Food & Beer
LET'S EAT!
By Dan Greenwood
SOUTHERN MN STYLE Lola American Bistro owner Lacey Lueth.
OH, LOLA!
New Ulm restaurant, food truck feature eclectic menu Photos by Pat Christman
L
ola – An American Bistro, a popular restaurant serving breakfast and lunch in downtown New Ulm since 2009, has a menu that owner Lacey Leuth describes as eclectic. “One of my favorite things to do — it’s like a hobby — I love to go out and try new places to eat,” Lueth said. “The menu comes from having different things in different places. We twist it into our own version of whatever it was that I had.” There’s a coffee bar and homemade baked goods made
30 • JUNE 2021 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
fresh daily, along with entrees ranging from Italian fare — Lueth is a chef trained in Italian cuisine — to her own adaptations of Korean, Middle Eastern, Mexican and Vietnamese dishes. Banh mi, a sandwich inspired by French and Vietnamese influences and made from locally sourced pork, is one of her personal favorites. “We buy pork roast from a company outside of Sleepy Eye called Sleepy Bison Acres,” Lueth said. “We slow roast that and then we make a ginger
hoisin glaze that goes over it. We pickle our own carrots with rice wine vinegar — it gets topped with carrot, radish and onion. That gets a spicy Saigon sauce, cilantro, fresh cucumbers and we pickle our own jalapenos.” The chicken pot pie has been on the menu since the beginning, and the hot mess is also a hit among customers. Lueth compares it to poutine, an appetizer popularized in the Canadian province of Quebec that typically involves a large plate of french fries smothered in
