Road Tips

The Mariner's Inn - Madison, WI

My wife and I had a lot of stressful stuff going on in our lives with both sides of the families earlier this summer and we decided that we just needed to get away for a long weekend to ourselves.  We chose to take a trip to Wisconsin and settled in Madison for a couple days.  One evening, we were trying to figure out places to go to, a place we hadn't been to before.  I suggested a couple places and my wife found a place on the far northern end of Lake Mendota that looked like a supper club.  I initially rejected that because it was about a 25 to 30 minute drive from out hotel in suburban Middleton.  Then I thought, "What the hell? Let's do it!"  We ended up making the drive out to The Mariner's Inn.  

The Mariner's Inn dates back to 1966, but the original owner/founder Bill Rutenberg had previous experience in the restaurant business.  Rutenberg was born in Chicago just before the Great Depression and joined the Marine Corps right at the end of World War II after graduating from high school.  After getting an honorable discharge in 1948, Bill made his way to Madison and enrolled at the University of Wisconsin where he was a member of the 1952 Wisconsin football Big Ten Conference co-champions who went on to play Southern California in the 1953 Rose Bowl.  A hard charging fullback for the Badgers, Rutenberg was given the nickname "Mr. Hustle" by this coaches and teammates.

While at Wisconsin, Rutenberg met his future wife Betty.  Betty's parents and grandparents ran Neesvig's Meats, a food purveyor who sold beef to restaurants and butchers around southern Wisconsin.  After graduating and getting married, Bill and Betty went to work in her family's business.  In 1961, a small hamburger stand just off Madison's Capitol Square - the Nibble Nook - was for up sale.  Bill and Betty decided to buy the eight stool restaurant and start their own restaurant. 

Bill had an affinity for the two lakes surrounding Madison often boating on Lake Mendota when he could.  There was a supper club on the far north end of the lake - Jake Burke's Supper Club - that went up for sale in 1966.  Jack Burke had approached the Rutenbergs about buying the restaurant.  Although they weren't really prepared to buy a full service restaurant, they borrowed $2000 from Betty's grandfather as a downpayment and put the rest on a 20-year-note.  

After selling The Nibble Nook, Bill and Betty bought the supper club and renamed it The Mariner's Inn.  Bill was the bartender, Betty was the cook and they kept one of the waitresses from the old supper club to cover tables.  Over the years, the Rutenbergs expanded the menu to include seafood items and added on to the building a handful of times to accommodate their growing clientele.

Bill and Betty had three sons - Bill, Jr., Jack and Robert - who all started out in the restaurant business at a very young age.  Bill, Jr., and Jack started out cutting onions and sweeping floors at The Nibble Nook, then moved over to help their mother in the kitchen at The Mariner's Inn.  Robert was born three months before the Rutenbergs bought The Mariner's Inn and he was working in the restaurant when he was a young boy.  

Over the years, the Rutenbergs - who took on their original family name of von Rutenberg - expanded their operations under their von Rutenberg Ventures which was their corporate name since they bought The Nibble Nook in 1961.  In 1982, the family opened the nearby Nau-Ti-Gal, a casual seafood cafe that was the first restaurant in the Madison area with outdoor seating.  (The restaurant closed in 2022.)  Also in 1982, Captain Bill's Seafood Restaurant opened in suburban Middleton.  (Captain Bill's closed in 2020 due to COVID-19 related issues.)  1982 was a busy year for von Rutenberg Ventures as they also opened a marina at The Mariner's Inn and Nau-Ti-Gal called Westport Marine.  

In 1996, Betty von Rutenberg died of an unexpected illness at the age of 64.  Bill, Jr. had been involved with the restaurant for a number of years, and his brother Jack quit medical school at the University of Wisconsin in the middle 80's to join in the family business.  The brothers bought the business from their father after their mother's death.  In 1998, the von Rutenberg's took a chance on starting a dinner cruise ship on Lake Mendota and named it after their late mother.  A lot of dinner cruise ventures on the lake had not made it over the years, but the brothers were undeterred.  Betty Lou Cruises offers public and private cruises on four boats around Lake Mendota and Lake Monona 7 days a week from May to mid-October and features varied theme menus including a Mexican Fiesta, Italian, and a Wisconsin staple, the Friday Night Fish Fry. 

Pictured right - Robert, Bill and Jack von Rutenberg.  

In 1998, Bill and Jack's younger brother Robert was living in Manhattan and working his dream job in the corporate world.  After the company he worked for was purchased, Robert didn't get along his new CEO.  Now miserable in his job, he got a double-dose of bad news when his partner came down with leukemia and passed away three months later.  Robert was in a bad place in life and when a mutual friend told Bill and Jack how bad Robert was taking all the misfortune in life, they went to New York City and brought their brother back to Madison.  

Robert never envisioned working in a restaurant, but he slowly realized that he was enthralled with food - the cooking and flavors and textures.  After working in the restaurant with his brothers for a couple years, Robert decided to look for a cooking school to become a chef.  He found that Madison Area Technical College had a very good culinary program and Robert graduated from the school in his early 40's.  His older brothers brought him in as an equal partner during that process.  Bill von Rutenberg recently retired from the business leaving Jack and Robert in charge.  

We made a reservation for 7:30 on the OpenTable application that I have on my phone.  We took off for the restaurant around 6:50 figuring we'd get there 7:15/7:20.   But after some cross country travel, a turn onto a side road, then pulling into another side road that opened up into a large parking lot, we were at The Mariner's Inn about 20 minutes after we left the hotel.  (see map)

Since we were there early, the hostess said that our table wasn't ready, but to have a seat at the bar.  The bar area was really nice - dark pine wood paneling along the back bar allowed for the accent lighting to really stand out.  The liquor shelves were lit giving each of the bottles a colorful glow of their own. My wife ordered her standard dirty martini with Stoli vodka.  I asked what kind of a hazy IPA they had and the bartender pulled out a 16 ounce can of the hazy IPA from City Lights Brewing Company out of Milwaukee.  

The bar area was just off the main dining room.  It was a nice cozy room with a fireplace in the center of the opposite wall between two windows.  The only problem is that no one was in there.  I was sort of incredulous that we couldn't be seated right away as soon as we got there.  


The reason why we couldn't get seated right away is that all the servers were taking care of people who were seated outside listening to a guitarist playing that evening.  We had the option of eating outside, but the sun was just getting ready to set and it was sort of cool out for a mid-summer evening.  We decided to go for a table inside.  

When we were approached by the hostess to tell us that we could be seated in the dining area, we had our choice of rooms.  Just around the corner from the bar was a small room that featured barn board walls and had a bit of a nautical theme to it.  The bar area wrapped around to a small bar at the head of the room which could be closed off for private dining, receptions or meetings.  

Around the corner from that dining room was a small room with large windows that looked out to the back outdoor patio.  The hostess sat us at a two-seat table near the wall.  It was a bit cramped.  It wasn't much longer until the manager - who turned out to be Jack von Rutenberg - came in and moved another table from a six-seat set up to our table to give us more room.  "The people who were supposed to have this table decided to eat outside," he said as he moved the table with the table cloth still on top.  "This will give you folks a little room to spread out.  

The hostess had left off a couple menus which featured steaks, seafood, and a stuffed chicken breast named after Betty von Rutenberg.  I was sort of surprised they only featured one pasta item - a vegetarian pasta - and no pork or lamb chops.  But it was also good to see that they were focusing on a handful of items and were probably doing them very well.  On Friday nights, The Mariner's Inn features broiled or fried haddock, lake perch or walleye dinners.  

Our server that evening was a young lady by the name of Kimberly.  Outgoing and effervescent, she was a joy all night long.  I was ready for another hazy IPA when she came around to greet us, and my wife ordered up a glass of the Santa Rita cabernet when she was through with her martini.  

Kimberly talked us into a couple things to try before we ordered our main course - the stuffed mushroom combo and the house-made clam chowder.  The stuffed mushrooms came six to the platter - three stuffed with chèvre cheese and spinach and the other three with shrimp and crabmeat.  The mushrooms were baked, then topped with a hollandaise sauce.  The mushrooms and sauce were very good, but very rich.  

The clam chowder was, well - OK.  It wasn't bad, but it was far from the best clam chowder that I've had.  It was a light cream chowder with small chunks of clams mixed in.  The clam chowder was adorned with 3 house-made croutons.  

We both got beef that evening - I went with the thin cut filet.  Onion rings came with the steak. I asked Kimberly to bring a bowl of the whisky-peppercorn cream sauce and some sautéed mushrooms to put on the steak.  For my side, I was intrigued by the description of the potatoes au gratin - once again, named after the late matriarch of the von Gutenberg family.  

My wife got the tenderloin medallions that were under the "lighter fare" part of the menu.  The medallions were topped with a béarnaise sauce by request from my wife.  Onion rings also came with my wife filet medallions and she got the hash browns which were termed as "legendary" in the menu.  

I ordered my filet rare, but it came out more to done side of medium-rare.  But it was tender and it tasted all right - I wasn't going to send it back because of that.  The onion rings were cut sort of thin, but were very salty.  In fact, the potatoes au gratin were salty, as were the sautéed mushrooms.  It wasn't a deal breaker for the meal, it's just that I don't salt much of anything and I could really tell that they used it in the preparation.  

My wife - who does like to salt her food - remarked that she thought the bearnaise sauce was salty.  Once again, it wasn't obtrusive.  But she also said her hash browns were salty.  We shared the potato dishes, but between the very rich stuffed mushrooms and the ample amounts of beef, we couldn't finish them all.  

Of course, Kimberly tried to entice us with some dessert.  We ended up getting a piece of the key lime pie with two forks.  It was good - it had a nice tangy and sweet taste with a thick graham cracker crust.  

As we were enjoying the key lime pie, Jack von Rutenberg came over to see how our dinner was.  We told him it was our first visit to The Mariner's Inn and that we had usually gone to The Avenue Bar when we would come to Madison, up until my buddy whose mother and father founded that restaurant had sold the place.  Jack Rutenberg asked, "How did you know him?"  I told him that we were roommates and friends when we went to Iowa.  Jack said, "I played football at Iowa!"  

