Road Tips

Westwood Cafe - Spicer, MN

A few years ago, I got a message from Deb West, the owner of the Westwood Cafe in Spicer, MN, inviting me to stop by and try out their burgers at some point.  She had evidently found the blog somewhere and thought I might like their place since I wrote a lot about finding good burgers.  I looked up to see where Spicer was on the map and determined that even though it was an hour outside of St. Cloud - where I travel to from time to time - it didn't really warrant a special trip there.  Lo and behold, my wife and I found ourselves vacationing along Green Lake and staying in Spicer earlier this summer, and just down the street from our hotel was the Westwood Cafe.  One somewhat rainy morning when we couldn't really do much outside, we took a quick walk down the street to the Westwood Cafe for breakfast.  

The Westwood Cafe is a breakfast and lunch only establishment, opening at 6 a.m. seven days a week and closing at 2 p.m. (1:30 p.m. on Sunday).  Deb and Scott West opened the restaurant in 2000, but the restaurant blood was in the West family for years before.  Scott's parents, Bob and Joan, owned the popular Fireside Inn supper club just north of Willmar for a number of years.  In the mid-60's, the West's moved to Spicer and bought an old lodge along the shores of Green Lake.  They razed the lodge and put up a new supper club, the Westwood Inn.  It turned out to be one of the more popular places to eat in west central Minnesota with a spaghetti night and a Sunday brunch being two of their biggest weekly events.

After the Westwood Inn closed, Scott West found a small restaurant along Lake Street in Spicer by the name of the Safari that was up for sale.  The West's bought the restaurant, refurbished it and opened the Westwood Cafe at the start of the century.  Next year will mark 20 years in business for the restaurant.  

The Westwood Cafe was located just a couple minute walk from our hotel up N. Lake Street.  (see map)  Spicer is one of those towns where the locals all know each other and we found that most evident at the Westwood Cafe where good-natured ribbing and banter went back and forth between patrons and the wait staff at the restaurant.  

The restaurant is a small place - it had a main dining area that had room for a little less than 30 people.  There were a couple of small rooms off to the side that had tables in there, as well.  Behind a half wall was a small counter area that sat six additional diners.  There was a lot of lake-type decorations and pictures on the walls. We were seated in one of the small dining rooms and given a couple breakfast menus to look over.  Our server for our visit was a young lady by the name of Megan who was cheery and down-home.  

The "anytime" breakfast menu at Westwood Cafe consists of your normal morning favorites - omelets, pancakes, skillet dishes, French toast, steak and eggs, and a breakfast burrito.  They also had something called the Kitchen Sink - it consisted of a base of hash browns or American fries with mushrooms, onions, jalapeños, green peppers and two eggs mixed in.  You had a choice of meat to add to the mess - bacon, sausage, ham, Canadian bacon, wild rice sausage, smoked sausage or taco-flavored beef.  You could add up to three different types of meat to the Kitchen Sink for a price of $12.95.  That sounded like a lot of food.  

My wife went pretty basic - she got the No. 1 breakfast with two eggs over easy, sourdough toast and a side of thick cut bacon.  She gave me a piece of the bacon to try and it was excellent.  

I went with the corned beef hash breakfast.  It featured a liberal portion of corned beef, with fresh hash browns, and two eggs over easy.  I also got sourdough toast on the side with my meal.  I wanted to believe that the corned beef was made in-house as it didn't taste like the canned variety, but the corned beef was chopped finely.  The hash browns were very good - you could tell they grated their potatoes in-house.  The sourdough bread was a nice touch to go with the farm fresh eggs on the plate.  It was a very good breakfast.  

We never did make it back to the Westwood Cafe for one of their burgers, but we did enjoy the breakfast we had during our visit to Spicer.  The Westwood Cafe is a nice little place that caters to both the locals and tourists alike - although there seemed to be a lot more locals than tourists during our time there.  While it was nothing special in terms of the food, we found to place to be homey and welcoming with a little bit of fun sass thrown in by the servers toward some of the locals.  If you're looking for breakfast or a typical lunch while you're in Spicer, the Westwood Cafe is basically your only choice.  But I don't think you'll be disappointed.  

Big Swing Brewing Co. - Rock Island, IL

In the time I've been doing Road Tips (nearly 14 years now) there have been instances where I have been accused of not going to a place where I gave a so-so or bad review to for a second chance to possibly redeem themselves.  I know that professional food critics will go to a restaurant two or three times before they write their reviews, but I don't quite have that luxury in my travels to different areas around the Midwest.  However, this is a tale of two visits to the relatively new Big Swing Brewing Company in downtown Rock Island, IL.  And both visits were diametrically opposite.  In this case, the first visit was an eye-opener, the second was a large disappointment.  

Last summer, the owners of the Blue Cat Brew Pub - siblings Dan and Martha Cleaveland - decided to sell the place after 24 years of being in business.  Wanting to keep the legacy of the Blue Cat going, John Timmer, Shane Scott and Jon McAtee joined forces to purchase the business but decided to change the name of the place to Big Swing Brewing Co.  They retained Dan Cleaveland as the brewmaster and Martha Cleaveland effectively retired from the business.  Even though everything was basically in place for the brew pub, I understand they were having problems with getting the proper licensing and permits.  Big Swing Brewing Co. finally opened in March of this year. 

It was a Saturday night when we first went to Big Swing Brewing Company earlier this summer.  We had been talking about going over there and we found ourselves across the river in Rock Island.  We were able to find a parking spot in front of Big Swing Brewing Co. which was always tough when Blue Cat was open.  Over the front windows, the neon sign of the Blue Cat Brewing Company was still attached to the facade of the building.  A Big Swing logo sign was in one of the front windows, however.

The inside of Big Swing doesn't look much different from the old Blue Cat.  The tanks were still behind windows behind the bar.  There was the same booths along the south wall, the same tables were on the main floor and the walk-up dining area.  Other than the Big Swing logos, it looked pretty much the same to us. 

It wasn't long that our server for the evening - a young lady with the unique name of Raven - came over to greet us.  She handed us a couple food menus and, very curiously, she asked if we wanted to start out with any appetizers just seconds after giving us our menus.  She explained later on that it was only her second day on the job at Big Swing.  She was friendly and outgoing, but service was a little choppy during our visit.  

One of our favorite beers at the old Blue Cat was the Off the Rail pale ale.  Knowing that Dan Cleaveland was still in charge of the brewing process, I was hoping to get one of those.  Unfortunately, the Off the Rail was not one of the beers that they were offering.  In fact, they only had 4 in-house beers on tap - none of which appealed to me.  They did have other breweries beers in cans and bottles - they even had domestic beers from larger breweries, something that Blue Cat never had - and I ended up getting a Five Cities hazy IPA.  I've had Five Cities beers from their brewery in Bettendorf and I haven't been very impressed with them.  Their hazy IPA didn't trip my trigger, either.  

The menu was heavy on sandwiches and burgers, but their entrees were rather interesting.  The porter meat loaf is, I believe, a holdover from the old Blue Kat menu - or some variation of that.  The hot beef sandwich and the pot roast also got my attention.  Something on the appetizer part of the menu - the poutine - also caught my eye.  And my wife noticed the fried dill pickle chips.  She really likes deep fried pickles.  

We placed our orders for our food and instead of getting a salad to start off, we both decided to try the soups at Big Swing.  My wife ordered the soup of the day which was a chicken vegetable soup.  It featured large chunks of carrots, potatoes and onions with tender chicken in a rich broth.  She thought the soup was very good.

For some reason, the chili sounded good that evening.  Now, I grew up in Newton, IA and everyone who went though the school system there remembers the chili they would serve once or twice a month that came with a big gooey cinnamon roll.  A few years after I moved to Davenport nearly 30 years ago, we had a Super Bowl party at our house complete with chili and cinnamon rolls.  My new friends from the area had never heard of such a thing, but my friends who grew up in Newton who I reconnected with in the Quad Cities knew exactly what I was doing.  I'm proud to say that I've converted some people who grew up in the Quad's to the chili and cinnamon roll combination.

