Road Tips

Costa Del Mar Mariscos - Davenport, IA

A couple three weeks ago, my wife and I had the chance to get out and try a new restaurant in Davenport, one that specialized in seafood with a Mexican twist.  The place had been open since last summer, but with COVID-19 protocols in place we just didn't feel comfortable going out to restaurants like we normally do.  Now that things have settled down a bit, we decided to do a date night and have dinner at Costa del Mar Mariscos.

The corner of N. Brady St. and E. Kimberly Road in Davenport (see map) has always been a busy intersection in the city.  I've lived in the Quad Cities for nearly 30 years and the building on the southwest corner of the intersection has been a series of restaurants over the years.  The first one I remember was a Ground Round, a casual American-style dining restaurant chain that was popular in the 80's and 90's.  It has housed a number of Mexican restaurants over the years, most recently it was the home of a place by the name of Casa Maguey, and before that it was a Los Agaves location.  None of the restaurants were bad - in fact, nearly all of them have been very popular over the years.  But none of them have ever lasted more than a few years.  

In 2019, Casa Maguey closed its doors with the promise of a new and improved Mexican restaurant taking over the spot.  A large semi-trailer had been sitting in the parking lot for quite some time and I could tell there was construction going on in and around the building.  It looked like things were coming along nicely for a springtime 2020 opening, but then that little thing called COVID-19 came around.  Restaurants were shut down for a number of weeks before the State of Iowa allowed some to reopen at reduced capacity.  Costa del Mar Mariscos (which roughly translates into "Seacoast Seafood") opened in July of last year.  

Since Brady Street is a one-way northbound, and there's no left turn access off of westbound E. Kimberly Road, there's only two access points into the parking lot at Costa del Mar Mariscos - a left turn from northbound N. Brady or a right turn off of eastbound E. Kimberly Road.  We were sort of surprised to see a number of cars in the parking lot when we pulled in, but we knew the restaurant was large enough to have people spread out for seating.  

There's two dining areas in Costa del Mar - the original dining area that dated back to the Ground Round days is to your right as you walk in.  It still has the atrium seating up front that was a signature of Ground Round restaurants in the past.  To the left is the cantina area that features a number of high-backed booths along with wooden tables and chairs, similar to the other dining area on the other side of the restaurant.  A large mural of the sea was on the wall on the far end of the cantina.  I have to say that the decor in previous restaurants probably hadn't been spruced up for a number of years and I remember remarking to my wife not long before Cafe Maguey closed in 2019 that the place looked rather tired.  But the remodeling project by Costa del Mar Mariscos management really sparked some life into the restaurant.  

The cantina area was completely redesigned from the previous bar/cantina area in previous restaurants.  Before, the bar was rectangular situated in the middle of the room with seating on all four sides.  The new design moved the bar back into a corner of the cantina area taking away two sides of seating.  I've been noticing that some of the newer Mexican restaurants that have bar areas have a number of flatscreen televisions around the bar.  Costa del Mar was no exception.

We were seated in one of the high-back booths in the cantina and were given a couple menus to look over.  My wife decided she didn't want to get a margarita that evening, but I ended up getting a Sol.  Later on, she decided that she wanted a Sol along with her dinner which was surprising since she very rarely drinks beer any more.   

Chips and a red salsa, the prerequisite for any Mexican meal served in a restaurant like Costa del Mar, came out to the table.  I asked our server if she had any of the green chile salsa.  She brought out a large bowl of the salsa verde not long after.  It was actually very good - not as salty as we've found many green chile salsas to be - and it had a bit of a spicy bite on the back end.  

The menu at Costa del Mar Mariscos featured the usual Mexican favorites - burritos, enchiladas, quesadillas, fajitas and chimichangas.  But the back part of the menu featured a number of seafood dishes along with steaks.  They had oysters on the half shell, shrimp and octopus cocktails, ceviche, seafood soups, and entrees with fish, shrimp or lobster.  They also had a number of shareable platters with various seafood offerings consisting of shrimp, octopus, mussels, oysters, crab legs and scallops.  The Paella del Mar featured both peeled and head-on shrimp, mussels, octopus, clams, and scallops all sautéed and mixed in with crab legs and rice.  You could get most of the sharable plates as single dinner selections, as well.  

My wife wasn't all that hungry and I wasn't either for some reason.  I can't remember if we had a big lunch earlier in the day, but I just remember that I didn't feel like getting much.  I ended up getting the pork chile verde - slow-roasted pork sautéed in a green chile salsa and spices, then served with Mexican rice and refried  beans.  Tortillas came with the pork chile verde.  The pork was tender and flavorful with the green chile salsa. I just love good salsa verde and what they had at Costa del Mar was very good.  

My wife went with the carne asada quesadilla - chunks of flank steak folded in a flour tortilla shell with cheese, grilled onions and cilantro, then lightly grilled. Mexican rice and refried beans came on the side along with pico de gallo and sour cream served in a tortilla bowl.  The was worried that the quesadilla would be big, but she was happy to see that it was manageable for her.  While she didn't eat the whole thing, she was very happy with her choice.  

For our first foray into the menu at Costa del Mar Mariscos, we were pretty impressed with what they had to offer and with what we ordered that evening.  My pork chile verde was very good and my wife really liked her carne asada quesadilla.  Our server that evening was attentive and friendly, and the decor was very nice after an extensive sprucing up that new management did before opening last year.  While we didn't try any of Costa del Mar's seafood offerings on our first trip, we made mental notes of what they offered for seafood dishes and made plans to go back at some point and try some of their shrimp dishes, the grilled octopus and some of their oysters-on-the-halfshell.  

Boonie's on the Avenue - Muscatine, IA

The winter weather had finally broke and it was a sunny and unseasonably warm Saturday over a recent weekend.  My wife was suffering from cabin fever and was wanting to go for a drive down the Mississippi River to escape the last vestige of snow on the ground.  (We had over 60 days of continuous snow cover - the 5th longest on record for our area.)  I wanted to watch basketball that day, but as I learned a long time ago - a happy wife is a happy life.  While I wasn't looking to head as far as Burlington or Quincy, I decided to head down Iowa Highway 22 along the river and we ended up in Muscatine.  But I also had an ulterior motive.  I wanted to try a place called Boonie's on the Avenue that I had heard had good burgers.  Once we got to Muscatine, my wife was up for some lunch, so we sought out Boonie's to give it a try.    

Almost his whole adult life, Mike Kleist has been involved in the bar and restaurant business around the Muscatine area.  As a kid in high school, Kleist always wore a baseball cap that said "Boondocks" across the front.  His friends ended up giving him the name of "Boonie" because he wore the cap incessantly.  At the age of 22, Kleist opened Boonie's Basement, a small tavern in downtown Muscatine, and over the years Kleist ran other places such as The Loading Dock and Bootleggers in the area.  Kleist was also a semi-professional poker player who lived part-time in Las Vegas for over 15 years following his passion for the game.  So it was a natural gamble for Kleist when local businessman Tom Meeker approached him in 2012 with an opportunity.  

Meeker owned a building that housed the former MVP's Sports Lounge, but prior to it being MVP's, it was the location for Kleist's Bootleggers sports bar and restaurant.  Meeker wanted to do something with the space and talked with Kleist about opening a more upscale sports bar in the space.  At first, Kleist was hesitant - he'd already been through his sports bar phase with Bootleggers - but Meeker (who also owned The Button Factory restaurant at the time) was persistent.  Finally, Kleist agreed to take over the spot and Boonie's on the Avenue opened in April of 2013.  He was joined in the business by his son Cord who was just getting ready to graduate high school a little over a month later.  

(Mike Kleist and his wife Teresa also own Proof Social, a wine/martini bar in downtown Muscatine; while Cord Kleist and his brother Chance own Skinny's Barbeque in Muscatine.)

It was just after 1 p.m. when we pulled up to Boonie's on the Avenue on Iowa Ave., about 3 blocks from the Mississippi River in downtown Muscatine.  (see map)  Upon entering the place we realized that we had been in there before - probably when it was called MVP's a number of years ago when we were in Muscatine for a street festival on Iowa Ave. where a friend of ours was playing in one of the bands that night.  The inside of the sports bar featured exposed brick walls with corrugated tin sheathing on the walls of an elevated dining space in the back.  Tin tiles painted in sort of a rust color were on the ceiling.   The place was packed on that Saturday afternoon with tons of people also wanting to get out and enjoy the day.  

The bar area was to the right as you walk into Boonie's.  They had a number of craft beers on tap and a full bar selection.  Boonie's has 27 flat-screen televisions in the place, but curiously they only had two basketball games showing on the majority of the screens.  Knowing that there were at least six games available to watch at that time (remember - I was all set to watch basketball at home that day), I thought it was very curious that on the main wall of 8 televisions five of the TV's were set to one of the two games they were showing at the time.  

We were greeted by a hostess when we walked in and she asked us if we wanted to take the high-top table near the window just off the bar.  It wasn't cleaned off yet and looking around at the lack of available tables in the place at the time, we decided to take it.  Our server for the day, an energetic young lady by the name of Donnina, came over to wipe down and disinfect the table.  After she finished doing that and we sat down, she took a couple menus out of the condiment holder on the table and gave them to us.  She asked what we wanted to drink and I saw that they had the Easy Eddie hazy IPA from the Big Grove Brewery in Iowa City and Solon.  My wife got a tall Tito's vodka and cranberry.  

Donnina left to get the drinks and came back moments later.  "I'm sorry," she said. "We're out of the Easy Eddie."  I took a quick look at their craft beer list which featured 14 beers from various Iowa breweries such as Contrary Brewing in Muscatine, Exile Brewing in Des Moines, and Gezellig Brewing out of my hometown of Newton.  I opted for the Surf Zombies American IPA out of Iowa Brewing Company in Cedar Rapids.  They had that one.  

Most of the menu at Boonie's featured your typical sports bar food - appetizers, wings, sandwiches, burgers, soups and salads.  They also had a handful of entrees such as a grilled salmon dinner, an 8-ounce sirloin steak, and fish & chips.  The salads caught the eye of my wife who was intrigued by the Strawberry Spring salad - it was a choice of mixed greens or fresh spinach topped with fresh strawberries and a choice of grilled or popcorn chicken.  Sliced red onions, feta cheese, candied walnuts and a choice of dressing finished the toppings.  

Me - I got caught looking at the Ultimate Ham & Cheese sandwich -  ham, Swiss and American cheese, an over-hard egg and bacon on triple-decked wheatberry bread.  That sounded really yummy, but I wanted to try their burger.  

They had a number of specialty burgers on the menu including the Five Alarm burger with pepper jack cheese, jalapeños and a sriracha sauce.  The Breakfast burger was topped with bacon, a cheese sauce, an over-easy egg and hash brown potatoes.  The Sticky burger had peanut butter (no thanks!), bacon and cheddar cheese on it.  And the Coordinator burger was topped with pulled pork, jalapeños, barbecue sauce and onion straws.  Some of them sounded interesting, but I was probably going to opt for a "build-your-own" burger.  

