Road Tips

Ross' Restaurant Gets a New Home

There was big news on the restaurant scene here in the Quad Cities over the past 48 hours.  Due to a new bridge that will take Interstate 74 across the Mississippi River, the owners of the venerable Ross' Restaurant in downtown Bettendorf have known for quite sometime that they were going to have to evacuate their building that has stood there for nearly 50 years and move to a new location.  A couple days ago, the Freidhof family - the owners of Ross' - announced that they would be moving to the old Frank's Pizza location near the corner of 18th St. and 53rd Ave. in Bettendorf.  (see map)

For the past couple of years, speculation ran rampant as to where Ross' would relocate.  Cynthia Freidhof, the daughter of Harold and June Ross (the original owners of Ross'), her husband Ron, and their daughter Melissa Freidhof-Rodgers (pictured at right - courtesy QC Times/Bettendorf News) looked at a number of options in the Quad Cities including a move across the river to Rock Island or Moline, taking a look at existing buildings in Davenport, or building a new location in Bettendorf.  When Frank's Pizza closed in early January, that building suddenly became available.  A little over three weeks later, the Freidhof's made their announcement this past Thursday afternoon that they would be moving into the old Frank's Pizza.  

Work on the span of the new I-74 bridge across the Mississippi isn't expected to begin until 2017, but the Iowa Department of Transportation has been buying up land parcels and businesses to make way for a new interchange on the Iowa side of the river.  Many of the businesses - about 40 in total - that had accepted buy-outs by the Iowa D.O.T. to make way for the new bridge have closed and many buildings have been torn down.  But Ross' Restaurant - with their iconic sign next to Interstate 74 as you drive into Iowa - stood as the final hold-out hoping to get the most money for their property and for relocation expenses.

My wife and I were in Ross' last summer and we happened to talk to Melissa Freidhof-Rodgers about their plans.   Melissa told us that they had been looking at a property just up the road near the Kimberly Road exit off of Interstate 74, but that deal had fallen through.  She wouldn't say where it was, but we speculated it was the old Bob Evans building as that restaurant had been closed for a couple three years.  Then we heard that they were possibly looking at the old Chef's Hat restaurant in Bettendorf on Lincoln Ave., but that evidently went nowhere.  It only made sense that they would take over the old Frank's Pizza building, which isn't that old of a building.  

The interesting aspect is that the Freidhof's will apply for a liquor license and offer a full bar at the new Ross'.  That's right - along with the famous Magic Mountain's that they serve at Ross', you can get a drink or a beer to go along with it.  Thanks to a bigger kitchen area they'll also feature healthier choices (they've been going that way with their menu at the original Ross') including gluten-free, vegan and Paleo diet selections.  Ross' will also continue to support local farmers with more farm-to-fork menu items.  

The other interesting thing is that the Freidhof family is planning on continuing their tradition of 24 hour dining at the new Ross'.  This will be somewhat fascinating to see how this works out.  The property that Ross' new building is on abuts up to some high dollar houses on Bettendorf's north end.   There could be some residents of that neighborhood who could voice their displeasure with Ross' moving in next door, especially with their reputation for catering to the after-hour bar crowds - which can be somewhat rowdy.  

Other traditions at Ross' - their core menu, the horseshoe shaped counter, the wait staff ladies who have been there for years, even the big sign - will make the trek to the north side of Bettendorf.  Melissa Freidhof-Rodgers believes they will have to shut down for about a week later this summer to make the move to the new building.  But they hope to be in the new place and up and running by mid-July.   She also notes that they are looking at the future possibility of having "Ross' Express" locations around the Quad Cities on both sides of the river.  

Until then, it will be business as usual at Ross' current location in Bettendorf.  I'm sure they'll see an uptick in business over the next few months as people go get a Rossburger, a cup of their good chili, or a Ross' "Favorite" breakfast one last time at the only location for Ross' they've ever known.  I'm sure I'll be there more than one time between now and July.  

(To read Road Tips entry on Ross', click here.)

Rialto Cafe - Denver

During our stay in Denver for the annual CEDIA Expo, we stayed at the Courtyard Marriott in downtown Denver.  In the past, my boss was always big on the collegial gathering for meals.  But as our company has grown over the past few years, we found that getting everyone together can be a logistical nightmare for restaurants that weren't expecting us.  While I love my co-workers like brothers, I have begun to beg off of big gatherings for meals, mainly because the service and food suffer with a big group.  So, during the time we were in Denver we were told that for many of the meals we were on our own.  On the first full day that we were in Denver, I had not one, but two meals at the Rialto Cafe attached to the Courtyard.  

The Rialto Cafe is part of the Concept Restaurants group of eateries that also includes Table Mountain Grill & Cantina, Woody's Tavern, Humboldt, Via Baci, and Ignite Wood Fired Grill.  Frank Day is the man behind Concepts Restaurant with Kevin Brown running the day-to-day operations for the group.  Day started the Old Chicago chain of pizza and beer places in Boulder back in 1976, and also started the Rock Bottom Brewery concept in Denver in 1991.  Frank Day merged his Rock Bottom Brewery and Old Chicago restaurants with Gordon Biersch to form CraftWorks Restaurants and Breweries.  

(In addition to those restaurants, CraftWorks also owns the Chophouse Restaurant and Brewery with locations in Denver, Boulder and Washington, D.C., and a handful of brewpubs around the nation.  Day's wife, Gina, bought the Boulder Beer Company in 1991 saving the first brewery to legally brew beer in Colorado from bankruptcy.  Frank Day is now semi-retired and a consultant to both CraftWorks and Concepts Restaurants.)

The Rialto Cafe faces the 16th Street Mall and features sidewalk seating out front.  (see map)  The inside is a contemporary bistro with a mezzanine level that overlooks the restaurant.  A long bar with an ornate back bar sits along the east wall of the restaurant.  

They serve breakfast, lunch and dinner at the Rialto Cafe and it was breakfast where I had my first meal. The breakfast menu at the restaurant isn't extensive, but it features some interesting items such as a crab cake eggs Benedict, stacked huevos that featured a flour tortilla with two eggs made to order, topped with green chili, grilled corn, black beans, avocado and cojita cheese, and a spinach and gruyere quiche.  

I almost ordered the buttermilk blueberry pancakes, but the beignet French toast really piqued my interest.  They came with sliced strawberries, but I asked if I could get them with blueberries.  

The French toast was really a triangle-shaped beignet that was deep-fried and topped with powered sugar.  There was no bread involved with the French toast.  When the waiter set the breakfast down in front of me, I knew good and well that I wouldn't be able to eat the whole thing.  And I couldn't - it was extremely doughy and super rich.  I think I ate one and possibly half of another one before I threw in the towel.  I'm not certain if I care for it all that much.  

We were having our company meeting at the hotel and instead of having lunch catered in, my boss decided for us to just go back to the Rialto Cafe.  We gave them a heads up that over a dozen of us would be there for lunch and they were fully prepared.  The lunch menu featured burgers, salads, sandwiches and a couple three dinner entrees.  One of them - the bacon-wrapped bison meat loaf was calling my name.  But I was still stuffed from the beignet French toast that I had about four hours before and I was thinking more along the line of the smoked salmon wedge salad or a club sandwich.

I opted for the club sandwich.  And it was good - I don't know if I've ever had a bad club sandwich.  And I don't know if I've ever had a great club sandwich.  It was a regular club sandwich with fries.  I didn't even bother to take a picture of it.

However, my colleague Ian went with the bacon-wrapped bison meat loaf.  It was approximately a 1/2 pound cut of lean bison meat loaf sitting on a bed of green beans and a pool of red wine demi-glaze.  Mashed potatoes usually come with the bison meat loaf, but Ian went with the fries.  He said that the meat loaf was outstanding.  

Also outstanding was an appetizer my colleague Simon ordered - the truffle fries.  They were French fries topped with parmesan cheese, fresh chopped herbs, and a truffle aioli.  Simon was seated across from me and he offered me some.  They were very, very tasty.  

I didn't eat at the Rialto Cafe the rest of time I was in Denver.  I found other options for breakfast and we were at the convention center for the whole day the rest of the time.  Dinner was an option there one evening, but I ended up going out to get a burger with Simon.  While the club sandwich was fine, I'm still uncertain if I liked the beignet French toast.  It may have been a bit of the culinary surprise that caught me off-guard.  It was unlike anything that I've ever had for breakfast.  And that may not be a bad thing.  

Bomber Burger - Wichita, KS

I just put on a new dealer in Wichita.  It had been some time since I was last in that city, so I decided to look for a good burger place.  Checking out some local reviews on line I found a rather intriguing place where people either hated the place because of varying reasons (owner was crude and a opinionated redneck, place was dirty, too long of a wait for a burger), or they absolutely loved the place (excellent burger, charming dive bar, coldest beer in town).  So with a combination of apprehension and anticipation I sought out a place called Bomber Burger on the far south side of Wichita.  

(WARNING - If politically incorrect and some foul language offends you, stop here.  I'll spoil the ending - it's a great burger.)  

Bomber Burger has been around since 1951, undoubtedly named for the bombers that were made in Wichita and flown out of the nearby McConnell Air Force Base.  The small place garnered a reputation for making a good burger and served civilians and Air Force personnel alike.  It had gone through a series of owners before Paul Rickard bought the place in 1985.  Paul's son Chris - who was going to college at Wichita State in the physician assistant's program - ran the place at night.  

