Road Tips

Mussel & Burger Bar - Louisville, KY

On a recent trip to Louisville, I found myself out on the east side of the city looking for a dealer at an address near the corner of Taylorsville Road and Hurstbourne Parkway.  It turned out the dealer not only wasn't there any longer, but they had completely gone out of business.  I went around the back side of the shopping complex trying to find my way out of the place and I happened to take a right turn that took me past a canopy awning that said Mussel & Burger Bar.  Hey, I like mussels and I like burgers!  It looked like a classy place.  It was just before noon and I thought I'd go in and check the place out.  

I'm glad I did because it turns out the Mussel & Burger Bar is a popular place in the Louisville area.  And the people behind the place is a former Cuban refugee, his wife and his cousin.  

Fernando Martinez grew up in Cuba learning how to prepare and cook traditional Cuban foods - pork, chicken, plantains, black beans and rice - from his mother and his grandmother.  His grandmother was originally from Spain and she taught him the art of tapas - small plates of various foods.  

Martinez found that he loved to cook.  He would make pizzas and sandwiches and go to the airport in Havana and sell them to people coming and going on flights.  Since private enterprise was illegal in Cuba, Martinez found himself in trouble with the law on more than one occasion. 

But Martinez's food garnered him a following of people, many of whom would end up coming to his house to have him make food for them.  He started to buy pigs in the country - because they were cheaper to buy there than from a city butcher - and he would cure ham and make pork dishes from the pigs he'd buy.  He would make his own bread and many of the meals he made for people were made from scratch.  

Fernando Martinez and his mother, Yolanda, decided to start their own restaurant located in their house.  Word got out among tourists that this teenaged boy and his mother made some of the best food on the island.  However, Cuban authorities found out about the restaurant and without the proper licensing they shut down the Martinez's little business.  

Determined to be able to live their own lives, Martinez and his mother made a raft out of inner tubes, wood and rope and set out across the Straits of Florida to the United States in 1995.  They were picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard short of their goal and were sent to a detention camp at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba.  In 1996, Fernando and Yolanda Martinez legally made their way to San Diego and eventually ended up in Louisville meeting up with his cousin Yaniel Martinez.  

Fernando's first job was working in a Mexican restaurant where he met another Cuban refugee, Marcos Lorenzo.  One evening Fernando went to a salsa nightclub and met a young Venezuelan woman by the name of Christina.  It was love at first sight and the two quickly married.  Christina shared Fernando's dream of opening a restaurant of their own at some point.  

After years of saving, in 1994 Fernando, Marcos and Christina opened Havana Rumba, a small Cuban restaurant using many of the recipes that Fernando, his mother and grandmother used at their home in Cuba.  Three years later, the group opened Mojitos Tapas restaurant using many of the Spanish tapas recipes he learned from his grandmother.  Wanting to learn more about cuisine than what he'd learned from his mother and grandmother, Fernando Martinez took 10 weeks off from the restaurants over a three year period to study in France at the Le Cordon Bleu culinary academy.  

Even with his mother helping out in the restaurants and with the Martinez's young children at home, Fernando and Christina were working up to 90 hours a week at the restaurants.  They were getting burnt out and needed to step away from the restaurants.  The Martinez's sold their stake in the two restaurants and took their family to live on an island off the Venezuelan coast.  However, after two months of living a laid-back lifestyle Fernando Martinez became annoyed with not having anything to.  During school breaks, the family would travel and Fernando would find work in various kitchens in Venezuela, Mexico and Peru - many times work for no pay - to experiment with the art of balancing foods and tastes that he learned while attending Le Cordon Bleu.  Even if he was just peeling potatoes or making a broth, he was observing what was going on in those kitchens.  