The Newton school chili had a distinct flavor with finely ground beef along with big chili beans.  My first bite of Big Swing's chili caused a flashback - it tasted exactly like Newton schools chili!  I was almost ecstatic as I tried another bite.  I was telling my wife, "I've never had chili like the kind I had in school when I was growing up.  This is the closest thing to that chili!"  I even remarked to Raven and a couple other of the servers about the chili and how they needed to include a small cinnamon roll with it.  I think they thought I was sort of nuts.  I was so blown away by the chili that I texted two of my friends who grew up in Newton but were now living in Davenport - "They have Newton school chili at Big Swing Brewing!"  

For our main dinner that evening, my wife got the grilled chicken sandwich, only without the brioche bun.  A side of applesauce and cole slaw came with the chicken breast.  She was worried at first glance that it would be overcooked and dried out from the grill markings on the chicken, but it turned out that it was tender and juicy.  She was happy with her choice.

I went with the Kentucky Hot Brown sandwich.  I knew that it couldn't be as good as the hot brown's I've had in my travels to Louisville over the years, but I thought it was interesting enough to give it a shot.   Big Swing's variation of the hot brown was similar to what I'd had in Louisville - sliced turkey, bacon and a roasted tomato slice on a thick-cut slice of sourdough bread.  A flavorful mornay sauce topped the sandwich and the mashed potatoes side.  The hot brown was very good - a spot hitter, for me.  It was a nice deviation from having a burger or a grilled sandwich.  

We were impressed with our first visit to Big Swing that we decided to head back over a few weeks later on to have dinner.  My taste buds were doing jumping jacks thinking of the chili and I had already made up my mind that I was going to get a bowl instead of a cup of the chili this time.  

My wife and I walked in and we sort of found things a little disjointed in the place.  The dining room off to the side had boxes and paperwork on top of the tables and booths.  We thought that was pretty strange considering the place seemed to be packed and they had to turn away a large group because they couldn't accommodate them while we were there.  

We were seated in the dining area near the bar that night and I wondered why no one was seated in the large  corner booth.  Upon further investigation, the table didn't have a stand and was sitting on the bench seats.  It looked very strange and made me wonder what was going on.  

But things went even worse after that.  They still just had four of the Big Swing beers on tap - once again, none of them I was interested in - and I wasn't impressed with the offerings from other breweries on tap.  I ended up getting a Founders All Day IPA that they had in a 20 ounce can.  

But the big disappointment came with the menu.  We noticed that they had about 75 percent of the menu highlighted by a yellow marker.  When I asked the waitress what that meant when she brought back my beer she said, "Oh, the ones highlighted are what we have available."  Notably to me, the chili, the Hot Brown sandwich, the poutine appetizer, the French dip sandwich, and the hot beef sandwich were the most glaring omissions.  She said, "We lost the cook who was responsible for many of the items that we no longer offer."  I immediately wanted to know where that cook went to so I could follow him there for his chili.  

I was completely crestfallen - the place looked like shambles, they knocked a lot of good items off the menu, they still didn't have the Big Swing variation of the Off the Rail pale ale available.  Quite seriously, if I hadn't had a beer in front of me, I think I would have gotten up and left.  We ended up eating there that night - I had the reuben and my wife had one of Big Swing's grilled cheese sandwiches with grilled chicken added.  We both thought our sandwiches were all right, but psychologically, I'm not certain anything was going to taste good to us that evening.    

Our first visit to Big Swing Brewing Company was so promising to us that when we went back for our second visit a few weeks later we were completely deflated with our experience.  They had taken many of the interesting food items we found during our first visit of the menu by the time we had gone back.  Their beer selection is still iffy with only four in-house beers available on tap.  The one dining area was messy like they were using it as an office or storage area.  And they had a broken table sitting on the bench seats in the corner booth in the bar dining area.  The food we had on our first visit was good to very good - it was tough to beat the chili that brought back memories of the chili we had in school growing up.  But the sandwiches we had on our second visit were just "all right".  Service both times was good, even though the service we experienced on our first visit was a little choppy from an unexperienced server.  We were just so disappointed with our second visit and the revelations that a number of things we either liked or wanted to try were removed from the menu that it gave us pause about coming back to Big Swing any time soon.  

Skip's - Des Moines, IA

Earlier this year, I was e-mailing back and forth with Road Tips reader Chris B. who found the blog awhile back and was interested in the places I've been to in his hometown of Des Moines.  He had mentioned that his parents used to own a root beer stand on the south side of the city and that he really missed a number of the old pizza places and steak houses from his youth.  One place that he asked me about was Skip's, a sort of supper club that is out by the Des Moines International Airport.  Now, I told him that I had been to Skip's before, but it was probably more than 30 years ago when I was last there.  I decided that I would get to Skip's on my next visit to Des Moines and try the place out again.  I was able to do just that on a visit to the Des Moines area earlier this summer.  

Alvin "Skip" Bachman grew up in Knoxville, IA before serving a stint in United States Marine Corp in the 60's.  After getting out of the marines, Skip started to work in restaurants before opening his eponymous named lounge in a house along Fleur Drive in 1981.  Over the years, Skip Bachman expanded the lounge into a full fledged restaurant that featured a full kitchen and menu.   He eventually teamed with business partner Dave Thompson to develop and run restaurants such as the nearby Francie's (click here to see the Road Tips post on Francie's), Nick's Bar and Grill, and the Urban Grill.  Tragically, Skip Bachman was diagnosed with cancer in May of 2013 and died in December of that year.  He had basically turned over full ownership of the Urban Grill to Thompson before his passing and sold off the other restaurants, as well.  Today, his children - John Bachman and Alyssa Clark - run Skip's.  

Although it faces Fleur Drive, the entrance to Skip's is on Wakonda Drive.  (see map)  I got into Des Moines around 4 p.m. and checked into the hotel down the street from the restaurant and got there about a quarter to five in the late afternoon.  Predictably, there weren't a lot of people in the place and I was able to get a table near the bar in the original lounge area.  A young lady by the name of Katelynn was my server and she dropped off a menu.  I saw that they had Toppling Goliath Pseudo Sue on one of the bar taps and I ordered one of those up.  

Since it started out as a house, Skip's has the intimate feeling of a cozy home.  Off to both sides of the lounge  were dining rooms - the newest one was one I didn't remember from my previous visit back in the 80's.  It was a walk down into a long narrow room with tables with banquette seating and booths.  A fireplace was at one end of the room.  It looked like it could get sort of cramped in the room if it were full of diners.  

The menu at Skip's features a myriad of Midwestern favorites - steaks, pork chops, seafood, sandwiches, soups and salads.  And being that it's on the south side of Des Moines, they also feature a number of Italian dishes, as well.  Surprisingly, they also had jambalaya on the menu - something that immediately caught my eye.  

Now, in our e-mails back and forth earlier this year, Chris had wholeheartedly recommended the chicken and black bean nachos.  He mentioned that there was no better food for a poor college student out on a date with his girlfriend than the chicken and black bean nachos at Skip's.  I thought about the nachos for a moment, but not only was the jambalaya looking interesting, but the chicken piccata they had on the menu was also rather tempting.  I thought about the seared ahi tuna, and even the basic cheeseburger that they had on the menu sounded pretty good to me.

But on this trip to Skip's, I ended up getting a good ol' south Des Moines favorite - cavatelli.   It featured Graziano's Italian sausage mixed with cavatelli pasta in a marinara sauce and topped with melted mozzarella.  The cavatelli is baked in the oven, then finished off under the broiler to caramelize the cheese on the top.  Slices of toasted garlic bread came on the side.  It was a wonderful, gooey mess of cheese, tangy marinara, and chunks of somewhat spicy ground sausage that really gave the dish a kick in taste.  There's a lot of places around Des Moines that do cavatelli and the one at Skip's was one of the better ones that I've had.  And it was very filling.  I left a large amount of pasta in the bowl going primarily for the sausage and cheese in the cavatelli.  