Paul died in his sleep in 1997 and Chris decided that he'd rather cook burgers than work with sick people.  At that point, Chris' "Burgernazi" persona was born.  Chris Rickard took what was a pretty darned good burger already and knocked it a notch or two up by using a special 81/19 blend of fresh Kansas Angus beef, using only high quality oils in the deep fryer, and buying a more heavy duty and dense bun to be able to handle his 1/2 pound burgers.  When more restaurants in the area went to a 1/2 pound burger, Chris upped his burger size to 2/3rds of a pound.  Recently, he decided that there were now too many 2/3 pound burgers in the Wichita market so he went to a 3/4 pound burger.  "And if they start going to 3/4 pound burgers, f*** 'em," Chris told me.  "I'll just go to a one pound burger patty."  

I found Bomber Burger on S. Clifton Ave. just south of S. 47th St. (see map)  A small sign on the door alerted potential criminals that the owner was packing a gun and that he would use it.  I walked into the place and found Chris Rickard behind the small counter.  The place was - and I'm putting this mildly - a dump.  The bar - with just seven stools in front of it was worn, the chairs and tables - four small two-seaters - in the front by the bar were old and mismatched, it looked like it hadn't been updated since - well, it's been around since 1951.  A small back room for overflow, well, that was just plain junky.  It was cluttered and featured a four seater booth and a circular five seater booth.  You would have had to move piles of whatever off the seats to sit down.  Now, if you're a regular reader of Road Tips, you know I like dive bars.  But this place was a REAL dive!  Yes, the place had character.  

The grill was a well seasoned flat-topped gas model.  The zest that was cooked into that grill from thousands and thousands of burgers over the years just added to overall flavor of the grilled meat.  It wasn't a large grill - I could easily see where people would be upset if it took awhile to get a burger.  I couldn't wait to try one.  

I sat at the bar and noticed that there was a fine layer of salt and pepper on top of it.  It hadn't been wiped off recently.  But for as dirty as the place seemed to be, I noticed that Chris Rickard had a near-compulsion with cleanly hands.  There had to be a couple three rolls of paper towels near a small sink off to the side of the grill.  Another six or seven rolls were wrapped up on a shelf above.  Each time Chris touched something - a beer glass, moving something off the bar, before he hand-pattied a burger - he washed his hands, thoroughly.  

I could tell from the posters and paraphernalia on the walls that Chris was a huge Pittsburgh Steelers fan.  The NFL Network was on the small TV attached to the wall at the end of the bar.  He has a burger called the Bus #36 - it's a tribute to former Steeler running back Jerome Bettis and features three 3/4 pound burger patties each topped with two slices of American cheese.  (I was sick the day we had math in high school, but I think that's two and a quarter pounds of beef.)

When I sat down, Chris was kibitzing with four guys sitting at two of the tables and one guy sitting down at the other end of the bar.  He came down to my end of the counter and asked what I'd like to drink.  I saw that he had a Miller High Life sign and I said that I'd take one of those.  "Don't have High Life any more," he told me.  "They quit makin' High Life in kegs.  Just have Miller Lite."  He also had Boulevard Wheat on tap, but I don't care for wheat beers.  I took a pint of the Miller Lite.    

The menu at Bomber Burger isn't vast and is burger-centric.  A double cheeseburger is one and a half pounds of total meat.  The Pigburger is a ground pork burger.  The Gumby burger features jalapenos and guacamole.  The RoethlisBurger (named after Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback Ben Roethlisberger) is basically a double Gumby burger.  Bomber Burger also has deep fried mushrooms and French fries to offer as sides.  Rickard has a special way that he prepares his fries, soaking them in cold water for a good amount of time before throwing them in the fryer.  

I ended up ordering a cheeseburger from Chris.  (Here he is showing me my hand-pattied burger that he was getting ready to throw on to the grill.) He seasons each burger with a special blend of spices, something that he worked on for a number of years before he perfected the combinations.  (When asked, he told me that the special ingredient was "nunya", as in "nunya f***in' business.)  

To cook a big fat burger like that takes some time.  While my burger was cooking, I was "entertained" by Chris and his observations of current events (his politics are firmly on the hard right, but not extreme), why American football is better than soccer ("Ever see a terrorist play football?  I rest my case!"), his disdain for his ex-wife ("She's a loser f***in' b***h.  If I could kick myself in the ass for marryin' her..."), and his complete and utter contempt of a local chain of burger joints called Spangles.  He went into lengthy detail of the burgers wars that he's waged against Spangles in the past who claims they have the best burger in Wichita.  He even has a sign on the outside of his building that declares Bomber Burger as home of the No. 1 burger in Wichita and that "Spangles can kiss our ass."  I thought to myself, "My God, this guy is ballsy!  I love it!"    

Chris served up the burger to me on a sheet of wax paper with the juices oozing out of the burger.  He put pickles and a sliced onion on it while I added ketchup and yellow mustard.  This was a big-assed burger.  

From the first bite, I could taste some of the seasonings.  At first I wasn't certain that I liked it, but as I went on I could taste garlic and some salt, but it wasn't overpowering. The burger was cooked to what I would call medium with a bit of pink showing in the center.  Even though he pressed the burger a couple times to let it cook in its own juices giving the outside of the burger a crispy texture, it was still juicy in every bite.  The bun was dense, easily holding together under the weight and juiciness of the burger, but it wasn't doughy.  Chris told me that he has to pay extra for the buns, "but they're f***in' worth it."  

As I was sitting there, Chris came over with a basket containing a handful of fries that he had left over from a previous order.  He sat them down in front of me and said, "Here, try some of the fries."  Well, it was all I could do to try and finish the burger, but I did try a couple of the fries and they were all right.  They were a little limp, but I still got a good potato taste out of them.  Having good oil - that's changed regularly - is a big plus to having good fries.

Chris was telling me that once he got the "Best Burger in Wichita" award, a number of people that he never saw before came to his place.  "These f***in' yuppies would come in here and there was no middle ground - they either hated it or they loved it," he told me.  "And most of them loved it."  

He said that on a Saturday he would sometimes be backed up for 45 to 60 minutes on the grill.  "That would piss a few of those f***ers off, but you know what?  Once they figured out that I don't work around their f***in' lives, they kept comin' back," he told me.  "Even if they get 'em to go, I don't give a s**t, they're still comin' back."  

The burger and a couple beers came to $13.50, I dropped off $15 bucks at the cash register.  (As it says on his "to-go" menu - "Cash only Dumbass!")  Chris asked me what I thought of the burger and I told him it was damned good.  "You're f***in' right it's damned good," he bellowed back.  If you can get past the fact that Bomber Burger is a real dive, that the owner is crude, opinionated and very right wing, and that you may be in for a bit of a wait at times, then you've got to try one of the burgers there.    

Update - April 2023

Chris Rickard was involved in a train/car crash on Thursday, April 6 after leaving work for the day.  It was reported that he drove into the path of an oncoming train and was hospitalized with what was then called minor injuries.  Up and walking the next day, Rickard was told by doctors that he could be released as soon as that afternoon.  He just needed to have a CT scan to make sure that everything was OK.

However, during the scan, Rickard fell unconscious and it was determined that he had bleeding on the brain.  There was evidence that Rickard may have suffered a stroke as witnesses to the car/train accident said that Rickard had initially stopped at the rail crossing, but then slowly drove into the path of the oncoming train.  Never regaining consciousness and on life-support, his wife and step-daughter decided to take him off the machine on April 22 and he passed away on Monday, April 24 at the age of 50.  The future of Bomber Burger is currently in doubt.

Doc & Eddie's BBQ - Omaha

I was in Omaha on a recent fall evening and I had a hankering for some barbecue.  I was staying on the southwest side of the city and I was looking for places that were in the immediate area.  I found a place called Doc & Eddie's BBQ that wasn't far from the hotel.  I made it over there to find out a pretty interesting back story on how the place came to be.  

Dr. Jeff DeMare is a renowned critical pediatric care doctor at Children's Hosptial and Medical Center in Omaha.   When Dr. DeMare began to work at Children's Hospital in 2002 he befriended a security guard by the name of Eddie Vacek.  It turns out that DeMare and Vacek had a number of things in common - they liked to talk about sports and about girls.  But they also found out that they both had a deep appreciation for good barbecue.  This unlikely friendship turned into a partnership where DeMare ended up buying a portable professional smoker and Vacek and he would spend their summer weekends in 2006 along side a road in the Omaha suburb of Gretna drinking beers, smoking meats and selling it to the people who would stop by.   

The two decided that they needed to have a full time barbecue joint.  They found a spot in a strip mall on the southwest side of the city, but just before the place opened up Eddie Vacek suddenly passed away.  DeMare was determined to soldier on in remembrance of his friend and he opened Doc & Eddie's BBQ in July of 2007.  (There is a former chain of sports bars that was called Doc & Eddy's, but they're not affiliated with DeMare's barbecue joint.)  DeMare ended up hiring Lynette Hughes to be the manager and part-owner of Doc & Eddie's. 

Doc & Eddie's is located in a strip mall just northwest of the corner of 168th and Harrison.  (see map)  It's set back from the street a bit, so there was a bit of driving around the parking lot before I found the small storefront of the restaurant.  If I'd had my window down in my car I would have been able to find the place a lot quicker.  The smell of the smoke of there restaurant was wafting in the cool fall air.  

I got there at the right time - it was around 7:30 and they were only open until 8 p.m. that evening.  A couple other people were in there eating when I got there and, interestingly, a number of cops came in to pick up orders to go from the time I got in there up to the time I left.  