I told him that I lived with a handful of baseball players in the early to mid-80's at Iowa.  He asked me if I knew one of the players.  "He was my roommate," I said.  He named another one - he was a roommate of mine, as well.  We figured out that we had probably been at the same place at the same time on many occasions while we were both going to school at Iowa.  My wife was completely incredulous with the small world connection that Jack von Rutenberg and I had.  

Jack told me at the time he went by the name of Rutenberg at the time. "We went back to the original family spelling of the name later on," he said.  

He said, "I was recruited by (former Iowa football coach) Hayden Fry.  I loved that man. I didn't play much, but he was such a great influence on my life."   He said that Hayden was the one who told him to follow his heart.  

He told us that he didn't expect to get into the family's restaurant business - he was a pre-med student while going to Iowa on the football scholarship.  He was just starting to go through his first year of medical school at Wisconsin and one day during a class he found himself looking longingly out the window at Lake Mendota.  He said, "I decided that I liked the lake more than I liked med school."  

He joined his parents and his older brother in the business soon thereafter.  "Been here for almost 40 years full-time," Jack said.  "I'm a (Wisconsin) Badgers fan, of course.  But I still follow Iowa."  

I asked him about the hodgepodge of dining areas in the restaurant.  "Oh, yeah," he acknowledged.  "We've added on six or seven times over the years."  He said it seems like the restaurant is always a work in progress.  

Meeting Jack von Rutenberg (who knows - we could have known each other peripherally 40 years ago) was the highlight of our initial visit to The Mariner's Inn.  The food was good, the atmosphere was cozy and comfortable.  The Mariner's Inn continues the great tradition Wisconsin supper clubs have garnered over the years.  My wife and I both said that we would love to come back again at some point.  It's a bit of a drive if you're in Madison, but I think it would be worth the time spent to drive out to The Mariner's Inn and have a good supper club-style meal.  

Blackwood BBQ - Schaumburg, IL

I was in the western Chicago suburbs in the early summer for a trade show that was, well, quite frankly, a waste of time for me.  I mean, it was good to see people and to network.  But it was poorly attended by the people it was meant to attract.  I had finished up at the show one evening and was on the hunt for barbecue.  I did a quick search for barbecue in the Schaumburg and I found a place called Blackwood BBQ.  I put the address into the GPS and moments later I was sitting in the parking lot in front of Blackwood BBQ.  

Blackwood BBQ started as a venture between some like-minded friends a few years ago when the group started to smoke meats at a small store front in Chicago doing mostly catering jobs.  Within a couple years, they opened a sit-down fast-casual restaurant in the Chicago loop.  More downtown locations followed, but the original owners were growth-stymied by a lack of capital investment.

Enter David Sloan and Franklin Buchanan.  The half-brothers were executives with the Naf Naf Grill chain during the companies growth via franchising.  The Middle Eastern fast-casual restaurant started in Naperville in 2009 and expanded to 36 stores in 12 states.  When a private capital company bought Naf Naf Grill in 2016, Sloan and Buchanan stayed on for the transition period.  In 2018, they both left Naf Naf Grill and started their own private capital company - Venture Kitchens - and immediately invested in Blackwood BBQ.  Their investment allowed Blackwood BBQ to open their first location outside of the Chicago city limits in an out-lying building near the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg in 2019.  

Blackwood BBQ is located just off Golf Road at the West Drive entrance to Woodfield Mall in a small strip mall north and west of the mall proper.  (see map)  

The decor inside the Schaumburg Blackwood BBQ featured a sort of rustic look with a number of wood tables with a mist-mash of chairs and benches for people to sit on.  It was the kind of place where rolls of paper towels were on each table to use as napkins.  Strings of lights criss-crossed the area above the dining room.  There was a small bar with a couple flat screen televisions on the wall on the back bar.  Music was wafting through the sound system in the place with songs by diverse artists such as country music icon Buck Owens, 60's one-hit-wonders The Human Beinz, and blues/funk guitarist Black Joe Lewis.   

Being a fast-casual restaurant, the ordering is done at a counter.  The menu is on the wall just before a self-ordering screen.  Blackwood BBQ features beef brisket, pulled pork, smoked chicken and Mikeska sausage. They even had a vegetarian option with a smoked jackfruit.  Sides included charred Brussels sprouts with a maple glaze, mac & cheese, and Mexican-style elotes.   A full bar was available with beers and mixed drinks.  

I was third in line behind two groups who were using the self-ordering screens when one of the guys behind the counter motioned me to come over to him.  He had a thick Eastern European accent - in fact most of the guys behind the counter had a thick accent that was tough to understand.  I placed my order with the guy and he rang me up at the register.  I had ordered a Revolution Brewing Anti-Hero IPA that one of the other guys poured for me over at the bar.  I was given a buzzer disc that went off when they had my order ready to pick up at the counter.

Like most times I go to a barbecue joint that I haven't been to before, I like to get the combo plate.  Blackwood BBQ only offered two choices for their combo and I wanted to get brisket and burnt ends.  "No burnt end," one of the guys behind the counter had said when the guy at the counter who took my order inquired if any were left.  I got the pulled pork instead.  For my sides, I got the cole slaw and the baked beans which had chunks of brisket and pulled pork with sautéed onions and peppers added.  A piece of grilled Texas toast and pickled onions and dill pickles also came with the meal. 

They had six different sauces available on the table to choose from.  The Chicago sauce was a sweet and spicy sauce that was simmered in Old Style beer.  (That was interesting because they didn't offer Old Style at Blackwood BBQ.)  That sauce was all right - I didn't think of it as very spicy, however.  

And of the sauces that I tried, the Chicago was the best.  The sweet and smoky Kansas City-style also had a bit of a spicy kick, but it wasn't all that good.  The sweet and thick Memphis-style sauce was pretty bland.  I tried a bit of the North Carolina vinegar sauce on the pulled pork and it was pretty bland, as well.  I didn't even bother trying the white Alabama-style sauce or the South Carolina mustard sauce.  I like sauce with my barbecue, but these all were pretty underwhelming to me.

The portions, I thought, were rather skimpy, portion-wise.  The brisket featured four small slabs that were thick cut and very moist, but the bark was somewhat sticky and very salty.  The pulled pork was fine, flavorful and juicy.  But there just wasn't enough of it for what I paid for the whole dinner.  I did like the beans and the Chicago-style sauce did help zip up the taste a bit.  The cole slaw was also fine.  I was just disappointed in the meat portions they served. 

I felt that Blackwood BBQ was good, but I also thought it was rather expensive for the meat portions served.  I'm not too keen on fast-casual restaurants that serve beer because it's sort of a pain if you want to get a second beer during the meal and you have to go through the line once again and place your order.  (Sometimes when I encounter fast-casual ordering in restaurants I usually just order two beers or drinks.)  I thought the brisket and the pulled pork at Blackwood BBQ was good.  But I felt there just wasn't enough for what I paid.  

Santa Fe, NM

During our trip to New Mexico, we spent a few days and nights in Santa Fe, the capital city of the state.  Santa Fe is not only the seat of government in the state, but it's also the center of the arts community in the state.  And not only is the arts community big in Santa Fe, but the entertainment industry is also large with dozens of production companies having offices and studios in the area.  Over the years, there has been a slew of television shows and movies that have been filmed in and around the Santa Fe area.  As we were told while we were there, the three largest employers in the area are either the state of New Mexico, the tourism industry, or the film industry.  We found that to be rather fascinating.  

We flew into Albuquerque and after a nice lunch there we drove up to Santa Fe, about an hour drive north and east of Albuquerque.  We stayed at the Doubletree in Santa Fe using up some Hilton Honors points that I'm starting to pile up again with my traveling resuming.  I wanted to stay at the Hilton in downtown Santa Fe, but they wanted too many points for our stay.  

The Doubletree wasn't bad, at all.  It was clean, comfortable, had a nice little bar, and the staff was more than accommodating. (Especially when it came to their famous cookies.)  Hilton has really stepped up their game with many of the Doubletree's I've stayed in over the past few years.  Years ago, it seemed like most Doubletree's were old tired properties that Hilton had taken over and popped the Doubletree brand on it.  But most - if not, all - of the Doubletree's I've stayed in over the past few years are very nice.  

As a Hilton Lifetime Diamond member, I can pick the room I want to stay in in advance at most properties through the Hilton app on my phone.  It was going to be a super blue full moon during our stay in Santa Fe, so I picked out an east facing room on the top floor with a walk-out deck so we would get a great view of the moon coming up over the mountains to the east.  However, when we went to check in and I informed the young lady at the front desk that I had already done an "e-check-in", she cheerfully told me that the hotel had upgraded us to a suite - on the OTHER side of the hotel.  And this room was on the "forested" side of the hotel.  It was a nice patio deck outside our room, but not much of a view, even from the top floor.  This is the view we had while we sat on the deck in our room.  While we enjoyed the late afternoon shade on the deck, we would have really rather had the basic king room on the other side.  Oh well...

My wife likes art and that was one of the main reasons why we wanted to go to Santa Fe.  Sante Fe has so many art galleries that it ranks No. 3 in the nation - behind New York and Los Angeles.  There are dozens - no, hundreds - of galleries, large and small all around Sante Fe.  But probably the most famous is the Georgia O'Keeffe Gallery/Museum in the heart of Santa Fe.  

Georgia O'Keeffe was a modernist artist in the early-to-mid 20th century who had to fight sexism within the art community before being accepted as the "Mother of the Modernist Movement".  O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1929 and spent many years on working vacations in Taos, Sante Fe and near the small town of Abiquiu.  After the death of her husband, O'Keeffe permanently moved to New Mexico in 1948 and settled into a house and studio she bought in Abiquiu, but continued to spend time in Taos and Santa Fe.  She passed away in Santa Fe in 1986 at the age of 98.  

The O'Keeffe museum is in a somewhat nondescript building that we had actually driven past a couple times before we realized it was even there.   We really didn't know what to expect in terms of artwork in the gallery as we read that it housed over 3000 pieces of her artwork.  But they probably showed just 10 to 15 percent of O'Keeffe's artwork they had on hand.  It was $20 per person to get in and we were able to get around the exhibit in a little less than 90 minutes as there were a number of wall cards detailing sequences in O'Keeffe's life which led to some of the paintings on display.  I have to say I had a bit of trepidation going in, but found it to be well worth the time and money spent.  

