October 5, 2012

  • Crème Cupcakes & Dessert Bar



    If any new trend is upon us, it’s an era of stand alone dessert shops. One restaurant equipment sales rep recently said he’s never seen anything like the fro-yo (frozen yogurt ) craze that opened in the metro last year and has been pacing at nearly one new shop a month. A new fro-yo just opened on the 2300 block of Ingersoll Blvd. and another one is working toward opening on the 2100 block of the same street. That sales rep explained that the rapid expansion is encouraged by price markups that exceed anything else in the industry. One wonders how long prices can stay high with so much competition for a market handicapped by its climate half the year. And how long will people pay gelato prices for a cheaper product that really isn’t any healthier when it’s covered with toppings full of empty calories?  

    It’s not just fro-yo though. I wrote earlier this year about a new candy and soft drink store in Valley West Mall and also about the cupcake craze. I found that much of the explosion of “stores” in that latter category were just websites that took orders and delivered. Notable exceptions were Bake Shoppe, Carefree Patisserie and Crème Cupcake, which moved and expanded last month.  

    In just two years Christine Moffatt grew Crème from a moonlighting sideline to a new 36 seat venue just off Ingersoll. Cupcakes are still her focus though her menu recently advertised pies and tarts, whole or by the piece. I have yet to see any on display though and have been told they are now “for pre-order only.” Moffat’s cupcakes are built with quality controls. She says their key ingredient is high fat butter which she uses exclusively instead of oil. She believes that good cake uses vanilla paste, not just extract, and that frostings should be made with cream and butter – never any water. 

    “You don’t want the greasy after taste that shortenings like Crisco leave. And don’t put so much sugar in the frosting that you can’t taste the flavors,” she adds.  About a dozen flavors ($3) were offered on a rotating basis. A selection of the equally impressive Topped Doughnuts were also displayed. Those are delivered from a rather new shop in Ankeny that we raved about a year ago. 

    After 5:30 each afternoon, Crème also brings something new to town – a desert bar. It’s run by Jess Dunn, who learned her trade from David Baruthio (Baru66). Cocktail pairings are designed by Blake Brown, recently of Americana.  



    Savory thyme honey cheesecake ($9) was served with fresh fruit marmalade and blended creamy quark with thyme and honey for a bitter sweet flavor. The suggested pairing of a Bloody Mary ($8), made with fresh juiced tomatoes and spiced rum as well as the usual culprits, expanded the flavor profile considerably. 



    An Irish “whisky” caramel mousse ($10) was topped with Bailey’s flavored whipped cream and accented with crunchy honeycomb and caramel drizzle. It was simply delightful, except for insulting Irish customers with the Scottish spelling of whiskey. A 151 proof rum with coffee, Kahlua and heavy cream ($8) was the most complementary suggested pairing I tried. 


    My favorite dessert was a classic Pavlova ($9) – lavender meringue baked and served with lemon cream and fresh berries. It’s suggested pairing was from a universe with denser gravity, bringing cherries, peaches, balsamic simple, and bitter herbs to a dark vodka party ($10) where the guests of honor were light and sprite. 



    An almond flourless torte ($10) delivered ganache-like chocolate that melted in the mouth. Fried cake balls presented three different flavors along with a dip.  

    Crème Cupcake 
    543 28th St., 554-9007
    Tues. – Thurs. 7 a.m. – 10 p.m., Fri. – Sat. 7 a.m. – midnight 
     
    Side Dishes 

    Dos Rios introduced an infused drink – The Bertrand Special – to honor State Senator Rick Bertrand who added the wording about infusing spirits to a larger bill which finally made the practice legal in Iowa.    
     

  • The American Bar & Grill – Endangered



    The bar & grill is an all American institution doused with romantic lore. Long before fern bars, sports bars and brew pubs were invented, neighborhood bars with short order grills were where mid 20th century writers like Raymond Chandler, Nelson Algren and Studs Terkle hung their hats and mastered the art of the short sentence. Robert Sherwood invented film noir in one. O. Henry found character inspirations in others. These days the term has been hijacked by big restaurants with full kitchens (Splash Seafood Bar & Grill) and even by giant chains (Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar), as if the term alone creates a cozier, more Cheers-like ambiance. Noir songwriter Tom Waits once advised his audience to beware of any place that spelled “grill“ with an “e” on the end. 

    Today most authentic bar & grills in Iowa don’t even call themselves that. In many Iowa small towns, bars simply added grills after the town lost its last café. Now they often represent the only prepared food option to convenience stores. In the Des Moines metro, no other restaurant genre has such peculiar demographics. Our east side is loaded with wonderful, old fashioned bar & grills – East 14th Street Pub, Gerri’s Tavern, Norwood Inn, Main Gate Bar & Grill, East 25th St. Pub, and Kelly’s Little Nipper among them. Many of those open early for breakfast and all produce some excellent scratch cooking. The south side has its share too, including Club 2000, and Orlondo’s on Park. The ironically named Highland Park Country Club has been feeding excellent short order food to the north side for decades. In the western parts of the metro, the only bar & grills where one can imagine Raymond Chandler hanging out are Eastern Europeans joints like Kula, Estrada’s and Euro Bar. 

