Roast Excellent

It's Southern, argued one group of bikers—the menu is a typical meat-and-three combo, but we don't know why it's got all those Mexican accents. It's not Mexican, said the other group, it's traditional South American, like that place in Uptown, with the Peruvian rotisserie chicken, but we don't know why it's got all those Southern vegetables, like collard greens. I thought of busting in on their conversation to clarify, like the film director in that scene in Annie Hall, but I figured I'd let it play out, and so spent an ungodly amount of time fussing over sugar packets, digging through my purse, and generally trying to make it look like I was not merely eavesdropping.

The only problem with the place, one customer went on, was that it was very expensive. No it wasn't, countered another—if you tried to cook the same things using ingredients from the Wedge it would cost you far more in food alone, never mind the work of cooking. But, said another, you could get the same thing from Boston Market at half the price! At this point, I stopped being self-satisfied with my eavesdropping, and began to wonder what would happen if this conversation went any further: If they mentioned that Brasa has beer and wine, functions brilliantly as a takeout, and is the brainchild of James Beard-nominated Restaurant Alma chef Alex Roberts, would my entire reason for existing on this planet be nullified, and would I just vanish in a puff of smoke? I silently reminded the good Lord that I had much work left undone (much of it laundry, but still), and thus the bikers were guided to other topics, allowing me to continue my earthly progress. Phew!

Happily, that progress soon returned me to Brasa, the greatest thing to happen to Minnesota takeout since the invention of those little handy-wipe packets—several of which are tucked into a cup on every table at Brasa. For those of you reading this hoping to learn that Brasa is just Restaurant Alma—one of the city's preeminent white-tablecloth, farm-driven restaurants—on a budget, take those handy-wipe packets as your warning shot: Brasa is something else entirely. And I think it's actually something newer and more revolutionary than it appears at first glance.

At first it seems, like those bikers noticed, a little Southern, a little Latin American, a little Boston Market. Brasa serves two meats and twelve sides. The meats? Rotisserie chicken and slow-roasted pork. The chicken is amply spiced, cooked on a traditional rotisserie until it's well browned, and served with a handful of lemon slices just when the skin is crisp and russety. It tastes like good, plain, roasty, delicious, homemade chicken. Nothing more and, importantly in a world of sodium-and-vegetable-oil-injected chickens, nothing less. (The chicken is available alone, priced at $5 for a quarter-chicken, $7.50 for a half, or $14 for a whole; and in various combination plates, like the half-chicken with two sides and coleslaw for $13.50.) The pork is even better: Berkshire pork shoulder is well seasoned and then slow roasted until parts are crispy, crackling, and salty, while other bits are soft as cheese—it's so scrumptious, savory, and comforting that you could eat it by the pound. If you do, it costs $14 a pound, though it's also available, like the chicken, in various combination plates, including a small roast pork with coleslaw and two sides for $11, and a large roast-pork plate for $13.50. A combo plate of both pork and chicken runs $14, with coleslaw and two sides.

Now, please know that these dozen sides are not to be underestimated. Brasa's cabbage salad, for instance, is, if not the best coleslaw in the state, a front-runner: White cabbage is sliced paper-thin, coated with a light, lemony vinaigrette, and tossed with fresh flat-leaf parsley and mint, creating the purest, most buoyant, cleanest-tasting coleslaw ever—it's the sashimi of coleslaws. The marinated chickpea and barley salad is another gem: For this, chick peas and barley are combined with micro-diced carrots and fresh thyme in a peppery vinaigrette that makes the healthy beans taste as robust and devourable as Cheetos.