During a recent trip to the Twin Cities, I was on the hunt for some Oktoberfest beers. One place that I found in south suburban Burnsville was a place called Blue Max Liquors. The sign out front says, "Over 1100 beers and over 300 single malts." Oooo... I couldn't wait to get inside.
Tom and Diane Pilney are the owners of Blue Max Liquors, which has been in business for over 30 years. It's located in a small shopping area near where I-35W and I-35E split off in the southern part of the Twin Cities (see map). As soon as I walked into the place, I was in beer and Scotch heaven. First of all, Tom Pilney has a collection of Springbank whisky on display. Springbank is Scotland's oldest family owned distillery and they put out some of the best Scotch there is on the planet. Blue Max Liquors had some Springbank collectibles - special run Scotch that some call priceless. And they weren't for sale. I was overly impressed.
Their selection of Scotch just made my mouth water. They had TONS of different types of Scotch. They had everything - Maccallan, Laphroaig, Glenlivet, Glenmorangie, Glenfiddich. I must have spent 20 minutes just looking at all the Scotch they had. I was just absolutely blown away.
But I'd come in for beer and not really Scotch (although I did pick up a bottle of Talisker10 year at a pretty good price of $44.95). I was even more impressed with the beer selection. I have to say that they have at least one of everything that is available from all the area distributors. I mean, they had their beer sectioned off by countries! I was in beer heaven!
I found August Schell Octoberfest, Summit Oktoberfest, and Lake Superior Oktoberfest. I found something called Brau Brothers Scotch Ale. I had to try that. And to my pleasant surprise, I found some Full Sail pale ale. I first had Full Sail on my first trip to the Pacific Northwest a couple years ago. Their pale ale is outstanding. My only wish is that Alaskan beer would be available in Minnesota. That would make my world complete.
I grabbed about three cases of assorted beers and took them up to the counter along with my bottle of Scotch. The guy at the register said, "Looks like you're stocking up!"
I said, "I'm from Iowa and I can't get a lot of these Oktoberfest beers down there. This is what I like about Fall. Oktoberfest beers."
He said, "Well, I hope that we had enough for you. Looks like we did!"
He was telling me that he gets a lot of people from Iowa that come in and fill up their trunks with beer. "We're so close to the I-35 split that it's easy to get here for people on their way back to Iowa, he said. "I just had a guy in here yesterday from Iowa. He got a bunch of beer."
The guy helped me carry the beer out to the car. I told him he didn't need to do that, but he insisted. "Part of the service," he explained.
Blue Max Liquors has just made it into my Top Ten of best place to hunt for beer. Great selection, great prices, great service. I was overly impressed. And it will be a must to stop there on my future trips to the Twin Cities.
An old dealer friend of mine, Tony Leone, who used to run the now-defunct Sound Central in St. Louis is a big food guy, as I am. One time a few years ago, he asked me, "Hey, do you like chili dogs?" Well, who doesn't like a good chili dog?! He was telling me about this old time ice cream parlor in the Old North St. Louis neighborhood called Crown Candy Kitchen that, he said, had great chili dogs. He told me that I really needed to give them a try at some point.
I never really thought about it again until I saw a segment on "Man Vs. Food" on The Travel Channel where Adam Richman was trying to down 120 ounces of Crown Candy Kitchen's thick and rich malts (see right). I thought, "Wait a minute! That's the place Tony told me to try for chili dogs!" So when I was in St. Louis recently, I made a point to go to Crown Candy Kitchen for a couple chili dogs.
Crown Candy Kitchen dates back to 1913 when friends Harry Karandzieff and Pete Jugaloff, two Greek immigrants, opened up the small confectionery shop. The sleepy little shop persevered through two World Wars and The Great Depression. In the early 50's, Harry's son, George, took over the little ice cream shop. During George's ownership, Crown Candy Kitchen became one of the favorite destinations for St. Louisians looking for a good malt or milk shake. Today, George's sons Andy, Mike and Tim run the business, with a little help from a group of fourth generation Karandzieff sons.
Crown Candy Kitchen is located in an area known as Old North St. Louis (see map). Now, I have to tell you, the area around Crown Candy Kitchen is decrepit and run down. There were buildings where the bricks were missing out of the walls of buildings. There were buildings with boarded up windows with graffiti on them. I was a little leery of even parking on the street before I got to Crown Candy Kitchen.
When I pulled up, I noticed that some of the buildings in the area were getting a makeover. There was a little bit of vibrancy to the neighborhood directly around Crown Candy Kitchen. A number of cars were parked on the street near the place and I had suddenly had no trepidation with going to get a couple chili dogs there.
It was just after 1 p.m. when I got into Crown Candy Kitchen. Understandably, the place was packed by a lunchtime crowd. In addition to ice cream sundaes, malts and shakes, and homemade chocolate candy, Crown Candy Kitchen has a soup and sandwich menu. I found one empty booth in the back corner and a waitress came along to see if I needed any time to look through the menu. I found the chili dog on the menu - Wow! It must be really good! It was $7.50! OK, let's give it a shot.
As I waited for my chili dog, I took a good look around Crown Candy Kitchen. It is the quintessential old-style ice cream parlor. There were old Coca-Cola ads and memorabilia, tons of candy jars, and a vintage jukebox greeted you as you came in. The booths were not very comfortable, but they added to the charm of the place. There were people coming and going throughout the time I was there. It was one busy place. And it was really kind of neat.
The waitress brought out a couple small bags of oyster crackers, telling me that my chili dog would be out momentarily. I opened one of the bags and had a couple crackers. They were horribly stale. Ugh!
My chili dog made it to my table. It was served in a bowl and you needed a fork to eat it. That's OK. I'll eat a chili dog any way it's served to me. Of course, the chili was the key component in the meal. And it was... OK. Nothing special, nothing to get all excited about. The chili was sort of thick and bland. The grilled beef hot dog was... OK. It tasted fine, but I have to say - I've had much better chili and chili dogs. It was like the chili had been sitting simmering on the stove for a few days. I'm not certain that - no, let me rephrase that. The chili dog was NOT worth $7.50. I've gotten three chili dogs at some places for less than $7.50. And they were much better than the one at Crown Candy Kitchen.
I'm sort of glad I went by myself and didn't meet Tony at Crown Candy Kitchen for a chili dog. I was highly disappointed with it. I'm sure since he grew up in St. Louis and probably had their chili dogs for years he thought they were great. Oh, I'm not saying that Crown Candy Kitchen was bad - it is still a must visit if you're in the St. Louis area. It's a very neat place and I'm sure their ice cream, malts and candies are excellent. I know I'll have to take Cindy there for a shake the next time we're in town together. But as far as their chili dogs go, I'd give Crown Candy Kitchen two stars for taste and one star for value.
I put on a new dealer in Kansas City recently and we were talking about his favorite barbecue places. I mentioned going to Jack Stack Barbecue, of which one location is just down the street from his store. He said, "You know, a place that I sort of like, but a lot of people shy away from here in Kansas City is Smokehouse Bar-B-Que. The owner is Iranian or Iraqi and that prejudices some people here in town. But I think it's very good."
Smokehouse Bar-B-Que is a four location local chainthat was started in 1986 by Darioush Ghasemi. Quite honestly, Smokehouse never registered on my barbecue scanner when it came to looking for good barbecue in K.C. There's a ton of good to great Kansas City barbecue restaurants, but my new dealer's recommendation of Smokehouse was rather intriguing.
Recently, I found that I would be driving down to Kansas City from Lincoln, NE via Interstate 29. The somewhat-new Zona Rosa shopping center is home to one of the Smokehouse Bar-B-Que locations (see map). Since Zona Rosa is right off the Interstate at Barry Road, I decided to stop in for lunch one day.
The outside of the Zona Rosa Smokehouse Bar-B-Que is pretty nondescript, but the interior looks like it could be an upscale steakhouse. The first thing you can't help but notice when you walk in the main dining area is a massive, concave, stained-glass, back-lit window in the ceiling over the middle of the room. It was rather impressive. There is a lounge area off to the left side that features a large square bar with seating on three sides, and four 42" flat screen televisions on the back wall.
Since I was a party of one, I opted to sit at the bar. The hostess ushered me to a seat and left a lunch menu on the bar for me. The bartender was quick to ask what I'd like to drink. A beer sounded good - a beer is always good with barbecue. But since I had a couple meetings in the afternoon and then a product training at my new dealer that evening, I just got water. (No pop - I have only had two Cokes in the last year. Both of those were when I was in the hospital with my hip replacement surgeries. They made me drink them so I'd pee more quickly and I could get released.)