My wife decided she wanted a burger, as well.  She got just a basic cheddar cheese burger that featured two beef patties that came with lettuce, tomato, pickles and sliced red onions.  She had a choice of a side and she decided to try Boonie's sweet pepper cole slaw.  There are choices for buns at Boonie's including a regular bun, a Ciabatta bun, an onion bun or a wheatberry bun.  She went for the regular bun.  

One of the interesting touches they do to the burgers at Boonie's is to brand the top of the bun crown with Boonie's logo.  "Soon to be World Famous" is Boonie's motto and that was part of the brand on the bun.  

My "build-you-own" burger consisted of my usual - pepper jack cheese, grilled mushrooms and bacon with a regular bun, also.  I thought a bit about the onion bun, but decided against it at the last moment.  I got the same lettuce, tomato, red onion and pickles on the side.  I was amazed at how ripe and fresh the tomato slices were for late winter.  For my side, I got tater tots - naturally.  Donnina provided Cholula hot sauce on the side for me to dip the tots in.  

After dressing the burger, I had to get a shot of the finished product.  It looks pretty scrumptious, doesn't it?  Well, as we all know, looks can be deceiving.  

The twin quarter-pound patties were woefully overcooked.  While the toppings were fine, they couldn't compensate for the tasteless burger patties.  And on top of all that (get the pun?), the bun was dried out and there turned out to be too much of it.  We speculated that branding the top as well as toasting it, the bun got dried out.  It was very disappointing, to say the least.  

My wife also remarked that her burger was overcooked, too.  She said, "Ah, I've had better burgers."  But she did like her sweet pepper cole slaw.  I tried a bite and it had a very unique taste.  I would have never thought about putting sweet peppers in cole slaw, but I didn't mind it a bit.  

Before we were served our food, I was ready for another beer.  I saw on the beer menu that they had the Big Grove IPA on tap and I ordered one of those from Donnina.  Except, once again, she came back to tell me that they were out of THAT as well.  I ordered up another Surf Zombies IPA - not my favorite, but it worked for me that day.  

Now, they were pretty busy in the place and I had gone through my second beer during lunch.  My wife still had half of her tall vodka and cranberry to go through after I finished my lunch and I wanted to order another beer.  Donnina came over to check on us and I ordered another beer.  Time passed.  And passed.  And passed.  My wife had all but finished her vodka and cranberry when I decided I had to go to the restroom.  We were ready to go by that time and as I walked toward the restroom, I caught up with Donnina who was coming out of the kitchen with some food for a table.  I said to her in passing, "Hey, we're ready to go and I don't want my beer that I had ordered."

"Are you sure," she said to me.  "I mean, it's sitting right here on the bar."

I said, "Yeah, I would have liked to have had it 15 minutes ago when I first ordered it.  But my wife is finished with her drink and we have to get going."  

"Well, I'm sorry," she said in a terse and somewhat protesting manner.  "We're very busy in here today."  I told her that I could see that, but we needed to get going and we just needed our check.  

I went back to the table and told my wife that I canceled my beer order - even though it was sitting on the bar.  And when Donnina came back with our bill, another person brought my beer - that had been ordered nearly 20 minutes prior to the table.  "Oh, he doesn't want it now," Donnina told the person.  

My wife felt bad for Donnina, but I didn't.  "I understand that they're busy in here and if they're understaffed, that's management's fault.  Waiting five minutes for a beer is understandable.  Waiting more than 15 minutes is not."  

When Donnina came back to get my credit card my wife asked if she had to pay for the beer.  "Oh, heavens, no," she said.  "I know some places will make the servers pay for drinks or food that someone skips out or changes their mind.  Not here."  Then she thanked us for coming in and said, "We are busy and I'm sorry I didn't get it to you."  We told her not to worry.  Besides, we were going to Contrary Brewing for a beer after we left Boonie's.  

My wife still felt sorry for Donnina and left her cash on top of the tip that I had put on my card.  "She is running her ass off," my wife said in a caring manner.  "She deserves this cash."  

I don't want to say our visit to Boonie's on the Avenue was bad, it was just disappointing that the burgers I had heard were so good weren't anywhere near what I was expecting.  While I admit they were busy and our server was having a hard time keeping up, I didn't expect to be waiting over 15 minutes for a beer that I had ordered.  I liked the decor of the place and even though they didn't fully utilize the capabilities of their 27 flat screen televisions they had throughout the place, I could see coming in to watch sporting events in Boonie's.  I don't know, maybe we'll head back down sometime in the future to give it another try - hopefully when they aren't as busy - because that Ultimate Ham & Cheese sandwich has been calling my name.   

Indigo Grill (Cafe Indigo) - Davenport, IA

My wife and I were out for drinks one late afternoon on a recent Saturday when we decided we better make up our minds as to where to have dinner.  Across the parking lot from the little wine bar that we like to go to from time to time is a restaurant that my wife has always liked, but I've not been too enamored with.  It had been a long time since I was last there, but my wife insisted that they had evolved and had a more interesting menu than the previous time I had been in there.  She talked me into walking across the parking lot to have dinner at Indigo Grill.  

Now, there's some confusion for me as to the real name of the place.  If you do a search for the restaurant on Google, it comes up Cafe Indigo.  However, if you go to their Facebook page, they call themselves Indigo Grill.  Their webpage features a nondescript logo of an "I" and a "G", and the sign on the front of their business says, "Indigo Grill".  I asked my wife when they changed the name and she said she hadn't noticed that they had.  

Nevertheless, Cafe Indigo/Indigo Grill (I'll refer to them as Indigo Grill for this entry) is owned and operated by the husband and wife team of Andy and Tammie Gruenhagen, long-time restaurant veterans in both Des Moines and the Quad Cities.  The Gruenhagen's moved back to Quad Cities in 2006 after working at Centro in Des Moines.   They were a little perplexed as to what to call their restaurant at first.  But after Tammie found some china for the cafe called Indigo, it all came together.  The Gruenhagen's opened Cafe Indigo in January of 2007 and styled it after a Mediterranean bistro.

(The Gruenhagen's were also involved for a time with a restaurant in Moline called Steel Head Tavern.  It closed after a nearly five year run in 2018.  And while the Gruenhagen's still own and operate Indigo Grill, Tammie is also the general manager at The Tangled Wood in Bettendorf.  Click here to see the Road Tips entry on The Tangled Wood.)

Indigo Grill is open at 8 a.m. Wednesday thru Sunday for breakfast and closes most evenings at 8 p.m.  (They are open just for breakfast on Sundays until noon.)  It was about 7:00 when we ventured across the parking lot from R Bar, the little wine/cocktail place that we like to hang out from time to time.  Indigo Grill isn't all that big - they have two sections of their front dining area which had every other table closed off for social distancing protocols.  They also have a larger room in the back for banquets, meetings and catered events.  A group of five people came in not long after we had got there and were seated back at one of the larger tables in the banquet room.  The place is not fancy, but cozy and comfortable.  

We were seated at a four-seat table on what would be the north side of the restaurant.  Our server for the evening was a pleasant young lady by the name of Morgan.  She dropped off a couple dinner menus for us to look over.  I also ordered a Stone IPA and my wife got a glass of Indigo Grill's pinot grigio.  That usually means she's going to get seafood or pasta with a cream sauce.  

The menu changes seasonally at Indigo Grill and usually features sandwiches, pasta dishes, and meat entrees with beef or chicken selections.  They had seafood entrees including a parmesan encrusted walleye and a fennel & black pepper salmon dish.  Pasta dishes included a fettuccine alfredo, Cajun mac & cheese, and a chicken & cheese tortellini.  

As I said, it had been some time since I'd been to Cafe Indigo - Indigo Grill and, quite frankly, I don't remember having this diverse of a menu.  I remember they had sandwiches and a few other things, but they seemed to have a nice mix of different styles of foods to choose from.  

My wife was looking at a couple things - the fettuccine alfredo being one and the chicken piccata being another.  But it turns out that some of the items that are available on their lunch menu are also available along with the dinner menu.  My wife found out that she could get one of the lunch entree salads, too.  She was in a quandary as to which direction to go.  

I was intrigued by many things on the menu - the Muffaletta sandwich was interesting to me, as was their reuben sandwich.  I was this close to ordering Andy's Famous Meatloaf, but I'm usually disappointed in meat loaf at a restaurant, even it was "famous".  (I make a great meat loaf at home and I'm sort of particular about my meat loaf.)  And the pot roast was sounding good, too.  

But there was something else that really caught my eye.  When I told my wife it was down to two choices, one being the meat loaf.  The other was the Cajun grouper - a pan-seared grouper filet served on asiago risotto and topped with a green olive/red pepper tapenade.  Steamed broccoli came on the side.  I asked Morgan to tell the chef to "stomp on" the grouper with Cajun seasoning.   

My wife went with one of the salad entrees - the beet salad with grilled salmon.  It featured chopped beets and lettuce greens mixed with chopped red onions, chopped cucumbers and pecans.  It came with a lemon vinaigrette dressing.  After a few bites, my wife said, "This is perfect.  The salmon is cooked perfectly and everything in the salad tastes great and fresh."  

I was sort of apprehensive about my Cajun grouper, until I took the first bite.  It was delicious!  The chef had definitely stomped on the Cajun seasonings for me.  I was thinking of getting a glass of white wine with my meal, but after a bite or two of the Cajun grouper I was glad I had the Stone IPA.  The fish was spicy, but in a very good way for me.  

OK, so I was pleasantly surprised with my meal at Cafe Indigo, excuse me, Indigo Grill.  I remember years ago that I didn't really care for it all that much, even turning up my nose many times at the suggestion of going there for a meal.  But my Cajun grouper was very good.  And my wife was very happy with her grilled salmon beet salad.   The menu was interesting and diverse - it would be tough not to find something that you didn't like on the menu.  OK, I'm sold. Indigo Grill is back in our rotation.    

Schwartz's Deli - Montreal, QC

With the pandemic still going on - but with a glimmer of light now appearing at the end of a long tunnel - I haven't been able to travel for work for nearly a year.  To keep Road Tips relevant, I've gone back into the archives to republish some of the more memorable restaurants on my trips over the years.  Over the past month - with winter's fury hanging on deep into February - my wife and I have been hunkering down at night on our couch under blankets catching a few things on TV.  

One of the shows that we got deep into is Somebody Feed Phil, a wonderful program on Netflix if you like travel to interesting places to get food - like we do.  Starring Phil Rosenthal - an actor, writer and producer mainly known for developing the highly successful Everybody Loves Raymond television program which ran from 1996 to 2005 - Somebody Feed Phil follows Rosenthal in his quest to exotic places and cities around the world to learn more about local cuisine.  One of his stops was in Montreal - one of the great food cities in the world.  And one of his stops in Montreal was at the world-famous Schwartz's Deli - a place that I wrote about on Road Tips in 2013.  After watching that part of the episode and excitedly showing my wife where we sat in Schwartz's when my colleagues and I were there nearly 8 years ago, I decided to repost the entry on Schwartz's Deli and relive my introduction to their famous smoked meat sandwich that one day.  