The place isn't all that big - it probably seats three dozen or so people.  There are a number of tables and booths between the brick walls.  The kitchen area is open behind the front counter.

The menu is located on the wall above the counter.  Doc & Eddy's specializes in meaty St. Louis style ribs as well as beef brisket, pulled pork, smoked sausage and turkey.  They also have grilled chicken sandwiches and burgers on the menu.  As I'm wont to do with most barbecue places that I visit, I want to try a couple three things.  I was looking at getting the ribs, brisket and pulled pork platter, but I was told by the young girl at the front counter that it was a lot of food.  The guy manning the kitchen in the back said, "Yeah, if you're really hungry, go for it."  

I decided to just go with the pulled pork and brisket combo.  I got two sides with it - I chose baked beans, but was having trouble figuring out if I wanted fries, cole slaw, potato salad, corn fritters, or a handful of other sides.  I asked the girl for a suggestion and she said, "We sell a lot of the mac and cheese."  OK, I'll do the mac and cheese as a second side.  And the one great thing about Doc & Eddy's - they had beer.  I like a cold beer with barbecue so I was happy they could accommodate me that evening.  

The barbecue platter was brought out to me about five minutes after I ordered at the front counter.   The first thing I noticed was that they had chopped brisket rather than sliced brisket.  I normally don't go for the chopped brisket, but that's what I got.  But the first bite pretty much allayed any trepidation I had toward chopped brisket.  The brisket had a great smoky taste, it was moist and tender, and it literally melted in my mouth.  It was some of the finest brisket I've ever tasted.  

The pulled pork was also moist and tasty, but it wasn't as good as the brisket.  The pulled pork and chopped brisket were served on pieces of white bread, a nod to Southern-style barbecue places.  

Doc & Eddie's BBQ had three different types of sauces - their original sauce had a sweet taste with a bit of spiciness on the backside; the chipotle sauce had a faint chipotle taste with more of a spicy kick, but nothing that was overbearing; and a sweet pineapple sauce that was sweet and fruity.  I didn't care for the sweet pineapple sauce, but found myself going more toward the chipotle sauce than the original Doc & Eddie's sauce.  

For the sides, the girl steered me wrong on the mac and cheese - it was pretty pedestrian and bland, but the baked beans were good.  And they were made even better when I added in a mixture of the chipotle and original barbecue sauces.  

I'll have to say that my meal at Doc & Eddie's surpassed my expectations.  The brisket was outstanding, the pulled pork wasn't that far behind the brisket, the sauces were above average - not outstanding - but still good, and the beans totally saved the sides over the limp tasting mac and cheese.  I'll say Jeff DeMare has done a wonderful job keeping the memory of Eddie Vacek alive with the fine barbecue at Doc & Eddie's BBQ.  

(Update - Doc & Eddie's closed in December of 2015 without any announcement as to why they shut their doors.)  

Las Vegas 2015

The annual Consumer Electronics Show was held recently in Las Vegas and I was there with my company to show products in suites on the 30th floor at The Venetian.  Somewhat showing my age, this was the 29th time I've been to CES in Las Vegas.  And it isn't getting any easier for me.  

While the Consumer Electronics Association - the group that oversees CES - said that attendance was at an all-time high (170,000 attendees), the number of dealers from my part of the world was significantly down this year.  Many said that they were too busy to come to Las Vegas, others said that CES has outlived its usefulness.  We actually saw more consumers come through our suites at The Venetian than dealers this year.  I know it's called the CONSUMER Electronics Show, but that was a misnomer for a number of years - consumers were never allowed in the show.  A few figured out how to do it years ago, but it wasn't until the last ten years or so where there was a tremendous upswing in the number of consumers finding ways to get into the show.  (Of which the CEA is not discouraging them to do so.)  Thanks to forums on the Internet basically telling people how to get in, industry participation has been stagnant while attendance has risen due to consumers coming to the show.  

And this year's CES really provided no big buzz.  Mercedes-Benz and Audi both showed off driver-less cars, smart watches and programmable appliances were big, headphones continued their surge, and 4K resolution televisions - including Samsung's new SUHD curved-screen televisions - were a big hit thanks to more high-resolution content available to end-users.  Compared to previous Consumer Electronics Shows, this was pretty low-key.  

For the past few years, our company has been staying at The Mirage and when you're putting 10 to 12 guys in rooms up to $279 a night, it adds up pretty quick.  Last year, one of our guys from Canada suggested we look into renting a large house for the duration of the time we'd be out in Las Vegas.  My boss loved the idea because not only would it save us money, he loves the collegial feel of the sales staff getting together at shows.  

The suggestion was met, however, with a derisive tone from the staff knowing that a combination of diverse personalities, close quarters, being together both day AND night, and - most importantly - alcohol consumption could spell doom for this social experiment.  Plus, what were we going to do for breakfast?  Could we hire a cook to come and make dinner for us?  There were still a lot of questions and trepidation when we were told that we went ahead and rented a house in the northwest part of Las Vegas.  

One of our guys found the house - a nine bedroom, nine bath villa - on a vacation rental web site.  (Click here to see a description of the house and more pictures.)  It was going to cost us $1100 a day for three days and $1500 a day for three more days.  Doing the math, we figured that we'd be saving about $6000 bucks just on room costs.  Then figuring in having meals like breakfast and some dinners at the house, we'd probably save another $3000 bucks.  

The first problem was that there were 10 guys in our traveling party, so a couple guys were going to have to share a room.  (There would have been 11 of us but the wife of my colleague Simon was ready to give birth to their first child.  I accused him of purposely impregnating her back in April to get out of CES.)  Secondly, of the nine bathrooms, there were only six with a shower.   Bathroom sharing is almost as bad as room sharing in my book.  

We all got in on the Sunday before the show - the Montreal crew was late by over 12 hours due to weather problems in Canada.  But it gave us time to find the house and to get settled in.  From the house's web site, we were promised a pool and hot tub, home theater, poker room with bar, a game room with a pool table and a gourmet kitchen.  The pictures below got our hopes up for what promised to be luxury living for a week in Las Vegas.  

Well, the pictures from the web site had to be taken 10 minutes after the house was furnished about 8 years ago.  The pool was a wreck - it wasn't heated, nor was the hot tub working.  The waterfall into the pool had long been dismantled.  The gourmet kitchen featured a mish-mash of mangled pots and pans, a number of mis-matched dishes and glasses, and featured a gas stove that had to be ignited by a fire starter each time you wanted to cook on it.  The television room featured couches that were split and dingy.  The pool table had so many drinks spilled on it that the felt was permanently stained.  The home theater room featured a projector that was well past its prime.  Carpets were worn and stained.  Rooms were tired and bland.  Bathrooms were basic and featured some damage.  

Other than that - it was heaven.  I mean, the place was relatively trashed from 8 years of various people staying in the place, so we didn't have to worry much about accidental spills or broken glasses.  In fact, we bought some items - steak knives, clothes irons, electric griddle - that we just left in the house for future renters to use.  

One of the rooms on the first floor was basically a mother-in-law suite that featured its own outside entry.  However, the owners put a bed in what would be the living room, effectively blocking access from the outside.  It featured a small kitchenette complete with a dishwasher - which came in handy one evening when we entertained 18 people in the house.  There was a true small bedroom with a walk-in closet in the room.  And it had a private bath with shower for the room.  That was the room and bathroom that my colleague Todd and I shared.  I took the big bed in the pseudo living room and he took the private room with a smaller bed.  I will say that the bed was rather comfortable.  But the HVAC system in the house wasn't working properly and I was having trouble getting the temperature to a cool and comfortable level for sleeping the first couple of nights.  I ended up opening a window in the room to allow for the cool night air to come into the room for better sleeping the rest of the nights.  

We went to Total Wine and More (click here to see the entry on Total Wine) to buy wine, beer and liquor.  That came to about $1200 bucks.  If we were drinking in the bar at The Mirage, that would be about 2 1/2 days of bar tabs for us.  We went to a local grocery store to buy stuff for breakfast, dinner and snacks.  That was a $700 tab - much less than what we'd spend on breakfast alone during the week.  

My colleague Ian and I found a meat market on line - Larry's Great Western Meats (I'll have a specific entry on Larry's later on) - where we bought some excellent steaks for dinner on successive nights.  And we had four gargantuan pizzas delivered for dinner one evening.  We went to an old standby - Lindo Michoacan - for excellent Mexican food one evening (click here to see the entry on Lindo Michoacan), and we were tired enough after the show was over to stop in to In-N-Out Burger for a basic take home meal.

It turns out that we overbought a lot of food and booze.  Each of us had access to a spread sheet where we could add food items and alcohol requests to the list.  We bought 5 gallons of orange juice - that was about 3 gallons too much, even with Todd making a punch concoction one evening.  We bought 2 gallons of milk - which was about a half gallon too much.  But other food items - bread especially - we way overbought.  Loaves of bread and bags of buns were never touched.  A dozen bagels along with 24 ounces of cream cheese - never used.  We had a little less than a case of beer that wasn't consumed, various bottles of scotch, vodka and Cointreau had more than half of the bottle left.  We made note the last night we were there to make sure that we wouldn't overbuy again next year.

