Iowa State Fair 2011

It was daunting. 16 fresh fruit pies waiting to be judged.

There could be only one winner. Joyce Larson of New Market in Taylor County. She picked her own berries, six kinds, plus some huckleberries she traded with a Washingto State relative. She used a lard crust. She used no tapioca or other binder yet it held together perfectly. Recipe below.

Seven score years ago, Walter Scott invented the diner to serve hot lunches to fellow employees at the Providence Journal. A Massachusetts manufacturer soon began fabricating rip-off diners and those brought hearty inexpensive meals to people who could not previously afford to eat in restaurants. During the Depression such diners introduced America to blue plate specials, 24 hour breakfasts, corned beef hash, hot beef sandwiches and chicken & noodles. Seventy years ago, Edward Hopper began painting “Nighthawks” in an immediate reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. That iconic painting, of disconnected people trapped in a diner without doors, came to represent post modern urban angst. Hollywood manufacturers soon began fabricating “Nighthawks” rip-offs. Those turned the concept of the diner into an outpost of non conformity for angst driven teenagers (“American Graffiti”), gamblers (“Diner”), drug addicts (“Man with the Golden Arm”), criminals (“Natural Born Killers”), spies (“The End of Violence”), salesmen (“Glengarry Glen Ross”), and desperate divorcees (“Bagdad Café”).

Another seventy years later numerologists are predicting a drastic shift in diner culture.

I began looking in the past, at Susie-Q diner in Mason City, Iowa’s last standing Valentine diner, a Depression era prefab model that dominated the Great Plains states. Susie-Q recently began serving into the evening but I was the only customer on my recent visit. “I don’t think people know yet we’re serving dinner,“ said the cook, who also told me how OSHA had forced her employer to fire her a few months short of her pension. Signs advertised the owner’s magic business and touted the “Spic & Span” pork tenderloin.

It had a very greasy, very thick batter that is more common in Minnesota than Iowa. It would take an act of magic to get me to eat another.

Two new cafés in the northwest suburbs better suggest the futures of diner culture. Both are in zip codes that abhor post modern urban despair and ambrace family values and bargain dining. Both occupy corner locations in suburban strip malls, with lots of natural light and happy vibes. Both were immaculate and offered friendly table service, a suburban antidote to fast food culture. Cindy’s (Barnes) Corner Cafe replaced a similar café in Deerfield Crossing late last year and serves breakfast and lunch daily. On my visits business was brisk, with meetings in a private room and mostly families and groups of senior citizens meeting in the main room.

Short order grill work is featured and breakfasts delivered hearty orders of biscuits and gravy, eggs & shredded hash browns, etc. Marvelously fluffy pancakes are the breakfast star though. Coffee did not impress this coffee snob.

A hamburger disappointed with drab meat but the bun was nicely toasted and buttered. A chicken & noodles special was good enough to draw me back again, with lush gravy and home made mashed potatoes.

The coffee was much better at Cozy Cafe, which serves Grounds for Celebration products in the Tuscany Center in Urbandale. This new era diner offers drive-through, which was constantly busy during my visits, three meals a day, and pizza, a very rare diner food. Both the hand breaded tenderloin and onion rings offered far more meat and less grease than Susie-Q’s. Cinnamon rolls were frosted with cream cheese. Pizza was tavern style, with thin sturdy crusts that had lackluster flavor.

“Cavatelli” were not cavatelli but a mix of different pasta, Highland Park style, with rich red gravy and lots of cheese. Burgers tasted less prefabricated here but “home made” pies tasted of prefab fillings.

Hot beef sandwiches were the epitome of that famous blue plate special – good gravy and mashed potatoes with divinely tender pot roast of beef.

Homemade pies had canned fruit flavors.

Bottom line – The suburban era of dinerdom seems cleaner, friendlier and more service oriented than old stereo types. Old fashioned blue plate specials though are still the strongest suits at these places.

