Walkin' the Talk

BY CARLA WALDEMAR

"Hey, kids, let's put on a restaurant!" Proving that once in a while, show biz actually does mirror life, that vintage scenario from la-la land is just what happened. Couple of employees in high-profile dining rooms jumped ship (to snatch another metaphor), leaving the QE2s of the profession to float their own canoe.

Thus Town Talk Diner was born-well, reborn. The classic '40s diner on Lake Street had stood vacant for a couple of years. Tim Niver, who managed Aquavit, David Vlach, who'd chefed at places like Levain and the French Laundry, and Aaron Johnson, front-of-the-house at Cosmos, along with Tor Westgard, another kitchen pro, in a moment of bravado decided to come together to do their own thing: a super-casual (and super-cool, it turns out) café serving retro diner classics given an upmarket makeover, in a deliberately unpretentious setting. They scrapped their collective white tablecloths for Formica, and the Town Talk Diner immediately became the talk of the town.

Socialites from Edina come slumming; Charlie Boone and Roger Erickson were seated at the table next to me, chowing down on pulled pork and fried egg sandwiches (the best you ever ate, by the way-the pork shards perfumed with a smoky homemade barbecue sauce and the over-easies paired with cheese, bacon and ham); but it's mostly a young, hip, artsy crowd who hangs here, sipping the $4 (!) martinis, delivered with a silvery shaker, or the "adult" malts like the Monkey Business-chocolate, banana, peanut butter and bourbon. When my companion called for a reservation (sorry, they don't take any) and asked about a dress code, he was told, "If you wear a suit, people will stare."

Behind the classic façade, whose tiny light bulbs have spelled out "Town Talk" nigh onto forever, the long, slim diner counter calls. Pull up a stool for a bit of banter with the bartender and chefs while you eat, or wait (yes, you'll have to) for a table in the adjoining room the owners rehabbed, retro-style: exposed bricks, tin ceiling, lino tiles lining the floor and, alas, my only F on the report card, a din so overpowering you're forced to carry on conversations as if on a landing strip. Waiters, however, keep smiling-- service is swell.

So's the grub they deliver. (????)

You won't need a lexicon to decipher the menu; it's all familiar diner fare, gone uptown (and made in-house), such as the appetizers (more like sides). "Frickles" sound gawdawful, but I defy you to stop at just one. They're rounds of sweet pickles, lightly skimmed with a tempura batter and served with a honey-mustard sauce. Or the fried cheese curds, for heaven's sake-something I'd shun as an evil thing to do to food until I tasted this kitchen's version, made from Wisconsin's Carr Valley nuggets, skeined with a gravity-defying scallion-caper-beer batter and served with house-made ketchup, perky with smoke and vinegar-not even a distant relation to Heinz.

The fries are of equal merit, dammit, endowed with garlic and parsley; and don't get me started on the sourdough-battered onion rings. Already we're talking more fried food than I've had in months, but the redeeming virtue (other than being downright addictive) is that Vlach knows what he's doing-ergo, never greasy.

But, save room. There are burgers and dogs, there are sandwiches (did I mention the pulled pork?) worth crawling down Lake Street on your hands and knees. And there's breakfast fare: a tasty omelet and pancakes said to emerge from the original diner's recipe-untasted by yours truly, but not for long (all $6-10 range). Plus "regular" meals aplenty.

The menu's hearts of romaine salad hails Caesar by a humbler name. There's also a bounteous cold plate of beets, fingerling potatoes and apples in walnut vinaigrette. We succumbed to the lure of the evening special, however, with no regrets: baby field greens hosting a ménage of (get this!) tea-infused wild rice, full of snap and tossed with leaves of portobellos, toasted cashews and dried cherries and served with a pinwheel of lefse and brown sugar. (Well, Ingebretson's is just up the street.)

Next, I dove for the salmon, peony-pink and ultra-juicy, filigreed with bits of tomato and watercress for verve and texture, and sided with coins of fingerling potatoes tossed in bacon vinaigrette.Heaven on a plate.
As was a previous meal of chicken. (I never order chicken, but this one, yes!) The succulent bird, still juicy after its spin in the frying pan, nested atop braised greens in pecan brown butter, aside a square of sweet-potato bread pudding. That's what I call reinventing Sunday dinner.

My pal ordered the diner's signature double-cut pork chop-full-flavored and super-meaty, sent out with a topknot of chicory hash on a pond of mashed Yukon Golds (not a trendy lump to be seen, though-rather, prototypical diner-style), washed with a clingy cherry sauce. Good, but not the jackpot. Neither was the oversalted toss of shrimp. orzo pasta, kalamata olives and feta (entrees under $20).

Know what I want for dessert in a diner? Pie. But it isn't on the menu. Instead, we split a slim chocolate-hazelnut waffle-too crisp, too thin-served with chocolate sauce and Sebastian Joe's cherry chunk ice cream. Our waiter had tried to steer us to his fave, the "crispy" banana split (enrobed in a quick-fried wonton). Mea culpa; it would have been the better choice. Or, in touch with my inner child-on-substances, one of the wicked ice cream malts; or for that matter, one of the single-variety, such as McCallan, offered with a puny price tag-as is the wine, bless those boys. Interesting glasses starting at $3.65.

Tables were full on a Wednesday. "Looks like Saturday night," we said. "Every night's a Saturday night," they responded. I guess they're onto something.