Actually, the lunch menu isn't much different from Smokehouse Bar-B-Que's dinner menu, as both feature a number of salads, chicken entrees and, of course, ribs and brisket. Both menus feature a number of mouthwatering sandwiches along with combo meat plates. The dinner menu adds steaks and some seafood to the mix. Smokehouse Bar-B-Que's appetizer include their famous Cajun chicken wings, jalapeno cheese nuggets, and Smokehouse Bar-B-Que's thick and yummy onion rings.
I was looking at the combo plates as I wanted to try both their ribs and their brisket. I got the pork spare ribs and brisket combo. It came with french fries and cole slaw. I probably wasn't going to eat much of the fries or the slaw, but what the hell.
It wasn't long after I ordered from the bartender that my food came out. The barbecue sauce was pretty mild and served in a small bowl. I asked the bartender if he had any hotter barbecue sauce and he said he'd go get some for me. I should have said, "More spicy". Instead, he brought out a piping hot bowl of barbecue sauce. The first taste pretty much told me that it was the same barbecue sauce, only warmed up.
However, as the sauce in the hot bowl began to cool down, I noticed that the sauce had a little more kick to it than the first bowl he brought out. I figured that the hotness in temperature of the sauce masked the initial spicy bite the sauce had to offer. It wasn't bad, actually.
The pork spare ribs were meaty and flavorful. I got three in total and it was more than enough for lunch. And the brisket was cut thin, was juicy and tender, and also had great flavor to it. I was overly impressed with the barbecue. I had a couple french fries, just to try 'em and they were OK. And the cole slaw was average, at best. But the sides aren't what I came to Smokehouse Bar-B-Cue for.
In a city known for world-class barbecue, you have to be pretty good to be in business over 20 years and to have four locations. I was pleasantly surprised by Smokehouse Bar-B-Cue and told my dealer that evening of my experience there. He said, "I told you it was good. It's just not on the radar of a lot of people around here. The names of other places pop up before they talk about Smokehouse. Places that I, personally, don't think hold a candle to the food at Smokehouse."
Well, Smokehouse Bar-B-Que is on my radar now. I will definitely seek out another location on a coming trip to K.C.
In my post from last fall - Beer Hunting in Kansas City - I mentioned Lukas Liquor in Overland Park as a great place to find some eclectic beers. Actually, the first Lukas Liquor Superstore that I visited was the one in suburban St. Louis at the corner of Manchester Rd. and Clarkson Rd. (see map). I was in the St. Louis area recently and it was toward the end of the Oktoberfest season, so I wanted to check out what Lukas Liquor had to offer. (Click here to go to Lukas Liquor - St. Louis web site.)
The Lukas Liquor in suburban Ellisville sports 24,000 square feet in floor space. They boast over 6000 different wines, 1500 different liquors and 900 different beers. Although it's been sort of out of the way for me in the past, now that we've put Focal speakers into Ultimate Electronics stores, there's an U.E. just down the road from Lukas Liquors. I had to do a training at the store one morning, then I stopped in to Lukas Liquors afterward.
I had picked up a number of good Oktoberfest beers when I was up in the Twin Cities a couple weeks earlier. (I found a great liquor/beer store up there that I'll be telling you about very soon.) But one beer that I was missing was Boulevard's Bob's 47 Oktoberfest beer. I had seen it in Kansas City, but decided to try and get it when I got back home. Well, it turned out that the local distributor for Boulevard didn't bring in the Bob's 47 this fall, for some unknown reason. It's one of my favorite Oktoberfest beers, if not my favorite.
I got into Lukas Liquor around 10:30 and started to look around at their beer selection. They had just two six packs of the Bob's 47 left. I asked one of the very helpful staff at Lukas Liquor if they had any left in back. He checked and said, "Nope, sorry. It's getting toward the end of Oktoberfest beers. I'm sure we've sold all we can get our hands on to this point."
I put the two "sixers" in the cart and started to look at some of Lukas Liquors other beers, just to see if there was anything that I couldn't live without. Now, I remember Lukas Liquors as featuring some pretty obscure breweries in the past. It was sort of exciting to go in and see something that I thought would be interesting to try. On this trip, however, I was sort of surprised that there were more "mainstream" small and craft breweries on the shelves and not some of the mysterious eclectic beers that I remember them having. They had a lot of varieties from Samuel Adams, Sierra Nevada and Leinenkugel, to name a few. But I didn't really seem to find to the more inconspicuous, interesting microbrews like they had in the past.
Another staff member came up and asked if I was looking for anything specific. I said, "I remember you guys used to have a lot of small obscure breweries that were pretty interesting. I don't see quite that many on your shelves."
He said, "Well, the economy has dictated some of that. A number of small breweries have gone under. Those that are left are having distribution issues because distributors don't want to deal with low volume sellers. And places like us are looking at maximizing our turns. We have to give more shelf space to the beers that people like and perform well. We just can't afford to have beers that don't sell on a regular basis."
It's all purely understandable. These guys aren't in the business of finding a number of no-name breweries and taking a chance that a number of people like me are going to come in on a regular basis and try something new. They need to have beers that are proven sellers.
But, still, Lukas Liquor Superstore has a wide selection of beers to choose from. You just won't find the small breweries represented like they once were at Lukas Liquor. Their prices are good, the wine selection is also top-notch, and you can be sure to be able to find something good each time you go in. I'll keep going back just to check and see what they have to offer. You never know...
Bazbeaux Pizzahas been winning "Best Pizza" awards in local Indianapolis polls for a number of years. I'd never tried a Bazbeaux pizza before and I had a free night when I was in Indianapolis recently, so I tried the location in downtown Carmel (see map).
Bazbeaux Pizza began in 1986 in an old house in the Broad Ripplearea of Indianapolis. From day one, Jeff and Deb Berman sought to make the best pizza possible with fresh and plentiful toppings, light and tasty crusts and a wholesome atmosphere for the whole family. By the end of their first year of business, they'd garnered their first "Best Pizza of Indianapolis" mention in Indianapolis Monthly Magazine, the first in a string of over 20 straight.
The Berman's opened their second location on Massachusetts Ave. just northeast of downtown in 1989 (see map). In May of 2003, they moved their original Broad Ripple location a few doors down to it's present day location (see map). The new location offered much more seating and a much larger kitchen to keep up with the demand of their take-out business. In 2006, the Berman's opened the Carmel location in the city's arts district. It features a large dining area, a wine bar and a nice outdoor patio seating area.
It was around 8 p.m. when I got into the Bazbeaux Pizza in Carmel. I was seated at a small table near the bar. Even though it was a Wednesday night and it was getting kind of late, there were still an ample amount of people in the place. There were even a few enjoying the warm early fall evening on the patio watching people walk by on the Monon Trail.
I was given a menu and the waitress came around a few moments later and asked what I wanted to drink. Bazbeaux Pizza had a small, but impressive beer list and a Bell's Pale Ale caught my eye. Given that Bell's makes one of my all-time favorite pale ales, it wasn't difficult to choose.
In addition to pizza, Bazbeaux Pizza features a number of salads and sandwiches to choose from. But pizza is the main item on the menu at Bazbeaux, including a number of eclectic styles of pizzas such as the Virareggio, which is basically a tuna melt on a pizza crust; the Sensa Formaggio which features egg plant, grilled onions, fresh basil, tomato sauce and no cheese; and the Chilope that featured black bean dip, salsa, green pepper, onion, fresh tomato, cilantro, and cheddar cheese. While they all sounded interesting, I opted for my standard Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom - a small. I also got a dinner salad with Bazbeaux's homemade green peppercorn salad dressing.
I got my salad and dug in. The dressing was sort of "eh" - nothing special to write home about. It didn't offer much pizazz to the fresh greens, mozzarella and veggies they tossed together to make their dinner salad. It wasn't much of an impressive start for the meal.
About 10 minutes after I finished my salad, my waitress brought out my 10" pizza. Right off the bat, Bazbeaux's got a strike in my book - they use ground sausage like a Quad City style of pizza and not the big chunks that I define as a real pizza. The mushrooms - what there were of them - were very fresh and the pepperoni had a nice taste. The crust was rather difficult to describe. It was crisp on the bottom, but sort of fluffy on the top. And they certainly skimped on the cheese, as well.
After a couple slices, I thought, "This is the best pizza in Indianapolis? Man, I feel sorry for these people." It was as close to a Quad City style of pizza that I've had without being in the Quad Cities. But I will say that it was still better than any Quad City style of pizza that I've had.
I finished four slices and had the waitress box up the remaining two pieces. When I went back to the hotel, I gave the desk clerk the other two pieces. She said, "Oh, this is Bazbeaux's? I love Bazbeaux's!" Poor girl. She just doesn't know what she's missing.