Probably the most famous area for galleries and studios in Santa Fe is Canyon Road.  Located east of downtown Santa Fe (see map), Canyon Road features over 80 galleries, studios and art designers on a narrow street that meanders for about a half mile.  We wandered into a few shops fully expecting to get hit on by the artists or gallery owners to buy something right then and there.  (As we've experienced in other places during our previous vacations.)  But we were pleasantly surprised that most of the people working in the galleries were informative about the artists and their works, but not pushy at all to make a sale.  It actually was a nice surprise to be able to wander around a gallery looking at art work without someone hovering over us trying to get us to buy something.

But the number of galleries and studios up and down Canyon Road were almost overwhelming.  We spent about an hour and a half walking Canyon Road and I'm sure we didn't hit even a quarter of the galleries.  It was interesting, but also somewhat mind-boggling.  

 

Since Santa Fe is the state capital, we had to satisfy my state capitol building fetish and visit the capitol grounds.  (By my count, I have now visited 20 state capitol buildings in my travels.) The state capitol in Santa Fe is a modern structure designed in the territorial revival style of architecture that you find in many of the newer buildings in New Mexico.  Finished and inaugurated in 1966, the capitol building is the only circular state capitol in the U.S.  

 

The main floor of the capitol building is another art gallery featuring artwork by New Mexican artists.  In fact, on the walls of the wings coming off the rotunda as well as the circular hallways with offices that encompass the state house of representative and the senate were filled with artwork.  We probably spent 45 minutes walking around looking at even more paintings and sculptures.  

The New Mexico state capitol is also one of 11 state capitol buildings in the U.S. without a dome.  However, there is a skylight on top of the rotunda that is designed to resemble a Native American basket weave.  From above, the building and grounds are designed to look like a Zia sun symbol - similar to the symbol that is on the New Mexico state flag.  

The old part of Santa Fe - The Plaza - is one of the more popular places in the city.  This is the oldest part of the city dating back to the early 1600's.  A number of shops, galleries and restaurants surround the Plaza.  On the north side of the Plaza is the Palace of the Governors, the first governmental building used by settlers in the early 17th century.  Today, it is the cornerstone of the New Mexico History Museum.  Its block long portal in front of the building is reserved for Native American residents to sell jewelry and crafts during the day.  

Some evenings the Plaza comes alive with free music on a stage across the street from the Palace of the Governors.  During the day, craft vendors and musicians busking under the shade trees helps keep the square vibrant.  

Because Santa Fe is one of the oldest settlements in the U.S., there are a lot of historical churches and buildings near the Plaza.  This is the San Miguel Chapel, the oldest church in the United States.  It was originally built in 1610, but was dismantled after Spanish Franciscan missionaries were expelled from the region by the sitting governor in 1640.  That governor was subsequently jailed and the missionaries came back to Santa Fe and reassembled the chapel.   

In 1680, the church was damaged during a revolt by the local natives to drive the Spaniards out of the area.  However, when the Spaniards returned to the area in 1692 they found the mission was mostly burned out, but salvageable.  It was rebuilt on the same foundations of the original church and has gone through numerous updates, renovations and shoring over the years.  An interesting dichotomy of old vs. new happened when we were there - the church was outfitted with solar panels and was in the process of becoming fully solar powered.  I lingered inside the church long enough to take the picture above right, but churches and I don't get along so well and as soon as I felt like I was going to catch on fire, I left the chapel.  

Just down an alley from the San Miguel Chapel was the De Vargas Street House - the sign out front said it was "The Oldest House In the U.S.A.".  Known to the locals as "The Old House", the sunbaked adobe was just off the terminus of the Santa Fe Trail, a trader's route that connected Santa Fe with Central Missouri in the early to late 1800's.  Although the date of construction is unknown, it's thought that the adobe was built sometime between 1610 and 1620.  

And it was a museum.  We didn't even venture inside as I thought it had to be somewhat of a tourist trap.  It was just an old adobe building where a second story had been put on top in the early 1920's.  I wasn't about to spend five minutes in the place seeing a bunch of old relics - even if it was free admission.  

But the scenery in and around Santa Fe can be breathtaking at times - especially at sunset.  (Here's a tip from Road Tips - talk up the servers at restaurants.  They usually know the best places to go, to do and to see in the area.)  We were told by one of the people at a restaurant where we were eating that a lot of locals head up to the Cross of the Martyrs to watch the sun set.  The Cross of the Martyrs commemorates the death of nearly 400 Spanish colonists and nearly 2 dozen Franciscan monks during a revolt by locals in 1680.  The original cross was a reinforced concrete structure that was dedicated in 1920.  In 1974, a steel replacement was placed on the former site of Fort Marcy overlooking the city.  (See map)  There are two parking lots near the outlook and ample parking on the street, if needed.  

We went up to see the sun set a couple times during our visit to Santa Fe.  At 7000 feet above sea level, the sky is a deep blue with little to no haze.  After we got home, we remarked at the complete difference in our hazy midwestern skies and the awesome azure hue in the skies in New Mexico.  

One evening, there was a large number of people on the site to watch the sun set in the west, and then wait for the super blue full moon that was scheduled to rise in the east over the mountains after the sun went down.  I have an application on my phone that shows the position of the moon, planets and stars at any given moment and I deduced that it would probably be 45 minutes before the moon would rise above the mountains east of Santa Fe.  It would have been nice to see, but we also knew that we wouldn't be eating dinner until around 9 p.m. - the closing time for many restaurants in downtown Santa Fe during the week.  

While we were in Santa Fe, we were eating at a restaurant one evening and we started to hear these amplified sounds of growls and guttural screams in the distance.  My wife asked our server, "What on earth is that noise?"  

"Oh, that's the rehearsal for Zozobra," she said casually.  

We had no idea what she was talking about, but as our time in Santa Fe went on, we found out that Zozobra was sort of a big deal - figuratively and literally.  After learning the history of the Zozobra celebration, we fully understood why people make pilgrimages to Santa Fe on the Friday before Labor Day each year. 

Zozobra is a 50-foot tall marionette made out of wood, wire and cotton cloth that is set on fire each Friday before Labor Day.  This was the 99th edition of Zozobra which started in 1924 when a local artist made the first Zozobra - then a 6-foot tall effigy - to ward off anguish, anxiety, concern or gloom, words that translate into "zozobra" in Spanish.  

I understand that people can bring paid-off mortgages, old police reports or tickets, divorce papers and written notes detailing bad things that have happened to individuals over the past year to an office in Santa Fe up to four months before the Zozobra celebration.  The collected paperwork is put inside the gown of the Zozobra marionette and then after a pre-celebration filled with pageantry, Zozobra is set afire to allow all the worries and problems people have given to put into Zozobra to go up in smoke.  

Pictured left - Zozobra burning in 2019.  Photo courtesy Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe.

It turned out that it's quite the deal - 50,000 people were slated to attend the Zozobra pageant on the day we were leaving to go to Albuquerque.  We were told that after two years of having no attendees for Zozobra due to the COVID 19 pandemic, 70,000 people showed up last year.  It overwhelmed local authorities to the point that they capped the attendance at 50,000 this year.  And I heard that all 50,000 tickets were snapped up months in advance.    

We had a few locals ask us if we were in town for Zozobra and we either said we didn't know what it was, or once we found out what it was, we said we weren't going.  "Good", or "That's smart", more than one local told us. "It's a zoo," one of our servers told us at a local restaurant the night before the celebration.  

Zozobra is so popular that a local television station shows the proceedings live.  (You can click here to see the broadcast.  If you want to cut to the chase, click ahead to the 23:00 minute mark as that's about the time they torch Zozobra and it goes up in flames.)  It's actually pretty neat with all fireworks and dancers beforehand, but once it goes up in smoke, it's pretty much over.  

We had a good time in Santa Fe.  I had a buddy who was there the week before we were, and he and I were comparing notes before we took off for New Mexico.  He said, "My wife is into the art and we were there for 5 days.  We pretty much saw everything we wanted to see in 3."  And that's sort of what we encountered.  A day and a half on an arts walk was almost overwhelming.  But it was certainly interesting.  We had some pretty good to great meals while we were there, people were friendly, and most importantly, the town was very clean and easy to get around.  It was also a nice starting point for some scenic drives into the mountainous deserts of the region.  Glad we went.  Would I like to go back?  Maybe, but I think there's other places I'd like to visit before heading back.  

Nick's (Del Mar) - San Diego

On a trip to San Diego earlier this year, I informed a friend of mine that I would be coming into town and suggested that we get together for dinner one night while I was there.  He was ecstatic that we would be getting together in his hometown and he suggested we meet up at one of his favorite places his wife and he like to go to.  On a usually cool summer evening, we met up at Nick's in Del Mar.     

Nick's in Del Mar is part of the Nick's Restaurants group which feature upscale bistro fare in seafood, steaks, sandwiches, and shareable appetizers with a extensive cocktail, beer and wine selection at each of their 7 locations which sprawl from Los Angeles County down through Orange County and with two locations in suburban San Diego.  The first Nick's opened in 2008 in Laguna Beach, but the family lineage that brought us the Nick's Restaurants goes back much farther than that.  

Nicholas "Nik" Nickoloff was born in Bulgaria and brought his family over to the U.S. when the Soviet Union made Bulgaria a satellite nation after World War II.  Nickoloff first settled in Michigan, then moved his family out to Southern California in the 50's.  In the mid-50's, Nickoloff opened a coffee shop in Long Beach - Nik's Coffee Shop.  Long Beach at that time was more of an industrial area with oil fields and a shipping port along with its namesake beach that attracted thousands to the area.  

Nik's son Carl managed the family's restaurant and eventually took it over in the 60's.  Seeing how Long Beach was getting more residential than industrial, Carl and his son Craig came up with a concept that would offer a large menu to cater to all members of the family with big portions of food, and make the decor fun and whimsical.  Craig Nickoloff came up with a theme of old California during the gold rush of the mid-19th century for the decor of the restaurant due to he and his father's love of old Western movies.  In September of 1977, the Nickoloff's - along with Scott McIntosh, an assistant manager at Nik's Coffee Shop - opened the first Claim Jumper restaurant in Los Alamitos, CA.  