Cindy’s Corner Café

2731 100^th St. Urbandale, 868-0200

Mon. – Sat. 6 a.m. – 1:30 p.m., Sun. 8 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Cozy Café

3855 121st St., Urbandale, 278-8899

Mon. – Fri. 6 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sat. 7 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sun. 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The Second Coming

Cochin chickens were first exported from China in the middle of the 19^th century. That breed’s giant size, magnificent feathers and calm disposition set off a chicken breeding mania in the US and Great Britain. Chicken livestock shows became big entertainment and investors speculated wildly in new breeds. After the craze ended in the early 20^th century, thousands of breeds were consolidated to about a dozen.

At her Fox Hollow Farm near Elkhart, Tai Johnson-Spratt pointed at a Cochin who was strutting in a pen with a dozen other breeds of chicken, plus multiple breeds of ducks, turkeys, quail and peacocks.

“He’s on the endangered watch list now, ” she sighed.

Johnson-Spratt shares history with the Cochin. In her previous career, she owned a giftware company in southern China.

“At that time, the last place I could have ever pictured myself was on a little poultry farm in Iowa,” she admitted.

About eight years ago, the Chinese government muscled in on her business and decades of sky diving took a toil on her body.

“I was recuperating from back surgery and I figured I needed a hobby for exercise. I bought some chickens and noticed how freakish the industrial broiler chickens were. I call them ‘white fatties,” they can’t even walk normally. That’s when I fell in love with all these beautiful endangered species,” she explained.

Today Johnson-Spratt raises a wildly colorful array of chickens, ducks, quail, geese, peacocks and turkeys. Most of the 30 or so different breeds she keeps at any one time are on watch lists for endangered status.

Johnson-Spratt launched Fox Hollow six years ago, selling eggs at the Ankeny Farmers Market.

“Things immediately blew up,” she recalled referring to the emergence of a new type of consumer who rejected industrial eggs and poultry because of concerns about animal welfare, biodiversity and personal health. Last year, Johnson-Spratt sold six tons of turkey in Iowa and fed her birds ate nine tons of vegetarian feed and flax seed every two weeks, in addition to the bugs and grass they scavenged.

She tends her flock maternally. Her menagerie sees no cages, ingests no antibiotics, and roams freely about her pastured paddocks and roomy shelters. Egg laying hens work just two years and then are moved to a “retirement home.” Her English Mastiff was adopted to protect the birds but his fear of turkeys made him a giant house pet.

During the recent heat wave, she fed her chickens a diet of frozen watermelon but Johnson-Spratt’s biggest problems are keeping water unfrozen in winter, segregating antisocial geese, and stopping large turkeys from collapsing the roofs of hoop houses.

Her peacocks’ biggest problem is fanning out their tail feathers without being pecked on the butt by sneaky chickens.

Most of Fox Hollow’s free ranged heritage birds have darkly colored meat, deep flavors, and thin skins that crisp marvelously. Last year, its turkeys, ducks and heritage chickens (particularly Poulet Rouge) became so popular with top chefs that Iowa restaurants virtually cornered the market. This year Johnson-Spratt hopes to produce enough birds to sell them regularly at the Downtown Des Moines Farmers Market.

Either way, she’s establishing a second craze in poultry breeds.

Where to Buy

Restaurants serving heritage breed poultry include: Bistro Montage, Centro, Django, Sbrocco, and Christopher’s in Des Moines; Devotay in Iowa City; and Lincoln Café in Mount Vernon. Fox Hollow eggs and poultry are retailed at Wheatfield Market in Ames and Gateway Market in Des Moines.

American cocktail culture is reviving. It’s the subject of a major museum exhibition this summer at Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art. It’s even got a museum of its own now in New Orleans.

Cocktail culture might well be the most versatile invention of American ingenuity. Look how Will Rogers applied it to predict this year’s Arab Spring uprising:

“One revolution is like one cocktail, it just gets you organized for the next.”

Business guru Peter Drucker found it the source of the greatest lost ideas:

“The really important things are said over cocktails and are never done.”