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I like it when my boss calls us to Montreal for a meeting.  I like it even more when he calls the meeting when the weather is nicer than it is in mid-December, such as the two previous times I went up there.  The night before we were to all meet in Montreal a few weeks ago, my colleague, Ian, e-mailed that he was going to have a smoked beef sandwich at Schwartz's Deli in the heart of Montreal for lunch the next day.  I was familiar with Schwartz's and immediately replied that I was in for it, as well.  After getting through customs, and along with my colleagues Matt and Chris, we met up with Ian at Montreal Trudeau International Airport for a trip to Schwartz's Deli.

Schwartz's was opened in 1928 by Romanian Jewish immigrant Reuben Schwartz.  The original name of the place was "Montreal Hebrew Deli" before becoming simply known as "Schwartz's Deli".  Even though he owned the deli for over 40 years, it is said Rueben Schwartz was a very disagreeable man who was not good at running a business.  He was also said to be a gambler, a womanizer, and a man who liked to drink.  Even his immediate family hated him - so much so that he eventually had to move in with Maurice Zbringer, a classically-trained musician who played violin, and Zbringer's wife.  As a sign of appreciation for taking him in, Schwartz made Zbringer a partner in Schwartz's Deli.  And at the age of 75, Zbringer eventually bought the place from Schwartz in 1971.   

During Zbringer's ownership, Schwartz's Deli became profitable and renown for their smoked meat sandwiches - basically they take beef brisket that is cured in water with salt, peppercorns, coriander and sugar.  The meat is cured for 10 days before it is deep smoked for about six hours, then steamed to moisten the meat.  Schwartz's Deli was not the first place to serve Montreal smoked meat.  Local legend has it that Ben's De Luxe Delicatessen was the first to serve the smoked meat sandwiches.  Ian told us that he used to go to Ben's before it closed down a few years ago after being in business for 98 years.  He thought it was the best of the smoked meat sandwiches in Montreal.  But Schwartz's - now by default - is the oldest and most well-known of deli's that serve Montreal-style smoked meat sandwiches.

(I've had a Montreal-style smoked meat sandwich before - in, of all places, Omaha, Nebraska.  Click here to see my entry on the Montreal-style smoked meat sandwich at Brewburgers in Omaha.)   

It's also said that the Montreal Steak Seasoning - a popular spice and herb seasoning that some people (including myself) use to put on steaks - had its beginning at Schwartz's.  Legend has it that back in the 1940's a broiler cook by the name of Morris "The Shadow" Sherman began to season steaks with the pickling seasoning Schwartz's used to season their briskets.  The basic spices and herbs were garlic, coriander, dill weed, black pepper, cayenne pepper and salt.  Customers liked it so much that other deli and steak places in Montreal began to use it.  The Montreal Steak Seasoning is available in most grocery stores in the spice area, or you can order it directly from Schwartz's web site or you can also get it from Amazon.  (Click on this link that takes you to the Schwartz's Montreal Steak and Beef Seasoning on Amazon.)     

Maurice Zbringer was in poor health for the later years of his life, but he took a lot of the profits out of the business to fund free music concerts around the Montreal area.  After his wife passed away, he had a professional caretaker - Armande Toupin Chartrande - that looked after him and his affairs.  As a token of his appreciation for her service to him in his later years, Zbringer willed the delicatessen to Chartrande.  She ran it from Zbringer's death in 1981 to 1999.

As the pandemic continues - but with a light seemingly glowing at the end of a long tunnel - it's been nearly a year since I've been able to travel for work.  To keep things going on Road Tips, I've gone back in the archives to re-post some of the more memorable 

In 1999, Chartrande sold the business to its accountant, Hy Diamond.  Up to that point, Diamond was the only owner of Schwartz's that had any type of formal business training.  To help alleviate the long lines of people looking to get a quick sandwich to go, Diamond opened a take-out only location next door to the original Schwartz Deli in 2008.    

Diamond owned the business until 2012 when he sold it to a group that included Paul Nakis, owner of the Baton Rouge restaurant chain that started in the Montreal area; Eric and Martin Sara, whose father, Paul Sara, owned the Nickels Deli restaurant chain in Ontario and Quebec; and their aunt and uncle - superstar singer Celine Dion and her (late) husband/manager Rene Angelil.  (Dion and Angelil were also owners in Nickels restaurants from their inception in 1990 until they divested themselves from the company in 1997.)  

Immediately after the nearly $10 million dollar purchase of Schwartz's Deli, rumors abounded that the group was looking to sell franchises.  But Nakis and Angelil have repeatedly said that they are not interested in franchising the Schwartz's Deli concept.  However, earlier this year, the group began to sell pre-cooked vacuum-packed Schwartz's Deli smoked meat in grocery stores in the greater Montreal area.

Schwartz's Deli is located on Boulevard Ste. Laurent in the heart of Montreal. (see map) Boulevard Ste. Laurent is known as the Main Street of Montreal, or simply "The Main" to the locals.  The street features a number of small restaurants, shops and boutiques, and a somewhat Bohemian population.  Because it was a Sunday and there were a lot of people in the area, we were forced to find parking on a side street a couple blocks away from Schwartz's.  (Unfortunately, we unknowingly parked in a No Parking zone.  When we got back we encountered a Montreal parking attendant writing us a ticket. We soon found out that not being able to read the French "No Parking" signs was not a credible excuse to get out of the ticket.)  

We had driven by Schwartz's and noticed the long lines outside the place - something that happens most every day.  Even after 2 p.m., the line was about 25 people deep when we walked up to get in the queue.  It took us about 25 minutes waiting for people to leave and tables to open up.  

(A quick, but important note - Schwartz's is a cash only establishment.  They have an ATM in the back of the restaurant if you don't have any Canadian money on you.) 

Getting up closer to the front door, we saw a pile of cured smoked meat sitting in a refrigerated case in the window.  Chris was wondering what kind of meat it was.  I tried to explain that it started out as beef brisket, but it was neither categorized as corned beef or pastrami.  Chris decided that it was some sort of "mystery" smoked meat.  He was a little leery of trying it, I believe.   

 
We finally got inside and got a table right as you come in the door across from the deli counter.  The small place was packed with people sitting at tables and at the counter.  A waiter weaved his way through the crowd and came to our table with menus.  He took our drink order - no beer at Schwartz's - and the guys got cans of Coca-Cola and I got a water.  

In addition to the smoked meat sandwiches - which seemed like what everyone was ordering in the place - they have turkey, chicken or salami sandwiches available.  Originally, Schwartz's was a steakhouse when Reuben Schwartz opened 85 years ago and they still have steak dinners on the menu.  They have ribeye steaks on the menu and you can also get smoked meat plates if you don't want a sandwich.  I almost got the large smoked meat plate because I'd been hankering for a good corned beef-style sandwich or dinner for quite sometime.   

The traditional order at Schwartz's is a smoked beef sandwich ($6.40 Canadian Dollars), an order of fries, a kosher dill pickle, cole slaw and a Cherry Coke.  That sounded like a lot of food.  When the waiter came back to take our order, I was the first to order.  I ordered a smoked beef sandwich, fries and a pickle.  The waiter asked me how I wanted the sandwich.  I looked at him quizzically and he explained, "You can get it lean, medium, medium-fat or fat."  I figured fat would be brisket with a lot of the fat still on the meat, so I went with medium.  I understand medium-fat is one of the more popular choices among the regulars who go to Schwartz's.   

Everyone else at the table followed my lead and went with the exact same thing.  And it didn't take long for our sandwiches appear at the table.  The meat was piled high on the rye bread with sandwich halves teetering precariously on top.  Yellow mustard comes on the sandwich.  

I took a bite of the meat without the bread and it was moist and tender, but it was missing that corned beef or pastrami "pizazz".  There wasn't much of a smoky taste to the meat, nor did I get much of a salt or peppercorn taste to the meat.  It wasn't that it was dull in taste, it was different that what I expect in a cooked beef brisket.  Maybe the steaming takes some of the taste out of it.  The Montreal-style smoked meat sandwich I had in Omaha was more like a corned beef sandwich.  While the sandwich at Schwartz's was similar in look and texture, it was missing that little bite in taste that I like in a good cured brisket sandwich.  

I will say the French fries were pretty damned good, however.  Whatever they cooked them in gave them an excellent taste.  They were a bit soggy, but were loaded with great flavor.  My sandwich was good, but the fries were great.  I purposely didn't eat any breakfast that morning so I devoured my sandwich, my fries and the large kosher dill pickle with ease.  

Schwartz's Deli is one of those places you have to experience at least once if you're seeking historic places to eat.  My sandwich was fine, but not the earth-shaking taste sensation that I had hoped it would be.  The reactions of my two colleagues who had never had a Montreal-style smoked meat sandwich before were "Yeah, it was good," to "Aaah, yeah, I guess it was all right."  But we decided it probably wasn't anything that we'd stand in line for again.  Overrated?  Possibly.  But it was still cool to give Schwartz's Deli a try. 

 

Yampa Valley Kitchen - Steamboat Springs, CO

There are a number of very good breakfast places in the Steamboat Springs area.  We usually don't do big breakfasts, but we found that with all the running around and sight-seeing that we would do during the course of the day, a hearty breakfast was needed if we didn't have time to stop for lunch.  One of the places in the downtown Steamboat area was situated in an old house which really intrigued my wife.  We looked the restaurant up on line, found that they did breakfasts and one day we took a trip to Yampa Valley Kitchen. 

While we were in Steamboat Springs this past year, we ate at two restaurants - Mambo and Bésame - both owned by chef Hannah Hopkins and developer Jeremy MacGray.   (Click on the links to go to the Road Tips entries on both restaurants.)  It turns out that Yampa Valley Kitchen is the third of the trio of restaurants that Hopkins and MacGray own in Steamboat.   

The building that houses Yampa Valley Kitchen is an old farmhouse that was built in 1918.  The building was declared unstable and was condemned about six years ago.  However, a local chef by the name of Patrick Ayers took over the building in 2014 and remodeled it into a full-service restaurant.  In 2017, he started Cloverdale, a very high-end farm-to-fork restaurant in which he used food stuff grown on his farm outside of Steamboat Springs.  Ayers caught the eye of many food enthusiasts - primarily because the patrons were not given a choice of the foods when they would come to the restaurant.  They would eat whatever Ayers would have available that evening.  

Coupled with Cloverleaf being rather pricey - five-course meals for two ran about $130 dollars while 10 to 14 course meals could end up being close to $275 for two people - and that the menu changed daily, the restaurant proved to be a very risky proposition.  While many food critics and editors applauded Ayers avant-garde style, it didn't catch on with the locals.  Cloverdale closed in September of 2018.  (An aside - my wife and I remember seeing Cloverdale when we were in Steamboat in 2018, but my wife thought it was a gift shop and we didn't bother checking the place out.)  

In December of 2018, another restaurant took over Cloverdale's spot - Low Country Kitchen, a southern-style eatery run by Brian and Katy Vaughn.  The Vaughn's opened the original Low Country Kitchen along Lincoln Avenue in Steamboat back in 2014.  But after a record winter of 2018-19 for Low Country Kitchen, a financial restructuring fell through and the Vaughns were forced to close Low Country Kitchen in June of 2019.  

