Road Tips

Sparkling Waters - Bemidji, MN

While my wife and I were in Bemidji for a summer vacation earlier this year, there was a restaurant that was walking distance from our hotel that we had passed a number of times.  It turned out in talking with locals that it was one of the better places to eat in the area and came highly recommended.  One night we headed over to Sparkling Waters for dinner.  

Doug and Reva Howe were franchisees of the Mr. Steak restaurant in Mankato, MN.  An opportunity arose in the mid-1970's to open a Mr. Steak in Bemidji and the Howes moved to the area soon thereafter.  The Howes ran the Mr. Steak for 10 years and sold the property to Kathy Guess who turned the restaurant into a Bonanza steakhouse.  

Just after the turn of the century, Reva Howe took a job as the sales manager/coordinator for the new Hampton Inn and Suites located just across the road from the Howes old restaurant.  When Kathy Guess shut the restaurant down at the end of 2007 after not wanting to sign another 10 year franchise agreement, Reva got the notion that she'd like to resurrect the old building into a new restaurant.  The building was in need of repairs and updating when the Howe family repurchased the property in the spring of 2008.  The building was given a facelift and added on to with extra dining areas and an upstairs area.  With updates complete and a staff in place, Doug and Reva Howe opened Sparking Waters in October of 2008.  Their son Logan is the operating manager for the restaurant.  

Sparkling Waters is located in between the two one-way main roads on the far south side of Bemidji.  (see map)  It's actually on the isthmus between Lake Bemidji to the north and the smaller Lake Irving on the south side.  There are drive-in entrances on either side of the restaurant, but parking is available in a larger lot on the south side.  

We went in the south main doors and the restaurant seemed like it was closed down as there wasn't anyone in sight at the hostess stand or in the first dining area we saw.  But it did seem pretty nice in the place.  There was a nice little holding area just as you come in the front door, a nice dining area that looked like it could be closed off for receptions and meetings, an upstairs dining area and patio, and a couple of other dining areas near an open-window kitchen where we found where people were actually seated.  We finally found someone who worked there and told her that we'd like to have dinner.  It turned out that most people come in through the door to the bar area on the opposite side of the restaurant during the week and that's why we didn't see a hostess.  

We were seated at a table in a little alcove area off the bar and given a couple menus to look over.  Our server for the evening was a nice young lady by the name of Jessica.  My wife started off with a Lavinia martini - one of the specialty martinis made in the Waves Lounge at Sparkling Waters.  It consisted of Absolut raspberry vodka, Chambord liqueur and lime juice.  I asked if they had any of the Kona Big Wave and Jessica said that they did.  I got a bottle of that to start out.  

The menu at Sparkling Waters wasn't very deep, but that's a good thing in our book as some restaurants know their place and specialize in a few things.  In Sparkling Waters case it was beef, fresh water fish and seafood, and a couple of pasta dishes.  Small plates/appetizers, salads and sandwiches are also available on a separate menu.  

Because the menu is pretty short, it was going to be pretty easy to figure out what I wanted to have that evening.  They have prime rib every day that they're open (closed on Sunday) compared to other restaurants that may only have prime rib on Friday or Saturday nights.  Barbecued pork ribs are available at Sparkling Waters, as well as shrimp, lobster tail, a USDA Choice filet, and a Mediterranean seafood pasta dish that featured mussels, shrimp, kalamata olives, chopped tomatoes and capers over a bed of pasta.  

My wife went with the Atlantic salmon.  It had a honey glaze and grilled lightly.  It was served with a vegetable medley - some things we weren't certain what they were in the medley - and my wife had a choice of potato.  She got the garlic mashed potatoes.  She thoroughly enjoyed the salmon and was very impressed with the vegetable medley.  There was some sort of squash in the medley, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was exactly.  My wife got a glass of the Cavazza pinot grigio to go with her meal.  

I also went the fish direction with the tantalizing Walleye a la Meunière - Minnesota walleye dredged in a seasoned flour, then cooked in a white wine/lemon/butter sauce.  It was topped with capers and the same vegetable medley was on the side.  My choice for potato that evening was the twice-baked potato.  It was served in a small bowl with the fish and veggie medley.  I also wanted a glass of wine with my meal and I chose the Merryvale Starmont chardonnay.  

The walleye was simply outstanding - light, flaky, not fishy in taste at all.  The meunière sauce was tangy and rich, and it went extremely well with the walleye.  I especially liked the twice-baked potato that was sprinkled with chives.  And the vegetable medley was surprisingly very good.  I did like the squash, as well.  

The meal wasn't very filling, so we decided to get some dessert.  My wife was torn between the raspberry/caramel drizzled cheesecake and the housemade chocolate/cherry ice cream.  I said to Jessica, our server, "Let's do both!"  

She sort of laughed and said, "You can't go wrong that way!"

The cheesecake was huge!  The raspberry/caramel drizzle was more of a pour on the slice.  It was very good and I asked Jessica if they made the cheesecake in house.  "No, I'm sorry," she said apologetically.  "We get it from Sysco, one of our food service purveyors.  But, it's good, isn't it?"  I couldn't disagree with her on that.  

My wife was very happy with the ice cream.  A mint leaf adorned the top of the scoop and she said it had a great flavor with the chocolate and cherry combination.  She made quick work of the ice cream and helped me put a significant dent in the very good and decadent cheesecake.  

After dinner, things were winding down and I asked Jessica if I could get a scotch.  I got two fingers of The Macallan 12-year-old scotch that my wife took a couple sips of as she said she felt she needed to "help me out" in drinking it.  With music from artists such as Della Reese, Frank Sinatra, Trudy Desmond and Johnny Hartman playing in the background all evening long, it was a nice and relaxing end to a good meal.  

As we were enjoying the scotch, Reva Howe stopped by to talk with us.  We were asking questions about the place and she gave us the history and run-down of how she and her husband had started the Mr. Steak in 1977 in the same building, then sold it when the company changed their menu to a more "healthy" alternative about 10 years later.  

She told us that she always harbored feelings for the Mr. Steak restaurant and for the building in general.  "When they built the Hampton Inn over across the street and I started to work there, I would look over here and sort of dream about having the building again," she lamented.  "When the lady who bought the building from us decided to close down, I knew I wanted it back."  

My wife was quizzing Reva Howe on the ingredients of the vegetable medley we both had that evening, especially the squash.  "That is a squash," she told my wife when asked.  "That's a white bush scallop squash."  (Click here to see a picture of the squash.)  She said that it's a summer squash and her son, Logan, raises them in his garden at his home outside of Bemidji.  "In fact, he raises a lot of the vegetables we serve here at the restaurant in the summer," Reva said.  

The next evening, we had finished up our meal at another restaurant and were hoping to have an after dinner drink.  However, the bar at the restaurant had closed, so I told my wife that maybe we needed to head back out to Sparkling Waters and go into the Waves lounge to see if they were still open.  There were five people seated around the three-sided bar and I asked the bartender if he was still open.  "Well, technically, we close at 9 p.m.," he told us. (it was a bit past 9.) "But if people are here and I don't have any place to be, then I'll stick around."  

It turned out the bartender was Logan Howe.  We had told him that we had dinner the night before and had talked with his mom about things around the restaurant and around town.  He said, "Yeah, she went home early tonight.  She knows things are in good hands when I'm here."  And then he laughed.  

My wife was asking him about his garden and especially about the white bush scallop squash we had the previous evening.  He went back into the kitchen and brought out a couple of the small squash.  "They cook up very easily," Logan explained to my wife.  "Just cut 'em up and bake 'em."  He handed the two squash to my wife to take home with her.  

Two women at the bar and a couple on the opposite side were regulars.  There was a traveling salesman sitting at the bar, but it appeared that Waves was a regular stop for him when he would stay in Bemidji.  We hung out for about an hour and a half, and my wife was significantly over-served by Logan.  It was fun to hang out like one of the regulars as everyone was friendly and talkative.  

It was a great meal on one visit and a fun time in the lounge the next night at Sparkling Waters and Waves Lounge.   Everyone we came across at the restaurant and lounge were personable and friendly.  We thought our meals were very good - I can't rave enough about the Walleye a la Meunière that I had.  And my wife really enjoyed her honey-glazed grilled Atlantic salmon.  For beef and seafood - or combinations thereof - this is probably the best place in the immediate Bemidji area to eat.  Good food, good drinks, good service, and good atmosphere add up to a wonderful experience at Sparkling Waters.  

Taste of Ethiopia - Davenport, IA

A new Ethiopian restaurant opened in downtown Davenport about a year and a half ago and my wife and I had been thinking about going there to check it out, but never made the time to do so.  One recent weekend, a friend of ours who used to work with my wife years ago came back for the weekend.  She and her husband are pretty adventurous when it comes to their tastes of cuisine and it turned out that they eat quite regularly at Ethiopian restaurants in their hometown of Indianapolis.  My wife had mentioned something about the new Ethiopian restaurant we had and since our friend knew about the food, we decided to have her accompany us for our first visit to Taste of Ethiopia.  

Genet Moraetes grew up in Ethiopia when a civil war broke when she was a teenager.  The strife between the junta government and anti-government rebels continued for a number of years before Genet decided that she needed to flee the war-torn country for her own safety.  She got a student visa for a college in the Washington D.C. area and left Ethiopia at the age of 25.  

After landing in the Washington area and entering school, Genet worked in a restaurant as a waitress.  It was at this restaurant where she met George Moraetes, a native of Davenport who was stationed at a nearby Army base.  The two started a romance and eventually were married, then moved back to the Quad Cities where George worked as a telecommunications technician.  

In the Quad Cities, Genet Moraetes found two other ladies who grew up in Ethiopia - Tigist Anberger and Saba Gebresilassie - and the three ladies began to make foods that they grew up with.  Friends and family were impressed with their Ethiopian foods that the three decided to open a food tent on the deck of the Freight House Farmers Market in 2016.  Open every Saturday from May thru October, their Ethiopian specialties were such a hit that it gave George and Genet Moraetes an idea.  Why not open their own brick and mortar restaurant?  

A space that had been vacated by the Mississippi Valley Blues Society opened up at the old Union Station building just across the street from the Freight House Farmers Market.  The Moraetes petitioned the city to lease the space for 5 years, and in October of 2018 that request was granted by the city.  The couple and family members spent the next few months renovating the space and hoped to be open by the spring of 2019.

However, the Flood of 2019 made them change their plans.  The area around the building was inundated with flood waters and the Moraetes had to push back their opening by a few months.  Construction workers putting the finishing touches on the interior of the restaurant had to wade through flood waters to get into the place.  But by July of 2019, floodwaters had receded and Taste of Ethiopia opened up for business soon thereafter.   

We parked in the lot on the north side of the building just south of River Drive and just north of LeClaire Park in downtown Davenport.  (see map)  The front door to Taste of Ethiopia is on the south side of the building and we walked around the building and up the ramp to go in.  

We were pleasantly surprised with the dining area at Taste of Ethiopia.  Hard wood floors, dark-red table tops, a well-lit atmosphere, and a very clean environment is what we found.  A young lady by the name of Sonia came out to greet us as we came in and told us we could sit about anywhere.  There was an outdoor patio, but it was a little cool in the later part of the day/early evening, so we sat at a high-top table inside.  Sonia dropped off menus for us and I was pleasantly surprised to see they had beer and wine available behind the little bar area.  My wife got a glass of Barricas Malbec, our friend got a glass of Bricco Riella Moscato d'Asti, and I got a pint of the Goose Island IPA they had on tap.  

Looking through the menu, our friend guided us through the unfamiliar terrain of Ethiopian food.  They had primarily beef dishes, but there was a spicy chicken entree - Ye'Doro Kay Wot - and a fried pollack fish feature, as well.  There were a handful of vegetarian options on the menu, as well.   And Taste of Ethiopia had a number of items that could be shared as an appetizer or as a stand alone meal.  The Ye'Siga Sambusa featured hand-wrapped shells of pastry filled with steak, green peppers and onions.  The Loaded Tib Fries sounded interesting as they featured beef cooked with ginger and garlic and served on fries and topped with scallions.  They also had Ethiopian-style tacos - a beef taco plate (spicy or non-spicy beef) and a fried fish taco plate.  For the less adventurous, Taste of Ethiopia had chicken strips, catfish nuggets, and chicken wings (boneless or bone-in).  

After she explained many of the items on the menu, our friend suggested getting two of the combination plates for 2 people - a meat combo and a vegetarian combo.  With the meat combo, if came with 4 sides and the vegetarian combo came with 6 choices of sides.  

With the meat combo, we ordered the spicy chicken and the Ye'Siga Kay Wot, a spicy beef simmered with onions, garlic and spices.  Our sides with the meat combo included spicy lentils, regular lentils, cabbage and green beans with carrots.  