Cocktail culture inspired great moments in the arts, like Billy Strayhorn’s jazz classic “Lush Life,” and William Powell’s ode to the art of bartending in the “The Thin Man.”

“The important thing is the rhythm. Always have rhythm in your shaking. Now, a Manhattan you shake to a foxtrot. A Bronx, to two-step time. A dry martini you always shake to waltz time.” a tuxedo clad Powell implores with the most sophisticated accent of his generation.

Cocktail culture’s most instructive metaphor though is that of mixing. Historically it facilitated the mixing of genders and races as well as liquids. Before WWI, men drank straight liquor in the company of other men in saloons. After Prohibition in 1919, men went to drink in the company of sartorially splendid women in elegant homes and illegal speakeasies. And races mixed as easily as bitters and gin in the jazz clubs of that era. After Prohibition’s repeal in 1933, women emerged from the speakeasy wearing liberating dresses by Givenchy, Chanel and Dior and crystal necklaces by Swarovski, a la Garbo. They also then carried the right to vote in the hand that did not hold a cocktail.

Cocktail Culture in DSM

Americana Restaurant opened in May professing to “revive the swagger of cocktail culture.” Such lofty expectations are met in its locale, in an historic old Chrysler dealership building across the street from the Pappajohn Sculpture Park. Dan Hunt’s restoration respects the historic trappings (tiled floors, pressed metal ceilings, industrial railings) while adding minimalist spectacle – symmetrical staircases emphasize the bar and lead to veiled semi private nooks in the large balcony.

The kitchen is run by rising star chef Mike Holman (The Café). Long time Chip’s chef Javier Guzman adds impressive depth as a sous. A “contemporary classics” menu includes new twists for old fashioned comforts. Creamy “mac & cheese” employed cavatappi and chevre. Eggs benedict included duck confit and was served on polenta cakes. Chicken livers were southern fried in corn meal. Deviled eggs were stuffed with chorizo. The menu mixed those with some of the popular hits from contemporary casual dining. Thai style short ribs were paired with sweet potato puree sweetened with maple syrup. A banh mi style sandwich mixed chicken livers with pork shoulder and was served on an Italian style bun.

Chicken curry eschewed all spices usually associated with the word curry. A $34 cold smoked porterhouse steak, inappropriately named “big ass,” overdosed on cheese accompaniments with blue cheese mousse and smoked cheddar mashed potatoes. Barely warm scallop beignets left me dreaming about Alba’s.

Some things were most impressive.

Shrimp tempura, honestly named, were the best I’ve had in awhile.

An adorable smoked salmon parfait was inventive with capers and mayo instead of creamed cheese. Little things like pico de gallo were exquisitely fresh. The eggs benedict variation worked well.

Cream of garlic soup was addictive.

Seared artichoke hearts were perfectly restrained with just herbed garlic butter and smoked paprika. A weekend brunch delivered great value and invention for $15.

Burger and the cheesy mashed potato prescriptions irked a la Bobby Dupea (“Five Easy Pieces”).

So did the absence of ingredients described on the menu. Romaine and field greens are not a “micro greens.” Sliced tomato is not “smoked.” Clear gin is not pink gin.

Ironically, the bartending arts came up short of kitchen levels. William Powell, and the bartenders at cocktail culture strongholds like Trostel’s Dish and 801 Steak & Chop House, would be appalled to see martinis shaken just three or four times, drinks layered incorrectly and topped with final mixers before any resting period.

“Fresh squeezed” citrus consistently tasted other than fresh. Twists and wedges were sliced too thinly to allow any fresh fruit to be squeezed. Nine dollar cocktails demand more attention. Even $6 draft beers, served in stemware that measured far less than a pint, also seemed pricey.

Americana has added a Happy Hour with reduced prices since this was written.

Bottom line – Americana is a charming new addition to the Western Gateway but Trostel’s Dish, 801 Steak & Chop House and Continental remain the epitome of cocktail culture in Des Moines.