The Martinez family eventually made it back to the U.S. - this time to Miami where Fernando was a sous chef under the acclaimed "Godfather of Nuevo Latino Cuisine", Douglas Rodriguez, where he learned more about the combination of flavors and textures.  It was also working under Rodriguez where Fernando learned about the true meaning of balance in the restaurant industry - both in balancing the tastes of the various foods and in balancing his life as a chef with passion.  

Feeling now that they were ready to make the plunge back into restaurant ownership, Fernando and Christina moved back to Louisville meeting up once again with his cousin, Yaniel.  They started up Guaca Mole, an upscale contemporary Mexican restaurant.  But Fernando wasn't going to stop with just one restaurant.  Not long after opening Guaca Mole, he came up with the concept of the Mussel & Burger Bar.  

The group opened the Mussel & Burger Bar in January of 2013 in the Jeffersontown area of Louisville.  Many people thought they were crazy for opening a privately owned restaurant as the area seemed to be a graveyard for small restaurants over the years.  

Pictured right - Fernando and Christina Martinez along with Yaniel Martinez.  Photo courtesy Louisville Magazine.  

There was a space under the Mussel & Burger Bar that sat empty.  Fernando turned that into The Place Downstairs - an upscale Cuban/Spanish restaurant.  It wasn't long before he turned the space into an upscale Italian restaurant - Cena.  However, he closed Cena in the fall of 2015 because of the need for overflow for the highly successful Mussel & Burger Bar upstairs.  Fernando showed the skeptics that a non-chain restaurant in "J-town" could actually make it.  

Along the way, the Martinez's have been busy.  Under their OLE' (which stands for "Oh! Let's Eat!") Restaurant Group banner, they also own and operate El Taco Luchador - an upscale taqueria in the Highlands neighborhood of Louisville; as well as Artesano Vino Tapas y Mas in the Westport Village boutique shopping area in Louisville.  And in the fall of last year, the group opened a second Mussel & Burger Bar location in downtown Louisville.  

As I said, I was sort of driving around a building in a strip mall trying to find my way out onto Taylorsville Road and I saw the awning in front of the place.  (see map)  Walking into the place, there's a nice bar area.  I was asked by the hostess if I wanted to have a seat in the dining room.  I looked at the difference between the two and opted for the dining room.  

The dining room was sort of neat.  It kind of reminded me of an old South dining room with columns and arched alcoves with booths.  I took a seat at one of the booths and was given a menu.  I was soon greeted by Anthony, my server for the day.  Anthony was a raging urban hipster - nice guy, but a little thick on the laid back hip talk.  I thought it was kind of funny and he made me smile.  He got me a locally brewed IPA while I looked through the menu.  

The menu featured a number of burgers, sandwiches, appetizers, and - of course - mussels.  The burgers weren't cheap - most of them were $15.50  The appetizer mussels rang in at $11.50 and I thought that may be too much to go along with a burger for just myself.  

There were a couple three burgers that caught my eye - the Bacon Breakfast Burger, also known as the B.B.B. featured a burger patty topped with white cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, maple syrup glazed pork belly bacon, a fried fresh egg, and finished with a maple syrup aioli.  The local burger featured an 8 ounce ground beef patty from Sherwood Acres Farm located about 35 miles east of Louisville, gouda cheese from Kenny's Farmhouse Cheese located in Southern Kentucky, and fresh veggies from a local farm.  

I ended up getting the CEO - a gourmet burger patty topped with gruyere cheese, caramelized onions, a truffle aioli, baby arugula, and oven-roasted tomatoes.  It came with huge steak truffle fries that were more like quarter wedges of a full potato.  If I wanted to get foie gras on the burger I could have for an additional $7.25.  

The burger was very thick and placed on a fresh baked bun.  From the first bite, I could tell this was an excellent burger.  It was flat grilled, cooked to a medium with a hint of pink, and tasted like it had some sort of seasoning on it.  It was difficult to distinguish the difference between the cheese, arugula, caramelized onions and oven-roasted tomatoes.  But it all went so well together - the balance of flavors and the textures involved are a signature of Fernando Martinez.  This was a very, very good gourmet burger.