Our vegetarian combo consisted of a beet salad, gomen (Ethiopian collard greens), spicy lentils, cabbage, potatoes with carrots, and a chickpea stew called shiro.  The items on both combo plates came on a bed of Ethiopian flat bread called injera.  And rolled up injera bread came on the side.  

From there, our friend basically showed us how to eat the food.  The injera bread could be unrolled or torn off the plate to dip into the sauces or vegetable dishes.  She took some of the spicy beef and put some on the injera before eating it, similar to dressing a tortilla in a Mexican restaurant.  The injera had an interesting flavor and had sort of a spongy consistency.  My wife and I both liked it.  

As for the overall meal, well, it was very interesting, to say the least.  For Ethiopian food newbies, I would have to say we liked the spicy beef and the spicy chicken selections.  I'm not big on lentils, but I really enjoyed the spicy lentils that our friend picked out.  My wife enjoyed the beet salad a lot, and she seemed to like the chickpea stew, too.  

After we finished dinner, our friend said that her husband always likes to get an Ethiopian coffee after he finishes his meal.  She said that it was more like espresso and I like to have a large espresso a couple times a week.  I usually don't like to have espresso at night, but it was a Saturday night and I figured I'd be up later than usual anyhow.  

Well, the Ethiopian coffee just about knocked me on my ass!   The caffeine kick completely zipped me up.  It was sweet and similar to espresso in taste, but it was a bit more watery.  I joked to my wife and friend that it was like drinking liquid meth.  Wow!  I think I was up until about midnight that night and it was around 6:30 p.m. when I finished the coffee.  

I'd always wondered about Ethiopian food and now we finally had the chance to try it at the somewhat new Taste of Ethiopia in downtown Davenport.  I don't know if there was anything we disliked about the place - the food was fascinating, the service was friendly, the place was clean and comfortable, and the overall vibe was pleasant.  The food was akin to Indian food, but only in the sense that it was sort of an eclectic comfort food.   George Moraetes dropped by the table to chat after dinner and we told him that it our first visit and that my wife and I would be back.  Even if you're skeptical of Ethiopian food, you should at least give the Taste of Ethiopia a try if you're a rookie at Ethiopian cuisine. 

Steamboat Springs, CO - 2020

My wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary earlier this year.  We had hoped to go to California, but with the COVID-19 pandemic, those plans sort of went by the wayside.  We had moved our May vacation dates to early September and we were trying to figure out what to do.  When we were out in Colorado a couple years ago, we had a spur-of-the-moment visit to Steamboat Springs that turned out to be surprisingly excellent.  From that point on, Steamboat Springs was my favorite place in all of Colorado.  Of course, I haven't visited all of Colorado, so Steamboat Springs is my favorite place in Colorado - up to now!  So, it was always a goal of mine to get back out to Steamboat Springs, hopefully sooner than later.  (Logo courtesy Redbubble)

We were hanging out at a local Quad Cities brewpub one evening in late August and we had pretty much made up our mind up to that point that we were going to use the open invitation my sister's fiancé has given us for staying for a week at his lake home along Lake Panorama in west central Iowa.  But my wife had other ideas.  "What about Colorado," she asked. "Wouldn't it be nice to get back out to Steamboat?"  

I said, "Well, we could drive out the first day to North Platte, spend the night, then get into Steamboat the next afternoon."  Then she said, "Why don't we fly?"

I checked prices on my United Airlines application on my phone for the dates we wanted to fly to and from Denver out of Moline.  Yikes!  Tickets would be $478 per person round trip.  My wife then suggested that I look up flights out of Des Moines.  "Maybe we could come back from Colorado and go to the lake for a couple days," she reckoned.  

I looked up flights out of Des Moines.  It was somewhat better - $177 per person round trip.  And then I thought, "Wait a minute.  We're halfway between Des Moines and Chicago.  Wonder what fares are at O'Hare?"  I did a quick check and couldn't believe my eyes - $84 per person round-trip.  I about fell off my seat.  It was so unbelievably cheap that I knew it couldn't be right.

When we got back home, I got on my computer to make sure that the price I had seen on my phone for our flights was correct.  It was - $168 round trip for two people.  Then the wheels started to turn.  We could drive to Chicago, spend the night at the Hilton Garden Inn O'Hare - my home away from home when I'm in Chicago - leave my car there, then fly out of O'Hare the next morning.  We could spend a week in Colorado, fly back to O'Hare.  Spend a night back at the Hilton Garden Inn, then drive back home the next day.  

And, being a Lifetime Diamond member of the Hilton Honors program, I still had a bunch of points left over from our trip to northern Minnesota just a couple weeks before.  I started to look up room points for Chicago, Denver (one night) and then Steamboat Springs.  Turned out that I could get rooms with relatively little use of the points.  

I turned to my wife and said, "This is stupid!  I'm booking all of this right now!"  She was giddy finding out that we were going to Colorado for a week and we didn't have to drive.

But, yes, we'd need a car once we got to Colorado.  Well, I still had a bunch of points through Hertz that I've been wanting to use for awhile.  But, when I went to the Hertz website to see if I could rent a car through them on points, it wouldn't allow me to.  I tried a couple three times to rent something through Hertz using points, but it wasn't going to work. 

So, I ended up checking to see how much a mid-sized car would cost for a week at Hertz.  It would be $475 a week, but adding on taxes and fees would boost to about $600 bucks.  Then I remembered that my company had worked out a deal on rental cars through National.  I went to the National site, put in my Emerald Club number and up popped a Volkswagen Passat (or similar) for $375 a week.  With taxes and fees, it was going to be about $470 for the week.  (Taxes and fees on rental cars at the Denver International Airport kills you.) I didn't hesitate - I booked it.  I figured that we would probably be saving $400 bucks by being able to park our car at the Hilton Garden Inn instead of at O'Hare, so to me that was a push.  Everything was booked, and a week later away we went.  

Flying during a pandemic is rather interesting.  Everyone masks up in the airport and on the plane.  But the TSA doesn't seem to care about social distancing.  They were very adamant about keeping the line moving - even though there weren't many people in line for screening.  One lady was impatient with me as I was removing things from my carry-on bag imploring me to hurry up.  Even when the pandemic wasn't happening, I don't think I have ever been hustled along that brusquely by a TSA agent.  

The flight was a little longer than usual - we were forced to fly up north over Central Wisconsin and then down in a southwesterly direction to get to Denver due to severe thunderstorms that were coming in from Iowa.  (The whole time we were gone, it rained nearly every day in the Quad Cities and in Chicago.  My neighbor monitored our rain gauge while we were gone and we ended up with just over 9 inches of much needed rain that fell the week we were gone.  It had been weeks since we had seen any appreciable precipitation fall and we were definitely in a drought.  But the other plus was that if we had decided to hang out at Lake Panorama that week, we wouldn't have been able to do anything as it rained there, too.)  

It was already in the upper 80's in Denver when we landed around 10:15 a.m.  High temperatures had been in the upper 90's and into the low 100's over the previous couple of days and it was supposed to continue like that for at least another couple of days before a massive cold front was predicted to come down on Colorado dropping high temperatures by at least 50 degrees and promising the first significant snow of the season.  We knew that the weather could change before we left and we were somewhat prepared for it.  

We got our bags at Denver International Airport and took the shuttle bus out to National.  On the way out to the National terminal, I checked the National application on my phone to see where I could pick up the car.  It informed me that there was a problem with processing my reservation and that I had to see an agent at the desk.  Well, when we got off the shuttle, there were three long lines to get into National and Alamo, which shares a building with National.  I was pissed because I figured that we'd be standing in line for over an hour to get a car - not a great way to start our vacation.

As we were standing there for about five minutes, a young lady who was an agent for National was coming down the line to make sure people were in the right line.  She came up to me and asked if we were with National and I said, yes, we were.  But I indicated that I was an Emerald member and there seemed to be some confusion about my reservation and I needed to see a desk agent.  She asked if she could see my Emerald number and I pulled up the app on my phone and showed her.  She studied it for a moment and she said, "Oh, we can take care of that at the gate.  It's probably a credit card number or something that we didn't have.  Go pick out a car and get on your way."  

I was somewhat astonished - and very thankful - that we were on our way to get a car so quickly.  Emerald members can pick out whatever kind of car they want in a special lot.  My wife and I wheeled our bags over to the lot and we saw a number of mini-vans and a handful of cars.  "Not a lot to choose from," my wife said.

However, we did see two cars that were side-by-side - a Nissan Maxima and an Infinity Q50.  Wait a minute - I can take a Q50 for a week?  For $375 bucks plus taxes and fees?  Well, that was a no-brainer!  We started packing up the Q50, got all settled in, got in line, got to the gate, the gate agent sorted everything out, the gate lifted and we were on our way!  

Our first stop had to be for lunch and, of course, if I'm in Denver we have to go to the Cherry Cricket.  We got there just before noon, got in right away and I immediately ordered a cold IPA while my wife got a vodka/cranberry.  Of course, I had to get a cup of their great pork green chili.  And that was followed by one of their great burgers with pepper jack cheese, sautéed mushrooms and green chiles.

My wife got just a regular burger for her lunch, but I was also astonished that she remembered and asked for Cherry Cricket's green chili cheese fries.  This cholesterol-laden, artery-clogging plate of supreme flavor and goodness is always a treat.  Of course, there was no way that we could come close to finishing the plate of unhealthy decadence, but we did make a significant dent in it.

Not much had changed inside the Cherry Cricket from the last time I had been in a year ago - save for the social distancing directives.  But outside, I was sort of surprised to see that they had taken the back parking lot out and put in a sun-drenched back patio with artificial turf and colorful rubber tiling.  The back wall was covered with vines and a number of metal tables with umbrellas were spaced out in the patio.  Actually, as it was warm and sunny that day, if I would have known that they had the patio in the back, we probably would have sat out there.

We took off after lunch for a nearly 3 hour journey up to Steamboat Springs.  It's straight shot out of Denver on I-70 up into the mountains, through the Eisenhower Tunnel at the Continental Divide, then down the other side to Silverthorne, CO.  

From there, we took Colorado Highway 9 up to Kremmeling where it met up with US Highway 40 that took us all the way into Steamboat.  The scenery along Highway 9 is breathtaking at points along the way.  It's not quite as magnificent as Highway 9's route south of Breckenridge that we took a couple years ago, but there's still some noteworthy places to turnout and enjoy the scenery.   This is picture from a turnout near Rabbit Ears Pass just south of Steamboat.  

Getting into Steamboat Springs, we checked into our hotel, the Homewood Suites on the far south side of the town.  This hotel is new from our previous visit to Steamboat - we stayed closer to the downtown at the Hampton Inn our last trip - and it offered small kitchenettes and a living room area giving the room some space to stretch out a bit.  

After getting settled into our hotel, my wife and I decided to go get reacquainted with Steamboat Springs.  Some things had changed, but much was the same from our visit two years ago.  There was some construction work going on in the downtown area, but we were able to travel pretty easily around the area, even with the heavy traffic from people enjoying their weekend in the town.  

Since we knew a precipitous drop in temperatures would be coming in less than 24 hours and temperatures were to remain cool the rest of our stay, our second day in Steamboat was packed with various outdoor adventures we wanted to experience.  It was a gorgeous day, to say the least.  Southwesterly winds brought in warm air - the temperature got up into the upper 80's that day - and pushed much of the smoke from the wildfires north of Denver away from the area.  

As it is in the mountains with low humidity, mornings start off cool and crisp and with little to no wind.  We went out for coffee and espresso, and as we were driving toward the downtown area, we saw a hot air balloon that was just getting ready to lift off from a parking lot off the main drag heading into Steamboat.  We took the backstreets and got to the parking lot just moments after the multi-colored balloon took off with six or seven passengers.  

After coffee for my wife and espresso for me, we parked our car in the parking lot of the Howelson Ice Complex near downtown Steamboat Springs for a walk on the beautiful paved path along the Yampa River.  We walked the trail everyday we were in Steamboat on our previous trip and it was absolutely beautiful.  The combination of the babbling stream, the tree-lined bike path and the mountain vistas made for a pleasant walk.  We walked a mile up river along the path before we turned around and made our way back down to where our car was parked.  

One of the big things that I had on my list of things to do was to run up to Pearl Lake State Park and hang out there.  I was completely enamored with Pearl Lake on our previous visit.  The lake is pristine and quiet, lined with trees and with stunning mountain views sitting at 8100 feet above sea level in the mountains about 25 miles north of Steamboat Springs.  We went out there a couple times during our last visit to the area and I figured that we'd probably go out there at least two more times during this visit.  

