We had planned on going into Chicago for Cindy's birthday in December. But the weather that weekend started off with freezing rain, then we had plummeting temperatures with snow and high winds that caused blizzard conditions in parts of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois. We made the decision not to go in the night before all of that hit.
Since we weren't going into Chicago, I told Cindy that I'd take her to some place nice locally for her birthday. There's a new place in town down in the old Freight House building near Davenport's river front by the name of Ripley Street Grille (see map). We decided to go there for her birthday.
Ripley Street Grille is part of four segments of the Freight House building - Penguins Comedy Club, Nan's Piano Bar, and Balls and Pucks Sports Cafe. When Penguins Comedy Club was looking for a new place to move to, the co-owners - Bob Eckles and Jeff Johnson - wanted to have a building big enough to house a fine dining restaurant along with the comedy club. They found the building big enough for the club, restaurant and more in the Freight House building. The Freight House hasn't had the greatest track record in keeping businesses in the building. There's been a series of restaurants, bars, clubs, etc. that have come and gone over the years that have been housed in the building. For whatever reasons, the Freight House hasn't been able to sustain any life in any business.
I think, however, that Eckles and Johnson have found the right combination of businesses to sustain the Freight House for a few years. Although I'm not too impressed by Balls and Pucks as a sports bar, it's really nothing more than the bar area for Penguins. But Nan's Piano Bar is regularly packed with people looking for a nice diversion of entertainment in the area. And we've heard good things about the Ripley Street Grille.
Scott Elmer is the head chef at Ripley Street Grille. Most of the menu is an eclectic mix of contemporary American food with steaks, seafood, pasta and sandwiches. They even have a "build-your-own" burger for $7.50 that I wouldn't mind trying sometime.
The parking lot attached to the Freight House building was nearly full when we got there around 7 p.m. We ended up parking across the street in the old Union Station which was much closer to the entry way of Ripley Street Grille, anyhow. We went in and checked in at the hostess station. The girl asked if we had reservations and we said we didn't. I said, "How long for the wait?"
She looked at me and said, "There's no wait. We can get you in right away."
I sort of hate that when they ask if you have a reservation right off the bat, but that's normal procedure for most fine dining restaurants. She led us to a booth just in an area near the front entrance. Actually, I wouldn't have minded getting a table next to the large ceiling-to-floor windows that run along the south side of the restaurant. But Cindy is perpetually cold from November 1 to May 1, so sitting near the window is generally not an option this time of year. So it worked out.
Our waiter came out and we started to make some small talk with him. He wanted to know if it was our first time in and we said it was. He talked a little bit about the restaurant and what they served. He gave us a little bit of time to look over the menu. In the meantime, I took a look at the wine list - a not too impressive list, I might add. But there wasn't anything that was overly expensive, probably not wanting to immediately scare the locals who they're trying to get to come in to the place.
I found an appetizer that I wanted to try right off the bat. I ordered up some of the scallop and shrimp scampi - medium-sized scallops and shrimp baked in a combination of butter, garlic and white wine, then topped with some Panko bread crumbs. It was very good. It was served with a soft homemade bread that was great to dip into the butter, garlic and wine sauce.
When I ordered the appetizer, I ordered up a bottle of the Murphy-Goode Cabernet Sauvignon. I'd had the wine before and they had a good price on it - $35 bucks. I've seen bottles of Murphy-Goode go for $50 bucks at restaurants in the past.
Our appetizer was well over before the waiter bought the bottle of Murphy-Goode out and the general manager of the place was right behind him. The G.M. said, "Oh, you ordered the Murphy-Goode Cab. That's my favorite wine on our list." It was almost like he was patronizing me for making the selection.
The waiter had the bottle, two large red wine glasses and a decanter. I said, "Look, you don't really need to decanter the wine."
He said, "Yes, but decanting the wine will help bring out the fruit flavor."