I think I had - maybe - two bites of the steak truffle fries.  They were very good, but it was a lot of starch on the plate.  Had I been more hungry I may have had one of the full steak fry spears.  

What a great find!  I had no idea that Mussel & Burger Bar even existed until I just happened to drive past it.  It's sort of tough to find, even if you're looking for the J-town location.  But it's worth looking for it.  The place is not cheap, but the Martinez family is not apologizing for that.  The balance of tastes in the CEO burger that I had was interesting and everything on the burger went well with each bite.  Anthony's service - while a little over the top with the urban hipster persona - was friendly, efficient and fun.  With now two Mussel & Burger Bars in the Louisville area - and the closing of Cena in the lower portion of the J-town location - more people in the Louisville area can enjoy the great gourmet burgers they serve.     

Sol Irlande's - Dallas, TX

After a long day at the annual CEDIA Expo in Dallas last year, we didn't really want to venture anywhere far away from the hotel in downtown Dallas.  We had seen a restaurant that billed itself as a Mexican chop house that was a block away from the hotel on Main St. - Sol Irlande's.  (see map) There were six of us from our company with a couple of stragllers that joined us that particular evening.  

It's sort interesting how an Irish guy from Long Island ended up in Dallas running a unique Mexican restaurant.  Tom McGill grew up on the South Shore in Nassau County who knew that he wanted to get into the restaurant business when he was working for a small family-owned Italian restaurant in his teens.  After graduating from St. John's University, McGill started to work as an accountant in Manhattan.  Realizing that he didn't care much for a behind the desk job, he quit commuting and turned instead to bartending.  He eventually became a restaurant manager, then a maitre d' at a high-end banquet hall.  

When the restaurant business turned sour in New York in the mid-90's, the then 30-something McGill was talking with some friends who were living in Dallas.  They were telling him about how the restaurant business was booming in the Big D.  He moved to Dallas and was immediately hired by Nick Galanos, the owner of Tia's Tex-Mex restaurant chain.  

What McGill eventually wanted to do was to open an Irish bar in Dallas.  But working at Tia's for Galanos, he found that Texans really did like their Mexican food.  But if he was going to do a Mexican restaurant, he wanted it to be unique.  With the mentoring and blessing of Galanos, McGill struck out on his own and opened the downtown Dallas location for Sol Irlande's in 2006.  His wife actually came up with the name - which roughly means Irish Sun - because of two factors, 1) The McGill's daughter was named Ireland; and 2) His wife knew that he really wanted to open an Irish bar due to his love for the old Irish bars in his native New York.  (McGill also had a short-lived Sol Irlande's in suburban Richardson, TX.)

Sol Irlande's is located next to an urban park with a walkway along the side.  In the park is a sculpture of a large human eye made by Chicago artist Tony Tasset.  The "eye" is part of an exhibition brought to Dallas by the Joule Hotel, a boutique hotel (with a unique swimming pool that hangs out away from the building) just across from the gated park where the sculpture is on display.  It's been in Dallas for a little over two years after being on display in Chicago as part of that city's Loop Alliance Public Art program since 2010.  As a friend of mine who was at the trade show remarked earlier in the week, "There's something that you just don't see every day."

The building that Sol Irlande's is in dates back to the late 19th century and is one of the oldest buildings in downtown Dallas.  For years it was a drug store, then it was taken over as part of an expansion by the F.W. Woolworth Five and Dime store next door.  The original Italian-style facade that was popular with Dallas builders in the late 19th century and the early 20th century still graces the front of the building. 

We had to wait for a table to be set up on the patio for our group and we passed the time in the bar area that also doubled as an indoor dining area.  My colleague John and I both got a Herradura silver/Cointreau/lime juice margarita while we waited and it was outstanding.   Sol Irlande's had a lot of flat screen televisions hanging around the bar area and out in the patio.  It was sort of like a Mexican restaurant/sports bar.  