    One long time exception was Giff Wagner’s. That place was a sweet hearted, surrogate day care center where retirees hung out with the grand kids of working moms. Loyal customers turned out regularly for inexpensive specials like $8 rib eye dinners, and $1.25 tacos. Wagner’s death last December was mourned like the end of an era. 

    Since then, the place has been remodeled and renamed G. Mig’s Fifth Street Pub. New wooden floors and furniture have polished the place without much altering the floor plan nor any of the ubiquitous TV screens. Wagner’s famous country western jukebox had been silenced on my visits. The menu also suggested that the place has been gentrified. There’s still a $10 steak night but the cheap tacos have been replaced with $8 nachos and quesadillas. It’s hard to imagine a “blood orange olive oil and raspberry balsamic vinegar” salad dressing ever showing up on Giff’s menu. Same thing with “crab” salad sandwiches although the ones I tried were made with chewy, salty surimi (artificial crab), not crab. Other sandwich options included pastrami, prime rib burgers, beef gyros, buffalo chicken wraps, and chicken breast. Pizza were quite thick and doughy with undercooked crust.



    Grill work at breakfast (weekends only) was much better. In fact, the short order cooks were so efficient and rhythmic that just watching them work was a joy. Migsie’s burrito ($6) was loaded with three eggs, chorizo, hash browns, avocado, cheese and poblanos. 



    It was served with chipotle aioli, sour cream and excellent freshly made pico de gallo. A traditional breakfast ($5) delivered perfectly cooked eggs and crispy hash browns with good, thick cut bacon and excellent toast. Gentrification did not cover tableware. Knives, forks, spoons and plates were disposable plastic. 

    G. Mig’s
    128 Fifth St., West Des Moines, 255-4550
    Kitchen hours Sat. – Sun. 8 a.m. – 3 p.m.,  Tues. – Fri. 11 a.m. – 2 p.m., Sun. – Wed. 5 p.m. – 8 p.m., Thurs. – Sat. 5 p.m. – 9 p.m. 

  • New Jimmy’s Draws Huge Crowds

     In a 1980’s comic strip from Jeff MacNelly’s “Shoe,” newspaper columnist Cosmo Fishhawk explained an existential injustice to his nephew. 
     
    “Life is like sports Skyler. 
    “How‘s that Uncle Cosmo?”
    “No beer sales after the seventh inning.” 
    Recent visits to Jimmy’s Big Ten Restaurant & Bar suggest that things have changed. Sports bars now provide the same opportunity that stadiums do for true fans to collectively share the agonies and ecstasies that follow each odd bounce of a ball. However, there are two main differences. Sports bars have no cover charges nor any time limits on alcohol sales. Because of the latter, both agonies and ecstasies tend to become considerably exaggerated. I’ve seen enough weeping and heard enough high volume chanting to wonder why no photojournalist has yet published a coffee table book about sports bars in America.  
    In Des Moines, the sports bar genus has been around long enough to have subdivided into different species. The “Big Ten” part of Jimmy’s name indicates that Iowa games are preferred to Iowa State games on most of the joint’s 32 high def televisions. In oxymoronic sports logic, that’s because Iowa is part of the twelve team Big Ten whereas Iowa State is in the ten team Big 12. Jimmy’s specializes, it doesn’t even bother with satellite baseball programming or EPL soccer, even though the restaurant promotes a breakfast buffet (free with purchase of an endless Bloody Mary) during hours when it’s the only live sport being broadcast.  On occasions when no Big Ten game was on TV, loud disco dominated.
     Jiimmy’s is pulling crowds back to Eighth Street that resemble those the legendary Jimmy’s American Café drew in its heyday. On a recent Saturday, its large parking lot was filled, as were those of a paint store to its south, doctors’ offices to its north, and an unoccupied restaurant north of that. A small “Help Wanted” sign looked desperate and frightened. Every part of each room, patio and porch was elbow to elbow SRO.  
    The men behind this booming success are unlikely restaurateurs. Jimmy is octogenarian Jim “The Shoe Man” Flynn, a novice to this business. Partner Clay Cook is owner of The Front Row where $9 steak nights, party buses to games, and free breakfasts have attracted Hawkeye fans for years. After a brief stint as owner of Foxboro Grill (predecessor to Mojo’s), he swore he‘d never run a restaurant again. 
    Fans of food and sport are glad he changed his mind. Considering the crowds, service was very good on my visits. Mistakes were made (overcooked tuna) but were quickly corrected and compensated. Some things were very good by any standards – thin crust pizza with good Mozzarella, ceviche made with mahi mahi, Vegas style jumbo shrimp cocktails, perfectly cooked prime rib dinners with steamed cabbage, peas and carrots, plus real au jus and horseradish sauce. A $5 burger and an $8 open faced ribeye sandwich, served with fresh, sautéed mushrooms and caramelized onions stood out among sandwiches. Owners and waiters checked on tables and fixed problems like old pros. Flynn even bussed tables.
    Fans didn’t seem too agonized by a recent Iowa loss to Iowa State. That’s either because of good food or diminished expectations for their team. I’d like to think it’s the former. 
    Jimmy’s Big Ten Restaurant & Bar 
    1238 Eighth St., West Des Moines, 457-2953
    Kitchen hours 11 a.m. – 11 p.m. 
    Side Dishes 
    Architect/bar owner Kirk Blunck is expanding the brand of his historic Locust Tap. This spring Locust Tap Too will open in the Stuart Hotel in Stuart. Other Locust Taps will debut later in the Tall Corn Hotel in Marshalltown and the Hotel Charitone in Charition. Blunck is restoring all three hotels… Top chefs are on the move. Tyrone Collier is switching from Kirkwood Lounge to Baru66, Taoufik Essiadi has returned to Lucca after seven years in Montreal and Mike Holman is no longer with Tartine.  