Hopkins and MacGray saw the potential of the little restaurant and they took over the property in late 2019.   MacGray's wife, Krysta, redesigned the interior of the restaurant to give it more of a farm-house effect.  Chef  Joe Campbell - who was also the executive chef for Mambo and Bésame - came up with a menu using locally-sourced and organically-raised food ingredients.  With everything in place, Yampa Valley Kitchen opened in July of 2020.  

We pulled up to Yampa Valley Kitchen at the corner of Oak St. and 9th St. just before 9 a.m.  (see map)  The restaurant definitely looked like it would have been an old farmhouse from the early 20th century, but updated to look more modern.  It had a metal roof and some impressive landscaping around the building.  Off to the one side was an outdoor patio for dining outside when the weather was nice.  But the weather had turned unseasonably cold during our visit and outdoor dining was out of the question for the remaining days of our visit.  

We had actually tried to get into Yampa Valley Kitchen one morning, but we were told that it would probably be a 45 minute wait and they really didn't have a spot for people to wait.  We promptly made reservations for breakfast the next day at 9 a.m.  This time, we were able to get right in.  

Just past the hostess stand was the bar area.  Yampa Valley Kitchen has a full bar with specialty drinks, wine and beer.  Their bloody mary consisted of a base made with juiced beets, peppers and tomatoes, then lemon juice, ginger, spices and herbs are mixed in with a horseradish-infused vodka.  It's finished with celery and a hot sauce if you want it spicy.  I came about this close to ordering one, but I didn't.  We were going to have a long day of sight-seeing and walking around some of the area lakes.   

The main dining area wasn't all that big with a small dining area with a large bay window off to the side.  There was an upstairs to the place, but I don't know if there was any dining space up there.  With the multiple windows on the main floor of the restaurant, the room was filled with a lot of natural light.  

Our hostess showed us to a table near one of the front windows and dropped off a couple breakfast menus for us.  Our server that morning was Clarissa, a friendly and soft-spoken young lady.  I immediately ordered a double espresso and a glass of orange juice.  My wife was sort of surprised to see smoothies on the menu and thought about getting the golden mango smoothie made with mangoes, bananas, coconut turmeric and agave juice.  But she ended up getting an orange juice and coffee, as well.

We were sort of surprised at the number of items on the breakfast menu.  (The lunch menu featured soups, salads, sandwiches, a burger, and light entrees featuring shrimp and grits, salmon miso soup, and a daily "chef's-choice" frittata.  Some of the breakfast menu items migrate to the lunch menu at Yampa Valley Kitchen.)  They had a basic American-style breakfast with two eggs, toast and a choice of either sausage, bacon or ham, and a choice of fried potatoes or a medley of greens made fresh in the kitchen.  They had a French omelet made with gruyére cheese and ham, eggs Benedict, traditional biscuits and gravy, and a choice of crepes.  They also had a number of vegetarian selections such as a banana-smoothie bowl with almond butter and almond milk, a vegetable omelet, and avocado toast.  

My wife was torn between the lemon crepe and the chocolate hazelnut crepe made with an in-house chocolate hazelnut spread, similar to Nutella.  I had my eye on the French omelet.  Or the lemon crepe, as well.  I really didn't know which way to turn.  

Well, that is until Clarissa brought out a couple plates of breakfast items to a couple ladies seated at a table in the middle of the dining room.  I'm usually not one to pry into what someone is eating at another table and I certainly wasn't going to ask the lady who was seemingly enjoying what she ordered.  I asked Clarissa instead when she came back to take our order.  

"Oh, that," she turned back to me after looking at the table.  "That's the Reuben Benedict."  I said that it looked good and Clarissa said it was one of the more popular items on their menu.  I ended up order that instead of the French omelet.  My wife ordered the lemon crepe, so I knew that I'd be able to get a bite or two of that to try.  

The reuben Benedict was outstanding.  It's no wonder it's one of the more popular items on the menu.  It featured house-made pastrami along with kimchi on English muffin halves topped with poached eggs and a house-made hollandaise.  The house-made pastrami was terrific and the overall savory flavor of my breakfast was out-of-this-world.  

My wife also couldn't say enough about her lemon crepe.  The thin crepe was filled with a rich lemon curd filling.  Pods of whipped vanilla cream topped with fresh blueberries, raspberries and blackberries surrounded the crepe.  My wife offered me a bite of the crepe with some cream and berries.  I have to say it was delicious with a lot of different taste sensations going on in my mouth.  My wife tried a bite of the reuben Benedict and decided that while it was good, she was happy with her lemon crepe.  So, we were both happy with what we ordered.  

We were very happy with the breakfasts we got at Yampa Valley Kitchen.  My reuben Benedict was off-the-charts, while my wife loved her lemon crepe with whipped vanilla cream and berries.  While they did have a couple three traditional breakfasts on the menu, most of the items were definitely a step-up in terms of taste and quality of the ingredients.  But, once again, like many other places in Steamboat Springs, breakfast wasn't cheap.  It was $55 bucks before tax and tip.  And Clarissa did get a nice tip as she did a very good in taking care of us.  Other than the high prices, we thoroughly enjoyed our breakfasts at Yampa Valley Kitchen.  But, you know, we don't mind paying extra if the food is good.  And the food at Yampa Valley Kitchen is very good.  

Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza - Eldridge, IA

My wife and I have a friend who had a home in the small town of Long Grove, about a 20 minute drive north of the Quad Cities.  Had is the correct tense here as she just moved back to West Virginia to be closer to family while her husband works overseas as a government contractor.  A couple weeks before she moved, she invited us out to her place to help her make heads or tails of some electronics equipment her husband said to go ahead and sell in the upcoming garage sale.  I jumped on the chance to see if there was something that was appealing to me.  (There was - I got a vintage Yamaha cassette tape deck player.  I haven't had a cassette tape deck player in my system since my Nakamichi LX-3 died - for the third time - a few years back and I didn't want to keep putting money into the thing.  And - yes - I still have hundreds of cassette tapes in my music collection.)  To further entice us to come out, our friend said that she wanted to go to a new pizza place in Eldridge, the town just to the south of Long Grove.  We thought that would be a fun night, so after spending some time going through things at her house, we ventured down the road to Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Kitchen.

Now, I was somewhat familiar with Tony Sacco's and knew that it was a franchise.  About 10 years ago, I stayed at a hotel in the northwest Chicago suburb of Mount Prospect.  The hotel was part of an entertainment/shopping destination called Randhurst Village that had a Tony Sacco's pizza joint in it.  That Tony Sacco's location didn't last too long - maybe two or three years - and I never did try it.  

The original Tony Sacco's dates back nearly 15 years ago when three Florida friends - all Michigan natives - decided to open a coal-fired pizza place, similar to old-world wood-fired Italian pizza places they had in their youths.  Only one - Tony Sacco - had any restaurant experience, while the other two - Chuck Senatore and George Kurajian - were an engineer and a former food service equipment executive, respectively.  They decided upon using Sacco's name since it sounded the most Italian of the bunch, but Sacco left the venture before they opened their first Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza in Estero, FL in 2008.  The group decided on coal over the old world wood ovens because coal burned hotter - and faster - than wood.  

Now, opening a restaurant in the midst of a recession probably isn't the smartest thing to do, but Senatore and Kurajian stuck it out and Tony Sacco's started to get a following.  They initially had plans to open 10 of the Tony Sacco's locations in the southwest Florida area on their own, but then the co-owners were approached by a handful of people looking to open franchised restaurants in the Midwest and southern states.  Senatore and Kurajian soon started the TSP Management Group to oversee franchising the Tony Sacco restaurants.  At one point, there were over a dozen Tony Sacco's in states from Illinois and Michigan down through Indiana and Ohio, and on south all the way to a handful in southwest Florida.  

It turned out that the Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza concept didn't work out well for a lot of franchisees as there are now just four other locations outside of the original one in Estero, FL.  And the confounding things is that the remaining locations are located in peculiar areas - there's one in northwest Indiana, one in a small city outside of Cleveland, one in a small town between Detroit and Lansing, MI, and the newest one in Eldridge, a bedroom community/agriculture-centric area just north of the Quad Cities.  

In 2017, the Whitty family - whose father, Joe, founded Happy Joe's Pizza - sold their interests in Happy Joe's to a newly formed company called Dynamic Restaurant Holdings.  At the same time, Dynamic Restaurant Holdings acquired majority interest in Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza.  Ironically, Dynamic Restaurant Holdings named industry veteran Tom Sacco (formerly with Bonanza and Ponderosa Steakhouse, Red Robin and BJ's Brewhouse) as their new CEO in October of last year.  Sacco - who has no family connection to the original Tony Sacco - announced last fall that they would put in a Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza in what was the old Lancers, then Grille 350 location in Eldridge.  

The Eldridge Tony's Sacco location is attached to the Happy Joe's restaurant, and because of that it has a different menu than the other locations.  From Day 1, Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza never had fryers, microwave ovens, or stove tops.  Everything was made in the coal-fired ovens.  But while the Eldridge location still has a coal-fired oven, the attached kitchen from Happy Joe's allows for an expansion of food offerings such as burgers, sandwiches, Italian entrees and appetizers such as Buffalo chicken dip and Italian nachos featuring crostini bread instead of corn chips.  

Our friend had eaten there with other friends a few nights before, but she said, "The service was just so bad.  I  thought the food was good, but the service was horrible."  It could be that the service is bad because Tony Sacco's is having trouble getting employees to work there.  In a recent article in the Quad City Times, Tom Sacco lamented that he was struggling to find full-time employees - even paying more than the going rate of most other restaurants in the area.  He said that many of the potential employees indicated that they didn't want to make the drive from the Quad Cities up to Eldridge - just 15 minutes north of downtown Davenport.  Sacco said that he only had 12 employees at one point when he ideally would like to have 30 to 35 people on staff.   Sacco said that he had to move a couple employees over to Eldridge from the Tony Sacco's operation just outside of South Bend, IN.  

This past late fall, we lost one of our favorite pizza places in the Quad Cities, Crust Pizza.  (Click here to see the entry on Crust.)  We liked the variety Crust offered (Chicago-deep dish, wood-fired Neapolitan, and tavern-cut thin crust pizzas) and they had a great selection of craft beer, wine and a full bar menu.  So, when we heard that a Tony Sacco's was opening in the area, we were hoping that it would, at the very least, fill some of the hole that the closing of Crust put into our regular rotation of non-Quad City-style pizza establishments that we like to go to.  

We pulled into the parking lot at Tony Sacco's just after 6 p.m. on a Friday night.  (see map)  We think that getting employees was still a problem for Tony Sacco's because we were told it would be a 30 minute wait for a table.  Even with social distancing guidelines in place, there appeared to be a number of open tables and booths in the restaurant.  It was a very large space.  We had eaten at the old Lancers Grille a couple of times years and years ago, but I didn't remember it being this big of a place.  We just figured they didn't have enough wait staff to take care of people if they sat everyone as they came in.  

After we put our name in, the hostess asked for a phone number to contact us when our table was ready.  I looked over and saw a small bar area with a corrugated tin facade.  I asked if we could get a drink while we waited.  The hostess flatly said, "No, you cannot."  We sort of stood by the front door and she finally said, "And you can't even be in here waiting for your table.  You'll have to go to your car."  I asked if we could stand in the vestibule and she said, "No, I'm sorry."  