My wife, being the smart one in the family, suggested we get a couple sandwiches to take out with us to have a picnic at Pearl Lake.  We stopped off at the Yampa Sandwich Company in downtown Steamboat to pick up a couple sandwiches before heading up to the state park.   

Pearl Lake is about a 40 minute drive from Steamboat Springs via County Highway 129.  It features a number of curves and rises, so 45 miles per hour is usually all the faster you can go on the road.  

The road out to Pearl Lake winds through valleys with farms and ranches situated along and near the Elk River.  The broad fields of green and gold are nestled in between mountain ranges as far as the eye can see. There are a few places where you could turn out and take in some of the sights along the roadway.  

One of the more impressive sights on the way up to Pearl Lake is the stately mountain known as Hahns Peak.  The nearly 11,000 foot high mountain is one of the highest in the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest that stretches from north central Colorado through northeast Wyoming.  The distinctive peak is visible for miles before the turn-off to Pearl Lake.  

It's a $9 a day user fee for Colorado state parks, something that I had no problem paying given how nice the parks are. Unfortunately, that particular day a lot of other people had the same idea that we did and we found the parking lot at Pearl Lake to be nearly full when we pulled in.  

But even with all the people in the area that day, it was still great to just be able to hang out and relax on a beautiful day in the mountains.  There was a light wind and wisps of clouds showed up on the horizon, but there was still sort of a haze in some areas from the forest fires off in the distance.  We did notice after a bit that there was cloud that was billowing up behind one of the mountains to the south.  I figured that it was one of those mountain monsoons that bubble up from time to time on warm days in Colorado.  

Since it's one of my "happy places" on earth, we hung out at Pearl Lake for about an hour having our picnic lunch and walking around part of the waterfront.  We decided to head up the road to another place that we had visited in the past - Steamboat Lake State Park, about 3 miles up the road from Pearl Lake.  Steamboat Lake, to us, isn't quite as nice as Pearl Lake.  It's bigger and has more camping and boating options, but it doesn't have that cozy feeling Pearl Lake has.

Further up north a few miles is another lake - Hahns Peak Lake - that is about 8600 feet above sea level.  We drove back to the campground on a winding road that went up to about 9500 feet before dropping down to the lake nestled in a narrow canyon.  It was pretty primitive back in there, but there were still a number of campers in the small campground.  We were sort of amazed that some of the larger campers were able to get towed up and down into the campground.  It was a pretty significant rise and drop to get there.

As we were making our way back up the road to get out of the campground at Hahns Peak Lake, we realized that the billowing cloud was not the genesis of an afternoon mountain thunderstorm, but a forest fire that had flared up that started from a lightning strike just a day before.  The Middle Fork fire was about 10 miles north of Steamboat Springs and had grown to 3300 acres within 24 hours.  (It eventually grew to about 6000 acres consumed by mid-September.)  It had been extremely dry in Colorado through the latter part of the summer and that was helping compound the forest fire problems in the state.  A huge fire north and west of Fort Collins - the Cameron Peak fire - had consumed over 100,000 acres and was responsible for some of the milky skies that we had during our trip to Colorado. 

(Update - as of today the Middle Fork fire has now grown to over 16,000 acres consumed.)  

We made our way back into Steamboat Springs and a quick visit to the Yampa River Botanic Gardens.  We had been there on our previous visit and I wanted to go back to check the place out.  Quite actually, we seemed to be somewhat underwhelmed with the floral and plant displays they had on hand.  We figured that it probably had to do with the on-going drought.  Nonetheless, we did get some ideas on some plants that we want to plant next year to help attract butterflies and hummingbirds.  

One place just outside of Steamboat Springs that we neglected to visit the last time around was Fish Creek Falls.  Located about five miles east of downtown Steamboat, we had driven up there the day before to check the place out.  (see map)  However, the two parking lots were full and we decided to come back this day when we figured not as many people were in town.  

It turned out that we were pretty smart as there were about a 1/3 the number of people at the falls parking lot from the day before.  It was $5 bucks to park in the lot that takes you the trail to get to the falls - all on the honor system - and, once again, I had no problem dropping a finsky into the box.  

It's about a quarter mile walk down to the 280-foot falls that was nothing more than a trickle of water compared to other times of the year.  A number of rock climbers were scaling the sides of the canyon when we were there.  There's a 2.5 mile trail that was described as "advanced" for people who wanted to go up to the top of the falls.  Getting back up to the parking lot was sort of a chore for us.  The altitude was over 7000 feet in the parking lot at Fish Creek Falls and getting back up the hill to the lot took some effort.  We aren't in the best shape, but we certainly aren't sedentary in our lifestyle.  People who were in much better shape - and much younger - were having to stop every few steps to catch their breath.  

From the trail heading up to the parking lot, we could look up and see the smoke from the fire a few miles away billowing up over the ridge.  It was pretty amazing that a fire could flare up so quickly like that, but the dry brush compounded with dead trees from the mountain pine beetle infestation that's taken out millions of trees in the Rocky Mountains can allow a fire to spread pretty rapidly. 

We had such a full day that we decided to head back down into Steamboat to grab a drink at one of the many bars they have in the downtown area.  We were sitting in a place that had overhead garage doors that opened to an outdoor patio area and I got up to use the restroom at one point.  I noticed that there was sort of an orange hue from the sunlight coming into the place.  The smoke from the forest fires had come in over the town and gave the sky a milky consistency and turned the sun into this large orange orb.  It was sort of surreal to see.

As I said, we knew that the weather was going to change for the worse.  A cold front accompanied with strong winds, rain and snow with falling temperatures was expected to hit overnight.  I was sort of resigned to the fact that the warm weather was going away and going away fast.  Knowing that the weather would change so drastically from one day to the next, I took a picture out of our hotel window showing the ski resort on Mount Werner outside of Steamboat Springs the day before the storm hit.  

And on the upper right is the view from the same window about 24 hours later.  The wind had increased to over 40 miles an hour with gusts up over 60 mph.  Wind gusts on the peak of Mount Werner were clocked at 114 miles an hour during the height of the storm.  They had predicted 2 to 6 inches of snow for the area, but we ended up getting a dusting.  Areas to the east of where we were - toward Denver and the front range of the Rockies got anywhere from 6 to 12 inches of snow out of the system.  

The temperature in Steamboat Springs the day before was 83 degrees (F).  Less than 24 hours later, it was 33 degrees.  My wife had packed a puffy coat that she had bought a long time ago that worked pretty well for her on this trip.  I, on the other hand, had just a long-sleeved t-shirt and a sweatshirt to go over that.  Still, I didn't think we'd be heading out that much that particular day.  

But, of course, we did.  We didn't feel like getting penned up in our hotel room all day long, so we drove around the town looking at some of the damage the storm had inflicted on trees while dodging downed power lines.  (Photo courtesy Steamboat Pilot)

We ended up going to a few stores in the downtown area to look around and to get out of the storm for awhile.  We were talking with one lady at one of the stores who told us that she had lived in Steamboat Springs for over 40 years, and that she had never experienced weather like this before so early in September.  "Oh, we've had some cold weather," she told us.  But for this early in the season to have this strong of a storm with snow, no never before."  There were others who we spoke with during the course of the day who pretty much echoed what the lady initially told us.  It was really some sort of a storm.  And we'd been through a derecho just a month before, so we were sort of old hats at this type of a sustained storm.  

We couldn't while away the storm having drinks as many restaurants and bars were either closed for the storm or opening later in the day. With not much else to do, we decided to hit a liquor store to have some drinks in our room waiting out the worst of the storm.  It was at a liquor store not far from our hotel that I found something that I'd heard about many times from friends, but had never had before - a bottle of Pliny the Elder, a double IPA from the Russian River Brewing Company in Santa Rosa, CA.  I'd heard many times about the virtues of Pliny the Elder from friends in California and from others on beer forums who declared Pliny the Elder as the best beer they had ever had.  I'm not certain, but I believe at one time the beer was limited in its availability.  That's why I was so surprised to see some bottles in a cooler at the liquor store.

My take on the beer?  It was good - not quite the earth-shattering and life-changing experience some of my friends said they had when they first drank Pliny the Elder.  But at the time that it came out over 15 years ago, Pliny the Elder really pushed the envelope in terms of hoppy and full-flavored beers.  A number of other breweries have caught up - and possibly passed - Russian River and Pliny the Elder by now.  

There wasn't much else to do that day other than nap, wait for the storm to move out, then go get something to eat.  I figured this was going to be a wasted day and it certainly was.  

The following day, the weather was much nicer with clearing skies, light winds and temperatures in the upper 50's.  It was actually pretty nice without being too brisk to be out and about.   When we were up at Steamboat Lake a couple days prior, we stopped into the park ranger station to get some maps on lakes in the area.  The lady ranger we talked with told us about Stagecoach State Park, approximately 17 miles south of Steamboat Springs.  My wife thought it would be nice to head out there and check the lake out.  

Stagecoach State Park is a nearly 1650 acre park with a 820 acre reservoir in the Yampa River Valley of the Flat Top Mountains region of west central Colorado.  The dam was finished in 1989 after only 37 days of construction.  The park was dedicated soon thereafter and features campsites, a marina and a beach area.  

Just south of the lake is the small village of Stagecoach.  It sits at the foot of a mountain that was developed in the early 70's as the Stagecoach ski resort.  Ski runs were carved out of the north face of the mountain and three chair lifts were installed.  The resort opened in 1972, but the corporation backing the ski area pulled its funding a year later.  Everything - including houses being built in subdivisions at the base of the ski resort - was abandoned after that.  A family came in and bought up much of the property years later, but they have no plans to resurrect the lost ski resort.

Once again, it was a $9 dollar daily fee to use the park at Stagecoach.  We talked with a nice lady who was manning the booth at the entrance of the park.  She gave us the rundown on what was around the park.  I asked her if she was working the day before during the height of the storm.  "Oh, I sure was," she said.  "I didn't have many visitors yesterday."

Stagecoach Lake was absolutely beautiful.  It's more spread out than Pearl Lake, so Stagecoach isn't as cozy. This view is of across the lake to the south where the former ski resort was and the small town of Stagecoach is today.  You can see the old ski runs etched into the side of the mountain if you click on the photo above to make it larger.   The waters were crystal clear and there was little to no wind causing glass-like effects on the lake at times.  It was nice to hang out along the shore and relax on the waters edge.  

We drove around the lake and got out at various points to take in some of the scenery.  The Flat Tops off in the distance were interesting with a thin cloud layer shrouding the mesa.  It turned out those mountains were about 15 miles off in the distance.   

There were a number of buttes that jutted straight up around the lake.  There was more forestation on the south side of the lake while the north side had more a high desert landscape.  The lady at the front gate told us that we may see mule deer and possibly some elk in the hills around the lake.  She also informed us that over 200 species of birds could be found around Stagecoach Lake, the highest concentration of different types of birds in Colorado.  

We ended up on the far side of the lake by the dam.  There was a parking lot there and we wandered down a stone stair-step path toward the waterfront.  There was a path over the dam and around the lake on the other side.  I tried to get my wife to walk with me over the dam, but she has a thing about bridges and dams, so we didn't do it.

Going right out of the parking lot was a road that took us down below the dam.  I was a little skittish driving the rental car down this steep gravel road, sort of wondering if I could get back up.  But it turned out to be a lot more easy than it looked.  

And we're glad we did because it took us to another parking lot with a long lane that was blocked off, but allowed hikers and mountain bikers to get back up to the back of the dam.  A stream of water was shooting out of the turbine housing which can generate up to 800 kilowatts of power an hour.   

Walking downstream along the Yampa River, we encountered anglers in the water or on the banks fishing for trout.  The water wasn't as swift further from the dam and the stream had a light flow that allowed the fishermen to stand with little to no resistance.  The water was clear and you could see the large river rocks lining the bed of the river a couple feet deep.   

We wandered along the riverbank for quite some distance stopping every once in a while to chat with the occasional angler or to take a break on a large boulder near the bank.  The babbling water churning over rocks made for a very relaxing soundtrack to the day.  

It was sort of tough to leave Stagecoach Lake, but it was time to move on after being out there for nearly 3 hours.  We ended up driving a few miles west and south of the state park to the small town of Yampa before turning back north to go up to Steamboat Springs.  

Our next day was our "wild card day".  We had no plans, no place to go, nothing that was pressing, just a day where we could do what we wanted to do.  Bless her heart, my wife suggested heading back out to Pearl Lake as she surmised that it wouldn't be as crowded through the week as it was the few days before when we were out there.  

