A weekend on the North Shore meant lots of food, lots of hiking and lots of wine. Our first stop was a favorite that we first went to last summer, the New Scenic Cafe. Eight miles north of Duluth, the Scenic relies on fresh, seasonal ingredients for their unique menu. Since there were four of us, we started with a few appetizers, including the tuna tacos, the curried mussels and the salmon plate.
Again the tacos were amazing. Just basic wonton wrappers formed into taco shells and filled with raw tuna and avocado. The sesame-soy sauce is drizzled over and they’re served with a peanut slaw. So delicious and simple.
The mussels were almost as good. The curry sauce they’re cooked in is just amazing and the mussels were the perfect size, not too big as to be creepy and not too small. The crunchy bread served with them was perfect for dipping into the leftover curry sauce.
The salmon, served with Bouirson and Apples, was good but just not as flashy as the tacos and mussels.
The special of the day was a Tuna Nicoise Salad, that three of us ordered. I went out on a limb and ordered the grouper, which was good, but a little rich for my palette. It was served with marscapone polenta, asparagus, lump crab and two sauces.
One was a cilantro butter sauce, the other a green chili sauce. And I think it was the sauces that made this dish for fantastic. The rest of it was really delicious, but like I said, rich. The tuna salad, on the other hand, was really beautiful and the tuna was perfectly prepared. And by that I mean the sear was really just a run through a warm room. The worst thing a chef can do to a beautiful piece of sushi-grade tuna is to cook it too much. This tuna was great.
Pretending we still had room for dessert, three of us ordered it. There was a berry-rhubarb pie which was “just mediocre” according the reviewer. A lemon pound cake with raspberry semi-freddo, which was “a little bland” and then my beautiful and really tasty key lime panna cotta with blueberries, which I have to say was heavenly. Light, but full of flavor.
The New Scenic has become a favorite spot. And we won’t visit Duluth without making a stop there. the service is excellent, the view of Lake Superior can’t be beat, and the food is just too darn good to miss it.
Up next? The Coho Cafe and Angry Trout. It’s a good think we did so much hiking.
what a wonderful dinner! i love long, leisurely meals with lots of courses. i am very jealous!
Well, you know my feelings on fish but I must say your pics look great and those deserts look scrumptious.
note to self: do not read jenn’s blog at 4:02pm….i think my stomach is trying to eat itself. soooo yummmy!
[...] Seafoods to get a gift card for a friend, and picked up some tuna for us. The Tuna Tacos from the New Scenic Cafe were still on my mind, and I thought it would be fun to try to recreate them. A quick stop at [...]
[...] tempura (good, not great) and raw salmon and avocado wonton tacos (excellent, but not as good as The New Scenic Cafe’s). We also ordered the Ahi Tuna starter (slightly disappointing and [...]