So we did.  We sat in our car waiting for just over 30 minutes before my phone buzzed with a text that our table was ready.  While we were sitting there talking, our friend kept peering over at the front door.  "There's people standing in the entry way," she said with a disgusted tone.  We told her that it was fine to wait in the car.  I'd rather be hanging in an area away from people in the dead of winter in the middle of a worldwide pandemic.  

We went back inside and were greeted by another young lady who took us to a booth just past the hostess stand.  We were given menus and it wasn't too long after that when our server for the evening, an energetic and fun young lady by the name of Pam came over to greet us.  The first dilemma we had was what to drink.  They had a couple IPA's on tap - one of 12 beers they had on tap - one, the Space Dust from the Elysian Brewing Company in Seattle, Washington, and the other the Surf Zombie IPA from the Iowa Brewing Company in Cedar Rapids.  I started out with a Space Dust, then switched to a Surf Zombie for my second beer.  

Drinks for the women were tough.  My wife wanted a vodka and cranberry, but all they had were cans of cranberry lemonade.  She ended up taking a Space Dust IPA.  Our friend loves lagers and she's a big fan of Samuel Adams beer.  Well, they had no lagers on tap, no Sam Adams in bottles and the only full-bodied lager they had was Budweiser in bottles.  She reluctantly took one of those.  Pam apologized for them not having Samuel Adams.  "We get requests for that beer all the time," she said.  "I need to let the owner know that we may need to bring some in."  

(I saw Tom Sacco sitting up at the bar later in the evening, recognizing him from his picture in the paper.)

We figured that we'd get a pizza - our friend was completely good with our standard Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  At Tony Sacco's, they offer two kinds of pepperoni - the regular cut and the "cupped" pepperoni that curls up and is a little more crisp than the regular pepperoni.  We ordered a large (16") pizza with the regular pepperoni.  

My wife also wanted to get a salad and she was able to talk our friend into sharing the Italian chop salad they had on the menu.  It featured chopped romaine lettuce mixed in with pepperoni, sliced ham and salami, red onions, chopped tomatoes, banana pepper rings, chopped celery with green and Kalamata olives.  Shredded provolone cheese topped the salad.   

We sat there for quite sometime waiting for the salad to show up.  It finally came to the table and not more than 30 seconds later while the women were divvying up the salad, our pizza came.  "Oh, geez," my wife said.  "I would have liked to have gotten the salad long before the pizza."  

Pam came over to check on us after the pizza made it to the table and I said, "I think they would have liked to have gotten the salad a lot sooner than just 30 seconds before the pizza showed up."   

She immediately apologized.  "That's on me, you guys," she said.  "I should have asked if you wanted it before the pizza because we consider our salads as regular entrees."  Quite honestly, it wasn't that big of a deal and it was another learning experience for us as patrons and Pam as a server at a new restaurant.  

The pizza looked pretty good.  It featured chunks of sausage, large discs of pepperoni, and a bunch of sliced fresh mushrooms.  The only thing that I could see was that it seemed that they concentrated much of the toppings in the center of the pizza.  

And I have to say that the pizza was very good.  The crust was puffy, but not too thick.  The mozzarella cheese was fresh and creamy.  And the sausage and pepperoni were slight spicy.  The earthiness of the fresh mushrooms rounded the overall flavor of the pizza into a very favorable taste.  

The women concentrated more on their salad - which was served in a large bowl and put on two plates that they had brought out - than they did the pizza.  I had three pieces before I threw in the towel.  My wife and our friend both had one piece each.  The remaining 3 pieces we put into a box and let our friend take them back to her house.    

Since Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza had been open less than 6 weeks when we went there for our first visit, we completely broke our rule of waiting 3 months after a restaurant opens to give it a try.  While there were a couple hiccups along the way on this visit, we wrote them off to growing pains of a new restaurant trying to find itself on a short staff.  Our friend said that the service on this visit was markedly better than the service she experienced on her first visit just a few days before.  I was pleased with our pizza - the cheese and toppings were fresh and full of flavor.  It's one of the better ones that I've had in the greater Quad Cities area.  We're not averse to taking the drive out to Eldridge and I'm sure we'll find ourselves out at Tony Sacco's Coal Fire Oven every once in a while to enjoy a good non-Quad City-style pizza.  

Aurum - Steamboat Springs, CO

On our last night in Steamboat Springs last September, we decided to find someplace nice for dinner.  We had eaten at the E3 Chophouse on our previous visit (click here to read the entry on E3 Chophouse) and just down the street from that restaurant was another place that we'd had our eye on over time - a nice upscale place by the name of Aurum Food & Wine.  We made reservations to go to Aurum for our last dinner on this trip to Steamboat.  

Ever since he started working in restaurants at the age of 13, Phillips "Phil" Armstrong had always wanted to run his own restaurant.  In the years after he graduated from Colorado State University he worked behind the scenes in restaurants and hotels learning his way around running a restaurant.   One of those restaurants along the way included the acclaimed SugarToad in the Chicago suburb of Naperville.  It was at SugarToad when Armstrong's boss - noted chef Jimmy Sneed - gave him the idea of opening an underground restaurant that would be invitation only and would involve a revolving door of food line workers who worked in higher end restaurants, but who were not quite full-fledged chefs.  

Phil Armstrong eventually moved back to Denver and enlisted his friend Brad Fentress, the owner of a trendy home furnishings design studio, to help out with his dream of an underground restaurant.  Fentress' design studio - Studio Como - became the home for Hush, a once-a-month, invitation-only restaurant that would allow unknown chefs or line workers to make a meal for a small group of people.  The first meal was held in the fall of 2009 and featured line workers from the world-renown Alinea restaurant in Chicago.  

Pictured right - Phil Armstrong.  Photo courtesy Aurum Food & Wine website. 

Over the next three years, Armstrong called upon a vast community of local food truck chefs, line cooks, and chefs who wanted to step outside the ropes and prepare meals that they couldn't prepare in their restaurants, i.e., a steakhouse chef who wanted to make Asian-inspired food.  Hush was an overwhelming success and became one of the most coveted invitations in town. 

One of the chefs that came in for one of the first Hush events was Chase Wilbanks, the executive chef at La Tour restaurant in Vail, CO.  Armstrong and Wilbanks struck up a friendship that continued when Wilbanks moved to Denver to become the executive sous chef at Shanahan's steakhouse.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Shanahan's.)  When Armstrong was coming up with ideas for his new restaurant, he turned to Wilbanks for guidance.  

Armstrong had been going back and forth between Denver and Telluride, CO for a few years, but decided upon another ski-centric town to open his restaurant.  He found a restaurant where the owner - who had won $27 million in the Colorado Lottery a number of years before - was wanting to sell the place.  Armstrong took over the spot and redecorated the restaurant with a gold color scheme.  He called his new restaurant Aurum after the Latin word for gold.  With Wilbanks running the kitchen and devising a menu, Aurum Food & Wine opened in May of 2014.  

Aurum quickly became a place that was known for good food in a fun atmosphere, something Armstrong emphasized in his initial plans for a restaurant.  He didn't want his restaurant to be stuffy or snooty, but a place where people could enjoy their food while having a good time with their dining companions. 

Armstrong set up a company - Destination Hospitality Group - to oversee the development of other restaurants in ski resort towns across Colorado.  The second restaurant Armstrong opened was Table 79 Foodbar, a small bistro/bar with a limited menu that opened in Steamboat Springs 2017.  A second Aurum opened in Breckinridge, CO in 2018, and a unique concept restaurant - Periodic Table - opened in 2019.  Located in the Catamount Ranch just outside of Steamboat Springs, the restaurant completely changes its menu every six months.  (Plans for a third Aurum to open in Aspen, CO in 2020 were stalled by the pandemic.  However, they hope to have it open later this year.)  

My wife and I pulled up just past Aurum just before our reservation time of 7 p.m.  (see map) Just off to the side of Aurum is their outdoor patio area that looks out on to the Yampa River directly behind the restaurant. The first couple days we were in Steamboat it was patio weather.  Then an uncommon late summer snowstorm came through the area and temperatures struggled to reach 60 degrees the rest of the time we were there.   Of course, the week after we were in Steamboat, it was back up into the mid-70's.  

Part of the patio area was covered with artificial turf with a number of standing tables that patrons can hang out at on warmer days.  In the winter time, Aurum constructs yurts on the patio which allow patrons the experience of dining outside in the elements.  The yurts are heated, but not insulated, so they caution people to dress warmly for the yurt dining experience.  

Upon entering the restaurant, we were greeted by the hostess whom we told we had reservations.  "We're a little slow tonight, so reservations probably weren't needed," she said as she escorted us back to the dining area.  "But we do appreciate you calling ahead," she said.  

The bar area was just off to the right side of the hostess stand.  It was set up for social distancing - no chairs at the bar, but they had lounge chairs and tables up against the bar instead.  A group of guys were in the back corner of the bar watching a football game on one of the flatscreen televisions they had on the wall.

We were seated in a little alcove next to a group of women who were definitely having a good time.  They were pretty loud and my wife wondered why in the hell they would seat us at this particular table when there seemed to be a number of other tables - especially closer to the windows that looked out over the Yampa River - that were open.  But it wasn't long before the women finished their after dinner drinks and took off.  

Our server for the evening was a pleasant young lady by the name of Lynn.  We engaged her in conversation after our dinner was finished to find out her story.  Like many people who work at restaurants whom we talked to during our trips to Steamboat Springs, Lynn did not grow up in the area.  She was from the Virginia side of the Washington D.C. area and had moved out to Breckinridge to become a ski instructor.  "I really didn't care for the scene in Breckinridge that much," she said echoing our sentiments about Breckinridge.  "So I moved here 7 years ago and I love it."  She said that she now considered Steamboat Springs home and, in fact, was getting ready to get married in a few months.  Spoiler alert - Lynn did a great job for us all evening long.  

The menu at Aurum features a number of items that are locally sourced from farms and markets in the area.  The menu wasn't extensive, and we were fine with that.  They had dishes consisting of beef, seafood, lamb and pork.  Aurum had a number of appetizers and shareable plates such as tikka marsala mussels, pork carnitas tacos, and crispy curried cauliflower served with shishito peppers.  I remarked to Lynn when she came back to check on us that some of the appetizers sounded pretty good and I was seriously thinking of getting a couple of them for my meal that night.  She said, "We get people that do that all the time.  Some of the regulars that come in, I pretty much know the appetizers or shareable plates they're going to get before they sit down."  

We started out with drinks - a cranberry/vodka martini for my wife, and I got a pint of the First Cast IPA from the Elevation Beer Company located in Poncha Springs, CO, a small town about a two-hour drive south and west of Colorado Springs.  Later on for our meal that evening, I got us a bottle of the Muga rioja reserva wine from Spain, a nice red that we've had many times before.  

My wife thought she needed a salad before the meal and they had a mixed greens salad available that evening.  She considered the roasted beet salad initially, but she thought she better have some greens because she was looking at getting either the trout or salmon dinner that evening and they didn't come with green veggies.