Just like in the Quad Cities, the locals in Indy get hooked on something and think it's the greatest thing in the world. They'll defend it to the death and there is nothing better in their minds. But I have to say that while my experience at Bazbeaux Pizza was pleasant - the service and the ambiance was good - I can't even say that the pizza was all that great. Sure, the toppings were fresh, but there wasn't much of them. The crust was the best of both worlds - crispy and chewy. And the sauce had a nice sweet tang to the taste. But it was far from the best pizza I'd ever had. I couldn't even give it an honorable mention. Honestly, I think Goodfella's was better, but I didn't think much of their pizza, either.
It seems both Indy and the Quad Cities are screaming for an authentic thin-crust pizza like you find in Chicago. Do I see an opportunity brewing?
While I sometime think that Guy Fieri, the host of "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" on The Food Network, can be a little over-the-top in his shows, he has turned me on to a number of interesting places that I want to try for myself. One of the places that he's visited for his show is Donatelli's, a family-owned Italian restaurant in suburban White Bear Lake, MN. I was in the Twin Cities for a few days recently and decided to trek over to Donatelli's for some food. (The picture of Guy Fieri was taken in the kitchen at Donatelli's.)
Here is the "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" segment on Donatelli's. Click the play button in the middle to watch -
Donatelli's began in 1979 as a pizza joint. However, Steve Donatelle had a number of family recipes available to him and he expanded his menuover the years and moved to his present day (and larger) location a few years ago. The hallmark of Donatelli's is that all their food is made from scratch. From the pasta to the sauces to the pizza dough, Donatelli's is an exceptionally unique restaurant these days.
I made it to Donatelli's one cool, rainy evening. Located in a strip mall near the corner of County Road EE and County Road N in White Bear Lake (see map), Donatelli's has a loyal clientele that has been coming back for years and years. Many employees at Donatelli's have been there for well over 20 years. It has a very family atmosphere to the place.
I had about a 10 minute wait to get seated in the dining room at Donatelli's. The young host showed me to a booth, asking me if I'd rather have that or a table. The booth looked sort of secluded, even with a four-person table nearby. I took the booth. He gave me a menu and told me the waitress would be with me in a moment to take my drink order.
Since I've lost my weight and have been able to maintain the weight loss, pasta hasn't been on my radar like it had in the past. But after seeing Fieri's segment on Donatelli's, I was looking hard at getting something with their homemade red sauce. Their pasta menuwas very extensive and included traditional plates like spaghetti and meat balls (all made from scratch, remember?), fettuccine alfredo, and veal or chicken parmigiana. They also had a number of baked pasta dishes including rigatoni, cheese tortellini, and lasagna. Their meat sauce for their pasta entrees can be ordered with ground beef or with Italian sausage.
Donatelli's also feature a number of specialty pastas such as Cajun chicken alfredo, chicken and spinach stuffed cannelloni, and butternut squash ravioli with grilled Italian sausage. Actually, the first time I ever had a white sauce at an Italian restaurant - I remember this so vividly because it opened up a whole new world of Italian food for me - was a dish of tortellini alfredo at Chiarelli's Pasta House in a suburb of Kansas City. (Chiarelli's has long since closed, or I would have written about it on Road Tips long ago.) Chiarelli's tortellini alfredo had prosciutto-stuffed shells, with peas and mushroom slices. Donatelli's tortellini alfredo had cheese stuffed tortellini, but generous amounts of prosciutto, along with mushrooms and peas in their homemade alfredo sauce. Man, my mind was in a tizzy!
Donatelli's also has weekly featured items and dinner specials Monday thru Thursday and other specials on the weekends. Monday night is "All You Can Eat Spaghetti" - $6.99 a person and it includes two meatballs. Donatelli's also features a special "Beer of the Month". I was really starting to like the place.
My waitress came over and I ordered a Summit Oktoberfest beer. She asked me if I had any questions on the menu and I said, "My head is spinning because there's so much to choose from!" She said she'd give me some more time and went to get my beer.
At the table next to me, they brought out a large pizza for the family of four seated there. Suddenly, my world stopped. It was thin crust, large and ample chunks of sausage, a lot of pepperoni and other fresh looking veggies across the top. I went to the pizza section on Donatelli's menu and took a quick look. In addition to their thin crust pizza, Donatelli's did a deep dish style, as well. And the price on the deep dish pizza wasn't appreciably higher than their thin crust. Maybe that's because their thin crust pizzas were a little high priced to begin with ($9.99 for a 10" one topping pizza).
So now I was REALLY in a quandary. Pasta or pizza? Geez, I haven't had pasta in quite some time, but their pizza looked great. I was still trying to decided when she came back to take my order. I said, "Boy, I'm torn. I was all set to get some pasta, but I didn't know if I wanted your red or white sauce dishes. Then I saw these people get the pizza. Now my stomach is telling me pizza."
She asked, "Are you from around here?"
I said, "No, I'm up here on business."
She said, "Do you come to the Twin Cities often?"
I said, "Oh, maybe three or four times a year."
The waitress said, "OK, here's what I'd do. I love our pizza. Tons of people get the pizza here. That's what we started out as 30 years ago, a pizza place. I think our pastas are great, too, but if I was going to get one meal, I'd get the pizza. And then, you can come back and get pasta on your next visit!"
Pizza - 10" - thin crust. My standard Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom. She smiled as she took my menu and said, "Excellent choice. I know you won't be disappointed."
I finished my beer and my waitress came back to ask if I wanted another beer. I said I did. The only problem is that they had run out of the Summit Oktoberfest. I ended up getting another beer, a Bud Light.
About 20 minutes after I ordered, another waitress brought my pizza to the table. It looked great - piping hot, tons of toppings, thin crust. I couldn't wait to bite into it, but it was so hot as it just came from the oven.
From the first bite, I was overly impressed. It was a damn good pizza. The crust was thin, but not too crispy. The Italian sausage had that nice fennel bite to its taste. The pepperoni was sassy and the mushrooms were definitely fresh. And the pizza was small enough that I was able to eat the whole thing in one sitting. The waitress was right I wasn't disappointed. In the pizza, that is.
However, I was disappointed in my waitress. After she left off my second beer, she didn't appear at my table again until after I was done with my pizza. I had finished my second beer halfway through the pizza (which tasted very good with a cold beer, I need to add), and I wanted another one. I ended up just drinking water to finish up the pizza.
She asked if I wanted any dessert, but I said there was no way. She left the bill and walked away. I guess you have to pay at the front counter. She didn't get a good tip when I paid by credit card at the front counter. I wanted to tell her to not forget about her customers when they're eating, but I didn't have the chance.
Donatelli's pizza was very good. I don't know if it was as good as Psycho Suzy's, but I found it to be very enjoyable. Other than the hiccup with the waitress sort of forgetting about me during the meal, my experience at Donatelli's was very pleasurable. I'm definitely going back at some point - probably next Spring, since I don't travel north of the Iowa border between November to March - and I'm going to try one of Donatelli's pasta entrees. Their descriptions on the menu - and how they look on the Guy Fieri video - make my stomach do jumping jacks.
Omaha is a city with some great steak houses. I've told you about Johnny's, Gorat's, and The Drover in earlier posts on Road Tips. None of them are world class steak houses, but each are very, very good. They are old style steak houses where I'd never be embarrassed to take someone to. One venerable steak house in Omaha that I haven't been to in years is Brother Sebastian's. During a recent trip to Omaha, I met a dealer there for a late evening dinner.
I first ate at Brother Sebastian's back in the mid-90's after a colleague turned me on to the place. But Brother Sebastian's had been in business for about 20 years prior. Loren Koch had never operated a restaurant, but he envisioned a wonderful steak house that also showcased Koch's love for fine wine. In April of 1977, he opened the doors to Brother Sebastian's. It's decor inside and out had the feel of an old world mission. There are cozy dining rooms throughout, the lights are old-world lantern styled, and there is a wonderful charm to the place. There was a large room in the cellar that was fashioned after an old monastery wine cellar aging room.
It wasn't long after my first meal at Brother Sebastian's that they suffered a horrendous fire that gutted the building. Koch immediately announced that he would rebuild the original restaurant. A year later, the restaurant reopened and has been going strong ever since.
It was after 8 p.m. when I made it into Omaha and pulled into the parking lot of Brother Sebastian's. Brother Sebastian's is in a residential neighborhood off Pacific St. and just east of 120th St. in West Omaha (see map). Well, the way Omaha has moved west over the past few years, Brother Sebastian's location could actually be called West Central Omaha. I waited at the bar for my dealer to show up. The bar is known as Brothers Lounge and features a nice bar, cozy booths and subdued lighting. It wasn't long before my dealer showed up and we were taken to a small room with booths.
Being that it was close to 8:30, there appeared to be a small crowd in the restaurant. But because Brother Sebastian's have so many little dining areas throughout the building, it's really tough to know how many people actually are in the restaurant.
Our waitress came out to greet us and to give us some time to look through the menu. I took a look at Brother Sebastian's extensive wine list and picked out a bottle of Franciscan Cabernet that was reasonably priced at around $45 bucks. We caught up on a few issues as we waited to order.