The Claim Jumper was an immediate hit and within 20 years about two dozen Claim Jumper restaurants had opened in California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, as well as in far off places such as Louisiana and Tennessee.  Revenues of the popular restaurant chain reached nearly $150 million by the end of the millennium.  At its height, there were 45 Claim Jumper restaurants in 8 states.

Like a lot of restaurants in the late 2000's, the Claim Jumper felt the pinch from the financial crisis in 2008.  By 2010, the company listed liabilities of nearly $500M with assets of $100M.  Forced into bankruptcy, the chain was bought by the Landry's Restaurant Group out of Houston which was the parent company of such notable restaurant chains such as Rainforest Cafe, Bristol Seafood Grill, Joe's Crab Shack, Houlihan's and upscale steakhouses such as Mastro's, Morton's, and McCormick & Schmick's.  Landry's also holds interests in casino gaming, amusement parks, and hotels and resorts.  

Nick Nickoloff cut his teeth in the restaurant industry working with his father Craig at some of the Claim Jumper restaurants.  He had his own ideas for a restaurant concept which centered on grown-up foods for grown-ups.  In 2008, the first Nick's Restaurant opened in Laguna Beach and others soon opened in San Clemente, Long Beach and Manhattan Beach.  By 2020, Nick's was ready to open their first location in the San Diego area, but the pandemic put those plans on hold.  They finally opened the Nick's Del Mar location in the fall of 2020.  

I was driving down from Los Angeles and was going to be a little early than I had originally planned on meeting my friend at Nick's Del Mar.  He said that it wasn't a problem and that he would meet me there around 5 p.m. for an early dinner.  (My stomach was still on Central time and I was getting kind of hungry, so the early west-coast dinner time for me worked out.)

Nick's Del Mar is located in the One Paseo shopping center just a short distance off Interstate 5 at the corner of Del Mar Heights Road and El Camino Real.  (see map)  The restaurant is sort of hidden within the outdoor mall from the street, so after parking in the garage at the mall I had to walk around a bit before I found the restaurant with its distinctive A-frame facade.  

As I was walking into the restaurant, I got a text from my buddy who said he was on his way and would be there in 10 minutes.  I told the hostess that I was waiting on someone and if it was OK to hang out at the bar until he showed up.  She said it was no problem and I saddled up at the bar to order a beer.  I ended up getting a hazy IPA from the Harland Brewing Company, another one of the many outstanding microbreweries in the great San Diego area.  

The interior of the restaurant was very contemporary in its furnishings.  Booths and tables hugged the walls while the large rectangular three-sided bar was the main feature of the inside dining area.  There was an open window out into the outdoor patio opposite from where I was sitting at the bar.

My buddy showed up and I saw that he was having a conversation with the young lady at the hostess stand.  After he talked to her, he saw me at the bar and came to sit down with me.  After exchanging hugs and pleasantries, he told me that my early arrival caused some change of plans for dinner that night.  "My fiancée's mother is in town," he explained to me.  "We were going to have dinner here around 6:30 and we figured you'd join us."  He said that his fiancée, her son and mother were out doing things and were going to meet him at the restaurant at 6:30.  My buddy said, "I'm going to eat with you, then just nibble on stuff with my family when they come."  I felt sort of bad that I had fouled up his plans, but he said not to worry.  It was all good. 

The hostess came by the bar and said that she had a table for us out on the patio.  The patio was semi-enclosed with a roof overhead and the two ends closed up.  It was in the low 60's with a brisk wind coming off the ocean that day.  The whole week I was in Southern California, the weather was colder than normal and somewhat dreary. 

We were given menus and our server came over to greet us.  We had beers already from the bar and he went over the specials they had that evening - the seafood special sounded really good.  

We started out with an appetizer - the tuna tartare that was served with crispy wonton chips along with a spicy soy sauce mixed with a wasabi cream and avocado slices.  The sashimi grade tuna was outstanding and mixing it with the wasabi/spicy soy cream was just a delicious taste combo.  

For my main course for dinner, my buddy was trying to talk me into the prime rib dip sandwich.  He asked our server if they still had some of the prime rib available for the sandwich.  "Oh, yeah," the waiter said enthusiastically.  "It's still pretty early.  We usually start running out of the prime rib for the sandwich later in the evening."  They both really talked up the sandwich and I was tempted, but there were a couple other things on the menu that I was interested in.  

I figured that I could get prime rib sandwiches back in the midwest pretty much about any time, but fresh seafood is always something I'm on the look out for when I get close to an ocean.  The San Francisco Cioppino featured chunks of fresh salmon and sea bass, jumbo shrimp, clams and mussels in a hearty broth with fresh sourdough bread.  But the buttermilk chicken strips sounded like a good meal on a cool California day.  Our server said that Nick's was known for their buttermilk chicken.  

In the end, I went the fresh seafood route and got the Chilean sea bass, pan-seared and served with a lemon butter/wine sauce.  It came with sautéed spinach with garlic and almond slivers, and whipped potatoes.  It was all very good, but I almost went with the seafood special that my buddy ended up getting.

The special was the Alaskan halibut - a nice 8 to 10 ounce chunk of fresh halibut that was pan-seared and oven-baked.  It also came with the same spinach and whipped potatoes on the side.  The halibut looked great and my friend said it was as good as it looked.  As much as I was happy with the Chilean sea bass, I knew that I should have gone with the halibut.  But, I didn't. 

We finished up our dinner and as I was walking out, my buddy's fiancée, her son and mom were walking in.  After some quick introductions and a bit of back and forth, I was on my way.  They all seemed nice and I sort of wished afterward that I had waited to eat with them as a group.  

I shouldn't make it sound like my visit to Nick's Del Mar was full of "what if's?" and second-guessed choices.  It was a very nice experience with very good food, some excellent service and a great meal with a good friend.  I did like the Chilean sea bass and the tuna tartare appetizer was outstanding.  Any one of Nick's seven locations across Southern California would be a good place for nice casual meal.  I have a feeling I'll be running into one during my upcoming visits back to SoCal.

Valley Inn Restaurant - Sherman Oaks, CA

When I was out in Los Angeles earlier this year, I got together with a guy who I've known for years through a list serve that we've both belonged to for a number of years.  I reached out to him to let him know that I'd be in L.A. for a few days and suggested that we get together for dinner at some point.  He agreed and he came up with a couple places that might work for us to have dinner.  One was an old Midwestern-style supper club in the San Fernando Valley called the Valley Inn.  I told him that would be great, fully not expecting to go to a supper club in the greater Los Angeles area.  

There wasn't much to Sherman Oaks in 1947 when Jim and Otto Nassar built and opened the Valley Inn.  The town was just 20 years old at that time and there was still a lot of agriculture in the valley - as in orange groves as far as the eye could see - before the westward population push began in the 1950's turning those farm fields into houses.

After World War II, Indiana natives Jim and Otto Nasser started the Pink Pig, a supper club-style restaurant in the San Fernando Valley.   Movie stars became regular patrons of the Pink Pig and the popularity of the restaurant caused the brothers to open another restaurant not far away.

The Valley Inn was elegant with its dark wood paneling, its pin-cushion booths, and its charming, romantic ambience.  Stars such as Cary Grant and W.C. Fields migrated over to the Valley Inn.  Later on, many TV Western actors would visit the Valley Inn as a number of shows were shot in the hills and valley near the Valley Inn.  It later became a hangout for stars such as Shirley MacLaine, Betty White and UCLA men's basketball coach John Wooden who lived nearby.  

Jim Nasser eventually moved back to Indiana and the Nasser brothers sold the restaurant in 1952 to three gentlemen - Ricky Biagi, Alan Caplan, and Leonard Einhorn.  The three shepherded the Valley Inn through its golden years of where it became the place to see and be seen in the quickly expanding San Fernando Valley.  The group ran the restaurant for 28 years before selling to another group of investors in 1980 headed by Jack Gold.  Gold and various investors owned the Valley Inn for another 18 years before Sophia and Boris Brodetsky bought the business in 1998.  

The Brodetsky's were both Russian immigrants and fully grasped the history of the Valley Inn when they bought the restaurant.  The restaurant was in deep need of repair when they took over.  But they were keen on preserving the key elements of the restaurant.  Nearly all the original booths, tables and chairs were refurbished with an attention to detail to the original late-40's look of the restaurant.   

Their gracious nature and outgoing qualities endeared the Brodetsky's to their patrons giving the Valley Inn a family-feel when you would walk into the place.  The pandemic in 2020 almost forced the Brodetsky's to close their doors, but with the help of their loyal customers they were able to forge through the tumultuous times and continue in business as strong as ever.  

It was a bit of a drive for me to go from Hollywood up to Sherman Oaks.  Not being in L.A. for a number of years, it took me awhile to figure out that distances are not discussed in miles, but in the time it takes you to travel from Point A to Point B.  It was about a 35 minute drive for me before I pulled up in front of the Valley Inn just off the 405 on Sherman Oaks Ave. near Ventura Blvd.  (see map)  I was able to find parking on a side street around the corner from the Valley Inn and went inside to find my friend.  

The front of the Valley Inn is obscured by a large tent over some parking spaces in front of the restaurant that was put up during the pandemic three years ago to allow for outdoor dining when indoor dining was temporarily banned in Los Angeles County.  It was a nice evening - one of the few nice nights during my trip to Southern California - but it was cool and there were no customers seating under the tent.

Inside the Valley Inn is a small entry/waiting area with the hostess stand.  A number of autographed photographs of celebrities in the entertainment industry as well as famous Los Angeles sports figures.  There was an electric piano in the room that someone - don't know if he was an employee or just a patron - was playing for a bit.  Next to the piano was a trophy case that was sort of a shrine to UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, longtime Los Angeles Lakers broadcaster Chick Hearn and a couple other athletic figures who have been regulars at the Valley Inn over the years.  I was told that current UCLA football coach Chip Kelly is now a regular at the Valley Inn.  