Once again, we decided to make a picnic out of our trip.  We went to the Steamboat Meat & Seafood Company to grab a couple of sub-sandwiches they make in their deli.  When we were in Steamboat a couple years ago, we grabbed a couple sandwiches for a picnic that ended up being at Pearl Lake.  My wife thought it would be nice to do it again with sandwiches from Steamboat Meat & Seafood.  But two sandwiches, a couple bags of chips and a couple bottles of water were expensive - it came to over $30 bucks.  But that was like any place in Steamboat - eating out is expensive.  I don't think we paid less than $30 for any meal we had while we were there.  The weather was cool with a mix of sun and clouds that day, but the winds were still pretty light.  It was definitely sweatshirt weather and it was a little cooler up higher in the mountains.  After lingering at our little spot on the bench on the overlook of the lake, we decided to drive down to the marina (on weekends, you can rent kayaks at the marina at Pearl Lake, if you don't have your own) and take a hike over to the dam.  It was just over a half mile of walking through the forest and along the shoreline to get to the dam.  However, there were a couple areas along the trail where we had to dodge or climb over trees that had fallen during the storm from a couple days before.  But the hike was enjoyable with the cool weather that day.

The weather turned colder while we were up at Pearl Lake and we reluctantly decided to leave and head back toward Steamboat Springs.  My wife had been reading about some dude ranches in the hills above Clark, a small unincorporated town about halfway between Steamboat and Pearl Lake.  We took off down a side road and slowly climbed up the mountain side that came up from the Elk River.  We came across a couple of guest ranches, but they looked rather primitive and spartan - not the kind of accommodations that we would probably enjoy.  

Our final day in Steamboat featured a walk along the Yampa, a visit to the Bud Werner Memorial Library (we were told by one of our servers at a restaurant we ate earlier in the week that it was a great place - we thought it was OK), a hike up into the hills overlooking downtown Steamboat, then a wistful trip around the town to take in the sights one final time.  It was tough to leave Steamboat, but we made a promise to ourselves that we'd be back again.  

The drive up and down through Rabbit Ears Pass, then down to Kremmerling and finally on to Silverthorne to catch the Interstate back to Denver was pretty uneventful.  We did stop in Kremmerling and drove around that small high desert town checking things out, almost stopping in at a small microbrewery they had in their small downtown area.  The heavy snow on the top of the mountains along the Continental Divide was amazing to see so early in September.

When we got to Silverthorne, I did a quick check and found that if we went on straight through Dillon, the road would eventually take us up and over the Continental Divide at the Loveland Pass.  I had never gone that way before and I thought it would be sort of cool to do that.  

Driving up toward Loveland Pass, we passed two of the more famous ski areas in Colorado - Keystone and  Arapahoe Basin - also known as "A Basin".  A Basin is known for its long skiing season, sometimes stretching into June.  With the recent snow they got on the slopes, a lot of skiers were hopeful for an early start to the season.  But the weather was forecast to turn warm and dry again - right after we left.  Figures...

The Loveland Pass has a small turnout area where you can park and get pictures of the sign and the area around the Continental Divide.  At just under 12,000 feet above sea level, the weather at the pass was not hospitable.  The temperature had dropped about 20 degrees from when we were down in Silverthorne and the wind was whipping at over 30 miles and hour.  

Loveland Pass is part of the White River National Forest which encompasses over 2.2 million acres in central Colorado on the west side of the Continental Divide.  The rocky high sierra with the snow capped mountains in the background was a stark contrast of beauty.     

We came down the highway from the Loveland Pass and it took us right on to Interstate 70 heading eastbound.  A few miles down the road is the small town of Georgetown just off the Interstate.  My wife and I decided we needed to stop for a restroom break and we went into the town's visitor center to do just that.  My wife saw some things in there while she was wandering around and wondered if we could go to their historic downtown area that the visitor center was touting.  

Downtown Georgetown features a number of shops and boutiques that reminded me a lot of Galena, IL, only nestled in a tight valley between mountains.  The city dates back to just before the Civil War when the Colorado gold rush was taking place.  However, in 1864, silver was discovered in the mountains surrounding Georgetown and mining camps sprung up almost immediately.  By the 1880's, Georgetown was one of the more important towns in Colorado and had their own opera house that hosted nationally known entertainers of the day.  But the silver boom eventually went bust and Georgetown's population had dropped by nearly 2/3rds by the turn of the 20th century.  By the 1940's, less than 400 people lived in the town.  However, Georgetown has staged a population renaissance over the past 20 years and today nearly 1200 people live in the village.  

After getting out of Georgetown, we started to head back down toward Denver.  My wife had spotted a Duluth Trading Company on our way out of Denver a few days before in west suburban Golden.  She wanted me to stop in as she loves Duluth Trading and the closest one we have is in the western suburbs of Chicago.  

Now, here's a pretty good story about our experience during and directly after our visit to Duluth Trading Company...

My wife was looking at clothes at Duluth Trading, and I'm just sort of walking around looking at pants, new hiking shoes and the little library of interesting books they sell there.  My wife came looking for me and asked me to hold some items for her while she tried some tops on.  There weren't a lot of people in the store and I was approached three times by different people who asked if I needed help.  Nope, just waiting on my wife.

My wife decided which tops she was going to buy and we went up to the counter and paid.  We went out to the rental car, put the bag in the trunks and we took off.

As I was leaving, I noticed a Golden Police Department cruiser with two officers sitting in the parking lot not far from our car.  I pulled out of the parking lot and made our way onto the Colfax Ave. expressway.  My wife had noticed that as soon as we pulled out, the cops started to follow us.  "That's strange," she said as she looked into her passenger side rearview mirror.  "Those cops have followed us since we left the store."

Suddenly, the cop car lights up and I look into the rear view mirror and I see him coming up fast behind me.  I was doing 55 - the speed limit - and I pulled over into the right lane expecting him to pass.  Nope, he pulled in behind me.  "Is that for me," I asked incredulously wondering what in the hell I'd done.  My wife assured me that it sure was.

We pulled over and the two cops came up to either side of the car.  I rolled my window down and asked the cop on my side what I had done.  He asked me what I had been doing.  I said, "We just came from Duluth Trading Company."  He asked how long we had been in there and I looked at my wife and she said about 20 to 25 minutes.  Then he wanted to know if we had been to a restaurant before we had gone to Duluth Trading.  I told him, "No, we're just coming down from Steamboat Springs."  

I asked the officer what this was all about and he said, "We had a report of a couple that was fighting in a restaurant nearby and they left in a car that matched the description of your car and they were reported to pull into the parking lot at Duluth Trading Company."  

I looked at my wife and we both had this funny, yet incredulous look on our faces.  I shook my head and said, "Fighting?  Us?  No, that certainly wasn't us."  He asked for my license and asked to see the receipt from the store.  I said, "Well, it's in the sack in the trunk.  I can get it for you."  

He told me to stay in the car and to pop the trunk.  I looked in my rearview mirror as the officer and his partner went around to the back of the car and pulled the Duluth Trading Company bag out of the trunk.  They looked through it and the partner sort of disgustedly threw the bag back into the trunk.  Sort of like he was mad that we were probably telling the truth.

The cop came back to my window and said, "You guys sure you weren't at a restaurant earlier."

"Not around here," I said to him.  "We came down from Steamboat Springs, went up over the Loveland Pass, then stopped in Georgetown before we came here."  I wasn't going to tell him that we had stopped in a brewpub in Georgetown, but that was only for a couple an hour before.  

He had run my license and said, "OK, well, if your license check comes back clean, you're free to go.  Moments later, his radio squawked something and he handed me back my license.  Then he did something that sort of surprised me - he handed me his business card.  He had written his partners name on the card as well.  He said, "If anything comes up where you think anything was wrong with this stop, don't hesitate to contact the Golden Police Department.  This is my name, this is my partners name.  Sorry that we had to stop you, but your car - with two people in it - fit the description of what was called in to us.  We just had to check it out."  

And with that, we took off toward downtown Denver.  My wife and I were both sort of stunned from the experience.  "What the hell was that all about," my wife said laughingly.  I told her that we obviously look like two people who fight all the time.  Either that, I surmised, or the employees at Duluth Trading thought we were shoplifters.  It really didn't make any sense and we had a good laugh over the whole episode for the rest of the trip. 

We spent one night at the Hilton Garden Inn Union Station in downtown Denver.  Actually, it wasn't all that close to Union Station and it was sort of on the outskirts of downtown Denver.  It was close to Coors Field and the Colorado Rockies were playing the Los Angeles Angels that night.  But with COVID-19 restrictions, we couldn't go to the game.  But from our top floor room, we could see the right side of the infield, so any plays between 1st and 2nd were visible from our room.

After a nice dinner in the LoDo District in downtown Denver at Venice Ristorante, a place I hadn't been to in about 12 years, we went across the street to Union Station to look around.  My wife seems to remember being in Union Station as a young girl, but I'd only been by the place on previous visits to Denver.  It was a vibrant place with a number of restaurants, shops and a hotel in the building.  It's still the main terminal for Amtrak service to and from Denver, as well as terminals for bus and light rail service through Denver's Regional Transportation District, or RTD.  There were a lot of people milling about inside the massive lobby and in front of Union Station when we were there.  

The next day was the flight back to Chicago, an overnight stay at the Hilton Garden Inn O'Hare, then a drive home the next morning.  I promised my neighbor that we'd being nice weather home as it had rained 7 days straight while we were gone and it was sunny and in the low 70's when we got home around 11:30 a.m.  Our lawn had gone from dormant when we left to a lush green by the time we got back home.  It had been over a month since I last mowed and I knew mowing was probably going to be one of the first things that I would have to do after we got home.  

So, that was our wonderful trip to Steamboat Springs, Colorado.  We got a great deal in our travel and lodging bookings that worked out nearly perfect in our favor.  The weather - for the most part, save for the inland hurricane/winter storm one day - was nice.  And the laid back and friendly atmosphere in Steamboat was exactly why we went back.  We ate in some good places, we experienced high country nature and beautiful scenery, and we had a relaxing and refreshing time while we were there. My neighbor keeps telling us that if we really like Steamboat Springs, we'd love Grand Junction, CO.  But to me, I don't know how much better life can be once you get to experience Steamboat Springs.  (Photo courtesy City of Steamboat Springs)

Slim's Bar & Grill - Bemidji, MN

During our trip to Northern Minnesota this past summer, we made a handful of discovery trips north of our home base of Bemidji during our time there.  On the north side of Bemidji, just off the old U.S. Highway 71 that is known as Bemidji Ave. N. was a cabin-type bar and grill that caught my eye, then caught my fancy.  One day while we were coming back into Bemidji from a short jaunt up north of the city, I decided to stop in to see what Slim's Bar & Grill was all about. 

In 1965, Ernie and Rosie Jacobson opened what was one of the very first pizza places in the state of Minnesota, Jake's Pizza, in Albert Lea.  Jake's was such a hit that with the help of Ernie and Rosie's son Larry, a second Jake's Pizza place opened in 1968 in Fairmont, about 60 miles west of Albert Lea.  Larry eventually sold his interest in that Jake's Pizza to his brother Mark in 1970 and ventured up to the Bemidji area to open up another Jake's Pizza.  Eventually, through family, friends and franchisees owning various locations, a total of 18 Jake's Pizza restaurants could be found throughout Minnesota and northern Iowa.  

Jake's Pizza had some competition in the Bemidji area when two other pizza places opened up in the 80's.  Larry Jacobson decided to turn Jake's Pizza into a new venture - L.T. Jacobs, and then opened a place called the Hard Times Saloon in downtown Bemidji.  L.T. Jacobs proved to be a rather unwieldy concept, so in 1989 Jacobson and his wife Connie opened Slim's Bar & Grill - basically a "slimmed" down version of L.T. Jacobs.  It turned out to be the right idea as it wasn't a large place, it was casual and homey, and above all, it was a profitable business.  

In 2005, Larry and Connie Jacobson sold Slim's to their son Karl and his wife Erin.  They continued to run the business up to Karl's untimely death in 2013.  Lisa Friese had been a longtime employee of the Jacobson family working in their restaurants starting in 1980 when she was still in her teens.  In 2014, Lisa Friese and her husband John bought Slim's from the Jacobson family.  The Friese family continues to run Slim's today.  

From the highway, you can see Slim's Bar & Grill through the trees just past the corner of Bemidji Ave. N and NW Anne St., just over a couple hundred yards west of Lake Bemidji  (see map)  I could see the Pabst Blue Ribbon sign on top of their entry way from the road and it looked like the quintessential northwoods dive bar. I mentioned something to my wife about the place on probably the fifth time I had seen it and she said, "Well, let's go back and have a beer!"  

It was a beautiful afternoon and we walked into the place.  It WAS the quintessential northwoods dive bar complete with a three-sided bar, knotty pine walls with deer racks, trophy mounted fish, pictures of hockey teams from Bemidji State University, and vintage artwork signs from the original Hamms brewery.  They even had Pabst Blue Ribbon on tap!  The smell of fresh made burgers wafted in the air.  