And we'll do this again next year.  It all turned out pleasantly well.  It was a nice, relaxed atmosphere getting home around 6:45 after a long day at the show with a cold beer, a rum and Coke, or a glass of wine waiting as we unwound.  Nearly everyone pitched in for breakfast and dinner, no one seemed to be invading anyone's personal space, there were a couple of late-night alcohol-fueled disagreements, but for the most part it was the type of harmonious atmosphere my boss predicted - or hoped for at the very least.  It definitely made the experience in Las Vegas much more palatable than dealing with casinos, long waits and terrible service for a large group of diners, and just the overall septic atmosphere that I've come to despise about the city.  It was like we were natives - even for a week - where we got up and went to work, where we shopped like the locals do, and stayed in the relative comfort of a house that had a lived-in feeling to it.   It just made the annual Las Vegas experience much easier to handle on this trip.  It actually made me want to look forward to my 30th CES next January.  

Bar M Steakhouse - Mandan, ND

I was up seeing my dealer in Bismarck recently and he suggested that we go out for lunch.  He knows that I like to try new places and he suggested a place across the Missouri River in Mandan (emphasis on both the MAN and DAN when you pronounce the towns name) that was just bought by a customer of his.  We took off going west out of Bismarck and ended up at the Bar M Steakhouse in Mandan.  

Last summer, Dale Berger and his wife purchased Dean's Steakhouse from the previous owner.  The building that houses the Bar M Steakhouse has seen a number of businesses in previous years.  Before it was Dean's Steakhouse, it was called the Prime Steer.  And for a number of years up to 2007, it was known as the Speedway Restaurant.  I'm not certain that's a good thing for so many restaurants to be going in and out of the place in that short of a time, but my dealer felt that the new owners would make a go of the place.  

We pulled into the Bar M Steakhouse on Memorial Highway in Mandan during the noon hour.  (see map)  I found out later on that the place was going through a soft opening so that's why it wasn't all that packed during the lunch rush.   

There's a small bar area as you come in.  Actually, the place sort of looks like it may have been an old dance hall at some time with the pine wood paneling and the wooden floor.  

The main dining area is large and roomy with the kitchen off to the side.  A stage is situated along the far wall of the room, furthering my belief that this was some sort of cowboy dance club in the past.  Behind the stage is a smaller dining room with a long salad bar that is truncated in terms of offerings during lunch.   

We took a table in the middle of the main dining room and our server came over to drop off a couple menus.  The Bar M has their own smoker in the back so they do smoked meats such as brisket and ribs.  They have a number of steak entrees on the menu, as well as a number of sandwiches and pasta dishes.  They also had something on the menu called Fleischkuechle.  I asked my dealer what that was and he told me that it was a type of Cornish pastry filled with ground meat and sausage and deep fried.  "It's sort of the state food of North Dakota," he told me.  It's something that Eastern European immigrants - primarily from Russia and German - brought with them when they settled in the Dakota Territories in the 19th century.  

One thing that kind of caught my eye was the beef brisket.  When I asked our server about it, she told me that they smoke the brisket out back, take a cut of the meat and then lightly grill it over charcoal in the kitchen.  Both my dealer and I thought that sounded interesting and we both ordered that.   Baked beans and a small cob of sweet corn came with the brisket, but we had our choice of a baked potato, fries, potato O'Brien, wild rice or steamed vegetables with the meal.  We both got the wild rice.  

After going through the salad bar for a small bit of fresh greens and veggie toppings before the lunch was brought out, the brisket was served to us on a large plate.  The brisket had a bit of a grilled char on the outer fringes of the meat.  

I don't think I'd ever had grilled brisket before, but the taste was actually very good.  The brisket cut easily, like you'd expect with a good smoked brisket.  I asked our server if she had any barbecue sauce and she brought out a piping hot bowl of a sort of sweet and smoky sauce.  It was a good compliment to the smoked - then grilled - brisket.

The rice was fluffy and tasty, the corn was basically a throw-away for me, but the beans were actually very good.  They had chunks of pork mixed in the sweet and tangy base.  I usually like to doctor up most baked beans with barbecue sauce, but these didn't need it.  

While the Bar M Steakhouse isn't anything fancy, I was very happy with the meal that I had.  Grilled smoked brisket is something that I've never had and I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the meat and the taste of the brisket.  If anything, it was a little expensive for lunch ($18.95 each without drinks), but it was very good for what it was.  Here's hoping that the Berger family makes a go of the Bar M Steakhouse.

Blue Plate Cafe - Memphis

On our way back and forth from our hotel on the east side of Memphis, we kept passing a small place on Poplar Ave. called the Blue Plate Cafe.  It looked interesting enough that on our last day in Memphis we decided to stop in to have some breakfast before we hit the road.  

The Blue Plate Cafe is situated in what was once a house that was built in the early 50's by Kemmons Wilson, who just happened to be the founder of the Holiday Inn hotel chain.  Wilson rented the house to Reeves Hughes and his wife, Elisabeth, soon after it was built in 1954.  The house was truly in suburban Memphis as at the time it was more in the country than in Memphis.

Kemmons Wilson eventually sold the house to William and Rosetta Miner in the mid-60's who held on to the house until the early 90's.  Mike Richmond and Mark Maxwell bought the place after that and with a little bit of expansion for a kitchen area, they opened the Blue Plate Cafe in 1994.  The two opened a second location in suburban Bartlett in 2002, but they closed that location six years later.  In 2004, Richmond and Maxwell teamed with two other investors to open a downtown Blue Plate Cafe. 

It's tough to miss the Blue Plate Cafe on the south side of Poplar Ave. (see map).  The house is painted a bright yellow with royal blue trim.  It looks like Grandma could still be living there.

Going into the restaurant, the floor plan suggested that it truly was someone's home at one point.  The dining rooms were sort of a mish-mash in layout with tables squeezed into corners.  It was cozy, but sort of confining, too.

We were seated in a dining room in the back of the restaurant.  Blue and white checkerboarded vinyl table cloths were on the tables.  The room we were in appeared to be the largest of the dining areas in the small restaurant.  

Our server, a young lady dressed in jeans and a light sweatshirt, came to greet us.  She was pretty low-key and appeared to be somewhat disinterested in her job.  She gave us a few moments to look over the menu.  

Breakfast is served anytime at the Blue Plate Cafe and they have all the regular Southern-style items to choose from.  I thought about getting pancakes, but I ended up getting the French toast with blueberries.  I got six half-slices of French toast topped with a three dollops of whipped cream and sprinkled with powered sugar.  The disappointment was that I was given a blueberry compote which was nothing more than pie filling and a small tub of what appeared to be margarine instead of butter.  The French toast was fine, but pretty basic.  

Cindy got scrambled egg whites with pancakes and a side of bacon.  There wasn't much to the breakfast - the pancakes were big and fluffy, not the kind that we usually care for.  But they were good enough.  And anywhere you go to get scrambled egg whites, they're all the same.  It's tough to doll up scrambled egg whites.  The bacon, however, was very good.  Cindy gave me a piece of her bacon and it was thick, crispy and very tasty.  

Our waitress, however, sort of forgot about us.  As I said, she had a pretty indifferent attitude, hardly greeting us when she first came to our table.  She hardly acknowledged what we were ordering.  She wordlessly set down our plates in front of us and threw down the ticket with a monotonic "enjoy".  Cindy was looking to get a bit more coffee and we had to flag down another waitress to get some.  I put my credit card on the bill and our waitress came by and grabbed it at some point.  She brought it back with the receipt and said, "Thanks, folks."  That was the extent of our interaction with our waitress.  

Looking past the limp rag disposition of our waitress, our breakfast at the Blue Plate Cafe was fine enough.  It wasn't great, but it was far from bad.  It was a good basic breakfast at a pretty good value.  The place was clean and somewhat cozy.  I can't say anything bad about the Blue Plate Cafe, save for our server's attitude, but I can't give it glowing praises, either.   It was simply a good place for breakfast.    

Edzo's Burger Shop - Evanston, IL

I have been wanting to get to Edzo's Burger Shop in Evanston for a long, long time.  Since they opened in 2009, Edzo's has been getting nothing but raves for their burgers.   I was in Evanston recently calling on a dealer there and I made the time to stop into Edzo's for lunch.   

The driving force behind Edzo's is Eddie "Edzo" Lakin.  The path Lakin has taken to get to Edzo's has been one with a number of twists and turns along the way.  The Chicago area native started out as a political science major at the University of Illinois and started to work at a record store after graduation.  Seeing no future in selling records and CD's, Lakin decided to go to culinary school.  He enrolled at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago - part of the Le Cordon Bleu umbrella of culinary schools - and immediately found his calling in life.  

Pictured right - Eddie "Edzo" Lakin  (Photo courtesy Chicago Reader.)

After graduating from culinary school, Lakin started to work at a fine dining restaurant in downtown Chicago.  He ended up going to Europe with some friends on an extended vacation and fell in love with Barcelona.  Lakin would make authentic Catalan meals for lunch, then would go nap on the beach each day, then party at night.  

Lakin ended up back in Chicago and started to work at the upscale Tru restaurant, working under famed chef Rick Tramonto.  Like most young chefs trying to find the perfect fit, Lakin worked at a handful of restaurants in the Chicago area before going to work as a general manager for the restaurant group that runs the Sopraffina Cafe's in the downtown area of Chicago.  That job lasted until Lakin was laid off from his position in the fall of 2008.  

Deciding to take some time off from the restaurant business, Lakin stayed at home for a few months to hang with his two young children while he contemplated his next move.  Lakin started a blog that shared his thoughts of restaurants that he had visited in the Chicago area (sort of like Road Tips!). 

