Road Tips

Huckleberry's - Rock Island, IL

A place that my wife and I have been over to in downtown Rock Island in the past - but not for awhile - is a pizza place called Huckleberry's.  They had gone through a devastating fire a few years back, but they rebuilt and reopened less than four months later.  We hadn't been there since they had reopened and it sort of dawned on us one Friday night that we needed to go try the place out again.

Huckleberry's owner, Jon Keim, and his then-girlfriend at the time - now wife - were asleep in their apartment above Huckleberry's when a fire broke out on an early Saturday morning in a building a couple doors from Huckleberry's that used to a cafe.  The building had been slated to be torn down at some point, and had been vacant for some time.  Keim and his girlfriend woke up when they smelled smoke and saw flames in the building next to them.  They were able to make it out, but Huckleberry's sustained heavy water and smoke damage, along with 8 other buildings.  Some of them had to be razed after the fire was put out.   Keim cleaned up the damage and rebuilt one of the two dining rooms at Huckleberry's and, miraculously, they reopened in early 2015.  Keim has now owned Huckleberry's for over 25 years.  

Huckleberry's is located on 18th Street in the heart of the Arts and Entertainment District of Rock Island, known locally as "The District".  (see map)  We were able to find a parking spot on the street in front of Huckleberry's, which is usually tough to do on a weekend evening given all the bars and restaurants in the immediate area.  

The main dining area as you go in to Huckleberry's looks pretty much the same as it was when we were last in there.  Knotty pine wooden booths were along the brick walls with tables on either side of a half wall in the center of the room.  The open kitchen area in the back was bustling with workers keeping up with pizza and calzone orders that were coming in for dine in and take out.  

The dining area off to the side that sustained considerable damage in the fire had a nice comfortable vibe to it.  This room is used for overflow or for events, primarily.  Surprisingly, no one was seated in the room that Friday evening.  

We were seated at one of the booths in the main dining area and given a couple menus to look over.  Our server for the evening, Jessica, came over to greet us and to take our drinks order.  They had a handful of craft beers on tap and in bottles including a number of Samuel Adams selections.  They had a lot of fruit beers available and the only IPA they had was a New Belgium Voodoo Ranger, but I've never really been a fan of the New Belgium beers.  I just sucked it up and got a domestic bottle.  My wife got a glass of the house chianti.  

Pizza and calzones are the main items Huckleberry's is most well-known for, but they also have a handful of pasta entrees including a bucatini pasta in a carbonara sauce with prosciutto ham and bacon, a shrimp and cheese tortellini with a basil pesto sauce, and an oven-baked pasta with penne pasta, in a spicy marinara with ground sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, onions and green peppers layer with a combination of cheddar and mozzarella cheese.  Sandwiches such as a meatball sub or an Italian beef hoagie were also available on Huckleberry's menu, as well as a number of appetizers and salads.  We split a Caesar's salad to start off with because my wife felt she needed some greens in her if we were going to be eating dough, cheese and greasy meats.  It was actually a pretty good salad. 

Since it had been awhile from our last visit, we remembered the calzones were pretty good.  But my wife was sort of thinking we needed to try their pizza, too.  We ordered both a small calzone and a 7" hand-tossed pizza - both with sausage, pepperoni and mushrooms - to share between the two of us.  The calzone came out in a big mound stuffed full of the Italian meats and mushrooms with a mixture of ricotta and mozzarella cheeses.  It was served with a side of their sweet marinara sauce to dip the calzone crust in.  The calzone was good, not great, but it was certainly fine for us.    

The pizza was loaded mozzarella cheese on the top and had a bit of caramelization of the cheese and crust around the edges.  It was far from a Quad City-style pizza - which my wife and don't care for - with four triangle cuts with generous amounts of the toppings under the thick and gooey mozzarella.  It wasn't the best pizza we've had, nor was it the worst.  But, like the calzone, it worked for what we were looking for that evening.  

The service was a little sketchy as our server would disappear for long periods of time after our food was served.  I wanted another beer and my wife had to flag down another server who took my beer order.  Jessica finally brought the bottle back to me and asked how things were going.  By that time, we were pretty much done with our meals leaving pieces of the pizza and calzone crusts on the plates.  

But other than our server sort of disappearing after our meal was served and not checking with us to see if we needed anything else - like another beer - we had little to no problems at Huckleberry's.  Well, we also thought it was a little pricey, however - for all we got with an individual sized pizza and a calzone with three toppings or ingredients, a Caesar's salad, domestic beers and a glass of wine - the bill came to just a shade over $50 bucks before tip and tax.   The calzone and the pizza we had were good - not great, but good.  I was a little crestfallen for the lack of a good selection of craft beers, and the majority of the craft beers were fruit-based which I don't care for.  The place is clean, cozy and comfortable, to say the least.  We decided that Huckleberry's was worthy of future visits and I especially want to try their oven-baked pasta entree at some point in the future.  If you're looking for a good and serviceable calzone or pizza - and don't mind paying a little more than other places in the area - I don't think you'll be disappointed in the ones at Huckleberry's.  

Cocina Madrigal - Phoenix

I was down in Phoenix earlier this year for a meeting and afterward I was able to get together with one of my two sisters who live in the Valley of the Sun.  I hadn't been to Phoenix in years - nearly 17 years, to be exact - and my sister asked me where I'd like to go for dinner.  Mexican food in Phoenix was always a favorite of mine when I would visit there years ago.  My sister turned me on to a number of good - and truly authentic - Mexican restaurants over the years and I told her to take me to some good Mexican place.  She had heard about a place on the south side of Phoenix situated west of the airport and she suggested we meet at Cocina Madrigal for dinner that evening.  

Leo Madrigal was born in Oaxaca, Mexico and as a teenager he worked in restaurants in Mexico City.  He learned how to cook both the Qaxacan - well known for their cheese, chocolate and molé sauces - and the more urban Mexico City-style cuisines before heading to Houston in the early 80's to work in restaurants there.  In 1988, Madrigal moved to Phoenix to start a family and he eventually became involved in the first Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Scottsdale. 

In 1998, Z'Tejas Southwestern Grill - which was based in Austin, TX - put their first location in Phoenix and hired Madrigal to be their corporate chef.  He developed a number of popular dishes for the restaurant, but after a number of years he moved on to being a menu consultant for a handful of restaurants including Hopdaddy, Eddie V's, Salty Sow, and Taco Guild.  

In 2015, the owners of the Z'Tejas Southwestern Grill filed for bankruptcy protection.  An ownership group out of Austin bought the restaurants - the ones that were still open, that is - and one of the first things they did was to hire Leo Madrigal back as their executive chef.  Madrigal helped stabilize the kitchens at Z'Tejas, but he was really looking at doing something else - something on his own.  

Pictured at right - Leo Madrigal.  Photo courtesy Cocina Madrigal.

Madrigal had lived in South Phoenix since 2002.  He liked it in South Phoenix, but he felt that the area was lacking in what he would call eclectic Mexican dishes.  He decided to start looking for a building to buy, but much of the real estate was too high for his budget.  However, a small restaurant space that was very close to his home became available and he grabbed the property.  The building was nearly 70 years old and needed some updating, but after renovations and getting things in order, Cocina Madrigal opened in June of 2018.  

I was staying at a hotel near Sky Harbor Airport and I got an Uber to take me over to Cocina Madrigal which was located a couple miles away.  As we were driving along E. Broadway, I noticed that there was a lot of police activity and some rather sketchy areas.  Passing a couple cop cars who had some guys handcuffed, my Uber driver told me, "Yeah, unfortunately, you see that a lot around here."  As we turned up S. 16th Street, I saw the sign for Cocina Madrigal on the left.  (see map)  The place looked, well, it didn't really look like an eclectic Mexican restaurant like my sister said it would be.  Getting out of the Uber, I thought to myself, "Good god, what has she gotten me into now?"

But upon entering Cocina Madrigal, I found a lively and pleasant place.  The dining room wasn't all that large, but it had a nice slate tile floor, plenty of lighting and it was very clean.  My sister had put in a reservation for us for 7 p.m., but she hadn't arrived yet.  

After checking in with the hostess, I went to the bar to wait for my sister to show up.  The bar area was a little darker than the dining room and also had a number of tables in the stucco-walled room.  I was greeted by a gregarious bartender who invited me to have a seat at the bar.  I ordered a Dos Equis Ambar that they had on tap.  It wasn't long before my sister showed up and we made it to our table in the dining room.  

We were greeted by our server for the evening, Eduardo, a tall, affable man with a big smile and a quick laugh.  I normally don't take pictures of my servers, but Eduardo was aces all night long.  He was excellent with his descriptions and explanations all night long.  He was a great guy.  He looked at me and said, "You look like you're the kind of guy who needs a top notch margarita."  I asked if he had one with Herradura and Cointreau sitting back at the bar with my name on it, and he laughed and said, "A man who knows how to drink a real margarita!"  My sister got one, as well.

Eduardo dropped off a couple menus for us to look through.  He gave a quick explanation on the food at Cocina Madrigal - everything was made fresh and from scratch.  It wasn't an extensive menu - just two pages, front and back - at least not like you'd find at most Mexican restaurants.  But many of the items sounded very interesting.  

While our drinks were getting made, a basket of chips with two different types of salsa was brought to the table by Eduardo.  "This is our house salsa," he said as he pointed to the larger of the two tubs in the basket.  "This one is our habanero salsa," as he pointed to the smaller of the two tubs.  "It's got a pretty good kick," he warned.  And it did.  Thankfully, I still had some of my beer left to help take the sting off of my tongue from the habanero salsa.

We also got some of Cocina Madrigal's guacamole.  It was made fresh with chunks of red onion, tomatoes, jalapeño, fresh lime juice and cilantro mixed in with the avocado.  With the fresh corn chips that were with the salsa, the guac was a great start to the meal.  And it helped cool down my mouth which was still raging somewhat from the bit of the habanero salsa that I tried.

One of the things on the menu that I wanted to try was the Hatch green chile pork appetizer.  It featured chunks of slow-roasted pork mixed in with Hatch chiles, cilantro, jalapeños, and garlic, all of which was topped with a jack cheese.  Fresh made flour tortillas came with it.  It was, in a word, incredible.  There were so many flavors just popping out of the mixture that were so unbelievable.  I could have just had that for my dinner that night, but there were so many other things that I wanted to try 

My sister was gung-ho about getting the wild mushroom enchilada.  It featured three wild mushrooms chopped, cooked and mixed in with jack cheese, rolled up in a corn tortilla and topped with sour cream, an avocado-tomato relish, and an ancho mole sauce.  It came with black beans and rice on the side.  She thought it was fabulous.  We were sharing food back and forth all night and she gave me a bite of it.  After tasting the wild mushroom enchilada, I had to wholeheartedly agree with her.  