Americana

1312 Locust St., 283-1312

Mon. – Thurs. 11 a.m. – 11 p.m., Fri. 11 a.m. – 2 a.m., Sat. 10 a.m. – 2 a.m., Sun. 10 a.m. – 11 p.m.

When chasing stories, food writers have limited food choices. A recent week began for me with a launch party for “Gluten-Free Made Simple” a cookbook using “easy to find ingredients” for celiac sufferers. Visitors were encouraged to try everything on two long buffet tables.

Banana bread and quinoa tabouleh were superb by any standards but most items tasted like they needed the textures that gluten provides.

I spent the rest of that week at World Pork Expo (WPE) looking for the state of the art of Iowa’s most popular protein. Exhibitors packed two large fairgrounds buildings plus the grounds between them promoting antibiotics, antiviral meds, vaccines,

manure treatment services,

manure spreaders, statistical surveys, carbon footprint deducing software, patented alternative foods (to corn), pig incinerators, slats, slurries, domes,

nozzles, nipples, ionizers, air filters, and enzymes.

No exhibitor seemed to be selling boar stud services. This city boy learned the pork business from Rogers & Hammerstein’s “State Fair.” In that mid 20^th century musical, Abel Frake seeks a blue ribbon and a resulting fortune in stud fees for his top boar. Pig sex isn‘t like that anymore.

Junior livestock contestants showed boars but they told me they just hoped to “break even” if they won, and that “the big money is in AI” (artificial insemination). With a comely pitchwoman passing out Hello Kitty candy, Marubeni seemed to draw the biggest crowds among AI dealers.

Other exhibitors lured visitors with a varied industry of giveaways. Cozies, notebooks, hand bags, and Chap Stick were popular. So were raffles for computers, college football tickets and guns.

Pizza cutters, thermoses and Twist Sticks were more upscale gifts. The latter are “fade resistant paints” for marking hog hides. A cynical female exhibitor explained that they were also popular “with men who think their women need branding.” Free bottled water was branded with strange labels like “Nuflor Type B, an antibiotic medicated feed for swine.” I didn’t drink any.

Farmers said this year’s big issue was the price of corn, the favorite food of industrial hogs. It’s now so expensive that exhibitors were hawking enzymes that could “fatten pigs on a third less feed.” GIPSA (pronounced “gips’ ya”) and the Korean Free Trade Agreement (FTA) were also top concerns. Pork people complained that GIPSA’s new rules were being “written by a poultry rights lawyer who lost every case he ever tried.” They said that pork has little in common with poultry, or beef, but GIPSA regulates them together. Some complained the Korean FTA was written by the Bush Administration and shelved by Obama’s, to extract “more concessions for steelworker and autoworker unions.”

Many hospitality tents served catered pork from top local smokehouses like Jethro’s, Smokey D’s, and Lynch’s. Ribs, pulled shoulders, sausages and

brined loins were all good and plentiful.

Smokey D’s created an excellent pork “maid rite” for the event. However, one tent “invented” a new recipe for Smokey D’s ribs, which won the largest BBQ competition in history dry smoked. The recipe added a concoction of ketchup, molasses, soy sauce, etc. that covered up the flavor of pork’s greatest hit.

Salty “brat burgers” from Johnsonville were another strange idea. Pairings were as unvaried as an industrial hog‘s diet. I never found a single green item all week, unless you count cole slaw. Pork was invariably served with baked beans, beef, potato salads, chips, and lots of desserts.

By the end of the week I was dreaming about medicine cups of quinoa tabouleh.

I drove to Splash where chef Dom Iannarelli has been using a divine new combination of international greens grown by Cleverley Farms. It included waido, a.k.a. “the new arugula.” Splash’s oyster bar was packed with familiar faces from WPE – refugees looking for antidotes for pork overload.

Side Dishes

Nicholas Ritz announced he was about to open the long awaited Capital Pub & Hot Dog Co. near E 6^th St. and MLK… Zombie Burger’s opening has been pushed back to the end of August, or September.

