Road Tips

Restaurant Toulouse - Saugatuck, MI

During our trip to Western Michigan, we spent some time in the small arts and shopping community of Saugatuck.  We'd been in Saugatuck once before and found it to be a nice little community with a big harbor filled with a number of large boats that were seaworthy enough to be on Lake Michigan.  We were looking for some place nice to have a fine dining experience in Saugatuck and came across a little French style restaurant - Restaurant Toulouse - or "Toulouse" as it's known to the locals.  

Toulouse has been open for a little over 20 years, housed in a historic building in Saugatuck, just up the way from the city's marina (see map).  The building stands on what was the site of an old boarding house/hotel in Saugatuck - the Union House Hotel (it was also known as the Sherwood Hotel).  The original building was first used as a boarding house for workers in a sawmill owned by the man who built the place.  Later on as a hotel, it played host to a number of sailors, woodsmen and traders who drank and danced with the young prostitutes who worked the hotel.  A number of townspeople weren't sorry when the hotel was destroyed by fire in 1897.  

In 1905, a local man, Roger Reed, built a new building to house his feed, livery and stagecoach station business.  This is the present day Restaurant Toulouse.  Progress in the form of the new-fangled automobile meant the end of Reed's livery and stagecoach station and it later became a fire station before the city of Saugatuck built a new fire station a number of years ago.

In 1990, Ellen Heyer bought the building and worked with a local architect to restore the building and turn it into a fine dining establishment.   They completely renovated the inside, but restored the outside of the building to the same standards as it was when it was built in the early 20th century.  Heyer also owns Chequers, an English gastropub just down the street from Toulouse.  (There is also a Chequers in the Chicago suburb of La Grange.)  

We had made reservations for 8 p.m. at the restaurant.  We were a little early when we went in and went to the hostess counter inside the front door.  The bar area had a fireplace and some tables with white tablecloths on top.  I understand there's a larger dining area for spillover and/or private dining.  We were asked if we wanted to sit inside or outside.  It was a lovely evening and we immediately asked for outdoor seating.  The young hostess left for a moment to check to see if a table was set up.  She came back and escorted us to the outdoor dining patio.  

We were seated at a table just near the awning of the very nice patio area.  There were a number of diners on the patio, but not enough that it was packed with people.  We were given our menus and told that Jimi would be our waiter for the evening.  

Most of the food at Toulouse has a French/International theme to it with a bit of American thrown in.  They try to use the freshest ingredients by buying locally raised foods and prepare them fresh each day they're open.  (Toulouse is open Thursday thru Sunday from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m. in the summer.  Off season hours vary, we were told.)   The menu features a number of interesting appetizers, bistro favorites and French auberge-style entrees.  (An auberge - pronounced aw-BERJ - is basically a rural French restaurant that serves food that is raised in the immediate area - the original concept of "farm to fork".  For years, auberges were restricted to serving only food that is raised or grown in that specific French province or in the province next to the home province.  But from what I understand on my trips to France they've lightened the restrictions to allow some inner-provinces to serve seafood.  But most auberges continue to serve locally grown and raised food.) 

We had quite a while to look over the menu and the wine list as Jimi was talking with a table of four seated near us.  It turned out they were friends of his who had come over for drinks and an appetizer.  He was paying much more attention to them than he was his other tables until a lady - whom I presumed to be Ellen Heyer - came over to remind him that he needed to check on his tables.  

We knew we were going to get wine with the meal, but Cindy wanted a drink to start out.  She had a hankering for a mai-tai while we were in Michigan for some reason and she found that Toulouse featured a mai-tai martini.  She ordered one of those for a pre-dinner drink.  I asked Jimi if they had Barcardi Limon.  He asked one of the other waiters if they had it in the bar and the waiter confirmed that they did.  So I ordered a Bacardi Limon and Lemonade.  Jimi said, "Ah, but we don't have lemonade.  We have sweet tea."  It reminded me of being in Savannah where NO ONE had lemonade to be able to go with the Bacardi Limon.  I took a quick look through the beer menu they had and found a Bell's Amber Ale on tap.  I got that to go along with Cindy's mai-tai martini (pictured right).  

Toulouse's executive chef Curt Baas offered some pretty interesting appetizers on the menu including pan-seared Foie Gras served on a crostini spread with goat cheese.  They also had an onion-stuffed brie available that evening as well as a chicken pate for appetizers.  I almost pulled the trigger on the onion-stuffed brie, but Cindy had her eye on the pickled beet and goat cheese salad, served along with fresh spinach and marinated onions then sprinkled with crushed walnuts.  I decided to get the caprese salad with fresh roma tomatoes on top of a bed of cucumber strips, topped with sliced fresh mozzarella and fresh chopped basil and drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  

For our main entree, I really wanted to get Toulouse's signature dish, Cassoulet (pronounced cass-o-LAY).  This French auberge-style entree featured a duck leg with great northern beans, bacon, pork sausage and duck confit.  That sounded good and interesting.  But I also saw something that caught my eye - Coquille St. Jacques (pronounced co-KEEL saint zjock).   I had Coquille St. Jacques on my first visit to Montreal 10 years ago tomorrow when I was there interviewing for my current job.   The Coquille St. Jacques I had in Montreal featured shrimp with mushrooms in a cream sherry sauce, then topped with mashed potatoes and baked in the oven broiler.  The Coquille St. Jacques at Toulouse was similar, but used scallops instead of shrimp.  The Coquille St. Jacques I had in Montreal was the first and last time I had gotten that and it was a memorable meal as I was offered - and subsequently accepted - the position I hold today.  It continues to be the best job I've ever had.  

Cindy was looking hard at the marinated and grilled lamb chops, as well as the chicken piccata - a thin-breaded chicken breast drizzled with a lemon caper beurre blanc (white butter) sauce.  If they had that in a veal dish, I would have hopped on that.  But she ended up settling on the walleye entree that had sort of a Mexican flare to it.  They take a walleye filet and roll it in a combination of corn meal and chili powder before it's baked.  The walleye filet is then rested on a bed of bell pepper quinoa (pronounced KIN-wah), then it's topped with a chopped salsita consisting of jalapeno, apple, avacado and orange.  

When Jimi finally came back after kibitzing with his friends for awhile, we were ready to order the salads and the main entrees.  Since we were both getting fish/seafood, I also ordered up a bottle of a 2008 Franciscan Sauvignon Blanc.  They also had the Ferrari-Carano Fume Blanc on the wine list, but Cindy wanted something a little more fruity than dry that evening.  

Jimi brought out our salads and soon delivered the chilled wine to the table.  Cindy was still nursing her mai-tai martini so we told him to hold off on opening the wine.  He put it in the ice bucket and we dug into the salads.  

My caprese salad was very good.  The tomatoes - even for early in the season - were fresh enough, as was the very flavorful basil.   Instead of decked like a regular caprese salad, the tomato slices, the fresh mozzarella slices and the basil were all sort of interspersed on the plate.  The oil and balsamic vinegar was light, yet had a great taste to it.  

Cindy's beet and goat cheese salad (above right) was a rather large bowl that had chunks of cheese, walnuts, onions and pickled beets tossed on a bed of fresh spinach.  She said the salad was delicious and offered me some, but I declined.  I did give her some of my caprese salad which she liked immensely as well.  She said, "You know, we could have split one of these salads."  But, aaah!  It was a nice meal at a nice restaurant.  We needed to splurge and try things.  

Jimi's friends had left and a large table he was helping was also finished for the evening so he had a little more time to pay attention to his other tables, including us.  He came over to open the bottle of wine and asked how our salads were.  "Great," Cindy exclaimed.  "I would have never thought that a combination of pickled beets, goat cheese and spinach would be so good.  Heck, I could make this at home!"  

Jimi said, "Isn't it amazing how something so simple can be so good?"  

Not long after we finished our salads, Jimi brought out the main entrees.  My Coquille St. Jacques was piping hot out of the oven.  And Cindy's walleye had a nice presentation with three or four golden brown filets resting on the bed of bell pepper quinoa.  Fried zucchini - the vegetable du jour - rested on top of my bed of potatoes with the scallops, mushrooms and cream sherry sauce underneath.  Cindy also got a side of zucchini with her fish.  

The Coquille St. Jacques was very good and very rich.  The potatoes had a nice carmelization and crustiness on top.  The scallops and mushrooms lying below the bed of potatoes were both very good.  I especially liked the cream sherry sauce they had with the Coquille St. Jacques. 

Cindy showed me that the walleye was light and flaky and we traded bites of the scallops and potatoes and the walleye.  The one thing that got Cindy, though, was the green bell pepper quinoa.  We'd never had quinoa before - hell, we'd never heard of quinoa before.  She had to ask Jimi what it was again halfway through dinner and he told us that it was the seeds from a South American or Spanish grain that was high in protein.  "A lot of vegetarians eat quinoa," another waiter interjected.  I had a couple bites and it was sort of crunchy, yet cooked.  It had an agreeable taste.   

Cindy immediately said that she wanted to find some quinoa to make at home.  We were told a lot of vegetarian and/or natural health food stores had quinoa.  She said, "Geez, as many times that I've gone into health food stores in the past I've probably seen it, but didn't know what it was!"       

We ate at a leisurely pace and thoroughly enjoyed not only our dinner, but the pleasant evening.  Once Jimi's friends left, he was much more attentive to us and we found him to be a nice guy.  Once we were finished, he asked us if we'd be interesting in any dessert.  The Coquille St. Jacques was very rich and filling, and I wasn't certain I wanted anything other than, maybe, a scotch.   He dropped off a dessert menu and Cindy found creme brulee.  She wanted the creme brulee - two spoons - and I got a glass of The Macallan 12-year scotch. 

The creme brulee was good, but not the best we've had.  We didn't even take a picture of it because it was dark out (it was close to 10 p.m. and small LED lights helped keep a nice ambiance within the outdoor patio) and it looked like any other creme brulee we've had.  As I said, it was good and rich, and we had trouble finishing it.  Cindy finished her last glass of wine, I leisurely sipped on my scotch.  It was a great night outside and we were savoring our very good meal. 

And it was a very good meal at Restaurant Toulouse.  Once Jimi's friends went away and he became more attentive, he did a great job.  It had been a long time since I'd had Coquille St. Jacques and it was as good as I remember it to be 10 years ago.  Cindy loved her walleye and was happy to learn about quinoa.  Toulouse was relaxing and an overall fine meal.  We decided that it was a perfect meal for a perfect night. 

(Update - After 24 years, Ellen and Dave Heyer closed Restaurant Toulouse in May of 2015.  They also closed Chequers at the same time.  It had been open since 1988.  The reasons for the closures were reported to be "unknown".)

La Perla - Milwaukee

When my cousin was living in Milwaukee a number of years ago, he turned us on to a number of very good restaurants in the area - the places where the locals went to eat.  Not being very big on national chains, it was always fun to go try out some of the places he recommended.  In 1995, a Mexican restaurant by the name of La Perla had opened and he had tried it a few times.  On a visit to Milwaukee in 1996, we tried La Perla for the first time and fell in love with the place.  In doing some cleaning up of the blog earlier this summer, I was amazed to find that I had never posted an entry on La Perla.  On a recent visit to Milwaukee I decided to have dinner at La Perla. 

La Perla has been owned and operated for the past 17 years by Nick and JoAnne Anton.  The Anton's have either fully owned or were partners in a handful of other restaurants over the years including Crabby Al's and Vucciria Pizzeria, but La Perla has been their main claim to fame.  JoAnne Anton is also known in political circles around Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin as being Senator Herb Kohl's state director running his office in Milwaukee. Restaurants are in her family's blood as the highly acclaimed Ouzo Greek Cafe in downtown Milwaukee is run by her sister, Nickey Pappas.  