I'm glad I was able to make it back to Skip's after a nearly 30-year hiatus.  It's easy to pass by Skip's and not know it's there as I have many times over the years on my trips to Des Moines.  The former house is set back from Fleur Drive a bit and actually still looks like a residence if you really didn't know if was a restaurant/lounge.  I thought the cavatelli was very good, I liked the cozy and laid back ambience of the place, and I thought the service was efficient and friendly.  Skip Bachman may have passed a few years ago, but his children are keeping his legacy alive. Skip's is one of those places where you go, "Oh, yeah!  Skip's!" when you're trying to think of a place to eat on Des Moines' south side.    

The Depot - Donahue, IA

The lady who cuts my hair has been telling me about a place up in the small town of Donahue (population approximately 350 - and that may be stretching it) located north and west of Davenport that has some pretty good food.  Her daughter has been a server there off and on during her years at North Scott High School and she always talked glowingly about the food out there.  On a rainy Sunday earlier this year, my wife and I set out to go out the this place called The Depot.  

The building that houses The Depot was exactly that at one time.  The building served as Donahue's train depot in the late 1800's into the early 1900's.  It was then when the Keppy family - who had been running the general store in Donahue since 1883 - took over the building for their business.  The Keppy General Store was the central gathering place for people in and around Donahue for years.  The place sold everything from leather shoes and rubber galoshes, smoked cod and penny candy, and bicycles and shotgun shells.  People could buy coal from the basement in Keppy's General Store.  The original Donahue Savings Bank was located in the front of the store back in the 1930's, and up until a few months before third generation owners David and Charlotte "Chuck" Keppy closed the store in 1992, they ran a regular egg route for people around northern Scott County.  

Sam Fentress and his wife, Penny Callison, always liked to cook.  Fentress cooked for the Davenport Fire Department for years, while Penny was a wonderful cook on her own.  Both liked to use locally grown produce for their dishes and they thought they could translate their love for cooking into a restaurant.  They found that the former depot/general store in Donahue was available and there wasn't really a sit-down eatery for miles around.  They didn't necessarily want to have a bar that served bar food, but more of a fresh ingredient restaurant that just happened to have a bar.  Fentress and Callison bought the building in 2013, and after some renovations they opened The Depot in 2014.  In one of the corners of the restaurant, they added home supplies, snacks and treats as a nod to the original Keppy General Store.  

It was just starting to rain heavily when we pulled up to The Depot in Donahue.  (see map)  We walked into the place to find a combination bar area/dining room that featured a number of railroad-type paraphernalia with nearly a dozen flat screen televisions around the room.  There were a number of low-top tables with banquette seating along the wall with high-top tables in the middle.  

The bar area featured a wood and mirrored back wall with five flat screen televisions mounted at the top.  I immediately thought this would be a great place to come to for a football or basketball Saturday or Sunday with multiple games going on at the same time.  The place was clean and very comfortable.  

Behind the dining area was an addition that is used for parties or overflow dining.  It featured both wood and brick walls with pine supports in the middle of the room.  A large garage door opened to the outside for larger gatherings.  It appeared that there had been a party in there the night before as there were still remnants of cookers, party tables and a few decorations left over.  But it was still a pretty nice area for a reception or gathering.  

My wife and I sat at a high-top table in the center of the main dining area and one of the young ladies who were serving that day gave us a couple menus to look over.  They had a small selection of craft beers on tap, but they did have the Big Grove Easy Eddie Hazy IPA that I've grown fond of over the past few months.  

As I said, owners Fentress and Callison are into fresh ingredients for their food and they try to source many of the items locally.  Main entrees include a pot roast dinner, a meat loaf plate, and a country fried steak meal.  They have a number of sandwiches and burgers on the menu - or you can "build-your-own" if you like.  Appetizers include the regulars - chicken wings (bone-in or boneless), nachos, beer-battered mushrooms, and something called "Railroad Ties" that are potato wedges topped with bacon bits and a cheese sauce.  They serve a full breakfast at The Depot on Saturday morning from 9 to 11 a.m., and they also have a Hispanic lady by the name of Sofia who works in the kitchen who has come up with special Mexican food entrees on some nights.  (The lady who cuts my hair says the Mexican nights at The Depot are "to die for".)  

I had pretty much zoned in on one thing - the "build-your-own" burger.  I went with my standard burger with sautéed mushrooms, pepper jack cheese and bacon.  They have onion rolls available with the burgers at The Depot, so I put the burger on that.  The burger featured a 1/3 pound flat-grilled patty and the onion roll was lightly toasted.  I also got a side of their onion rings to go along with the burger. 

My wife ended up getting the cilantro lime sandwich without the bun.  The chicken sandwich came with two slices of bacon, pepper jack cheese, deep-fried avocado slices and was topped with a chipotle mayo sauce.   For her side she got The Depot's unique deviled egg that they've become somewhat famous for.  I gave her one of my onion rings so she could try it out.  She absolutely loved her grilled chicken breast.  She especially loved the fried avocado slices on top.  It was a lot for her to eat and it was a pretty large and rich-tasting serving.  

I really enjoyed my burger.  It was juicy and flavorful, and the beef was good enough that the toppings didn't mask the full taste of the beef patty.  The onion bun held together with all that was going on with the burger.  It was nice and soft, just as I like my burger buns.  The onion rings also weren't that bad.  I don't think they were made in-house, but they were still pretty good.  I think one of the reasons why my wife had trouble finishing her grilled chicken breast was that she ate about half of my onion rings.  But I was fine with that - I was concentrating on the burger. 

We lingered a little longer than we wanted because there were torrential rains coming down outside.  That was no problem with us as I grabbed another Big Grove Easy Eddie and we watched baseball on one of the televisions while we waited for the rain to let up.  On the way home, we ran into areas where creeks had overflowed into farm fields from the heavy rains.  But that was the story of our spring in Eastern Iowa - we had a lot of rain and the fields were pretty much saturated by that time.  

My wife and I love finding little places out in the middle of nowhere like The Depot.  It's a bit of a haul from out house - about a 25 minute drive - but it was worth it to finally get out there to try the place out.  I enjoyed my burger and my wife thoroughly liked her cilantro lime chicken breast with the fried avocados.  They seemed to have an extensive enough menu for anyone to find something they liked, but their craft beer selection was pretty limited.  The service was good and friendly, the place was clean and welcoming, and this is a place that we'll definitely be back to at some point.  We really want to try their Mexican nights sometime and we've subscribed to their Facebook page so we can find out when they'll have them.  

St. Brendan's Irish Inn & Pub - Green Bay, WI

Up in Green Bay earlier this year, I wanted to find some place unique for dinner.  Years ago, my wife and I went to a very good Irish pub in downtown Green Bay that has since closed up.  But an Irish pub sounded pretty good to me that night.  I did a quick check on the internet to see if there were any Irish pubs in the area and the search immediately took me to the web site for St. Brendan's Inn & Pub.  It was a combination boutique hotel and Irish pub on the Fox River not far from the hotel I was staying at in downtown Green Bay.  It was a cool evening and I decided to make the short drive down the way to St. Brendan's Irish Pub to check the place out.  

St. Brendan's Inn and Pub are part of group of hotels run by Harp & Eagle, Ltd. which is headed by Sheboygan native Cary James "Rip" O'Dwanny.  His first hotel - County Clare Irish Inn & Pub - opened in Milwaukee in 1996.  Other hotel/pub ventures popped up in Plymouth, WI and Kenosha before they bought the site of the old bus depot and public parking area in Green Bay in 2002 and built St. Brendan's Inn and Pub in 2008.

St. Brendan's Inn and Pub was located about six blocks from my hotel.  As I said, it was a somewhat unseasonably cool evening (we had a lot of those in the spring and early summer of this year) and I drove the short distance to the place.  (see map)   I pulled into the parking lot next to the large and stately three-story building that housed the inn and pub.  The entrance to the hotel takes you to a small lobby area, but the pub is off to the right side of the lobby.  