I told Eduardo that I sort of wanted to try a little bit of everything on the menu, but I knew I would be limited.  I couldn't believe how great the pork and green chiles appetizer was and he suggested getting the barbacoa green chile enchilada.  He said that two normally come with the meal, but he could get me one and pro-rate the cost down.  The enchilada was filled with chunks of tender beef and topped with their great green chile sauce and shredded jack cheese.  It was delicious. 

I also got a couple tacos that my sister and I shared.   One was the tropical fish taco that was topped with chopped mango, a salsa picante, and a coconut cabbage mix.  The taste of that taco was unbelievable.  There were so many flavors popping in my mouth that I almost forgot it was a fish taco.  

The other taco was one of their signature items on their menu - the beef tenderloin taco.  Once again, Eduardo was accommodating enough to allow us to get one each rather than the three taco that normally come as a meal.  The beef tenderloin is marinated in a chipotle/pomegranate mixture grilled and served with fried Mexican peppers and crumbled gorgonzola cheese.  I was just shaking my head in amazement with the taste sensations I was experiencing.  

The meal we had at Cocina Madrigal was certainly a great experience.  Everything about the place - the food, the margaritas, the service from Eduardo - was top notch.  My sister still raves about the wild mushroom enchiladas when we talk from time to time.  I couldn't say enough about the great pork green chile appetizer and the barbacoa beef green chile enchilada that I had.  Cocina Madrigal may not be much to look at from the outside, but you can be guaranteed that the food inside would be worth the stop.

 

Middle Fork Cafe - New London, MN

During our vacation in the Spicer/New London area of West Central Minnesota, the manager at the hotel where we stayed completely oversold the breakfast they had when we checked into the place.  Since my wife has to have three square meals a day, we went out a couple mornings to find someplace to get something to start our day.  We had gone up to New London a couple days prior to check out the town (it was also somewhat oversold by the manager at the hotel), but we found a quaint little place on the main road through the downtown area called The Middle Fork Cafe.  We decided to head there for breakfast one morning.  

Cousins Cindy Finsaas and Suzanne Ziebarth are the owners of The Middle Fork Cafe which is named for the river that runs directly behind the restaurant - the Middle Fork of the Crow River.  The cafe is just downstream from the Mill Pond Dam which helps make a series of connected lakes that meander through the heart of New London.   

Finsaas is the only one of the two who had any previous restaurant experience as she was the original owner of Lulu Beans Coffee Shop in Willmar.  After selling the place in 2006, she was out of the restaurant industry for awhile before she decided it was time to do something.  Suzanne Ziebarth had been out of the country as a missionary for 16 years before moving back to Willmar about 8 years ago.  The two shared a love for locally-raised, natural foods and they started to look into doing their own farm-to-fork restaurant.  

The two found a spot in New London, a small town about 15 miles north of Willmar.  They had the opportunity to take over Jan's Riverside Cafe in downtown New London and the cousins decided to take the plunge in the spring of 2013.  The cousins did a complete renovation of the space with help from friends and family.  Contractors were brought in when needed, but Finsaas and Ziebarth oversaw most of the work.

Pictured right - Cindy Finsaas and Suzanne Ziebarth.  Photo courtesy West Central Tribune.  

After the remodeling was finished, Middle Fork Cafe opened in September of 2013.  At first, the restaurant was just opened for breakfast and lunch six days a week (closed Sunday).  But within a couple of years they began to stay open for dinner Thursday thru Saturday nights.  

The success of the Middle Fork Cafe in New London prompted Finsaas and Ziebarth to open a second location in their hometown of Willmar in July of 2018.  They partnered with local used-book store owner Heather King of the Flyleaf Book Shop to share their space in Willmar.  

It was a bright and sunny morning when we pulled into New London and found parking just down from Middle Fork Cafe on Main Street.  (see map)   Right inside the door was a refrigerated case that contained cakes and baked goods.  The cakes on display were decorated in a very ornate fashion.  We enquired after breakfast about some of the cakes they had and one was a lemon-blueberry cake - they had me at lemon, but blueberries are a wonderful combination with any lemon flavor.  

The inside dining area was a quaint and cozy area which featured a number of heavy wood tables and chairs.  The table tops were made from repurposed and refinished barn boards.  The floor was made from raw wooden planks that were found abandoned in a wooded area, sanded and finished.  Banquette seating along the wall was backed by a soft foam covered in fabric.  

Because it was such a beautiful morning, my wife said she wanted to sit out on the patio.  The patio area had a handful of metal-wire tables and chairs underneath a pergola made from repurposed wood from an old barn.  A trellis lined the back wall that looked out toward the Middle Fork of the Crow River. 

A young man came out with a couple menus for us to look over.  I got a bloody mary and an espresso to start out, while my wife got a glass of orange juice.  

The menu had both breakfast and lunch items listed.  Breakfast is served until 11 a.m. daily and they have pretty much what you'd expect for breakfast items - omelets, pancakes, French toast, a breakfast burrito and a breakfast croissant.   Pastries, muffins and rolls are made in-house.  For lunch, they have a number of sandwiches, salads and wraps to choose from.  A handful of gluten free items are available, as well. Everything Middle Fork Cafe has on their menu is locally-sourced and made-from-scratch.  

They make a quiche each day and my wife asked our server what the flavor of the day was.  It was a spinach quiche and my wife ordered that.  A side of fruit came with the quiche and she also got sourdough toast with her breakfast.  The quiche was big and fluffy with a caramelized cheese topping.  My wife was happy with her order.

I wasn't really all that hungry, but we were going to be out exploring the area and I didn't know if we would be having lunch or not.  I went pretty basic - two eggs over easy with bacon and sourdough toast.   It was fine for what it was, but I thought it was a little expensive - $7 bucks for two eggs, two pieces of bacon and sourdough toast.  

But still, we thought Middle Fork Cafe was a nice place for a good basic breakfast.  It was a quaint little place with a nice patio area.  My wife liked her spinach quiche and my basic eggs-bacon-toast was fine.  I liked that they had both espresso and bloody mary's available.  My only regret is that we never went back to get a piece of the lemon-blueberry cake that is made in-house at Middle Fork Cafe.  It was a nice little place and we were both happy with our meals.  

 

 

Prime Time - Guthrie Center, IA

During our summer vacation at Lake Panorama, located about an hour west of Des Moines, we stayed at my sister's fiancé's lake house.  He called me up about a week before we were going to be heading up and he said, "Hey, I was wanting to check with you to see if it were OK if your sister and I came out for the weekend when you guys are there."  I told him, well, sure!  After all, it was his place that he was letting us stay at, for god's sake.  They joined us on Friday afternoon and we talked about dinner options for the evening.  My sister's fiancé said there was only one option - a restaurant/bar in nearby Guthrie Center called Prime Time.  My sister was like, "Oooo, the prime rib at Prime Time.  Yes!"  Later that evening, we headed over to Guthrie Center for dinner at Prime Time.  (see map)

Actually, we had been in Prime Time a couple days before on a trip over to Guthrie Center for my wife to check out some shops.  I was bored and I ended up splitting off from her to go have a late morning bloody mary and a beer at Prime Time.  I think I took the lady behind the bar aback as I ordered a bloody mary and a bottle of beer at 11:30 in the morning with a number of people in the place having the lunch special that day - fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans.  The phone rang steadily with people inquiring about the lunch special.  I asked the lady if that was an every day occurrence, people calling to find out what the special is that day.  "Pretty much," she said.  "But when we have chicken, we usually sell out pretty quickly.  That's why it's a little more busy than usual in here today."   When my wife finally showed up to drag me out of the place, she was remarking about how busy the place was and it wasn't even noon yet.  

Since Guthrie Center isn't all that large - and dining options in the immediate area are limited - a place like Prime Time is extremely popular with the locals.  Open since 1996 and owned by Randy Rhodes, Prime Time was recently named as one of the 99 places to eat in the state of Iowa by Travel Iowa.  And just like when we were in there a couple days prior, prime rib nights - Friday and Saturday - at Prime Time are a big deal.  

From the outside, Prime Time's yellow stucco facade with fabric awnings give it the look of a Mexican restaurant.  But inside, there's a comfortable dining room with booths along a faux brick wall with faux arched windows attached above the booths.  Tables in the middle of the room were adorned with table cloths with muted lighting accenting the area.  

The bar area is much more lively than the dining room.  Beer signs and sports memorabilia adorn the walls.  A couple three flatscreen televisions were turned on to baseball games, and tables on step up platforms were in the front windows.  One of the ladies behind the bar instantly recognized my sister and her fiancé as they go to Prime Time on a regular basis when they stay at the lake.  It was early enough that the big crowd hadn't come in yet, so she sat us at a table next to the bar.   Drinks and beers were ordered and I took a look through the menu even though I was going to get the prime rib.  

Most other nights when they don't have the prime rib special, Prime Time features a number of entrees including a ribeye steak, pasta dishes, and a number of salads.  They have sandwiches on the main menu including a hot beef sandwich, a Philly cheesesteak sandwich, and a pork loin sandwich that you can get either grilled, breaded or Cajun-seasoned.  Burgers, appetizers, salads, and breaded seafood baskets are also available.  And along with the prime rib specials on Friday and Saturday nights, they also feature a walleye platter, chicken fried chicken, a Jack Daniel's-marinated grilled sirloin and a grilled peppercorn sirloin that is marinated in Italian dressing.   

My sister and her fiancé always order the large prime rib and share it.  They love the au jus and they always ask their waitress for extra tubs of the au jus.  I also ordered the prime rib, the smaller cut, and I asked our server if she could have the chef find the rarest piece in the kitchen.  And the chef did a good job with his search because the piece of prime rib she served me was pretty pink.  I had my choice of potato - my sister and her fiancé got the loaded baked potato, one each at an extra price - and I found out that they had tater tots.  I was happy about that.  Except they only had Tabasco instead of Cholula for me to put on my tots.  But that was all right.  

My wife isn't much of a prime rib fan.  At least she wasn't that night.  She ended up getting the steak de burgo special they had that evening.  It was a 12 ounce sirloin topped with a creamy de burgo sauce.  She got the loaded baked potato along with her steak.  A bread stick came with all our meals.  

The prime rib was very good.  It had a great beef flavor, it was very juicy and easy to cut.  The au jus that my sister's fiancé was raving about before the dinner turned out to be a little too salty for my taste.  But they really liked the au jus.  I just don't put a lot of salt on my food and when anything has heightened amounts of salt in it, my taste buds really pick up on that. Still, it wasn't a deal breaker.  I was able to get some fresh ground horseradish to go along with the prime rib, but it didn't really need anything else to help the wonderful taste.  