La Perla is located at the corner of S. 5th and W. National (see map) in a highly visible building in the Walker's Point neighborhood.  The Walker's Point area has been home to a number of bars and restaurants over the years, but it is probably most famous for having a number of very good Mexican restaurants in the area.  In the mid-2000's, a number of businesses in the area around 6th and National got together to promote the neighborhood as Milwaukee's Latin Quarter.  A number of businesses spruced up their facades and money was used to paint buildings and generally clean up the area.  Even as the notion of the neighborhood being named the Milwaukee's Latin Quarter was being discussed, the Anton's went ahead and put up a large heart-shaped sign on the corner of La Perla that said, "The Heart of Milwaukee's Latin Quarter."    

JoAnne Anton pictured at right in front of La Perla and the sign she put up to tout the Latin Quarter.  Picture courtesy Milwaukee Business Journal. 

JoAnne Anton was also responsible for helping to set up the long-time chef at La Perla, Jaime Hernandez, in his own business down the street - Botanas.  (Click here to see my entry on Botanas.)  I'd heard and read over the years from people around Milwaukee that the food at La Perla suffered after Hernandez left.  I will say that Botana's is probably my favorite Mexican restaurant in Milwaukee.  

It had been a LONG time since I was last in La Perla.  I figured it was probably six years since my last meal on what I remember being a very cold winter evening.  La Perla has long been known for their festive and colorful outdoor patio.  For years, a large red pepper hovered above the tables on the patio.  It was difficult not to miss it as you were driving along on National.  The big pepper is long gone, but the festive nature of the back patio is still there.  When I went to La Perla that evening, it was turning into a beautiful late summer night.  The man who greeted me as I came in gave me the option of sitting in the dining room or outside.  Hardly anyone was inside eating, I would have had peace and quiet to eat.  But it was too nice an evening.  I couldn't say no when he said, "Come on, it's beautiful out.  Sit outside."  He took me to a small table just outside the door to the patio and dropped off a menu for me to look over.

Another waiter brought me a basket of homemade chips and a bowl of La Perla's excellent salsa.  The chips, however, were sort of stale and lifeless.  Even the great salsa that they have at La Perla couldn't save the  somewhat soggy taste of the chips.  That was highly disappointing.

The original waiter who seated me came back to take my order.  I wasn't ready to order food yet, but I did order a margarita which I pounded in probably five minutes.  As I was looking over the menu, he came back and saw that the margarita consisted of a bunch of ice and a lime wedge at the bottom of the glass.  He said, "That didn't take long, amigo!"  No, it did not.  When he asked if I wanted another one, I instead opted for a Dos Equis Amber.  

The menu at La Perla is extensive and almost reads like a book of nearly every Mexican food item that you can think of.  The menu features about a half dozen appetizer plates, a dozen combination plates, enchiladas, nearly a dozen different types of tacos, a number of seafood specialties, and over 20 house specialties including chimichangas, pork chops in a green chile sauce, beef or chicken tamales, and La Perla's signature dish, the Chicken Ole Poblano - a sauteed chicken breast covered in La Perla's homemade poblano mole sauce.  

I wasn't all that hungry so I didn't want to order something big like the chimichanga (which I remember the pork chimichanga as being superb) or fajitas.  The shrimp tacos jumped out at me, screaming, "Pick me!  Pick me!"  Oooo... I do like shrimp tacos.  When the waiter came back to take my order, that's exactly what I told him to bring me.  And then something inside me said, "Hey, get a chunky beef taco, ala carte."  The next thing I knew I was asking him to bring me one of those, as well.

The shrimp tacos at La Perla are a little different than what you'll find at other Mexican restaurants.  The shrimp are grilled, but then they also put in Spanish rice and a warm tomato/onion/cilantro sauce.  Sour cream, guacamole, and chopped lettuce and tomatoes come on the side.  The shrimp had that wonderful grilled taste to them and the sauce was a nice compliment to the taste.  With the Spanish rice, they were filling.

The chunky beef taco was good, but it almost had too much shredded cheese on top.  The chunky beef had been slow cooked in a sauce and was tender.  It wasn't as good as the shrimp tacos, but it was good enough. Quite actually, the three shrimp tacos were almost more than enough for what I wanted to eat.  I was kicking myself for ordering the fourth taco as they are not small at La Perla.  

After paying the waiter, I got up to take a look around at the inside of La Perla.  The bar area and the main dining room haven't changed all that much over the years.  I believe the bar area was initially also the dining area at La Perla, but I honestly can't remember if that's correct.  I want to say they added the dining room on after they had opened.  But I may be wrong on that.  Either way, both areas were colorful with the dining room sort of having a somewhat Mexican art-deco look to it.  When the back patio isn't open, La Perla can fill up quickly.

One of the more fun things they have in the bar area at La Perla is the "bucking pepper" ride.  They took an old mechanical horse that you used to see outside grocery stores for little kids to ride on and fashioned a large red pepper with a saddle on it.  Little kids, like the ones pictured at the right, can ride it, but the bulk of the riders are usually gassed up women who have had a couple too many margaritas.  The ride costs 25 cents and the money goes to charity.  It's highly popular and they even have their own "Pepper Cam" link on the Internet showing the pepper live. 

(As a somewhat strange aside regarding the picture to the right - I had stopped to take the picture of the two little boys playing on the pepper and evidently the kids' mother was seated at the table next to the pepper.  She shrieked at me, "Hey, what in the hell are you doing taking a picture of my boys!?"  

This caused her husband to turn around and look at me, then he turned back around at his wife and said, "What's going on?"

As I walked into the main dining room, I heard her say, "That man just took a picture of the boys!"

I heard her husband say, "Yeah! So?"  That's kind of what I thought.  That is, unless she thought I was a pedophile and was taking pictures of little boys.  But, hey, I probably wouldn't have won either way if a 20-something young lady was propped up on the saddle and I'd taken her picture.  I would have probably been called a pervert.  I just wanted a picture of the pepper.)  

One thing that I did notice was that La Perla had added on to their north side with their tequila bar.  They basically bought the building to the north of their building and put in a couple garage doors that would open on warm nights.  The only thing was that it looked closed that particular evening.  I didn't see any activity going on as I looked in the doors when I walked by to go into La Perla when I first arrived. 

My first visit back to La Perla in quite sometime was all right, really nothing special.  10 years ago, I would have told anyone who was looking for great Mexican in Milwaukee to head to La Perla.  I don't think I can say that any longer.  While it's still very good, there are other places in the immediate area that I think are better than La Perla.  It's still a fun place to go and the food is still better than most Mexican restaurants you'll find.  But La Perla has always been one of those places that has a spot in my heart since it was one of the first truly authentic Mexican restaurants we'd ever eaten at.  It's still worthy of a visit from time to time.

Rhombus Guys Pizza - Fargo, ND

A couple years ago when I was up in Grand Forks, ND for a meeting with a prospective dealer, I was looking for a place to eat one evening.  I found a place called Rhombus Guys Pizza that looked interesting, but it was also packed full of people.  I ended up eating at the Toasted Frog that evening (see my entry here) and had a pretty good meal.  But I always had Rhombus Guys Pizza in the back of my mind.  When I was up in Fargo earlier this summer, I was talking with my dealer about food options for the evening.  He was telling me, "Oh, man!  We've had about seven really good pizza places open up in the past few months."  He named a couple of them and then he said, "Rhombus Guys is a good pizza."  

I said, "Wait! There's a Rhombus Guys in Fargo?"  

He said, "Sure!"  I immediately said I want to go get one of their pizzas.  He said, "That's good!  It's walking distance from my store!"  He wasn't kidding.  We went down an alley, walked up 7th St. to Main Ave. and walked down the block to Rhombus Guys (see map).  Even though it was close to 9 p.m., the place was packed.  That's usually a good sign. 

Once again, the back story to how Rhombus Guys got started is pretty interesting.

Back in the spring of 2000, two friends from the Thief River Falls area of Northwest Minnesota - Arron Hendricks and Matt Winjum (pictured at right - Hendricks in the red shirt and Winjum in the blue.  Photo courtesy WDAY.com) - decided to make some money on their own before they went off to college.  Winjum had a job working for the parks and recreation department in his hometown, but wanted to be his own boss.  Along with Hendricks, their idea was to build a smoothie cart and take it around to some events and gatherings around the lake vacation areas of Northwest Minnesota.  They had an old snowmobile trailer as a base and began to build the shell for the smoothie cart.  Finding out that their carpentry skills weren't quite up to snuff, when they finally finished what they thought would be a 8 foot cube box, young Arron Hendricks exclaimed, "This thing isn't a square at all.  It's more like a rhombus!"  The name stuck and they painted the structure in a myriad of colors and called it "The Mystery Rhombus Machine".  Their business - Smoothie Rhombus - was born.  

The first summer of business, they traveled to fairs, luncheons, lake beaches - wherever a crowd gathered in Northwestern Minnesota or Northeastern North Dakota, they were there.  The first year was a learning experience for both boys, they made a little money, and they knew they had something good going and wanted to do it again the next year.  

After a year of college (Arron at University of Minnesota, Matt at Arizona State), they reunited and brought in a partner, Levi Kraft, to help out with the smoothie stand.  That particular summer, they tripled their sales and gained a lot of knowledge and confidence in running a business.  

Matt's family had a cabin on Maple Lake outside of Mentor, MN and that's where the three lived during that summer.  Lamenting that no place in the area would deliver pizza, the three came up with an idea to open a pizza place in Mentor that would deliver to a surrounding area full of lake and vacation homes in Northwest Minnesota.  They found an old building in Mentor and even though financing was a problem, they ended up buying it on contract from the owner.  They then bought all the pizza equipment from a Godfather's Pizza restaurant that had gone out of business down in Moorhead, MN, just across the Red River of the North from Fargo.  Then they learned how to make pizza.

Actually, Hendricks was the only one who had no experience in making pizza prior to the trio purchasing the pizza equipment - Kraft and Winjum had worked for Domino's Pizza in the past - but he jumped in learning how to make different pizzas with unique toppings.  One of the first pizzas they came up with was a pepperoni, green pepper, onion and bacon called the Levitricks, a combination of Levi Kraft's first name and Arron Hendricks' last name.  Not long after that, Rhombus House of Pizza opened their doors in late May of 2002.

The three continued to sell their smoothies, not only in their mobile "Rhombus" cart, but in their pizza place.  They all worked long hours (each took one day off a week) and employed girlfriends and family to help in the restaurant to help keep costs down.  While business at the restaurant was a little lean at first, they quickly built up a local following with their unique pizzas and their high visibility at local events.  The first summer of business was a success.  But school called again and the three shut the doors of the seasonal pizza place and put the smoothie cart back in the garage for the winter.    

After graduating from college (Winjum with a degree in economics and marketing, Kraft in political science and economics from North Dakota State, and Hendricks with a degree in philosophy with a minor in economics) the three went full time into the pizza business in Mentor.  They found a small space in a strip mall in their hometown of Thief River Falls and opened Cafe Rhombus in the fall of 2004.  In addition to their pizza and smoothies, Cafe Rhombus also served entrees, burgers and sandwiches.  