I said, "Look, the glasses are large. Once they get poured into the glasses, the wine will open up nicely. We're not going to slam it back or anything. Besides, decanting wine just seems too pretentious to me. I've eaten in some fine dining establishments in Chicago, New York, L.A., where ever, and only a handful of places have ever offered to decanter the wine. I know you're trying to put your best foot forward, but this is the Quad Cities, for God's sake."
He said, "As you wish, sir." And he poured the wine in our glasses, sort of miffed that he couldn't fulfill his waiterly duties. But the wine was very good out of the bottle and I said, "This is great and it will be even better in about 20 minutes."
After he left, Cindy said, "I would have liked to have him decanter the wine."
I said, "You know, there are places in this town that just go out of their way to be "big city" when even nicer places in big cities don't even try to do the things they do here in the Quad's." I explained to her that while it must be nice for some people who think they're getting a world class dining experience in the Quad Cities, it just reeks of pretentiousness. And I hate any signs of pretentious dining - especially in the Quad Cities.
(As an aside - there's a place just up the river in LeClaire called Steventon's. It's a fine dining place that I took Cindy to - once. It was her birthday in 1994 and we went out there for dinner. I had a crew neck sweater, buttoned down shirt and slacks on. Cindy was similarly dressed. I was told by the host that they normally don't seat men without coats and ties, but given that it was the middle of the week, they'd make an exception. Well, it pissed me off so much that I've refused to go back - even AFTER we've heard they've relaxed on their dress code. It wasn't like I was in shorts and a polo shirt like I was this past summer at The Inn at Kristopher's in Door County. And that was a much nicer place than Steventon's. Like I say, it doesn't matter what you have on - our money spends just as well as the guy who's wearing a coat and tie.)
Our waiter came back and took our order. Cindy ordered up the Chilean sea bass - a broiled sea bass filet topped with a Panko pecan breading with a beurre blanc (white butter) sauce. Along with the sea bass came a vegetable medley.
Ripley Street Grille has prime rib on both Friday and Saturday nights. And I thought the price for a 24 oz. cut ($32 bucks) was pretty reasonable. So that's what I ordered. With the prime rib I ordered some of their garlic smashed potatoes. He asked how I liked my meat cooked and I asked him to bring it rare. He said, "Well, our prime rib usually starts out medium-rare."
I said, "OK, that's fine. But try to make it the most rare part of the medium-rare." He said he'd see what he could do.
I got up to go to the bathroom and I walked through the restaurant. The main restaurant is long and narrow with the bar on the other side of the main entrance to the restaurant (which is sort of weird). I would say the place was about half-full with diners and there was a Christmas party going on in one of the rooms. In the past, we've gone to places for Cindy's birthday where the restaurant was hosting two or three Christmas parties. And because of that, the food usually suffers. I was hoping that wouldn't be the case with Ripley Street Grille.
When our food came out, I was astonished to see the size of the chunk of meat the chef cut off for me. It was WELL over 24 ounces - possibly hitting 40 ounces. The waiter said, "We took care of you on this one. We're actually a little slow this evening and the chef just cut off the biggest piece of rare-medium-rare he could find."
I asked the waiter if I could get some fresh-ground horseradish. He sort of looked at me funny and said, "I don't know if we have any."
I said, "Man, you serve up a great prime rib like this and you don't have fresh-ground horseradish?"
He said he'd check in the kitchen. He came back with a small container of fresh-ground horseradish and said, "Well, I learn something every day. We do have fresh-ground horseradish. And the chef said, 'That guy knows how to eat prime rib if he wants the fresh stuff.' " He said he'd been a waiter there since the place opened in June of 2008 and he said that he's served hundreds of prime rib dinners on the weekend and no one had ever asked for fresh-ground horseradish. "We've got the creamy horseradish," he said.
I said, "Ah, creamy horseradish is for tourists. Well, now you can impress your customers by asking them if they'd like some fresh or creamy horseradish with their prime rib."