Splash

303 Locust, 244-5686

Mon. – Fri. 11 a.m. – 2 p.m., Mon. – Sat. 4:30 p.m. – 10 p.m.

In the 20^th century most Des Moines restaurateurs worked their way up slowly through the business, from dishwashing and bussing to cooking and hosting. The most industrious then opened their own places after decades of apprenticeship. That process has accelerated in the new millennium. Young entrepreneurs have been opening their own places with far less experience than in previous generations. Rosa Martinez opened La Rosa after a few years catering and wholesaling her homemade products. Jesus Ojeda of El Chisme added some time in top kitchen’s (Le Francais, Centro) to that plan. After a brief stint at Lucca, Carly Groben opened two cafés, Proof and Flour, with years left in her 20’s. Tony Lemmo parlayed a Metro Market stall into Café di Scala, Frank’s and Gusto at a similar age. Then there’s Simon Goheen who jumped directly from a part time high school job to becoming owner of Simon’s (previously J Benjamin’s) while still in his teens. This younger generation is either top heavy with prodigies, or impatience. Either way it’s producing grand dining opportunities for the rest of us.

Kris Van Tuyl joins the under 30 owners club with a new, hedged business model. The 28 year old sharpened his knives and wits at BOS and Le Jardin before becoming the original executive chef for Occasions, the upscale catering company launched here as a prototype for the Maid Rite chain. In May Van Tuyl opened Luna Bistro + Catering in the historic Northland Building. His plan is to serve lunch to the public and to cater evening events. He upgraded furniture and kitchen equipment and added some local art to the venue’s previous incarnation as Molly’s Deli. Air conditioning upgrades were needed during a recent hot spell and Van Tuyl said they are next in line. Complimentary pitchers of herb and fruit flavored ice waters compensated.

Luna’s menu sensibly fit on a single page. Van Tuyl described it as “transcontinental” and stressed that most things are genuinely scratch made, an exception being breads that were all bought from La Mie.

His duck confit tarts were a marvelous ($5) bargain appetizer with warm duck on a brioche with onions cooked in Cabernet Sauvignon and cool chevre, topped with freshly dressed mesclun and bacon. A Greek yogurt plate was served with blue agave nectar, fruit and Brie.

A house soup featured a rich home made chicken stock, with scratch spaetzles and slices of sweet Italian sausage. Salads used fresh greens from Cleverley Farms, the local benchmark, plus fruits, meats, cheeses, etc. Dressings stuck pretty much with good vinaigrettes.

Porchetta sandwiches delivered juicy pork loin, warmed in chicken stock, open faced on grilled ciabatta with braised fennel and puttanesca, a whorishly spicy sauce of tomato, garlic, chilies, anchovies, and capers that had been sautéed in olive oil. Hanger steak sandwiches were also served fresh from the frying pan, rare warm slices on ciabatta, with grilled green onions and arugula in lemon parley oil.

A multi flavored pan sauce made with prawns, baby tomatoes, and spinach accented marvelously complex homemade gnocchi.

Chicken and scratch made parparadelle, in a thyme and mirepoix infused stock, provided a soupy take on chicken and noodles.

Pork cheek tacos provided tender braised meat

but their “cucumber” relish was missing crunch, giving the dish a singular texture.

Both tiramisu crepes, stuffed with crème fraiche,

and peach and plum crisp with ginger ice cream, provided cooling final touches to lunches that are best enjoyed leisurely.

Bottom line – Luna is a marvelous new addition to both East Village and the young restaurateurs club.

Luna Bistro

621 Des Moines, St., 288-9849

Mon. – Fri. 11 a.m. – 3 p.m., Sat. 11 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Side Dishes

Rumors of the month: Worried about flood recovery, Cedar Rapids restaurateurs are planning to invade Des Moines… Copa Cabana will morph back into Ingersoll Theater, with consolidated ownership… Fourth Street Italian Beef will rename itself Fattie’s and expand.