To the left of the lobby was a hallway that took you out to a patio area that looked out onto the Fox River.  It featured a number of metal woven tables and chairs, but it was way too cool of an evening to be sitting on the patio that night.  

The pub is segmented into a dining area and the bar area with a half-wall separating the two.  The dining room featured a wood ceiling with antique light fixtures hanging down.  But the most impressive part of the room were the large stained-glass windows that towered along the walls opposite the bar area.  It was elegant, yet somewhat homey in the dining room.

The bar area was modeled after a typical Irish public house with 15 beers on tap and a full bar featuring Scotch and Irish whiskies.  It was at the bar where I decided to park myself for the evening.  A couple bartenders were working behind the bar and one by the name of Luke asked me what I would like to drink.  I ordered up a Smithwick's to start out.  The other bartender asked me if I was going to dine with them and after answering in the affirmative, he gave me a dinner menu to look over.  

The food at St. Brendan's Pub was a fine offering of Irish culinary favorites - corned beef and cabbage, Shepherd's pie, a Guinness-gravy pot roast, and an Irish stew with braised beef and root vegetables.  They also had pork tenderloin medallions, as well as a lamb shank on the menu.  Sandwiches included a traditional corned beef reuben, a braised pot roast sandwich, a battered cod sandwich, and a black angus beef burger.  I literally had six or seven things that I was considering to have for dinner that night.  

The bar had a pretty sizable lip on the edge.  Just before my food was brought out, one of the bartenders set a plank down that was the same depth as the lip to allow me to bring my food closer.  I thought it was sort of a nice touch considering I've eaten at bars with similar features in the past and it's sort of a hassle to lean so far over to get to your plate that your face is nearly in the food.  

For dinner that night, I got the meat loaf with mashed potatoes and a vegetable combination of grilled Brussels sprouts, carrots, and zucchini.  Now, I broke my own rule of ordering meat loaf when I'm in a restaurant, but the description of the blend of meat they use - veal, beef and pork - was similar to how I make my meat loaf at home.  And my meat loaf is excellent.  But I should have known as this meat loaf was not as good as mine.  

The meat loaf was topped with a gravy sauce made with Worcestershire sauce and caramelized onions.  The gravy was good, but I needed more to go along with the meal.  Luke was able to bring some more out to me and it was needed.  The meat loaf was dry and sort of lifeless.  The mashed potatoes were rather lukewarm and sort of hard.  The Brussels sprouts were very sour in taste.  At least the Harp beer - which I ordered for my second beer - and the gravy kept the entire meal from spiraling out of control.  I was just kicking myself for not listening to my instincts and going with one of the other Irish-style favorites they had to offer.  

I know I ordered the wrong thing on my visit to St. Brendan's Inn and Pub.  The meat loaf was not that good, the mashed potatoes were cool, and the grilled Brussel sprouts were very sour in taste.  I'm sure that anything else I was considering - like the Shepherd's pie, the braised pot roast, or the corned beef and cabbage - would have been significantly better than the meat loaf.  Well, I HOPE that those offerings would be better than the meat loaf I had.  Oh, well.  At least the service and the beer selection was good.  And it was very difficult to beat the authentic Irish-style pub at St. Brendan's Inn.  If I make it back at some point - and I hope I can - I'll try something other than the meatloaf.  

The Tangled Wood - Bettendorf, IA

Earlier this year, one of the restaurants that we would go to from time to time - Governor's in Bettendorf - closed their doors and moved to a new location with a new concept and a new name called The Tangled Wood.  We were eager to try the place a couple months after they opened, but each time we would go there the place was packed.  My wife had a Monday off recently and I suggested that we go out for lunch somewhere.  Then I remembered that we hadn't been to The Tangled Wood as of yet, so we ventured out there.

Governor's in Bettendorf had been a main-stay for over 40 years before they closed their location late last year at the corner of Middle Road and Devil's Glen to make way for a Hy-Vee Fast and Fresh convenience store.  The ownership group - headed by Craig Wagner who also owns Steventon's and Blue Iguana out in LeClaire, IA - had announced nearly 2 years ago that they had outgrown the purpose for Governor's and were looking to put a new re-branded restaurant somewhere in Bettendorf.  They had already closed the Governor's over in Moline in 2016 (personal note - that was the place my wife and I had our first official lunch date in 1993), and were focusing their efforts on the new Bettendorf location.  They built a building just up the road from the old Governor's location at Devil's Glen and Tanglewood Road in Bettendorf (see map) and opened in January of this year.   

It was around 1:30 p.m. when we made it into The Tangled Wood.  We immediately were impressed with the dining area which featured a mixture of contemporary industrial fixtures and frames with some beautiful wood and brick accents.  It was definitely a step-up from the decor at Governor's which had grown tired over the years.  The atmosphere at The Tangled Wood was much more bright and lively compared to the dark wood accents and low lighting that people experienced at Governor's.  

We should have realized something was amiss from the start when two young ladies were standing at the hostess stand for a couple minutes before they even acknowledged our presence.  We had been sort of wandering around looking into the dining area and in the bar area before my wife went up to them and said, "Can we get seated for lunch?"  One of the young ladies said, "Oh!  I'm sorry.  I thought you were looking for someone."  No - we just wanted to check the place out since it was our first visit.

We had our choice of the bar or the dining room and we opted for a booth in the bar.  The brick walls featured a number of flat screen televisions hanging from them, a number of high-top tables in the middle, booths on one wall and low-top tables along the other wall.  A large outdoor patio/bar area - which was still under construction when we were there (but is open now) - was just beyond the large windows past the bar.  Even if the patio was open, we wouldn't have sat out there as we were having an extremely cold late spring in the Midwest.  And this day was no exception.

The bar, itself, featured three sides of seating with a large island of liquor shelves and taps in the middle.  Their beer menu featured 44 beers on tap, as well as another 30 cans and bottles to choose from.  Governor's always had a good beer selection, but nothing like the selection The Tangled Wood has.

After we were seated in the booth in the bar area, we were given food menus to look over.  A couple young ladies who were servers came over to greet us.  One explained that the other one was new and was in shadow training.  (Turned out the "new" waitress was a seasoned veteran server from other restaurants whose first day at The Tangled Wood was that day and probably could have shown the other one a thing or two about waitressing.)  I noticed that they had Kona Big Wave Golden Ale on tap and I ordered a pint of that.  My wife just went with water for the time being.  It was great they had the Big Wave on tap, but I was disappointed as it tasted sort of flat.      

It's basically a whole new menu from the one they had at Governor's - well, sort of.  They still have a number of sandwiches, appetizers, burgers and salads on the menu - many that were available at Governor's only with a new name.  The Tangled Wood also features barbecued entrees such as ribs and brisket, they have 12" pizzas with a hand-tossed or tavern-thin crust, and they have some of Governor's old favorites like fish and chips, and their classic nachos on the menu.  

My wife went with the grilled chicken sandwich.  She asked for it without the brioche bun, but they put the house spread in a bowl on the side.  (Don't exactly know what the house spread was, sort of like a mayo/dijon mustard, I guess.)  She got the tomato-braised kale for her side.  

I ordered the mushroom-Swiss burger with bacon on it.  I also saw that they had onion straws for some of their sandwiches and I asked our waitress if I could get a side of those.  The onion straws turned out to be nothing like I would classify as onion straws but more like thin cut food purveyor-style frozen onion rings.  

On the menu, the grilled chicken sandwich was called "Tastes Like Chicken".  My wife said it did not.  It was overcooked, rubbery and void of flavor.  She surmised the reason they had the house-made sauce with it was to at least give it some flavor.  She was highly disappointed in the grilled chicken.  But she did say that she very much liked the tomato-braised kale.  