My wife was happy with her steak de burgo.  It was a big cut of meat and she was able to finish about half of it before having our server box up the rest to take back to the lakehouse.   But we went out for steak the next evening and she had to end up taking it back home in our cooler when we left on Sunday.  

My sister and her fiancé certainly didn't steer us wrong with their choice for dinner at Prime Time that evening.   It's a nice little place. People were friendly, the food was very good - pleasantly surprisingly good - and I thought it was a good value, too.  Prime Time is one of those out-of-the-way, under-the-radar kinds of places that I like to find and tell others about.  

Portillo's - Davenport, IA

Over the past year, I have been able to maintain my significant weight loss - although I haven't hit my overall goal, yet.  But I'm keeping it in sight.  But the momentum to keep the weight off has been seriously challenged by the opening of the first Portillo's location in Iowa about a five minute drive from my house.  Now, I've joked (well, worried, more likely) that if they ever opened a Portillo's in the Quad Cities that I'd balloon to over 400 pounds because I love the Chicago-based chain so much for their jumbo hot dogs and Italian beef sandwiches.  When they opened in June of this year, my wife and I purposely stayed away from the place as it was a zoo to get in and out of the parking lot for the first few months they were open.  However, on a recent Sunday night where I didn't feel like cooking, my wife and I made the short trek up to 53rd St. in Davenport to Portillo's.  (see map).  

I first wrote about Portillo's on Road Tips nearly 13 years ago.  (You can click here to see the post.)  It was long before I found a voice or a style-substance, or had a camera phone.  In my many trips to Chicago for business - and for pleasure - over the past 20 years, I've always had to stop at a Portillo's to satiate my jones for their food at least once during my visit.  It's far from healthy, but who said that great tasting food has to be healthy?  And while there may be other hot dog and/or Italian beef joints in Chicago that may be better in some eyes, I like the consistency and quality of the food at the Portillo's locations in Chicago. 

Dick Portillo grew up in poverty what would eventually become the Cabrini-Green projects of Chciago.  His father was an immigrant from Mexico, while his mother was an immigrant from Greece.  The family was so poor that his mother had to steal shoes from a nearby department store for one of her three children.  When young Richard Portillo was just five years old, the family was forced to sell his tricycle to help pay for food.  

Pictured right - Dick Portillo in front of a replica of the original "Dog House".  Photo courtesy Portillo's.

Although he was never tested as a child - probably because there wasn't such a test in the late 40's or early 50's - Portillo concluded later in life that he probably had ADHD.  He had trouble focusing in school, he preferred to get in fights rather than learn, and he was a very hyperactive child into his teens.  Barely graduating high school, a week later Portillo joined the U.S. Marines where he served a two-year stint.  

As a Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, Portillo showed his entrepreneurial moxie by working with a friend to transport other Marines to and from Tijuana for a $20 fee.  One time, he ran a stop sign in Tijuana and hit another car.  Knowing that he was in trouble, Portillo high-tailed it to the border, but was stopped by Mexican border guards and arrested.  He tried to bribe the jailer with $50 bucks to release him and his impounded car, but eventually had to spend a day and a half in jail.  That probably wasn't a good feeling for a guy under the age of 21 to have to spend even 10 minutes in a Mexican jail.  

Upon getting out of the Marines, Portillo - who by then was married to his high school sweetheart, Sharon - went through a series of jobs - 14 of them over an 18-month period.  Not happy with any of the jobs he had taken, he saw a business opportunity to open his own hot dog stand.  He asked his wife if he could take the $1100 dollars they had in their savings that would go toward being a small wagon that he could turn into a hot dog stand.   But Sharon was not happy about it - the Portillo's were living in a cramped apartment and she had hoped the $1100 in savings would go toward the down payment on a house for their growing family of a baby boy and another on the way.  However, Sharon's mother encouraged her to let Dick follow his dreams and Sharon finally relented.

Pictured left - Sharon Portillo standing outside of the original "Dog House".  Photo courtesy Crain's Chicago Business

Dick turned to his older brother who was managing a handful of Brown's Chicken restaurants for an additional loan to help get his business off the ground.  With money from savings and a loan from his brother, Dick bought a small trailer - 6 foot by 12 foot - and outfitted it with a peaked roof, a small kitchen and signage.   It had no bathroom or running water.  He got permission to park the trailer in a parking lot of a discount store along North Ave. in the Chicago suburb of Villa Park.  He ran water via a hose from an outdoor water spigot attached to the building.   Knowing that he would literally be in the dog house with Sharon if this all-or-nothing venture didn't work out, it gave his new business "The Dog House" a significant double meaning.  

The only problem was that Portillo didn't know who to make hot dogs.  His hot dogs were overcooked and his steamed buns were dried out.  And he also nearly ran himself out of business on top of that because all the Coca-Cola's he served were coming out green.  It turned out that he had neglected to clean out the water holding tanks after they were installed in the trailer.  

He finally went to a well known hot dog shop nearby - the venerable Gene and Jude's which had been open for 17 years - where Portillo sort of hung out watching their cooking techniques and took note of how they steamed the buns.  (He even snuck into the back room to see what kind of condiments they were buying.)   After figuring out how to get the hang of things, the Dog House was up and running on full steam.  

By 1967, Portillo had decided that The Dog House needed an upgrade and he replaced the original trailer with a new one.  But by 1969, he felt it was time to step up to the plate.   Portillo had felt The Dog House pretty outlived its usefulness as a trailer and a name and he was ready to move to a permanent location.  The first Portillo's location opened later that year and they expanded the menu into burgers and Italian beef sandwiches.  A second location opened in a mall owned by a man who partnered with Portillo to help him expand his business.  

Other concepts followed - Barney's was a barbecue place that was developed by Portillo, and Barnelli's was an Italian-themed place that served pasta and salads.  Some of the Barney's and Barnelli's were stand alone places, but Portillo came up with the idea to combine the two in with Portillo's locations.  It turned out to be a hit with many families who liked the idea where Dad could get an Italian beef sandwich, Mom could get a salad, and the kids could get either a hot dog or a hamburger, all under one roof.  

Not all of Portillo's ideas were successes, however.  In the mid-1990's, he came up with the Key Wester Fish and Pasta House concept in Naples, Florida .  He tried to model it after the fast casual style of Portillo's, and he put a second location in Naperville, IL in 1996.  The restaurants had their ups and downs as patrons didn't like the concept as much as they liked Portillo's.  He closed the Key Wester in 2011.  

Over the years, Dick Portillo became a larger than life figure as the face of Portillo's.  He counted a number of local and national celebrities as friends including Chicago natives Joe Mantegna, Jim Belushi, and Vince Vaughn.  In fact, Mantegna was said to be the one who suggested Portillo put a restaurant in Southern California to answer the cravings former Chicagoans living there had by missing Portillo's.  The first Portillo's location outside of Illinois opened in Buena Park, CA in 2005.  It wasn't long after that Portillo's expanded to the Phoenix area, a second location in Southern California, into Milwaukee and into Northwest Indiana.  The most unique aspect of Portillo's business was that the company owned all the buildings and real estate that their restaurants stood on.  Dick Portillo was a modern day success story taking $1100 out of his family's savings and procuring a small loan from his brother to start his hot dog business in 1963 into one day becoming a multi-millionaire.  

In 2014, Portillo announced that he was interested in slowing down to enjoy life and that he would be selling his restaurants.  He wanted to expand more Portillo's across the nation, but at the age of 74, he just didn't feel like he had it in him to make the significant plunge with his plans.  A large number of suitors lined up for the chance to buy the now-over 40 Portillo's locations and Portillo weeded out many of them after interviewing their ideas for the future of his company.  Finally, he found a worthy buyer - Berkshire Partners of Boston - who he felt encompassed his vision of what he saw Portillo's being in 20 years as the company hoped to expand Portillo's at the rate of five to seven locations annually.  Terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but industry analysts guesstimated that it may have been in the ballpark of $1 billion dollars.  

With Portillo stepping down after he sold the company to Berkshire Partners, the first CEO of the new Portillo's was a man by the name of Keith Kinsey.  Kinsey was a native of Moline, IL and attended the University of Illinois getting a degree in accounting.  Kinsey had previous executive experience with Chipotle and Noodles and Company before getting tabbed by Berkshire Partners as the new CEO of Portillo's in 2015.   Kinsey took a hands-on approach with Portillo's learning from the ground up working along side line workers at some of the Portillo's locations in the Chicagoland area.  And he seemed to work well with Portillo who would still show up at some of the grand openings of Portillo locations which were soon found in Minnesota, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Florida.

Almost since Kinsey was hired, rumors abounded in the Quad Cities that a Portillo's would be coming soon to the area.  Kinsey did put a Portillo's in the Champaign-Urbana area near the University of Illinois campus, but it seemed like the plans of putting a Portillo's in the Quad Cities were taken off the table when Kinsey retired in 2018.  

Kinsey was replaced by Michael Osanloo, a Chicago area-native who remarked that probably the first place he drove to when he got his driver's license as a teen was to a Portillo's.  Osanloo had previously been at P.F. Chang's as their CEO after earlier stints working for Kraft Foods and Caesars Entertainment.  (My sister does some part-time work for P.F. Chang's corporate office and she said that Osanloo was a delightful man and she was sorry to see him leave the company.)

Well, it turned out that the Quad Cities had been on Portillo's expansion list for quite sometime and it wasn't long after Osanloo was named CEO that they officially announced in August of last year that a Portillo's would open in Davenport along the very busy 53rd Avenue corridor sometime in the Spring of 2019.  Actually, the news about Portillo's had come out a couple months earlier during a zoning board meeting for a plot of land across from the new Costco which had been bought by a developer which would be used for a number of businesses including a Portillo's.  

While a number of houses were demolished for the new Portillo's and other businesses, residents living near the new site complained that the area couldn't handle the traffic or rainwater run-off that was already evident from Costco opening earlier in 2018.  However, things got sorted out with the nearby neighborhood including a new drainage system with holding tanks that would gradually release rainwater into the storm sewers.  The Davenport Portillo's started a soft opening in late April and it officially opened for business with a grand opening on June 13th of this year.  

Each of the Chicago area Portillo's has a theme to them - some of them have a Prohibition-era theme with signage and pictures from the Roaring 20's.  Some of them have a 50's theme with the decor reminiscent of a 1950's era soda shop along with music from the early days of rock and roll playing in the background.  And you'll also find Portillo's with a 30's theme complete with gangster photos and memorabilia.  The one in Davenport is sort of theme-less.  Oh, it has some old signs that may have been in a car dealership or garage from the 1950's.  It features a painting that gives a nod to Iowa's Field of Dreams.  But most of the signage touts they type of food they sell at Portillo's.   