The bartender that day was a young guy named Chris who was personable and friendly.  My wife asked if we could sit out on the patio since it was so nice and he enthusiastically said, "You bet!  Go on out and I'll come out to take your order."  I protested that we could order inside and take them outside and Chris said, "Naw, go on out.  I'll be out there in a minute."  We immediately liked the guy.  

We went out and few moments later Chris came out to get our drink order.  I ordered up a Bemidji Brewing Company pale ale that they had on tap, while my wife got a Tito's and cranberry.  I downed the pale ale pretty quickly and Chris came out a few minutes later wanting to know if I wanted another beer.  My wife was still about halfway through her mixed drink and I said, "Yeah, I would.  I saw you had PBR on tap.  I'll take one of those."  I hadn't had a Pabst beer in a long, long time and it certainly tasted pretty damned good sitting on Slim's patio on a sun-drenched afternoon.  

When we were finished, we took our glasses in to the bar to drop off for Chris.  He protested, saying, "Aw, you guys.  You didn't need to do that.  I would have come out and gotten them."  I looked over in the corner behind the bar and saw that he had a couple burgers cooking on a flat grill.  I asked him if the burgers were good - they SMELLED good - and he said, "Best around.  We always get the Best Burger award that the local paper gives out."  

I also noticed that they had soup specials each day and the next day was going to be chicken and wild rice soup.  Wild rice soup was one of the main things that I wanted to have when we were in the northwoods, but no one seemed to have it.  I told Chris that we'd be back the next day for lunch.  

True to my word, we made it back out for lunch the next day around 1 p.m.  We had gotten there the day before after 3 p.m., so there wasn't much of a crowd in there.  However, we got in on the backside of a busy lunch hour.  Chris was there, as was owner Lisa Friese and another guy working the bar.  Chris saw us and his face lit up.  "Hey, you made it back," he said with a big voice.  

We took a seat at a booth along the wall opposite the bar.  The menu was on the table and we took a quick look to see what they had other than burgers.  Well, really, the main thing on the menu WERE the burgers.  But they also had Jake's Pizza on the menu - a nod to the Jacobson family's first Bemidji restaurant.  But curiously, they also had a couple selections of pizza on the menu under the heading of Dave's Pizza.  There's a Dave's Pizza in Bemidji and I thought it was sort of strange that they would have two different styles of pizza - or if Dave's Pizza delivered to Slim's.  I just didn't know.  

But that was just about it for food on the menu.  Slim's also had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich on the menu, as well as homemade chili, and nachos with various toppings available.  

The burgers at Slim's are made with beef from Stittsworth Meats from Bemidji.  (We found that many other restaurants in the area used meat from Stittsworth Meats.)  Their buns are sourced from Raphael's Bakery, a bakery/cafe in downtown Bemidji that we neglected to visit.  And they had bottles of Beer's Black Dog barbecue sauce on the tables.  "That's the owners brother," Chris explained to us as I was asking since they didn't seem to have barbecue on the menu.  "It's good stuff.  We sell it here, sometimes by the case!"  

I had to start out with a bowl of the chicken and wild rice soup.  It was a fair-sized bowl that was filled to the brim of a rich and hearty concoction of chicken, wild rice and chopped carrots.  It was simply outstanding.  And it filled me up rather quickly.  I was worried that I had spoiled my appetite for the burger.  But it turns out that it didn't.

My wife got just the regular cheese burger, while I went with the pepper jack cheese, sautéed mushroom and bacon burger.  A thick onion slice came with the burger (fried onion are available on request) along with dill pickles.  The bun was lightly toasted and the burgers came with a bag of potato chips - no fries or onion rings or wings at Slim's Bar & Grill.  The burger is a 7 ounce flat-grilled burger that was juicy and full of flavor. Multiple napkins were needed to go along with the burger.  It was an outstanding burger, to say the least.  

If I lived in the Bemidji area, I'd eat at Slim's at least once a week.  It was a great little northwoods bar with a great burger and a very friendly staff.  They have pizza available at Slim's, but that's about it - pizza and burgers.  Daily soup specials through the week complete the menu.  The beer selection was adequate and the chicken and wild rice soup was superb.  I liked everything about Slim's Bar & Grill, from the northwoods kitsch to the outdoor patio to the friendly service to the excellent burgers.  Slim's was one of my favorite places we visited on our trip to northern Minnesota this past summer.  

The District Pub - Eau Claire, WI

My wife and I spent a night recently in Eau Claire, WI.  I have an account in Eau Claire and I usually just drive over from the Twin Cities (about 90 miles) and head back after I'm done with the meeting.  I've only stayed in the city a couple nights over the years, but one time it was at a boutique hotel in downtown Eau Claire by the name of the Lismore Doubletree.  We stayed there on this trip and looked for restaurants in the downtown area that were open for dining.  My wife was looking for a good ol' fashioned Wisconsin-style fish fry that evening.  The front desk had given us some suggestions, really pushing a couple restaurants a few blocks away.  But we didn't want to get back in the car, so we looked for places that were walking distance from the hotel.  One place that I found on-line sounded good - a little grill and pub about a two block walk from the hotel called The District Pub.  

Dave Zempel was a Seattle-area native who came to Eau Claire to study at Wisconsin-Eau Claire.  He fell in love with the area and decided to stay in the Chippewa Valley once he graduated from college.  Zempel dabbled in a couple of things - he owned bars in the nearby towns of Menomonie and Altoona - and he also owned a wedding venue on an old farm about an hour drive north of Eau Claire.  But he also wanted to put in an upscale pub in downtown Eau Claire.  

In 2016, a sports bar in downtown Eau Claire by the name of Playmakers shuttered their doors.  The building was up for lease when Zempel found out about it and he jumped on it for his new restaurant concept.  Extensive renovations to the interior gave the tired building new life with large windows letting in natural light, a new bar area was put in place and a new kitchen installed.  By August of 2017, the District Pub was ready to open.  But extensive construction work in the downtown area near and around the District made it tough for patrons to get there.  Word quickly spread that the new place was nothing like Playmakers (or the previous restaurant, the Haymarket Grill) and people found ways to get to the District Pub.  

The District Pub is located at the corner of Graham and Eau Claire streets near where the Eau Claire River empties into the Chippewa River.  (see map)  Actually, we walked a block too far before turning to go to the District, ending up along the Eau Claire River.  We went around a building and walked back a block to the entrance of the District.  We went inside and checked in with the hostess stand on the middle level near the bar.  As we turned to walk back down the stairs to get a table on the lower level, we looked out and the sky had burst with heavy rain.  30 seconds earlier when we walked in there didn't appear to be any hint of rain.  But driving into Eau Claire that day, we ran into a handful of those late afternoon pop-up hard rains.  And downtown Eau Claire was getting one of those as we sat down.  

There are three levels at the District - the lower level is at street level and features a handful of booths and tables.  Coronavirus restrictions were in place in the dining area, so tables were spaced out and every other booth was closed off for seating.  It was cozy in there to begin with, so I can almost imagine how that little area would be if there weren't any restrictions in place. 

The bar is on the second level, just about five feet above the lower dining level.  Corrugated metal accents were on the face of the bar as well as on the back walls.  There were some high-top tables in the bar area, as well.  A number of flatscreen televisions were on the wall behind the bar - all turned to a Milwaukee Brewers game, mainly because, well, there aren't much sports going on these days.   The District had 30 beers on tap featuring both national, regional and locally produced beers.  

Just past the bar on the second level were some stairs that took you up to the third level.  We saw some people going up there, but there appeared to be a sign that said that level was closed.  We never did go up there to check it out while we were there.  

We took a table near the floor-to-ceiling window marveling at our luck of not being stuck in the downpour that was going on outside.  Our server for the evening, Ashley, came over with menus for us to look through. I ordered a Sierra Nevada hazy IPA while my wife got a vodka/cranberry to start out.  

Most of the items on the menu at the District are your typical sports pub fare - appetizers, wings, salads, sandwiches, and pizza.  One page was fully devoted to their burgers.  They had over a dozen specialty burgers on that page and at the bottom they had their "build-your-own" burger section.  I wasn't especially certain I wanted a burger that evening.

However, I didn't want pizza and the sandwich offerings - which included 8 different variations of grilled chicken sandwiches - were sort of sparse.  It looked like I was going to be forced to get a burger after all.

My wife was hell bent on getting the fish fry that evening.  That evening they were featuring deep-fried haddock along with a baked potato and cole slaw.  It was served on a tray with faux newsprint.  My wife was more than happy with the fish.  The batter was light and the haddock was flaky and delicious.  It was also very filling.  She had a few bites of the cole slaw, which she thought was pretty good, and a couple bites of the potato, which was on the small side.  But she didn't care - she was much more interested in the fish. 

I ended up getting the Swiss and mushroom burger.  I asked Ashley if they could put some bacon on the burger, too.  And the saving grace is that they had tater tots as one of the side choices.  I asked Ashley if they had any hot sauce such as Cholula, but the only thing they had were packets Frank's RedHot Sauce.  No condiments - not even salt or pepper - are on tables during the pandemic.  That worked out, though.  

The burger patty sat on a sliced tomato and some lettuce leaves.  It was cooked perfectly, a bit of pink on the inside and it was juicy and delectable.  It was a glorious mess (a nod to the Slakingfool) with the Swiss cheese and a house sauce they drizzled on top of the burger.  The Swiss/mushroom/bacon burger from the District was definitely a multi-napkin burger.  And the bun stayed together very well with all the messiness.  It was a very good burger.  

For a casual, bar-style meal that wasn't too far from our hotel, we were both happy with what we had at the District Pub.   They had a pretty good beer selection with a full bar, the menu was sort of typical of most sports bars with burgers, appetizers, and pizza - but they did seem to have an inordinate number of chicken sandwiches on their menu, and it was a nice little relaxing spot to have dinner and to watch some baseball.  If you make it to the District Pub at some point, I would recommend getting a burger and my wife would definitely recommend doing the fish fry, if it's available.

Turtle River Chophouse - Turtle River, MN

During our summer vacation to northern Minnesota, one of the things that I wanted to seek out was a good ol' fashioned northwoods supper club.  There were just a handful in the area and one of them that we checked out was sort of "iffy".  However, one that we did find was a steak house that was about halfway between Bemidji and Blackduck on the old US Highway 71 - Turtle River Chophouse.  We checked via phone one afternoon to see if they were open that evening and made reservations when we were told they were.  

Turtle River is really nothing more than a point in the road where there are a handful of businesses that cater to outdoorsmen and campers.  For years, the focal point of Turtle River was a small supper club by the name of Bar 71.  Bar 71 looked like a barn with an addition on the back and was locally famous for their fish fry's and their fresh walleye platters.  But in September of 2012, a fire that started in the kitchen wiped out the restaurant.  Owners had planned on rebuilding, but that never happened.  The property sat dormant for awhile before two brothers came to the rescue.

Derek and Brett Leach had bought the Bemidji burger joint Bar 209 in 2011 and were itching to do something a little more upscale for their next restaurant.  They purchased the property that Bar 71 sat upon in the summer of 2013 once it was determined that the owners of the old supper club were not going to rebuild.  Part of the original building was salvaged in the fire, but the brothers determined that they wanted to rebuild a larger space with a new foundation underneath.  Turtle River Chophouse opened in the early spring of 2014.  

We had driven up to Blackduck earlier in the day and decided to stop off at the Turtle River Chophouse before they were opened to make sure this place was legitimate.  Turns out that it was and then some.  (see map) The outside of the building was modern looking with a stone patio off to the side.  It was a beautiful evening, but we wanted to eat inside.  

Just inside the front door is a cross-cut section of a white pine tree that had fallen during a storm on a nearby property back in 2003.  It was lacquered and small arrow notes showed that the tree sprouted in 1825 and historical dates were marked along the rings of tree.  I noticed it immediately when I came in, but lingered a few moments to check out the information arrows on the cross-section of the tree when we left.  

As I said, we made reservations earlier in the day - we were told by one restaurant when we started to do some research on going to the Bemidji area a couple weeks prior that we had to have reservations according to the state mandate when restaurants across Minnesota reopened a number of weeks ago.  But the young lady at the hostess stand at Turtle River Chophouse said that most of the time people don't show up with a reservation, they would take their name and number just like it was a real reservation and still seat patrons.  My wife and I figured the names and phone numbers had to be in place in case a COVID-19 outbreak started in the restaurant on a given day.  