In the spring of 2005, Levi Kraft announced that he was leaving the business to start a family with his wife - previously his high school sweetheart.  Hendricks and Winjum carried on running both the House of Rhombus pizza business in Mentor and the Rhombus Cafe in Thief River Falls.  The two alternated between the two restaurants working two weeks at a time at each place before trading off.  

After a couple of years of tinkering with the Rhombus Cafe model, the two decided to make the next step and looked for a year-round Rhombus Pizza location in the college town of Grand Forks.  They found a great little building in downtown Grand Forks and did the build-out and renovations on their own.  In 2006, Rhombus Guys Pizza opened for business. 

Running three restaurants proved to be too much for the duo and they ended up closing Cafe Rhombus in 2008 to focus their efforts on their growing full-time pizza place in Grand Forks.  The two continued to run the House of Rhombus in Mentor as a seasonal business.  But they weren't finished expanding - they opened their second Rhombus Guys Pizza in Fargo just before Labor Day in 2011.       

The Fargo location is in a long, narrow building that was built back in the early 20th century.  There's a big bar on the left side of the building with a row of booths opposite.  There are a number of tables up front and in back.  Also in back is a game room area, as well as a place to put live music.  Artwork from a local Grand Forks artist and beer signs adorn the walls.

We waited at the hostess stand for a couple minutes before a young lady came up to greet us.  They were extremely busy in Rhombus Guys that evening and there was only a small two-seater table up toward the front or seating at the bar.  We opted for the small table.  She dropped off a couple menus and we waited for someone to come over to take our beer order.  

The menu at Rhombus Guys is definitely eclectic.  In addition to their artisan pizzas, they offer a number of interesting appetizers, fresh salads, sandwiches and wraps.  They also have a number of local and regional microbrews to choose from - about two dozen on tap and another three dozen or so available in bottles.  We were thirsty.  We were hungry.  No one was waiting on us.  

It was finally after about five minutes when a young waiter - Adam - who was cleaning off a nearby booth looked over and saw us sitting there.  He came over and said, "Has anyone waited on you guys yet?"  We said no.  He said, "Ah, OK.  Miscommunication, I guess.  I told someone else that you guys were sitting there and they must have misunderstood."  Or forgot about us, more likely, as it was very busy in there.  Anyway, we ordered up some beers - I got the Alaskan Amber they had on tap.  

Rhombus Guys Pizza has nearly 3 dozen different types of pizza on their menu.  Of those pizzas, about 8 of them are of a vegetarian variety.  The original Levitricks pizza from their Mentor location is now called "Aaron's Little Miracle" on the menu in Fargo.  Their "Pacific Northwest" pizza has smoked salmon, feta cheese, black and green olives, chopped tomatoes and garlic infused olive oil.  The "Louisiana Saturday Night" has Cajun-spiced marinara sauce, shrimp, andouille sausage, red peppers, pepperocini and caramelized onions.  "Jonny Wasabi" featured chicken, teriyaki sauce, onion, green and red peppers, pepperocini, peanuts, and a wasabi drizzle over the top.  The "Americana" was basically a bacon cheeseburger pizza with beef, bacon, cheddar cheese, marinara, mozzarella and - of all things - pickles.  I got a nice laugh out of some of the pizzas. 

My dealer was telling me that he'd always wanted to try the Rockefeller - roasted garlic-infused white cream sauce, shrimp, spinach, onion, cream cheese, tomato and mozzarella, but he said he can't when he and his wife show up with their little boys.  He said, "They have to have the basic pizza when we come here.  They like the T-Rex."  The T-Rex is Rhombus Guys signature pizza - pepperoni, sausage, bacon, Canadian bacon and beef with marinara and mozzarella.  The T-Rex has won the "Best Pizza in Grand Forks" for five years running.  His wife couldn't dine with us that night and he wanted to get a large to be able to take some extra home with him.  I told him that I no problem with that.

When it came time to order, I decided upon the Big Dogz pizza - sausage, pepperoni, black olives and jalapenos with mozzarella and marinara sauce.  I got a small one (12") and I got it with the thin crust option.  (Gluten free crust is also available.)  My dealer did order a Rockefeller with the regular crust.  And he said, "We have to get this one appetizer."  He ordered the mushroom buttons - bacon/cheese stuffed mushroom caps that are then baked to what the menu described as "ooooey gooooey perfection".  Those had caught my eye earlier and I thought the pizza would be enough for me. But I welcomed the fact that we were getting those, as well.   

The stuffed mushrooms came to our table about 10 minutes after we ordered them.  And they were as good as advertised.  The cheese/bacon filling was caramelized on the top and were oozing over the sides of the caps.  The cheese ran out of the cap when I cut into one.  My dealer showed me the proper way to eat them. "Just put the whole thing in your mouth."  Yeah, and hope that the cheese has cooled enough so that the roof of your mouth doesn't receive 2nd degree burns.  They were absolutely wonderful. 

We still had some mushroom to finish when the first pizza - the Rockefeller - made it to the table.  It was huge and the server who brought it out to us had to use a pizza holder to give us room on the table.  The outer crust was misshapen and bubbly, the hallmark of a good hand-tossed pizza.  The toppings were plentiful and swimming in the white sauce on the pizza.  The shredded mozzarella was caramelized on top of the pizza.  My dealer said, "Oh, boy!  I've been wanting to try this for a long time!"

Adam then brought out the Big Dogz pizza and we did our best in trying to find a place for it on the table.  Smaller and with a noticeably lack of thickness around the edges, it too had plentiful toppings, not an over-abundance of black olives or jalapenos - which was fine with me.  

I pulled the first piece away from my pizza and took a bite.  The crust was thin, not crisp, but not moist or droopy.  The overall temperature of the pizza was, well, sort of cold.  At least colder than what I would expect a pizza to be when it's brought to the table.  I don't know if they let it sit in back for awhile before they brought it out.  The cheese was sort of rubbery, sort of like they kept it under a heat lamp too long.  I would have expected it to be like this if the pizza where delivered, but not served at a restaurant.  It was edible and the toppings were good, but I can't say that I was very impressed with my first Rhombus Guys pizza.  Frankly, I've had slices of pizza from a Casey's General Store that were better than the pizza I had at Rhombus Guys.  

Nonetheless, I made a significant dent in my pizza.  But it was disappointing to me as I'd heard so many good things about Rhombus Guys.  I don't know if it was an off night or if the pizza suffered because they were so busy so late in the evening.  I finished what I could and let my dealer take home the remaining three pieces with the rest of his Rockefeller pizza which he declared as "Good!"  

Given the popularity of Rhombus Guys Pizza, I'm hoping that I was there on an off-night.  My pizza was disappointing, but the bacon-cheese stuffed mushrooms were to die for.  Service was a little shaky at the start, but it picked up considerably as the night went on.  And the place was pretty expensive - our bill for two pizzas, an appetizer and a handful of beers was just under $87 bucks.  For that kind of money I would have hoped the pizza would have knocked my socks off.  I'm sorry, but it sure didn't.

Tom & Eddie's - Lombard, IL

Let's say, for a moment, that you're a retired executive from a large corporation.  And for funsies, let's call that corporation McDonald's.  What do you do after climbing the corporate ladder starting out as a grill cook and working your way up to be the C.E.O.?  Do you become a NASCAR owner?  Do you contemplate becoming a Smashburger franchisee?  Do you have a passion to find the perfect burger and have a place that is comfortable and affordable to have such a burger?  If your name is Ed Rensi, that's exactly what happened after he retired in 1998 from McDonald's.  And along with his long-time friend, Tom Dentice - also a former executive with McDonald's - they opened their first fast casual gourmet burger place Tom & Eddie's in August of 2010.  I don't quite remember how I heard about Tom & Eddie's, but I had it bookmarked as a place I wanted to try.  On a recent trip into Chicago for business, I had a chance to try one of their burgers.  

Ed Rensi was going to school at Ohio State, working three jobs and had no car when he saw an ad for a "grill man" at a new drive-up restaurant by the name of McDonald's.  It was 1966 and Rensi's wife, Anne, was pregnant with their first child.  In order to make ends meet, Resni ended up working 100 hours a week - at .85 cents an hour - his first year at McDonald's.  However, his dogged determination paid off and within a year he was promoted to manager of the McDonald's store in Columbus.  He ended up becoming a regional manager in Philadelphia, eventually getting promoted to regional Vice-President.  In Philadelphia, Ed was instrumental for the development of the first Ronald McDonald House, a temporary home for families who children are suffering from serious illnesses.  Rensi was eventually promoted to the Oak Brook, IL headquarters of McDonald's as Vice-President of Training and Operations.  Ed was responsible for product development and in 1983 oversaw the project that eventually became Chicken McNuggets.  He was elevated to the Chief Executive Officer position the following year.

At right, Tom Dentice and Ed Rensi (Picture courtesy Northwest Quarterly)

Tom Dentice's rise through the ranks at McDonald's is similar to the journey his good friend Ed Rensi encountered.  It was 1965 and Dentice had just finished an 8-year stint in the Air Force.  He needed a job to help pay the bills as he had a wife and a baby at home.  He saw an ad in a local newspaper for a "manager/trainee" for a McDonald's franchise in Columbus, OH.  He got the job and within the next year he hired a young college student by the name of Ed Rensi.  As Rensi rose through the managerial and executive ranks at McDonald's, he never forgot his first manager.  Dentice eventually became the V-P for Training and Operations, retiring as the Senior Executive V-P for Franchising in 1998.  

Hamburgers never left the blood of both Rensi and Dentice and both had been thinking about a gourmet burger that was affordable and served in a place that was fun for the family.  After initially looking at becoming Smashburger franchisees, the two traveled the world - together and separately - eating burgers of all kinds (Rensi said he gained 21 pounds during his travels) gaining knowledge of the upscale burger business and trying to figure out exactly what they wanted to do for their concept.   

Rensi and Dentice began a partnership program with the College of DuPage's culinary and hospitality program, working with school chefs and students to develop a unique menu that featured burgers, chicken sandwiches, salads, sides and gourmet milkshakes.  Over an eight week period in late 2009, Tom & Eddie's hosted a test restaurant that served over 1000 meals to students, friends and community organizations in return for feedback about the food and concept.  Tweaking the plan along the way, the two were confident that their fast casual concept would be ready for the public.

From the beginning, they wanted to make sure that people knew that Tom & Eddie's would not be another McDonald's with cheap burgers.  They visited test kitchens, looking for the very best beef to make their hamburgers from.  They settled upon a 100% fresh Angus chuck natural beef with no hormones or antibiotics introduced into cattle who also only ate a vegetarian diet on the farm.  For the animal-rights people, the beef Tom & Eddie's uses is "certified humane" by a national non-profit organization that inspects and certifies farms and facilities that raise beef in a humane way.   

Rensi and Dentice also worked with Chef Charlie Baggs, a food industry veteran who heads his own consulting firm in the Chicago area.  They hired Baggs' corporate chef Lance Avery to help give their foods a signature taste.  Finally, they decided up on getting their fresh baked buns from the Turano Bakery in Berwyn, IL.  Turano hamburger buns are some of the best around.  

Finding a facility was the next thing and they settled on a former Boudin Bakery location in the Yorktown Center mall in west suburban Lombard, not far from the McDonald's corporate offices in Oakbrook.  They ordered in two 3-foot long flat top grills - one for the burgers, and the other for the other foods that cook at different temperatures than the burgers - and opened their doors toward the end of August 2010.  The first location was a hit and they soon opened a second Tom & Eddie's location in far west suburban Geneva, then a third one in north suburban Deerfield, then a fourth one in far north suburban Vernon Hills.  They are working to open a fifth T&E location in Naperville in the coming weeks.