There's an outdoor seating area at the Davenport Portillo's.  It was a cool night and there weren't many people taking advantage of the patio.  There was also a smaller dining room off to the side of the main dining room that could probably be used as a party room, if needed.  

Just like the other Portillo's, it's counter service where you place your orders, get a number, then head down to a pick-up window where a person yells out whimsical rhymes with the number they're calling.  "Number 32, this one is for you!  Number 48, no more wait!"  The menu consists of, of course, hot dogs, Polish sausage, Italian beef sandwiches, Italian beef and Polish sausage combo sandwiches, grilled or breaded chicken sandwiches, burgers, salads, grilled tuna sandwiches, and a meatball sandwich.  

My wife wanted to try one of Portillo's salads and she got the grilled chicken Caesar's salad.  Served in a standard issue Portillo's plastic bowl (they don't have to wash many dishes at Portillo's), it consisted of five or six strips of grilled chicken on a bed of romaine lettuce topped with croutons, parmesan cheese and a Caesar's dressing.  Cucumber slices and a sliced hard-boiled egg was also mixed in with the salad.  My wife thought it was fine, nothing special.  But she's had the salad at Portillo's in the Chicago area before so she knew what she was getting into.

My standard order at Portillo's is this - "Jumbo hot dog with everything, yes to sport peppers.  An Italian beef with mozzarella with both kinds of peppers, dipped.  And a bottle of water."  I order it so often that I had no trouble sitting here and remembering my usual order.   A jumbo hot dog is just that - a 1/4 lob. Vienna Beef hot dog.  And everything is yellow mustard, chopped onions and tomatoes, with a fluorescent green relish.  A couple of spicy sport peppers and a dill pickle spear finishes off the hot dog which is served on a poppy-seed bun.  I usually take the pickle spear off when I eat the hot dog at Portillo's and nosh on it in between bites.  I didn't expect the hot dog at the Davenport Portillo's to be any different than the ones that are in Chicago.  It had that great "snap" with each bite with that wonderful beef flavor that comes out with all the toppings.  

On the Italian beef at Portillo's, the both kinds of peppers are mild marinated sweet pepper slices, while the other is good ol' Chicago-style giardiniera - sliced carrots, cauliflower, and celery with sliced sport peppers that are all pickled together.  It has a wonderful spicy kick to the taste.  Some native Chicagoans will say it's blasphemous to put cheese of any kind on an Italian beef sandwich, but I don't live in Chicago.  The meat is sliced thin and kept in a warm bath of broth until the sandwiches are made up.  The bread was the typical Portillo's soft Italian bread that is dipped in the meat broth making it more messy, but - oh! - so good.  Like the hot dog, the taste and quality of the Italian beef sandwich at the new Portillo's in Davenport was very similar - if not the same - as the ones I've had in the Chicago area for over 20 years.  It's always an eight napkin meal when I have a hot dog and an Italian beef sandwich at any Portillo's.  And this was no exception.

My wife was sort of proud of herself for ordering the chicken Caesar's salad and for not finishing it all so she could take some home and have it for lunch the next day.  And she said, "I think I'd like a piece of their chocolate cake."  I asked if I could have a bite - I really didn't need any more food after the Italian beef sandwich and hot dog - and she said I could.  That is, if I went up and ordered it for her.  

Portillo's is famous for their chocolate cake and, quite honestly, this was the first time I'd ever tried it.  It's a fluffy two-layered cake made with, reportedly, mayo in the mixture.  The frosting is a lovely thick and rich tasting chocolate spread that is as sinful as is it good.  I realized about half-way through eating the cake that I had forgotten to get a picture of the slice we were served, so I grabbed this one off of Portillo's web site.  It's a big slice of cake and even we had trouble finishing it between the two of us.  

Since they've opened in the Quad Cities, I've been able to hold off going to Portillo's only a couple times now.  Actually, I'm sort of happy and somewhat proud of myself that I haven't been tempted into going to Portillo's any more than I have, or I would probably be well on my way to gaining back all - if not more - of the weight I was able to lose previously.  The one thing that I like about Portillo's is that the food is exactly the same at every one I've been to.  I know some will say that's boring, and with over 50 locations in seven states they are probably classified as a chain - something that I try to steer clear of when I'm on the road.  But it's tough to beat the food at a Portillo's and the one in Davenport is definitely no exception.   

La Rosa de Michoacan - East Moline, IL

If you're a regular reader of Road Tips, you've seen me say a number of times that the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois are blessed with the number of very good - and authentic - Mexican restaurants we have in the area.  50, 60 and over 70 years ago, Mexican migrant workers came to the Mississippi River valley to work in the melon fields.  Many stayed, raised families and became part of the community.   There's a large Hispanic community in the Quad Cities and East Moline is one of those areas where there's a sizable Mexican population.  My wife had heard about a place over there that supposedly had good Mexican food.  It was a place that I was not familiar with, but had probably driven by a handful of times in the past - La Rosa de Michoacan.  

Hugo and Rosa Hernandez had something in common before they were married 30 years ago in Mexico - they both could cook.  After exchanging vows, the couple immigrated to the U.S. with the hopes of starting their own Mexican restaurant.  They moved to the Quad Cities area and Hugo worked various jobs in and around the area until while Rosa stayed at home to raise her two children.  Rosa made some side money of her own making tamales and selling them to locals.  By 2006, they had saved up enough money to open their own little taqueria in East Moline.  The menu was limited with just tacos at the beginning, but if someone came in and said, "Boy, a burrito would be great," Rosa would whip one up.  

The couple soon found that more people were interested in their expertise of Michoacan-style foods - Michoacan is a Mexican state that hugs the Pacific Ocean, but also has a of streams and rivers that thread through hills and mountains further inland.  Michoacan has possibly the most diverse cultures in Mexico, and because of that many different styles of food are found in the area.  Michoacan cooking is seafood, chicken, pork and beef dishes, soups, tamales, and foods made with grains and foraged fruits.  It's often referred to as the "soul-food" of Mexico.  

We drove through Moline on 5th Ave./Illinois Highway 92 where it turns into 18th Ave. when you get into East Moline.  My GPS took us right to the corner of 18th Ave. and 19th St., but we were having trouble finding La Rosa de Michoacan.  Finally, my wife said, "Oh, there it is!"  She pointed to the bright orange building just south of the intersection. (see map)  Had it been a snake - as the old saying goes - it would have bit me.  (My wife often says that I'm not very observant.)

We went inside La Rosa de Michoacan and immediately faced the open kitchen behind the front counter.  The young lady behind the counter was doing something and she looked up and said with a smile on her face, "You guys can sit anywhere.  We'll be out in a moment, OK?"  

Walking into the dining room, we found a bright room with a number of tables, chairs and booths throughout.  Some Mexican artwork hung on the faux stone walls that had been painted a subtle blue hue.  A couple flat screen televisions were hung in the corners and tuned into a soccer match from Mexico. 

We took a seat in a booth next to a window.  She soon brought out a basket of chips with salsa and dropped off a couple menus.  She took our drink orders - they had a handful of Mexican beers, but the two I asked for - Sol and Dos Equis Ambar - they didn't stock.  They did have the Modelo Especial beer and I got one of those.  

They had margaritas at La Rosa de Michoacan and that's what my wife ordered.  (They also have soft drinks such as Mexican Coca-Cola and Jarritos available, as well.)   However, my wife thought the margarita was too sweet and syrupy.  "I'm sure they just use a commercial mix for their margaritas," said my wife who knows her margaritas and can be rather particular about them.    

As I said, the menu expanded tremendously since the place opened over 13 years ago.  Burritos, enchiladas, soups, salads and, of course, tacos were the main items on the menu.  La Rosa de Michoacan opens at 8 a.m. Tuesday thru Saturday and they have a number of Mexican-style breakfast items as well.  

One of the signature items is the La Rosa burrito.  It comes in three sizes - small, large and extra-large.  I got the large and it covered the whole plate.  (I could only imagine how large the EXTRA-large burrito was!)  It was filled with refried beans, rice, cilantro and onions.  I had a choice of sauce that I could put on top of the burrito and I got pork salsa verde - large chunks of pork in a green sauce.  Cheese was melted on top of the burrito which was covered with the sauce.  

My wife wanted to try a little bit of everything.  Her daughter is married to a Mexican native who knows his way around a kitchen very well.  He has told us that you can tell how good any Mexican restaurant is just by having a couple of their tacos.  My wife went with a carne asada taco, a Nopales (cactus) taco and a chile relleno.  She got them Mexican-style on soft corn tortillas with chopped onions and cilantro.  Our server also brought out a salsa verde sauce (without the pork) and a red salsa that was different from the one that she served us with our chips.  

The pork salsa verde had a wonderful taste and it mixed well with the contents of the burrito.  I found myself adding even more of the salsa verde she brought out with the meal, but the red sauce she brought out was ¡muy caliente!  I had to get another beer to help take the sting off my tongue.  

I thought my large burrito was delicious.  It was way too much food - a small burrito with a taco on the side would have probably sufficed.  But it was so good that I was having trouble stopping and I found myself staring at the last two bites and becoming immediately embarrassed that I nearly ate the whole thing.   My wife said, "Well, you may as well finish it off.  This will probably be your own meal of the day."  So, I did...

My wife was very happy with her Nopales taco, but she thought the steak on the carne asada taco was a little overcooked and crispy.  And she thought the chile relleno was good, but a little too spicy for her.  But I think she was happy with her food, although I caught her eyeing my burrito from time to time.  

You can tell when Mexican food is made from scratch with fresh ingredients, and that's exactly how the food at La Rosa de Michocan is.  I thoroughly enjoyed - and overate - the La Rosa burrito with the pork salsa verde sauce slathered on top.  My wife was happy enough with her two tacos (although she thought the steak was a bit overcooked) and her chile relleno (but she also thought it was a little too spicy for her).  The service was prompt and friendly, the place was bright and clean, and it was a pleasant experience all the way around.  We've been back since our initial visit and now, and we were more than happy with the food experience and the friendly atmosphere at La Rosa de Michoacan.    

The Old Place - Agoura Hills, CA

During a business trip to Southern California for meetings earlier this year, our company took us out to dinner on a Sunday night to a restaurant up in the Santa Monica mountains north of Malibu.  Pulling up in front of the place, I sort of thought, "What the hell kind of place is this?"  It was a small building, set back from the road a bit with a facade that looked like it was an old Western saloon from the 1880's, complete with a deer rack on the front. With a bit of trepidation, I got out of the car and wandered into this restaurant by the name of The Old Place.  