September 12, 2012

  • The Giuseppe, #fakevegan & the mother of all wine clubs

     the Django dog 

    Reader tips took me around the metro last week checking out a tavern legend, a super sized wine dinner and cynicism. Let’s start with the latter matter. Chef George Formaro hosted a forum at his Django restaurant to address anonymous social media attacks against him for: 1.) his experiments with vegan diets; and 2.) Django’s use of foie gras. Facebook and Twitter users have apparently revived dormant account names to post derogatory messages and Photoshopped pictures superimposing Formaro’s face on the bodies of people torturing animals. He was also dubbed with the hash tag “fakevegan.”

    Ironically, Formaro has never claimed to be a vegan and has probably provided the most comprehensive vegan-friendly menus of any fine dining restaurants in town at Django, Centro and Gateway Market Café.  He even carries multiple vegan wines. (To keep wines from becoming cloudy, wine makers “fine” them with animal products such as bone, shrimp shells, egg whites and dried fish bladders. Vegan wines substitute things like carbon, limestone and clay.) Formaro also provided a Power Point presentation of photos he made from La Belle Farms, his foie gras provider and one he believes raises ducks more humanely than others. They are never caged, nor fed hormones or vaccines. Their feeding tubes appeared considerably less intrusive than others that have been distributed in media. Formaro served vegan grinders. 



    Some attendees ordered Django dogs and 



    Rossini burgers, both of which include foie gras. I don’t recommend pairing them with the vegan grinders. 


    Tip #2 took me to the East 14th St. Tavern where an extra large parking lot included a motorcycle-only section, multiple grills and a smoker. Inside the walls and ceilings were completely covered with signs and witticisms. A surprising number of home made items were prepared in a relatively small kitchen. Servings were big too. The smallest burgers included a third of pound of beef. Tenderloins overlapped their buns. Graziano’s sausage sandwiches and grinders were the opposite of vegan. Tacos were so large they would be illegal in New York City. All pizza were homemade. An appetizer menu included most of the industry’s best sellers. $10 steak dinners feature every Tuesday night and nearly every item on the menu is steeply discounted at least once a week.
     


    I visited though for a legendary sandwich that is offered only once a month (on first Tuesdays) and only until it sells out. I got the last one this month at 1 p.m. The Giusepppe’s reputation is well deserved. It’s made with equal parts of capicola, mortadella, garlic sausage, Provolone, Swiss and roasted peppers on a grilled piece of South Union foccacia. 

    Tip #3 took me to a West Lakes’ Hy-Vee Club dinner. These regular events are too big for even the largest Hy-Vee in the metro. They pack folks into the Spring Hill Suites. 148 showed up for a dinner with wines from Edna Valley, a small appellation in San Luis Obispo County that is endowed with a dramatically cool microclimate. My $30 dinner included eight glasses of wines, some of which are normally only sold at the winery. Chef Alex Strauss paired each with a dish including: crab cake with a corn soup shooter; 



    shrimp skewers with fried rice; 



    pan-seared salmon in pinot noir reduction with cous cous; 



    pork loin with shitakes reduced in Cabernet with polenta; a cheese course that included a blue mousse and an aged chevre from Midnight Moon; 



    and a chocolate tart with cherry sauce. Attendees who could drive to the supermarket after dinner could buy sampled bottles at deep discounts. Their next such event is August 1-2. Make reservations at the store. 

    East 14th St. Tavern 
    3418 East 14th St., 266-3446
    Mon. – Fri. 8 a.m. – 2 a.m., Sat. 10 a.m. – 2 a.m., Sun. 11 a.m. – 2 a.m.

September 5, 2012

  • New dining bargains



    In the last few years, a little café at 38th & Douglas transformed from a gyros joint into a soul food café, then into the city’s first Burmese café. All were quite good but none lasted long. New banners recently announced the opening of an Italian place. No sign identified it but its menu called it Olive Branch. My visits revealed one big improvement – the air conditioning kept pace with even 100 degree temperatures, in earlier incarnations it could not. Faux stained glass had been resourcefully employed over lighting fixtures and in windows to bend and soften light waves that have seemed all too harsh this summer. 

    Prices were also rather comforting. Five dollar sandwiches included: several half pound burgers, meatballs, Italian sausage, pork tenderloins, mesquite grilled chicken breast, eggplant, and fried cod. All were served on Kaiser rolls or hoagie buns and most included cheese. Of dinner options, only lamb chops ($17), sirloin $11), and a ten ounce steak de Burgo ($14) topped $10. 