The Lombard location is located on the southwest corner of the Yorktown Center mall just off Highland Avenue in what they call The Shops on Butterfield, across from Rock Bottom Brewery and caddy-cornered from Brio Tuscan Grille (see map).  Tom & Eddie's is a fitting restaurant for the mall which has a number of upscale restaurants in the immediate area including The Capital Grille, D.O.C American Bistro, and the Claim Jumper.  (There's a Cajun restaurant at Yorktown Center called French Quarter that I'd like to try at some point.)  Parking is plentiful in front of Tom & Eddie's.  

The inside of Tom & Eddie's could sort be described as contemporary art deco.  There are a number of two seater tables and a set of higher four seat tables along the large windows that allow an abundant amount of light to shine into the restaurant.  Three-sided booths are along a half wall and bench seats are along the back wall with tables.  The kitchen area is open to the left of the main counter and there is a soda pop dispenser along with shelves of hot sauces in the center of the restaurant.   An outdoor patio was available for al fresco dining.  

The front counter is where you order your food and drinks.  The menu for the restaurant is located on the wall behind the counter (or you can get a printed menu to take with you).  Burgers are the draw at Tom & Eddie's, but they also feature a "Lean and Green" part of their menu that features salads, chicken sandwiches, veggie burgers and burgers that are made out of ground turkey and ahi tuna.  And the prices are more than reasonable.  Most of the burgers, depending upon the toppings you add, are under $10 bucks.

Tom & Eddie's feature seven signature burgers including the Ampersand that is topped with gouda cheese, applewood smoked bacon, barbecue sauce and Tom & Eddie's in-house made haystack onion straws, then topped with a fried egg.  The Blue Chip features a burger topped with a sliced avocado, Tom & Eddie’s roasted garlic aioli, a tomato slice and crumbled blue cheese topped with homemade potato chips.  The Love Me Dew has Tom & Eddie’s homemade spicy mayonnaise, topped with pepperjack and peppadew sweet piquanté peppers.  And the most interesting of them all is the Bushel and a Peck - they start off with Granny Smith apple slices, then add homemade walnut butter, melted Brie cheese and finish with caramelized onions.  Although that doesn't sound appealing to me in the least, I have a feeling my wife would love something like that.

Or, you can "build your own" burger at Tom & Eddie's.  And that's exactly what I did.  You have your choice between a 1/2 pound or 1/3 pound burger and then you choose from three fresh baked gourmet buns - sesame seed, ciabatta or multi-grain.   If you want cheese on your burger, they have everything from American, Swiss, pepperjack, gouda, brie and blue cheese.  Then you get your choice of 10 different condiments that include organic ketchup, garlic aoili, Jamaica sweet relish, basil pesto and an eggplant spread.  And then you have a choice of 10 veggie or fruit toppings that include lettuce, sliced red or caramelized onions, sport peppers (for the hot dogs they have on the menu, no doubt), hot giardiniera (it IS Chicago), and something they call puckered pickles.  

From there, you can order "premium toppings" including sauteed crimini mushrooms, a fried egg, extra cheese, applewood smoked bacon and fire roasted tomatoes.  It seems like a lot of choices, but I sort of knew what I was going to get once I saw the combinations they had.  I ordered up a 1/2 pound burger cooked medium with Swiss cheese on a sesame seed bun.  I had them put the organic ketchup and yellow mustard on it (but I found that when I got to the table that there were bottles of yellow mustard and Heinz organic ketchup already there), as well as a sliced red onion.  I also had them put the crimini mushrooms and some Applewood smoked bacon on it, as well.  The girl behind the counter asked me if I wanted any sides - they have hand-cut fries, sweet potato fries, the haystack onion rings, or fresh made potato chips.  I figured that the burger would just be fine for me.  

For something to drink, I ordered a glass of the Two Brothers pale ale.  The girl who took my order was too young to pour and serve the beer, so she asked another lady, to do the honors.  As the other lady poured my beer, the girl gave me a number on a plastic strip shaped like a paddle.  She said, "This is your key and you put this in your holder on the table and we'll bring your food to you."  

The other lady, who poured my beer - Tammi - asked me if I'd ever been to Tom & Eddie's before.  Since I hadn't, she sort of showed me the ropes.  She said, "Well, you get your pick of tables, then you put this little paddle in the holder.  If you need anything like another drink or more food or whatever, you just hit this button on the base and we'll be right there!"  The contraption is called the "Key Call Table Locator System" and it is part of a system that allows for monitoring of orders and sends a signal back to the food pick-up area to show where the customer is seated in the restaurant.  It also allows  Tom & Eddie's to monitor, record and average times that it takes for a customer to receive their food after they've ordered.  

Tammi told me, "Our concept is similar to the fast casual concept like Panera Bread has where the food is made quickly after you've ordered.  Only we bring the food to the table rather than having the customer wait for it.  It just gives us a little more of a personal touch with our customers."  

About 15 minutes after I ordered my burger, Tammi brought it to the table.  The presentation was very nice - the burger was served on a concave, sculptured plate.  It had a load of sauteed crimini mushrooms on top of the bacon with all sitting on a thick slice of Swiss cheese.  Three large red onion rings were with the burger - any more and I would have taken some off.  The gourmet sesame seed bun had rack marks across the top.  It was light and fluffy, and felt substantial.  

The first bite told me this was an excellent burger.  The Black Angus beef had that wonderful flat-grilled juicy taste to it.   The burger was cooked to a perfect medium with a little pink in the middle. The crimini mushrooms were absolutely fabulous. I'm guessing the sauteed them in butter and Worcestershire sauce.  The bacon was flavorful and the red onions weren't overpowering.  The bun was also perfect - not too chewy, but substantial enough that it stayed together with all the great juicy toppings.    

Tammi came over to me to see how I liked my burger.  I couldn't lie to her, "This is simply an outstanding burger."  

She said, "Great!  Glad you liked it.  You'll have to come back and try another type of burger sometime.  That's what I like to do, experiment with different toppings."  

Tom & Eddie's is a winner.  The burger was just excellent, one of the finest gourmet burgers I've ever had.  I liked the fast casual "made-to-order" concept and the sort of laid back atmosphere in the place.  I'm hoping they don't grow too big, too quickly.  Five locations in about two years is just about enough for this place.  But I can't say enough good things about Tom & Eddie's.  For a great gourmet burger, it was about 50% cheaper than what you'd find for a burger at a fine dining restaurant.  It was a great burger at a great value. 

Su Casa Restaurante- South Haven, MI

About 10 years ago, we spent about five days in the Western Michigan resort community of South Haven.  We had wanted to go back for a number of years and we finally decided to take a long weekend earlier this year to visit again.  The hotel we wanted to get into was booked for a couple of the nights we planned to be there, so we ended up staying up in Holland, MI - 30 miles to the north - instead.  We did get back to South Haven for a good portion of a day while we were there and ended up having lunch at a Mexican restaurant by the name of Su Casa Restaurante.  

South Haven seemed to have changed over the past 10 years.  Some of the shops that we remembered from before were out of business.  It seemed sort of run down and sleepy compared to nearby resort/tourist destinations such as Saugatuck, Holland and Grand Haven.  If decompression is what you're looking for, South Haven is sleepy enough that you could easily achieve total relaxation.  But if you're like us who likes to go and do and see, there's not much in the town to satisfy that desire.  

We seem to remember more restaurants in town, as well.  We remember a great bed and breakfast/restaurant that had wonderful breakfasts, but that was closed.  A steakhouse on the outskirts of town we had eaten at in the past seemed to be closed, as well.  And there were only a couple three restaurants open in the downtown area.  We walked around for quite a bit on a warm afternoon before we decided to go get something for lunch.  We had been to a place called Clementine's in the past and while we remembered it as being just "OK", it seemed to be the only place open in downtown South Haven that had a full lunch menu.  But even in the middle of the afternoon the wait to get into the place was approaching a half hour.  We decided to go down the street to Su Casa and get some Mexican food.  (See map) 

The original Su Casa opened in 1986 in nearby Fennville, MI.  Edgardo and Maria Suarez came from Mexico to Michigan with a dream of opening their own restaurant.  Over the years, their son, Edgar, and his wife, Constance, became involved in the business.  The restaurant did so well in Fennville that it expanded into a three-story, 9,000 square foot facility.  It was the summer of 2009 that Edgar and Constance opened the South Haven location.  

It was after 3 p.m. when we walked into Su Casa and it, too, was packed.  We thought it was sort of interesting that most restaurants we went to for lunch around Western Michigan were very busy deep into the afternoon.  We figured that a lot of people had the same idea as we did.  Su Casa was so busy that there were very few tables available.  We walked through the long narrow dining room, past the bar and into a back dining room.  There was one table available, but it was next to a family with a fussy kid and a baby in a carrier that was crying.  We noticed a table clear back up front that was opening up and we decided to take that one instead.  

As we waited for someone to come by to greet us and drop off some menus, we noticed the bleached brick walls next to us.  The bar area was bright and lively.  All the seats were occupied when we got in the place, but it began to thin out as the afternoon went on.  A lot of the restaurant looked very contemporary, but the bleached bricks on the wall opposite the bar area gave away any hint of the restaurant being in a modern building.  

It was about 10 minutes before a waitress, Lili, came over and said, "Did you guys just sit down here?"  We told her we did.  She replied, "Sorry about that.  My boss usually is out here to greet and seat people, but we've been so busy today that he's had to help out in the kitchen."   She gave us each a menu and asked if we wanted something to drink.  Cindy ordered a margarita and I got a Dos Equis Amber on draft.  Another waitress dropped off a basket of homemade chips along with three different salsas - a pico de gallo salsa, a green salsa and a hot pickled carrot salsa.

Actually, the carrot salsa was the most interesting of the three.  The taste of the pickled carrots had a little bite to them and they were actually pretty good.  I joked to Cindy that if I had these available, I'd probably eat more carrots.  She said, "I see jars of them up on the bar.  Maybe they do sell them."  Turned out that they did, but we didn't buy any.  More on that later on.  

As we looked through the menu, we found it to be somewhat interesting with some of the foods they offered at Su Casa.  They had something called Millanesa - a breaded chicken breast steak or beef steak, probably a Mexican version of chicken fried steak.  You could get the Millanesa Rellena - the same thing only rolled and stuffed with ham and Chihuahua cheese.   They had pork tamales that caught my eye, as well as enchiladas topped with a salsa verde (green sauce).  

It seemed to take forever to get our drinks.  Lili finally brought my beer and it was another five mintues before Cindy got her margarita.  It occurred to us that they were woefully understaffed in the place.  Tables where people had gotten up and left stayed cluttered with used plates and glasses, sort of like how we found our table when we sat down.

Lili came back to take our order and since it was so late in the afternoon, we decided to eat light.  Cindy wanted a side salad and then wanted to split an order of the enchiladas with the salsa verde.  We asked Lili if we could get one of them chicken and the other two beef.  She didn't think that would be any problem.   In fact, she came back again a couple minutes later and said, "I just want to make sure I have this right - two beef and one chicken.  Right?" 

Cindy's side salad came out and it was pretty much like any side salad you'd see at any restaurant.   But it took awhile for the enchiladas to make it out to the table.  By this time, we were already there for about 40 minutes when Lili dropped the enchiladas off.  We had heard a guy at a table across the way give one of the waitresses a ration of crap for being so slow with the service.  We heard her say, "I'm so sorry, but we are so busy today."