The man who founded The Old Place in 1970 - Tom Runyon - had a pretty colorful history behind him.  He was born in Washington D.C to Charles Runyon II, who was a lawyer at the State Department, and Cornelia Runyon, who was an artist and sculptor.  In 1923, Tom's father packed up his family, including Tom's older brother Charles III - who would later become the dean of law at Yale - and moved west to be closer to Tom's uncle who had moved to California a few years before.  

Tom's uncle, Carmen Runyon, was a coal baron in the days before coal went on the decline as a fuel source.  Carmen Runyon bought a plot of land in the hills above Hollywood in 1919 - the year before Tom was born - which included a canyon that was originally called "No Man's Canyon".  Tom's uncle put in a hunting lodge on the property and Tom would spend his early years exploring and hunting in the canyon. (Today, that canyon - Runyon Canyon - is a popular outdoor recreation area in the city of Los Angeles.)  

Charles Runyon II died in 1927 and Cornelia Runyon moved herself and her two boys to Brentwood on the west side of Los Angeles.  But young Tom's heart remained in the canyon that his uncle owned. He would trap for wild animals - mountain lions had a healthy bounty back in the 1930's - and he'd sell their pelts along with pelts from raccoons and bobcats that he'd trap.  

When he was in high school, Tom started to raise and train falcons.  The story goes that he would take a rifle to school and hide it in his locker so he could shoot pigeons on the way home to feed to his falcons.  (The 1930's were a much more simple time, weren't they?  Can you imagine bringing a rifle onto school grounds - even keeping one in a car - today?)  

Times were tough for the widow Runyon in the 1930's and the family was forced to rent out their house while they stayed in the chauffeur's quarters in the garage.  After his brother had gone off to college, Runyon's mother felt that Brentwood was becoming too expensive to live in and too crowded with people who had the same ideas about moving to Southern California that the Runyon family had earlier on.  She built a home on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean just west of Malibu and moved there in 1937.  

Thanks to his mother's charm and his brother's legacy, Tom got a scholarship to a boarding school up the coast in Carpinteria, CA to finish out his high school years.  But Tom didn't like to study.  He bought a car that could pull a horse trailer that he would drive up and down the coast to explore and hunt the hills and canyons on horseback.  

When he was 19, Runyon bought his first airplane and fell in love with flying.  Just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he signed up for the Army Air Corps and eventually saw action in World War II flying cargo missions in North Africa and Italy.  After the war was over, Runyan stayed in the Air Corps and rose to the rank of major.  

After being discharged from the Air Corps, Runyon went to New York City to study writing at Columbia University.  He wrote articles for magazines - primarily fiction stories - before heading back out to California in the late 1950's.  

Runyon immersed himself in the then-hot L.A. art community, living in a rented apartment above the carousel at the Santa Monica Pier in the late 50's and early 60's.  Tom loved the party life and he hosted a number of soirees with legendary food and liquor spreads for people who were deep into the art scene in Los Angeles.  One of those artists, Barbara "BoBo" Bell, caught the eye of Runyon and the couple eventually married in 1961.  Thinking that he needed to settle down a bit and start a family, the Runyon's moved to his mother's home in Malibu that year.  The couple were soon blessed with two children, a girl and a boy.

While living in Malibu, Runyon became friends with Dudley Murphy who owned a local restaurant/hotel on the Pacific Coast Highway overlooking the Pacific.  A child of the Great Depression, Runyon had saved his money and started to invest in land parcels with Murphy in the hills above Malibu.  The two donated a large parcel of land back to Los Angeles County in the mid-60's so a connecting road through the hills north of Malibu could be built.  

Pictured at right - Tom Runyon.  Picture courtesy the Runyon family and the Tompanga Messenger.  

Runyon also invested in properties on his own.  One of the places he bought was an old building along Mulholland Drive in an area known as Cornell.  The building dated back to 1914 when it was originally built as a general store, but later served as the post office for the small town of Cornell.  It had been abandoned a few years earlier and had become rather run down.  Runyon bought the place and buildings next to it in 1968 with the intention of restoring the central area of Cornell to the way it was when it was a ranching community.

Not really knowing what to do with the old buildings, an old friend suggested that Runyon open a restaurant because he was so good at hosting parties.  Having a taste of the restaurant lifestyle while hanging around Murphy's inn, Runyon thought a small steakhouse would be the perfect starting point.  Because the building was so dilapidated when he took it over, it took Runyon nearly two years of restoring and renovating the place into a very basic restaurant.  He always referred the building as "The Old Place" and the name stuck when it opened in 1970.  

Initially, the Old Place had just two employees - Tom, who cooked, washed dishes, and was the bartender; and Barbara, who waited on tables.  It had a very rustic appearance including swinging front doors like an old-time Western saloon.  And they only sold two things - steaks and clams.  (The clams were a nod to Runyon's youth when he would go back to the family's home on the New Jersey shore for visits.)  

The Old Place was the antithesis of the glitz and glamor in L.A. and it became a favorite place for movie stars and other industry heavyweights to hide out and let their hair down.  It wasn't out of the ordinary to see a movie star who was living in Malibu seated at the bar next to a local ranch hand or a guy who had been hunting in the hills.  

One of the regulars at The Old Place was actor Steve McQueen who lived nearby with his wife, Ali McGraw.  Director Sam Peckinpah was also a regular who hung out at The Old Place.  McQueen and Peckinpah collaborated in a movie called "The Getaway" in 1972 that starred McQueen and McGraw.  The three thought Runyon was such an interesting character in real life that he was cast as a bad guy in the movie.  It was the first of a handful of bit roles for Runyon who also was cast in other films such as "Convoy" and "Every Which Way But Loose."  

Bob Dylan would hang out at The Old Place on occasion, as well.  One weekend, Dylan was playing an old piano in the back of the place.  A guy sitting on the bar remarked to Runyon that the guy sort of looked like Bob Dylan.  And he sort of sounded like Bob Dylan when he sung.  "Probably because he is Bob Dylan," Runyon replied to the customer.  

Tom Runyon was able to renovate other buildings and recapture some of the old ranch town essence of Cornell, which was eventually absorbed into the nearby community of Agoura Hills.  He continued to run The Old Place - now with more employees - with Barbara deep into his 80's.  In July of 2009, Runyon passed away peacefully at his Malibu home at the age of 89.  The Old Place had been closed for a few weeks before and after Runyon's death, but his son, Morgan - who was a director of commercials and music videos, and who is somewhat famous for the Runman trilogy of underground cult surf movies - reopened The Old Place in late 2009 with partner Tim Skogstrom from the next door Cornell Winery and they continue to run the rustic steakhouse today.  

From our hotel to The Old Place was about a 15 minute drive up into the Saratoga Hills of the Santa Monica Mountains and through a number of twists and turns before we ended up on Mulholland Drive.  A quick left and around a curve brought us to the front of The Old Place.  (see map)  Upon entering the place, the bar is prominently the focus of the low-ceilinged dining area in The Old Place.  It featured a bench instead of bar stools with antique light fixtures hanging from the ceiling.  There were a series of heavy wood tables and booths in the small place.  It was a pretty funky place - the restrooms were outside, around the building and to the back of the building.  

We were a party of about 30 and there was no private area for us to all sit, so it was sort of catch-as-catch-can when it came to seating.  I settled in with five other people crammed into a booth on the wall opposite the bar area.   We immediately ordered a bottle of red wine for the table - a cabernet from the Opolo winery in Paso Robles, CA.  The wine glasses were little cocktail glass - no stemware could be found even with a nice wine list.  

I also wanted to start out with a beer and asked the server what kind of IPA's or pale ales they may have.  He said that they had an IPA from the HopSaint Brewing Company in the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance.  It featured west coast hops that were very prevalent on the tongue, but had a nice smooth citrus finish to it.  It was a very good IPA.   

The menu at The Old Place has expanded since it's opening nearly 50 years ago, but not by much.  They still offered a sirloin or a ribeye steak, and the steamed clams were still part of the appetizer menu.  But items such as an organic grilled chicken breast in a white wine and sage marinade, beef stew and a chicken pot pie were part of the entrees listed on the menu.  Appetizers included a New England-style clam chowder, a noodle & cheese bake that was The Old Place's variation on a mac & cheese dish, and a mushroom skillet that featured button, porcini and portobello mushrooms sautéed in a white wine, butter, cream, garlic, onion and thyme reduction sauce.  It was topped with parmesan cheese and served with sour dough bread.  

Personally, I wanted to try that, but I was outvoted at our table for the cheese and meat board.  It featured soppressata and prosciutto for the meats, and the cheese was a gouda rubbed in espresso, a lavender-flavored goat cheese, and a parmigiana-reggiano cheese.  Olives, toasted bread points, and smoked almonds came with the meat and cheese.  It was all right, but I think I would have preferred the mushroom skillet a little more.  

One of the items they did not have on the menu that evening was a bone-in filet.  And that's what I got.  I had them cook it medium-rare rather than the normal rare that I usually order for filets.  But with the bone-in, it's a little more tough to cut around the bone if the meat is too rare.  It came with a loaded baked potato the had real bacon bits, butter and sour cream on top.  The bone-in filet was magnificent.  All their steaks are grilled over oak wood and the taste of the wood-fired steak was outstanding.  

My colleague, Todd, got the seafood "catch-of-the-day" - the halibut.  It was sort of ironic that he got the halibut as we all went deep sea fishing earlier in the day as a company "team-building" exercise.  (It was fun for about two hours, but unfortunately, we were out on the boat for seven hours.)  Todd caught the biggest fish of a the day which was, of course, a halibut.  But one of the crew members described it as a "small one".  I'm guessing it was around 15 pounds, but the guy told me that it was a California halibut which grow to be about 35 to 40 pounds.  He said that Pacific halibut can grow to 350 pounds or more.  Nonetheless, my colleague, Todd, thought the grilled halibut - which was served on a bed of rice and topped with scallions - was very good.    

One of my other colleagues got the sirloin salad - a small sliced sirloin that is placed on top of a bed of lettuce with avocado slices and sliced hearts of palm.  It looked pretty good and he said that he was happy with his choice.   

Any bit of doubt that I had when entering The Old Place went out the window with the delicious bone-in filet that I had for my meal that evening.  The place was indeed funky and unique, and after learning the history of the place - and for it being known as a popular "hideout" for some of the more famous people in the Malibu area - I decided that I really liked it.   We were a little cramped with six people seated in the heavy wood booth, but we made the best of it.  Service was pretty good as we were tag teamed by a handful of servers to take care of any request we may have had.  It's nothing fancy and it isn't fine dining, but my steak - I thought - was very good.  And that's saying something about California steaks from a Midwestern boy.  As I'm sitting here writing, I'm nodding my head as I remember the meal and the atmosphere at The Old Place and happy that we had the chance to go there.  