Even though there wasn't a lot to choose from on the menu, we were still having trouble figuring out what we wanted.  I ended up getting the lamb chops.  It came on a bed of pureed sweet potatoes and roasted broccoli.  Lynn asked me how I would like them to be prepared and I immediately said, "Have the chef prepare them the way he would make them for himself."  She told me that they were cooked medium when they were served to me.  They were very good - tender and flavorful, but they weren't very big.  But it was fine with me.  Since there weren't a lot of people in the restaurant and I had my back to the rest of the dining room, I picked up the bones and gnawed at the meat that was still attached.  My wife laughed and said, "You're lucky this place isn't busy or you wouldn't get away with that!"  

My wife took a completely different turn when it came to ordering her dinner that evening.  She got the beef tenderloin filet.  It came on a bed of puréed potatoes with a mixed seasonal vegetable medley.  The filet and potatoes were in a pool of a rich brown demi-glace.   (That was another reason why I got a bottle of red wine rather than getting wine by the glass that evening.)  She thought her tenderloin filet was excellent.  She remarked that it was probably a much better choice than either of the two fish entrees she was considering.  

Since the portions weren't all that large, we decided to get some dessert.  My wife was more up for dessert so she ended up ordering the chocolate cake with a vanilla-mousse bomb with raspberry sauce.  I went the lighter direction and got the lemon sorbet.  And I got an espresso to go along with my sorbet.  I had a bite of the chocolate cake and it was extremely rich.  The vanilla mousse bomb was also very good.  But I was more than happy with my choice of the lemon sorbet.  

As I said earlier, we engaged Lynn in a nice conversation when she brought our check to the table.  She said that she really liked the people in Steamboat Springs.  "A lot of people in the service industry out here are from somewhere else," she explained.  "It's that mix with the locals that makes Steamboat what it is."  She said the people are extremely friendly and welcoming in Steamboat Springs.  "I didn't get that in Breckinridge," she told us.  We couldn't agree with her more - we absolutely love Steamboat Springs and didn't care for Breckinridge all that much when we were there.  

For the last dinner in Steamboat during our trip out there last September, we picked out a winner in Aurum Food & Wine.   It wasn't cheap, but we didn't find a restaurant in our travels there that isn't cheap.  But I was more than happy with my lamb chops and my wife was very happy with her choice of the beef tenderloin filet.  Aurum was a nice place, everyone was friendly and accommodating - including our server Lynn - and we wish we would have been able to enjoy dinner on the deck over looking the Yampa River.  Maybe next time as I have a feeling that Steamboat Springs will be in a regular rotation for future vacation destinations for us.  

La Vecina - Coralville, IA

Since I haven't been able to travel due to restrictions - especially into the Chicago area - I haven't been able to stop in at a Trader Joe's to pick up some of the things we like from there.  Running low on some of our favorites from Trader Joe's, my wife and I recently drove over to their Coralville location since it's just an hour's drive from our house.  We left after work that evening and I sort of wondered where we'd have dinner later that night.  My wife had been raving about this restaurant that was near Trader Joe's that specialized in wood-fired Mexican cuisine.  She and her sister had been there a little over a year ago and she wanted me to try the place.  After stopping at Trader Joe's to stock up, we ventured down the hill to La Vecina.  

La Vecina - which roughly translates into "the neighbor lady" - is owned by Hawkeye Hotels, a family-run hotel and restaurant management company that got their start in 1982 with the purchase of a small 18-room motel in Mena, Arkansas.  Balvant "Bob" and Anjana "Angie" Patel had immigrated from India via Canada two years prior and bought a then-shuttered roadside motel that they rehabbed and ran by themselves.  Bob managed the hotel and did maintenance work, while Angie did the books and cleaned the rooms.  

The Patels eventually bought a hotel in Hannibal, MO, then made it to Iowa when they built a Comfort Inn hotel in Burlington in the late 80's.  The Patel family grew their hotel empire to about a dozen properties when the Recession of 2008 hit.  When other hotels were going out of business and banks were scared to lend money, the Patel's were able to grow their portfolio of hotels from 12 to 30 with cash reserves they had built up over time.  Today, the Patel's - with sons Ravi and Raj, and daughter Sajni - own over 50 hotels in 17 states with another dozen or so in development.  Their crown jewel will be the re-opening of the iconic Hotel Fort Des Moines later this year, a property the Patel's purchased in 2015 and made extensive renovations on the building turning it back into the most prestigious hotel in downtown Des Moines.  

In 2016, the Patels hired Sam Hall as their corporate director for food and beverage.  Hall had come from the Blackstone, a contemporary American restaurant in Iowa City, where he had been the general manager, then a managing partner in the eatery.  In 2017, the Patel siblings and Hall purchased the Clinton Street Social Club, a popular gastropub and nighttime spot in Iowa City.  Later that year, the Patel's and Hall started Marquee Pizzeria, a wood-fired pizza place in the Iowa River Landing multi-use complex in Coralville.  

In 2018, the Patels and Hall came up with a new concept restaurant featuring wood-fired Mexican cuisine that was also going to be located in the Iowa River Landing complex.  The group turned to James Beard Award-nominee Rene Ortiz, an Austin, TX-based chef known primarily for his work at La Condesa, a popular contemporary Mexican restaurant in that city.   Hall and the Patel's consulted with Ortiz on the food menu, then moved Will Evans over from Marquee Pizzeria and made him executive chef.  (Evans had previous experience working with Hall at both Blackstone and at Clinton Street Social Club.)  With everything in place, La Vecina opened their doors in the early part of June in 2019.

Things went very well for La Vecina right off the bat.  They quickly got a reputation for their food made with both locally-grown ingredients as well as ingredients that were imported from Mexico for authenticity.  Their bar became a favorite with locals looking for eclectic cocktails in a contemporary setting.  And the restaurant also garnered a following for their secret lounge called 400 Rabbits that sits in the back of the restaurant area behind a hidden door.  

After pulling out of Trader Joe's, we took a left onto 9th St. in Coralville and headed down the hill toward the east.  We drove by La Vecina, but their outside sign was not on and the place looked dark.  However, my wife saw that there were people in the place and she decided to call them from the car just to make sure.  "Yep, they're open," my wife said.  We parked in a lot behind La Vecina and went around to the front door.  (see map)

The entrance into La Vecina opens into a large floor plan with vaulted ceilings.  The decor is decidedly contemporary industrial with brushed concrete floors and exposed metal beams and air ducts in the ceiling.  There was an upstairs dining area for overflow dining or for large parties just over the front entrance.  

The lighting in the restaurant was also subdued and it was definitely darker than most other restaurants.  We had to use the flashlights on our phones to look at the menus that the hostess left with us when she seated us at a table along the wall.  Little votive candles were lit on each table were a nice touch. 

The kitchen area was on the side of the restaurant just to the left from where we came in.  It featured wood-fired grills and smokers for the food they serve at La Vecina.  Stacks of wood used for the cooking process lined the facade of the serving counter.  We noticed a number of people coming in to get to-go orders from the kitchen when we were there.  And they also had drive-up take-out service in the back alley behind the restaurant.  

The bar area featured a large rectangular bar with metal shelves holding various bottles of tequila along the top railing of two sides of the bar.  Without restrictions in place, the bar could have comfortably seated probably 18 to 20 people.  

They were playing contemporary Latino music through the restaurant's sound system.  Some of it was rather catchy in nature and I found myself checking out the Soundhound app on my phone to find out what the songs were.  They played music from Natalia Lafourcade, La Gusana Ciega, and Los Romániticos de Zacatecas in addition to a number of other interesting musical numbers.  

My wife was looking through the menu and she remarked that it was lacking some of the entrees that had been on the menu pre-pandemic.  In fact, the menu featured primarily tacos, but there were nachos, a quesadilla, and ceviche for appetizers or shareable plates.  As we were talking about the menu, our server for the evening, Diego, came over to greet us.  He heard my wife talking about the menu and he said, "Well, I was going to ask if you guys had been here before, but obviously you have if you're familiar with our old menu."  

My wife explained that she had been to La Vecina with her sister before the pandemic hit.  "Oh, yeah," Diego said.  "We shut down for a few months (La Vecina was closed from March into October of last year) and decided to just focus on tacos until things get back to normal.  We're hoping that's sooner than later."   

The first thing we had to do is order up drinks.  My wife said that she had the Paloma there before, but La Vecina makes theirs a little more snappy by adding Ancho Reyes, a spicy liqueur, to the traditional tequila, lime juice and grapefruit juice.  I ended up getting the house margarita - tequila, Curacao, and lime juice, just the way I like my margaritas.  Both drinks were served in short glasses and the house margarita was so good that I polished my first one off rather quickly.  

My wife had remembered getting the guacamole on her first visit over a year ago.  We ordered up some of the guac that came with fresh warm chips.  The guacamole was very good with hints of onion, garlic and cilantro in each bite with chopped tomatoes mixed in.  We plowed through the bowl of guacamole and Diego said that we could get a refill for 3 bucks.  Couldn't beat that price, so we signed up for another one.  What we didn't each on chips, we put onto our tacos.  

There were six different types of tacos on the menu - achiote pork tacos, sweet and spicy shrimp tacos, chicken thigh-confit tacos, chipotle chicken tacos, carne asada tacos and fish tacos featuring mahi-mahi.  Two tacos came with an order and I asked Diego how big they were and he said they were a little bigger than street tacos.  

I wanted to try two of the tacos - the carne asada and the fish tacos - while my wife was going to get the Chicken Tinga tacos with the chipotle chicken.  The chicken tacos and the carne asada tacos came out first.  We had our choice between flour or corn taco shells and my wife explained that they made their corn tacos in-house with ground masa they import from Mexico.  So I went that route.  I was sort of surprised that they had just one corn taco shell per taco, usually you'll get two because the corn tortillas don't hold together as well as the flour ones do.  

The carne asada tacos came with a chile salsa and pico de gallo.  I don't know if that was for my tacos or for both our tacos, but I used some of the green salsa and guacamole on my tacos.  The steak was smoky in flavor, very tender, and the onion and cilantro mixed in was a great complement to beef.   

The fish tacos were brought out and the corn shells were a little different from the ones that came with our carne asada and chicken tacos.  They were darker in color and a little more flimsy.  Flimsy in that they literally exploded on the metal holder when we picked them up to eat.  But they had a lot going on with the lightly-grilled mahi mahi, two different types of salsa - a red and a green salsa - with a chipotle slaw added along with crispy chunks of garlic.  When Diego came back to check on us, I showed him the mess the exploding fish tacos made.  I suggested using two tortillas with the fish tacos because they were pretty juicy to begin with and it just soaked the tortilla.  

We sort of did the tacos "family-style" with us sharing across the table.  I tried some of the chipotle chicken tacos and while I normally don't care for chicken in Mexican food, I will say that the Chicken Tinga taco I had was very good.  It was topped with a slice of avocado, cilantro, onions, a red salsa, and a combination of cream and fresh cheese.  To say there were a lot of taste sensations going on with each bite is an understatement.  