It was unseasonably warm in Dallas while we were there and sitting on the patio on a warm evening was rather pleasant considering we were deep into fall.  Our server for the evening, a young guy by the name of Gino, came over to greet us while we looked over the menu.  

The food at Sol Irlande's is an interesting mix of Tex-Mex favorites such as mesquite-smoked ribs; fajitas with a choice of steak, chicken, shrimp or veggies; mesquite-grilled shrimp; chicken, ground beef or smoked brisket chimichangas; and something called Tommy's Bowl that featured a mixture of Spanish rice, Borracho beans, sliced avocado and grilled vegetables with a choice of a grilled chicken breast, grilled sirloin, blackened tilapia, blackened shrimp or grilled shrimp on top.  They also feature a number mesquite grilled steaks, enchiladas, and good ol' Texas chicken fried steak.  

I got the brisket tacos - 4 small tacos with pulled smoked brisket inside.  A sliced avocado, jack cheese, onions and cilantro was folded in with the tacos.  A side of the Borracho beans and Spanish rice came on the side along with a jalapeno salsa relish.  The brisket tacos were scrumptious as there were a lot of flavors going on with each bite.  The brisket was full of flavor and moist to the bite.  

For good measure, I got a beef enchilada with a green tomatillo sauce that was served warm on the enchilada.  It was topped with some jack cheese and served on a single plate.  It was good, but not as good as the tacos.  

My colleague John went with the mesquite-smoked baby back ribs.  They were slathered with a housemade sweet and smoky barbecue sauce.  They pulled off the bone rather easily and he made a mess while eating them.  He offered me a bone to try, but I declined.  He said, "Fine with me.  More for me to eat."  

 
One of our straggler guests that evening - I can't even remember his name - got the fish taco wraps.  The flour taco shell wraps were filled with grilled tilapia, chopped cabbage, sliced carrots, avocado slices, and pico de gallo, and a housemade cream sauce came in a small tortilla shell.  I thought about those for a moment, but I was more than happy with my brisket tacos and the beef enchilada.   

My colleague Matt got the chicken mole.  It featured a couple of grilled chicken breasts covered with Sol Irlande's housemade mole sauce that features 20 different spices and has to literally sit for days before it's served to allow all the flavors to co-mingle.  Matt said it was an excellent tasting dish.    

Another one of the guys seated at my end of the table got the El Jefe burrito - a large burrito with ground beef, refried beans, Spanish rice, a cheese mixture, and sour cream mixed in.  A queso sauce was on the top of the burrito.  It looked like a mess, but it also looked like the quintessential Tex-Mex meal.  

One problem that we had was that Gino's service was a little less than desirable.  He fouled up a couple of orders, but was quick to get things rectified.  Where he was really having problems was with the drinks.  He was pretty slow to get drink orders and to get the drinks back to our table.  

John and I both ordered the same Herradura silver/Cointreau/lime juice margarita as we did at the bar from Gino.  When he finally brought them back, well, they tasted horrible.  We got his attention and told him that the margaritas were not the same ones that we had gotten before.  He asked again what it was and we told him.  "I swear, that's what I told him," Gino said.  He took the drinks away and came back about 10 minutes later - of course, our food was all gone by this time - with two more margaritas.  They were just as bad as the ones he served us before.  

We immediately got his attention and said, "Huh, uh.  No good."  We told him that the first ones we were served by the bartender when we were waiting for the table to open up were stellar.  These, well, they were just nasty tasting.  Gino had the manager come over and we told him the situation.  He was gracious and apologetic, claiming that he doesn't know how the first ones we got were so good and the ones we were served later on were not to our liking.  In any event, he didn't charge us for the ones we were served at the table.  