The economy had gone south and he knew that being a corporate chef would be a tough proposition.  Lakin didn't really want to run his own restaurant, but he knew he would have to in order to make any amount of money to raise a family.  Inspired by the burger joints that Lakin's father would take him to as a young boy, along with inspiration from Doug Sohn, the man behind the recently closed Hot Doug's, and Lakin's fascination with Five Guys burgers, he came up with the concept of Edzo's.

Through the process of getting his new restaurant concept up and going, he authored a second blog - Chicagomatic - that detailed each step along the way to open his new place.  He opened Edzo's in downtown Evanston near the Northwestern University campus in October of 2009.  

Starting out, Edzo's was only open from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily.  Lakin wanted to have a life outside of his restaurant with his family and he knew that if he had longer hours he'd have to sacrifice quality time with his two young children.  The short hours didn't matter to the throngs who came to Edzo's - sometimes with the lines snaking out the door.  Edzo's Burger Shop was a hit.  

In 2012, Lakin decided to open up a second location in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago.  The business had grown to a point where Lakin employed two managers at both locations, all four with a culinary school background.  With that, he was able to extend his hours at both locations - open until 10 p.m. six days a week at the Evanston Edzo's, to 8 p.m. three days a week (Sun/Tues/Wed) and open until midnight on Thursday through Saturday at the Lincoln Park location.  (Edzo's both locations are closed on Monday.)  

It was around 1:30 when I got into Edzo's in Evanston.  I was able to find parking on the street just down the way from the little restaurant on Sherman, right where it branches off to Orrington St.  (see map)  Edzo's isn't huge - it maybe seats 50 people -  and it was past the noon/lunch rush so I pretty much had my pick of any table.  (Note - Edzo's asks that patrons do not "table sit" while someone else in their party is standing in line to place an order.  And they're militant about it.  That's only fair, in my book.)  

The open kitchen allows those in line to see the line cooks putting the burgers on the grill and prepping other foods that Edzo's offers.  Edzo's offers both 4 ounce flat-grilled and 8 ounce char-grilled burgers, the best of both worlds for burger aficionados.  The beef is ground fresh each morning and on a good day Edzo's will go through over 100 pounds of beef.  

The menu is located on the wall as you come into the place.  In addition to the flat-grilled and char-grilled burgers, Edzo's features a variety of hot dogs, brats and sausages, a grilled chicken sandwich, healthy choices such as a veggie burger, a turkey burger and a portobello mushroom burger, and something Edzo's calls the "PB & B" burger - it's peanut butter and bacon.  

As a burger upgrade, Edzo's also features naturally grown grass fed beef from such places as Slagel Family Farm outside of Geneva, Illinois, Rain Crow Ranch in Southern Missouri, and CDK Angus Ranch in Northwest Illinois.  In the summertime, Edzo's will procure fresh produce from Green City Market - a seasonal farmer's market in the heart of Chicago - and you may find toppings that will include peas or squash.  Lakin allows his managers to spread their culinary wings from time to time coming up with eclectic burgers, just to keep things from getting stale in the kitchen.

But what a lot of people remember Edzo's for is their variety of fries.  They're painstakingly prepped and double-fried before they add any number of seasonings to the fries - or serve them plain.  Cheese fries features Merkts cheddar cheese, they have garlic fries topped with a garlic/parsley butter, the "Taylor Street" fries are topped with a beef au jus gravy, giardiniera and sweet peppers, and truffle fries topped with truffle salt and parmesan cheese.  

Edzo's also has their "Angry Fries" where they use four kinds of spicy seasonings, and their "Buffalo Fries" topped with a Buffalo hot sauce, blue cheese and served with celery.  But they seem to be most famous for their lobster fries - they toss cooked fries in drawn butter and Maine lobster meat, then drizzle a lemon-saffron aioli on top of that, then finish it with chopped chives and - for good measure - more lobster meat.  I understand that the lobster fries are a hit-and-miss item on the menu.  

I was interested in getting a burger only on this visit.  (I almost got the garlic fries, but I had more appointments later in the day and I didn't want to offend anyone with my breath.)  I ended up ordering a double flat-grilled burger with everything - ketchup, yellow mustard, onion and pickle.  They have five different types of cheese to choose from - I ordered pepper jack cheese.  Additional toppings include jalapenos, garlic butter, spicy giardiniera, and a fried egg.  I added bacon and sauteed mushrooms to my burger.  They don't serve alcohol at Edzo's, but they do have high-end milkshakes and malts on the menu.  Since I couldn't get a beer, I ended up getting a water from the fountain.  

I found a seat up toward the front and they called my name when my burger was ready.  The burger was served on wax paper on a small plate.  The bun crown stood high above the double burger patties with melted pepper jack cheese oozing out from underneath.  The bacon was criss-crossed under the patties and bits of sauteed mushrooms peeked out from the bottom.

The first bite was one of those where I went, "Mmmmmm...."  It was a wonderful burger.  The meat was a little crisp on the outside from the flat grill, but the juices inside were still there.  The bun was a great compliment to the taste of the burger - a good burger has to have a good bun.  The bun was lightly toasted and held together very well with the juicy burger.  With the pepper jack cheese, the sauteed mushrooms and the crisp bacon, this was an outstanding burger.  

Don't walk - run to the nearest Edzo's Burger Shop.  This was one of the finest burgers I've ever eaten.  I can't believe it took me 5 years to finally make it to Edzo's.  I can't wait to get back at some point - when I don't have any appointments left - to get a burger and the garlic fries.  I liked the atmosphere and the attitude of Edzo's, and even though they don't serve beer this was a place that I immediately fell in love with.  It was simply a killer burger.   

Scornovacca's - Des Moines, IA

It has been years since I was last in Scornovacca's in Des Moines for pizza.  It has been in business for over 40 years and it's probably been close to 25 years since I was last in the place.  I had been to another family member's restaurant - Sonny's Pizza Bistro (click here to see the entry on Sonny's) - a couple years ago and made a pact with myself that I needed to get back to Scornovacca's at some point.  On a recent trip to Des Moines on a cool and damp fall evening, I had the chance to stop in.  

The Vacco family has been in the Des Moines area for nearly 100 years.  The patriarch of the family, Martino Scornovacca, emigrated to the U.S. in 1914.  As he was being processed for entry into the country at Ellis Island his name was shortened to Vacca.  Later, a clerical error changed the family name to Vacco.  

The Vacco family eventually landed in Des Moines and Martino's grandson Roscoe Vacco and his wife Anne Marie had a business opportunity to open a pizza place on the south side of Des Moines in 1973.  Roscoe had a full time job, so he turned to his eldest son Mike to run the business.  They were trying to come up with names for the place and the next oldest son, Marty, came up with the Scornovacca's name for the restaurant to pay tribute to his great-grandfather.  Many of the Vacco family members worked in the place for a number of years.  

(As an aside, I dated a girl from Des Moines who knew two of the Vacco siblings, Vic and Rocco.  I met them a couple times and they seemed to be pretty nice guys.  Vic was a big football star at Dowling High School in the mid-70's.)  

Tragically, Mike Vacco - whose nickname was "Scorno" - died tragically in August of 2010 at the age of 48.  His sister Amy runs the family business these days, but mother Anne Marie and some of the other siblings still help out from time to time.  

There's a Scornovacca's North on N.E. 14th St. in Des Moines - it's been open since 1976 and is run by Marty Vacco - but I went to the original spot on S.E. 14th St. (see map)  I pulled in around 8 p.m. and found that I had the place to myself.  I took a seat in a booth in the bar area and got a menu from the young lady who was also the bartender that evening.

Next to the bar area is a larger dining room for overflow.  It features a number of booths and tables, but it's nothing fancy.  There is a party room at Scornovacco's that people can rent out for celebrations or receptions.  

The pizza at Scornovacca's is a thin crust, but I seem to remember that they had deep-dish pizza at one point.  (I don't know if my memory is quite as good as it was - I could be thinking of someplace else.)  They have four different sauces that you can choose to go on the pizza - sweet marinara, alfredo sauce, a pesto sauce and a garlic butter.  They have over 24 different toppings that one can choose to put on a pizza.

I went with my old stand-by - sausage, mushroom and pepperoni, a small (9") one.  It didn't take long for the pizza to make it to the table and it was loaded with mozzarella, marinara and ample amounts of toppings.  The crust, even though it is thin, is not cracker-crust thin and had a little bit of pliability to it.  

The first bite immediately took me back about 25 years.  The sweet and tangy marinara sauce along with the caramelized cheese helped offset the slightly spicy taste from the Italian fennel sausage.   The pepperoni also had a nice little spicy and salty bite.  The mushrooms tasted fresh and earthy.  It easily passed my "does it taste good with a beer?" test.    I sat there shaking my head thinking that I have been an idiot for not coming back to Scornovacca's for so long.  

I'll guarantee you, it won't be long before I do make it back to Scornovacca's for another pizza.  There's a lot of excellent pizza choices in Des Moines and Scornovacca's has been one of the better ones for over 40 years.  The pizza was exactly the same as I remember years ago.   And there's something to be said for that kind of consistency.  

The White Horse - St. Cloud, MN

While in St. Cloud recently to see my dealer there, I suggested going out for a bite to eat before I headed back to the Twin Cities.  One place one of the guys suggested turned out to be a place that I had on my "restaurants to visit" list, but primarily for their burgers.  We went to downtown St. Cloud to have dinner at The White Horse.  