    A seven ounce de Burgo ($10) delivered a decent version of Des Moines’ classic dish. Tenderloin of beef, seared and cooked rare, sat atop a garlic, butter and olive oil pool with herbs next to three florets of broccoli. That dinner also included garlic bread, a salad of nicely chilled greens, fresh tomato, onions and radishes in an excellent home made vinaigrette, plus a side of starch. 



    I chose “baby red potatoes” which turned out to be a whole sliced Russet served in what appeared to be de Burgo sauce minus the herbs. Appetizers included grilled shrimp, saganaki and excellent home made onion rings. Children’s meals also cost just $5, and desserts just $3. 

    Dahl’s recently bought a Southern Pride smoker for each of their area stores. These state of the art units have temperature controls, self lighting, and rotisseries to free employees from paying close attention. They use gas and fireplace sized logs that produce a decent approximation of pure wood pits. I tried chicken twice recently during introductory sales when they averaged a $1 per piece for whole birds. One time the chicken was excellent, a second time even dark meat was terribly dry and over cooked. 

    I suspected that the latter batch had been sitting too long in the deli steam table where the chicken was sold. Employees told me that they start taking birds out their smokers at 11 a.m. and that the last batch comes out around 4 p.m. Until they figure a better way to preserve their product between the smoker and sales, I plan on only buying it early.  

    Carly Groben is back, sort of anyway. The talented young, chef/owner of Proof and Flour sold both those places and did some traveling this year. Now she’s serving lunch at Jasper Winery on Saturdays. (She has a “no compete agreement” with Proof making other days off limits.) I visited on her inaugural day. A bridal shower overwhelmed the main dining room so the winery set up tables in a room with fermentation tanks and bottling machines, like many California wineries do. 



    Tables were covered with black linen and freshly picked zinnias graced their tops. 

    I enjoyed two of the best sandwiches and salads of the summer. 



    Meatloaf was served on home made dill bun with two strips of excellent bacon, roasted garlic, a sun dried tomato pâte and fresh herbs. 



    Spicy tuna salad included craisins, celery and chilies on a homemade brioche. 

     
    A quinoa salad combined that ancient grain with toasted sunflower seeds, Swiss chard, sweet basil, carrots, peppers, red cabbage, red onions and zucchinis – all from the winery garden. A garden salad included curried almonds, Parmesano and cinnamon bread croutons. Whole sandwiches with salads and delightful ambiance cost just $8.

    Bottom line – with food becoming more expensive, bargains like these are dear.  

    Olive Branch
    3811 Douglas Ave., 802-1856
    Mon. – Fri. 11 a.m.. – 2 p.m., Tues. – Sat. 5 p.m. – 9 p.m.

    Side Dishes

    New state fair concessions include crab fritters, deep fried pickles wrapped in pastrami and ham with cream cheese, carrot funnel cake, and double bacon corn dogs. 

  • Iowa’s First now at Splash


    From Wal-Mart to the smallest cafés in town, food businesses want more fresh and local products. One aspect of farm to fork dining has been particularly challenging in Iowa though. State laws and regulations discourage fresh local fish. An Okoboji café can’t serve fresh walleye that was just caught in Lake Okoboji. An Asian café in Des Moines would face big fines if it tried to serve striped bass freshly caught on the Scott Street Bridge. As a result, Asians from Minneapolis, Omaha and Chicago swarm to Iowa fishing hot spots and take home vans filled with Iowa fish. 

    Fish farming, often called the fastest growing segment of agriculture, has been challenging here too. Startup costs are expensive and early efforts ran into price resistance. Even at farmers markets, Iowa-raised tilapia didn’t attract many buyers at three times the price of Chinese tilapia in supermarkets here. Local high end restaurants and their customers saw more value in wild fish than in farmed fish of any kind. Serious buyers such as Asian restaurants in Chicago did not value the walleye and trout that Iowa farmers were raising as highly as white Midwesterners did. Iowa fish farms were regulated as “industrial waste” because no one had authorized their being regulated as agriculture. The last decade produced mostly failed fish farms in Iowa. 

    In February this year, the Iowa House Agriculture Committee approved adding fish to the state law used to regulate feeding operations for cattle, hogs, goats, sheep and poultry. That encouraged Mark Nelson to plunge in where others had floundered. Nelson’s family founded Iowa‘s First, a fish farm in Blairsburg. 

    “We’re fourth generation here but we aren’t big enough to compete with the giant hog operations today. This makes more environmental sense too. Dealing with our fish waste requires a small percentage of acreage (for disposal lagoons) compared to what is required to raise the same amount of protein with hogs,” Nelson explained. 

    The Nelsons have already installed 12 large tanks in a converted hog facility. They are raising striped bass, the preferred fish of Asian restaurants in Chicago, on a soy and bone meal diet. Their first batch is large enough now for market. In a year, they plan to have 18 tanks and produce 300,000 pounds annually. Splash restaurant in Des Moines began serving Iowa’s First stripers last week and will feature them August 17-25. 

