We were back in Central Iowa visiting relatives earlier this summer and my sister from Arizona - who has eaten at some world-class restaurants in her day - was raving about a sandwich that she had the previous day at a place in Grinnell, IA called the Prairie Canary. I had heard about this place and thought that would be a great place to stop for lunch.
The reason I'd heard about the Prairie Canary is that owner/chef Carly Groban was the winner of the inaugural Iowa's Best Bite Restaurant Challenge, a contest that gives the winner a start up restaurant package in one of Iowa's smaller cities. Groban - a Newton native whose parents started the Jasper Winery and whose brother is the owner of the Madhouse Brewery - was the former owner/chef at two upscale Des Moines restaurants, Proof and the former Flour pizzeria. She sold Proof and shut down Flour in 2012 before she entered the Iowa's Best Bite contest. (As an aside, my niece went to high school with Carly Groban and she said that she was always an over-achiever, and she meant that in a complementary way. "Anything Carly wanted to do, she set her mind and did it," my niece told me.)
Pictured right - Carly Groban
Groban had to beat out 44 other contestants in the contest that was the idea of Grinnell Chamber of Commerce CEO Angela Harrington, building owner Dick Knapp, Bryan Schultz whose Opposable Thumbs marketing company worked with the Grinnell Chamber, and Paul Rottenberg from Orchestrate Management, a Des Moines-based hospitality/development company. The building that the Washington D.C.-based Knapp owned in Grinnell had previously housed two bars and had stood empty on Main Street for over a year. The group offered the use of the building with the first three months rent free, $10,000 in start up cash, $15,000 to go toward inventory, restaurant mentoring, professional branding by a marketing firm and free signage. Since Groban opened in August of 2012, she is now known as Carly Groban Ross after marrying her partner Chris Ross.
It was a rainy Saturday afternoon when we pulled up in front of the Prairie Canary on Grinnell's Main Street. (see map) They have a small covered outdoor dining area in front of the place and even though it was raining a few feet away from them, patrons had taken up all the tables. We went inside the building and found that the place had a nice mix of antique and contemporary stylings. Wild prairie flowers in small vases on top of each table made for a nice touch. John Coltrane music was playing in the background of the restaurant. Downstairs is the Canary Bar, a wide open lounge that has a spartan "speakeasy" sort of look ot the place.
The back bar area toward the back of the restaurant is where we went to order our food for the day. Since it was the weekend, we were given the brunch menu to order from. The brunch menu is different from the lunch menu served through the week and they pare down the number of sandwiches while adding breakfast items. Unfortunately, one of the sandwiches they pare down on the weekend is the Pork Bahn Mi sandwich my sister raved about. It features Vietnamese pulled pork, topped with a chili lime aioli, Napa cabbage slaw with sweet Thai chili and placed on a toasted hoagie bun. I was somewhat heartbroken when the young lady behind the counter told me that it wasn't available on the brunch menu.
I definitely didn't want to go the breakfast route, so I had a choice between a couple three burgers, a grilled cheese and jam sandwich, a salmon sandwich, and a turkey BLT. That was it. The burgers were a black bean and sweet potato vegetarian burger, a basic burger with cheese and something called the Canary Burger with blue cheese and bacon. Quite actually, none of those sounded good to me. The girl behind the counter said, "We can make you the Prairie Burger if you want." She pointed it out on the weekday lunch menu to me - a 1/3 pound Black Angus patty topped with bacon, a fried egg, goat cheese, leeks, kale, and a slice of tomato on a sesame seed bun. It was also pretty expensive - $13.99. I said, "Sure, what the hell..." I had my choice of soup, a salad or fries with the burger. I went with the fries.
Cindy was pretty much set on the grilled salmon sandwich. It was topped with a dill/goat cheese spread, along with yellow curry hummus, pickled red onions and lettuce on toasted challah bread. She got the soup to go along with the sandwich. For drinks, she got a glass of white wine while I got a Bell's Oberon pale ale.
Her salmon sandwich came with thick bread and a small grilled salmon filet. The soup was, I believe, a tomato/basil soup with homemade croutons. She said the salmon wasn't fishy tasting at all and the dill/goat cheese melted on the top with the yellow curry hummus was a great taste combination.
My burger came with a substantial sesame seed bun - it was almost too large. I ended up pulling a lot of the bun off the burger as I was eating it. The burger was very flavorful with the fried egg (over hard), bacon and the goat cheese. It was cooked medium with a bit of a pink middle and still was pretty juicy to the bite. It was a very good burger, but I'm not certain that it was worth $13.99.
I will say, however, that the hand cut French fries were even better. They weren't seasoned, but tasted like they had been deep fried in something other than vegetable oil. Along with the fries came a side of a chile lime dipping sauce that was outstanding. I normally don't eat many fries, but these I had to finish these. And I damned near licked the remaining chile lime dipping sauce out of the small metal container. It was that good.
Even though I was disappointed that I couldn't get the pulled pork sandwich on the weekend, it gave me a reason to stop back into the Prairie Canary at some point when I would be traveling past Grinnell on Interstate 80. My burger was good - not exceptional - but good. The fries were excellent and Cindy liked her grilled salmon sandwich very much. Service was all right and the atmosphere was comfortable. I hope the Prairie Canary can make it in a place like Grinnell as it would probably work better in a larger city. But it seems to be working fine in Grinnell for the time being.
(Update - I made it back to the Prairie Canary on a trip past Grinnell very recently and had the Pork Bahn Mi sandwich - spicy Vietnamese-style pulled pork topped with chile lime aioli, Napa cabbage slaw and a Thai chili sauce and placed on a toasted hoagie bun. When I ordered it, the server told me it would be a few minutes because they had to make more up - it's a popular lunch item. And it was as good as what my sister said it would be. The pork was tender with a hint of a spicy taste, but nothing that was overpowering. The chile lime aioli was making it happen in the tastebuds and the cabbage slaw was fresh and crunchy. It was $8.99 for the sandwich and I got it with Prairie Canary's wonderful hand-cut fries. It was all I could do to finish the sandwich and have a smattering of fries. It was a great sandwich.)
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