Brian Lee looked around the restaurant landscape in the St. Cloud area and saw too many corporate places with cookie-cutter menus, not allowing chefs to spread their wings.  He proposed opening a restaurant that would feature talented chefs serving interesting foods to the public.  And the restaurant would be in St. Cloud's historic downtown district.  

He already had his chef in mind, his son, Tommy.  Tommy Lee was a 16 year old exchange student in Germany who made his first German dish - jagerschnitzel - under the watchful eye of his exchange mother.  With that, he was hooked on cooking.  But not just any one style of cooking, the younger Lee explored different culinary stylings from around the world.  

The Lee's found a downtown location that had first been built as a bar in 1907.  (see map)  Over the years, the name of the place changed - the one most notable to St. Cloud residents and students at St. Cloud State was the Sportsman, a popular college hangout for years.  Brian Lee did some digging into the historical past of the building and was told by some older St. Cloud residents that the original name of the place in the early 20th century was the White Horse.  He thought it would be a great way to pay historical homage to the spot that first served beer over 100 years before.  It was after Lee opened The White Horse in March of 2008 that he found out that the original name was actually The White Bear.  He sort of shrugged his shoulders and thought that The White Horse was a better name for his restaurant/bar.

I was told by my dealer that in order to be a successful restaurant in downtown St. Cloud it has to be a bar first and a restaurant second.  From the outside, it looked like just a regular small town tavern.  Walking into the place, I immediately loved the joint.  The long narrow building looked like an old time tavern with a great old bar along the east wall with tables and booths throughout the rest of the place.  The place was also packed (it was around 6:30 p.m. when we walked in) and we had a little bit of a wait to get a table.  We ordered up some beers at the bar while we waited - The White Horse had a great variety of beers.  I got a Surly Fest beer, their interpretation of an Oktoberfest beer.  

We finally were seated at a large table toward the back of the restaurant and given menus to look over.  To say the menu is diverse is an understatement.  I've read good things about The White Horse's burgers, but a number of things caught my eye on the menu.  It was a veritable international smorgasbord of food.  The jagerschnitzel that a young Tommy Lee first made in Germany years ago is on the menu.  There's Vietnamese food, a Korean entree, Italian food, Thai food, Lee's take on Japanese cuisine with a misoyaki salmon dish, and - most interestingly to me - Indian food.  The menu also featured steaks, fresh seafood, a pan-roasted duck breast, a New Zealand lamb entree, a number of interesting appetizers, as well as a handful of salads.  The White Horse also has daily specials in addition to the food on the menu.

My dealer took the initiative to order up some appetizers while we were looking through the menu.  He ordered up some fried calamari that was served with a great sweet Thai chile sauce, as well as an order of fried green beans that I thought were just all right, and edamane which I've really only seen in Japanese restaurants.  It was all an interesting - and tasty - start to the meal.  

For food, we all got something a little different.  One of the guys went the burger route and ordered one of The White Horse's signature burgers - the PBJ and bacon burger.  The burger is topped with habenero jam made by a local Minnesota company by the name of Jim and Hazzy's, with a housemade peanut butter spread applied before they put the bacon and a spread of cream cheese to finish out the burger.  A side of waffle fries came with the burger.  Now, it didn't sound all that pleasant to me - I don't like the smell or taste of warm peanut butter - but the guy just devoured the burger because he thought it was so good.  

If you remember on my last visit to St. Cloud and our visit to the Boulder Tap House (click here to see that entry), I was impressed with one of the guys - Mike - who could really put away the food.  He was with us again this particular evening, but he went lighter than he did before by ordering up the fish and chips.  But it was a large panko-encrusted fried fish filet that extended over the sides of the large oval plate and was served with waffle fries.  It looked pretty good and I'm not that big on fried fish.  (Not to worry about Mike - after he polished off the fish and chips, he pretty much finished everything else that was on the table that was leftover from everyone else's meals.)  

One of the other guys got the almond/corn flake encrusted wild Canadian walleye filet.  He told me that it was as good as it looked.  

My dealer went with the garlic steak - a strip steak served with sauteed red onions, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms and chopped garlic.  A side of red potatoes came with the steak.  It was a pretty looking entree sitting in front of him.  

The Indian food on the menu was the thing that caught my eye.  They had a spicy madras curry entree with your choice of tofu, chicken, shrimp or mussels.  There was a chicken korma dish on the menu, as well as a palek paneer vegetarian dish.  But with a bit of trepidation - thinking that they have so many diverse entrees on the menu that they can't do all of them very well - I ended up getting the rogan josh.  It featured thick chunks of lamb meat in a somewhat spicy housemade masala sauce.  Basmati rice came on the side.  From the first bite I was hooked.  It was as good of rogan josh that I've had in traditional Indian restaurants.  While the masala sauce had a nice spicy bite, it wasn't overpowering to me.  I've never gotten Indian food outside of an Indian restaurant, but the rogan josh at The White Horse was just outstanding.  

However, the most intriguing thing to me on the whole menu was a side of the bacon mac and cheese.  I asked our server if there was a way that I could get a side of it and she brought out what looked like a half-entree order of the stuff.  It was in a small baking dish with crumbled bacon and bread crumbs on top with a creamy cheese sauce baked in with the penne pasta.  I really only wanted a couple bites of the stuff, but it was very good.  Oh, and very rich!  Each of us took a couple three bites of the bacon mac and cheese with Mike finishing off the rest of what we didn't eat.  

And don't ask me why - because I was so stuffed from the very good rogan josh - by our server somehow talked me into trying a piece of their pumpkin cheesecake that they had as a dessert that evening.   It had a cream cheese frosting on top and the taste was very good.  I only took a couple bites before I passed it around the table.  I just love the taste of pumpkin for desserts and this one didn't disappoint.  

On my next visit to The White Horse I'll have to try one of their burgers that I've read good things about.  But for this visit, I couldn't believe at how good their rogan josh was.  Don't let the diverse menu scare you off - it appeared that everyone liked their food at The White Horse very much. It's tough for a chef to pull off doing so many things so very well.  But chef Tommy Lee did it very nicely.  Don't let them fool you - The White Horse is a restaurant first and a bar second.  

The Woodhouse - Bismarck, ND

As you get off Interstate 94 at the State Street exit (exit 159) in Bismarck and head south toward the North Dakota State Capitol building, there's a restaurant off to the left side that I've passed a number of times over the past 10 plus years called The Woodhouse.  Or it may be called The Wood House - I've seen it written both ways.  Anyway, I had heard that they had a pretty killer burger at the place.  And they think so, too.  They have a rather audacious sign on the side of their building that says, "Home of the World's Best Hamburgers."  When I was up in North Dakota on a recent trip out that way, I made it a point to stop for lunch at The Woodhouse.  

One of my all-time favorite burger places when I was growing up was King's Food Host, a chain that started out of Lincoln, NE in the early 50's.  James King and Larry Price were the original owners of the place until King left the business in 1960.  Price, a former football coach who was slinging burgers in his teens, continued on and began to open more locations a year later.  Most of the early King's locations where in college towns throughout the Midwest.  It wasn't until Price adopted a true franchise program in 1968 that King's Food Hosts began to expand tremendously.  For two years beginning in 1969, more than 100 King's Food Host locations opened across the Midwest, both franchisee and company owned.  

The growth was too much for King's Food Host and they reported nearly a million dollar loss in 1971.  Price sold his interest in King's in 1972 for $3 million dollars and left the company.  Losses mounted the next two years with deficits of nearly $2 million dollars reported in 1973 and 1974.  With that, the new ownership of King's Food Host was forced to declare bankruptcy protection and began to shut down many of their company owned locations.  By the late 70's there were only a handful of King's locations left.  (I remember one on Cornhusker Highway in Lincoln was still open in the mid-80's.) 

If you're of a certain age and grew up in the Midwest, you probably remember the Cheese Frenchee, one of the signature items on the King's menu.  They were basically a sandwich with mayo and American cheese with the crusts of the bread cut, then rolled in a mixture of corn flakes, eggs, milk and flour and deep fried to a golden brown.  There were people who would crawl to King's for Cheese Frenchee.  You can find a number of recipes for the sandwich by doing a Google search for Cheese Frenchee.

I never cared for the Cheese Frenchee, but I did like the King's burgers.  They were flat grilled and had sort of a black pepper taste to them.  For a made-to-order burger, they were very tough to beat.  

(In 2002, Amigos, a Mexican fast food chain that was started in Lincoln resurrected the King's name by adding the Kings Classic co-brand to their restaurants.  All of the restaurants for Amigos Kings Classic are located in Eastern Nebraska.  No, I've never been to one.  However, the closest place where I've experienced a near-King's burger experience is Don & Millie's with locations in Omaha and Lincoln.  Click here to see my entry on Don & Millie's.)  

The Bismarck King's Food Host opened in 1969 in what was the same building that The Woodhouse is housed in today.  (see map)  In fact, when it changed from a King's in 1979, franchise owner Bill Wood gave the new place his name.  And not much changed since then.

When you walk into The Woodhouse, it's like going back 40 years to a King's Food Host.  All the seating is booth seating and the original paneling is still on the wall.  Taking a quick look around, I saw that I may have been one of the youngest - if not THE youngest - persons in the restaurant.   

I took a booth along the wall and was greeted by a familiar sight at a King's Food Host - the menu on the wall with a telephone hanging next to it.  Growing up, we had a King's Food Host in what was the old Newton Shopping Center in Newton, IA.  You called your orders into an operator at a switchboard in the kitchen to give them your order.  It was a rather cool thing to do at the time.  And I thought it was a rather cool thing to do at this time, as well.