There are times that I wish that I had a camera for some meals and this was one of the times. The chunk of prime rib was - easily - two and half inches thick and about eight to nine inches in length. I certainly didn't get short changed in that department. And it was very flavorful and very tender. There was no way I was going to be able to eat even half of the portion.
Cindy was very impressed with her Chilean sea bass. She gave me a small chunk of it. It was very good, not very fishy tasting and it was also very rich. The light breading and the white butter sauce were both excellent on the fish. And she gave me a couple pieces of the asparagus that came with her vegetable medley. It may have been the best prepared asparagus I've ever had at a restaurant. It was fully cooked, but still had a nice fresh "crunch" to the bite. I said, "Why is my asparagus at home not like this?"
Cindy said, "Because you usually over-cook it."
After we ate all we could, the waiter came back and asked if I wanted my prime rib boxed up. I said, "Absolutely! This will be good for two prime rib and eggs breakfasts in the coming days."
When he was picking up our plates, he asked if we were interested in dessert. Cindy said she was, so he went through the list of items they had that evening. One of the desserts was a flour-less black chocolate torte topped with a house-made whipped cream. He also mentioned a vanilla-bean and almond creme brulee. I said, "Oooo, the creme brulee sounds good, but I don't care for almonds all that much."
He said, "Quite honestly, I like almonds and I think they should put more of the almond flavoring into the creme brulee. So, it might be OK with you."
He then said, "Look, you can give it a try and if you don't like it, I'll take it back and not charge you for it. Fair enough?"
I said, "Geez, you can't go wrong with that."
Cindy ordered the very rich chocolate torte. He brought them out and even though the creme brulee had a hint of almond flavoring in it, it wasn't overpowering to the taste of the dessert as a whole. He didn't have to worry about taking the creme brulee back.
After some initial uneasiness with our waiter, it turned out he was a pretty good guy - joking with us later on in the evening, he asked how the Ripley Street Grille stacked up against any big city place we'd eaten at. He asked, "Were we too 'big city' for you?"
I said, "Not after we set and understood the rules and boundaries. The service was very good, the food was excellent and we will be back at some point."
After dinner, we tried to go up to Nan's Piano Bar to check the place out, but there was a doorman at the bottom of the stairs who was telling people that it was closed that evening for a private party hosted by one of the local large realtors in the area. Cindy was kind of bummed, but the guy said, "You should have my job turning people away who have been planning on going to Nan's for a long time. That's what I'm up against this evening.
So, we ended up at a downtown Davenport bar where our buddies from Samurai Superfly were playing. Leo and Bob Kelly, along with Greg Hipskind are better known as the musicians in Wicked Liz and the Bellyswirls. But with Liz raising a family, she can't play as often as the guys would like to. So the guys go out and do their own classic and contemporary rock gigs on their own. It was a fun evening, to say the least.
With very handsome tip to our waiter, our meal at Ripley Street Grille came to a little over $150 bucks. It was worth every penny. I thought the prices were well in line compared to other places in larger cities, the portions - albeit, a very abnormal piece of prime rib - were very adequate. It was a great atmosphere and I want to go back and try one of their burgers for lunch at some point. I hope the Freight House is able to sustain the businesses that now inhabit the place. Ripley Street Grille was a great value with good service and a wonderful atmosphere. It's definitely one of the best places to eat in the Quad Cities.
(Update - Less than a year after I made this entry, the Ripley Street Grille has closed its doors. Actually, they are still serving for groups and private functions, but they are no longer a full service restaurant. As good as the place was, the higher than average prices and pretentious nature of the place turned off a lot of local people. That was pretty much echoed by the managing partner, Jeff Johnson, during an interview on one of the local television stations. It's too bad because as long as I've lived in Davenport, the Freight House has had a number of restaurants and bars come and go. Restaurants in downtown Davenport aren't doing all that well to begin with. One of these days I hope they'll find a restaurant that earns its keep in the Freight House.)