I had asked for some "pink" in my burger when the waitress asked how I wanted my burger cooked.  Pink went out the window long before this burger was served to me.  It was over-cooked and well-done.  It didn't help that the bun that came with it was also dry - and there was too much of it.  The grilled mushrooms were all right, and they slathered a lot of Swiss cheese on top of the burger to help give it some flavor.  But the bacon was too crispy and crumbled apart like bacon bits.  The onion rings were as I feared they would be - pretty dull.  We were not happy with the quality of our meal.

And our waitresses literally left us.  I like to be checked on, but not hovered over, during our meal and I really wanted another pint of Big Wave to help wash the dry food down.  But they never came back.  Finally, I was able to flag down the "new" waitress and she came over.  She thought the other waitress had been back to check on us, but we hadn't seen her.  She got me another flat tasting Big Wave, mainly because I didn't have their beer list and I wasn't going to go up to the bar to check out their tap handles.  

We had hoped that our first visit to The Tangled Wood was an anomaly and that we would like to go back again at some point to try one of their tavern-style pizzas.  But we've heard from a handful of friends who have gone out there since that they, too, were sort of disappointed in the food and service.  It's a nice place, don't get me wrong.  And I understand the outdoor patio/bar area is always packed during these summer months.  But the chicken breast and the burger patty we had were both woefully overcooked.  I really hoped The Tangled Wood would become part of our rotation of restaurants to visit when we'd go out on weekends with friends, but we're going to have to give it more time to figure things out before we'll go there again. 

Rubaiyat - Decorah, IA

My wife and I decided to head up to NE Iowa for our wedding anniversary this year, particularly to Decorah where my wife has been pestering me to take her to for quite some time.  We really hadn't spent a lot of time around the Decorah area, but we have friends of ours who went to Luther College there years ago who go up a couple times a year to hang with old college friends.  So, it's almost like we've spent time in Decorah as we were familiar with all the places they liked to hang out.  But we wanted to go to someplace sort of special for our anniversary dinner and we found a place along Water Street, the main drag through downtown Decorah, that looked like it would fit the bill for us.  This is our visit to Rubaiyat.  

For the owners of Rubaiyat, Andy and Kim Bonnet, owning a restaurant was something they had wanted to do for nearly all their lives.  Andy grew up in Galena, IL and Kim grew up in nearby Dubuque and both entered the food service industry at the age of 14.  The two met while working at Fried Green Tomatoes in Galena (click here to see the Road Tips entry on Fried Green Tomatoes).  Kim went on to work as a server at Clarke University in Dubuque, eventually becoming the front of house hostess at a handful of other restaurants around Dubuque in her high school years.  Andy eventually ended up at the famed Timmerman's Supper Club in East Dubuque.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Timmerman's.)  

Kim went off to college at Luther College, but would come back in the summer to work in restaurants in the Dubuque area.  After graduating from Luther with a degree in finance, Kim came back to Dubuque to work as a financial advisor.  But she couldn't get the restaurant business out of her blood and she would work at restaurants in the area as a second job at nights and on weekends.  

Andy and Kim eventually were married, and the first time Kim took Andy up to Decorah he experienced the same overwhelming sensation about the area that Kim experienced on her first visit to the town as a high school student looking at colleges.  The quaint town in a valley with a Norwegian influence gave them both a feeling of home when they were in Decorah.  

Pictured at right - Kim and Andy Bonnet

The Bonnets had discussed running their own restaurant at some point in time and were actively looking for a place to take over.  At a food show in Dubuque in 2006, Andy just happened to hear about two properties in downtown Decorah that could easily be turned into restaurant space if so desired.  One day while Kim was working at her financial advisor job, Andy drove up to Decorah to look at the two properties.  One building was probably too small for what they wanted, the other one - a building that was built in the 1890's that had originally been two spaces, but was combined into one in the 1960's - was probably too big for what they needed.  The Bonnet's decided that the larger space would be better - they could grow into the space if needed - and they bought the building in March of 2007.  

Going through the renovation process, the walls were stripped down to the original brick facade and the drop ceiling was taken down to reveal the original tin ceiling tiles.  The original front doors to the building - which are being used today - were found in the upstairs area of the building.  The building had been many things over the years - a drug store, a dry goods store, a jewelry store, a Five and Dime store, a hardware store, an office supply store - but it had never been a restaurant.  (Although, the story goes that the second story of one of the buildings before they were combined was a speakeasy during Prohibition.)  After months of renovation and restoration, the Bonnet's opened Rubaiyat in November of 2007.  

Initially, the name Rubaiyat sort of threw me - I thought it was probably a Middle Eastern restaurant.  But after looking at their menu on the window in front of the place, it turned out to be an American restaurant that featured a number of seasonal farm-to-fork offerings that Andy Bonnet sources from suppliers within a 150-mile radius around Decorah.  But the name Rubaiyat also confused a number of people.  I can almost hear some of those people who live in NE Iowa or SE Minnesota now - "What in the hell is a Rubaiyat?!"  

When the Bonnets were brainstorming for their restaurant's name one evening sharing a bottle of Cakebread Cellars cabernet wine, Kim began to read a poem that was on the back of the bottle.  It turned out the that poem came from a collection of poems by 11th century Persian mathematician/astronomer/poet/philosopher Omar Khayyám called Rubaiyat.  Many of the nearly 1000 poems celebrated the pairing of food and wine with one of Khayyám's famous lines being, “A jug of wine, a loaf of bread—and thou.”  What a great name for their restaurant, the Bonnet's thought!  But - to this day - it continues to be the most asked question by new patrons at their restaurant.    

It was a somewhat rainy evening when we pulled up to Rubaiyat on Water Street.  (see map)  The May day that we experienced went from somewhat cloudy and cool weather, to warm sunshine, to off and on heavy showers toward the latter part of the afternoon.  It had turned chilly - much too chilly for late May - by the time we went out for dinner.  

The bar area was to the right as you come into Rubaiyat.  It was a lively place when we got there - not so lively when we were leaving.  They featured a full bar with a great tap selection - 40 beers in total - with half of them being craft beers from the area.  

We were met at the hostess table by Kim Bonnet who recognized our name from the reservation I had made earlier in the day.  Even though the dining room was packed with diners around 7:30 on a Saturday evening, they had our table waiting for us.  She took us to a smaller table next to the wall toward the front of the dining room.  Kim gave us a couple menus to look through and it wasn't long after before our server for the evening - a young man by the name of James (more on him later) - came by to greet us.  He took our drink order to start out - my wife went with a limoncello martini and I went with a Pseudo Sue IPA from the Toppling Goliath brewery just up the road.  

The menu changes seasonally - and at times, weekly - at Rubaiyat.  They feature meat entrees such a beef, chicken or pork option, some seafood dishes, a pasta selection or two, and a flat bread pizza with a cauliflower crust.  They have a number of eclectic shared plates for appetizers, as well as a selection of salads and soups.  

The wine list is also extensive and very interesting at Rubaiyat.  Some we were very familiar with, others not so much.  For 11 years in a row now (they just received a 2019 mention), Rubaiyat has garnered the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence and they've also been recognized by Wine Enthusiast for their Award of Distinction.  Rubaiyat is only one of three Iowa restaurants to receive those honors from both publications.  Many of their wines were on display on shelves in the dining area and the prices were very reasonable, as well.  We selected a bottle of the 2014 Jordan cabernet that they had for $66 bucks - that same bottle in larger cities would be 40% higher in cost.    

For starters, my wife went with the kale Caesar's salad.  It had a ton of garlic included in it - I had to have a bite just so I'd be able to be around her later in the evening.  It was very good.  The salad came with a fresh baked loaf of warm sourdough bread that was simply excellent in taste.  

I got the wedge salad, only it didn't really look like a wedge salad from other restaurants.  This salad featured  romaine lettuce leaves topped with the usual bacon bits, chopped tomatoes and slathered in a blue cheese dressing.  Slices of a hard boiled boiled egg were crowned on top of the salad.  