The bar is in a small room off to the right as you walk into the Valley Inn.  The bar, itself, has a bit of history behind it.  It was custom-made in England in the 1880's and shipped over to the port in San Pedro just south of Los Angeles.  When the Nassers built the Valley Inn in 1947, they bought the bar and backbar from an old saloon and had it placed in their bar room that was specially sized for the bar.  The bar and backbar were ornate and really eye-catching.  I immediately liked the bar.

I waited in the bar area for my buddy to show up.  The bartender that night was a pleasant lady by the name of Ishla who introduced herself to me right off the bat.  I told her that I was waiting for someone to show up and I ordered up a Ballast Point Sculpin that they had on tap.  

It wasn't long after that when my buddy showed up.  In a bit of a pleasant surprise, he had his longtime lady-friend with him.  She was definitely my buddy's anchor in the relationship and was fun to be around.  

My buddy suggested that we eat in the bar, but he said that I should take a look around before we made a final decision.  Off the entry room with all the memorabilia and signed photographs is the John Wooden Room, a small dining area with burnt orange fabric walls and old-time light fixtures hanging from the ceiling.  My buddy - who had been to the Valley Inn many times and was a wealth of information on the place - said this was the room that John Wooden would hold court with friends and donors during the hey-day of UCLA men's basketball in the 60's and 70's.  

The main dining room looked like you stepped back into the late 40's/early 50's.  The elegant booths and linen-covered table tops haven't changed in over 75 years.  While it was quiet and intimate in the main dining area, I sort of liked the idea of sitting at the bar. 

There is a bar menu at the Valley Inn, but it's primarily appetizers.  My friend said that he's eaten at the bar many times over the years.  Ishla confirmed that when she said that we could order off the regular menu with her.  "It's more fun at the bar," Ishla said as she handed us menus.  My buddy got a Moscow mule to start out with while his lady friend ended up with a martini.  

The menu at Valley Inn has evolved over the years, but there are some mainstays that have been part of the menu since 1947.  Baby back ribs, sautéed calf livers, oven-roasted chicken and fried chicken are part of the menu that includes steaks, lamb and pork chops, some seafood dishes, and a few pasta entrees.   The prime rib at the Valley Inn is aged for 28 days and hand-patted with a blend of spices and herbs.  There were some things on the menu that I doubt were available when the restaurant first opened - the sesame peppercorn encrusted ahi tuna appetizer was one.   The Valley Inn's famous garlic cheese bread got my attention on the appetizer side, as well.  

I was told that the steaks at the Valley Inn are all Midwestern-raised, possibly in Iowa.  And that's what I ended up getting.  I got the prime New York strip steak, cooked rare.  A side of seasonal vegetables and mashed potatoes were my choice for the side.  (I should have gone with the steak fries.)  A small tub of hollandaise sauce came on the side.  I asked Ishla if I could get some ground horseradish and she quickly obliged.  

The New York strip was cooked perfectly, tender, juicy, and full of flavor.  I dipped a couple pieces into the hollandaise sauce and it was a nice complement to the taste of the meat.  The cut of beef and the way it was cooked rivaled anything I've had at a Midwestern steakhouse.  It was an outstanding steak.

My friend got one of the specials that evening - a breaded pork chop with a side of vegetables. It was a thick cut boneless pork chop It looked pretty good and he said it was very good.  

His ladyfriend ended up getting the chicken marsala pasta - a lightly breaded and sautéed chicken breast on a bed of linguine and topped with a marsala wine and mushroom sauce.  She said it was one of her favorite dishes on the menu at the Valley Inn.  It did look delicious.  

The Valley Inn was a real treat - an old-school Los Angeles eatery steeped in history.  My Midwestern-raised New York strip was cooked perfectly and was surprisingly very good.  (I know - I'm a Midwestern beef snob.)  My friend and his lady friend said their meals were great - just like every time they've visited the Valley Inn.  He was telling me of some more old-school supper clubs in the area and we made a preliminary date the next time I get back to L.A. to meet up at one of those places.  But I don't know how it could be much better than the Valley Inn.  

Rao's - Hollywood, CA

I was in Los Angeles earlier this summer and was staying in Hollywood since it seemed to be centrally located for my trips to see my new accounts that I was calling on.  I hadn't been in L.A. for a number of years, so just getting reacquainted with the area was a big part of my trip to the city.  After a day of calling on and meeting some of my new accounts, coupled with the stress of Los Angeles area traffic, I was pooped by the time I made it back to the Hampton Inn in the heart of Hollywood that evening.  The last thing I wanted to do was to get into the car again and go look for a place to eat.  Hollywood is sort of trashy and probably not too safe after dark for those on foot, so finding something in the area while the sun was still up was a bit of a priority.  I did a quick search for restaurants in the area and there was an Italian restaurant not far from the hotel with a somewhat familiar name - Rao's.  I decided to walk over there for dinner that evening. 

You've probably seen Rao's soups and pasta sauces on grocery store shelves for a number of years.  Many people feel that Rao's is the best jarred marinara sauce available on the market.  Earlier this year, food critics from The Washington Post did a taste-test of 12 of the most popular marinara sauces available at supermarkets across America and they found that Rao's pasta sauce was the best of them all winning handily over the 2nd place finisher - and one of our favorite store-bought marinara sauces - Trader Joe's Tomato Basil Marinara.  Five years ago, Bon Appetit magazine declared Rao's marinara as the best jarred sauce of all time.  

However, fans of the popular tomato sauce were suddenly concerned when it was announced last month that Campbell's - the famous soup company - bought Rao's parent company Sovos Brands of which 70% of their overall sales were from Rao's sauces and soups.   The $2.7 billion dollar acquisition immediately caused concerns with fans or Rao's marinara who thought the behemoth soup company would change the recipe for Rao's sauces.   Shortly after the announcement to buy Sovos Brands was made, Campbell's put out a statement that said they would absolutely not touch or change any of the Rao's sauces and soups.  

But the history of Rao's dates back over 125 years after Charles Rao, an Italian immigrant who moved to New York with his parents in the 1880's, bought a small brewery-owned tavern at the corner of 114th and Pleasant in the Little Italy section of Harlem, once the home to the largest population of Italians in America.  Charles ran the tavern from 1896 until his death in 1909 when his brother Joseph took over.  When Prohibition came into effect in 1919, Joseph added food and made bootlegged wine in the basement of the small tavern.   

With the nation in the grip of the Great Depression and with Prohibition still in effect, Joseph passed away in 1930.  His son Louis Rao took over and kept the little tavern going and eventually thriving into the 40's and 50's.  When Louis Rao passed away in 1958, his brother Vincent Rao took over and decided to turn the little neighborhood tavern into an Italian restaurant using many of the Rao family recipes that were brought over by his grandparents from their southern Italian village of Polla.  The restaurant became known for their wonderful, yet simple, offerings of Italian food and quickly became a favorite with people in the immediate neighborhood.  

In the early 70's Vincent's wife Anna decided to spruce up the restaurant making it a more elegant environment for people to dine.  When the place got exceptionally busy at one point in 1972, Vincent and Anna asked their nephew Frank Pellegrino to come in and help out at the bar for a couple weeks.  Frank had been a singer on a cruise ship and was between gigs at that point.  Frank thought it would just be a short while before he'd get back on a cruise ship to sing but he ended up staying and growing with the restaurant.  Frank eventually became the face of Rao's as their maitre d' and front of house manager.  

Rao's was considered one of the best kept secrets in Manhattan until New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton gave the restaurant 3 stars (out of 4) in a review in 1977.  Suddenly, Rao's became one of the more popular - and toughest - places to get into in Manhattan.  Seating just 60 people, Frank Pellegrino had to implement "table rights" on specific nights for the regulars who were also having trouble getting into the restaurant.  Some of the those "table rights" were passed down to family members who still have them today.   

Pictured right - Frank Pellegrino, Sr.

Frank Pellegrino - "Frankie" to his friends and loyal patrons - was an interesting man who wore many hats including an actor (appearing in movies such as Goodfellas, and on television shows such as Law & Order and The Sopranos), he authored cookbooks, and later became a businessman offering the Rao's line of sauce, as well as producing a CD of songs that were his favorites on the jukebox at Rao's.  He was known for breaking out in song while checking in with diners at their tables some evenings at the restaurant.  His friends included Martin Scorsese, Frank Sinatra, Woody Allen, James Caan and Frankie Valli.   His hard-nosed exterior, but warm and caring interior gave him the nickname of "Frankie No" as he continually had to turn down people trying to get into Rao's in the 70's and 80's.  And it didn't matter if it was a celebrity, a politician, a captain of industry or a tourist in from Indiana, if Frank couldn't fit you in that particular evening, you didn't eat at Rao's.  

In 1992, Frank Pellegrino decided to start packaging Rao's famous tomato sauces and offering them on store shelves.  Pellegrino said that he was tired of having to say "no" and this way people could get a taste of Rao's at their home.  To help launch Rao's Specialty Food, Pellgrino brought in a partner - his cousin, Ron Straci - to help oversee the operation.  Straci - a lawyer by trade - helped start the business and oversaw its growth adding more varieties of pasta sauces over the years.  

Two years later, Vincent and Anna Rao passed away and Frank Pellegrino and Ron Straci inherited the restaurant from their aunt and uncle.   But a 2015 lawsuit Frank Pellegrino filed against Straci and Straci's wife, Sharon - the CEO of Rao's Specialty Foods - alleging that the Straci's were turning down offers to buy the retail food operation caused a deep rift within the family.  Pellegrino alleged that Sharon Straci was hoping to stay on as CEO of the company, but the overtures from private equity companies to buy the business didn't include her staying on board.  The Straci's eventually countersued Pellegrino making things around Rao's and Rao's Specialty Foods one hot mess.  The suits were later dropped when Frank Pellegrino died of cancer at the age of 72 in 2017, and Rao's Specialty Foods was purchased by Sovos Brands later that year for just over $450 million dollars.  

Back in 1982, Frank Pellegrino, Jr. was a 12-year-old kid who started to help out in the family restaurant.  He bussed tables, was a waiter, he learned to cook in the kitchen and started to learn the management of the restaurant.  His father kept trying to talk Frank, Jr. out of coming into the family business, hoping that he'd follow his schooling in graphic design.  Frank, Jr. did open his own visual arts business, but it did not last.  He eventually joined the family business and opened Baldoria in 2000, a larger version of Rao's in New York's theater district.  But it was an inquiry from a large Las Vegas casino that changed the lives of everyone involved in Rao's.  