While my wife was upset that they didn't have their full menu, I thought the tacos that we got at La Vecina were very good.  Well, other than the mahi mahi tacos falling apart when we picked them up.  The margaritas I had (3 of them) were also very good, and we both liked the fresh guacamole and chips very much.  The ambiance of the place was a little sterile, but the music they played featured some interesting Latino numbers.  Finally, I have to say the service was exemplary as Diego took prompt care of any request we had and he displayed a great attitude all evening long.  Even though I didn't get to see the secret bar they have in back, I have a feeling that once the pandemic has subsided and they go back to a full menu that we'll be back to check the place out again.

Mambo Italiano - Steamboat Springs, CO

We had a couple evenings during our trip to Steamboat Springs last year where the weather was beautiful for outdoor dining.  That was before we had a 50 degree temperature drop in daytime highs and it started to blow and snow.  One of those evenings we were able to dine al fresco at one of the better and more established restaurants in the area, Mambo Italiano.  

Mambos - as it's known to the locals - has been a popular new world Italian restaurant in Steamboat Springs for about 20 years.  Doug McNicoll, who was a commercial realtor/restaurateur, founded Mambo Italiano in 2000 - named after a famous song originally sung by Rosemary Clooney.  But the modern day Mambos got its spark in 2011 when noted chef Hannah Hopkins moved to town.  

Hopkins' husband Kevin had a job opportunity in Steamboat that would uproot the family from their small upstate New York village where Hannah had a thriving restaurant and catering business.  She had been featured on the Food Network program Chopped and developed a following of food enthusiasts who would come to the small town of Mahopac, NY to dine at her restaurant - Dish Bistro and Wine Bar.

Pictured at right - Hannah Hopkins.  Photo courtesy Bésame.  

Kevin Hopkins took a position as a consultant and legal counsel for a company specializing in environmental projects.  He took it on himself to send out a number of Hannah's resumes to restaurants in Steamboat Springs, and it just so happened that Doug McNicoll was looking for a new executive chef.  After selling her restaurant and moving to Steamboat in 2011, Hannah McNicoll took over the kitchen at Mambo Italiano.  

In 2015, McNicoll decided to move back to the Twin Cities to pursue business interests and to purchase an established Italian restaurant by the name of Amore Victoria, which happened to be my favorite Italian restaurant in the cities.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Amore Victoria, now known as Amore Uptown.)   McNicoll had offered to sell the restaurant to Hannah Hopkins, but his price was too high for her to do on her own.  That's when she enlisted the help of local developer Jeremy MacGray.  

MacGray had been a fan of Hannah Hopkins' cooking techniques since she moved to Steamboat four years before.  Hopkins and MacGray were able to get together in the partnership and they purchased Mambo Italiano in late 2015 with Hopkins as executive chef/managing partner.  In 2017, Hopkins was joined by Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef Joe Campbell naming him as the executive chef of Mambos as she and MacGray were looking at other culinary opportunities in the area.

Earlier in 2017, a longtime Mexican restaurant closed their doors down the street from Mambo, and MacGray and Hopkins partnered to take over that building and turn it into a Modern Latin-inspired restaurant by the name of Bésame.  (Click here to read the Road Tips entry on Bésame.)  And last year, MacGray and Hopkins teamed up for a third restaurant in the area - a breakfast/lunch bistro by the name of Yampa Valley Kitchen.  Joe Campbell continues to have the title of executive chef in all three restaurants.   

We didn't have reservations when we walked up to the hostess stand on a warm evening with smoke in the air from nearby forest fires that had flared up a few days before.  The hostess said that indoor dining was sold out for the evening and it would probably be a 45 minute wait for a table on the outdoor patio.  I deferred to my wife on that one and she was dead set on having dinner at Mambo that evening.  She didn't mind the wait.  

Since their bar area was off limits, we just decided to hang out in the patio area that featured arbor beams over the decking with strands of white lights hanging from the beams.  Some tables were under umbrellas that made them socially distanced for the outdoor dining.

I wandered inside to use the restroom and as I walked in the door it turned out the open kitchen was just in front of me.  There were high-back chairs at a counter just on the other side of the kitchen and I thought for a moment that it would be pretty cool to sit and watch the staff at work preparing meals.  I almost asked our hostess if we could sit there, but then I realized that no one else was sitting at the counter which probably meant they weren't allowing people to sit there.  

Toward the street front side of the restaurant was the bar area.  The had a couple tables set up toward the front window and a couple high-top tables along the corridor across from the bar.  Since they weren't allowing people at the bar, the top of the bar was used more of a "catch-all" place to store glasses and bar supplies.

It turned out our wait was much less than the 45 minutes we were initially told - it was more like 20 minutes when the hostess came over to us and directed us to a table along the walk way that they had set up for al fresco dining during the pandemic.  Everyone at the restaurant - including my wife and I - were masked up as was the case with every place we went to during our trip to Steamboat Springs.  Once we were seated at the table, we could remove the masks.  

Our server that evening was Michelle, a nice young lady who came over to say "hello" while we were perusing the menu.  We started out with a couple adult beverages - a Tito's vodka and cranberry for my wife, and I had a pint of an IPA from Stone Brewing Co. that they had on tap.  

The menu at Mambo was an eclectic mix of Italian specialties, pasta dishes, artisan pizza and sharable antipasto and small plate appetizers.  A chopped salad, a Caesar salad and a traditional Italian salad were also on the menu with additions such as grilled balsamic-glazed chicken, grilled shrimp or fried calamari were available for an upcharge.  

We were looking through the menu when Michelle brought our drinks and a plate of baked bread with a bowl of pickled garlic cloves swimming in a mixture of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  The bread was crusty and crunchy, and when dipped in the olive oil/balsamic vinegar mixture it fully absorbed the liquid.  With some of the fresh pickled garlic spread on it, it was heaven on earth.  Pickled garlic has a tendency to be on the spicy side and this was no exception.

One of the first things that we saw on the menu were the mussels in a white wine and butter sauce.  We ordered up a bowl of those from Michelle and asked if she could bring some more of the crusty bread out with it.  The mussels were - well, mussels.  Some were meaty, some were small, some didn't open.  The white wine and butter sauce was infused with chopped basil and garlic, and when you dipped the bread into the mixture the taste sensation was over the top.  We were careful, however, to not over-do the bread as we didn't want to fill up too quickly.

For our main entree that evening, I was torn between a couple of pasta dishes.  The first one was their classic fettuccine alfredo in which you could add shrimp, chicken, pancetta or peas to the dish for an upcharge.  I was thinking of going with the pancetta and peas to add to the dish.  But I ended up getting the tagliatelle in a bolognese sauce.  It featured thick house-made tagliatelle noodles mixed with a red meat sauce consisting of ground locally-raised beef and Italian sausage.  The dish was topped with shredded Grana Podano cheese.

My wife selected the halibut piccata - a thick piece of halibut that was pan-fried with capers in a saffron lemon butter sauce.  It was served on top of a bed of a summer squash/rosemary potato purée.  And when I had mentioned something about the fettuccine alfredo, my wife started to think about that.  It turned out that Mambo had a small side dish of fettuccine in the alfredo sauce that she could order.  She was in heaven with her dinner choices.  

My tagliatelle and bolognese was simply delicious.  The thick tagliatelle noodles were cooked perfectly, and the combination of the ground beef and ground Italian sausage in the red sauce was a perfect pairing.  The Grana Podano cheese brought it all together with its forward, yet creamy, flavor.  My pasta dish was outstanding.  I got a glass of the True Myth cabernet to go along with my dinner.  It was a full-bodied red that was a great partner with the bolognese sauce.  

My wife was more than happy with her halibut piccata.  It had a lot of flavors going on all at once and she said the fish was fresh in taste and the summer squash/potato purée really anchored the savoriness of her dish.  She also got a glass of wine with her dinner - a sauvignon blanc from the Tramin winery located in the Alto Adige region of northeastern Italy.  She said it was light and delicious, and a good choice to go along with the halibut piccata.  

Unfortunately, she could only handle a couple bites of her fettuccine alfredo as the halibut piccata was very good and very rich.  I had a couple bites of her fettuccine to see how good it was, considering that was my second choice.  While the fettuccine alfredo was very good, I was very happy with my choice of the tagliatelle bolognese.  

Even though my wife was full, she wanted to try one of the desserts Mambo had on their menu.  I was interested in the white chocolate cheesecake, but my wife thought she'd blow up if she had a bite of that.  We decided upon the tiramisu.  It was served in a bowl that looked like a martini glass.  The top of the tiramisu was a thick layer of cocoa powder that - we felt - completely overpowered the taste of the tiramisu.  I don't know if that's how they normally serve their tiramisu, but that was way too much.

I normally don't like to have espresso at night, but since we were on vacation, I thought that I could handle a nice nighttime buzz.  And the fact that they had Lavazzo espresso, one of my favorite types.  When Michelle initially brought over the tiramisu and the espresso, as she began to take the tiramisu off the tray, the weight shifted and she dumped the espresso.  The table top was a metal grate and it went right through, almost catching my wife.  But my wife's cat-like nimble quickness allowed her to move away without nary a drop on her clothes.  Michelle was horrified and completely embarrassed.  She comped the dessert and the espresso for us against our protests.  She did a fine job in taking care of us that evening.    

The dumping of the espresso was the most dramatic event during our visit to Mambo Italiano.  Overall, we were entirely pleased with the food, service and the dining experience.  I will say that it was a little strange to be seated at a table that was in what is the normal walkway to the front door of the restaurant, but with all the pandemic restrictions going on we've learned to take things in stride.  I thoroughly enjoyed my tagliatelle pasta with the very good bolognese sauce, while my wife was more than happy with her halibut piccata with the summer squash and rosemary potato purée.  I will say, however, that the mussels were just "OK", and there was too much cocoa powder on the top of our tiramisu.  But the entrees we both had trumped any bad experience we may have encountered at Mambo Italiano. 

Stinky's Fish Camp - Santa Rosa Beach, FL

With snow and ice on the ground and still homebound due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I wanted to reminisce a bit about some of the warmer places we've visited over the past few years.  One of those places was the Emerald Coast of Florida where my cousin and his wife retired to over eight years ago.  My wife and I made the trek down there for our anniversary in 2014 and ate at some great to not so great places while we were there.  This entry was one of the more memorable meals we've had in all our travels - not only for the great seafood, but for the "present" which lived up to the restaurant's name that the valet "dropped" in our car when we left the restaurant.  Please enjoy this look back at Stinky's Fish Camp in Santa Rosa Beach, FL.

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On our first night along Florida's Emerald Coast, I told my cousin and his wife that we really wanted fresh caught seafood for dinner.  They contemplated a number of places that proliferate the area, but decided that we needed to go to a place with a not too tantalizing name - Stinky's Fish Camp.  They said it was one of the most popular seafood restaurants in the area.  That sounded perfect for us.   

Jim Richard is a native of Lafayette, LA in the heart of Cajun country.  Richard came from a family of chefs and food purveyors - his family exported turtle meat, frog legs and rabbit back to their ancestral home in France.  Richard went to the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY and ended up becoming the sous chef at the famous Commander's Palace in New Orleans.  

