Paul Brewing have teamed with chef Shane Oporto and his fianc e Sarah McDonough to bring Dark Horse back from the dead Oporto who was the chef de cuisine when La Belle Vie closed and helmed the kitchen at Octo Fish Bar in Lowertown also developed the excellent burger at DeGidio s on West Seventh The new menu is full of great bar food lots of bar snacks pizza and sandwiches including a burger and the excellent lobster roll that was on the Octo menu McDonough is a front-of-the-house maven whose the bulk up-to-date position was general manager at Can Can Wonderland The pair met while Oporto was working at La Belle Vie The space has been brightened a bit and particular funky gold booths and a gorgeous mural added But it has kept its vibe and a great number of of the previous tall wooden booths We started our meal with specific elote shishito peppers which are your basic fried shishitos tossed with Tajin spice crumbly cotija cheese and cilantro In a brilliant move the elote sauce which tends to make things messy is offered as a dipping sauce so that you can still comfortably pick up the peppers by the stem and eat them as God intended no fork required We ate a lot of pizza at the previous iteration of Dark Horse so it only felt right to get one here The crust is an airy Neapolitan style and it s excellent We ordered the Paisano which is topped with a generous amount of house-made sausage pepperoni and spicy Calabrian peppers Wondrous Punch at Dark Horse Bar Eatery in St Paul's Lowertown Jess Fleming Pioneer Press And yes we did order the burger It is a Very Serious Burger Oporto and his crew are grinding brisket sirloin and chuck fresh every day It s a smash burger so it has those crispy edges but it s still incredibly juicy And the cheese It s a slow-melted combo of Taleggio and two-year Vermont cheddar that envelops the patty in the very best way There are caramelized onions for a little sweetness and tasty burger sauce all on a pillowy brioche bun It was worth every calorie The cocktails here are excellent too If you were ever a patron of the Red Dragon you should order the Wondrous Punch which comes with a surprise mini order of cream-cheese wontons The punch tastes very close to the Red Dragon version but in an upscale way I also adored my Spanish G T made with Skaalven yuzu gin and house-made tonic As I narrated Oporto I ll be back Often You should go too It s open to the general now for dinner Tuesday-Sunday and lunch and dinner on the weekends Dark Horse Bar Eatery E Seventh St St Paul - - darkhorsestp com Liliana You could argue that the Twin Cities does not need another Italian restaurant But in the affair of Liliana the new Woodbury restaurant from the people behind St Paul s Estelle you would be wrong I attended a soft open for this crisp clean yet cozy restaurant this weekend and I brought along various picky eaters my adult children to put it to a true test Liliana s chef Kenzie Edinger previously worked as the chef de cuisine at Mucci s in St Paul and at Saint Dinette before its closure so she knows her way around pasta all of which is being made in-house There s a window into the kitchen so you can see chefs extruding the dough while you re dining My kids weren t leaving without garlic bread which in the hands of pastry chef Nok Piyamaporn is far beyond the usual Italian bread slathered in garlic butter This airy milk bread is sliced into triangles kissed with garlic butter and tangy cream cheese then showered in salty grana padano cheese I got exactly one small wedge before the kids devoured the rest it was a good sign of things to come The crew should apply for a State Fair booth and serve nothing but the sausage-stuffed deep-fried olives here which make for a lovely beginning snack The kids didn t want any but hey more for us And the pickiest eater of the bunch didn t know that the tonnato sauce on the broccolini had tuna in it and ate several stalks anyway Who could blame her It was delicious We all ordered pastas for our main subject After watching them come out of the kitchen there really was no other choice Mafaldine at Liliana in Woodbury Jess Fleming Pioneer Press I ordered the mafaldine pasta which is long and thin like papardelle but has fancy curly edges to soak up the bright pomodoro sauce Those noodles are topped with three giant spicy meatballs given their kick and slight smokiness by guajillo peppers I ended up taking more than half of it home so if you re not a fan of leftovers you might want to split it with a friend My daughter went with the rotolo which are pasta roll-ups stuffed with spinach and mozzarella floating in a puddle of slightly spicy arrabiata sauce She was a fan and I have a new idea for family dinners My husband s occhi ricotta-stuffed pasta was super flavorful The jalapeno pesto it s bathed in transports the dish from ho-hum to oh yum And a fresh corn salsa makes it feel like summer My son a picky yet adventurous eater yes you can be both went for the farfalle which we didn t realize would be stuffed He was a fan though of the lobster and pork filling and the creamy fonduta given a touch of sweetness by calvados French brandy I would have called it a day after all the pasta but the offspring have sweet tooths so we ordered the tiramisu and the carrot cake and both were out-of-this-world delicious The house-made ladyfingers in the tiramisu were doused with just the right amount of coffee and the feuilletine crispy crepe flakes added the perfect crunch to the light whipped mascarpone Carrot cake is my husband s favorite dessert and it s a minefield of realizable mistakes cake too dry frosting too sweet underbaking too much spice the list goes on Thankfully Piyamaporn s version which employs brown butter and miso to add a savory touch suffers from none of the above My husband announced it was the best he s had and that is a true compliment Liliana City Walk Drive Woodbury - - lilianamn com Related Articles In an East Side bar new Pop and Son Grill serves loaded potatoes and Soul Food Sundays Recipes Make these tasty dinners on a single rimmed baking sheet Downtown St Paul Afro Deli moves across street Pino s Pizzeria to take its place These flavor-packed pork burgers were inspired by Indian street food Gretchen s table Spicy chicken thigh with mint yogurt sauce revels in warm spices