Goat Ridge Brewing Co./Model Citizen - New London, MN

During our vacation in the Glacier Lakes region of West Central Minnesota earlier this summer, we found out that there was a brew pub in the small town of New London, the sister city to Spicer which were about five miles apart.  And upon visiting the brew pub, we found out that they had a farm-to-fork restaurant with locally sourced foods attached to the place.  The restaurant happened to be closed the first time we went to the brew pub, but we went back the next day to give it a try.   Here are two of the more memorable places we went to during our vacation - Goat Ridge Brewing Company and Model Citizen - the Restaurant.

Josh Reed grew up on his family's farm outside of Brooten, MN.  Learning about helping and maintaining the environment while working on the farm led Reed to study natural resource management at Western Washington University.  After college, he landed an environmental resource gig with the federal government that kept him the Pacific Northwest.  Reed loved the areas craft beers and in the mid-90's he started to brew his own beer at home, even raising some of the hops he would eventually use in his beers.

Reed married a young lady from Brooten by the name of Christa Otteson and the couple lived in the Seattle area for a handful of years, but had a hankering to move back to Minnesota at some point to raise a family.  After much conversation and planning, Reed and Otteson moved back to the Brooten area in 2010 and lived on a homestead that had been in Otteson's family for years.  The acreage sat on a glacial ridge they nicknamed Goat Ridge and it was there where Reed - who was working for a non-profit organization upon his return to Minnesota - started to grow hops that he would sell to various brewpubs around Minnesota.  But his dream was to one day have his own brewpub where he could share his beers with the public.  

Reed started working on a business plan and found that it was sort of difficult to come up with the proper paperwork for the plan.  Then fate intervened where at a gathering in Brooten, Reed met Kelly Asche, a community and economic development director whose wife also grew up in Brooten.  Reed and Asche found that they both had a love for homebrewing and when Reed told Asche that he was trying to come up with a business plan to one day present to the bank for a business loan, but he was having some difficulty with it.  Asche agreed to look at the business plan and after some tweaks here and there, he told Reed he could help with the financing in the venture with his community development contacts.  The two formed a partnership with Reed as the head brewer in the new project with Asche as his assistant brewer. 

After quitting his job at the non-profit in October of 2014, Reed found a building along the bank of the Middle Fork of the Crow River that ran through New London, MN.  It was an 1800 square foot building that had been a variety of businesses in the past including a car repair shop.   Reed, Asche and Otteson renovated the building using reclaimed barn boards and using repurposed furniture for tables and chairs.  With the brew tanks up and running in early 2015, Goat Ridge Brewing Co. opened their doors in April of that year.

The nano-brewery is located on Central Ave. W. in New London, just west of State Highway 9 that is the main north-south road through New London.  (see map)  Head-in parking is available on the street next to Goat Ridge, but a municipal lot is just across the street.  The bar is to the left as you come into the place.   We took a seat at the bar and a young lady greeted us.  We took a look at the beers they had to offer that day - Goat Ridge changes beers pretty regularly - and I ended up getting their Kolsch, a great summertime beer.  (Actually, I think a Kolsch is a good beer at any time of the year.)  My wife tried a couple of their beers in a sampler size - a New England IPA that was a little too fruity for her taste, but she ended up liking the Smash Mosaic, a forward hopped flavored IPA that was actually pretty good.  In fact, for my second beer I went with the Smash Mosaic.  And I thought it was a pretty good deal, too, as a 20 ounce pour of Goat Ridge's beers were $6 bucks.

Out back is a pretty good sized beer garden that featured picnic tables and Adirondack chairs that looked out onto the Middle Fork of the Crow River.  The water rushes past the beer garden coming from the Mill Pond Dam which holds water from the Middle Crow for some nice little connected lakes and ponds around the very picturesque town of New London.  At one end of the beer garden was a small stage for live music at Goat's Ridge.  I was somewhat amazed to see that they were going to have Chris Duarte - a very good blues guitarist who I've seen a handful of times in the past, primarily at Summerfest in Milwaukee - playing there.  Unfortunately, it was going to be on that Saturday night and we would be making our way back home when he was there.  But I was impressed that they could get talent like Chris Duarte to play there.  

There's an addition off to the side of the tap room and just behind the outdoor stage.   A small local political group was having a meeting in there when we were there that evening.  Later on, after they left, we saw a family in there playing one of the  board games that Goat Ridge keeps in or near the room.  It was kind of a whimsical space with mismatched chairs, old drapes and even an old church pew on which to sit.  

Directly behind the bar is the brew room.  Glistening brew tanks stood tall in the very clean facility.  The room had that sort of malty and hoppy fragrance to it.  

Seated at the bar, we were befriended by a young couple who had a lake home on Green Lake in Spicer, but their primary home was in Willmar, about 15 miles away.  They had sent their kids off to church camp and were having their own vacation at their lake home.  My wife recognized them from the night before when we were sitting out by the dock at Zorbaz in Spicer and they pulled up in their pontoon boat.  My wife made small talk with them as they were leaving later on - I don't remember because I was on my 4th mai tai at that point.  But the woman told us, "We had just pulled out of the dock at Zorbaz and I told him (her husband), 'You know, those people look like they would be fun on a boat ride.'  We came back to see if you wanted a boat ride, but you were already walking away."  I told her that it was probably a good idea that we didn't go on the boat ride as I was pretty popped from all the mai tais I had.  They were really fun to talk to and gave us some good recommendations on places to go and do and see - as well as some other bars and restaurants - in the area

They had actually come in to have dinner that night at Model Citizen, the farm-to-fork restaurant attached to Goat Ridge Brewing Co.  We had looked the place up on line before we got up there and the web site said they would be closed that evening as they were extending some days off after the Fourth of July holiday.  But Model Citizen was open the next day and we went there for a late lunch/early dinner.

Josh Reed wanted to expand his taproom and possibly put in a restaurant.  But he didn't have any experience running a restaurant, nor did his wife.  At the same time, it turned out that a couple of young chefs in the Twin Cities, Mateo Mackbee and Erin Lucas, were looking for a change of scenery, a more simpler way of making food rather than the high-end cuisine they had been involved with for years.  Once again, it was divine intervention - this time helped out by a man of the cloth from the New London area - that brought Reed and Otteson together with Mackbee and Lucas.  

Mateo Mackbee had a long resume of working as a chef for some of the finest restaurants in the Twin Cities.  Erin Lucas was a Culinary Institute of America-trained pastry chef who met Mackbee when they were both working at Mozza Mia, an upscale wood-fired pizza place in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina.  Lucas and Mackbee both liked to prepare and eat naturally-raised foods and they harbored a dream of one day owning their own small place that made and served locally grown foods to patrons, while also teaching young teens the ins-and-outs of a farm-to-fork restaurant.   A chef with Mackbee's background usually finds someone who likes what he does and backs him in a restaurant.  But that wasn't happening with him - Mackbee was a black man in the culinary world of predominantly white males.  

It was one evening when Mackbee was sitting at a bar in the Twin Cities when a man came in and sat down next to him.  It turned out that the man was a Lutheran minister - Pastor Mark Kopka from the Nordland Lutheran Church which is located between Paynesville, MN and Spicer, MN, not far from New London.  Mackbee and Kopka talked at length that evening about their hopes and dreams.  Kopka and Mackbee kept in touch with one another over the next four years and it was Pastor Kopka who became the intermediary in getting Mackbee and Lucas in touch with Josh Reed.  

Pictured at right - Josh Reed, Erin Lucas and Mateo Mackbee.  Photo courtesy West Central Tribune.

Pastor Kopka knew that Reed wanted to expand and add a space for a restaurant, but he didn't have anyone available to run it.  But he also knew that Mackbee and Lucas were looking for an opportunity.  Finally, Kopka went to the couple and told them that he had an offer - he was able to procure some land near New London that the two of them could use to raise their own organic produce, and that there was a chance to run the restaurant of their dreams in New London, as well.

Mackbee and Lucas drove out to New London to meet with Josh Reed and Christa Otteson.  The couples hit it off immediately, and after subsequent visits it was determined that Mackbee and Lucas would be the perfect fit to run the restaurant space they wanted to build.  Work on an 1800-square foot expansion of Goat Ridge began in late 2017 with Reed and Otteson financing the build-out of the restaurant space and kitchen.  In the meantime, Mackbee and Lucas began to network with a number of local farmers who could supply them with the organic produce, meats and dairy products.  Mackbee would be the main chef while Lucas would be the kitchen supervisor/coordinator and also bake bread and pies.  Once everything was in place, Mackbee and Lucas opened Model Citizen in June of 2018.  

Model Citizen is counter service only with no wait staff.  Patrons are asked to bus their dishes after they've finished.  The restaurant furniture is similar to what we saw in the small area off to the side of the tap room at Goat Ridge including a church pew that is used for banquette seating along one wall.  The chairs and tables can be easily moved to make the expanded room a dance floor if needed.  

The food counter is opposite the bar area in the expanded tap room at Goat Ridge.  They have a chalkboard above and to the right of the window that shows daily specials, as well as a list of farms they're working with - all within a 100-mile radius of New London - and what food or produce that farm provided.  Sometimes local people with backyard gardens will come in with vegetables that they just give to Model Citizen because they would go to waste because they had too many tomatoes, peppers or beans.  

They have printed menus at the counter, but many of the items are subject to availability since they source all the food at Model Citizen locally.  For example, my wife saw that they had an asparagus salad on the menu, but it was crossed off that day as they were out of asparagus.  (As we were having our lunch, a lady came in with tubs of asparagus to drop off.  "I guess the asparagus salad is back on the menu," my wife quipped.)  It's not an extensive menu at Model Citizen, but they had entrees such as a baked mac & cheese with blue cheese, muenster, and cheddar cheese, as well as a ratatouille pasta dish.   Sandwiches such as chicken parm, a roast beef sandwich, and a BLT (that I almost got considering they sourced everything locally) were available as was a grass-fed burger.  Shared plates such as a meat and cheese board, tempura battered veggies, and a sautéed kale with a garlic pesto on toasted rye bread were also available.  After 4:30 p.m., Modern Citizen fires up their wood-fired grill for beef, pork or chicken specials of the evening.  

We stepped up to the counter to order our food and Mateo Mackbee took our order directly.  My wife went with the steak salad - a heaping helping of arugula mixed with roasted red potatoes and onions all mixed in with chunks of steak, topped with fresh shaved parmesan cheese and a house dressing.  It was a huge salad and my wife couldn't help but remark how fresh the arugula tasted.  "This is definitely farm fresh," she said between bites.  "I've never gotten arugula like this in a store."  