Some of our guys weren't happy with the service and if the 18 percent gratuity hadn't been included on the bill, our server probably wouldn't have gotten much more than a 10 percent tip from us.  I didn't think they were all that busy, but he seemed to be a little slow on the switch.  Other than the poor margaritas and the choppy service, I thought the food that I had at Sol Irlande's was very good.  The brisket tacos were great and the beef enchilada with the tomatillo sauce on top was very good.  Everyone seemed to like their food, but the somewhat poor service sort of bummed us out.  If you can get a good server, I'm sure that the experience at Sol Irlande's would be much better than what we experienced that particular evening.  

Ariston Cafe - Litchfield, IL

I was traveling home from St. Louis recently and I had to stop in Litchfield, IL to get some gas.  Something jogged my memory when I looked down the road and saw a sign for the Ariston Cafe.  I got onto my cellphone and looked up my "Restaurants to Visit" list on Google Maps.  Sure enough, I had the Ariston Cafe flagged with a note - pork tenderloin sandwich.  It was coming up on the noon hour and I still had a three hour drive home, so I decided to head over to the Ariston Cafe and give the place a try.

I had no idea to the historical significance of the Ariston Cafe when I went there that particular day.  It turns out that the restaurant dates back to 1924 when Greek immigrant and candy store owner Pete Adam opened a restaurant in Carlinville, IL on the advice of a local doctor who felt there was a need for another restaurant in the small town.  Pete didn't have two things - money or restaurant experience.  However, the doctor loaned Pete $1000 to open a restaurant and the first thing Pete did after securing a building was to drive to St. Louis nearly 60 miles away to hire a cook.

Pete's restaurant was located along what was then Illinois State Highway 4 and U.S. Route 66, the only paved fully paved road in the state at that time.  He named his restaurant Ariston, which means "the best" in Greek.  When Route 66 was relocated about 15 miles east of Carlinville in the late 20's, Pete Adam knew that he had to stay close to the road that took people from Chicago to Los Angeles. 

Along with partner Tom Cokinos, they rented a small building along the new Route 66 just outside of Litchfield, IL for the second Ariston Cafe.  But this was during the depths of the Great Depression and Pete's banker told him that he should think about giving up one of the two restaurants.  He decided to keep the one in Litchfield since it was now right on Route 66. 

After being there for about five years, the two commissioned contractor Henry Vasel to build a new restaurant directly across the road to the west.  The new Ariston Cafe opened in the summer of 1935.  Adam and Cokinos put in a couple of gas pumps in front of the place.  The Ariston Cafe quickly became a favorite place to stop for motorists traveling the "Mother Road" between St. Louis and Chicago. 

Pete Adam eventually bought out Tom Cokinos and ran the restaurant until the mid-60's.  During the Christmas holiday of 1965, Pete's son, Nick, came home to see his parents.  Nick was living in Pittsburgh where he had a full time job, plus he was getting ready to marry his fiancee, Demi, in January and settling in the Steel City.   But Nick saw that his father - now 75 - was having a tough time at the restaurant.  Plans changed and after Nick and Demi got married, they stayed in Litchfield to run the restaurant.  Nick had planned to run the restaurant for only a couple three years and then moving on.  But it turned out that he ran the restaurant for the next 40+ years.

In the mid-70's, the Adam's added a banquet room to the north side of the restaurant and expanded the kitche.  But pretty much everything in the original building is still the same including the counter and the booths.  The original brick outer shell on the building is still in place today as is the original Budweiser neon sign on the front of the building.  In 2006, the Ariston Cafe was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Pictured at left - Nick and Demi Adam.  (Photo courtesy Litchfield Journal-News.)

In 2014, Nick Adam - then 75 years old - decided to put the cafe up for sale.  His son, Paul, had been involved in the business for 10 years, but he had no ambitions to run the restaurant after his parents retired.  Locals and Route 66 historians alike were up in arms with the announcement that the Adam family was putting the place up for sale.  But as of late 2015, the Adam's still owned the restaurant.  It was still for sale, but Nick Adam has had to quell rumors that it was closing.  Last month, Nick and Demi Adam celebrated their 50th year of running the Ariston Cafe.