Gateway to “Something Else”

Travel writer buddies recently told me about their media trip to Altoona and Newton. Their favorite attraction was Uncle Buck’s. Admitting that I’d never been there, they urged me to go. “It’s something else, guaranteed to blow your mind,” one said. Figuring I had little left to lose, I headed to the Bass Pro Shop, gateway to Uncle Buck‘s. The restaurant is part of a “living museum of Iowa’s hunting, fishing, camping and other outdoor legacies” that covers the 145,000 square feet.

That’s three football fields filled with 3,500 area artifacts, antiques, pictures, mounts and memorabilia. Many were “museum quality” including wildlife taxidermy in natural settings overlooking a 30,000 gallon fresh water aquarium stocked with 400 local fish varieties and fed by a multi-story waterfall. I am not making this up.

Like a red neck version of yin yang, the place balanced the genuine with the ersatz. Life sized synthetic oak trees also punctuated the layout and a two-story old ‘Western lodge hotel’ perched over the Customer Service counter. My walkabout revealed some unusual retail options including a full boat store with four service bays. I found nine different flavors of suet, each supposedly developed to appeal to specific birds.

Cardinals apparently prefer hot chilies in their beef fat and songbirds like apple dough. I found Moon Pies, an iconic junk food of the American South, designed in super sizes to pair with RC Cola, the original super sized soft drink, as the “coal miner lunch.” To keep super sizing cool, the store sold 32 ounce travel mugs too.

The place is a gateway experience for children. A NASCAR simulator was modeled after the Iowa Speedway. Nine flavors of shredded jerky were packaged like chewing tobacco. If you want your youngsters to develop a habit for handling weapons, a shooting range only costs fifty cents. Its laser arcade had 55 targets, themed as a farm taken over by critters in need of killing. An archery arcade offered the real thing.

According to sculptures outside the restaurant, Uncle Buck is a dirty old man chasing mermaids. His restaurant provided an ambiance of world class kitsch.

Considerable “taxidermy” hung from ceilings and jutted from walls. It was not museum quality, nor was the “sunken ship” that served as a roof to the bar. A strange soundtrack of golden oldies and Disneyfied rap played loudly while disco lights reflected madly. Twelve glow-in-the-dark bowling lanes surrounded the elevated bar. Dock wood lanes featured balls coughing up through the mouths of sea turtles, sharks and stingrays, which also glowed in the dark. The bar included its own 750 gallon aquarium and fronted a billiards parlor endorsed by Jeannette Lee. The latter had the trappings of an old fashioned men’s club – dark wood paneling, mullioned glass, and a fireplace – but the distracting music was just as loud there.

Two of three men at the bar were wearing visors with Guy Fieri wigs attached. They were chasing shots with beer while their guns were being fitted with new scopes. Booze and guns under the same roof? Is this Iowa, or heaven?

Food also mixed the authentic with the ersatz. A Bloody Mary was served with shrimp hanging on a glass rim.

Burgers included processed cheeses and flavorless, preformed patties.

Clam chowder had a roux so pasty it stuck to my spoon.

Walleye however were some of the best fried fish anywhere and generously portioned.

Doughnut holes presented deep fried, cinnamon flavored dough balls with two extremely sweet sauces for dunking.

Bottom Line – The ultimate restaurant for Attention Deficit Disorders, Uncle Buck’s is a Vegas-class gateway experience to “something else.”

Uncle Buck’s

Sun. -Thurs. 11 a.m. – 10 p.m., Fri. – Sat. 11 a.m. – 1 a.m. Kitchen closes at 11 p.m.

July 16, Des Moines

Carrots, long beans, green beans, beets, sweet corn and Asian style greens (Cleverley Farms Elegance mix***) are peaking. Good radishes still around at Asian farmer stalls.

Uncle Wendell’s is baking treats with top locally grown foods: Berry Patch berries in tarts, muffins, etc., beets in chocolate beet bread, soy beans in soy nut tarts. But those giant cinnamon rolls are still the main attraction for most folks.