Since everything at Modern Citizen is made from scratch, it takes awhile for some orders to make it to the table.  That was no problem as I we were enjoying the Smash Mosaic from the bar at Goat Ridge while we waited for our food to show up.  It turned out the hold-up was my fault - I ordered the jambalaya.  Mateo Mackbee's family on his mother's side hails from New Orleans and this was obviously one of the recipes he has taken from the family.  This was true jambalaya with big chunks of andouille sausage, shrimp, chicken, the "holy trinity" of onions, bell peppers and celery, with a rich and fresh tomato broth on a bed of jasmine rice.   A lot of times if I'm having jambalaya in a restaurant, I'll get some Tabasco to help give it a kick.  This jambalaya didn't need any help as it had a kick of its own.  It was simply outstanding, some of the best and most authentic jambalaya I've ever had.

My wife and I loved everything about both Goat Ridge Brewing Company and Model Citizen - The Restaurant.  The beer was very good, the food we had was excellent, the vibe of the place was laid-back and the staff and patrons were extremely friendly, and we felt that it was one of the better brew pub experiences we've ever had.  Having something like Goat Ridge and Model Citizen in a small town like New London was very unique.  We were there no less than three times because we liked the place so very much.  It's an hour drive down from St. Cloud and I may have to go back to New London at some point when I get back up that way when the weather gets better in the Spring of 2020.  

 

County Road Ice House - Kansas City

During a stay in the downtown area of Kansas City earlier this summer, I ventured up to the Power & Light District to find a place to eat.  After eating at an Irish pub across from the Sprint Center and walking back to my hotel, I passed a place that had a sign on a pillar out front which said "Award Winning BBQ by Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Cue".   But the sign above the door said "County Road Ice House".  I went in to take a quick look around the place it turns out that it was a beer bar that just happened to have barbecue from Joe's Kansas City in the place.  After a few moments of lingering looking around the place decided that I'd come back the next night for dinner.

Joe's Kansas City Barbecue - which was formerly known as Oklahoma Joe's BBQ - is a Kansas City institution in a city that has a number of world class barbecue joints.  I first went to Oklahoma Joe's in Kansas City, KS over 9 years ago (click here to see that Road Tips entry, as well as this entry for their Olathe, KS location) and at the time I thought it may have been the best barbecue I've ever had.  I don't know if I can call it the best I've had now, but it would definitely make my Top 5 along with Q39 in Kansas City, Central BBQ in Memphis, and Bogart's and Pappy's, both in St. Louis.  The original Oklahoma Joe's was named after the brand of smokers designed and owned by Roger Davidson, a resident of Stillwater, OK.  Davidson was a regular on the barbecue contest circuit along with his brother Joe Don Davidson, and the brothers struck up a friendship with Jeff Stehney whose Slaughterhouse Five competition team won many awards for their smoked meats at contests around the Midwest and beyond.  

Stehney and the Davidson's opened the first Oklahoma Joe's BBQ in Stillwater in January of 1996.  Stehney, who lived in the Kansas City area, wanted to open second location in Kansas City.   Stehney found an old gas station at 47th and Mission on the Kansas side of the state line and converted it into a barbecue joint.  The K.C. location for Oklahoma Joe's opened in August of 1996 with Stehney and his wife, Joy, as managing partners.  

Roger Davidson sold his interest in Oklahoma Joe's smokers the following year and moved to Texas and his brother soon followed.  With no one overseeing the management of the Oklahoma Joe's in Stillwater, it closed up in 1998.  However, the Stehney's forged ahead with their barbecue joint in Kansas City.  They bought out the Davidson's interest in the Kansas City Oklahoma Joe's and it quickly became one of the top places for barbecue in the area. 

The name Oklahoma Joe was confusing to a number of people who would travel to Kansas City to try barbecue.  The Stehney's had been thinking about changing the name for a number of years before slowly incorporating the Joe's Kansas City Barbecue name into the business.  They came out with a barbecue sauce in 2011 replacing Oklahoma Joe's with Joe's Kansas City in the brand name, and the next year they introduced a French fry/fried potato seasoning with the Joe's Kansas City Barbecue name.  In the summer of 2014, the Stehney's officially changed the name to the present day moniker, but most of the locals refer to it as just "Joe's" or "Joe's KC".  

The Power & Light District in downtown Kansas City has had its ups and downs over the years since the initial residential and entertainment concept was hatched just after the turn of the millennium.  After the Sprint Center was opened in 2007, the first restaurants and bars began to open the following year.  But the recession of 2008 slowed the building and development of apartments and condos in the downtown area adjacent to the Power & Light District.  Restaurants and bars came and went, many of them forced into bankruptcy protection due to high rents and spotty business.  Because the housing downtown wasn't coming up as quickly as planned, about the only time most of the bars were doing well was when there was an event at the Sprint Center.  And those events were sometimes few and far between.

One of the national chains that came into the Power & Light District was Gordon Biersch, the California-based brew pub that had over 30 locations in high traffic areas in larger cities around the U.S.   The Gordon Biersch in the Power & Light District was one of the original tenants of the Kansas City Live block area, opening in March of 2008.   But in a cost saving move by their parent company, a number of Gordon Biersch locations started to close in 2017 and continued into early this year.  The Kansas City Gordon Biersch closed in August of 2017.  However, a back-up plan was already in place for a new restaurant to come into the spot they were giving up.

Zach Marten and Bret Springs were friends who were living in Dallas in the late-00's.  They loved to go to a little pizza place called Coal Vines and they both talked about eventually getting back to Kansas City at some point.  Marten grew up near Kansas City and went to school at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, while Springs grew up in the KC suburb of Leawood.  The two became friendly with the owner of Coal Vines and talked him into letting them open a location in the Plaza area of Kansas City.  Marten and Springs moved back to Kansas City in 2009 and opened their version of Coal Vines in 2010.  

From there, the two came up with the Westport Ale House sports bar concept, as well as The Rockhill Grille, an upscale American bistro located on the south end of downtown Kansas City, MO.  The two eventually closed Coal Vines and rebranded the restaurant as Parkway Social Kitchen.  In 2016, Marten and Springs formed Back Napkin Restaurant Group to oversee their growing concept brands.

Stehney, Marten and Springs - along with Stehney's wife and Ryan Barrows, who was Joe's KC Barbecue's director of operations for their three locations - all collaborated in coming up with the concept for the barbecue/beer joint, similar to the old ice houses that were central meeting points for people in Texas long before there was widespread electricity or freezers.  Less than a week after Gordon Biersch closed their doors, the group announced that a place called County Line Ice House would open in its place.  

It took six months of reconstruction - over $1.3 million worth of renovations - before the new concept was ready to go.   Brew tanks were removed and outside patio dining was constructed.  Smokers had to be craned and lowered into the building.  But by the time the place was ready to open in early March of last year, the group had already changed the name to County Road Ice House.   

It was about a five minute walk from my hotel to County Road Ice House at the corner of 14th and Walnut on the southeast side of the Power & Light District.  (see map)  It was around 6 p.m. that evening and the place had a few people inside.  It was a big open space with the bar area in the middle.  A number of flat screen televisions hung around the bar area and along the walls in the dining area.  An open kitchen was located just behind the bar. 

I decided to sit at the bar and I pulled up a chair.  I was greeted by a young lady who was one of the bartenders.  She gave me a food menu and a beer list to look over.   They didn't have a lot of beers to choose from - at least compared to other places in the area - and they were pretty proud of the prices of the beers they had.  Bud Light drafts were $5.00 and Deschute Fresh Squeezed IPA was $6.00.  Also on the menu were cans of Kona Big Wave Golden Ale - but they were $6.00 each, also. I swallowed hard and ordered a can of the Big Wave.  

The food menu at County Road Ice House is similar to what you'll find at a Joe's KC - but, then again, it's not.  While they did have regular Joe's items such as ribs, pulled pork, beef brisket and smoked chicken, they also had appetizers such as smoked chicken wings and smoked brisket nachos.  Burgers were also on the menu along with tacos that featured barbecue pork or beef.  Salads such as a smoked chicken Caesar and a Southwest pork carnitas salad were available, as well.  

Burnt ends are available when they have them and I asked the bartender/server if they had burnt ends that evening.  She said she did, so  I ended up getting the two meat combo of brisket and burnt ends.  Basically the same thing, I know, but I really like the brisket and burnt ends that I've had in my earlier visits to other Joe's locations around Kansas City.  But it is a $2.50 upcharge for the burnt ends in the combo.

And these didn't disappoint, either.  The burnt ends were large chunks of point cut brisket that were tender and delicious.  The slices of flat brisket were equally tender and flavorful.  The brisket and burnt ends were served with toasted bread and they had both Joe's regular sweet sauce and one of my all-time favorite Kansas City area barbecue sauces - Night of the Living Cow, a sweet and spicy sauce that just pops in your mouth.  

Speaking of popping in your mouth, for my side I got the spicy cole slaw.  I took that option over Joe's classic barbecue beans and Joe's spicy mac & cheese - both of which are very good.  I've grown found of Joe's spicy cole slaw over the years and this was as good as what I've had at the other Joe's locations.  

Now, I have to say that the bartender who was waiting on me was completely inattentive nearly the whole time I was there.  It did take awhile for her to acknowledge I was seated at the bar.  And she didn't get the universal cue that when a person seated at the bar needs another beer or drink that they place the empty in the crease closest to the bartender.  I had to literally hail her on three different occasions to either order food or order beer.  It was pretty bad service if you ask me.  

I'm mixed on my visit to County Road Ice House.  It was nice that they had Joe's Kansas City Barbecue available in the place, but their beer selection was pretty slim.  And everything was pretty expensive.  My bill with a nominal tip for the bartender who didn't want to wait on me while I was there came to over $40 bucks.  Three Kona Big Wave Golden Ales at $6 each ended up more than my food tally.  I suppose someone has to pay for the expensive renovation and the high rents found in the Power & Light District.  But I was happy with the brisket and burnt ends that I had and it's tough to beat the spicy cole slaw that Joe's KC has.  My wallet took a beating for what I got at County Road Ice House.  It was a nice place with good food, but be prepared to pay premium prices when you're there.    

The Port on Lake Panorama - Panora, IA

During our late summer vacation in West Central Iowa, we were staying at my sister's fiancé's lake home on Lake Panorama about an hour's drive west of Des Moines.  Being the adventurous people that we can be, my wife and took off one cloudy and cool day and drove around to the east side of the lake to see what was over there.  We found a large hotel and on one end of the property we saw a sign that said "Tiki Bar".  We parked our car and went down a walkway to what was a closed up outdoor tiki bar and patio.  I looked up to a level above the deck and saw what looked like a bar.  We walked up to the door and it was locked.  However, a gentleman wearing a chef's jacket popped off one of the stools at the bar and came over to open the door for us.  I explained that we had seen the "Tiki Bar" sign and we wanted to check it out.  The chef - a boisterous man with a commanding voice - apologized and said that the Tiki Bar wasn't open that day due to the weather.  "But we're open in here," he said.  When we found out that it was a combination hotel/restaurant/bar called The Port at Lake Panorama, we instantly put this place in line for a meal during our stay in the area.  