     

    I tried an herb encrusted whole striped bass stuffed with rosemary, vegetables and lemon. It was so fresh I could suck the amber fluid out of the eye sockets. That’s considered an extraordinary delicacy in Hong Kong and Singapore but only with very fresh fish. 

     

    I also tried Splash’s pan roasted eight ounce striped bass filet served with a relish of local peppers, corn and cucumber from Rinehart Farms. It was beautifully plated on top of S mall Potato Farms potato cakes, with a sweet corn fondue made with Rinehart Farms sweet corn. 

    Bless you Iowa House Agriculture Committee. Never thought I’d say that. 

    Side Dishes 



    Templeton Rye brought Deirdre Capone to Templeton and Carroll for promotions earlier this month. At the distillery, the great niece of Al Capone explained that her family came to America from the southern boot of Italy, like most of Des Moines’ Italians. “Hollywood initiated and perpetuated the myth that we were Sicilian but we’re all from Angri in Campania,” she explained. 

    Capone professed a wistful longing for two lost foods of Italian America – scarmoza cheese (“It’s s oft sheep’s milk cheese. We’d use it where most people use mozzarella“) and nduja, a spicy, spreadable salami. When told that Gateway Market makes and sells nduja, she immediately arranged a stop there on her way to Des Moines’ airport. Capone offered these Italian food tips: 

    “I have a Chinese and a Japanese daughter-in-law. They taught me that pine nuts from Asian markets are the best and the least expensive.”

    “Use super long (spaghetti) and slurp it into your mouth – that brings out more flavor.” 

    “Lasagna should be more like quiche than what you normally find in America. The gravy (marinara) should only be on top.”    

    Splash 
    303 Locust, 244-5686
    Mon. – Fri. 11 a.m. – 2 p.m., Mon. – Sat. 5 p.m. – 10 p.m. 

  • The Other Place & other places

    The opening of The Other Place Sports Grill & Pizzeria in Clive ranked with the debuts of Whole Foods and Twin Peaks for creating the summer‘s biggest buzz. Since this chain’s first store opened on College Hill in Cedar Falls in 1970, it’s become part of northern Iowa mythos with six restaurants there, plus a pair in the Kansas suburbs of Kansas City. College town pizzerias and sports bars seem to forge lifelong bonds with their fans. The Other Place’s Overland Park store in Kansas was a pioneer sports bar. The Clive restaurant is a modernized, swank version of that place, with little resemblance to the original place on The Hill. 

      Nostalgia is as powerful an attraction as cold beer. The Clive Other Place and its super sized parking lot were filled from the day it opened and crowds have grown since then. This store is state of the sports bar art with ubiquitous large, high definition flat screens and every major satellite sports package. The crowds I observed on weekend evenings were considerably more family-oriented than anything one sees in typical college town sports bars. That might be because the food was a stronger draw than the bar. Like the finest fresh & local restaurants in town, The Other Place proudly displayed the branded icons of its suppliers. These were not the same suppliers you will see on menus at Mojo’s, Sbrocco or Centro though. Heinz, Hormel, Jenni-O, Hidden Valley, Red Bull, Pepsi and Mountain Dew represent the aegis of quality here. 



    Basically, the kitchen specializes in two things – scratch fried foods and pizza. Their execution of the first genre was excellent by any standards. On two visits I never observed a single order of hand breaded fried foods that were darker than light golden. Onion rings were as light and crunchy as they come. Chicken tenders, fries, kettle chips, shrimp, Mozzarella sticks, mushrooms and pork tenderloins were pretty much faultless. 

    Pizza weren’t for everyone. Nearly “deep dish” in thickness, these yeasty pies included excellent sweet marinara and much cheese. All pizza specials were loaded with multiple ingredients, as many as five different meats. The crusts did have crisp bottoms but each piece included as much dough as many sandwiches. After two, I could only scrape off the toppings. Salads also included copious amounts of bread and cheese. Other Place subs were oven baked on similarly yeasty buns. 



    The menu included some compulsory sports bar foods that were neither deep fried nor baked in the pizza ovens – Buffalo wings, nachos, spinach dip, burgers, four kinds of pasta, and wraps. There were no potato skins – I know this because their absence from the menu provoked a wild tantrum in a nearby child.  

    Bottom line – The Other Place will surely become The Place for sports fans to watch UNI games in the future. 

    Speaking of other places, the Hy-Vee on East Euclid, also known as Hy-Vee #2, is a corporate legend. This is the store where future CEO’s have been sent to cut their teeth. If they can make it there, they’ll make it anywhere. In this store, one sees plain clothed cops patrolling and electronic shoplifting sensors at the entrances. It also hosts rather amazing wine dinners prepared by Dean Richardson, whose Phat Chefs restaurant ruled West Des Moines for a decade. 



    A recent event included an appetizer buffet, melon-blue cheese and arugula salad, 



    a tomba (tuna), fresh herbs & tomato bruschetta, 



    braised sirloin tips with fingerling potatoes in a wine and gravy reduction, and a choice of three cheesecakes. Thirteen different wines were poured. Several prizes, including a mini refrigerator, were raffled. The charge for everything was $10. Look for similar events monthly. 