Mezzodi’s is a derivative restaurant. Its name is slang for “Il Mezzogiorno” which is itself a colloquialism for “Italia meridionale.” All of which translate as southern Italy, the ancestral homeland of most Italians who settled in Des Moines and dominated the restaurant business here before and after World War II. Il mezzodi is also often used a metaphor for “family” and the need to protect family roots. In the classic film “Rocco & His Brothers,” Rocco allows his brother to rape the apple of Rocco’s eye, in a strange concession to preserving the family. In Des Moines, Mezzodi’s restaurant derives its style from the amalgamation of two restaurant families with roots in southern Italy.

Ron and his brother B.J. Giudecessi opened Mezzodi’s eleven years ago to expand their family’s Christopher’s brand. Their parents, Joe and Red Giudecessi, began in the 1950’s with Rose’s Café, which soon became the heart and soul of legendary police officer Jack Beardsley’s infamous eastside beat. In the 1960’s, Christopher’s introduced Des Moines to the concepts of ladies’ nights and barroom burgers while parlaying Joe’s family sauce recipe into one of the state’s best Italian restaurants. Their pan fried chicken became a “border to border” legend, touted over WHO radio by Jim Zabel. Strange bookeeping practices took the restaurant down and even jeopardized Christopher’s. BJ is no longer a part of the family business. This year the family sold Mezzodi’s to an in law of BJ, who turned over management to Orchestrate. That company entrusted creative decisions to George Formaro who has in the last decade and a half parlayed his South Union Bakery into Centro, Django, Gateway Market and Zombie Burger. One takes a lot of history and expectation on a visit to the new Mezzodi’s.

Recent visits suggested that Orchestrate has done little to add or detract from the Giudecessi’s vision. The Modernist dining room, designed by John Sayles at the height of his ballyhooed career, still sparkled with some of the best inlaid woodwork that master craftsman Robert Cooper ever did. Half moon booths, mosaic floors, wine rack décor, Rat Pack music, and stained glass partitions still place the venue nostalgically in an era vague enough to make both Flo Ziegfeld and the cast of “Mad Men” comfortable.

Formaro put talented Gateway chef Tom McKern in charge of the kitchen and packed the menu with most of the old school Giudecessi legends. Conspicuously absent though were pan fried chicken (which never made it to Mezzodi’s), fricos, and deservedly famous prime rib. Other former items had been tweaked. Boursin mushrooms were served in oddly different shapes and sizes, some of which couldn’t fit in the accompanying bowl of melted garlic butter. Chicken alla Fiorentina had been renamed chicken Florentine and was covered with alfredo and spinach sauce, rather than roasted red pepper sauce. Piccata, Marsala, Saltimbocca and Parmesan dishes were all being made with chicken, not veal as in decades past. Steak de Burgo was still made in creamy style. Gorgonzola could still be found in everything from salads to steak sauces and polenta.

New things compensated for the missing. I found a fabulous panko crusted pork tenderloin, over half an inch thick, twice as wide as its bun and served with a ramekin of banana peppers.

Roasted garlic vinaigrette was as good as salad dressings get. Chicken diavolo introduced chile butter to the pasta menu. Ravioli were once again hand made, though mine were undercooked and doughy.

Chicago style roast beef sandwiches included excellent jus. All breads were from South Union.

Service was casual. Sometimes salads and entrees arrived simultaneously. Once a host was dressed in sandals, shorts and a T shirt. Another time bread was never offered. Most of time though, things went smoothly.

Bottom line – Like a family restaurant taken over by in-laws, Mezzodi’s synthesizes its identity from the clash of old and new.

Side Dishes

Des Moines greeting card company Good For You (sold at Tandem Brick) honors the late bartender Richard Herring by quoting him on its trucks. In the 1970’s, Herring introduced cynical bartending to Des Moines at the Rusty Scupper. Living past him now is his line “You’re not living on the edge. You’re just taking up too much space.”