For our main entrees that night, my wife ended up with the beef tenderloin filet.  It was paired with a side of bacon-grilled Brussels sprouts.  I'm not big on Brussels sprouts - especially steamed.  But she made me have a bite of these and they were excellent.  "They're so stupidly easy to make," she exclaimed.  "We can have these at home!"  I thought the filet - topped with buttered truffles - looked overcooked.  But when she cut into it, the steak had a nice pink middle.  My wife declared her steak as "excellent".  

I went with the pasta dish that night, the chicken parmigiana with spinach ravioli stuffed with blue cheese.  It was also fabulous.  The chicken parm had a nice coating of shaved mozzarella on top with a wonderful tangy marinara sauce surrounding it.  The blue cheese-stuffed ravioli pillows had that great house-made pasta taste to them.  Blue cheese can be somewhat overpowering in taste to me sometimes, but the ravioli had a subtle blue cheese taste quality to it.  I was more than happy with what I ordered.  

We were savoring our meal at the end when James came over to offer up their dessert choices for the evening.  We weren't overly certain that we wanted dessert as we were both satiated by our meal selection.  But then he came up with the dessert menu and we immediately got that look on our faces of "How can we pass this up?"  One of the desserts was a lavender vanilla cheese cake with mixed wild berries and drizzled with a raspberry-cream sauce.  When my wife heard, "Lavender" from James, she was hooked.  But he had other things to offer, as well.  

One of the other desserts was a classic creme brûlée.  Quite honestly, we couldn't make up our mind, so we went with both knowing good and well that we'd be completely miserable and full of guilt if we finished both.  The creme brûlée had a nice full-bodied, but light custard taste to it.  But it was very rich and we were only able to finish about half of it.

The reviews on the lavender vanilla cheesecake were mixed at our table, however.  I liked it - a lot.  My wife, not so much.  She actually thought the lavender flavor was overpowering.  And she loves lavender!  Well, mainly the scent of lavender, but maybe not the taste.  I actually ate more of the cheesecake than the creme brûlée.  Both, I felt, were extremely good.  

As the night wound down, we had a nice little chat with James.  It was raining off and on with the temperature dropping, so we weren't in any hurry to depart.  In fact, Rubaiyat encourages their patrons to linger and savor their meals and enjoy their wine.  We never felt hurried all evening long.  It was a great laid-back feeling during our visit.  We asked James his story and he said that he was from the Hyde Park area of Chicago and had come out to Luther to be a performance voice major.  He was a week away from graduating and after that he really didn't know exactly what he wanted to do.  "Maybe I'll work on a cruise ship or some dinner theater," he told us.  "Or maybe I'll have to find a real job," he said laughingly.

I don't know if I can say much more about our wonderful experience at Rubaiyat.  This was one of those restaurants where I wish I could just pick the whole thing up and drop it within a 10 minute drive of our home.  I'm not certain that the people who live in, around, or near Decorah know that they have such a gem in Rubaiyat.  Everything we had was delicious - the beef tenderloin filet that my wife had, and the chicken parm with blue cheese-stuffed ravioli that I had were both outstanding.  The salads - a garlic kale salad for my wife, and the interesting wedge salad that I had - were both very good.  And while my wife was a little disappointed with the lavender vanilla cheese cake, I thought that and the creme brûlée desserts we had were both very good.  The service was personable, prompt, and professional.  And the atmosphere was laid-back - to the point where they encourage people to stick around and not be hurried with their meal - and comfortable.  If you get to Decorah for a weekend outing, I would wholeheartedly recommend Rubaiyat for one of your meals when you're there.

 

 

Double B's BBQ - West Allis, WI

About a year ago, I was staying at a new Hampton Inn across the street from the Wisconsin State Fair Park in West Allis on the west side of Milwaukee.  I was driving down National that evening to go find something to eat and I passed what appeared to be a barbecue joint.   Driving back after dinner, I went slowly by the place and it turned out that it was a barbecue place, but they were closed because it was Monday.  I made a mental note to head back to West Allis at some point to try Double B's BBQ.  On a non-Monday evening recently, I had the chance to do just that.  

You could say that the restaurant business is in Mark Timber's blood.  He started out as a youngster working in his father's pizza place, Dino's Pizza, just north of General Mitchell International Airport on Milwaukee's south side.  From there, Timber moved on to manage the Telstar Drive-in just down the road from Dino's.  When his father sold Dino's, he moved to Taos, New Mexico to retire.  Mark followed his father and he started working in a fine dining establishment, La Doña Luz (which is now a bed-and-breakfast in Taos).  It turns out that the elder Timber couldn't handle retirement and he ended up buying a restaurant in Taos.  But Mark Timber found that he missed Milwaukee and he moved back after five years in Taos. 

Now married to his wife, Judy, the Timber's bought a custard stand in south suburban Oak Creek in the early 80's, selling it in 1987.  From there, Mark Timber went to work for the new Potawatomi Bingo (now the Potawatomi Hotel and Casino) helping design their kitchen and coming up with the menus for the burgeoning gambling establishment.  After his time at Potawatomi, he moved on to help run Butch's Old Casino Steak House for 12 years before the place closed in 2015.  

A few years ago between jobs at restaurants, Timber was working part-time at a cabinet shop in the Milwaukee area.  He was talking with one of his co-workers about his restaurant experience and his co-worker suggested that Timber to go out and invest in a smoker.  What started out as a casual home hobby for Timber turned into something of an obsession.  After his time at Butch's came to an end, he saw an on-line ad looking for someone to take over the kitchen at Double B's, a small bar on West Greenfield.  He decided to jump in with both feet and start up his barbecue operation.  

Pictured at right - Mark and Judy Timber.  Photo courtesy Timber's Catering Facebook Page.    

At first, the regular clientele who were used to a non-barbecue menu at Double B's were a little weary of the change.  However, it wasn't long before the Timber's Memphis-style barbecue offerings won many of them over and created their own following that includes people from Chicago coming up to have their barbecue.  The family also runs a catering company and a food truck with their son, Phil.  Their daughter, Christina, runs the bar now at Double B's, and not long ago the family bought a spot a couple doors to the east of Double B's that they're going to use as a banquet/celebration hall for their catering company.  

I pulled up in front of Double B's around 6:30 that particular evening.  I was able to find a parking spot just down the way from the place on Greenfield Ave.  (see map)  Actually, I could have walked from the hotel to Double B's as it was less than a half mile away.  But it was a cool evening - spring was having trouble making a normal appearance in the Upper Midwest this year - and I thought I'd just drive to the barbecue joint.  

I was greeted by Stephen, who turned out to be my server for the evening, as well.  The place was filling up fast and the bar was packed.  He took me to a table that had a banquette seat across the west wall of the place.  As much as I detest sitting at tables with banquette seats, I decided I could work with it on this visit.  

Stephen dropped off a menu for me to look through.  They had a number of good craft beers available at the bar and I ordered up a Karben4 Fantasy Factory IPA, it's quickly becoming one of my favorite beers.   

They have the usual barbecue offerings at Double B's - brisket, pulled pork, smoked chicken, sausage, as well as both baby back and spare ribs.  They also feature a number of smoked meat sandwiches as well as burgers, and some pretty interesting appetizers including smoked chicken wings, burnt ends and bacon-wrapped meatballs.  I damned near ordered up some of those just to try.  Next time.  

For dinner that evening I got the brisket platter.  It featured thick cuts of tender brisket with a combination rub consisting of a bit of ground chile and black pepper with a bit of sugar.  The meat is smoked with hickory wood - low and slow.  I had a choice of sides with the brisket.  I got the baked beans and the cole slaw.  (Cornbread, French fries, sweet potato fries, and a house-made mac & cheese were also available as sides.)  Some bread and butter pickles came with the platter.

The brisket was very good.  It pulled apart very easily when I cut it with my fork.  I really didn't need a knife with it.  The rub combined with the smokiness of the hickory wood flavor in the meat was a great taste sensation.  