Pictured left - Frank, Jr. and Frank Pellegrino, Sr. in 2015.  Picture courtesy Vanity Fair.  

In 2005, Caesars Palace contacted Frank Pellegrino, Sr. and wanted to know if he would be interested in putting a Las Vegas version of Rao's in their casino.  It intrigued the elder Pellegrino who loved Las Vegas and many of his patrons visited the city over the years.  A deal was put in place with Frank Pellegrino, Jr., overseeing the operations of the Las Vegas location.  Leaving Baldoria (which eventually closed), Frank, Jr. moved to Las Vegas and they opened Rao's at Caesars Palace in 2006.  

With the success of the Las Vegas Rao's, the Pellegrino's and Straci had their eye on the Los Angeles area.  Many of their Las Vegas patrons were from Los Angeles and some had remarked to Frank, Jr. that it would be great if they could put a Rao's somewhere in the city.  In September of 2013, Frank Pellegrino, Jr. opened the Hollywood location of Rao's in an area that features a number of nondescript post-production film and television studios.  

Today, the original Rao's in New York is still in business, despite being gutted by an arsonist in 1995 and a dispute between two Mafiosos in 2003 which saw one mobster shoot another to death at the bar.  The Las Vegas location closed in 2021 after 15 years of business, but plans are in the works to open a Rao's in Miami Beach in the near future.  It's still a family run business with Frank Pellegrino, Jr. overseeing the operations of the restaurants in Hollywood and New York City making it 4 generations of over 125 years of the Rao/Pellegrini families involved in the Rao's restaurants.

The Rao's in Hollywood is located on Seward Street off of Santa Monica Boulevard.  (see map)  It turned out to be a 10-minute walk along the grimy streets of Hollywood to get to the restaurant from my hotel.  The restaurant is located in a building that may - or may not - have been the site of the Hollywood Cantina, a World War II-era restaurant which catered to West Coast servicemen that was founded by actress Bette Davis and Jules Stein, the co-founder of MCA.  The facade of the building was painted the same tomato red color as the original Rao's in New York.  

I was definitely an early diner, walking in the door around 5:45 that late afternoon.  Just inside the front door was a dining room on left side and a small bar area on the right.  The small dining room had a number of autographed photos on the wall, as well as Christmas lights and wreaths - in June!  Turns out, that's sort of the signature decoration of the Rao's locations, something they started to do in New York years ago and continues to this day in Los Angeles.  The bar area had Christmas lights over the bar and a large picture of Frank Pellegrini, Sr. was on the wall next to the bar.  

Just past the front dining area was a larger dining area with an open kitchen window on one side and booths for couples on the opposite side.  Like the dining area up front, the main dining room featured dark wood walls and floors, subdued lighting and tables covered with linen cloths.  More photos of celebrities and athletes hung on the wall in this room.  

In the far back was a covered outdoor dining area.  A couple people were already eating out there.  It was noticeably more bright due to the sunlight coming through the translucent corrugated roof and it was more of a contemporary look to the decor than the dining rooms.  This Rao's location is decidedly larger than the New York City location which seats just 60 diners.  

When I first came in, the only person in sight in the place was a bartender.  She apologized and said that the maitre d' hadn't shown up for the evening and told me that I could sit pretty much anywhere.  After walking through the place I went back to the bar and told the bartender that I'd just sit there with her.  She said that was fine with her.  "I could use some company," she said as she handed me a menu and asked what I wanted to drink.  I started out with an IPA from the Elysian Brewing Company out of Seattle.   She brought me my beer and said, "My name is Ashley.  Take your time looking through the menu."  

Having a menu in my hands at Rao's is definitely different from the original place in New York City.  They've never had menus at the original Rao's.  When the waiter comes around to your table, he'll tell you pretty much the whole menu.  I understand they do have menus for people to look at if they need to, but the quaint nature of Rao's is having the waiters recite the menus.  They don't do that at the Rao's in L.A.  

The items on the menu at Rao's are definitely old school Italian foods.  They had their basic San Marzano marinara sauce offered with a choice of different types of pastas.  They had a pear and ricotta-filled ravioli, as well as a carbonara sauce with fusilli pasta.  Chicken Milanese, a bone-in veal parmesan, and the lemon chicken featuring Vincent Rao's famous lemon sauce were part of a main entree section of the menu.  

I decided on something finally and I started out the dinner with a side Caesar's salad.  The lettuce was cool and crisp, and the Caesar's dressing was tangy.  It was a nice start to the main part of the meal.

Although many things on the menu sounded pretty good, the one that that jumped out at me was the rigatoni bolognese - a hearty meat sauce of San Marzano marinara with ground beef, pork and veal with tubes of rigatoni pasta mixed in.  I thought I needed a red sauce even before I walked into Rao's and this was the perfect dinner for me.  I got a glass of a house Italian chianti to go with the meal. The bolognese sauce was thick, meaty and very delicious.  This was a very good old world Italian meal.  

I lingered around after dinner having one more beer before I was going to head back to the hotel.  Ashley came over with a dessert menu for me to look over.  She tempted me with her description of a cheesecake they had, but I asked her about the tiramisu.  "Made fresh in house every day," she told.  That was good enough for me.  And for some reason I ordered a double espresso - it was only around 6:30 and it was my thinking that the caffeine buzz I would get from the espresso would be wearing off by the time I would be getting ready for bed later in the evening.  

The tiramisu was very good.  It was a generous portion that was served to me and it was very rich.  Between the tiramisu and the espresso, I was pretty amped up by the time I started my walk back to my hotel.  

Although I've never eaten at the original Rao's in New York, I would like to imagine that the one in Los Angeles was just as good.  The rigatoni bolognese was a top-notch spot hitter for me and the Caesar's salad was one of the better types of that salad I've ever had.  Ashley's service was prompt and friendly, and the atmosphere of Rao's felt like I was sitting in New York, Boston or Chicago rather than in the middle of Hollywood.  Rao's is off the beaten path in Los Angeles and is definitely a destination for many.  But it's worth the effort - whether you're driving or walking.  

Prime Steakhouse - Hillsdale, IL

For quite some time, we've been hearing of a steakhouse out in the small Illinois town of Hillsdale, about 25 miles (as the crow flies) from the center of the Quad Cities.  I was having a birthday dinner and my wife asked me where I would like to go to celebrate - her treat.  I could have had my pick of a fancy, top-end place we've been to in the past around the Quad Cities, but I wanted to try Prime Steakhouse in the small town of Hillsdale, IL.

And it's not that Prime Steakhouse isn't fancy or top-end, they are one of the best kept secrets in all of the Quad Cities.  It's the quintessential Midwestern supper club destination located in a small town that draws people from a 40 mile radius on a regular basis.  Owner Agim "Jimmy" Saliu is a veteran of a number of family-owned restaurants in Eastern Iowa, primarily in DeWitt and Clinton.  Prime Steakhouse has been open in Hillsdale for nearly 15 years as Saliu took over the former Rustic Inn supper club which originally opened in the late 60's.  

It was about a half-hour drive from our house in Davenport out to Hillsdale to Prime Steakhouse.  (see map)  I have stopped in Hillsdale many times over the years at the Shell service station just off of I-88 to top off my gas tank while heading home from Chicago or to grab a slice of pizza (or two) on my way into the city.  I never knew until just a couple three years ago that a steakhouse/supper club was in the small town of about 500 people.  

Prime Steakhouse is only open 4 nights a week - Thursday (4 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.), Friday and Saturday (4 p.m. to 9 p.m.), and Sunday (4 p.m. to 8 p.m.).  We heard that wait times - especially on the weekend - can be upwards of an hour.  We got there right around 5:30 with no reservations and were able to be seated straight away.  Parking was a breeze with plenty of spots open up and down Main Street in Hillsdale, as well as a small parking lot off to the side.

If we would have had to wait to get a table, the small bar area would have been a good place to hang out.  They had a well-stocked back bar and a good selection of beers to choose from.  It was a cozy spot where I would have no problem hanging out having a couple three beers before sitting down for a meal.   

The dining room at Prime Steakhouse was like walking back into the 70's.  Big booths, large tables, and a number of drop-down light fixtures made the room glow, but not oppressively so.  It was a comfortable space - nothing fancy - but not pretentious at all.  

The same young lady who seated us in a booth in the dining room was also going to be our server.  We also found out that she was going to be our bartender, as well.  She worked her butt off all night as she was the only server - and bartender - on the floor that evening.  She held up well as more parties came in for dinner as time went on.  She was cheerful, helpful and on top of everything that we asked for.  

The menu at Prime Steakhouse was what you would find at most Midwestern-style steakhouse.  Prime rib on Friday and Saturday night (it was a Thursday night when we were there), a variety of steak cuts, pork chops, seafood, chicken entrees and pasta dishes.  Potato sides such as fries, hash browns and baked potatoes were available with most entrees.  

And, of course, there was the salad bar which featured all the fixings you'd expect from a Midwestern supper club - fresh greens, assorted veggies for toppings or sides, the pre-requisite Ranch, French or blue cheese dressings.  My wife and I always love finding pickled beets on a salad bar and the ones at Prime Steakhouse were rather unique in that they were mixed with all spice.  We found it to be an interesting combination, something that we'd never encountered before.  They had a garlic dressing that my wife got.  Any time she gets a garlic dressing I have to take a bite of her salad because I wouldn't be able to get 10 feet near her later in the night because she would reek of garlic.  And I LOVE garlic, but it's a bit oppressive to live with her if she has garlic dressing and I don't.  I got the tangy and sweet French dressing on my salad.  I have to say that I thought the garlic dressing was pretty weak, but the French dressing was very good.  

They had a special off the menu that night - a New York strip with a butter garlic topping.  I really thought long and hard about that, but the filet was also interesting.  My wife was also intrigued by the special.  I said, "You get the special and I'll go for the filet.  That way we can both try them."  For her potato side, she got the hash browns topped with cheddar cheese and onions.  