Most of the old King's Food Host items were on the menu - the burgers, Cheese Frenchee, grilled chicken sandwiches.  They also had bison burgers on the menu, something that you didn't see at a King's.  And they also had broasted chicken on the menu - something that King's was famous for so many years ago.  

On this visit to the Woodhouse, I went with the double cheese burger.  I placed the order over the phone to an operator back in the kitchen.  I had to smile when I hung up the phone.  Not long after I ordered the burger, a waitress came over to drop off a glass of water and to see if I had ordered yet.  Yep!  Called it in on the phone like you're supposed to!  I'm sure that some weary travelers that stumble into the place are probably confused by the phones at their booths and prefer to have their orders taken by a server.

Someone from the kitchen brought my burger out.  It featured two thin flat-grilled burger patties that had slices of American cheese on top of each patty.  An onion ring was on top of the burger held on by a toothpick.  I ordered everything on the burger, chopped onions, pickles, ketchup and mustard.

From the first bite, I could tell this was a good burger.  It didn't have the pepper taste that I grew to love from a King's burger, but it was still very good.  It was juicy and flavorful.  The bun was soft and had a great taste to it.  The fresh chopped onions were very forward in taste, but a great complement to the overall taste of the burger.

Was The Woodhouse the true "Home of the World's Best Hamburgers" as they tout on their awning out front?  It was a very good burger, but, yeah, I can't call it the best I've ever had.  It was certainly a spot-hitter for me that day.  But what got me more was the trip back into my childhood and getting the near-experience of going to a King's Food Host one more time.  The Woodhouse is a slice of nostalgic Midwestern Americana with a damn fine burger.    

Corky's Ribs and Barbecue - Memphis, TN

I wanted to try a couple three place for barbecue when we were on our short vacation to Memphis last year.  We had been to the famous Rendezvous on our first visit over a dozen years before, but we wanted to try another venerable Memphis place that had been open for 30 years - Corky's Ribs and Barbecue.  After a morning visit to the Memphis Zoo, we went to Corky's for a late lunch.  

Don Pelts was a Memphis native who worked at his parents furniture store while he was going to college believing that he'd someday own the story.  However, the store closed in the late 60's and Pelts suddenly found himself out of work.  After a year or so of figuring out what he wanted to do, Pelts and his brother-in-law, David Soren, bought a famous barbecue place in Memphis called The Public Eye.  It wasn't long after starting at The Public Eye that Pelts had his own vision of the type of barbecue joint that he'd like to own at some point.  He wanted a premium, sit-down barbecue restaurant that had sort of a 50's fun flair to the place.  

It took him a few years later to realize his dreams, but he found a building on Poplar Ave. that had previously housed a failed barbecue restaurant.  He outfitted the restaurant with a rustic look, put a bunch of neon signs up on the walls, played 50's and 60's music over the restaurant's speakers and offered up a mix of wet and Memphis-style dry-rubbed ribs and barbecue.  It was a sit down place where waiters wore white shirts and bow ties.  And after seeing the success of fast food restaurants with drive-thru windows along Poplar Ave., Pelts put in a drive-thru pick-up window at Corky's.  The place became one of the most popular barbecue places in Memphis and a destination for travelers who came to town.  

Pictured right - Don Pelts

Over the years, Don Pelts influenced a number of off-shoot barbecue places in Memphis and the South.  People who worked for Pelts at both Corky's and The Public Eye started a number of restaurants such as the Pig and Whistle, Sticky Fingers BBQ, and Buckley's Grill.  When a group of Washington D.C.-based politicians wanted to bring good ol' Southern-style barbecue to the nation's capital, they turned to Don Pelts for help and advice in starting what turned out to be the Red Hot and Blue barbecue chain.  

Corky's grew to two more locations in Memphis and a number more outside of Memphis over the years with franchise locations opening in Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi.  He also started his own meat packing company to ship Corky's ribs, meats, spices and barbecue sauce around the U.S.  And Corky's has been a featured partner on the QVC home shopping network selling a Corky's cookbook as well as Corky's sauces and spices.   

In 2013, Don Pelts was enjoying a game of bridge - a passion of his - at a local bridge club in Memphis when he experienced a fatal heart attack.  Pelts was revered by thousands in the community and the outpouring of grief and sympathy from around Memphis and beyond overwhelmed his family.  The Pelts family, including son Barry, daughter Patricia Woodman, and her husband, Andy, continue to run Corky's today.  

We had passed Corky's a number of times on our trips up and down Poplar Ave. to and from our hotel on the far eastern side of Memphis.  (see map)  We pulled in just after 2 p.m. to get something to eat.  After being greeted at the hostess stand, we we taken to a booth in the main dining room.

The interior of the original Corky's probably hasn't changed much from the day Don Pelts opened the place.  There is the barn board walls, still a lot of neon signs giving the dining area a sort of eerie glow, polished brass railings and a number of sturdy pinewood booths and tables.  We were given menus and it wasn't long before our server, Joy - an outgoing middle-aged lady - came over to greet us.  I needed a beer and I saw that they had something called Corky's Memphis Brew.  I asked Joy about that and she said it was an amber beer that was brewed for them by the Abita Brewing Company in Louisiana.  I signed up for one of those.  It was actually a pretty good beer, but I like many of the Abita beers.  

All of Corky's barbecued meats are cooked low and slow over a combination of charcoal and hickory wood.  They featured rib platters, barbecue combo plates and sandwiches on the menu.  They also had a number of appetizers on the menu including a staple from nearby Mississippi, tamales and chili.  

Cindy got the pulled pork dinner plate.  It came with a side of cole slaw that she thought were pretty bland and a side of baked beans.  The pulled pork was slathered in some of Corky's sweet and smoky barbecue sauce.    

I got the ribs and brisket combo - a half slab of ribs in rubbed with Corky's proprietary dry-rub spices and seven or eight slices of brisket.  I also got beans and cole slaw and we also got some butter basted housemade rolls with our meals.  This was a lot of food.

The ribs were all right for me.  They probably had too much of the rub to my liking and I couldn't really get a lot of the good pork rib taste to the meat.  The brisket was fine, tender and somewhat moist and juicy.  I wasn't certain I cared for the barbecue sauce, it was pretty weak compared to other comparable sweet and smoky sauces that I've enjoyed in the past.  

We shared food back and forth and Cindy didn't care for the ribs, but did like the brisket.  I tried some of her pulled pork and it was moist and tasty.  Not the best I've had, but certainly not bad.  But both of us decided that the baked beans were pretty weak and that the very bland cole slaw was even more "blah!"  

I've eaten in a lot of barbecue places over the years and I'd put Corky's sort of in the middle of the ones I've tried in the past.  The barbecue was fine, but it didn't exactly make me pat my head and rub my tummy at the same time.  There was too much of the dry rub on the ribs to my liking.  The pulled pork and brisket were fine, but not outstanding.  We enjoyed Joy's service and the ambiance of the place was fine.  We'll try other barbecue places in Memphis on our next visit, but Corky's was all right for what they're trying to accomplish.  

BrickHouse Grille - Dickinson, ND

On my annual trips to Dickinson, ND, I like to take my dealer and his guys out to dinner.  In the past, the problem was that he closed his store at 9 p.m. and the choices for restaurants were pretty slim at that point in the evening.  He moved to a new location a couple years ago and now closes at 7 p.m. opening up more options for dining in the Dickinson area.  One place that I've known of for quite sometime is the BrickHouse Grille in downtown Dickinson.  Before I went to North Dakota earlier this fall, I told my dealer to set us up with reservations at the BrickHouse for dinner.  

Collin Wehner and Mike Riesinger were two lifelong friends who grew up in Dickinson. After high school, both moved away to pursue their education and interests.  Riesinger went to Denver for college, graduating with a business degree.  He ran a handful of profitable companies in Colorado before he decided that he wanted to move back to North Dakota and open up a more upscale restaurant in Dickinson.  

Riesinger contacted his friend, Wehner, who had moved to San Diego to go to culinary school and, upon graduation, worked in a fine dining restaurant under a reknown chef. Riesinger told Wehner of his plan to open a fine dining restaurant in Dickinson and he wanted Wehner to be his chef.  Wehner jumped at the chance because he, too, was looking for a change of scenery and to be able to have full control of his own kitchen.  

Riesinger and Wehner moved into the ground floor of what was known as the Walton Block, a building that had been built in 1912.  Many businesses were located in the business over the years - doctors and dentists had offices in the building.  A bakery was once on the main floor, and a long-time Dickinson drug store/gift shop was probably the longest tenent opening in the early 1950's.  There was even a three-lane bowling alley in the basement of the building at one time!   

After a business meeting with my dealer and some training for his staff, we took a caravan of cars to downtown Dickinson to go eat dinner at the BrickHouse Grille.  There was a parking lot caddy-cornered across the street, next to an old train station.  (See map)  The place, which holds just under 100 people, was about half full when we walked in around 8 p.m. that evening.  They were holding a table for six toward the back of the very nice dining room.  Linen-topped tables were in interspersed between exposed brick walls in the dining area.  A small enclosed bar area was at the front of the restaurant.   

The menu features handcut steaks, fresh seafood that is delivered daily (even in Dickinson, which isn't quite the middle of nowhere - well, yeah, it is), and other entrees including pork chops, smoked duck breast with rice noodles, and a black-pepper crusted lamb sirloin.  Seasonal wild game is available as specials from time to time.  A number of appetizers along with soups and salads were available, as well.  No one was a wine drinker, but I figured that I'd get a glass of wine with my meal and they actually had a pretty respectable wine list at the BrickHouse Grille.  