I know I shouldn't have even dallied with the barbecue sauce, but Double B's had three that I tried.  They had a XXX Picante barbecue sauce that I didn't really think was all that hot.  It did sneak up on me after a few moments, but it wasn't anything that I couldn't handle.  But they had a Kansas City-style sauce that was thick and sweet.  But the one I liked the best of the three was the Texas bold sauce which was basically the Kansas City-style sauce with some ground hot pepper mixed in.  It had great sweet and somewhat spicy taste quality.  

The cole slaw was a creamy/vinegar blend that I thought was very good, as well.  The beans, I thought, were good, but they got extremely better when I added some of the Texas bold sauce to them.  Overall, I thought the barbecue was very solid.  

Before I took off, I went to the restroom and then ventured out back to their patio area.  The patio was empty that evening, but I'm sure that it fills up when the weather warms up.  Filament heaters and Edison lights were hanging from the rafters, but the focus of the patio was large hickory wood smoker - one of two that Timber uses.  Timber employs 3 pit masters and his two smokers are running 24 hours a day to keep up with the demand for his meats for both the restaurant, the food truck and the catering business.  Timber's catering company provides food for over 100 events annually, the vast majority of them are weddings.  Many of the customers that come into Double B's probably had their first taste of Timber's barbecue at a wedding held out west of Milwaukee at some point.  

I've tried some barbecue places around Milwaukee over the years and I have to say that I really wasn't impressed with any of them - until now.  Mark and Judy Timber's Double B BBQ is solid Memphis-style barbecue with a simple rub and a wonderful smoky flavor to their meats.  Their baked beans were good - even better with the addition of their Texas Bold barbecue sauce - and I thought their cole slaw was good, as well.  They had a wonderful selection of local and regional craft beers, and had a full bar, as well.  Double B's is closed on Sunday and Monday, but you can enjoy their barbecue the other days of the week.  I know I'll be going back at some point to try the bacon-wrapped meatballs appetizer.

Minnesota Vacationland - 2019

Earlier this summer, my wife and I spent a few days in the Glacial Lakes region in Kandiyohi County in west central Minnesota, about 100 miles west of the Twin Cities.  We had been wanting to go to Minnesota and hang around a lake for sometime, but just never found the opportunity to do so.  But it was on a trip to St. Cloud earlier this year that I discovered that there was a Hampton Inn in Spicer, MN, right on Green Lake, a 5400 acre body of water.  Being the cheap guy that I can be at times, we decided to use some of the points I get from being a Lifetime Hilton Diamond member and spend a few days there.   

After spending our first night in Rochester, MN, we took off on a cross country trip across Southern into West Central Minnesota.  It turned out that with flooding earlier this year, a number of roads along the Minnesota River near and west of Mankato had been closed due to damage.  We ended up having to take a detour in New Ulm, MN that took us into the city.

It was rather fortuitous for us in that we would have never discovered the August Schell Brewery nestled in a small park in New Ulm not far from the banks of the Cottonwood River. (see map)  I've been somewhat familiar with Schell's American Lager for a number of years, but over the past few years they've branched out with a number of different styles of their craft beer.  And Schell's also owns and brews Grain Belt Beer, an Upper Midwest institution.  

We walked around the grounds that featured the original Schell house that cozily sits amongst tall trees and lush terraced gardens.  We found the gift shop and looked around at what they had in there, but we didn't take a tour of the brewery.  We did end up, however, in Schell's beer garden enjoying a couple of their India Pale Ales before we made it back on the road.

The detours probably added 45 to 50 minutes of regular travel time between Mankato and where we ended up in Spicer.  Spicer is located on the western edge of Green Lake.  It's a small town with three or four restaurants, a grocery store, at least three boat dealers, and a large general store - Mel's Sport Shop - that sold everything from clothing to beer to fishing tackle to snacks to guns to gifts to gas.  Mel's had you covered if you needed anything while you were in Spicer.

As I said, we spent our nights at the Hampton Inn in Spicer (see map).  They billed themselves as a resort, but it was really just a newer Hampton Inn, finished in mid-2017.  And it wasn't even on the lakefront.  There were houses and trees in between the hotel and the lake.  From our tiny hotel room (one of the smallest - if not THE smallest - King-bed rooms I've ever been in), we could see slivers of the lake in the far away distance.  

When we checked in, we found ourselves talking to the manager of the property who did a bang-up job of selling us on Spicer and the nearby town of New London.  She talked about all the activities that we could do (they had a couple pontoon boats that we could rent for $250 for 8 hours plus added fees), the shopping in New London, the wonderful restaurants in the area, the great hot breakfast provided free at the hotel, and the peaceful, laid-back atmosphere that brings people to Green Lake.  We found out in a couple days that she really oversold some of the activities and the charm of Spicer and New London.  And the free hot breakfast was nothing more than a standard Hampton Inn breakfast of scrambled eggs, cheese omelets and turkey sausage.  But one thing she didn't oversell was the laid back nature of the Green Lake area.  

Green Lake is a large, island-less lake that had crystal clear water and little shoreline vegetation.  Because Spicer didn't have many - if any - tourist-type places that catered to little kids, there was a distinct lack of screaming little turds around the streets, parks and beaches along the lake.  It could have been that we were there during the week, also after a large Fourth of July celebration the city of Spicer puts on annually.  But it was peaceful, restful and laid-back.  

We spent much of our time on a deck at a city park in Spicer looking out over the lake.  It was a couple blocks from our hotel and it was just fabulous sitting there with a book or an iPad catching up on our reading.  Or just sitting there looking out onto the lake hearing the geese honk or the loons cry in the distance.  Since our room was so small, we couldn't wait to get out of there each morning.  We walked along Lake Ave. up to Skyline Dr. nearly every morning (we woke up to rain one morning) and stopped at the deck at the park to enjoy the light morning breeze and the warm summer sun.  Other than a day or so of rain, the weather was picture perfect with highs in the low 80's with low humidities.  

This was the view from the deck at Pirotta Park in Spicer as we sat in one of their wonderful swinging rocker chairs.  Many times we were the only people on the deck.  It was our own little slice of heaven.

We took a drive around Green Lake our first night there and we couldn't believe the number of homes for sale along the lake.  We were talking with a couple who we met at a brewpub in New London one evening - they recognized us from the previous evening as we were sitting outside a beachfront restaurant in Spicer enjoying mai tais while staring out at the lake - and they had a vacation house on the lake.  We asked them about the number of houses for sale around the lake - it was my wife's estimation that nearly a 1/3 of the homes around the lake's 12 mile plus loop were for sale.  I thought it was, maybe, 1 out of every four houses.  But we did see a number of homes in a row that were for sale at different places around the lake.  

The guy told us that many of the houses are owned by both people from the Twin Cities and by farmers in the area.  With the uncertainty of farm markets going on with trade wars with China, he explained to us that many of the houses were owned by farmers who couldn't afford to keep the lake homes.  "But you're right," he said to me.  "There's a lot of houses for sale."

He also mentioned that a number of other homes owned by people from the Twin Cities go up for sale annually.  "It's a 100 miles from the center of the Twin Cities out here," he was saying as we talked at the brewpub.  "And it's not an easy 100 mile drive from the cities.  People get a house out here, find out that they only use it two or three times a year, then realize that it's stupid to have a lake home so far from the city.  Then they end up selling it, usually to someone else from the Twin Cities who then realizes after three years that he doesn't use it enough."

The one other thing that I didn't see around Green Lake were resorts.  In fact, there was only one or two places that billed themselves as resorts, but they were nothing more than glorified campgrounds for people who wanted to put camper trailers on the grounds for the summer months.  I was told that over 30 years ago there were over 20 resorts on the lake.  The last one closed last year - Spicer Castle, a 15 room, 1 cabin bed-and-breakfast that was built in 1895 by Spicer's founder, John Spicer.  There were no supper clubs in the area, no large campgrounds, no real attractions.  If you were looking for a place to veg out and do nothing, Spicer was the place.  