The filet was a 12 to 14 ounce cut and I asked our server to add the mushroom burgundy wine sauce.  I thought I had asked for the sauce to come on the side, but it was slathered over the rare-cooked filet.  But I was fine with that.  For my side, I got the garlic-mashed potatoes.  I asked our server if I could get some of the mushroom burgundy sauce for my mashed potatoes.  She said, "Oh, a lot of people ask for the sauce with the mashed potatoes."  Once again, I thought the sauce would come on the side, but it was liberally spooned over the garlic mashed potatoes.  And I was fine with that, as well.  

I have to say that my filet was cooked perfectly, the beef was tender and the mushroom burgundy sauce did not overpower the flavor of the beef.  I was extremely impressed with the steak that I had.  The mushroom burgundy sauce was a nice complement with both the steak and the garlic mashed potatoes.  It must have been the garlic dressing that I had earlier as I didn't detect much of a garlic flavor in the potatoes.  But, still, they were fine. 

My wife's New York strip with the garlic butter was, well, disappointing.  First of all, the garlic butter was way too salty.  My wife remarked that it was salty after her first bite.  And she salts everything, so if she says it's salty, it's salty.  She cut a piece off of her strip steak for me and I tried a bite.  It was severely over-salted for my taste.  I rarely salt anything either during the cooking process or after it's been served, so I can detect salt content on food almost immediately.  To me, this was almost inedible.  My wife even thought it was way too much salt on the steak.  She pushed the garlic butter topping off her steak and went ahead and ate it that way.  The cut of meat was tender, but the residual flavor of the overly-salted garlic butter sauce was just too overpowering.  

Jimmy Saliu came out to talk with us to see how everything was with our meal.  My wife told him that she likes to salt her food, but the garlic butter on top of her steak had way too much salt on it.  Jimmy apologized profusely and offered to get her another steak.  But she was already 3/4's of the way through the steak at that point.  After we finished up, Jimmy came out with a piece of vanilla cake - on the house.  It was all right - probably a food purveyor type of cake and not made in house.  But it was a nice gesture on his part.

He chatted us up for a moment and asked where we were from.  We told him we were from Davenport and had been hearing and reading about his place from other people, as well as on social media.  He said, "We don't really advertise that much.  We don't have to.  We've been here for years without really having to get the word out.  We leave that up to our customers."  

And I would have to say that I was a convert after visiting Prime Steakhouse.  My beef tenderloin filet was very good - tender, juicy, cooked perfectly rare the way I like my filet cuts.  But my wife was disappointed in her strip steak with the butter garlic topping as it was way too salty.  But that won't deter us from going back out to Hillsdale to eat at Prime Steakhouse again at some point.  The service we had from the young lady who was working not only all the tables in the restaurant, but was also working as the bartender that night.  The owner Jimmy was friendly and personable, and it was nice for him to give us a piece of cake for dessert free of charge.  Prime Steakhouse isn't a fancy, upscale steakhouse.  But the steaks they serve would rival any cuts of beef I've had at some of the big city steakhouses I've visited in the past.  

New Mexico

We just came back from a vacation to New Mexico.   We wanted to go somewhere that we had never been to before and we discussed a couple three places before making a decision.  We had talked about New Orleans (even though I had been there over 20 years ago), but at this time of year in Louisiana the heat and humidity is brutal.  We talked about going to Charleston, SC.  When we went to Savannah, GA a few years back, we had planned on going up to Charleston for a couple days.  But we liked Savannah so much that we skipped Charleston.  However, we vowed to get there some day.  We were leaning toward heading to Charleston for this vacation.  

For some reason one evening not long ago, I started looking into going to New Mexico.  I had flown into Albuquerque a number of years ago on a Southwest Airlines flight, but I had never gotten off the plane as I was heading on to Dallas from Las Vegas.  So, technically I had been to New Mexico before, but never experienced the state.    

Picking New Mexico over Charleston turned out to be a good choice - Hurricane Idalia hit the Florida Gulf Coast and veered up across Georgia and into South Carolina passing directly over Charleston as a tropical storm before heading out into the Atlantic.  We would have been in Charleston when Idalia hit had we decided to go there.  And I'm sure everything would have been disrupted for a couple three days as the storm surge and heavy rainfall caused massive flooding throughout the city and power was out to areas in and around Charleston.  

Using flight and hotel points I had saved up with both United and Hilton, we ended up deciding about a week before we were to start our vacation to go to New Mexico, flying in to and out of Albuquerque.  I also got a pretty good rate on a rental car through National using my former company's corporate rate to get a 2023 Toyota Highlander to use for the week.  After landing in Albuquerque, we first headed up to Sante Fe for a few days.  From there, we took a couple road trips including a very scenic day trip up to Taos.  In all we went on 3 scenic byways during our trip to New Mexico.  I'll highlight those trips in the coming days and weeks.   

Weather in New Mexico when we were there was unseasonably warm - temperatures were 10 to 20 degrees above average.  But like the desert Southwest, humidity levels were low making the temperatures in the mid-to-upper 90's somewhat bearable.  The months of July and August are usually the peak of the monsoon season in the Southwest, but most of the monsoon moisture over the past couple years has stayed to the west of New Mexico.  Complaints from the locals about the lack of monsoon season for a couple years now were a vivid topic of conversation pretty much everywhere we went.  

New Mexico is well-known in the arts community for their large number of art museums, galleries and studios which support local artists throughout the state.  The number of places to see art during our travels across the state was almost overwhelming.  And it was all kinds of art - contemporary, Spanish colonial, sculptures, and Native American culture artwork.  

The most famous of the art museums and galleries may be the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe.  20th century modernist artist Georgia O'Keeffe fell in love with New Mexico during visits there in the 1930's, finally buying a ranch in north central New Mexico as a vacation home/inspiration studio.  O'Keeffe became a permanent resident of New Mexico in the late 40's after the death of her husband.  O'Keeffe lived in New Mexico for nearly 40 years before she passed away in Santa Fe in 1986 at the age of 98.  We spent about 90 minutes one day in the O'Keeffe museum looking at some of her famous works as well as some of her more obscure works.  It was worth the price of admission.  

And, of course, there was the food.  "New" Mexican food is different from traditional Mexican food in that they use a lot of potatoes in many of their dishes.  They also use pinto beans as a side rather than black or refried beans.  (I determined that I really liked the pinto beans in their own gravy when I was in New Mexico.)  And, of course, the sauces they use on most of their foods - especially the green chile sauce -  helps enhance the overall taste of the food without overpowering the main dish.  I love the green chile sauce and I have to admit that I was getting sort of burnt out on green chiles by the time we were getting ready to leave.  However, my last meal in New Mexico featured an omelet slathered with the green chile sauce.  We also experienced contemporary New Mexican cuisine in Sante Fe, as well as contemporary Italian food in Albuquerque.  Breakfast is big in New Mexico and we had a number of New Mexican-style breakfasts to start many of our days.  And I had just one burger the whole time we were in New Mexico.  Of course, it was topped with pepper jack cheese and green chiles.

With all the food, I was certain that I had gained 8 to 10 pounds while we were in New Mexico.  With the glaring exception of one meal, nearly every meal we had ranged from very good to great.  When I had my bag weighed at the airport to fly home, it was 11 pounds heavier than when we flew out to New Mexico due to stuff we had picked up during our trip.  I joked to the ticket agent, "I think I'm 11 pounds heavier after eating all this food."  My wife and I made a pact on the plane flight between Albuquerque and Denver that we had to go on severe diets once we got home.

The morning after we got home, I was scared to get on the scale.  I always weigh myself before I go on a trip - either business or pleasure - as I generally lose weight away from home.  This time, however, I was convinced that I was at least 10 pounds heavier.  I jumped up on the scales, afraid to see the damage the great food in New Mexico did to me.  But in one of the biggest and most pleasant surprises that I have had in quite some time, I didn't gain a pound while we were on vacation.  Our scale even goes down to ounces and I weighed the exact same weight - pound and ounce - that I did the morning we left to go to New Mexico.  Even though I was happy with that, my wife and I decided to continue with our plan for our diet and I have to say that I've lost about 4 more pounds since we got back.   

The scenery was spectacular across the New Mexico.  The stark tones of the high desert contrasted with the bright blue skies to make nearly every sight magnificent.  We joined dozens of people on a hillside overlooking Sante Fe for sunsets, we saw pop-up thunderstorms from off in the distance in the afternoons, we explored gorges from the top down and back up again.  And we stopped at a number of churches and sanctuaries that dated back to the 17th century.  It seemed like every small town we drove through had a small adobe-style church that stood majestically in the village.  I'm not a spiritual person, but it was rather neat to see some of the old churches in our travels.  

 

In the days and weeks to come, I'll share with you some of the sights we saw, some of the roads we drove, some of the foods we ate, and some of the cultural highlights from our trip to New Mexico.  I'll even talk a little about the New Mexico license plates which are some of the most colorful and interesting in the United States.  There weren't many disappointments during our visit to the Land of Enchantment.  It was a great vacation getaway.  We didn't have many - if any - regrets when we left.  

Well, except that we never did see a roadrunner while we were there...

Gastro Pub and Grub - Waukee, IA

I was staying in the western suburbs of Des Moines on a recent trip through the area and I have to admit I'm not as up to speed with restaurants in the fast growing areas of Waukee, Grimes and Johnston.  I grew up 35 miles from Des Moines and the expansion - especially to the north and west of the city - has been somewhat mind-boggling to me.  I found a couple places that I wanted to try out, one was a sports bar located in a strip mall and it appeared to be packed.  I went with "Plan B" and that turned out to be a little place called Gastro Grub & Pub.  I wasn't too enamored with the name of the place, but I decided to give it a try.   

Sean Gleason and Andrea Cunningham were Iowa natives who ended up out on the west coast to further their culinary careers.  Sean graduated with honors from a one-year accelerated program at the Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Pasadena and went to work at the West Hollywood location for the Fig & Olive (now closed) Mediterranean restaurant.  Sean Gleason went on to become the executive sous chef at the now-closed Village Idiot on Melrose Ave in L.A.  Along the way, Sean learned how to butcher and was cutting chicken, pork and beef for the restaurant.   

