Last Sunday Colleen and I finally got a chance to visit the Amsterdam Bar and Hall in downtown Saint Paul. The last time we were in that space, I believe it was still Fhima’s. We’ve never been to the Oulman family’s other place in Northeast (331 Club), but I’ve wanted to go to Amsterdam to try the award-winning fries for a long time. I ordered the oorlog – a small boat of frites smothered with onion, peanut satay, mayo & honey sambaal for $5. Not really my kind of fries, unfortunately…

The real reason for the visit, though, was to raise money for Todd Stenson and his brain tumor treatment. I don’t know Todd, but he has a lot of friends that cross paths with my food and music interests (and turns out several other people too – hi Dan!). Tilia chef Steven Brown arranged for several other chefs in town to cater and/or donate raffle and silent auction items and the organizers were able to get a lot of great musicians to perform as well.

On the food side, Russell Klein from Meritage was serving oysters, Lenny Russo from Heartland had meat trays and Diane Yang from La Belle Vie and Heyday sent desserts (I know I’m missing a few others – check out this Dara story for more details). We stood by the food table for the first part of the evening and tried sample after sample – so good!

On the music side, there were multiple 30-40 minute sets by Chris Koza, Lucy Michelle, Dan Wilson, Adam Levy, John Munson and Matt Wilson (with a few songs with Dan) and the 22-year reunion of the Picadors, whose lead singer Chris Lynch is married to one of Colleen’s friends. The layout of the event had reserved tables for most of the performance side of the venue, so it was a little tough for the general admission people to get close to the stage. All those tables were sold out before I heard about it – maybe next time.

Donations are still being collected for Todd and his wife Heather at this site.