    The Other Place 
    12401 University Ave., Clive, 225-9494
    Sun. – Thurs. 11 a.m. – midnight, Fri. – Sat. 11 a.m. – 2 a.m.

    Something old, something new



    A significant anniversary and a long awaited opening hit the metro in late July.  Age before beauty. George the Chili King (GCK) celebrated 60 years on Hickman Road with 1950’s costumes, hula hoops, vintage cars, the Split Second Band and car hop service. GCK is a genuine throwback likely having undergone as little remodeling as any place its age. George Karaidos’ employees tend to hang around for decades. The restaurant only counts its age from the day the Hickman store opened. Count the predecessors that Karaidos’ father founded and the business will turn 100 in eight years. That’s when George, 79, says he will finally retire.  



    What’s in the name? George’s dad won a “best chili” contest instigated by reporters from various downtown newspapers back when Des Moines had multiple daily papers and chili joints. He then changed the name of his business from Coney Island Lunch. That chili recipe has remained unchanged for nearly 100 years even as most American chilies began adding tomatoes and beans. I tried chili in a bowl, on a coney island and even on a hamburger. Just like 1952. 

    Whole Foods opened their first area store, in West Des Moines, with two marching bands and considerable hoopla. I received a press release 20 hours before the opening that said people were lining up outside, camping and tailgating. If so they were invisible until the next morning. That should not detract at all from the grandiosity of the occasion. The place was mobbed for days after opening. 



    Folks flocked to its 30,000 square feet stocked without a single artificial flavoring, preservative or trans fat. Some waited over half an hour in check out lines to purchase eight different kinds of sprouted cereals,  three different kinds of “grind your own” nut butters, and $30 a pound Bomba Valencia rice. 
     
    The store brings some things to town. mainly volume of choice, that one can’t find at Gateway Market, New City Market or Campbell’s. Its seafood section was stocked with the freshest looking fish I’ve seen in town – bream and snapper had clear eyes while tuna, swordfish and wild salmon glistened. Oddly, the fish at the sushi bar did not look nearly as fresh. Strauss Veal, a Wisconsin product we have touted for years, was available, as was Strauss Lamb, something new to our ken. Grass fed beef came from S&C Ranch in Fort Atkinson, Iowa, and popcorn from an 18th century seed grown in Shellsburg that is “dense sterile,” meaning it can’t be cross pollinated by genetically modified plants.
      
    Cheese selections weren’t as impressively local. Whole Foods stocked two kinds of Italian robiolas but none of Dairy Aire’s, the award winning Iowa robiola one finds at Cheese Shop of Des Moines. The olive bar had 20 choices but no lucques, the king of olives which are often sold at Gateway. No one was stirring pans on the hot buffet as film skimmed on the tops. 



    The salad bar selection was much better, including multiple kinds of quinoas, edamames and roasted peppers. Pizza were quite good and were sold by the slice. Pepperoni were the size of hockey pucks. Giant cupcakes appeared to be on organic steroids.



    The city’s lone remaining daily paper headlined an editorial page column “Opening of Whole Foods shows D.M. has arrived.” If so, then we’ve arrived in “Portlandia” (a TV comedy about an Oregon subculture in which everyone flocks to the same trendy place convinced it makes them unique).

    Side Dishes 

    The Triangle in Waukee has begun selling fried pies on Wednesdays, 4 p.m. – 7 p.m., fresh fruit pies as well as savory ones like Philly cheese steak.

    George the Chili King
    5722 Hickman Rd., 277-9433
    Sun. – Thurs. 10:30 a.m. – 9 p.m., Fri. – Sat. 10:30 a.m. – 10 p.m.

    Whole Foods
    42nd and University Ave., West Des Moines, 343-2600
    Daily 8 a.m. – 10 p.m.

July 27, 2012

  • Louie’s Wine Dive


    Des Moines’ restaurant business has been a magnet for recruiting creative young talent. Dom Iannarelli (Splash, Jethro’s), Enosh Kelley (Bistro Montage) and much of the Full Court Press gang (eight unique restaurants) came from other parts of Iowa. Jeremy Morrow (Bistro 43, Star Bar), Andrew Meek (Sage, Sbrocco), Don Hensley (Danielle) and Sean Wilson (Azalea, Proof) all came from the South. Miyabi Yamamoto (Miyabi 9), Jay Wang (Wasabi Chi), Mao Heineman (King & I), Jesus Ojeda (El Chisme), Zach Mannheimer (Proof) and Liam Anivat (Cool Basil) came from even further away. These are only partial lists but they suggest our dining scene would be far less interesting without transplants. 
    Jason Kapela joined their ranks in June when he opened Louie’s Wine Dive. Kapela came from the corporate end of the business. Bravo promised him a job in any city where they have a restaurant if he first put in a couple years at their West Des Moines store. Instead, he fell in love with Des Moines. After keeping an eye on real estate for awhile he pounced when Iowa Bakery Café vacated the Uptown Shopping Center. He counseled with Kyle Cabbage (Wine Experience) to fine tune his concept and persuaded half a dozen staffers from Bravo to follow him across town. Louie’s is an 84 seat (plus 28 on a patio) café that is furnished upscale from true dive-dom. Comfortable rosewood furniture, an overstuffed couch and a sleek long bar invite people to linger. On Louie’s first weekend, Kapela was unable to turn tables because “no one was leaving.” 
    Louie’s trendy menu fits in an economical comfort zone. One steak cost $21. Everything else was priced $4 – $19. 