Steak is the primary focus at Brother Sebastian's. They're very well known for their tender and overly flavorful prime rib. They also feature a number of chicken dishes, as well as a number of seafood entrees. They also have a long list of "surf and turf" options on the menu. One thing that jumped out at me was Brother Sebastian's New York Pepper Strip - a 12 oz. New York Strip that is lightly encrusted in cracked black peppercorns, then served with a spicy peppercorn sauce. OK, that's all I had to see. I was sold. I ordered it rare-plus. Along with the New York Pepper Strip, I got a side of rice and broccoli.
My guest got the Rib eye and also got the rice and broccoli. Along with the main entrees, you get a trip to Brother Sebastian's somewhat rather nice salad bar. One thing that I had forgotten about was their great French dressing. It's a homemade sweet and sour dressing that is killer. I wish I could make a dressing like that.
Our steaks came out not long after we finished our salads. My steak had a generous serving of the spicy peppercorn sauce on the top of it. But it was light where it didn't detract from the flavor of the meat. The peppercorn crust wasn't heavy, as well. Each bite was just below an orgasmic delight for me.
My guest said his steak was very good and that the Franciscan Cabernet was a great pairing with the meat. It's full bodied, but light to the taste. Franciscan is one of my favorite wines to have with steak.
Our waitress was wonderful. She was attentive and kept checking on us to see if we had any needs. We talked with her after the meal was over and she said she'd been there for a number of years. "Just after the fire is when I started," she said. "We use the fire as sort of a measuring stick around here. The owner will make references to 'before the fire' or 'after the fire' when he talks about people who have worked for him. I'm an 'after the fire' hire."
It had been some time since I had last been to Brother Sebastian's, quite possibly close to 10 years. But in a city that is known for some solid steak houses, Brother Sebastian's does quite well for themselves. Plus they've had to weather the influx of national chains and contemporary steak houses into the Omaha area over the past few years. On top of all that, they survived a disastrous fire and came back as strong as ever. It's very easy to see why Brother Sebastian's has sustained for so long during a time when a number of restaurants are closing up.
During the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, we got a tip on a steak house that we needed to try - Brook's Steak House, one of the more popular and upscale steak places in the greater Denver area. It was a 10 minute ride to the restaurant from our hotel and a big slab of good meat.
Brook's Steak House has won numerous awards since it was opened in the early 90's by Bob Melton and Joe Kaiton. They feature prime USDA beef that is aged a minimum of 21 days before it's served to their customers. Brook's also has a wine cellar that features over 1000 different varieties of wine. The restaurant is classy, has a lot of wood paneling and has a very manly feel to the place. The main dining area is sunken into the center of the restaurant with the bar area on one side with private dining areas toward the back.
Brook's Steak House is located in Greenwood Village, a suburb south and east of Denver (see map). They feature valet parking, but we opted to park in the parking lot in the back of the restaurant. There were six of us that were seated by the hostess around a large circular table with a heavy linen table cloth. This already rivaled some of the more fancy steak houses I've had the pleasure to visit.
We were given our menus and they featured well over a dozen different varieties of steaks to choose from. They also offered some seafood entrees including crab legs, lobster tails, shrimp and scallops. They had some delectable sounding salads including a caprese salad, their famous house salad and their take on a Caesar's salad, complete with anchovies upon request. We decided to get some appetizers to tide us over. We ordered up some seared ahi tuna slices and calamari as we looked through the rest of the menu.
My boss, Daniel, was looking through the extensive wine list. He looked at me and said, "What do you say when you think the prices are high? Something about them being proud?"
I said, "You mean, something like, 'They're very proud of their wine list?' "
He said, "Yes, they're very proud of their wine list." I've never known Daniel to be stunned by the prices of anything on a menu before and I've worked for him over seven years. But the wine list at Brook's widened his eyes more than once.
My colleague, Ian, took the book from him, his eyes widened and he said, "Holy f***! They ARE proud of their wine list here!"
He gave me the book and I was just floored at some of the high prices they had for their wine. Bottles of wine that I know are $70 to $85 dollars in restaurants that we'd been in over the past few weeks were suddenly $120 to $150 a bottle. I gave the book back to Ian and I said, "Man, I'm scared to pick anything out. All the bottles that I recognize are obscenely overpriced."
Ian did find a bottle of an Italian red that he thought would be a good bargain at $72 a bottle. He said, "I'm thinking they're trying to get rid of it because it's getting toward the end of its shelf life." So he ordered up a bottle of that.
The waiter brought the bottle of wine to the table and opened it up. Ian took a sip to check it out and he said, "Eww... Well, it's going to have to open up a lot before it's drinkable." The waiter poured wine for the table. The appetizers came and went. We ordered up dinner. Our salads were brought out to us. The wine had not opened up. It had gone bad on the shelf.
Ian motioned for the waiter to come over. He said, "Tell your sommelier that this wine needs to go to the kitchen for the chefs to cook with it. It has expired." The waiter brought the wine list back to the table and handed it to Ian, who promptly handed it to Daniel. Daniel laughed as he took the menu and said to Ian, "Chicken!"
I said, "D.J., I don't need wine. I can drink beer." A couple of the other guys echoed my offer.
Daniel said, "Oh, nonsense. Let's just get a good bottle of wine. I'll just hold my nose when I order it." And he did order a nice bottle of wine - a French wine that he was familiar with. He said, "This is three times more expensive than when I got the same bottle of wine earlier this year."
And they're proud of their main entrees, as well. Let's just say this wasn't going to be a cheap night. For dinner, I ordered up the filet mignon, rare-plus. I believe the price was $42 dollars. I had contemplated the bone-in rib eye, but the filet was just calling me. A couple of my colleagues did order up the bone-in rib eye, while another ordered the porterhouse. Two others also got the 14 oz. tenderloin filet. I ordered up a wedge salad with Maytag blue cheese dressing. And Brook's offers a number of sidesthat are big enough to share. We ordered onion rings, sauteed mushrooms and potatoes au gratin.
The waiter brought back the new bottle of wine and he was accompanied by the general manager for Brook's. She said, "Gentlemen, I understand the first bottle of wine you got had turned. I'm truly sorry for that. Of course, we won't charge you for that bottle."
Ian said, "I suggested to (the waiter) that he needed to take those bottles to the chef to use them to cook with."
She said, "Oh, we'll probably just throw them out. We only have a handful of bottles left."
The wine that Daniel had picked out turned out to be a winner. It was rich and full bodied. Even before it had opened up a bit, it still had a robust taste. I really need to get more familiar with French wines.
Our salads came out and my wedge salad was exceptional. The Maytag blue cheese dressing was a wonderful taste sensation. The lettuce was fresh and cold. It was a very, very good salad.
Our steaks came out and I have to say that my steak was good. I don't know if it was worth the price they charged, but it was very tender, juicy and flavorful. It was very easy to cut with the large steak knife they provided at the table.
Everyone declared their steaks as "good". We all thought, however, that it was a little expensive for what was offered.
I tried a couple bites of the au gratin potatoes, which were very good. The sauteed mushrooms went quickly and we ordered up a second helping of those. They went very well with our steaks. And I had a couple of onion rings - the good ol' greasy steak house type of onion rings.
Overall, our meal was very good at Brook's Steak House. We all thought it was overly expensive for what it was, but it was still a very classy place. The wine prices were outrageous, in my opinion. I can see why it has been named one of the Great Steak Houses in North America, as it rivaled a number of other great steak places I've eaten in. Even with the wine snafu, it was still good. But a good value? I'm sorry I wasn't THAT impressed. Brook's Steak House was certainly proud of themselves.
While in the Twin Cities recently for a dealer event, I ended up taking the dealer out for dinner at a contemporary American restaurant called Crave. I had certainly never heard of the place before, but I'm glad that he made the suggestion.
Crave is a three restaurant local chain in the Twin Cities that features eclectic American cuisine in a vibrant atmosphere. Owners Kam and Keyvan Talebi opened their first Crave in the Galleria in Edina in 2007 (see map). The concept went over so well that they opened a second location at Mall of America earlier this year (see map). And just before I ate at Crave that one evening earlier this fall, they had just opened a third location at the brand new upscale Shops at West End in St. Louis Park (see map). They are also exploring expansion into Scottsdale, AZ and Las Vegas.
The executive chef for Crave is Eli Woolenzian and he's based at the original Edina location - the one we ate at that one evening. Woolenzian has come up with an innovative menu that features beef, fish and seafood, pasta and spectacular appetizers. Crave also features sushi and features a small sushi bar at the front of the restaurant.
