February 1, 2011

• Ringing in the New and El Blue

  If the food business is a harbinger of general economic vitality then the new year is going to rock. 2010 expired in a flurry of openings, expansions and innovations that resembled the “irrational exuberance” of the dot com days more than the “stagnant growth” of our current daze. Hardly a day went by last month when some reader did not inform us about something new and exciting on the local scene.

  El Blue Burrito seems like an eastside version of El Rey, with a similar shopping center location, menu and late night hours. El Blue is a true “have it your way” tacqueria serving tacos, burritos and tortas to order, plus salads, seafood, grilled chickens and steaks. Curiously, they do not serve blue (corn) tortillas.

  

  Centro chef George Formaro told me El Blue has the best tripas in town. Mine were offal good – tender and flavorful.

  

  A golden milanesa de carne (chicken fried steak) was served on buttered bun with grilled jalapenos, melted Provolone, avocado and fresh tomato. Tongue was quite tender and pastor was cooked LA style, on a rotisserie stacked with pineapples and onions. A “Hawaiian” option added even more pineapple plus red and yellow peppers.

  

  Ceviche tostadas were served with so much marinade they became too soggy to pick up.

  When Mondo’s opened a West Des Moines restaurant a decade ago, they advertised fresh hand cut fries. At that time, I could only find two other places in town that were frying fresh, rather than frozen, potatoes. Industrial processing had conquered the spud. The last decade brought potatoes back to the future.

  

  Now even the Iowa Methodist Medical Plaza’s Atrium (one of the best bargain lunch spots in town) is making excellent freshly fried potato chips, once a week. They usually are cooked and bagged on Tuesdays and are almost always sold out by Thursdays. Mine have not been prepared the same way from one week to another. One batch was slightly seasoned and the next week’s were almost too salty to eat.

  One reader wrote: “What’s up with Dahl’s? All of a sudden, every employee in the store wants to be best friends. If Dahl’s wants to copy Hy-Vee, they should to add convenient entrances, rather than chatting up their customers.” A visit to the Ingersoll Dahl’s indeed revealed a new friendliness that seemed right out of the Hy-Vee playbook. Only one entrance, at a far end of the parking lot, was for customers‘ use. Another was just for employees and a third for “emergency.” Speaking of Hy-Vee, they recently introduced a new line of breads that combine stone baking with steam ovens to produce a soft crumb with a crisper crust. French and focaccia loaves both delivered textures about half way between an artisan European style bread (South Union, La Mie) and a traditional supermarket bakery loaf.

  Elsewhere on the supermarket scene, Saigon Market was busy stacking it shelves last week and “hoping to be open by New Years.” A peak inside the slick new store at MLK at Euclid suggested it will be Des Moines’ most comprehensive Asian market. Also on MLK, Gateway Market scored shipments of the three of the hottest cheeses in the world: Uplands Cheese’s Rush Creek Reserve (featured in the New York Times as a holiday treasure) is a smooth, mild, aged cheese wrapped in spruce bark; James Montgomery is a third generation artisan cheese maker in Somerset, England. His sharp cheddars are made from unpasteurized milk of Friesan cows that roam a hill that King Arthur allegedly defended from the Saxon hordes; Capriole’s O’Banon (American Cheese Society’s top cheese of 2009) is a goat milk cheese aged in chestnut leaves soaked in Woodford Reserve Bourbon. That’s a take on a legendary cheese of Provence that is illegal to export from France, with whiskey substituting for Eau de Vie (brandies made from various fruit juices). If you have any bubbly left, it’s been called “the ultimate champagne cheese.”

  El Blue Burrito

  1434 Des Moines St., 265-8660

  Mon. – Thurs. 11 a.m. – 10 p.m. Fri. – Sat. 11 a.m. – 3 a.m.

  • 5:41 pm
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