    Kid’s meals cost just $5 including a drink. On a recent weeknight the place was full and tables were turning so no one needed to wait.

    Gazpacho refreshed as much as it can this early in tomato season. 


    Superb Oysters Louie were fried in panko and served on fried wonton shells with habanero aioli and a balsamic glaze. 


    Deviled eggs were garnished with hackleback caviar from the Missouri River. 

    Lobster poutine delivered perfect fries, crisp yet tender, covered with seafood gravy that included generous pieces of fresh lobster, assorted mushrooms and subtle Fontina cheese sauce. Flatbreads (pizza) included: jerked chicken with Fontina and pickled onions; a Marguerita; ragu with ricotta; and mushrooms with blue cheese. 
    Bruschetta and lunch sandwiches were made with La Mie breads. 

    A Cuban particularly stood out with very spicy ham, roast pork loin, pickled onions, Fontina and very sweet pickles on a grilled hoagie. A Reuben was made with house cured pork shoulder rather than beef. 

    My ragu was Bolognese style, with an orange glow from chianti, tomatoes, carrots and cream. It included prosciutto, sausage, bacon and tender pork shoulder on toasted potato gnocchi. 
     
    Striped bass presented two moist skin-on filets on a bed of quinoa in a beurre blanc. They were plated with delicious carrots, marinated in dark rum, and asparagus coins. 


    Porchetta was as good as that dish can be – slow cooked pork shoulder without any dryness, stuffed with prosciutto and sage and served with subtle cheese sauce. 

    Desserts were simple: a citrus cheesecake; 
    a pot de crème; fresh fruit in bubbly; 

    and s’mores with tableside hibachi. Wines ranged $25 – $250, with 26 available by the glass. After two days, an opened bottle becomes a blackboard special as no wine is served after three days.    

    Bottom line – Besides wine, Louie’s features unusually good execution, some original touches and a particular rapport with pork. 

    Louie’s Wine Dive
    4440 University Ave., 777-3416 
    Mon. – Wed. 11 a.m. – 11 p.m., Thurs. – Fri.- 11 a.m. – 2 a.m., Sat. 10 a.m. – 2 a.m., Sun. 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. 

    Side Dishes

    Seattle Best’s “Red Cup Showdown” comes to the Iowa State Fair August 15. The local winner in a best coffee drink contest wins a trip to New York to compete with four other state fair winners for $10,000. 

  • Readers’ Tips Part 1


    Readers’ enthusiasm for four off beat joints persuaded us to check them out. We began with Chester’s Chicken, a quick service food concept founded in Alabama some 60 years ago by an inventor of industrial deep fryers. His grandson began expanding the chicken end of the business through franchising in 2004. Named after a character on Gunsmoke, Chester’s is an odd bird. It has no stand alone outlets, mostly partnerships with supermarkets and convenience stores. Its franchises sell for an average of only $10 grand.  

    In Des Moines two very different Chester’s outlets offer addictive fried chicken and other southern dishes. At University Groceries II, opposite Goode Park, “liquor, wine and beer” get second billing to the chicken in an old convenience store. People objected to my using a camera until I assured them that I would not photograph humans. A hot case was stocked with prepared chicken that ranged from old (and deeply discounted) to just out of the fryer. 


    Foolishly I tried both. Eaten hot, Chester’s was divinely juicy and crisp. The extra spicy option came as advertised. Chester’s corporate web site professed these “secrets“ – a patented breading recipe, unique fryers, double breading, and using only marinated chickens. Tenders, gizzards and catfish were also superb. Okra and half cobs of corn were breaded and deep fried. Mashed potatoes offered disappointing brown gravy. Potato salad featured larger than usual pieces of potato in a creamy sauce with chopped peppers. 
    Des Moines’s second Chester’s option was a slick modern convenience store/BP station on SE 14th St. It also specializes in liquor. I’ve been told it’s a reliable source of Templeton Rye when other stores are sold out. Fresh bait is sold 24/7 in a vending machine. Catfish, ribs and extra spicy chicken were not available on my visits. I was also told there wouldn’t be any fresh-from-the-fryer chicken “for awhile.”


    Excellent meaty samosas (Indian fried ravioli) and a full line of Mexican soft drinks compensated. 
    Reader tip #2 took me to Club 2000 (“C2K” in southside lingo), a typical neighborhood bar with an atypical bar kitchen. This place, in same family for three generations, had a very friendly vibe and seemed particularly lively on a Thursday night, when patrons play beer pong for a $25 bar tab, and on Tuesdays when large tacos and $3 margaritas starred. C2K’s Facebook page announces other specials with $1 domestic draws being popular. Daily lunch specials included grilled tenderloins on Tuesdays, excellent homemade cavatelli on Wednesdays, Sicilian subs (capacola, roast beef and fried peppers) on Thursdays, and French dip on Fridays. 