The guy sort of brusquely said, "Well, then you should have called in more help."  

The enchiladas - we correctly guessed - were pretty small.  It wasn't that good of a value for $10.95.  They had the green salsa on top, then were topped with Chihuahua cheese.  The only problem is that they gave us three beef enchiladas, forgetting that we wanted one chicken and two beef.  Cindy didn't mind though.  "They're so busy, I'm sure the kitchen is overwhelmed, too," she said.  Refried beans, rice and chopped lettuce and tomatoes accompanied the enchiladas.  

The enchiladas were actually pretty good.  I really liked the salsa verde on the top - it had a nice little kick to the taste.  The rest of the items on the plate were pretty non-descript.  We made short work of the enchiladas and sort of poked at the beans and rice until we figured we were done.

We waited and waited and waited for Lili to bring us the check.  A full 10 minutes after we were finished, Cindy was able to flag down Lili to get our bill.  It was another five minutes before she came back with our check.  We were going to see if we could get a jar of the pickled carrots and just pay cash for them.  I put my credit card in the folder and left it there for Lili to pick up.  And we waited another five minutes.  By this time, it was well past an hour since we first sat down at Su Casa.   When she didn't come to pick up the check folder, I just decided to cut my losses and laid out $30 bucks (the bill came to about $26 with tax) and we left without getting the pickled carrots.  

Later on when I was doing research on Su Casa in South Haven, I found a handful of comments on a couple three travel and restaurant sites where others experienced slow service at the restaurant.  It didn't seem to matter if they were there on the weekend or at night through the week - there were a few people who experienced the same thing we did.  The food, while very good, wasn't that good of a value.  Su Casa was a nice place to get lunch, but it was a good thing that we weren't in any hurry while we were there.  The service wait was excruciating at times.  But food options appear to be limited in South Haven these days, so you have to put up with the slow service if you want to eat at Su Casa. 

Blarney Stone Pub - Bismarck, ND

I stopped in Bismarck earlier this summer to call on one of my long-time dealers in town and to take him out to lunch.  A couple three years ago, I had been up to Grand Forks and found a nice place called the Toasted Frog (see that entry here).  I heard that they had opened a location in Bismarck and I suggested we go there.  My dealer said, "Sure!  That sounds good.  I've been there a couple times and it's pretty good."  

We went to The Toasted Frog and found that it didn't open until 4 p.m.  Just across the street from The Toasted Frog was The Pirogue Grille, a place we had eaten at one time a few years ago.  (See that entry here.)  However, my dealer said, "Well, we're in the same boat with The Pirogue Grille.  It doesn't open until late afternoon, too."

He stood there for a moment and said, "Ah!  I know a place we can go.  It's just around the corner."  We walked down N. 4th St. to Main and took a left.  In the middle of the block was an Irish pub by the name of the Blarney Stone Pub.  (see map)  

(Disclosure - I didn't bring my phone with me, so the pictures I have in this blog were courtesy of the Blarney Stone's Facebook Page.) 

Thanks to a boom in oil and gas drilling in Northwest North Dakota, a number of cities and towns in the area are going through some major changes.  Some of the changes are good, but some are bad.  Bismarck is benefiting the most out of the oil and gas boom in North Dakota as it has become the favored place for oil company executives to live.  There has been an upscale housing and office space boom in the area and a handful of restaurants have popped up over the past couple three years.   The Blarney Stone is one of those places and they've been open for just under three years.  The pub is owned by a group consisting of Matt and Kelly Geiger, who own a construction company in Bismarck; Jim and Nicole Poolman (Jim Poolman is the former State Insurance Commissioner for North Dakota and is currently a consultant in Bismarck); Bil and Michele Rydquist (Bil Rydquist owns a heating and refrigeration business in Bismarck); and Russ Wanner, who is the managing partner at The Blarney Stone.  The group worked together to make decisions on the downtown location, the decor of the restaurant, and the eventual menu.  

The inside of the Blarney Stone is very reminiscent of an authentic Irish pub - heavy on the brick work with a large ornate wood bar in the main room as you walk in.  There's a large upstairs area for private parties and overflow dining.  

Off to the side of the main dining room/bar is an ornate and elegant dining room called the Grand Room with a large fireplace with a beautiful wooden mantle.  And through a large brick arch was a hallway with a handful of private booth dining areas, each with their own arch entry way.  The Blarney Stone would have been classy even in a much larger city.

We were escorted by a hostess into another dining area through the elegant room.  This was the Blarney Stone's "courtyard" dining area.  Actually, it was a long dining room with its own bar, and a number of high tables with what amounted to a large open garage door on the south end of the room.  We sat at a high table near the garage door and the hostess left off menus for us to look over.  Ricky was our server that day and he took our drink order while we took a look through the menus.  

Each day through the week, the Blarney Stone has a lunch special from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.  Since it was on a Wednesday when we were there, the special that day was a half smoked Sicilian sandwich with a bowl of cheesy chicken tortilla soup.  The Sicilian sandwich on its own piqued my interest - it consisted of smoked ham, pepperoni, and bacon with mozzarella cheese sitting on a bed of Spring lettuce, black olives, balsamic marinated tomato slices and sliced sweet onions, all sitting in between slices of grilled focaccia bread.  Marinara sauce came with it on the side.  I came into the place thinking a reuben would be pretty good, but this one jolted my taste buds.  

They also had a number of entrees, appetizers and burgers including something called the Haystack McFarland.  Named after a fictional Irish wrestler, this sandwich is Blarney Stone's "challenge" meal that consists of five different Blarney Stone signature burgers (such as the Rosemary O'Reilly, the Irish Mexican, and the Hot-Headed Irishman) along with two pounds of waffle fries.  It costs $48 bucks and you get 30 minutes to down the burger and fries or you have to pay for the burger.  You also get a free t-shirt if you win the challenge.  This is a somewhat disturbing trend I'm seeing in restaurants, primarily because of Adam Richman and his "Man vs. Food" food challenges on The Travel Channel.  Now, I love the Man vs. Food show, but I'm getting a little bored with these challenges.  Pictured at left is a young guy who is getting ready to take the challenge.  (He lost...)

My guest was thinking about getting one of the Blarney Stone's salads for lunch.  When Ricky came to take our order for food, my dealer had a question regarding the "angry sauce" that the Blarney Stone used on their Angry Chicken Caesar Salad.  Ricky said that it was a variation of a Buffalo wing sauce that they made in house.  "It's spicy, but not that bad," he told my dealer.  So, that's what my dealer ordered.

Even though the Smoked Sicilian sandwich was still at the top of my list, I couldn't help but notice a number of other items on the extensive menu.  The Shepherd's Pie looked very interesting, as did the corned beef and creamed cabbage platter.  There was also the Blarney Dip - sliced roast beef on a grilled hoagie bun, topped with melted Swiss cheese and garlic Aioli.  It came with a Rosemary Onion au jus gravy to dip the sandwich in. Oh, man!  It was between that and the Smoked Sicilian, but when it came my time to order I went with my original gut instinct and go the Smoked Sicilian - a whole without the soup - and waffle fries.  Ricky asked if I wanted any of the Dublin sauce to go along with it.  When I asked him what Dublin sauce was, he said, "It's mayo with pureed artichoke..."  I forgot what he said after that.  I immediately signed up for some of that, as well. 

As we waited for our lunches to show up, we talked a little business and how the oil and gas boom has been affecting my dealer's business.  He said, "Our retail traffic is still mediocre, but the number of homes that we're involved with doing home theaters or whole house systems is what's driving our overall business.  The housing boom is getting to the point that if someone calls up a builder and asks to talk to them about building them a home in the area, the first thing the builder asks is, 'Do you have a plot of land?'  If they don't, the builders won't even talk to them.  'Get a plot of land first,' the builders will say. 'Then come back and talk to me.'  I'm telling you, it's just crazy."

He was also telling me that with the boom, it's also brought some hardships to areas of North Dakota.  "Our infrastructure can't keep up.  The big trucks are tearing up our roads out west, we don't have enough state troopers to patrol the roads, crime is up in some of towns out west (that was confirmed later in the day by my dealer out in Dickinson).  The east side of the state isn't seeing this economic boom, but they have the most population.  None of the state legislators from out east aren't willing to earmark money for the problems that are starting to arise out west and they control most of the voting.  Even though I'm benefiting from it, I don't think this boom is good for the state as a whole."    

His salad and my sandwich was brought out to us and the sandwich was much larger than what I bargained for.   They actually had a picture (albeit not a good one) on the Blarney Stone Facebook page of the Smoked Sicilian sandwich with waffle fries and marinara on the side - exactly what I ordered.  The sandwich was piled high with the smoked ham, bacon and pepperoni, sitting on the bed of lettuce, tomatoes, olives and onions.  The focaccia was lightly toasted and crisp.  I had to cut it in half just to be able to handle it.  

The Smoked Sicilian was very good.  Years ago, T.G.I. Friday's used to have a similar sandwich - the Hot Sicilian - but they took it off the menu.  It was the only reason I would go into a T.G.I. Friday's to eat.  Every once in a while I'd find a T.G.I. Friday's that would still be able to make their Hot Sicilian sandwich, but it's been years since that last happened.  Which also directly correlates to the last time I can remember being in a T.G.I Friday's.  But the Smoked Sicilian at the Blarney Stone was every bit as good as the Hot Sicilian at T.G.I. Friday's.  And it was a lot of food.  I was having trouble eating the second half of the sandwich and I told my dealer, "Geez, I should have gotten the half sandwich and soup combo. This is a big sandwich!"

The waffle fries were all right, but they were helped with the Dublin sauce.  It had sort of a peppery taste to the sauce and it was very good.  I was extremely impressed with my meal at the Blarney Stone.  

My dealer was happy with his Angry Chicken Caesar Salad.  There were a lot of small chunks of grilled chicken that had been dipped in the spicy sauce before it was placed on the Caesar Salad.  He said that the waiter was right, the sauce wasn't all that spicy.  "This is very good," my dealer declared.  

I had been looking through the beer list earlier during our visit and I was impressed with the number of beers they had to choose from at the Blarney Stone.  I told my dealer that I'd like to come back some night and take the other guys who work for him out to dinner and to have a few beers at the place.  And the food prices were very affordable.  The Smoked Sicilian was $9.99 and the waffle fries came with it.  It was a lot of food at a great value.  

(Since my original visit to the Blarney Stone earlier this summer, I was just in North Dakota on business last week with a factory guy from Focal Loudspeakers.  We stopped at the Blarney Stone for lunch on our way out to Dickinson, ND and I had the Guinness Irish Stew - slow-roasted beef cubes with carrots, potatoes, mushrooms, onions, garlic, thyme and rosemary in a hearty Guinness beer broth served in a miniature pot.  The guy from Focal, Jean-Philippe, had the Hot-Headed Irishman burger - a 1/2 pound burger topped with jalapenos, blue cheese dressing, pepperjack cheese and Blarney Stone's "Angry" sauce.  He said the burger was outstanding and I have to say the Guinness Irish Stew was equally as good.)  

I was very impressed by the Blarney Stone.  As my old neighbor, George, used to say, "I hate places that put up a couple Irish flags and call themselves an Irish pub."  The Blarney Stone was far from that.  The ornate brick and woodwork throughout the place, along with the old world Irish feel, and the great food and beer menu would have worked for the Blarney Stone had it been in a city like Milwaukee, St. Louis or Indianapolis.  I don't get up to Bismarck all that often, but I have a place that has risen to the top of my list of "revisits".  And the way my business is growing in North Dakota, I need to get up there more often.  