We didn't have a reservation - and it was a Friday night - so our wait for a table was going to be an hour. We ended up sitting at the bar and a number of patrons were having appetizers with drinks. A couple next to us had Crave's signature appetizer, seared scallops - lightly breaded diver scallops in a picatta beurre sauce and then quickly seared. My guest and I decided to skip an appetizer and concentrate on a good dinner. We drank about four Summit Extra Pale Ales while we waited for our table.
After about 45 minutes, our little "saucer" began to vibrate and light up. We found the hostess and we were seated in Crave's open and contemporary dining room. I looked through Crave's modest, yet impressive wine list to see if there was anything that caught my eye. There was. They had a 2006 JordanCabernet Sauvignon that was priced at a very reasonable $75 bucks. I'd seen bottles of this same wine at over $100. I had to get that.
My guest told me that the pasta dishes were outstanding. However, I'm still shying away from pasta as part of my weight-loss maintenance. One of the pasta entrees that caught my eye was Crave's fettuccine with chicken, bacon and roasted mushrooms in a cream sauce. Oh, man! That just sounded great. My guest ended up ordering the roasted red pepper and penne pasta with roasted chicken. One of the unique things that Crave does - and I wish more restaurants would - is that they give you an option of a full order or a half order of pasta. My guest took the half order mainly, he said, because it was so rich.
Although they had something called a "Crab-crusted Filet Mignon" on the menu that sounded sinfully good, I went pretty basic. I got the grilled rib eye with a side of straw potatoes. Asparagus came with the entree, but since I've been very careful since my gout flare-ups after my surgery, I asked if I could get a substitute. She mentioned cauliflower - another no-no when it comes to gout. She said, "Well, how about broccoli?" That works. We both went with a small Caesar salad as an opener.
Crave was understandably busy that evening. There was a small jazz combo playing that added to the classy ambiance of the place. We got our salads and I have to say they were pretty good for Caesar salads. The lettuce was fresh and the dressing was very flavorful.
Our main entrees arrived not long after that and if my dealer got the half-sized pasta entree, I'd hate to see the size of the large plate. He said, "Oh, yeah. The first time I ordered pasta here, I got the large plate. I couldn't even finish half of it."
My rib eye was a good-sized chunk of meat with a lot of flavor. It was cooked a little over rare - the way I'm beginning to like my steaks - and had a fair amount of marbling throughout. I was happy with it. It went perfectly with the Jordan Cabernet.
My dealer declared his meal as "great, as always." He said, "I've never had a bad meal here."
The service was excellent, the food was wonderful, and I loved the energetic atmosphere of Crave. But it wasn't over the top and I felt very comfortable in the restaurant. It had sort of a laid-back classiness, a place where you could easily dress up or wear blue jeans to dine at. I'm giving Crave a thumbs up.
A little over 4 years ago when I started Road Tips, I was still trying to find my direction and voice as to what I was trying to accomplish with this blog. One of the very first entries I had was on Sports Illustrated's Top 25 Sports Bars and the ones that I'd visited out of that list. (You can read that entry here.) One place that I'd been into a number of years ago, but hadn't visited for a long time was Chappel's Sports Bar in North Kansas City (see map). I was in the area not long ago and decided to go have lunch there.
Jim Chappell (right) settled in North Kansas City, MO in the early 70's and ran an insurance agency while dabbling in politics. Chappell was a budding collector of sports memorabilia during that time and he entertained thoughts of opening a restaurant/bar that would house some of his collection, plus be a neighborhood gathering place to discuss local, state and national politics. In the mid-80's, a building directly across the street from Chappell's insurance agency became available. In 1986, Chappell opened his sports bar, hoping to run it on a part-time basis. However, it soon became a full-time job for Chappell, who subsequently sold his insurance agency.
Chappell has entertained sports figures, politicians and common people at his restaurant which he has literally turned into a sports museum that happens to serve food and drink. The amount of memorabilia that he has in the place is staggering. They have over 1000 football helmets from college and professional teams, including some vintage helmets from the 50's and 60's. He has a large collection of historical Kansas City professional team memorabilia, including old Kansas City Monarchs jerseys and pictures, old Kansas City Athletics memorabilia and a few things from the old Kansas City Kings professional basketball team. Of course, he has a a ton of items featuring the Kansas City Royals and the Kansas City Chiefs.
The bar features a number of jersey's from professional and collegiate football, basketball and baseball teams. Chappel has signed baseballs from Babe Ruth, Dizzy Dean and Ty Cobb. He has the 1974 World Series trophy that was won by the Oakland A's. It turns out that former A's owner Charlie Finley and Chappell were good friends. There are tons of old sports trophies, sports pennants, newspaper clippings, and autographed pictures. Here are the jerseys from two of my all-time favorite baseball players - Stan Musial and Warren Spahn. It had been over 15 years since I was last in Chappell's and the amount of memorabilia that he has picked up since has grown exponentially.
In addition to a lot of Kansas University, Kansas State University and University of Missouri sports items on display, I was surprised by the amount of Iowa Hawkeyememorabilia in the place. I certainly didn't remember seeing much Hawkeye stuff in there before, or I possibly didn't notice. I didn't know until I did some research on Chappell's that he grew up in Keokuk, IA before heading off to Drury College (now Drury University) in Springfield, MO in the mid-60's. Turns out that Chappell was a huge Hawkeye fan growing up and still is to this day.
It was just after 1 p.m. when I took a seat at the bar at Chappell's. There was just one seat open as I walked in. But it was obvious that it was occupied by someone as there was a half-filled glass of pop and some paperwork. However, an older gentleman next to the empty seat said, "You need a seat? I'm getting ready to leave." I took his seat and ordered up a beer and a menu. I was looking through the menu and the guy occupying the seat next to me came back to sit down. Turned out it was Jim Chappell himself. He was holding court at the corner of the bar talking with a couple older guys in having coffee or early afternoon drinks. A guy and his teen-aged son came up to Chappell before they left and the guy introduced himself and his son to Jim. Jim said, "Is this your first trip to our place? Well, c'mon, let me show you around." And just like that he was up and shepherding them around the place. I would have liked to have a guided tour, as well, but I certainly didn't have the time.
Chappell's menu is long and diverse. Of course, they have the usual sports bar fare of appetizers, burgers and sandwiches. But they also feature steaks, a large amount of salads and some low carb items, as well. I was torn between the reuben, which was one of Chappell's featured sandwiches, the blackened chicken sandwich, or the mushroom/provelone cheeseburger. I decided to go with the cheeseburger and I got a side of cole slaw to go along with it.
Jim Chappell came back to his seat after showing the father and son around for about five minutes, finished his pop and said to his friends, "Well, I'm going to work out, fellas. I'll see you a little later." Chappell is in his early 60's, is tall and lean and looks to be in great shape for his age. I could tell from the short time he was near me that he really dug being Jim Chappell. And I mean that in a good way. This was his place, it was his stuff and he was damn proud of everything.
Chappell's burgers are 1/2 pound USDA ground beef, cooked to your liking. My burger came out and it was thick and juicy with a good bun to go along with it. While I can't call it one of the best burgers I've ever had, or maybe even put it in the honorable mention category, it was still good. Definitely a very good burger compared to other sports bars that I've visited. The couple of bites of the cole slaw I had were average, at best. It's obvious the draw to Chappell's is the memorabilia, but the food is not that bad.
While there were a lot of televisions throughout Chappell's, I'm not certain this would be a place that I'd want to go to just to see a game. The decor and memorabilia overpowers Chappell's televisions. There's just a lot of very busy stuff on the wall that detracts from watching a game. But if you're into sports history and memorabilia, and you're looking for a pretty good meal to go along with it, it's tough to beat Chappell's. But plan on spending at least a couple of hours if you really want to look more closely at the things Jim Chappell has in his place. It's truly a sports museum that happens to have a restaurant in it.
For the past few days, forecasters have been touting an upcoming winter storm that was supposed to hit the Quad Cities this week as the "most intense storm we've seen in 20 to 30 years". It hit us on late Tuesday afternoon and lasted well through the whole day on Wednesday. We did get about 8 to 12 inches of snow with blizzard conditions hitting our area by mid-morning on Wednesday. While that sounds pretty bad, it wasn't as bad around here as they initially said it would be.
(As always, you can click on the pictures to get a larger image.)
It was a heavy, wet snow that fell. Temperatures weren't too bad - hovering around the freezing mark all day on Tuesday and well into Tuesday evening. But the intense low pressure system that was responsible for the storm went a little further north on its track, dumping heavy amounts of snow West, Northwest and Northeast of the Quad Cities. To illustrate how powerful the storm was, the National Weather Service in Chicago recorded the lowest barometric pressure reading in 20 years as the low passed over the city yesterday morning.
Cindy was sent home from work early on Tuesday and was told that she may not have to work on Wednesday. The heavy wet flakes that started out suddenly turned to a sleet and freezing rain mixture late in the afternoon. That continued for a good portion of the evening as temperatures stayed close to the freezing mark through the night.