We were seated at a table in the dining area along the wall.  A couple menus were dropped off with us when we sat down.  The place wasn't fancy, but it wasn't a dank bar and grill, either.  We were dressed in casual clothing that night, but a table filled with a family celebrating a birthday on the other side of the dining area had a couple guys that looked like they had just come in from the fields to have dinner at Turtle River Chophouse.  Stone-tiled floors and a high-ceiling gave the dining area some roominess, and my wife immediately discovered the acoustical tiles attached to the ceiling to help lower ambient noise.  A couple three palm trees - we found out later they were real - were sitting in middle of the dining area.  

The bar area is attached to dining area.  Flat screen televisions hung on either side of the long rectangular bar.  The kitchen area with a large service window that looked out into the long room was just past the bar.  The only remnant of the old 71 Bar was the Pabst Blue Ribbon lighted sign that hung above the kitchen service window.  And they had a great selection of tunes playing in the background on their music system.  We heard recordings from Modest Mouse, Strumbellas, Lord Huron, and a great rendition of the classic Simon and Garfunkel "The Boxer" by Jerry Douglas backed by Mumford & Sons.  

Our server for the evening was a fun and effervescent young lady by the name of Cailin.  She was friendly and chatty all evening long.  She asked us what she could get from the bar for us while we looked over the menu.  I saw that they had Alaskan Amber on tap and I ordered one of those.  (Although, later, I wished I hadn't as it was a little flat.)  My wife got her usual Tito's vodka and cranberry juice.  

The menu at Turtle River Chophouse was not exactly what we were expecting.  It was more of an upscale steakhouse and not quite the quintessential northwoods supper club that we had hoped to find.  And that was not a deal breaker for us.  In fact, Turtle River would be a good place to eat if it were in any mid-sized Midwestern city.  It was just sort of surprising for the type of menu they had in middle of the sticks 11 miles from Bemidji, MN.  

At a supper club in the northwoods of Minnesota, you probably wouldn't see sesame-crusted ahi tuna on the menu, and you probably wouldn't see Korean barbecued ribs.  They also had interesting items such as shrimp with gnocchi, chicken and rice stir fry, and spinach-dip-stuffed chicken breasts topped with a garlic cream sauce.  In fact, they only had one steak on the menu - an 8-ounce sirloin steak with a gorgonzola butter topping.  Yes, it was not your typical supper club by any stretch of the imagination.  

Another thing you don't see at northwoods supper clubs are  sushi rolls.  But they had them at Turtle River Chophouse. Actually, my wife and I were a little hesitant, but also somewhat intrigued about them.  When Cailin came back, I asked her about the sushi rolls.  I apologized in advance for being so incredulous that they would have fresh seafood sushi rolls on the menu at a restaurant in the middle of the woods in Northern Minnesota.  "We actually sell quite a few of them," she said.  "They're actually pretty good."  What the hell - we had to give them a try.  

And our incredulity pretty much stopped after popping a slice of the spicy tuna roll that we had ordered into our mouths.  The tuna was fresh and not fishy in taste.  The spicy drizzle gave the roll a nice little "pop" in flavor, and they were certainly better than grocery store-bought spicy tuna rolls that I've had in the past.  The only thing was that they didn't give us enough wasabi or fresh ginger.  But we were more than able to work around that.  

Being that it wasn't a true supper club, we had a bit of a hard time digesting the menu.  When Cailin came back to take our food order, we still weren't ready to order just yet.  But my wife and I both determined that we were going to drink red wine with our meal.  I ordered up a bottle of the Jeff Runquist 1448, a blended Californian red.  We had been getting into blends lately and some have been very good while others have been sort of "meh!"  But with the 1448, we were both surprised and happy with the complex flavors the wine offered.  

After ordering our main courses, house salads came out beforehand.  The salad featured thick romaine leaves with slices of fresh tomatoes and cucumbers.  A very hearty balsamic vinaigrette came on the side as a dressing.  Everything in the salad tasted farm fresh and was a nice start to the meal.  

For her main entree that evening, my wife got the special that night - beef filet medallions topped with crusted gorgonzola sitting on a bed of mashed potatoes.  Some vegetables came with the medallions.  She was in the mood for steak that night, but since there were only two choices for steaks, she went with the medallions.  She was a little skeptical when it was served to you, but she was happy with her choice after a couple of bites.  

I went with the seafood linguine with Italian sausage and mussels in light red sauce - once again, not something you'd expect to see at a restaurants in the middle of the woods in northern Minnesota.  Parsley, sliced red peppers and basil were mixed in with the sausage, mussels and linguine noodles.  This dish, too, was surprisingly very good.  

For dessert - which we both really didn't need after all the food we'd had - we went with the creme brûlée.  It was good quality creme brûlée and it definitely appeared that they had someone back in the kitchen who knew how to make it - and make it correctly.  

We had been talking with Cailin about the Turtle River Chophouse.  We had been to the brothers' other restaurant Bar 209 a couple night's previously.  (They also own Red Stu Breakfast Bar and the Cabin Coffee House in Bemidji.)  We were asking her about the origin of Turtle River Chophouse and she was telling us the story of Bar 71 and the night it caught on fire.  "It started at 2:30 in the morning," Cailin told us.  "So, immediately, people around here thought it was suspicious.  I don't know if it was or not, but Derek and Brett came in after a while and bought the place.  The tore down what was left of the old building and built this."  

By now, most of the other people in the restaurant had cleared out except for a couple people seated at the bar.  A man came over as we were finishing up our wine and trying to finish the very rich creme brûlée.  He asked how everything was and I told him it was surprisingly very good.  It turned out that it was one of the co-owners, Brett Leach.  He asked me how it was so surprising.  I told him that we sort of expected a northern Minnesota supper club-type of menu and we were surprised to see some of the things on the menu - things that we didn't expect to find out in the country less than 100 miles from the Canadian border.  

"We set out to make it a little more upscale than other restaurants in the area," Brett explained to us.  "But we didn't want to make it so upscale that the locals wouldn't appreciate the food."  He said that business has been steady during the pandemic, but not at the numbers they've seen in the past.  "People aren't traveling like they have in the past," he said.  "But we're holding our own."

We remarked about the sushi rolls and he said, "We get our fish for sushi three times a week.  We're still debating whether it's worth it, but we do sell a fair amount of sushi rolls."  

I asked him how business was normally in the winter time for them.  "It's surprisingly not bad.  We have a steady clientele of people who either live here year round or come here to ice fish or snowmobile or cross-country ski," he explained.  "But that may be a different story this winter."  

My wife asked him how he got started in the restaurant business.  He told us that he and his brother worked at a steak house in Bemidji - "Not too much different from this place," he said - working bussing tables and in the kitchen.  "But I got my real start working in my grandmother's kitchen when I was a little boy," he said.  It turned out that his grandmother had a working farm with 30 farmhands where she would cook 3 meals a day for the workers.  "I had to learn how to help her prep food, clean dishes, make sure we had enough provisions.  Stuff like that," he told us.  "My grandmother would make three different types of pies each morning after breakfast."  Brett said that was his introduction to working in a kitchen and it taught him how to work in a high-impact kitchen and having to come up with solutions on the fly if something didn't quite work out.   

We had told him that we had already eaten at Bar 209 and wondered if he had any recommendations of other restaurants we needed to try in the immediate area around Bemidji.  He gave us a couple three names of places that we actually did give a try including Tutto Bene.  I remarked to my wife that I felt he was very gracious to do that, helping support other places in the area.  Most restaurateurs would have probably said, "Oh, you won't find anything in the area as good as MY place!"  

If you've read all the way through this post, you've figured out by now how pleasantly surprised we were with our visit to Turtle River Chophouse.  It was definitely a unique find in the lakes region of northern Minnesota. It wasn't the typical "relish tray/three-bean salad/prime rib"-kind of supper club that you can find in the northwoods.  The menu was interesting, the food - we thought - was very good, the atmosphere was nice, the decor was welcoming, and the service was efficient and personable with some fun mixed in.  We had a lot of good to great meals on our trip to northern Minnesota and this one may be the most memorable in terms of how surprising it turned out to be.  

Salut Bar Americain - Edina, MN

My wife is one of those people who needs three meals a day.  We'd had a pretty good sized breakfast this particular day, but we didn't have lunch.  We were in Minneapolis and she was getting a little "hangry" late in the afternoon.  I suggested that we head over to Pizzeria Lola, my favorite place for a pizza in the Twin Cities.  But we found out that due to the coronavirus, Lola was carry-out only.  We were in the Edina area and there's a number of good restaurants around the 50th and French neighborhood.  One place that I had been past numerous times, but had never stopped into before, is a bistro by the name of Salut Bar Americain.  We decided to stop in there for a late lunch/early dinner.  

Salut is part of the Parasole Restaurant Holdings group of restaurants around the Twin Cities that include Manny's, Pittsburgh Blue, Burger Jones and Chino Latino.  The CEO of Salut is Phil Roberts who opened the critically acclaimed (and one of my all-time favorite Italian restaurants) Pronto in Minneapolis in 1981.  Along with partner Pete Mihajlov, Roberts developed a number of restaurants including Buca Little Italy, a concept that eventually became Buca di Beppo.  And in 1999, Roberts closed Pronto and replaced it with the Oceanaire, a high-end seafood restaurant.  Roberts and Mihajlov eventually sold both Buca di Beppo and the Oceanaire off to separate corporate entities.  In 2005, Parasole opened the Salut location in Edina.  Three years later, a second Salut bar American opened in St. Paul.  And earlier this year, Parasole sold their holdings to a local capital investment company with Roberts remaining as the CEO of the restaurant group.  

We found a parking spot on France just down and across the street from Salut Bar Americain.  (see map) It was a beautiful evening and the dining patio in front of Salut was full.  We checked inside at the hostess stand to see if we could eat inside.  A young lady took us to a table in the corner of the restaurant - many tables were moved out due to COVID-19 restrictions - and we had to download menus on our smartphones via a QR code for us to look through.  It wasn't long before our server, Claire, came over to greet us.  I started off with a Surly Furious while my wife got a glass of pinot grigio.  Later on, I got a Day Tripper pale ale from the Indeed Brewing Company located in Minneapolis with a taproom in Milwaukee.  

The decor at Salut was tastefully elegant as they tried to replicate a Paris bistro.  The table we sat at featured a banquette bench along the wall.  The bar area had a few booths and high-top tables with an impressive back-lit back-bar area.  The place was fancy, but not pretentious in the least.   They had a wonderful selection of music playing in the background from artists such as Au Revior Simone, Kraak & Smaack, and the great Dead Weather featuring Jack White.  

I really didn't know what to get at Salut.  The menu is pretty compact with a handful of entrees including a walleye entree, steak and frites, and a herb-roasted half-chicken.  They had a burger on the menu, as well as sandwiches such as steak sandwich and a grilled chicken club sandwich.  Salads and appetizers such as jumbo shrimp, mussels, and escargot bourguignon were on the menu along with a classic French onion soup.  

My wife was hungry, but not hungry enough for a full entree meal.  She thought about getting the walleye dinner, but she ended up getting the tuna Niçoise salad.  It featured a yellowfin tuna filet, grilled lightly, then mixed with various items such as green beans, sliced tomatoes, potatoes, artichokes, olives and a hard-boiled egg.  It was topped with a pistou vinaigrette.  She also wanted to get a side of grilled asparagus to go along with our meals.  The asparagus came with a rich and creamy hollandaise sauce.  

I ended up getting the croque monsieur, a traditional Parisienne-style ham and cheese sandwich that is served open-faced and topped with a béchamel sauce.  A side of frites (fries) came with the sandwich.  

Now, my wife was very thrilled with her salad.  "This is wonderful," she said more than once.  "This is exactly what I needed.  Not too heavy, but filling enough to make me feel better."  Her "hangry-ness" had subsided considerably halfway through her salad.  

My sandwich was perfect for what I wanted that evening, too.  No, it wasn't a pizza from Pizzeria Lola, but it certainly hit the spot in terms of flavor and quality.  The thin slices of the ham with the melted cheese mixed with the béchamel sauce on the toasted bread had a lot of taste sensations going on.  It wasn't heavy in the stomach, but I was more than satiated when I finished.

I do have to say the frites were very good.  I asked Claire if I could get a side of mayonnaise to go along with the fries - Parisienne-style.  The frites had a nice crunchy outer shell with that great flaky potato taste on the inside.  And the grilled asparagus was very good, too.  The béarnaise sauce was served a little too cool for my liking, but it was still a nice addition with the asparagus.  

Salut Bar Americain may have saved the day for me as my wife was at that point where she really needed something to eat.  She really didn't know what she wanted, but she needed something.  And her Niçoise salad was exactly what she needed.  While I wasn't as hungry or needed food, the croque monsieur was perfect for what I needed to eat.  Our service from Claire was excellent, they had good music on their sound system at Salut, and even with pandemic restrictions in place, it was a very nice atmosphere in there.  Salut turned out to be a very good stop for us at a place that I'd been by dozens of times, but had never stopped in before this.