    The latter was served with generous beef, a good jus and excellent onion rings. Other $7.50 specials were served with fries and only between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. A large menu of mostly sandwiches was offered most of the day and night.
    Tip #3 took me to Grimes where another BP station has been impressing readers with their pizza. I found pies being made in a short oven that included a conveyor belt, a model I hadn’t seen since the 1980‘s. My pizza maker told me his oven could get up to 1000 degrees F. 


    It delivered a perfect example of tavern style pizza – meaning that super thin crusts were crisp enough to hold a fully loaded piece of pie at a right angle without sagging. Toppings included old southside specialties like capacola, banana peppers and Graziano’s sausage. The store’s burrito grill did not impress me as much as their pizza. Oatmeal was offered too and was advertised as free on Mondays.   

     
    Side Dishes

    Jimmie Lynch (801 Steak & Chop) announced plans to open an upscale seafood restaurant in the western suburbs and also a farm to fork restaurant called Pig & Finch. 

    Krueger’s BP 
    Highway 141 at SE 37th Street, Grimes, 986-3017
    Open 24-7 

    Club 2000
    422 Indianola Ave., 245-9769. 
    Daily 7 .m. – 2 p.m. 

    Chester’s – University Groceries II
    1621 University Ave., 288-8800
    Daily 8 a.m. – 11 p.m. 

    Chester’s – BP 
    727 SE 14th St., 243-8100 
    Daily 5 a.m. – 11 p.m.

  • Twin Peaks, an essay

    Size matters 

    Last month’s opening of the first Twin Peaks in Iowa was thoroughly covered, by the media. Still, there’s much more, and much less, than meets the eye at the local version of this Texas “breastaurant” chain. Twin Peaks’ descendancy is a matter of faith in the Biblical way. Just as it is believed that Noah begat Shem whose descendent fathered Abraham who begat Isaac whose descendent fathered Jesus, so it is believed that the Playboy bunnies begat the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders whose descendents parented the Hooter girls who begat the Twin Peaks gals. 
    Throughout this holy lineage of interactive voyeurism, adjustments have been made to accommodate America’s sliding scale of cultural mores. Whereas the Playboy bunnies served champagne and caviar to tuxedoed men watching celebrity entertainers, Twin Peaks aspires to be nothing more than “the ultimate man cave” in which merge two powerful versions of the American dream – that of becoming a sex object and that of maybe dating one.   
    Statistics from my recent noon time visit suggest that Des Moines has embraced those dreams. I counted 82 male customers, 40 HD televisions, 12 dead animals, 3 female customers (including my lunch date), 3 garage doors, and a digital thermometer that recorded the temperature of beer kegs to the tenth of a degree.  Stylistically the place looked like the bastard offspring of Industrial Architecture and an Ozark Mountains lodge. Music was hard to identify because only bass and drum parts were audible through the din. 
    No one seemed to care about any of that. Twin Peaks’ brand is built on push-up bras and considerable exposed skin. On the day of my visit, the restaurant’s Facebook page featured a flock of buxom beauties promising “We’re waiting for you.” They weren’t. Some of their replacements looked more like little girls pretending to be big girls in flannel halter tops, short shorts and UGH boots. One of them confided that the Facebook girls had helped open the West Des Moines store and then gone home. We developed a feeling that this was our waitresses’ first job. She told us that our (Leinenkugel) Dirty Blonde had been brewed in the bar, which is not a brew pub. We worried about her burning her skin while trying to manage large trays of hot food – OSHA does not require Twin Peaks waitresses to wear aprons under their halter tops. My motherly companion suggested there was something creepy about hipless young girls cuddling for photos with customers more than three times their age. Other customers watched more mature Twin Peaks girls, from other towns, flirt with cameras on televisions that were not tuned into the ESPN family of channels. 
    Food wise size mattered regardless of what you think your waitress told you. An order of nachos was eight inches tall and hung over the edges of a large plate. Sandwiches were New York deli-sized – “too big for non-professional mouths” in my friend’s words.  


    An excellent chicken fried steak was prepared Texas style – tenderized, breaded, fried golden crisp, and served with jalapeno gravy over the steak rather than over the home made mashed potatoes, and served with green beans, tomatoes and caramelized onions. 


    Grilled mountain trout presented a huge, moist filet, well spiced with the same potatoes and bean dish. Pot roast was oddly made with rib eye steak. 


    Venison chili was so heavily spiced I couldn’t have identified the meat without a priori carnal knowledge. In fact, everything was seriously salty. 


    Bread pudding was served with a suggestive spume of Bourbon sauce. 
    Bottom line – Twin Peaks offers gargantuan portions of comfort food, really cold beer, and potential fantasy fulfillment. It‘s not quick. Our lunch hour required 95 minutes.  
      
    Twin Peaks 
    4570 University, West Des Moines, 528-8294
    Sun. – Thurs. 11 a.m. – midnight, Fri. – Sat. 11 a.m. – 2 a.m. 

    Side Dishes 

    A free weekend shuttle service began to/from your house to either Saints, Beaver Tap or Tonic. 8:30 p.m. – close. Call 710-3301.