Beyond Words

With a thousand restaurants in the metro, names are the first tools that diners use to reduce their choices. Bad names suggest things contrary to imagining good food. The failed Pelican Club referred to an obscure line the movie Scarface. Is anyone wondering why Mike Tyson’s (kosher delis) didn‘t make it? Good names brag a little. George the Chili King and Tursi’s Latin King are two of the oldest joints in town. Great names suggest more romantic times or places. Lucca and Alba both refer to Italian cities off the tourist path, making them far more conceptual than specific. They work because those cafés provide architectural spaces that seem to be from another time or place. So, what does one make of Haiku, a new sushi café named for a poetic form? It’s not a new idea. There’s a Michelin starred restaurant in England named Ode and an international luxury hotel chain named Sonnet. It also holds up metaphorically. Both haiku and sushi are characterized by concision and by “kiru” which translates as “cutting.”

That got this writer in the door and I liked what I saw. Two bars lined two walls backlit by brilliant blue lighting. Such backlit paneling usually reveals dark shadows and bright spots but this place avoided that with unusual expert craft. Furniture was both handsome and comfortable, a rare combo among local Asian cafes. Unobtrusive alternative music added chic to a clubby atmosphere where inexpensive martinis employ both the exotics of bubble tea with western standards.

Waitresses said that fresh and freshly frozen fish are delivered on Mondays and Thursdays, which is consistent with most sushi operations in town. I visited twice on Friday afternoons (when I reckon chefs have exhausted their old inventory and are using fish as fresh as they have in Des Moines) exclusively for raw fish.

Both visits delivered nothing but product that glistened like only fresh or freshly thawed fish can.

Ten piece sashimi platters (chef’s choice) differed significantly one week to the next but never suggested leftovers. The fish on these platters as fresh as anything I ordered a la carte off the sushi menu: White tuna, mackerel, striped bass, red tuna, salmon, yellowtail and fluke all pleased. So did cooked sushi items like eel, octopus, squid, red clam and shrimp.

Slightly grilled hamachi kama (yellowtail cheeks) delivered excellent meat but the first time I ordered them here they came smothered in a cloyingly sweet sauce, reminiscent of 1000 island dressing, that should never touch such divine fish. Nearly 40 specialty rolls allow diners to combine all kinds of things, from cream cheese to mango and dumplings, with their fish, seaweed and rice.

On a Sunday night visit I tried ordering strictly from the non-sushi menu.

A squid salad included included lackluster squid and soggy seaweed.

Tom yum soup was generous with seafood but strangely light on flavor. Together those items reminded me how well Taste of Thai makes them.

Haiku’s salmon skin salad was much better mixing flavors nicely with crisp smoked skins, cuke sticks, good mesclun, green onion rings, and a dressing that was salty and sour as well as sweet.

Entrees missed their mark.

A beef udon dish, beautifully presented with multiple kinds of sesame seeds, was noodle heavy with just five slices of bell pepper, two slices of mushroom and precious little, but tender beef. Its sauce tasted like Chinese brown gravy. A black bean chicken dish, advertised as coming with peppers and onions and black bean sauce, came instead with broccoli, snow peas, mushrooms and the same brown gravy as the udon. A waitress explained that the chef thinks that customers won’t eat black bean sauce so he sends this out instead.

An order of “shrimp tempura” delivered two shrimp, both “furai” rather than tempura, and lots more unadvertised broccoli and sweet potatoes, which were tempura.

An order of deep fried oysters delivered just three oysters, with a bed of mesclun and side of sweet sauce.

Fried bananas were quite good.

Bottom line – Haiku is smartly named and presented good sushi. Words should mean as much on its deceptive entrée menu.

Haiku

1315 31^st St., (30^th and Carpenter) 277-8704

Mon. – Thurs. 11 a.m. – 10:30 p.m., Fri. – Sat. 11 a.m. – 11 p.m., Sun. noon – 9:30 p.m.