Travail Kitchen and Amusements

In sleepy little downtown Robbinsdale, one eatery keeps visitors' eyes wide open. Grab a tall chair and pull up to a weathered wood table, now look up: the menu is a giant blackboard hanging over your head. In the open kitchen, cooks sporting colorful bandannas are busy foaming, spraying, dripping, steaming and roasting ingredients within an inch of their former life. You may not recognize the pink foam on your salad, it used to be a beet. And that candied shard of glass on your dessert? An orange slice, or was it a lemon?

Travail lives up to its name, it is, in fact, amusing. But don't let the craziness on a plate fool you, these guys are dead serious about their food. This is molecular gastronomy at its best, where fresh, thoughtfully chosen ingredients are the stars, with bells and whistles thrown in for kicks and giggles.

All the cooks serve and all the servers cook, meaning that on our lunch time visit, we were treated to dining advice by one of the two owners. For starters, he recommended the prosciutto wrapped figs, swimming in a shallow pool of blue cheese sauce. They were chewy, sweet, salty, and creamy, all in one tiny bite. Lovely.

For my lunch, I blindly and willingly followed his instructions and ordered the home-made tofu, which was absolutely delightful. The tofu was fluffy and speckled with green herbs, bright and bursting with fresh flavor. A basil truffle oil drizzle and crisp wedges of various citrus gems completed the dish.

My friend ordered the ubiquitous beet salad, presented in a Mondrian-esque form complete with aforementioned pink foam. Cubes, twirls, and disks of varied colors of beets danced on a white plate, and where it lacked a bit in flavor, the dish made up for in sheer fun. And the fun was just beginning.

For dessert, we chose to splurge (not that it's that much of a splurge at only $9) on the Dessert Tasting. We expected a token bite of each dessert, but what showed up were three complete plates. Can I get a whoot whoot?

Pictures speak a thousand words, or so claimed some writer who ran out of adjectives, so I will follow suit and show, not tell, about the enchanting ending to our lunch:

Flan, oatmeal "cookie", apricots, apples and a tiny berry compote.

Cherry sorbet, chocolate cherry bomb cake, and coconut cream. 

Pineapple slices, slivers, rolls and juice, served along side popcorn, and get this: Popcorn ice cream! It tasted like butter, so yes, it was amazing. Oh yeah, there were also cashews, blueberries (both fresh and dried) and cashew brittle. Whew. 

Facebook Page

Travail Kitchen and Amusements