One highlight of the storm, the trees in the neighborhood had a beautiful snow-coating on them yesterday morning. The light mist, fog and light snow mixture gave everything a wonderful winter look. I sort of like the first snow when everything is so white and pristine. But it gets sort of old after, oh, about an hour.
Because it didn't snow that much overnight, Cindy was able to get to work - even though it did take her about 20 minutes longer than usual. The main roads in town were plowed, yet slushy. It was a slow commute for everyone this morning.
But that's not the story out west toward Des Moines. Upward of 12 to 15 inches blanketed the central counties of Iowa, shutting down the Interstate highways, downing power lines and wreaking havoc upon thousands who tried to get around in the deep snow and high winds. Drifts of 5 to 8 feet shut down rural roads. The cold air hit Des Moines around 1 a.m. They had their daytime high at midnight on Wednesday morning and the temps had hit the single digits by daybreak.
Being that we're about 150 miles east of Des Moines, the cold air didn't start hitting the Quad Cities until mid-morning. I was able to get out and begin shoveling around six a.m. At that time, the temperature wasn't too bad. There was a brisk breeze, but it wasn't any too cold. However, the snow was unusually heavy and wet, much more so than I've seen it in quite sometime. I could only move a couple shovel loads of snow before I decided it was time for the snowblower.
As I did our driveway and walks, as well as the public walks for our neighbors up and down our side of the street, it began to snow heavily once again. Big, ol' thick, wet flakes. It was coming down like miniature snowballs. Once I got the walks done, it had snowed about a half-inch on the freshly blown driveway.
I had to go out about 3 p.m. to run an errand and the temperature had dropped about 10 degrees and the winds out of West were whipping with gusts over 40 mph. I looked out at the driveway and saw that a one foot deep drift had developed across the pavement. I had to get the snowblower back out and hit it again. I'm sure I'll have to get the snowblower out once again this morning before Cindy leaves for work thanks to the 20 mile-an-hour + sustained winds we had last night. Since temperatures dropped to below zero overnight, snowblowing is not going to be as nice as it was yesterday morning. That is, if you can call anytime that you have to snowblow as "nice".
According to this map from Iowa State University, places south and west of Des Moines bore the brunt of the snowfall with totals of 15 to 16 inches common in a band from just east of Omaha to just south of Des Moines. Areas north and west of Dubuque got up to 14 inches of snow. At the Quad City Airport in Moline about six miles due south of us, they received about 8 3/4 inches. But the National Weather Service office at the Davenport Municipal Airport - about five miles to our north and west - received a smidge under 12 inches. So, I'm guessing we got about 10.5 inches of snow at our house. Just like the past four years, winter came in with a bang.
The Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area got nailed, as well. Upwards of a foot of snow fell throughout the I-380 corridor. Even though the roads were not officially closed, travel was not recommended on many roads north and west of Iowa City during the day.
One area where there was problems all day long was a 20 mile stretch of Interstate 80 from Grinnell to Newton - right near where I grew up outside of Kellogg, IA. Our house was a mile and a half north of the Interstate. The Iowa Highway Patrol had closed down the Interstate between the two exits for a good portion of the day due to poor visibility, numerous wrecks and ice-packed roadways.
As the weather deteriorated throughout the day in Eastern Iowa, the slushy roads began to turn to ice and travel began to be even more treacherous. I was supposed to drive into Chicago yesterday, but there was no way I was going to chance it. Authorities in both Iowa and Illinois had instituted a "towing ban" for cars who had gone off into ditches along the Interstates. I wasn't going to try my luck.
The sun is supposed to return today, but the cold Canadian air that was ushered in after the low pressure system took off to the northeast will only allow temperatures to climb up to the low to mid-teens here in the Quad's. Long range forecasts don't look much better in regard to the temps. It doesn't appear we'll see temperatures above freezing for at least another week.
So much for hoping December would be as mild as November...
Our last meal in Atlanta during this year's CEDIA Expo was at a steak house in Buckhead, Bone's. Bone's has been an Atlanta institution since 1979 and has been named the best steak house in Atlanta by Atlanta Magazine nearly every year for over the last 20 years. And this year, the Zagatrestaurant survey called Bone's the best steakhouse in America. They edged Del Frisco's in Dallas and Prime at The Bellagio in Las Vegas on points for both food and service. It came highly recommended to us and we were eager to give it a shot.
The owners of Bone's, Richard Lewis and Susan DeRose, established Bone's 30 years ago in the heart of Buckhead. There are historical pictures of old Atlanta from the 40's and 50's hanging on the golden walls of the restaurant, just above the dark walnut wainscoting. Lewis' and DeRose's corporate restaurant entity - Liberty House Restaurants - also own The Blue Ridge Grill and OK Cafe in Atlanta.
Today, there is sort of a masculine feeling to the restaurant. While some women do work in the restaurant, the wait staff is all male. Bone's is also the "power lunch" place to go in Atlanta. They will place pads and pens on the tables for people to jot notes down as they have their luncheon meeting. Many deals have been hashed out over a great steak at Bone's.
The waiters are all dressed in off-white coats, black ties and black pants. And there are a ton of them. While we had one waiter that seemed to be the "head" waiter for our table, there were no less than four other waiters that brought us our food, water, rolls, wine, glasses, whatever. The service was truly top-notch.
It was about a 10 minute walk from our hotel to Bone's on Piedmont (see map). It was just across the street from Fogo de Chao. When my colleague, John, and I had dinner at Fogo de Chao with the buyer from American TV and a couple of his colleagues, we were told that Bone's was probably the best steak house in Atlanta. Other guys in our company heard about Bone's and the consensus was overwhelming to eat there for our final meal in town.
Unfortunately, my colleague John and Dominic Baker from Focal couldn't join us for dinner - they had taken off early to begin training sessions for Ultimate Electronics. So there were seven of us for dinner and they seated us at a large round table near the entrance to the kitchen. As we sat down, the waiters on hand all laid our napkins in our laps. Oooo... Fancy!
The main dining room was full of all different types of people. The place was very elegant and classy. It wasn't overly huge and I've heard that on some evenings they will turn away as many as 250 diners. There have been offers to both Lewis and DeRose for space to open a second location, but Lewis said that Bone's would never work as a chain.
The menu was short and sweet. Steak was the main feature, but they also offered seafood, lamb chops, appetizers, soups and salads. It was clear that Bone's focuses on just a few things and does a very good job in their preparation of those items.
The wine list at Bone's was overly impressive. My estimate is that they offered over 1000 different bottles in all different varieties. The wine lovers in the group all got to take a look at the massive book that listed their wines. We ended up getting a few bottles of the Silver Oak 2004 Alexander Valley Cabernet. It was just outstanding with a full body and great taste. It would be perfect for steak.
The appetizers were tempting - especially the Kobe beef carpaccio and the jumbo onion rings. We did order up some rings for the table, but I wanted to get the wedge salad topped with their homemade creamy Maytag blue cheese dressing. The wedge salad was huge and the dressing was out of this world. It was easily one of the best wedge salads I'd ever had.
For my main entree, I was torn between the dry-aged bone-in rib eye or the bone-in filet. Actually, the waiter told me that the bone-in filet only yielded about 8 oz. of beef. He said, "If you're hungry, go with the 12 oz. filet. I believe it's on par - taste wise - with the bone in. It's very tough to tell the difference." So I ordered that - rare plus.
For sides, Bone's offered a variety of different items. They had sides such as sauteed mushrooms, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, grit fritters topped with cheese, and corn pudding. We actually ordered a little bit of everything and decided to share what we wanted in a family style manner.
As we were waiting for dinner, a cell phone of one of my colleagues rang and he answered it at the table. A manager immediately came over to the table and interrupted the phone call. "Sir," he said. "We do not allow the use of cell phones in the dining room." Earlier, one of my colleagues had a kangolstyle hat on and as he walked in the maitre d' admonished him, "Sir, we do not allow hats in the dining room." Sure, the place was stuffy, but it was also classy. Very classy. And they wanted to keep it that way.
Our meals came out to the table, brought out by an army of waiters. My filet was set in front of me and I eagerly cut into the chunk of meat on my plate. The color was a fabulous deep red, it was juicy and from the first bite it was just outstanding. I was just floored with the taste and texture. It was tender and the meat literally pulled apart with each cut. With the Silver Oak wine, it was just a just a wonderful combination.
I had a few sauteed mushrooms that were excellent, as well. I tried a few bits of the garlic mashed potatoes and they could have used some more garlic, in my opinion. But I love a lot of garlic on my food. And I have to say the onion rings were great, too. Big, flavorful and sinfully greasy, they were the perfect steak house onion rings.
With four bottles of wine, our meal was well into four figures. My boss said, "We all deserved this meal. We had a good show, we're having a good year considering the economy. We've been working very hard."