Frank's - Zeeland, MI

During our trip to Western Michigan earlier this year, we checked out a number of the small towns in and around the Holland, MI area where we were staying.  One of the small towns was Zeeland, MI, located about 10 miles from Holland.  It was early when we arrived so many of the small shops in the town were closed.  We decided to have breakfast at the only restaurant in downtown Zeeland that was open that day - Frank's.  Frank's, as we found out, is an institution in Zeeland and has been open for over 85 years.  

In 1924, Italian immigrants Frank and Mary Dionise set up shop in Zeeland selling fruits and vegetables.  The Dionise's lived above their store with their five children and when business slowed down during the Great Depression, Frank added ice cream, candy, roasted peanuts and cigars.  During the Depression, Frank opened on Sunday's - something that was not tolerated in the Dutch community.  But Frank reasoned that a number of bachelors and/or widowers in town had no place to eat on Sunday's.  And in order to be open in Zeeland on Sunday's, Frank had to sell food.  At first Mary made sandwiches for the patrons, but in 1940 Frank installed a flat top grill to serve burgers.  He quickly garnered the reputation for having some of best burgers around.  

Frank's became a teen hangout soon thereafter.  In 1960, Frank and Mary retired and sold the business to their son, Frank, Jr., and his wife, Pat.  Frank, Jr. installed pinball machines and other arcade games and Frank's became the hot place to be in Zeeland.  Things changed over the years as Frank's isn't the teen hangout any longer, they're no longer open on Sunday's and they open at 4:30 a.m. Monday thru Saturday for breakfast.  

Frank Dionise, Jr. was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the mid-80's and his son, Dan, came in to run the business.  Dan met an untimely end to his life in 2008 and his mother Pat and her grandson, Shane Hammer, run the business today.   

We got into Zeeland just after 9 a.m. and found a place to park just down the street from Frank's.  It was a cool and blustery morning and we soon found that we were woefully under-dressed in shorts and short-sleeved shirts with no jackets . We entered Frank's, found a table in the brightly lit little restaurant and we noticed right away that we were, by far, the youngest people in the busy restaurant.  Two large tables of older men were filled in the back.  A couple three of booths near the men were also filled with older men having coffee.  We sat at a table in between two tables of older ladies having morning coffee.  Our young waitress, Jess, came over to greet us.  Actually, SHE was the youngest person in the place, but we were certainly the youngest customers in the restaurant.

There were a number of old pictures on the wall along with a number of Coca-Cola signs and memorabilia.  The lunch counter looked like it was something directly out of the 40's and 50's with an art deco decor and stools with Frank's logo on top.  In fact, the tables all had Frank's logo on the top of them, as well.  

We looked over the menu at Frank's and, of course, they tout their burgers as being the "best around".   But they also had regular breakfast items such as eggs and omelets, French toast and pancakes, as well as regular sandwiches like BLT's, chicken sandwiches, and grilled ham and cheese.  But it was just after 9 a.m. and I wanted to try a burger.  They have a number of burgers on the menu at Frank's and some of them were rather intriguing.  One burger is called the Olive burger as they put an olive spread on the burger.  They also have a sauerkraut burger where they put kraut, Swiss cheese and 1000 Island dressing on the burger.  Frank's features a Philly burger with sauteed onions, green peppers, mushrooms and Swiss cheese.  And they also have something called the Ranch burger with American cheese, ranch dressing and tomato on top.  But they also had a mushroom/Swiss cheese burger and I immediately got hungry for one of those.   

When she came back around to take our order, I asked Jess if it was too early to get a burger and she said she had to go check with the cook.  She came back and said, "Yep!  That's fine!"  I ordered the mushroom/Swiss cheese burger and I still wanted to get an egg with some bacon to go along with it on the side.  Cindy ordered a light breakfast of an egg sandwich with a side of hash browns.  

About a minute after we'd ordered, Jess came back and suggested that I get the breakfast brunch burger - something that was not on the menu.  She said, "We put a fried egg and bacon on top of the burger patty."  Although it was tempting, but I stuck with the mushroom/Swiss burger with an egg and bacon on the side.

Not long after we ordered, our food made it to the table.  The burger was wrapped in some wax paper and was heaving with Swiss cheese and mushrooms. I couldn't pull the top bun off the burger because it was literally fused to the top of the burger by the cheese.  The burger, itself, was hand-pattied and it smelled really good.  There's just something about the smell and taste of a burger on an old flat griddle.  

And the burger wasn't bad in the least.  It wasn't the best I've had, but it was good.  There was almost too much Swiss cheese on the burger, but it was still pretty damn good.  It's easy to see why people in the area have been flocking to Frank's for their burgers for over 70 years.  

Cindy's egg sandwich was pretty non-descript, but they did give her an ample amount of hash browns which she told me were very good.  I made pretty quick work of my fried egg and munched on the somewhat crisp bacon, putting a piece of bacon on the burger to give it an even better taste.  The burger was definitely above average, that's for sure.  

With drinks for Cindy and I, the bill came to just over $15 bucks at Frank's.  By this time, a number of "coffee-klatchers" were trying to pay their bill.  I didn't want to wait in line, so I got out a $20 bill and handed it to Jess with our bill and thanked her.  She did a good job waiting on us, even joking that we were probably the quietest people in the place.  "It can get pretty wild in here sometimes," she said as she looked back at one of the large tables of men.  "Those guys can get pretty darn loud."  Frank's was a good little find in Zeeland.  The burger, even at 9 a.m., was good and there was a great Americana/small town atmosphere to the place.  We'd go back to Frank's if we had the chance. 

Pizzeria Lola - Minneapolis

I've been on the look out for pizza places in the Twin Cities area that I haven't eaten at and one that popped up on my radar (thanx to my buddy, Rob Boyd) is a place that opened in the late fall of 2010 by the name of Pizzeria Lola located at the corner of Xerxes Ave. and 56th St. in Southwest Minneapolis (see map).  I've been going to the Twin Cities more often because of an uptick in business and I decided to seek out Pizzeria Lola when I pulled into town one evening.

I'm always interested in the back-stories behind the development of a restaurant and Pizzeria Lola's turned out to be somewhat interesting.  The first person in the picture is Ann Kim, whose family immigrated to the Twin Cities from Korea a number of years ago.  Ann Kim was a good student - no, a great student - and she eventually was accepted into Columbia's prestigious law school. But Ann was also an actress and she became disenchanted with the law business.  She eventually moved back to Minneapolis to work at the Children's Theater Company.  Her mother wasn't too happy with this development in her life and there was some friction in the family.  But Ann Kim was happy with her decision and with her boyfriend and partner, Conrad Leifur, they decided they wanted to do something even more bold with their lives.

Ann Kim at right - Picture courtesy of Maine Wood Heat. 

Leifur was a Yale graduate and a former hedge fund manager.  Leifur would talk about missing the great pizza places in New Haven, CT, while Kim would lament about the days of great pizza in New York City.  They decided to chuck everything they had into a venture that would eventually become Pizzeria Lola.  But not before they went back to New York City and New Haven to sample some of the better pizza places there.  The two decided that if they did open a pizza restaurant, it would be a wood-fired pizza place. 

Kim then decided to move to San Francisco and enroll in the International School of Pizza, headed by 11-time World Champion Pizza Maker Tony Gemignani.  The International School of Pizza was - at the time - the only pizza-making school in North America recognized by the Scuola Italiana Pizzaioli, the first accredited pizza-making school in the world. (Scuola Italiana Pizzaioli now has a Scoula Italiana Pizzaioli USA in New York City.)  After becoming a certified pizzaioli in January of 2010, Ann Kim worked as an apprentice for Tony Gemignani before moving back to the Twin Cities a few months later to further her pizza venture with Leifur.  

Knowing the oven would be the key, Kim and Leifur imported a Le Panyol wood-fired oven, one of a handful that are in the United States.  Le Panyol wood-fired ovens are made from clay from a small town in the Rhone-Alpes in Southern France by the name of Larnage.  The clay around Larnage is known as Terre Blanc, or white land clay known for having exceptional thermal properties that allows for even cooking temperatures throughout the oven.  The Le Panyol clay oven that Kim and Leifur bought for Pizzeria Lola is covered with a copper sheath.  It's the center visual and focal point of the restaurant.  

Kim and Leifur settled upon the name of the restaurant - Pizzeria Lola - which is named after her much-loved weimaraner - a German hunting dog. They opened the doors in December of 2010.  Their unique gourmet pizzas were an immediate hit with critics, food bloggers and the general populace.  

I got to the restaurant around 8:30 one evening and parked in the last available parking spot on the north side of the building.  Then I made a rookie mistake - I went around the building and went in the first door I came to.  It turned out it was the entry way to Cafe Vin, the restaurant next door to Pizzeria Lola.  Both places had outdoor dining and I figured it was one and the same.  Nope.  I looked aimlessly around the interior of the quaint little restaurant before I finally figured out that this was not a pizza place.  No one had any pizza on their tables.  

I walked out of Cafe Vin and into Pizzeria Lola's exquisite modern designed dining area.  Spokes with hanging can lights came out from the large copper clad clay oven.  The tables and seats had a sort of retro French auberge look to them, but were still modern in their look.  The hostess asked me if I wanted to sit at the bar since many of the tables and booths in the place were filled.  She ran me back to the bar and let me take a look.  A television with a Minnesota Twins game playing was on the wall at the end of the bar.  I told her that would work for me.  Just like the large oven in the kitchen area, the bar had a copper top to it.  Very classy.  (Picture at right courtesy Kerry Klun)

The hostess left off a menu and I was soon greeted by my bartender/server for the evening, Liz.  I asked her if she had any Surly products on tap and she gave me a beer menu to look over.  They did have the very forward and hoppy Surly Furious on tap, but they also had a Surly Hell seasonal lager available.  I hadn't tried that before, so I ordered one of those.  It was actually pretty damn good - but I don't think I've had a Surly product that was bad.  

In addition to their pizza at Pizzeria Lola, they also had a number of unique appetizers that sounded pretty good.  Many of the appetizers featured farm-to-fork items such as roasted baby beets with arugula; roasted cauliflower; and an organic mixed green salad with pancetta, sherry vinaigrette and topped with award winning Hook's Blue Cheese out of Mineral Point, WI.  A couple of 20-something girls were seated next to me and they were sharing an order of the homemade meatball platter.  It looked like that was a meal in itself.  And they both got pizzas after that!

The pizza kitchen was right in front of me and there was a flurry of activity with a team of pizza makers hand-tossing dough, laying it out and passing it along the line to add the fresh toppings, homemade pizza sauce and fresh mozzarella, pecorino or provolone cheeses.  They make their own Berkshire-fennel sausage at Pizzeria Lola and they serve natural casing pepperoni.  I was getting hungry looking over the menu.  

Many of the pizzas are overly unique.  For instance, they have a Korean barbecue pizza that plays up to Ann Kim's heritage.  It features grass fed beef short ribs, mozzarella, arugula, scallions, with a sesame and soy-chili vinaigrette.  I wasn't quite that adventurous.  Another Korean-style pizza is the Lady Za-Za - house-made kimchi and Korean sausage, serrano peppers, scallions, and a sesame and soy chili glaze.  Once again, I'm sure it's pretty good, 

Another interesting pizza on the menu was The Boise - potatoes, gruyere and fontana cheeses, caramelized onions, topped with olive oil and rosemary.  Potatoes on pizza?   Um, not for me.  They also had a pizza named The Iowan on which they use prosciutto from La Quercia artisan meats out of Norwalk, located just south of Des Moines.  I'd heard about La Quercia meats before, but had never had any of their meats.  I understand their Tamworth bacon is to die for.  In addition to the prosciutto, The Iowan featured ricotta and mozzarella cheeses, garlic confit and arugula.  Sounded good, but not quite what I was looking for.