The Ariston Cafe is located just past the corner of Columbian Blvd. and W. Union Ave on what is designated as Old Route 66 in Litchfield.  (see map)  It's right across the street from the Litchfield Route 66 Museum and Welcome Center.   I parked in the parking lot on the north side of the building and went around to the front door.  In front of the door were two men in black suits, just hanging out.  Across the street were a gaggle of people holding signs protesting budget cuts to social services in Illinois.  I didn't quite know what that was all about as I went inside.  

I was seated at a table in the main dining room.  It was like stepping back into the 1930's.  Old pictures from around the Litchfield area hung on the walls.  I was given a menu and my server, Brittany, came over to greet me.  Brittany was a petite young lady, emphasis on the petite. 

Next to me was a gentleman in a black suit enjoying his lunch.  He was dressed similarly to the two guys standing out in front of the place.  Owner Nick Adam sidled up to the man and I heard him ask if he was part of the Governor's security detail.  The guy sort of laughed and said that he was not.  Then it hit me - Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner was having lunch in the restaurant.  That's why there were two guys standing out front and why there were protesters across the street from the restaurant. 

Actually, he was back in the large banquet room that was added in the 1970's.  Somewhere in the picture above right is the Governor having lunch.  So, I guess you could say that I had lunch with the Governor. 

I was definitely thinking about getting a pork tenderloin sandwich, but they had a number of other things to choose from on the menu.  In addition to appetizers and salads, they had a little bit of everything - steaks, seafood, Italian dishes, Southern-style entrees, and Mexican specialties.  They features a number of sandwiches including burgers, and they also had a pretty impressive list of beers to choose from. 

After considering the prime rib of beef sandwich and the hot beef sandwich for a moment, I decided to go with what I came in for - the pork tenderloin sandwich.  It wasn't the flattened hubcap-sized pork tenderloin sandwich that you find at some places, which was a plus in my book.  It was a regular-sized pork chop battered, deep-fried, and served on a regular bun.  I got some pickles and sliced onions to go along with the sandwich.  (Yellow mustard was on the table.)

However, the pork tenderloin was woefully overcooked.  The outer shell was beyond crispy and had that sort of burnt oil taste to it.  The pork was tough to chew and it was difficult to get down the gullet.  The sandwich came with some basic crinkle-cut fries and they were basically just a throwaway for me.  All in all, I was pretty disappointed in this pork tenderloin.  They kept it in the deep fryer too long and that killed the taste. 

After I finished up, Brittany tried to entice me with some housemade pies as well as the Ariston Cafe's famous baklava.  I was already getting heartburn from the overcooked sandwich so I passed on the dessert. 

Even though I was disappointed in my pork tenderloin sandwich, I think the experience at the Ariston Cafe was pleasant enough.  The service was efficient, there's a lot of history in the place (it may be the oldest restaurant along the original Route 66), and the atmosphere was cozy and welcoming.  I would probably try something else at the Ariston Cafe at some point.  They haven't been in business for over 90 years by selling bad food.  

La Mestiza - Madison, WI

On a visit to Madison a couple of years ago, I was talking with one of my accounts about Mexican restaurants in the area.  He was telling me of a place on the west side of Madison in a small strip mall by the name of La Mestiza that he thought was very good.  I finally made it to La Mestiza during a recent visit up to Madison.  