The one day it rained, we decided to head up to New London and check out the place.  The lady at the hotel made it sound like New London was a destination that rivaled the likes of Galena, IL with its charming shops, restaurants and brewpub.  It was far from that.  After driving down the main street of the small town (about the size of Spicer), my wife and I sort of looked at one another and thought, "This is it? This is all there is to New London?"  We didn't get out of the car that day, but we did go back another day when it was nicer and walked the three or four blocks that make up the downtown retail area.  Most of the shops were geared toward seasonal tourists - tourists with a lot of money.  My wife wound up shaking her head in dismay and disbelief after leaving the last shop we were in that morning.  

What New London did have - in addition to a great brewpub with an attached farm-to-fork restaurant that I'll be writing about at a later date - was a number of lakes chained together by the middle fork of the Crow River.  One afternoon, we found a park with a long curving lake by it and we watched an instructor for a local ski club pull some young skiers - we surmised that they were not even teenagers yet - up and down the lake with a ski boat.  They were actually quite entertaining to watch.  There was a grandstand on the shore near us and a ski jump ramp in the lake and it was my guess that the ski club put on shows there.  (The kids didn't use the ski jump ramp.)  I think we sat there for over an hour, not only watching them but enjoying the cool shade along the lake.  

Outside of New London was Sibley State Park, a 2900 acre park that featured nature trails, camping, an interpretive center, and a handful of small lakes including a beach at the largest, Lake Andrew.  The centerpiece of Sibley State Park was a viewing tower on the top of Mount Tom.  We drove up through a tree-shrouded lane to a parking lot near the viewing tower.  It was a short hike up a trail, then a few steps up the tower gave us a 360 degree view of a 50 mile radius around the park.   My wife, who is very skittish with towers, was able to get up the sturdy steps and take a look at the surrounding area with me.  

We had passed a winery on our way between Spicer and New London a few times on our back-and-forth's between the two towns.  We decided to stop in one afternoon and check the place out - Glacial Ridge Winery.  Owner Ron Wothe was in the tasting room and we sat down to give some of his wines a taste.  He explained to us that he has many of his grapes shipped in from Northern California and he makes the wine there.  

He had two whites and five reds to sample that day.  Two of the wines - a wonderful white American Vermintino by the name of Bacio, and a velvety lightly oaked cabernet by the name of Green Lake Girl - were definitely head and shoulders above the others.  We liked the Bacio wine so much that we bought a couple bottles to take home for our next door neighbor lady who was doing her best not to let our plants and flowers die while we were away.  

Glacial Ridge also hosts a summer concert series and they were setting up for that evening's show while we were there.  Ron Wothe told us that they had been rained out of the previously scheduled events.  "It's been a bad spring and early summer up here," he said as he watched some of the band members set up on the small stage in the orchard across the parking lot from the winery.  "We could have 300 people out here later tonight," he said before inviting us to come back.  We did drive by going up for a beer at the New London brewpub and a large number of cars were parked along the line going to the winery and far down the road that gets you to the entrance of the lane.  I'm guessing he had a good night that evening.   

On the rainy day, we did drive down to Willmar - 10 miles from Spicer - to check out the largest town in the area.  Here's a road tip - there's NOTHING in Willmar.  I mean, nothing.  We did find a pretty good restaurant on a picturesque golf course that I'll let you know about at a later date, but that was about it.  The couple we met at the brewpub in New London that week were from Willmar and even THEY said there was nothing in Willmar.  

And one day, we decided to make the 50 minute trip up to St. Cloud to have lunch and look around.  After lunch at the White Horse Restaurant in downtown St. Cloud (click here to see the original Road Tips entry on the White Horse), we ventured over toward the campus of St. Cloud State University and went over the Mississippi River to find a wonderful botanical garden - the Munsinger Gardens part of the Munsinger/Clemons Botanical Society based in St. Cloud.   

The garden was one of the best ones we've found in our travels - and that even includes going to botanical gardens in Hawaii.  It featured bricked walkways that went through all different types of flower and plants - both annuals and perennials.  The botanical garden had a number of fountains that were centerpieces of different sections of the property.  Down the hill from the botanical garden was a tree-laden park that went along the Mississippi River.  We dodged off-and-on rain drops as we walked through both the garden and park that day.

My wife and I were especially interested in the rose garden they had at the Munsinger Gardens.  However, a tough winter and cold spring took its toll on many of the rose bushes and they were in the midst of replanting many of the roses when we were there.  One of the many workers at the garden told us that the combination of heavy snow cover, then a cold snap in early May damaged many of the rose bushes.  We were sort of disappointed because this was a large rose garden and we wanted to get a peek at some roses we may want to put in our garden at home.  But only a handful were blooming.  

So, that's a quick synopsis of our laid-back, veg-out, do nothing vacation.  Well, we actually did some things, but for the most part we hung out when we could.  We spent about an hour of our last morning in Spicer sitting on the deck at Pirotta Park looking out at the peaceful water on Green Lake.  It was really tough to leave Spicer and it was almost a culture shock when we stayed in downtown Minneapolis that evening with all the hustle and bustle compared to calm and quiet of Spicer.  We would have no problem heading back to chill at Spicer and to hang out in the great little brewpub in New London that I'll write about sometime very soon.  

What I Ate the Iowa State Fair

My sister's fiancé is always on me to call him when I get to Des Moines as he likes to hang out.  I was going to be in Des Moines this week and I called him a few days ago to let him know that I would be spending a night in the city.  The only problem was that he and my sister had plans - they were going to the Iowa State Fair for a concert that same night.  "But come to the fair and hang out with us before the show," he implored.  I told him that I wasn't certain when I would get in town as I was coming down from Minneapolis.  But I made it in town earlier than I thought and I ended up meeting them at the State Fair where we sat at the Craft Beer Tent and hung out.  I walked them to the grandstand before the show started, then I went on a quest to find the "People's Choice" winner of the best new food at the fair this year - the "Georgie's Roast with the Most" wrap from G. Mig's stand.  

G. Mig's 5th Street Pub is a bar/restaurant in the Valley Junction area of West Des Moines.  Owner/chef George Migliero was the long-time chef at the private Wakonda Club starting there in 1995 before leaving there to take over the 5th Street Pub in 2012.  Migliero was named the Iowa Restaurateur of the Year in 2014 and in 2016 he decided to put a stand out at the Iowa State Fair.  Each year since, he has been a finalist for the "Best New Food at the Fair" award and last year he won a fair contest for having the best salad that included tofu on it.  (Seriously.)  

After leaving my sister and her fiancé, I took a quick look on my phone to find out where G. Mig's stand was and it turned out that it was near the southeast side of the Varied Industries building.  When I got there, the line wasn't long.  When I finished, it turned out the line was well over a dozen people deep.  

All were, no doubt, wanting to try what I was having, the pot roast beef wrap.  It consisted of cheddar tortilla wrap stuffed with tender slow-roasted beef along with a mixture of white rice, crumbled chorizo sausage, roasted green chiles, cheddar-jack cheese, a sweet corn salsa, crispy tortilla crumbles and finished with a drizzle of sour cream.  A wonderful and thick green chile salsa was available to add to it, which I did liberally.  

And it was wonderful.  The beef was tender, the sweet corn salsa was very prevalent in the taste, the green chiles added a big of a smoky flavor, and the hint of a spiciness from the chorizo was evident.  But the salsa verde was simply outstanding.

I normally get a Gizmo from Carl's Gizmo when I go to the fair, but the last couple times I went there, I thought it wasn't worth what they were charging for.  (They've made them smaller and were charging more for them.)  But for $10 bucks, the "Georgie's Roast with the Most" wrap was worth the price and then some.  If you're going to the State Fair this weekend, it's my high recommendation that if you're hungry and looking for something to eat, then search out the G. Mig's stand south and east of the Varied Industries building for the People's Choice winner for 2019.