I know I have - since June 2 I've spent over 50 nights on the road. And Bone's was a very nice reward for the hard work and lots of travel I've put in. I never take anything for granted working for my company, and going to a world class steak house like Bone's makes me want to work harder for my boss. That's because I know the harder I work, the better the results and the more chances I have to eat in places like Bone's. It was definitely one of the very best steak houses in which I've dined.
During our recent stay in Denver during the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, we were in a quandary as to where to go for dinner one evening. Our guy who handles Denver, Jon, is completely clueless when it comes to the better restaurants in the area. It was up to our boss, Daniel, to do some detective work as to where to go for dinner that particular evening. He was told by an editor of Stereophile magazine that a great little Italian place - Chianti Ristorante - wasn't far from the show site. In fact, he was going there that night for dinner with a group of industry people. Daniel made reservations for us and we went there that evening.
It turns out that Chianti Ristorante is the sister restaurant to the wonderful Venice Ristorante(pronounced "ven-EE-chay") that we ate at in downtown Denver last year during the CEDIA Expo. In fact, it was the first of three restaurants that Alessandro Carollo (right) has opened in the Denver area. Chianti is small, cozy and very quaint. The Venice Ristorante locations are larger and more lively. Once I figured out that this was one of Carollo's restaurants, I knew we were in for a great meal.
Chianti Ristorante is located in a strip mall in suburban Greenwood Village, not far from our hotel (see map). It's sort of hidden and if you didn't know it was there, you would have a hard time finding it. Thank God we had my GPS with us or we would have been in trouble.
We had six people in our group that evening. Bob Hodas, who is one of the recording industry's foremost acoustics engineers and studio designers - and who has been a large help in the marketing of the Focal professional loudspeakers - came along with us. Bob is a very unassuming guy, not someone that you'd think who would have such an even temperament working as a sound engineer with some big names in the music world and helping design and tune some of the more famous recording studios. Bob has worked with such diverse acts as The Doobie Brothers, Rick James and The Village People. He's an interesting cat.
As I said earlier, the interior of Chianti was elegant, yet subdued. The lights were turned down and it had a very cozy feel to the place. There's more of an old world feel to the restaurant than the Venice location downtown.
We were given our menus and I found that they featured a lot of the same items that we had a year earlier at Venice. They offered so many good and tempting items. I wasn't going to get a big plate of pasta, but some of the other entrees were eye-catching.
Chianti's wine list was long and impressive. My colleague, Ian, ordered up a wonderful Italian red that our waitress - who was of Spanish and Italian descent - brought to our table. The only problem was that the wine was overly chilled. Much too cold to drink even after letting it sit for 15 to 20 minutes. It turned out that the wine cellar's thermostat was faulty. It's set to be a constant 55 degrees with 55 percent humidity, but somehow it had gone haywire and the temperature of the cellar was well into the 30's. It would have been great if there were tons of beer in the cellar, but it was making the wine - especially the reds - way too cold.
The manager came over and apologized for the cold wine and said, "But thank you so much for pointing this out to us. We certainly didn't know and the refrigeration unit could have been running all night." But he certainly didn't comp us on the two bottles that we had on the table. That's OK, they warmed up in time.
When it came time to order our food, I was torn between many items. I ended up getting the veal scallopine with a lemon sauce, topped with artichoke hearts, mushrooms and capers. Looking back to my visit at Venice last year, I had gotten the veal scallopine with roasted garlic and artichoke hearts. This year, like last, I got a side of fettuccine alfredo. And as a start, I got their caprese salad with big slices of beefsteak tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. The tomatoes were ripe and fresh, as was the basil they sprinkled over the mozzarella. It was excellent.
Did I mention that our waitress was just excellent, as well? It wasn't overly busy in the restaurant and she was very attentive to our needs. She had young guys continually pouring water into our half-full glasses. She made some very good suggestions for entrees. She was on top of her game. And she was damn good looking, too. Spanish and Italian parents? Give me a break! She was gorgeous.
Our entrees showed up and I have to say the portions they served at Chianti were very generous. I had three very good sized veal slices on my plate. The lemon sauce was just wonderful and the artichoke hearts, mushrooms and capers were just outstanding. I had a couple bites of my fettuccine alfredo side and it was excellent. But, God, was it rich! I'm glad I got it as a side and not as a full meal.
Bob Hodas was seated across from me. Bob lives in a suburb of San Francisco and he and his wife have access to a number of great Italian restaurants throughout the Bay Area. Bob had the seafood pasta special that night - shrimp, scallops, white fish and clams in a light cream herb and garlic sauce over a bed of wide noodle pasta. He was beside himself. "This is unbelievable," he kept saying. "We have some great Italian places in the Bay Area, but this is just outstanding."
Bob thought so much of Chianti Ristorante that he went there not only the next night with a group of people, but again on a THIRD night with another group. He told me on Sunday before we left, "I know that sounds weird with all the choices in Denver, but I have to tell you - that place was just outstanding!"
Yeah, Bob! You said that the other night!
And Chianti Ristorante was outstanding. The food, the service, the atmosphere, the wine selection - all of it was very, very good. We tried to get back in on Sunday night as our last meal while in Denver, but they're closed on Sundays. We were all pretty bummed that we couldn't get back to Chianti one last time. But they'll have the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest again in Denver and hopefully I'll be back again to work the event. And I can almost guarantee you that we'll be back at Chianti Ristorante.
I'm not a big fan of Indian food. Well, let me rephrase that - I haven't been a big fan of Indian food. The first guy I worked for as an independent rep in the audio industry was a big fan of Indian cuisine and he took me to an Indian place in Kansas City a couple times. I just didn't care for it. It had been over 20 years since I'd eaten Indian food and I didn't miss it one bit.
I don't know what it was - the texture, the taste, the color - that turned me off on Indian food. But my Canadian colleagues all rave about Indian food. They've turned some of my American colleagues onto the food, as well. Canada has a number of outstanding Indian restaurants. Of course, outside of India, Great Britain has some excellent Indian restaurants. So, all my colleagues, as well as Dominic Baker from Focal, love Indian food.
My wife accidentally found herself in an Indian restaurant in the western suburbs of Chicago one time. She and a friend had been shopping and they saw a sign for the restaurant. She thought the sign said, "Italian food", when it said, "Indian food." They were too embarrassed to get up and leave, so my wife went with the flow. The waiter helped her through the menu and she loved it. She called me up and said, "Honey, we've GOT to come back to this place! I know you'd love it!"
My stomach suddenly got that same queasy feeling I'd gotten after eating Indian food some 20 years before.
As I was working our booth at the CEDIA Expo held in Atlanta recently, I ran into an old friend who works in the industry who lived in Atlanta. We got to talking about things and my colleague, Todd, came up and joined in the conversation. We somehow got to talking about restaurants and my Atlanta friend was telling us of some of his favorite restaurants in the Buckhead area. He mentioned an Indian restaurant by the name of Raja. He said, "My wife and I search out Indian restaurants to eat at. We even drove up to Washington D.C. one time because we'd read that Rasikawas the best Indian in the U.S. And Rasika was great. But I have to tell you guys, Raja holds it own in comparison to Rasika."
Well, Todd just loves Indian food. He was then on a mission. He told my other colleagues about Raja. It turned out that everyone was up for it, including Dominic Baker, who fancies himself as an Indian food connoisseur. My boss and two of my colleagues, Ian and John, were scheduled to go to dinner with a bunch of industry magazine editors, so our plan was to find Raja and have dinner.
Raja was just down Peachtree Road from our hotel in a small strip center (see map). There were six of us and Todd thought we'd better make reservations. "If this place is as good as your buddy says it is, it's probably packed on a Saturday night," he reasoned.
When we pulled into the parking lot, there were only a couple cars parked in front. It featured a very non-descript front. Walking in we saw that it wasn't very elegant with basic chairs and tables throughout. It looked sort of tired and run down. Raja opened in 1979 and I'm guessing they've done nothing to update the place since. There was a large empty meat counter toward the back. It turned out that we really didn't need reservations as there were only two tables occupied. Dominic said, "Well, that's not a good sign." He turned to Todd and said, "Are you sure this is the place?"
He said, "Will's friend raved about this place. He said that it was one of the best Indian restaurants he's ever been to." We still decided to go in and give it a shot.
They put us in a sort of small room with a half wall overlooking the main dining area in the front of the restaurant. We were given menus, but I didn't have the faintest idea what to order. It was then when Dominic came up with the brilliant idea of ordering a little bit of everything and making it family style. Todd said to me, "I'll guide you through what you're eating. I've seen what you eat and what you like, so I'll help you out."