They have a pizza called the Old Reliable that features their homemade pizza sauce, mozzarella and pecorino cheese.  From there you can anything from the homemade fennel sausage, fresh basil, roasted wild mushrooms, up to over a dozen different choices of toppings.  I had my eye on the My Sha-Roni with the fennel sausage, the natural cased pepperoni, homemade pizza sauce and mozzarella.  When Liz came back around to take my order, that's what I ordered.  Only I added some of the roasted wild mushrooms on top.  There's only one size pizza at Pizzeria Lola - about a 12" size.  

Because the wood-fired clay oven heats up to about 800 degrees (F), it doesn't take long to bake a Lola's pizza.  In fact, it probably took longer for them to toss and lay out the homemade dough, then add the toppings before it went into the oven.  I had my pizza about 10 to 12 minutes after I ordered.  

The dough had bubbled up on the edges and had a slightly charred look to it.  There were ample amounts of the pepperoni, sausage and the roasted mushrooms on top with the mozzarella and sauce mixed in.  The crust wasn't thick, but it wasn't thin, either.  I pulled off one of the natural-cased pepperoni slices while waiting for the pizza to cool down and popped it in my mouth.  Oh, man!  I had a slightly salty and spicy taste to it.  The slices weren't big - about the diameter of a good sized hot dog.  But they were very good.  

Once the pizza had cooled down sufficiently - at least cool enough that I wouldn't get 2nd degree burns in the top of my mouth - I had my first bite of my Pizzeria Lola's pizza.  It was - in a word - fabulous.  The taste sensations that came together with the homemade fennel sausage, the pepperoni and the roasted mushrooms were exceptional.  The pizza sauce was light and tangy, not too sweet - the way I like it.  The pizza crust was crisp, yet chewy.  It was a pizza that looked like it would be very filling, but the crust was very light.  It was a very easy pizza to eat.

I had noticed a number of people coming to the bar and ask Liz for tokens.  And I really hadn't noticed behind me that there were hundreds - maybe thousands - of three-shot pictures on the long wall going back toward the restrooms.  People were getting tokens for $3 bucks to go back to a photo booth in the back to get their pictures taken.  You got two sets of pictures for the money and you could keep strip and put the other on the wall.  If you wanted to have more pictures taken, it cost an additional $2 bucks.  There was a steady stream of people that went back to the photo booth while I was there. 

Pizzeria Lola suddenly jumped to the top of my list of good pizzas in the Twin Cities.  Granted, I haven't had many pizzas in the area, but if someone were to ask me where to get a great pizza in town, I wouldn't hesitate and say, "Pizzeria Lola."  Although it was a little expensive (the pizza was $17.50 and the two beers I had were $6 each), it was tough to beat.  It was one of the finest pizzas I've ever had, anywhere.  Maybe on my next visit at some point I'll be a little more adventurous.  I'm sure any pizza at Pizzeria Lola would be wonderful. 

Monroe's Cafe-Grill - Saugatuck, MI

Saugatuck, MI is one of those quaint little Western Michigan towns that caters to a seasonal clientele that explore the various art studios, shops and dine in their restaurants. We had spent some time in Saugatuck about 10 years ago, but didn't really spend a LOT of time there.  On our recent trip up to the Holland/Grand Haven/Saugatuck area, we decided to spend a good portion of our day in Saugatuck and we started our day with a breakfast at Monroe's Cafe-Grill.  

Saugatuck is smack-dab in an area which is known as the "Arts Coast of Michigan".   There are a number of art galleries, studios and museums in the region.  Because of this, in part, there is a large gay and lesbian influence in the area.  If that kind of thing makes you flip out, Saugatuck isn't your kind of place.  But Cindy and I are extremely comfortable within a gay population.  I'm an ordained minister through the Universal Life Church and I officiated at the life union of our gay neighbors a year ago, so being around gays doesn't bother us at all, unless they're being completely flaming or flamboyant about their gayness.  With that said, Monroe's Cafe-Grill is named after an icon in the gay community - Marilyn Monroe.  

The cafe has been open for over 20 years and is owned by partners Heather Barton and Katie Casie.  The two were working in the corporate world in the Fort Lauderdale and they took a trip to Saugatuck for a vacation in 1988.   They instantly fell in love with the place and started to think of ways to permanently relocate to that area of Western Michigan.  

Katie and Heather had both dreamed of owning their own business at some point in life.  They figured out that because Heather loved to cook, they'd like to open a restaurant.  They cashed out their 401K's and moved back to the Saugatuck area.  They bought a building in Saugatuck on Culver Street (see map) and opened their little restaurant soon thereafter.  Kate is the one who runs the front part of the restaurant, while Heather is the one who works in the kitchen.   In season, the two work at the restaurant about 16 hours a day as they're open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily throughout the summer.  

In addition to breakfast, lunch and dinner items on their menu, Monroe's Cafe-Grill also offers an extensive vegetarian and gluten-free menu.  It has been recognized as one of the top vegetarian restaurants in Western Michigan.

We got into Monroe's around 10 a.m. the day we were there.  The brightly decorated and well-lit dining room pays homage to Marilyn Monroe with a number of pictures and prints of the actress all over the place.  There is a huge art deco painting of Monroe on the east wall (see picture above) and several different drawings of other Hollywood icons on the walls.  There's a number of tables and booths throughout the cozy dining room including a "community table" that allows a number of people to eat together even though they may have come in alone.

There's also a sidewalk dining area that looks out over across a small park to Kalamazoo Lake along Saugatuck's and sister city Douglas' shoreline.  There are only a couple three tables and they were full with diners when we got there.  Besides, Culver is one of the main thoroughfares in and out of Saugatuck and there's a stop sign at the corner next to Monroe's.  We wondered how the noise would be if we were trying to eat outside.  We took a booth by a big window up front and looked over the menus.  

Monroe's doesn't have a menu listed on line, so I can't really remember a number of their signature items.  Most of the food is geared toward breakfast/brunch, but they have burgers, sandwiches and, as I said before, a large vegetarian menu.  The one thing that I do remember about the menu was a breakfast entree that was French toast with a custard rum topping.  I was thinking of going more along the lines of an omelet, but when I saw the French toast topped with a custard rum sauce, I had to try that.  Cindy was less adventurous - she went with something called the B.S. 1 - an egg over easy with a side of bacon and toast.  For funsies, I got a side of bacon with my French toast, as well.  

Now, I have to say the custard rum French toast was rather interesting.   There were four slices of a thick homemade bread covered with a creamy custard rum sauce and sprinkled with powdered sugar.  I couldn't really taste the rum in with the custard, but it was a pleasant enough taste to go along with the French toast.  I usually used maple syrup on my French toast, but you really didn't need to do that with the combination.  

Cindy made short work of her egg and bacon, and I offered her some of my French toast as the bread was thick and the sauce was sort of rich.  I knew I would have trouble eating  the whole thing.  She said, "Well, that's different.  I don't know if I like it or not."  She, too, is used to having maple syrup on French toast and the custard rum sauce didn't have that sugary pizazz to the taste.  Me, I liked it - I mean, I wouldn't crawl back to Monroe's for another plate of it.  But it was something good and different to experience. 

The service was good at Monroe's Cafe-Grill.  Our waitress was friendly, quick and efficient.  The place began to fill up after we got in there and we didn't see a drop off in service after the place got full.  Monroe's emphasizes that their place is kid and family friendly, but we didn't see any children in the place when we were there.  Still, Monroe's was clean, had good food and good service in a fun atmosphere.   It was comfortable and inviting.  It's a good place to get breakfast in Saugatuck and I'm sure their lunches and dinner items are prepared with the same touch. 

Curragh Irish Pub - Holland, MI

One evening when we were in Western Michigan for our little long weekend trip earlier this year, Cindy and I decided that we wanted to keep it low key and eat at one of the more casual establishments in downtown Holland.  (Have I said how nice of town Holland is and how great their downtown shopping and restaurant area is?)  We had our choice between two - the New Holland Brewing Company and Curragh Irish Pub right across the street.  Cindy liked the idea of eating at an Irish Pub, so we decided upon eating at Curragh that evening.  (See map)

Curragh (pronounced CURR-ack with sort of a phlegmy throaty emphasis on the "ack") is named after the home of flatland racing in Ireland, the Curragh Racetrack, a historic race track that hosts all five of the classic Irish horse races - including the Irish Derby - and has been around since the 1700's.  It's documented that chariot races were held on the grounds of the Curragh race track in the third century.  

The original Curragh Irish Pub opened in 1999 in Schaumburg, IL next to the massive Woodfield Mall.  But the roots of the pub go back even further to a Chicago area restaurant called J.J. Finnegan's that was started by Jim Leongas in 1984.  His son, Paul Leongas, was the managing partner for the first Curragh and they later opened a second Curragh location in Skokie.  (The original location in Schaumburg had to move due to development of a strip mall on the spot where the building stood.  They moved the original building, piece by piece, to its present day location on Northwest Highway in the Chicago suburb of Edison Park.)

Jim Leongas opened a J.J. Finnegan's in Holland, MI in 1988 and it was run by his daughter, Sophia.  Sophia and her husband, Dave Jurgensen, opened the third Curragh in Holland around 2006 and closed the J.J. Finnegan's restaurant in Holland in 2009.  They hired an Irish ex-patriot, Glen Behan, to run the day-to-day operations at the Curragh.

My old neighbor, George, is half-Irish and he used to scoff at an establishment that called itself an "Irish pub" when it would put up a couple Irish flags in the place and have Guinness on tap.  George wouldn't have any trouble with Curragh calling themselves an Irish pub - the place is Irish, through and through.  The inside of the bar has an old Irish feeling down to the wooden bars (two of them) in the place.  A number of televisions are interspersed throughout the place and Curragh Irish Pub is the unofficial soccer headquarters for Western Michigan, showing games from Europe on satellite sports channels.  Flags of all the European countries are on display, hanging from the ceiling.  In fact, there was no other sports on television other than soccer that evening.  

There is an seating area at Curragh that features open air seating or seating under an awning.  When we checked in at the outside hostess stand, we were asked if we wanted inside or outside seating.  Clouds were moving in and rain was forecast for later in the evening, so we sort of hemmed and hawed for a moment before we decided on sitting outside at one of the wrought iron tables with similar chairs.  The patio was about a third full that evening - a Sunday night - not a big night in Holland.  They've only had Sunday beer sales available in the town for about four years.

We were given menus and Kelly, our server for the evening, came over to take our drink order.  I ordered a Smithwick's and Cindy got a Bass.  (I later found out that they had Magic Hat 9 on tap, as well.  I was kicking myself because Cindy would have liked that better than she likes Bass.)  

While we were looking through the menu, I began to kind of notice that the clouds to the west were churning up rather quickly.  I got out my smartphone and punched up Weatherbug to see the local radar.  There was a rather large storm that was just off the western coast of Michigan not far from Holland.  When I showed it to Cindy, I said, "I think maybe we'd better move inside."  

She looked over at the seating under the awning, hoping there would be an open table under there.  But there wasn't.   When Kelly came out with our beers I showed her the radar image on my phone.  I said, "You know, this looks like it's coming in sooner than later and I would rather not have to interupt my meal to pick up and go.  Is there a possibility that we could move inside now?"