Our server for the evening was Aili, a tall young lady with a pleasant disposition.  We started out with drinks and I got a bottle of the Bent Nail IPA from the Red Lodge Ale brewing company out of Montana.  I'd never had one of their beers before, but I'll have to say it was pretty tasty.  

We ordered up a couple three orders of the beer-battered onion rings.  While the onion rings were just all right, they were served with a jalapeno ranch sauce that was simply outstanding.  The onion rings were helped immensely in taste with the zesty, but not overpowering jalapeno ranch dressing.  

My dealer is not really into fine dining being one of the most picky eaters I've ever encountered in my life.  He doesn't like pickles - I once saw him send back a hamburger because he had asked for no pickles anywhere on the plate and they put pickles on the side.  He claimed that he could taste the pickle juice from the pickles in his hamburger.  He also doesn't like mustard.  So, he and three of his guys got the 1/2 pound Black Angus burger with steak fries.  I was like, "Guys!  Once a year I take you out for dinner and you order up burgers at a place like this?"  But they seemed to be happy with the burger which actually looked pretty good.  

One of the other guys did step up to the plate and ordered a New York strip.  The other guy with us that night got something that I really thought about getting - the beef and mushroom penne pasta dish.  It featured chopped beef tenderloin and mushrooms sauteed with sun-dried tomatoes and roasted garlic in a basil sauce, mixed with penne pasta and topped with feta cheese.  He told me that it was excellent and I'll be it was.  

I went the steak route, as well.  I got the 10 ounce beef tenderloin filet with a side of their horseradish mashed potatoes and green beans.  I also got a glass of the Liberty School cabernet with the meal.  I ordered my steak rare and it was a perfect cool deep red center.  The filet was bacon-wrapped and was drizzled in a red wine demi-glaze that wasn't overpowering to the fine taste of the meat.  I was extremely happy with my meal.  

After dinner, I offered the guys to order up some dessert.  I had seen a lemon bar with fresh berries on the dessert portion of the menu before we ordered dinner and I knew that I had to try that.  I got a glass of the Glenfiddich 12 year scotch to go with the dessert.  The lemon bar was tangy and very tasty topped with real whipped cream and a medley of blackberries and raspberries.  It was simply outstanding.  

A couple of the guys both got the black cherry and ricotta cheesecake.  It was drizzled with a combination caramel and chocolate sauce.   They said it was very good, but one guy - the one who had the beef and mushroom penne pasta - was having trouble finishing his cheesecake.  He was full from his meal and was getting his fill of the very rich cheesecake.  

Dickinson isn't quite at the end of the world, but you can certainly see it from there.  The BrickHouse Grille was one of those great surprises that I have the pleasure of experiencing during my many travels.  It would have held its own in much larger cities. The food, I thought, was very good.  Aili's service was impeccable, even when we had her running to and fro to get more things for us.  The ambiance of the place was great. I only hope the people of Dickinson and Western North Dakota understand that they have a great restaurant in the BrickHouse Grille.  

Fuddruckers - Springfield, MO

A few weeks ago, I was in Springfield, MO for a couple of dealer meetings.  I had gotten into town around 1 p.m. and my first appointment was scheduled for around 2 p.m.  I had some time to get something to eat for lunch.  It was National Cheeseburger Day and I remembered that there was a Fuddruckers that I would pass on my way into Springfield in the past and I decided to stop in and grab a burger.

I've been doing Road Tips for over nine years now.  (Wow!  Most blogs don't last nine months!)  One of the first entries I had back in 2005 had to do with Fuddruckers.  (If you want to see what the tenor of the my blog was back in the early days, click here.)  In fact, it was exactly nine years ago today that I first wrote about Fuddruckers as a whole.  But here's the story of the rise, fall and rise again of Fuddruckers.

Phil Romano was a native of upstate New York who settled in San Antonio in the 70's.  He recognized the upswing in burger places on the restaurant landscape, but many were fast food places where the burgers were made up in advance and placed in a warming bin.  Romano came up with what some call the first "fast-casual" concept for a restaurant, a burger place called Freddie Fuddrucker's that featured made to order burgers and a condiment bar that allowed the customer to customize their burgers with the right amount of pickles, onions, ketchup, jalapenos, etc.  

The first Freddie Fuddrucker's opened in 1979 and the chain grew rather quickly.  (After getting out of college, I lived in Houston for about nine months in 1986 and there was a Freddie Fuddrucker's near where I lived.  I wasn't making a lot of money in Houston, so going to Freddie Fuddrucker's was a treat.)  After shortening the name to just Fuddruckers, Phil Romano sold the chain to start a new concept he had come up with - Romano's Macaroni Grill.    

DAKA International bought Fuddruckers from Romano in 1988.  The investment company already owned Champps Americana sports bars (click here to see an entry on Champps) and added the 150 location chain of Fuddruckers to its portfolio.  This was a period of growth for Fuddruckers, eventually growing to over 220 locations in over 35 states, Puerto Rico and five countries.  But the restaurant began to run into a stagnant stretch and was eventually sold off to investor Michael Cannon in 1998.  

Declaring Fudduckers as "the most boring restaurant in the world" when he took over, Cannon redesigned the concept and many of the company owned locations around the U.S.  Cannon also took over ownership of the Koo Koo Roo restaurants - a chain of fast-casual restaurant that focused on broasted chicken and turkey entrees for the whole family.  He then called his company Magic Brands.  

Magic Brands began to feel the effects of the downturn of the economy in 2008 and within a couple years they were forced to declare bankruptcy, shutting down the Koo Koo Roo restaurants and closing a large number of company-owned Fuddrucker's.  In 2010, Luby's restaurants from Houston came in and bought Fuddrucker's for $61 million.  Luby's is an iconic restaurant in Texas and the "go-to" restaurant for family dining in the Lone Star State.  Bringing Fuddruckers into the fold, the Luby's Fuddruckers corporation injected life back into what was a tired brand of upscale fast-casual burger joints which boldly claimed they had the "World's Greatest Hamburgers". 

Now, if you're a regular reader of Road Tips, you know that I usually run away screaming from nearly any type of a national chain.  But the burgers at nearly every Fuddrucker's I've been to over the years are all consistently good.  Other national chains will have the same menu item, but they're very inconsistent in their preparation and taste.  Fuddrucker's - doesn't matter if it's in Omaha, Minneapolis, the Chicago suburbs, or Springfield, MO - has always been exactly the same.  It's consistency like that that I look for in a national chain.

The Fuddruckers in Springfield is similar to other locations with a whimsical variety of decorations hanging from the ceiling and on the walls.  The distinctive green and white checkerboard table cloths topped the tables in the dining area.  It's a pretty lively place even without a lot of people in the joint.  

The concept of Fuddruckers is pretty simple - you place your order at the order counter as you come into the place.  The menu is on the wall above the counter and you have your choice of 1/3, 1/2, 2/3 or one pound burgers, a choice of four different types of cheese, sides such as fries and onions rings, and healthy choices such as grilled chicken sandwiches, turkey or veggie burgers, and salads.  The beef is ground fresh each day in house and the buns are all made from scratch at Fuddruckers in-house bakery.  (They also have some awesome cookies made in-house, as well.)  

After placing your order, they give you a pager and you go find a seat in the dining room.  When the order is ready, the pager will vibrate and light up.  Take the pager back to the front counter, pick up your order that is served on a round, high-walled tray (similar to an old time drink tray) and then you get to go to the condiment bar. 

The condiment bar at Fuddruckers, to me, is one of the greatest things I've ever encountered at a restaurant.  On one side, you have lettuce - chopped and leafed, tomato slices, jalapenos, dill pickles - both spears and chips, onions - sliced rings or chopped, banana pepper rings, pico de gallo...  It's a veritable smorgasboard of toppings that you can put on a burger.  And you can put as much as you want on each burger.  On the backside of the condiment bar, you'll find the ketchup, a couple types of mustard (dark and yellow), barbecue sauce, a cheddar cheese sauce, a cheese sauce with chopped jalapenos, steak sauces, hot sauces - about anything that you can think of that goes on a burger they have it at the great condiment bar at Fuddruckers.  

That day I got a half-pound burger topped with Swiss cheese.  At my stop at the condiment bar, I got ketchup, mustard, both kinds of pickles, some sliced onions, jalapenos, banana pepper rings, and their wonderfully fresh pico de gall on the side.  

I ordered the burger medium hoping to see a slight bit of pink in the middle.  But the cook that day must have been from France as it was more a medium-rare than medium.  (Nearly every burger I had in France on my recent trip there had an abundance of pink when I ordered them as medium.)  It wasn't a deal buster, but I like my ground beef to have a little more of a cooked consistency in my burgers.  But other than that, it was a typical Fuddruckers burger - the bun was light and fluffy and held together very well, the toppings were fresh and flavorful.  It was another good Fuddruckers burger, even though it was a little undercooked to my liking.  

The one thing about going to a Fuddruckers is that consistency.  I know exactly what I'm going to get by going there.  It's probably the same thing that fans of Applebee's or Olive Garden like about those places - they know the menu and they're comfortable with that.  But there are very few places that allow you customize your food the way you want the way Fuddruckers allows you to.  While I'd much rather go to a local place that has a great burger, if there's a Fuddruckers nearby and I don't feel like driving farther than I have to to get a good burger, I'll pull in there.