Along the way he met a young Mississippi born and raised chef, Brannon Janca, who learned the art of southern seafood cooking from his grandparents.  Janca went off to college, but he eventually dropped out to enter a culinary school in New Orleans.  Janca had previous experience at the famous Gautreau's Restaurant in New Orleans before he moved to Northwest Florida in 2001 to work at the Lake Place, a restaurant that Richard and he bought in Santa Rosa Beach.  

A devastating fire in 2006 wiped out the Lake Place and Richard moved his talents for a short time over to the Harbor Grille in Destin.  Along with chef Todd Meisner - also a graduate of the C.I.A. in Hyde Park - Richard and Janca opened Stinky's Fish Camp in 2007 in a small building that was next to the original Lake Place.  The trio formed the Word of Mouth Restaurant Group and started Blue Mountain Catering.  In 2009, they rebuilt the original Lake Place, but by that time the Stinky's Fish Camp name had stuck.  The called the new restaurant Stinky's Fish Camp and the old place Stinky's Bait Shack.  

Richard said in a magazine article that he never intended for the name Stinky's to stick.  During his days at the Commander's Palace in New Orleans, the kitchen was hectic, cooks came and went quickly, and there were times he didn't even know the names of people that he was working with.  Each chef was nicknamed "Stink", which, according to Richard, was part fun, part meanness, but sort of a camaraderie term of endearment.  When they opened the casual restaurant in the small building next to the old Lake Place property, Stinky's was supposed to be a temporary name until the new place was built.  Stinky's Fish Camp had taken off and they just went with it.  

The other part of the story is that Richard was going through some of his grandfather's things years after opening Stinky's Fish Camp and he found a menu for a restaurant by the name of "Skunk" where his grandfather was the chef.  It featured spicy Cajun food in the front and illegal gambling in the back.  Richard took this to be a message from his long-passed grandfather that he was on the right track.  

Famed chef and television star Emeril Lagasse has a home along the Emerald Coast and he hosted a program on the Cooking Channel called Emeril's Florida.  Stinky's Fish Camp has been featured on one of the show's episodes.  Here's a picture of Brannon Janca, Emeril Lagasse, Jim Richard and Todd Meisner.  (Photo courtesy 30A Eats.) 

Richard recently opened a new restaurant in New Orleans - Trenasse, a Cajun term for a waterway that leads to a fishing hole.  Trenasse is more upscale than Stinky's and features fresh Gulf seafood and traditional Cajun dishes including rabbit.  But some things that he's perfected at Stinky's - including the Stinky's Stew that is a combination of gumbo and cioppino - are on the menu at Trenasse.

Stinky's Fish House is located on the scenic 30A Highway that not only is the main drag through the beach towns along the Emerald Coast, but it also signifies a frame of mind - laid back, relaxing, no worries.  (See map)  After walking along the beach for a bit, my wife, my cousin John, and his wife Bonnie jumped in our car to head down 30A toward Stinky's.  However, the torrential rains that bore down on the Florida panhandle a couple three weeks prior had washed out a portion of the road along 30A.  We had to double back and take a detour up to U.S. Highway 98, then go back toward the beach from the western terminus of 30A.  It was a Sunday night and we didn't expect a lot of people at Stinky's, but the place was packed.  They offer free valet parking at the restaurant and we took advantage of that.  

We walked in the front door of Stinky's Fish Camp and were greeted by a couple young ladies at the hostess stand.  They told us it would be a 45 minute wait for a table.  We went to the bar and my cousin had a gift card for Stinky's and he used it for drinks at the bar.  I was surprised - actually more delighted - to see that they had Kona beers on tap at Stinky's bar.  But not the Kona Big Wave Golden Ale that is my beer of choice these days.  However, I did see that they had Sweetwater 420, a very good pale ale that I fell in love with a few years back.  My cousin was trying to get me to try a beer from the Grayton Beer Company, a small locally owned brewery just down 30A.  He said, "Sweetwater is out of Atlanta.  You can get that anywhere!"  

I said, "Well, I can't get it in Iowa, John."  He understood after that.  (Note - at that time you couldn't get Sweetwater 420 in the Midwest.  But it's pretty much now commonly found in grocery and liquor stores.)

On the wall near the bar were a couple posters for The Steenos, a husband and wife musical duo who are friends of ours that my wife and I met through my cousin when he lived in Milwaukee years ago.  Bob and Lisa Steeno retired about 10 years ago and moved back down to the Emerald Coast as Bob was in the stationed in the area in the late 70's. Accomplished musicians, Bob and Lisa regularly play a number of places around the Emerald Coast and have a standing engagement for Sunday brunch at Stinky's Fish Camp.  (Bob has a once a week solo gig at the smaller and more casual Stinky's Bait Shack next door.)  It was sort of funny and neat to see our friends on posters at Stinky's.  

We hung around outside for a bit before Bonnie made the suggestion to go over and hang out at Stinky's Bait Shack while we waited.  We took our drinks and walked across the parking lot and into the Bait Shack.  The decor was funky, but fresh.  A small area in the corner is where musicians - including Bob Steeno - would set up and play.  There was a bar and a few table set up in the area as you come in.  Toward the back and to the right, a large gift shop was in a spot that used to be a dining room of the original Stinky's Fish Camp before it moved next door.  

We were there for about a half-hour and I was ready for another beer.  I looked in their glass encased beer refrigerator and saw that they had the Kona Big Wave Golden Ale beers in bottles.  I was in heaven.  I immediately fell in love with Stinky's Bait Shack.  

Each year, Stinky's sponsors a pompano fishing contest.  Actually, I didn't know that there was a fish called a pompano, but I had heard of Pompano Beach situated north of Miami.  I was looking at the 2014 tournament results on a board behind the bar in the Bait Shop and it turned out that our friend Bob Steeno got second place and $400 bucks.  "Bobby won't say for sure, but he thinks the guy who won it may have cheated," my cousin told me.  "The guy who won it is a commercial fisherman and he came in a day or two before the end of the tournament (it runs April 1 thru May 15) with a bigger fish than Bob."  First place is $2500 bucks.  

Our buzzer lit up not long after and we were escorted into the dining room to a four-seat hardwood table.  We were given menus and not long after our server for the evening, Billy, came over to greet us.  I was ready for another beer and while I noticed that they had the Kona Longboard Lager and the Koko Brown on tap, I wondered if they had the Big Wave Golden Ale in a bottle like they did over at the Bait Shop.  Unfortunately they didn't and this time my cousin talked me into trying the Grayton Original.  It was a good beer, but not one that knocked my socks off.  

Billy rattled off a couple of their specials that evening.  The first was an appetizer plate of handcrafted charcuterie that featured housemade smoked andouille sausage, morcilla sausage (a Spanish-style blood sausage), and a country pâté jam made with rabbit and served with Creole mustard.  The dinner specials were a grilled Gulf cobia fish with crawfish maque-choux (mock SHOO - a traditional Cajun side with corn, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions and sometimes with garlic and celery) and pepper jack cheese grits.  (Lots of places had cheese with grits along the Emerald Coast.  I like my grits plain with a little bitter mixed in.)  

The other dinner special that evening was a traditional surf and turf that featured tempera lobster meat with a 12 ounce ribeye steak. It came with roasted red and fingerling potatoes, roasted locally grown squash and served with a bearnaise and portobello demi glace.  Now, THAT sounded damned good.  As did a number of other things on the menu including the Oysters ALL WAYS - 10 different ways to prepare oysters including rare, steamed, with smoked bacon, with garlic, and gratin.  Oysters and shrimp sounded damned good to me. 

When Billy came back to take our order, my wife got one of the catches of the day, the grilled red grouper; Bonnie got the grilled shrimp and angel hair pasta entree; John got the other catch of the day - grilled pompano.  The catch of the day entrees came with stir-fry veggies and Brabant potatoes - also a traditional Cajun side dish that features cubed potatoes - slightly boiled - then finished in a fry pan with butter, oil, onions, parsley, Worcestershire sauce and garlic.    

Me - I ordered a dozen oysters on a half shell and the peel-and-eat shrimp appetizers.  I also got a cup of their gumbo, too.  I wanted to get close to a crustacean and bottom-feeder overload as I could that evening.  

The gumbo came out first and it was a generous size for a bowl.  I like a good gumbo and this was some of the best I'd ever had.  It had a smoky flavor, but not overpowering.  Thick cuts of seafood, chicken and andouille sausage were mixed in.  It was simply outstanding.  

  The oysters were big and meaty, but they weren't from the oyster beds at nearby Apalachicola that are so famous.  Billy told us that they were Louisiana oysters. Years of drought in the Southeast coupled with water diversion upstream on the Apalachicola River has choked out the brackish water in which oysters thrive in Apalachicola Bay.  But it was no matter to me.  The oysters were thick and flavorful.  

Everyone's meal came out including my peel-and-eat shrimp.  There were just a half-dozen in the plate.  I immediately said to Billy, "Bring me another one of these right away."  The shrimp were good sized and boiled precisely.  They were fresh and just wonderful.  

 
My wife's grilled red grouper sat on top of the stir-fry vegetables and the Brabant potatoes.  The fish was light and flaky and had a seasoning on the outer side of it.  My wife declared her fish to be "wonderful".  She traded me a bite of her fish for one of my peel-and-eat shrimp and it was very good. 

John's grilled pompano was similar to my wife's in appearance.  I had never had either red grouper or pompano before, but they seemed to be two popular Gulf coast fish.  Looking back, I wish I would have tried the pompano just once.  

 
Bonnie's grilled shrimp and angel hair pasta was topped with a toasted garlic pesto sauce and shaved pecorino cheese.  A small grilled fish filet came with it.  It was swimming a the sauce and looked excellent.  

After dinner - and I had nearly achieved seafood overload - Billy came back to tempt us with dessert.  I didn't want anything, nor did Bonnie or John.  However, my wife ended up ordering a piece of the key lime pie and asked for four forks.  The key lime pie slice had a small dollop of real whipped cream and was sitting on a squiggle of strawberry sauce with fresh cut strawberry slices on the side.  It was a nice presentation and an even better pie.  The tangy and tart key lime pie was a nice finish, even though I was only able to have a couple three small bites.  I was simply stuffed.

As we were leaving Stinky's Fish Camp, I gave my valet ticket to a young guy who ran over to get our car.  I gave him a five buck tip for bringing the car around and we got in and shut the door.  There was some horrific odor in the car and it was too late before I figured out that the valet had to have just dropped a horrible greasy fart in the car stinking up the environs.  I said, "My God, I think the valet shit his pants in the car!"  Had I known he had just flared out a smelly air biscuit before he gave us our car, I would have withheld the tip.  We all laughed and laughed over that.  I figured that was a signature of a place called Stinky's - to leave an eye-watering smell in your car courtesy of the valet.  

The valet farting in our car aside, we ate in a lot of very good seafood restaurants while we were on the Emerald Coast.  But my cousin and his wife spoiled us by taking us to the best seafood place we encountered on our first night.  I loved the food, the atmosphere, the service - everything about Stinky's was excellent.  We had contemplated going back there for at least lunch at some point - and we did a disservice to ourselves for not going back toward Santa Rosa Beach for dinner on some of our nights.  There were some good to very good restaurants that we encountered during our stay, but I can't think of one that was better than Stinky's Fish Camp.