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Best Of MN: Corned Beef & Cabbage

WHITE BEAR LAKE, Minn. (WCCO) -- The best place for corned beef and cabbage in Minnesota?

WCCO viewers picked Manitou Station in White Bear Lake, an Irish pub that's only three years old.

"We went to 52 pubs over a week's time and out of all those pubs we saw one that really stuck out to us, took a bunch of pictures of it, and to the best of our abilities, did a recreation of it," Jake McKeague said.

That pub is Garvey's Bar in Galway, Ireland. And with the interior set, McKeague and his business partners fit the menu to match.

"It didn't start off like that, but when we feature things like the scotch eggs, the fish pie, the shepard's pie, our beef and Guinness stew, our customers really gravitated toward it," McKeague said.

Of course, corned beef and cabbage is the belle of the ball.

But the truth is this dish isn't all that common on the Emerald Isle. It's an Irish-American creation.

In the 1800s Irish immigrants to the United States tweaked their traditional bacon and cabbage, by substituting a more affordable and available meat -- corned beef.

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