Bar 209 - Bemidji, MN

On our first night in Bemidji during our summer vacation up there, we were trying to get the lay of the land in terms of restaurants.  It was a Monday night, so a few places were closed.  (We found that parts of Bemidji literally shut down from Monday thru Wednesday.)  We weren't all that hungry, but we figured we needed something.  Driving around the downtown area, we found a handful of bar and grills that were open, but one sort of stuck out from all the outdoor seating they had in the street in front of the place.  We decided to hit up Bar 209 for dinner that evening.  

Bar 209 sat at 209 NW Minnesota Ave. in downtown Bemidji for a number of years.  Two brothers - Derek and Brett Leach - had an early life taste of the restaurant business when they both worked at the old Union Station, an upscale restaurant housed in an old train depot that opened in 1976.  Derek was 13 when he worked in the kitchen washing dishes and doing prep work, and Brett was 11 or 12 when he started at Union Station busing tables.  

An opportunity arose for the brothers to buy an existing little burger joint - Bar 209 (located at 209 Minnesota Ave. NW in Bemidji) in 2011.  It wasn't long before they expanded the menu and realized that they needed more space.  In late 2014, the brothers agreed to purchase the American Legion building a half block north of Bar 209.  Membership in the legion had dwindled to about 50 members and the 7,000 square foot building was way too big for their needs.  The Leach brothers needed the space as the original Bar 209 was long, but too narrow to comfortably seat people in the place.

It turned out that the American Legion post was way too big for Bar 209's needs, as well.  The Leach brothers hired a design team out of the Twin Cities who suggested putting two restaurants in the building.  The brothers decided to go with a "day & night" concept for the restaurants.  A breakfast place on one side and the new and improved Bar 209 on the other side.  

Pictured at right - Derek and Brett Leach.  Photo courtesy Bemidji Pioneer.  

Work finally began on the building and by June of 2018 the new Bar 209 opened on the north side of the building, while Red Stu - a breakfast place named after the brothers' father - opened on the south end.  In addition to 209 Bar and Red Stu, the brothers also own the Cabin Coffee House & Cafe (we went there for coffee one day), and Turtle River Chophouse, a supper club that's located about 11 miles north and east of Bemidji.  (Look for an upcoming Road Tips post on Turtle River Chophouse.)  

We parked our car just down the street from 209 Bar and walked toward the front door at the corner of 3rd St. NW and Minnesota Ave. NW.  (see map)  As I said earlier, Minnesota Ave. was shut down for the block in front of Bar 209 for outdoor seating.  With COVID-19 restrictions on dining inside, 209 Bar set up a number of folding tables and chairs in the street.  My wife and I looked at the set up and decided against dining in the street.  But there were a lot of people seated outside.  We figured that because outside dining in Bemidji is limited because of the short season, people there probably didn't care if they were sitting in the middle of a street to have dinner.  

We went inside and were greeted by a hostess who took us to a booth along the wall.  In Minnesota, you had to have a mask on to go into establishments, but once you were seated in a restaurant, you could remove them.  We found that most people complied with the mask mandate that Minnesota's governor had decreed earlier in the summer, even though they may not have liked it.  

Bar 209 was very nice.  It featured a number of high top tables including a couple of community tables in the middle of the dining area.  The bar curved around in front of an open serving window looking into the kitchen.  Booths were on the north wall of the restaurant and high-top tables with banquette seating along the wall faced opposite the bar.  I would call the decor in the place as modern industrial.  

We had been given menus when were seated and our server for the evening asked us what we would like to drink.  They had a number of beers on tap including a handful from the Bemidji Brewing Company located just a couple blocks away.  I wanted to go to Bemidji Brewing at some point to try their beers, but I didn't want to try them before then.  I ended up getting a Bell's Two Hearted Ale.  My wife got a glass of 209 Bar's house red wine - a French blend.  

The menu at 209 Bar featured appetizers, salads, sandwiches and wraps.  Bar 209 is known locally for their good burgers and they had a number on the menu - all their beef is sourced locally from Stittsworth Meats in Bemidji.  The different burgers sounded good, but I had a burger for lunch earlier in the day and I wasn't all that hungry.  But they also had pizza on the menu with the dough made-from-scratch in the kitchen daily.  

And that's what we ended up getting. It was a 10" pizza with raised dough and we got our usual sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  The crust was sort of chewy, but the chunks of sausage had that great fennel flavor, the pepperoni was spicy, and the mushrooms were earthy in flavor.  Actually, there was almost too much crust for the pizza as most of the toppings were center of the pizza.  But it was still all right, in our book.  And it turned out to be just enough for what we needed that night.  

My wife thought she had better get some greens in her, so she ordered up the house salad - a mix of spring greens and romaine lettuce, with sliced cucumbers and cherry tomatoes all topped with shredded cheddar cheese.  She got the balsamic vinaigrette dressing to go with the salad.  She said the greens were cool, fresh and crisp.  She just had a couple pieces of pizza, so the salad was a nice addition to her meal.  

I would have to say that our visit to 209 Bar was all right.  The menu is pretty basic and caters more to a bar crowd and families.  We thought the place was nice, had a laid-back vibe and was comfortable.  We just thought it was a little strange to be eating in the street in front of the place, so that's why we decided to eat inside on what was a beautiful Northern Minnesota evening.  The service was fine - our server was pleasant and efficient.  209 Bar isn't fine dining, and they don't pretend to be.  But it would be a good place for a casual meal in downtown Bemidji.  

 

Floyd's Burgers & Sliders @ Wake Brewing - Rock Island, IL

For some time, I've had philosophical issues with food trucks.  When the food truck craze first hit four or five years ago, there just seemed to be this aimless attitude that food truck owners - and even municipalities - had in regard to where they could do business.  When owners of established brick-and-mortar restaurants complained - and rightly so - to local municipalities about the seemingly arbitrary regulations governing food trucks, local governments and health departments knew they had to reign in what was turning into a quickly growing - and a very unorganized - kitchen economy.  Some food trucks eventually fell by the wayside when rules, regulations, and permits came into play helping to level out the playing field.  But others began to prosper when they discovered a whole new venue where they could set up - the fast growing microbrewery sector.  While I have had a somewhat cynical approach to food trucks over the years, when they team up with local breweries to provide food while you can enjoy a craft beer - well, I'm all for that.  And one of the food trucks that we've discovered at one of our local breweries is Floyd's Burgers & Sliders.  And we went to have a burger at Floyd's one recent evening over at Wake Brewing in Rock Island.  

Austin Mills was one of those who saw an opportunity in the growing business of food trucks and started renovating his parents' 1978 Winnebago in the spring of 2016.  His main job was working at a Jimmy John's and he wasn't in any hurry to turn the camper into a burger joint on wheels.  However, in the summer of that year, the city of Davenport announced that they would sponsor a trial program for food trucks to congregate on evenings once a week for the month of September in public lots in the downtown area.  (A lot of downtown restaurants were, understandably, upset with this - and, at the time, I sided with the restaurants on this issue.)  But the trial was more of an experiment by the city to find out what they needed to do to regulate and weed out the ones that wouldn't comply with rules and regulations.

When Austin Mills found out the city was going to do this pilot program for food trucks, he quickly dove into the complete renovation of the camper into a food truck.  He missed the first week of the program, but was open for the second week.  Mills served his first burger as Floyd's Burgers and Sliders on September 13, 2016.  Over the years, Mills has expanded his menu to include vegan burgers and some interesting sandwich options.  Floyd's Burgers & Sliders has built up a loyal following in the community and Mills regularly posts his schedule and specials on their Facebook page.  

My wife had been to one of the local breweries with a friend when Floyd's was serving burgers.  She told me about it and pointed out to me that Floyd's would be at Wake Brewing that Friday evening between 5 and 8 p.m. - they're normally at Wake on Friday evenings through the spring, summer and fall.  We decided to head over to Wake - a place that we have been to many times to have a beer.  

Wake Brewing has been around since November of 2017 and is owned by the brother team of Jason and Justen Parris.  Jason had been working at Rock Island Brewing Company (RIBCO) as the events and booking coordinator, while Justen was an engineer at the Exelon nuclear power plant near Cordova, IL.   I know of both brothers through mutual friends, and Justen used to come to pool parties at our neighbor's house in the past.  

The brothers were musicians who started playing together in various bands about 25 years ago.  They toured with a couple bands, playing mainly on the East Coast, and also backed various hip-hop artists long before groups like The Roots were doing that type of thing.  While on tour one time, the brothers walked into a bar/pizza place in Athens, GA and innocently asked for a pitcher of Guinness for them to share.  The girl behind the bar looked at them funny and said that they didn't have Guinness, that the bar only specialized in craft beers.  The young lady suggested a beer they should try - a Grant's Perfect Porter from the new defunct Yakima Brewing Company in Yakima, WA.  The brothers immediately loved the beer and started to find more craft brews on their tour up and down the East Coast.  

After getting off the road and getting back to the Quad Cities, Justen Parris started to fiddle around with making his own beer at home.  About a year later, Jason got involved with his brother's hobby and the two networked with other home-brewers in the area.  They decided that the Quad Cities needed another craft brewery - there were only 3 at the time - and opened Wake in the fall of 2017.   Today, there is something like 15 craft breweries within a 30-mile radius of the Quad Cities.  And for a beer aficionado like myself, that's a good thing.  

Wake Brewing is located where Illinois 92 splits just east of downtown Rock Island, across from the Quad City Botanical Center and the QCCA Expo Center.  (see map)  Parking is available on the side of the building that houses Wake, but that night with Floyd's make-shift camper/kitchen in the lot, the only parking available was behind Wake.  

My wife and I went in to get a beer and they always have a lively selection of music playing at Wake.  A diverse selection of artists such as Ben Howard and Hippo Campus were playing that evening on the microbrewery's modest sound system that also pipes music outside to their beer garden in front of the building.  My wife and I got a double dry-hopped pale ale that they had on tap, one of the many rotating styles of craft beer Wake features.  

The tap room at Wake is pretty small - it doesn't seat many more than probably 30 people, and now less than that with COVID-19 restrictions in place - so we ended up seated at one of the all-weather picnic tables outside.  There had been a threat of rain earlier in the day, but by the time the line of storms came to the Quad Cities it had pretty much squeezed out all the rain, save for a few sprinkles that fell on us at Wake.  The cool air behind the front that came through was a welcome relief from the hot and humid weather we had been having.  

The Floyd's food truck has a colorful mural on the back side, but has a minimalist logo on the side where the order window is.  The logo is similar to the artwork Gerald Scarfe did for Pink Floyd's epic album "The Wall" over 40 years ago.  I immediately caught the "Floyd's Burgers & Sliders" and the "Pink Floyd" connection with the logo.  

The menu is located on blackboards on the ground next to the food truck.   Austin Mills has come a long way over the past four years as his initial menu only featured two items.  He has six different variations of burgers on the menu - including a veggie burger - as well as five different types of sliders (four per order).  The "Rhythm and Bleu" burger features bleu cheese, bacon and a chili garlic sauce; the "I'm Yer Huckleberry" is topped with cheese, crispy onions, jalapeños, bacon and a barbecue sauce; and the "Dyin' for Hawaiian" sliders consist of ham, cheese, bacon, pineapple, and Thousand Island dressing on four slider buns.  Floyd's also has grilled sandwiches including the "Foghorn" consisting of a roasted chicken breast, cheese, bacon and barbecue sauce; the "Basket Case" that features ham, cheese, bacon, a fried egg, and their garlic/chili sauce; as well as a classic grilled reuben sandwich.  

On this particular visit, they also had a special that evening - the Birria burger.  It consisted of slow roasted birria beef - a staple in authentic Mexico cuisine - on top of two burger patties finished with chihuahua cheese, a honey/hibiscus sauce, and came with a side of chipotle sauce.  I paused for a moment as I looked that over and thought that sounded really good.  

As I was waiting in line to order, I heard a voice call my name from inside the Floyd's food truck.  It was an old acquaintance who I used to work with at outdoor concert events in downtown Davenport a number of years ago.  Actually, we had come across one another just a week before when my wife, her sister and I went out to Crust to have some pizza one evening.  We hadn't seen each other for a long time and here he was back in my life working for both Crust and helping out Austin Mills from time to time in the Floyd's food truck.  

I almost got the Birria burger, but for the first time eating at Floyd's I wanted to go with the regular ol' cheeseburger - the "Royale with Cheese".  My wife said she wanted the same thing.  I also got a small order of Floyd's hand-cut fries for us to share.  About 15 minutes later, I went over to the food truck and picked up our order from my long-lost friend.