Raja was as authentic of an Indian restaurant as you could get. They had tandoori dishes, butter chicken, vindaloo and, of course, all types of curry dishes. They had Kingfisher beer, the most popular beer from India. Everyone, except for me and to an extent my colleague, Chris, were well-versed in Indian food. So between Todd, Dominic, Jon and Simon, they just started to order food.
When it all came out, they had to move a small table into the room to accommodate all the food they brought out. And we just started eating it.
Todd was across from me, Dominic was next to me. They kept pointing at different dishes and saying, "OK, try this. Now try this." The consensus at the table was that the food was authentic and it was outstanding.
Now, I couldn't tell you exactly what I was having. And since Raja has no Internet web site, I can't even go back and look up the menu. All I can tell you is this - it was good. Very good. I loved the taste sensations. There wasn't the weird colored and funky tasting sauces that I remember from my earlier experiences at the Kansas City Indian restaurant. I liked it a lot.
And so did Dominic Baker. Dominic, being the world travel that he is for Focal, has eaten in a number of restaurants in India. And being that he's a native of the U.K., well, there's Indian restaurants all over the place. Dominic declared Raja as "outstanding". He told the waiter, "I've eaten in some of the finest Indian restaurants in India and this is the most authentic Indian food I've ever had in North America."
I said, "Well, Dominic, this goes to show you that some of the best restaurants aren't the nicest looking inside and out."
He agreed with me. "Actually," he said, "that's true more often than not."
The waiter told us that when a number of English entertainers and dignitaries come to Atlanta they dine at Raja. It turns out that Elton Johnhas a two-story condo just down the street from Raja (his partner is an Atlanta native). The waiter said, "Mr. Elton John and his partner come here quite a bit when they're in town. They usually come after we close. The Rolling Stones come here when they're in town. We've had Mr. Michael Caine and a number of other British stars that come here. They all know about us."
I've finally been exposed to great Indian food. I know there are a couple good ones in Chicago, including the one that Cindy went to out in Schaumburg. I still don't know what to get when I go there, but I'm sure I can get a waiter to guide me through the menu. But if Raja was as outstanding as my colleagues claimed it was, I'm afraid that I'll be disappointed in any other Indian restaurant I try.
The recent demise of Ozzie's sports bar in the Westport Plaza area of St. Louis was a personal blow to me. It was one of my all-time favorite sports bars, anywhere. I'd been going to Ozzie's since the mid-90's and for a long time it was a good place to get a pretty good meal, drink cold beer and to watch sporting events on one of the 50+ televisions they had throughout the bar. But things had changed for the worse over the past few years for the place. I thought the food began to suffer. A couple of recent times I'd been in, the beer was nowhere close to being ice cold like I once remember. Then the economy and competition in the Westport area caught up with Ozzie's and they were forced to shut their doors in late October.
(To read my original post on Ozzie's, click here.)
I was in St. Louis the week after Ozzie's shut down. In fact, I was thinking about going there for lunch one day to grab a burger, but it turned out it would have been quite a trek in some heavy rain to get over there. I ended up just getting a burger at a Fuddrucker's in South County. I would have been devastated walking up to Ozzie's and finding the doors locked.
For those of you not in the know, Ozzie's was named after the former St. Louis Cardinals and Hall of Fame shortstop, Ozzie Smith. St. Louis restaurateur Ray Gallardo (who founded and owned the Casa Gallardo restaurants) opened the restaurant in 1988. Smith decorated the restaurant with some of his numerous awards, along with other memorabilia from the Cardinals, St. Louis Rams and St. Louis Blues. The place was an immediate hit with the people of St. Louis and a "must see" for Cardinals fans who would come from all over to see the Cards play in the summertime. While the food wasn't all that great, it was more of the atmosphere that kept people coming back year after year.
When I worked for a company in suburban St. Louis a number of years ago, Ozzie's was always one of the more favorite places for me to go to grab a quick sandwich or to catch a game that I wanted to see. When we'd have sales managers from vendors come into St. Louis for meetings, invariably at some point we'd end up at Ozzie's. I still run into guys at trade shows that I knew from years ago who bring up their visit to Ozzie's. Ozzie's had a couple of private rooms that we'd take over from time to time and that, along with all the memorabilia throughout the place, made a lasting impression on some of the people we'd take there.
Ozzie's menu was wide and varied, very typical of a high-profile sports bar. They had a little bit of everything - appetizers, sandwiches, steaks, ribs, Mexican food, pasta. While they didn't do anything great, it was adequate enough for what it was. I did like their burgers and they had a dynamite blackened chicken sandwich. And I did like their brisket sandwich, as well. But most of the main entree choices were pedestrian, at best. But the surroundings and memorabilia trumped the average food, in my book.
The economic climate in St. Louis over the past few years has been deteriorating and that, undoubtedly, cut into Ozzie's bottom line. But many people point to the establishment of Pujols 5in Westport Plaza as the beginning of the end for Ozzie's. Pujols 5 is named after the Cardinals great first baseman, Albert Pujols (left). Before Pujols 5 opened up, Ozzie's management was told that it was going to be more of an upscale restaurant on the level of Mike Shannon's than a sports bar like Ozzie's. Based on that information, Gallardo's management company signed a lease extension through 2015 and borrowed $150,000 to upgrade Ozzie's restaurant.
It turned out that Pujols 5 (which I've not been to yet) was more like Ozzie's in terms of a sports bar and grill than an upscale restaurant. At least, that's what Ozzie's alleges in a lawsuitthat was filed last spring against the owners of Westport Plaza. Ozzie's claims that with over 40 hi-def televisions, a menu that is more similar to Ozzie's than to Mike Shannon's, and the fact that they advertise themselves as the "newest and hottest of America's sports restaurants," Pujols 5 was, indeed, a sports bar and it violated the lease agreement.
Westport Plaza's owners countersued Ozzie's for non-payment of rent. As Ozzie's closed up, the lawsuit against Westport Plaza was dropped, but the countersuit against Ozzie's goes on. Ozzie's held an auction after they closed to sell off some of the memorabilia, fixtures and equipment. The owners of Westport Plaza now claim the auction was not authorized due to their lawsuit against Ozzie's management. I'm sure it's going to get more messy as time goes on. Stay tuned.
With revenues falling and Pujols popularity helping drive people to the restaurant named after him, Ozzie's began to slip. The food was noticeably more weak than I remember during the first few times I'd gone to the restaurant. On our annual trip to St. Louis to see the Cardinals a couple years ago, we stopped into Ozzie's for a cold beer before the game. But we were served slightly below room temperature beer. I'd noticed the previous few times that I had been in, the beer coolers weren't very cold. It just didn't seem to be the same place I'd once remembered.
Sports bars come and go. Some last longer than others. Ozzie's lasted longer than most. It had a good thing going for a number of years. Unfortunately, they were overshadowed by a bigger name in St. Louis sports these days and that, undoubtedly, led to their demise. However, the name Ozzie Smith will continue to live in the hearts and minds of St. Louis fans for years and years, even if his namesake restaurant will not.
(Update - Ozzie's has reopened at a new location in downtown St. Louis (see map). I've yet to make it into the new Ozzie's, but plan to during an upcoming trip to St. Louis.)
Today is the day I call the first day of Winter. But compared to the last two December 1st's, today the meteorological winter starts off like a lamb. Today, we're expecting sunny skies, breezy conditions and a high in the mid-50's. It will be a stark contrast to the 1st of December in 2007 and 2008 when we had snow storms come through the area. But this is Iowa and we won't have to wait long for cold weather to come about. Temps will immediately dip tomorrow and in 48 hours we're not expecting the daytime high to make it out of freezing.
We've had kind of a backwards fall around here. We had cold temperatures and snow in October. November was damp, yet warm. We had a lot of rain in October and it carried over into November with almost half the days getting some form of precipitation. Because of that, our roses were still blooming right up to and past Thanksgiving. Expecting an early winter, I went ahead and put down a base of mulched up leaves and grass, then covered that with hardwood mulch. If you remember last year, Cindy made me use a combination of dirt and straw around the rose bushes. But the clean up in the Springtime was horrendous. This year, I wanted to do it my way with the mulched leaves and hardwood mulch. It's kept the plants warmer, it's kept the roots moist and we're continuing to get budding on the plants. That won't last for long, however.
Even our window boxes continued to thrive throughout the fall. The begonias and other greenery that we had in the boxes just kept growing and going - even after a number of frosts that we had during the fall - much to the amazement of friends and neighbors. The begonias finally got nailed just after Thanksgiving and I just pulled them out this past weekend. But the other plants are hearty enough and they seem to keep going. But, like I say, it won't be long before continuous freezing temperatures nail them, as well.
We're going to see high temperatures through the weekend in the low-to-mid 30's. But long-term forecasts for December show that it could be a somewhat mild month. I'm never ready for winter and as long as it doesn't snow until later in the month or into early January, I'll be able to tolerate the season a little easier.