The convivial gentleman in the chef's coat was Mike McGuigan, the head chef and proprietor of the restaurant at the Port at Lake Panorama.  He was enjoying a glass of wine at 4 p.m. in the afternoon.  As my wife and I sat at the bar and ordered a couple drinks - a mai tai for me and a vodka cranberry for my wife - I said in a half joking manner, "I like restaurants where the chef has a wine before he goes in and cooks."

"Oh, no," Chef Mike replied quickly.  "I'm off tonight.  But we have a very talented sous chef manning the kitchen tonight and our grill chef is one of the best around."  We were the only ones in the bar and Chef Mike was barking out orders and directing his crew in the bar area.  The girl behind the bar said, "I can vouch for the grill chef.  He's my brother!"  Chef Mike was demanding, yet he wasn't doing it in a mean or forceful tone.  Once he got his troops in line, he sat down at the far end of the square bar and we asked him his story.  

Mike McGuigan grew up in Philadelphia, but his first real kitchen job was at a high end restaurant at a posh hotel in New York City.  McGuigan said in an interview one time that he thought he was the smartest guy in the kitchen when it turned out that he really didn't know what the hell he was doing.  But the head chef at the restaurant saw some potential in him and the company that owned the restaurant ended up sending him off for a two-year course at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY.  In exchange for a free ride at the C.I.A., McGuigan signed a five-year personal services contract with the company that sent him to school.

After graduation, McGuigan was sent to a number of places where he would work for six months before going on to another place.  One of the places he was sent to was Des Moines to work in the venerable Johnny and Kay's Hyatt House restaurant, one of the top restaurants in the area during its day.  It was in Des Moines at Johnny and Kay's where McGuigan met his future wife, Peggy.  The two married before he was transferred back to New York for a two-year stint.  When Peggy became pregnant with their first child in the late 70's, she gave McGuigan an ultimatum - she was moving back to Iowa with or without him.  McGuigan remembered the old adage - Happy wife, happy life - and he moved back to Des Moines to start a family.  He was hired as a chef at the old Savery Hotel in 1979 and remained there until the hotel was shut down due to the epic Flood of 1993. 

McGuigan bounced around at a handful of restaurants in the Des Moines area in the subsequent years - places such as 801  Chophouse, Guido's and Fratello's to name a few -  before opening his own place, The Radish in the Des Moines suburb of Grimes in 2007.  It was located in an old house and was a destination restaurant for many people from the Des Moines and Ames areas in Central Iowa.  

When the dam on the Raccoon River was finally finished in 1969, it created Lake Panorama, a private association of land owners who began purchasing lots around what would be the lake's perimeter starting in 1967.  By April of 1971, the lake was completely full and the gates were raised for the first time.  A year later, a group of investors who called themselves Lake Enterprises, Inc. (LEI) purchased a five acre tract of land on the east side of the lake with the plan to put in a restaurant/lounge with the possibility of building a hotel at some point in time.   

The restaurant and lounge was eventually built in 1975 and opened in 1976.  However, the draw for the restaurant wasn't that good and in the first year of business it lost $200,000.  By the time investors started to pull out of the project, the losses amounted to about $500,000.  The investment group declared bankruptcy and became insolvent.  However, one of the early investors, David Garst - who would eventually become president of his family seed company, Garst Seed - took over the assets of the property.  He owned The Port until 1982 when he sold it to Paul and Linda Wendl who owned a small restaurant in Panora.

The hotel was eventually built and the Wendl's ran the operation until selling it in 1994.  A series of owners had stakes in the property before Menadue Development, an Ankeny, IA property management company owned by local doctor David Menadue, bought the property in 2004.  Menadue also owns a hotel and restaurant in Ankeny.  (The restaurant - Ankeny Diner - was profiled here on Road Tips nearly two years ago to the day.)  

The Port went through a series of starts and stops with a series of different chefs and manager before Menadue Development went to Mike McGuigan in 2017 to see if he would be interested in running the place.  Wanting a challenge of helping turn around a restaurant, McGuigan jumped at the chance and he became the chef/manager of both the restaurant and the hotel - also known as the Lakeside Inn - in February of 2018.  

In mid-October of last year on a Sunday, a fire that originated in a dumpster outside the kitchen area raced through the kitchen and caused several thousand dollars in damage.  The restaurant was closed and the fire was discovered by an employee who just happened to stop by the restaurant that day.  The kitchen was destroyed and the dining room was extensively damaged, although there was little to no damage to the attached hotel.  The fire was a double-edge sword for McGuigan - he knew the place would be closed for repairs for a long time, but it also gave him the opportunity to put in the kitchen and reconfigure the lay-out of the restaurant, something that McGuigan felt The Port needed.  

At first, they thought they would have to just demolish the restaurant and start over.  However, it soon became evident that they could use the shell of the structure and work with that.  The bar was moved out away from the wall and made into a four-sided configuration.  What used to be two doors that went out to the patio deck became just one door with a window where the second door once was.  The kitchen got all new appliances and equipment - including a new ventilation system that improved temperature conditions in the kitchen where it could get well over 100 degrees (F) at times.  Bathrooms were updated and all new electrical wiring replaced the original 70's era "out-of-code" wiring.  New fixtures and lighting in the dining room rounded out the extensive updates that totaled an estimated $1.3 to $1.5 million dollars.  In June of this year - a little over two months before we were there - the Port at Lake Panorama reopened.  

After our initial visit, we went back over to the east side of the lake for dinner a couple three evenings later.  The Port at Lake Panorama is located just off of Iowa Highway 4, about a mile north of Panora.  (see map) The parking lot was much more full when were there this time and the Tiki Bar was definitely open as it was a much nicer evening than on our first visit.  

The view from the deck at The Port looked west on the main cove at Lake Panorama.  The main marina on the lake - Coulter's Panorama Marine - sits off to the side of the cove from The Port.  The Lake Panorama lighthouse sits on a point out from the marina in front of the view of the cove from The Port.  It was a beautiful late summer evening when we were there.   

The Tiki Bar was open that evening, but being that it was the middle of the week there weren't a lot of people around it.  On some weekends in the summer months, they'll have a live band performing on a small stage in a courtyard in front of the lake.  We went back there on a Friday night with my sister and her fiancé to watch a local band that was playing.  They had a much larger crowd that evening than when we were there for dinner. 

We went inside to go to the restaurant and hung out around the bar for a bit while they figured out where they were going to seat us.  We had no idea that they had just reopened about 8 weeks prior from a devastating fire.  Everything in the restaurant with the open bar area was clean and pristine. 

The young hostess led us to a table in an area off the main dining area near the bar.  It was a long and narrow part of the restaurant with a nice view of the lake.  After dropping off a couple of menus for us, we ordered some pre-dinner drinks from our waitress, a young lady by the name of Tasheena.  I got a Big Grove Easy Eddy IPA while my wife got a glass of the house pinot grigio.  

It was a concise menu at The Port with a mixture of steaks, seafood, pork chops, and chicken dishes available.  I was sort of surprised to see the number of Italian dishes on the menu including chicken parmesan, sun-dried tomato pasta, and a broccoli alfredo with a choice of chicken, shrimp or salmon added for an upcharge.  Appetizers included blackened sautéed mushrooms, calamari, and breaded provolone cheese sticks that are deep fried and served with a house-made marinara.  

We both got salads to start out.  I got the blue cheese vinaigrette that turned out to be somewhat mystifying to me.  Instead of chunks of blue cheese, the salad featured fine crumbles of blue cheese mixed in with the dressing and the greens.  And there weren't many of the small crumbles of blue cheese on the salad.  I just sort of shrugged my shoulders and ate it.  It was pretty underwhelming.  

My wife was in the mood for something along the lines of fettuccine, but she was also interested in the chicken piccata.  Turns out that she could have both by ordering the chicken piccata.   The veggie of the day was Brussels sprouts and she got that as a side.  There were a lot of capers on her chicken piccata, but she didn't seem to mind that.  She thought her choice was a solid one and was very happy with what she ordered.   

I thought seriously about getting the chicken parm, but I ended up going the pasta route and I got the cavatelli.  It was a pasta bake with cavatelli pasta, Graziano Brothers sausage with The Port's housemade marinara.  It was mixed with ricotta cheese, then topped with a liberal helping of mozzarella and baked in the oven until the cheese caramelized.  It looked good and I was eager to dig in.  However, the first bite yielded a very salty taste.  In fact, each bite after that was pretty salty in taste.  I don't eat a lot of salt and this was very pronounced in the flavor.  It was sort of disappointing as I don't know if it was the sausage (it probably wasn't - I've had Graziano Brothers sausage before) or in the cheese (probably not either).  I determined that it was probably added in the kitchen as it was a very forward salty flavor.  

What was also interesting to me was that my pasta bake came with a choice of a side - either the Brussels sprouts veggie of the day, or a choice of potato.  I didn't want a potato dish to come with my pasta.  I thought it was rather strange that it was offered to me by our waitress.  Brussels sprouts would have been more reasonable, but I didn't want that either.  I just told our server to just bring me the pasta and forget about the sides.  

When we told my sister and her fiancé that we went to The Port for dinner, they were impressed that we went there.  However, when I told my sister's fiancé that my cavatelli was too salty, he said, "Did you say something to Mike?  He always wants to know if you're not happy."  I didn't and I'm wasn't going to make a big deal of it.  It was somewhat disappointing to me, but I'm sure others who use salt liberally in their meals would probably like it. 

One other thing that was rather mystifying to my wife and me - we were never offered a choice of dessert after our meal.  We saw other people get offered and ordering dessert by other waitresses, but our waitress didn't give us the option.  While we weren't certain we would have ordered dessert, we just thought it was sort of strange that it was never offered.  

While my wife thought her chicken piccata on a bed of fettuccine alfredo was good - even with a load of capers on it - I was sort of disappointed with my cavatelli.  It was just too salty for my taste buds.  But you can't go wrong with the updated facilities after the fire The Port went through last year.  It was a nice open space and was very nice inside.  It was tough to beat the view of Lake Panorama - especially at sunset - from the inside of the restaurant or out on the patio overlooking their Tiki hut.  The service we experienced was sort of choppy - we didn't get offered dessert, even though we weren't certain we would have ordered dessert IF offered.  Given the background of the chef/manager, I guess I expected something a little better than what we experienced at The Port at Lake Panorama.