Meanwhile, Andrea Cunningham was working in a sushi restaurant in L.A. and the two wanted to move back to Iowa to be closer to family.  Sean grew up in Des Moines while Andrea grew up just south of Des Moines in Norwalk.  They moved back to Iowa in 2014 and started up a food truck - Gastro Grub - a year later.   

Pictured right - Sean and Andrea Gleason.  Photo courtesy the Des Moines Register 

The Gastro Grub food truck made regular stops at local farmers markets and microbreweries, and soon garnered a reputation for having some of the best buttermilk fried chicken and deep-fried Brussels sprouts around.  A local entertainment news magazine - Cityview - named Gastro Grub as the runner-up for Best Food Truck in the Des Moines area in 2016. 

After getting married in 2017, the Gleasons were looking forward to opening their own brick and mortar restaurant expanding their food menu along the way.  Louie's Wine Dive, a Kansas City-based restaurant that specializes in locally-sourced food, was looking to move out of their Waukee building to a new location in the Des Moines city limits.  The space Louie's was giving up was perfect for the Gleasons to open their new restaurant.  

Things were progressing to an opening in the fall of 2017 when Andrea Gleason received some devastating news - she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of melanoma.  Work on their new restaurant ground to a halt as the Gleasons dealt with Andrea's treatments.  Her stage IV melanoma was not responding to chemotherapy and had spread to her lymph nodes.  Doctors felt her cancer was inoperable, but they decided to give surgery a try as a last ditch effort to stop the spread.  The surgery proved to be successful and doctors were certain that they got most of the cancer out of Andrea.  She began to receive radiation treatments soon thereafter.

With Andrea's cancer in remission - she is now cancer free - Gastro Grub & Pub opened in January of 2018.  The Gleasons continued to operate their food truck in the warmer months to help get the word out of their new brick and mortar location in Waukee.  

Sean Gleason focused on sourcing locally grown food for the restaurant.  A number of local breweries supplied beer to the restaurant and Iowa-based Templeton Rye played a big part of their spirit selection.  The Gleasons also decided to give back to the community where they donate a portion of their profits each month to a local charity or organization.  

I drove west on Hickman Road and found Gastro Grub & Pub in a strip mall on the south side of the street.  (see map)  The restaurant is located on the far eastern end of the strip mall with an open field beside it.  A nearly full moon was rising in the eastern sky as the sun was beginning to set.  

Gastro Grub & Pub had a contemporary theme for its decor.  A large open window into the kitchen was in the back of the space and there were assorted high-top and regular height tables in the dining area.

The bar area is off to the left as you come into the restaurant.  There's a garage door behind the bar that opens into a patio area on warmer days.  It was actually a nice night that evening with a few people sitting on the patio.  I had my choice of sitting at a table or at the bar.  I chose the bar.  The bartender/server that evening was a young lady by the name of Mary who was holding court with some other people seated at the bar.  It was evident through her conversations with them that they were regulars at Gastro Grub & Pub.  

I got a food menu from Mary and she asked me what I wanted to drink.  I saw that they had a hazy IPA from the Reclaimed Rails brewery in the Des Moines suburb of Bondurant and I ordered that.  However, Mary said that they were out of that selection at the time.  She gave me a sample of a couple others IPA's to try including one from the Nerdspeak brewery out of the Iowa Quad Cities that was way too sweet.  (Nerdspeak announced about six weeks ago that they were possibly closing.  It wasn't one of our favorites and we weren't surprised to learn they were thinking of closing.)   I ended up getting a West Eddy West Coast IPA from the Big Grove brewery in Solon and Iowa City.  

I had been on the road for a few days and I was sort of in a food funk.  I had a burger the night before in Omaha and didn't really want a burger even though they had a Wagyu burger on the menu with beef locally sourced from Lost Hills Farm in southern Iowa.  Their original Bacon Jam burger was on the menu, as well.  They had a buttermilk fried chicken sandwich as well as a short rib grilled cheese sandwich that looked interesting to me.  Entrees included a steak & frites plate, shrimp and grits, and a grilled chicken pasta in a Cajun-seasoned alfredo sauce.  I came real close to getting that.

But something on the appetizer part of the menu stood out for me - the steak Deburgo poutine.  It featured chunks of steak on a bed of fries covered in a creamy Deburgo sauce with white cheddar cheese curds and finished with fresh scallions.  It wasn't exactly like Quebec-style poutine, but it was interesting enough.

And it tasted pretty good, too.  And it was very rich.  I mean, really rich.  It was all I could do to finish even half of it.  I put a significant dent in the poutine before I finally had to throw in the towel.  Mary asked me if I wanted to take the rest of it in a to-go box, but I passed.  

 

I really didn't know if I would like Gastro Grub & Pub when I first looked through the menu, but I have to say that I was pretty impressed with the steak Deburgo poutine that I had that evening.  I would have liked to have tried one of their burgers, but being burnt out on burgers at that point I'm glad that I went with the poutine appetizer which was more than enough food.  Gastro Grub & Pub was a pretty good find and one I would recommend trying if you're in the western suburbs of Des Moines.  

Oscar's Mexican Seafood - San Diego

I had to go to San Diego for a couple days for meetings and while I was there I knew I needed to get a fish taco, something San Diego is famous for.  There are so many fish taco joints around the city that it's tough to distinguish one from the other.  However, I was told by a local that there is one fish taco place that is different from the others in that they smoke their fish.  I sought out Oscar's Mexican Seafood to give their fish tacos a try.  

Juan Bernardo Montes de Oca grew up in Tijuana just across the border from San Diego.  In the mid-2000's, he was the owner of a trucking business in the San Diego suburb of Otay Mesa, just across the border from the Tijuana airport.  Each day, Oscar Valenzuela drove his food truck up from Tijuana and into Montes de Oca's parking lot to serve up some scrumptious fish tacos.  Oscar's tacos reminded Montes de Oca of his grandmother's tacos that he had growing up.

Montes de Oca loved Oscar's tacos so much that he ended up selling his trucking business and investing in a new food truck for Oscar and going into business with Valenzuela.  Oscar taught Montes de Oca everything he needed to run a business - from procuring ingredients in bulk, to food prep, to inventory control, and most importantly, how to make Oscar's tacos.  

By 2010, Montes de Oca was looking for a place to open a brick and mortar restaurant with Oscar Valenzuela somewhere in San Diego.  The problem, however, was that Oscar was unable to obtain a work visa to help in the restaurant.  Undeterred, Montes de Oca went ahead and opened the first Oscar's Mexican Seafood restaurant on Turquoise Street in the Pacific Beach area just north of San Diego in 2011.  

Within two years, Montes de Oca opened two more locations - another one in Pacific Beach on Emerald Street, and one in Ocean Beach just north and west of downtown San Diego.  The Ocean Beach location closed in late 2013 as Montes de Oca moved that Oscar's location to the Hillcrest section of San Diego on the north side of the city near Balboa Park.  

(Not to be left out, Oscar Valenzuela finally did give up his food truck to open his own restaurant in Tijuana - Tacos Oscar.)  

It was the Emerald Street location that I went to for my first trip to Oscar's Mexican Food.  (see map)  That Oscar's is located just off Mission Boulevard about a block and a half from the Pacific Ocean.  There are some other restaurants and shops in the area and there was no parking to be had on Emerald Street.  I found some on-street parking on Mission Blvd. about a block south of Emerald Street.  

Oscar's is not a big place and features bench seating with a few tables.  There's a sitting bar along the walkway when you come into the place.  It's obviously not designed for comfort or to have people linger after their meal.  Out in front, there were a couple high-top tables with stools for al fresco eating.  

The menu is located on a monitor near the order counter at Oscar's.  They do have a grilled fish taco on the menu - the price is determined by the daily fresh catch Oscar's receives.  They had four or five different varieties of ceviche - a wonderful concoction of seafood marinated in lemon juice - including shrimp, scallops and bluefin tuna.  (I almost went for an order of the bluefin tuna ceviche.)  

Skirt steak tacos were available for those who didn't want a seafood taco, and a "surf-and-turf" taco consisting of grilled skirt steak and grilled shrimp was also on the menu.  Oscar's also had an al pastor taco and some vegetarian tacos.  

But I was there for the smoked fish tacos.  It was a basic taco just topped with shredded cabbage, some chihuahua cheese and a couple slices of fresh avocado.  (The smoked fish taco is on the left in the picture.)  

As I was looking at the menu board, something else caught my eye - a spicy grilled octopus taco.  Oh man!  I didn't even hesitate when I ordered one of those to go along with my smoked fish taco.  The spicy grilled octopus taco was topped with shredded cabbage, onions, chopped tomatoes, cilantro, fresh avocado slices and finished with chihuahua cheese.  

I tried the smoked fish taco first.  The chunks of whitefish had a distinctive smoky flavor and were just delicious.  "Mmmm....", I said after my second bite into the taco.  I usually don't like to have cheese on my fish tacos, but the white chihuahua cheese was a nice blend with the smoked fish.  It was absolutely delicious.

But the octopus taco - oh my GOD!!!  The octopus chunks were grilled with red pepper flakes giving it a spicy flavor with each bite.  The fresh cilantro, chopped onions and tomatoes were a nice cool balance to the spiciness of the octopus.  I was shaking my head as I was eating the spicy grilled octopus taco because I couldn't believe how scrumptious it was - and how incredibly easy it would have been able to make at home.  I'm sure that Oscar's does some other things in their food prep, and their grill has to be seasoned after over 10 years of use.  But the spicy grilled octopus taco was a hands down winner.  

One quick note - Oscar's does not have alcohol, so a margarita or a Mexican beer can't be had in their establishments.  However, they do have Mexican Coca-Cola and Jarritos soda pop available, as well as bottled water.  

I'm a sucker for a good fish taco and San Diego has been known for their large number of good to great fish taco places.  But the smoked fish taco and the spicy grilled octopus tacos at Oscar's Mexican Seafood may have been the best seafood tacos I've ever had.  Oscar's ingredients are fresh, the spices and seasonings have a nice blend, and while the place isn't all that fancy, the food more than makes up for the lack of ambiance.  I'm hoping to get back to Oscar's at some point for the bluefin tuna ceviche.  I just hope our accounts in the city do some business to justify me getting back there.