The burgers and fries were served in small paper food boats and condiments (mustard, ketchup, mayo) were available in packets next to the napkins.  The American cheese was oozing out from under a soft egg bun on top of the two flat-grilled burger patties.  The taste of the burger was fantastic.  The beef had the crispy edge that you get from mashing down the meat and having it cook in its own juices.  My wife had already experienced a burger from Floyd's and she said, "I knew you'd like their burgers."  I did - a lot.  They were juicy, flavorful and had a great flat-grilled beef taste.  And the fries were also very good.  They had a bit of a seasoning on them that didn't overpower the taste.  They were crunchy on the outside, but had that great flaky potato consistency on the inside.  

We had a recent experience with Floyd's again.  My wife and I had taken a few days off to travel for vacation and we got home on a Sunday afternoon.  Not really wanting to go to the store and find food to make at home that night, my wife suggested we look up where Floyd's Burgers & Sliders would be that evening.  It turned out that they were at one of our other favorite breweries in the Quad Cities, Crawford Brew Works over in Bettendorf.  (see map)  Crawford has been around since May of 2018 and features a number of very good beers that we like including their "Kinda-Kolsch" German-style summer beer, and their "Get Off My Lawn" IPA.  

Floyd's had set up their food truck there and we went out to have some food and a couple beers.  This time, their special was a cherry-smoked beef brisket topped with Boetje's mustard, pickled cucumbers and onions, and fresh dill.  I really wanted to get a burger from Floyd's, but I had to pull the trigger on this sandwich.

The sandwich was served on grilled rye bread and featured thick chunks of brisket that had a hint of a smoky flavor to it.  The Boetje's mustard gave the sandwich a nice kick, but the pickled onions and cucumbers helped balance out the spiciness of the stone ground mustard.  The fresh dill was hardly noticeable with all the other taste sensations that were going on.

My wife got the "Royale with Cheese" burger again and it smelled so good as it came off the grill.  We just got the sandwich and burger this time - no fries.  So, after I finished my sandwich, I determined that the smell of burger was too overpowering for me.  I had to go get one.  I got it to go, but it turned out that my wife wasn't quite ready to leave Crawford Brew Works.  So I ate the burger while having another beer.  It was a great ending to what had been a great vacation for us.  

I'm starting to come over to the side of the food trucks - especially when they camp out at any one of the microbreweries we have in the Quad Cities.  But I'll put Floyd's "Royale with Cheese" up against any cheeseburger I've had in the area.  It was a great burger and I'm sure that we'll be looking up on their Facebook page to see where they're parked some future evening.

Tutto Bene - Bemidji, MN

During our trip to Northern Minnesota, we stayed in Bemidji and hunkered down there for a few days of rest and relaxation.  We also liked the area not only because it was laid back, but there were a number of different styles of restaurants to choose from.  (But, somewhat surprisingly, there wasn't an authentic Mexican restaurant that we found - only the usual national and regional fast food variety of Mexican food.)  One place that we found when we first got there that we wanted to try was an Italian restaurant that specialized in locally-grown ingredients in their dishes.  A few days later we made it over to Tutto Bene for dinner.  

The original owners of Tutto Bene (which roughly translates in English as "Everything is Good") started the restaurant in 1995.  They ran it for over 25 years before deciding to close the doors in the summer of 2012.  But it wasn't long after they closed their doors that a young lady who grew up in the area decided that she wanted to get back to her rural roots and talked her then-boyfriend/now-husband into joining her.  

Jerusa Ricke hailed from Bagley, MN, about 25 miles to the west of Bemidji.  Her grandfather started what is now Team Industries, an engineering and machining company that supplies parts and drive trains to automotive and recreational companies.  The third plant in the company was opened by her father in Bagley in 1992 when Jerusa was a child.  After graduating high school, Jerusa Ricke decided that she didn't want to be in the family business just yet - her father would eventually take over the reins of the entire company upon her grandfather's death - and she went off to go to culinary school.  After getting her degree, Ricke worked at a number of restaurants in and around the Twin Cities.  It was at one of the restaurants where she met Justin Frederick.  

Pictured right - Jerusa Ricke-Frederick and Justin Frederick 

Justin Frederick was also a culinary school graduate who eventually became the head chef at Le Meridien Chambers, an upscale boutique hotel in downtown Minneapolis.  About the time Frederick got the head chef gig at the hotel, Ricke became the head chef at Masa, a now-closed, high-end Mexican restaurant located about two blocks away Le Meridien Chambers.  Both were at their respective helms for 10 years and talked about owning their own restaurant at some point, but they didn't want to do it in the Twin Cities where the restaurant business is overly competitive.  Ricke had been wanting to get back to Northern Minnesota at some point to be closer to her family when the opportunity to buy Tutto Bene presented itself.   

The opportunity turned to be too good to pass up, so Ricke and Frederick took the plunge and took over the restaurant in August of 2012.  They were able to talk six co-workers from their respective restaurants in Minneapolis to come north to work for them.  They changed some things up, spruced the place up, and came up with a menu that used locally-raised ingredients, as well as fresh seafood flown in from the east coast, and authentic imported Italian oils and cheese.  Every item - except for the canned tomatoes they used in their marinara sauces - was made from scratch in their kitchen.  

Change in the terms of a more aggressive and innovative menu caused some of the locals who liked the more Americanized-Italian food at the original Tutto Bene to give pause to the new ownership and their ideas.  But a new group of locals and tourists became regulars at the restaurant giving Ricke and Frederick the success they sought.  And once the restaurant was up and running with regularity, Ricke and Frederick were married about four years ago.  

Tutto Bene is on the corner of Beltraimi Ave. and 3rd St. NW in downtown Bemidji.  (see map)  We were able to find parking across 3rd St. on Beltrami and walked over to the restaurant.  According to rules set forth by the State of Minnesota during the pandemic, technically all sit-down restaurants require a reservation to get seated.  Many of them, however, get around that by writing your name in the reservation book, making you wait a moment, then seating you.  This time with Tutto Bene, we decided to go ahead and make a reservation because we just didn't know if the place would be busy.  

We had our choice of sitting outside or inside.  They had a very nice outdoor patio that had a shady arbor next to the building.  That would have been fine, but we were told by the young man who greeted us at the stand just inside the front door that all the tables were taken in the alcove.  However, they did have other tables set up next to the sidewalk.  

Three or four restaurants that we encountered in downtown Bemidji had tables set up in what were basically parking spots on the street.  Barriers to keep cars from parking in those spots had been set up.  One restaurant had literally blockaded the street in front of the business to set up folding tables and chairs for outside dining.  Dining in the alcove would have been great.  Dining on the street?  Not so much.  We opted for inside dining.  

The dining room at Tutto Bene was a large room with tables spaced out for social distancing guidelines.  It was a nice night and people were more than willing to sit at tables in the temporary outside dining area (probably because the outdoor dining season is so short in Northern Minnesota), so we were the only people in the dining room all evening long.  It was actually kind of nice.  

Off to the right side when you come in is the bar area.  It was well-lit from natural light coming in the ornate windows and featured a small bar with a few tables along the walls.  There was a lively group of people in the bar when we got there having drinks and appetizers.  

The kitchen was off to the side of the dining room with the main open window looking out into a narrow room that was sort of used as an overflow/catch-all area on the way to the restrooms.  Tutto Bene cans a lot of produce that they use on their menus and the jars holding pickled vegetables lined the wall in the small area.  

Our server for the evening was a young lady by the name of Connie.  She greeted us standing six feet - or more - from the table with a mask over her mouth and nose.  She seemed pleasant enough and gave us a couple menus to look over.  She took our drink order and my wife said that she would like some wine with dinner, but for now she wanted a Tito's vodka and cranberry juice.  I thought wine would be good with dinner, but I wanted a beer to start out.  Tutto Bene - like many of the restaurants in the area that we visited - featured beers from the Bemidji Brewing Company.  I especially liked their India Pale Ale that we had tried on a visit there a couple days prior.  I got a pint of that beer as we looked over the menu.  

To say the menu at Tutto Bene was eclectic was putting it mildly.  They had a maple glazed pork belly bruschetta for a starter as well as Prince Edward Island oysters.  One of the dinner items was a ravioli stuffed with wild snow crab.  Another interesting item was a braised Kobe beef pot roast entree.  And for those who don't want to be as adventurous in their dining experience, Tutto Bene also featured a spaghetti and meatball dinner.  Only the pasta is made fresh in the kitchen, and the meatballs were locally-raised veal.  

After our drinks were served, Connie said she would give us a few minutes to figure out what we wanted for dinner.  As we continued to look over he menu, a young man brought out an antipasto board that featured a couple slices of thin-sliced parmesan cheese bread, toasted almonds, pickled carrots and sliced salami.  The pickled carrots were especially tasty.  My wife and I have been experimenting with pickling jalapeños this summer and they've come out very well.  Pickling carrots peaked our curiosity in doing our own at home.  

We started out by getting the grilled octopus.  The octopus is caught wild off the Spain coast and flown in on a regular basis to Tutto Bene.  The octopus was lightly grilled and served with risotto cakes, marinated Italian tomatoes, and it all sat on a bed of an almond/basil pesto sauce.  It was outstanding.  

They also had a focaccia bread antipasti on the menu.  We thought it would go well with our dinners.  It featured house-made focaccia topped with caramelized onions, olives, rosemary, sea salt and then sprinkled with fresh parmesan cheese.  The focaccia was very good. 

We got into Tutto Bene around 7 p.m. - about 10 minutes before, actually - and we knew that they closed at 8 p.m.  There were a few people outside, but we didn't figure that it was too taxing on the kitchen.  We sort of sat around for a few moments enjoying our antipasto before we ended up ordering dinner.  But it seemed like dinner was taking a long time to get to the table.  It was well after 8 p.m. when Connie came to our table and said, "Well, I have some good news and some bad news.  The bad news is that someone accidentally took your plate and served it to someone else," she said as she was looking at my wife.  "Since we make everything in-house from scratch, we have to make up your plate again."  The good news?  Oh, we were going to get free dessert.  You know, if we weren't on vacation and so laid back, I would have pitched a fit.  But it didn't matter to us.  We had our wine now and we were enjoying it.  

It was about twenty till nine - we had been there for an hour and forty five minutes - when our food showed up at the table.  A young guy who was serving outside brought my wife's plate to her.  "I have to apologize," he said as he placed her plate in front of her.  "I was probably the one that caused your meal to be late."  We told him that it was not a big deal.  It was kind of nice having the dining room all to ourselves that evening.

For my dinner, it came down to just one thing that I saw when I first glanced at the menu - the wild boar and cavatelli.  It featured a wild boar ragu sauce with chopped grilled boar sausage mixed in.  It was topped with whipped ricotta cheese and finished with grated scallions and parmesan.  The taste was something that I wasn't expecting.  It was much more earthy in taste with not much of an Italian marinara flavor.  But it was very good - outstanding, to be exact.  The more I got into the dish, the more I liked it.  

My wife was looking at a couple of their chicken dishes - a gnocchi and roasted chicken entree with charred green beans and sweet corn in a parmesan fondue sauce; and the chicken piccata.  She ended up taking the latter.  It was a grilled Amish-raised chicken breast topped with lemon capers and parsley.  It sat on a bed of risotto cakes - similar to what we had with the grilled octopus - and also came with grilled organic baby carrots and green beans.  

My wife remarked that it didn't come with any pasta.  She said that she really needed some pasta to go along with the meal.  We hailed Connie over and my wife explained that he just needed some carbs to go along with the meal.  "I know, I'm funny about that," she said.  "But I like pasta with my chicken piccata."  Connie said that would be no problem.  She'd get some out as soon as she could.  It wasn't more than about 10 minutes later that a steaming plate of pasta topped with butter showed up.  I tried some of the pasta and it was just as good as the cavatelli.  You could really tell that it was made in-house.  

We ended up getting some tiramisu to go - we didn't even eat it until the following night because we were so full from the dinner and everything else that went with it.  It was a nice gesture, but I would have probably gone for more - like an after dinner scotch.  But their bartender had left and it was coming up to 9 p.m. and we didn't want to stick around any longer.  We actually ended up going somewhere closer to our hotel for a nightcap. 

Other than my wife's chicken piccata getting taken to another table causing a lengthy delay in getting our meals, I'd have to say the experience we had at Tutto Bene was satisfying.  The menu was very interesting and I very much enjoyed my cavatelli in a wild boar ragu.  Once my wife got a side of pasta to go along with her chicken piccata, she was much more happy with her meal.  The grilled octopus was outstanding, as was the focaccia bread we ordered that was supposed to go along with our meal, but we had to eat it early on.  Connie was our main server, but it turned out to be a team effort in taking care of us that evening.  Each person we dealt with was pleasant and accommodating.  In the long run, even with the wait on our food, we felt Tutto Bene was worth having a meal there.