Kelly said, "Oh my gosh!  Well, yes!  Let's move you inside."  She left our beers and delivered two more to another table before she came back.  She picked up both of our beers, beer coasters and menus and put them back on her tray.  We protested that we could carry all that ourselves, but she wouldn't let us.  We asked if she would be taking care of us inside and she said that she could.  Kelly got a good tip that evening for being overly accommodating.

Most of the food on the menu at Curragh is your typical Irish pub fare - shepherd's pie, fish and chips, Irish stew, cottage pie.  They also had some steaks, seafood, burgers and sandwiches on the menu.  We had eaten a late lunch earlier in the day, but it was after 8 p.m. when we were seated inside the Curragh.   Cindy was on a seafood kick and I was looking for a good hearty dinner.  

The shepherd's pie and the corned beef with cabbage were suddenly at the top of my list, but my eyes wandered down the menu and saw something called "Galway Bay Seafood Fleadh".  (Fleadh is Gaelic for "festival".)  It featured a north Atlantic pollack filet, stuffed with shrimp, crab meat and marscapone (a very rich Italian-style cheese), then baked in an oven.  It was served with a lime hollandaise sauce, griddle fried potato-crab cakes and vegetables.  Ooooooohhhh!  That sounded great!   But I wasn't in the mood for seafood that evening.  (As I write this, my stomach is doing jumping jacks.  If we get back there at some point, I'm getting that.)

I also was looking at the Sea Salt and Herb-rubbed beef tenderloin filet - an 8 oz. seasoned filet, grilled then drizzled with a sweet lemon ancho chile butter that would give it a little sweet and smoky bite.  Mmmmm.... Decisions, decisions.  

I was trying to get Cindy to get the Galway Bay Seafood Fleadh (mainly so I could have a couple bites), but one of the specials that evening was a salad that featured sea scallops, greens and chopped veggies.  Cindy thought that would be good to get.  She also ordered a cup of the Guinness cheese soup - a mixture of sausage, potatoes and onion with a cheddar cheese/Guinness beer base - for us to share.

When Kelly asked me what I wanted, I was still torn.  I thought the North Atlantic stuffed pollack would be great, but it also sounded pretty rich.  Shepherd's pie is also pretty rich and I wasn't THAT hungry. When I heard myself say, "Corned beef and cabbage", I still didn't know if that was what I really wanted.   

When Kelly brought out the "cup" of Cindy's Guinness cheese soup, I remarked, "Geez, Cindy!  I'm glad you didn't order the bowl!"  

Kelly said, "Oh, we just have one size for the soup.  It's sort of in between a bowl and a cup." 

And you want to talk about rich!  Hoo boy, that soup was almost a meal in itself.  It featured large chunks of potatoes (I couldn't really tell if there was sausage in there or not) in a very rich cheese base.  It was good, but I didn't want to eat much more than about three spoonfuls of the stuff.  I was afraid it would spoil my dinner.

As we pushed what was left of the soup away from us, we noticed that more people were coming in from the outside.  A couple of ladies who were seated near us came by our table and one of them said, "You guys were smart coming in when you did!"  

Cindy asked, "Is it starting to rain?"

The lady said, "Well, not yet, but the wind's come up and it's gotten cooler.  It looks like it's only a matter of moments before it will start to rain."  

Not long after that, Kelly brought our food to the table.  The corned beef and cabbage featured only a few small cuts of corned beef with a couple scoops of mashed potatoes, both topped with a horseradish sauce.  A generous amount of cabbage came with it, but I concentrated primarily on the corned beef and potatoes.  The corned beef was very tender and flavorful, and I really enjoyed the creamy horseradish sauce on the top.  I should have asked for fresh ground horseradish, come to think of it.  But it was good enough as it was.  But quite honestly, I don't think there's not much you can do to corned beef and cabbage to make it any different from restaurant to restaurant.  

Cindy's salad was exactly what she wanted.  It was light and tasty with some greens, chopped carrots, peppers and sprinkled with herbs.  She offered me one of the scallops and they were plump and cooked perfectly - not overcooked to where they're rubbery, but not undercooked where they're kind of squishy in the middle.  

I know Cindy really liked the Curragh Irish Pub a lot. "We made the right choice," she said, meaning that we could have had dinner across the street at the New Holland Brewing Company.  We did say that the next time we come back to Holland that we'd have to try the brewpub, but we'd also have to come back to Curragh at some point, as well.  The food was good for an Irish pub, the service was impeccable, the decor and ambience of the place made it feel like you were in a true Irish pub back in the homeland.  We couldn't do anything but recommend Curragh as a must stop when you're in Holland.

The High Life Lounge - Des Moines

The High Life Lounge is a funky little 60's style bar/restaurant just south of downtown Des Moines that has been open since 2005. (see map)  I've been in the place a couple times in the past to have a beer (or six), but I'd been told their food is pretty good.  On a recent visit to the Des Moines area, I met up with a buddy who bought me lunch at High Life Lounge.  When he offered, I couldn't say no!

There's somewhat of a family lineage that involves High Life Lounge, El Bait Shop connected to High Life Lounge, and the Buzzard Billy's restaurants.  The story begins in 1993 when brothers Andy and Dan Massoth, along with business partners Chris Mayo and Tracy Maughan opened the first two Buzzard Billy's Cajun/American restaurants in Waco, TX and LaCrosse, WI operating as MSD Innovations, Inc.  Looking for another Midwest location in 1999, the group decided upon a Des Moines location in the basement of a building at 100 Court Ave. in the heart of the Court Avenue District of entertainment and eating establishments.  

Three of the workers at the Des Moines Buzzard Billy's - Jeff Bruning, Scott Alongi and Kent Middendorf - were lifelong friends from Carroll, IA graduating from Kuemper Catholic High School in 1988.  Only Alongi was looking to get into the restaurant business after high school - he graduated from a culinary school in Alabama.  Bruning and Middendorf had both graduated from college and had taken jobs in the private sector.  When both were laid off from their jobs, they decided to join Alongi who was already working at the Buzzard Billy's location.  Although both Bruning and Middendorf thought their time at Buzzard Billy's would be short, they ended up working nearly every position in the place - from cook to bartender to dishwasher to server.  The four partners in MSD Innovations were impressed with the work ethic of the guys from Carroll and the group of seven had many discussions about different concepts for restaurants.  

The group all agreed that a "beer-centric" concept would be the blueprint for any restaurant they'd develop in the future.  In 2001, the four MSD Innovations partners added the three guys from Carroll and created a new company - Full Court Press - named after the Court Avenue district they were trying to bring back to life.  The team opened the Royal Mile, a British-style pub, late in 2001; then other restaurants followed - the Hessen Haus, a German-style beer hall; the Red Monk, a Belgian-style bar above the Royal Mile; then the High Life Lounge, followed soon after by El Bait Shop.  Full Court Press also owns Fong's Pizza, Sbrocco, Shorty's, and Mullet's.  As more places opened, the seven partners in Full Court Press spun off other smaller ventures and added minority owners.  Today, there are 21 majority and minority owners of Full Court Press and/or other corporations under the FCP umbrella.

The allure of the High Life Lounge is the 60's-tacky theme to the place.  The bar floor is covered in a pseudo-shag carpet (although I have to say this looks newer than the carpet that was on the floor the last time I was in a couple three years ago).  The wood-paneled walls gives you the feeling like you're walking back into a 60's-style lounge, right down to the old Zenith tube television hanging in the corner above the bar area.  The vibe is retro and funky at the same time.  I've always loved going into the place.

I beat my friend there and took a seat at the bar.  He showed up shortly thereafter and sat beside me.  We looked over the menu and my friend said, "The best thing on the menu is the meat loaf dinner."  Indeed, the High Life Lounge had a number of down home, rib-sticking entrees to choose from.  They had a pot roast plate, tuna casserole, chicken pot pie, liver and onions, goulash, and beef stroganoff to just name a few of the comfort food entrees they offered.  One of their more popular items is the broasted chicken.  You start off by choosing two sides, then build your broasted chicken dinner from there, adding dark or white meat pieces ala carte.    

The menu features a number of interesting appetizers including the High Life Lounge's famous "Bacon-wrapped Tater Tots" -  homemade tator tots that are wrapped with jalapeno slices and bacon, then deep fried and smothered with a cheddar-jack cheese sauce.  Everyone I've talked to who has had that appetizer raves about it.  They also have classic 60's-style appetizers such as fried chicken gizzards, deviled eggs and classic-style thin-sliced onion rings.  For the health conscious, the High Life Lounge's menu also features a handful of salads and soups.

The High Life Lounge also offers nearly 20 sandwiches including a fried egg sandwich; a sloppy joe burger; a Spam, egg and cheese sandwich; and a sandwich called the "B.B.C" which has three slices of bacon, topped with three more strips of bacon, then topped with Swiss cheese and served on Texas toast.  They have burger baskets, Italian sandwiches with sausage from Graziano Brothers, and something called "The High Life Man" - a quarter pound burger with an Italian sausage patty, topped with three strips of bacon, Swiss American and American cheese, grilled onions and jalapenos, mayonnaise and BBQ sauce and served on a sesame-seed bun.  

Our bartender that day came over and told us the lunch special that day was the chicken fried steak.  My friend said, "Ooo, that sounds good!"

She said, "It is good!"  

My buddy said, "You know, I always seem to get the meat loaf every time I come here and I keep telling myself that I want to get something else.  I think I'm going to do the chicken fried steak special."  

I was torn between getting a pork tenderloin sandwich, the hot beef sandwich, or the meatloaf that my buddy had been raving about.  If he had gotten the meat loaf, I probably would have followed suit.  But when he ordered the chicken fried steak, I decided to go with the hot beef sandwich.   

Not long after we ordered, our food came out.  My hot beef sandwich had piece of Texas toast as the base, an ample amount of tender roast beef on top, then a generous scoop of mashed potatoes on top of that, and slathered in a tasty beef gravy.  From the first taste, it was wonderful.  Sometimes when I'm on the road, I need good, home-style comfort food to set my body back to normal.  I enjoyed a beer with my hot beef sandwich, but a large cold glass of milk would have gone extremely well with the lunch.    

My buddy's chicken fried steak came with the choice of two sides - he went with the corn and mashed potatoes - and the meal more than covered the plate.  He declared the chicken fried steak as "great" and he was very happy that he got that instead of the meat loaf.  He said, "Next time you come in here, whether you're with me or not, you really need to get the meat loaf.  Gosh, that's just like heaven for me."  

I was extremely happy with my hot beef.  I couldn't imagine the meat loaf being that much better than the hot beef.  It was truly one of the best hot beef sandwiches I've ever head.  

After we finished up - what we could, that is - we got to talking to the bartender after the place.  She told us that you can order food from El Bait Shop in the High Life Lounge.  "We share the same kitchen, part of it is for us, the other part for El Bait Shop," she explained.  "We get a lot of overflow from El Bait Shop at night and we let people order food over here who can't get a seat over there."  

I do want to make it to El Bait Shop at some point, but I would be perfectly happy with ordering their food in the High Life Lounge.  It's a fun and funky place to have a drink, and their food is certainly well-above average.  I'm glad that my buddy gave me the invitation for lunch that day.  It was about $25 bucks for the food and a couple beers each, I left the tip.  I had no idea that the food at the High Life Lounge was that good.  It may become my "go-to" bar when I'm in the Des Moines area.  (Photo at left courtesy Iowa Foodie)