Mexican native Antonio Estrada moved to Chicago in 2000 from his home town of Aguascalientes with the hope to learn English while working in restaurants there.  He got into information technology, but still wanted to run his own restaurant.  He ended up moving to Madison in 2006 and got together with Armando Cristobal, a restaurant veteran (and formerly a chef at Frontera Grill in Chicago) and then a regional manager for Qdoba locations in and around Madison.  The two opened up La Mestiza in 2007 in the Market Square shopping complex on Madison's west side.  (see map)

The name La Mestiza comes from the term Mestizo which means a person or culture that is a mix of European (Spanish or Portuguese) and North American indigenous people.  Estrada and Cristobal came from different parts of Mexico, and along with friends and family they came up with the diverse recipes for the foods served at the restaurant.  All of the food they made was housemade and fresh, using only ingredients that were true to the homemade foods they had years before in Mexico.  

Armando Cristobal left La Mestiza in 2010 to open up two other Mexican restaurants in the Madison area - Limon and Cilantro.  Limon closed in 2011 and Cilantro closed in 2012.  Antonio Estrada briefly had a La Mestiza location in downtown Madison, but the original one on Odana Road is the only one open at this time.  

I pulled into the parking lot in front of La Mestiza.  The lot was packed with cars and I found a single spot open a far bit away from the restaurant.  I thought to myself, "Wow!  This place must be popular!  This lot is packed!"  It turns out that the parking lot also is for a movie theater complex behind the building that houses La Mestiza.  There were - maybe - 8 people in the place when I walked in.  

A server greeted me and said that I could sit anywhere.  I took a booth toward the front by the window.  La Mestiza was not a large place - it had 9 or 10 booths with a couple of six-seat tables in the middle.  Light fixtures with Edison light bulbs hung above each booth.  She handed me a menu and not long afterward a young lady with a thick Spanish accent came over to greet me.  I ordered a Margarita de Lujo - fresh squeezed lime juice and silver tequila.  

After I got some fresh - and I mean fresh - tortilla chips along with a somewhat spicy red salsa and a creamy green tomatillo sauce, my young server came over with a shaker and a martini glass.  She expertly shook the ingredients of my margarita and poured it into the glass.  The margarita was excellent, as was the chips and the salsa - especially the green salsa.  

To say the menu at La Mestiza is interesting is quite the understatement.  They had four different types of chicken enchiladas, achiote marinated pork, chile rellenos stuffed with cheese, and Borrego en Chile Pasilla - lamb shoulder simmered with dark pasilla chile peppers.  

I was in quite the quandary as what to get.  My server had earlier told me what the special was that evening and I didn't know what it was.  When I asked again what the special was again and she told me.  "What's that," I asked quizzically.

In her heavy accent, she said, "Pork."  

Then it hit me - she was telling me the special was carnitas.  Only her accent didn't make it sound like it was carnitas.  I felt stupid and told her that I'd have the carnitas dinner.  

She brought it out and it looked simply delicious.  There was a large portion of the slow-cooked shredded pork on the plate along with a scoop full of rice, some refried beans, fresh chopped cilantro and a dollop of guacamole.  The only thing that she didn't bring were some tortilla shells - fresh made in the kitchen, I might add.  I guess I could have asked for some, but there was so much pork on the plate that I still would have had pork left over even if I'd filled three tortillas.  

Well, not only did it look delicious, it WAS delicious.  The carnitas were moist, flavorful, tender, mouthwatering - everything that great carnitas are supposed to taste like.  I concentrated on the carnitas primarily, but mixed some of the pork up with the rice, cilantro and guacamole.  There was a lot of food on the plate and I couldn't finish it all.  

The person who told me about La Mestiza was spot on with his assessment of the food served there.  Everything - from the specialty margarita to the chips and excellent salsa to the carnitas with the rice, guacamole and cilantro - was fresh and full of flavor.   Sometimes the best Mexican places are the little hole-in-the-wall joints that serve interesting foods.  La Mestiza is just that kind of place.  There's nothing "American-ized" about the Mexican food they serve there.  

Heinnies - Elkhart, IN

I've had a place on my "Restaurants to Eat" list for quite sometime after I'd read about their burgers being some of the best in the Midwest.  I came to find that their steaks are also pretty popular with the people who have gone there for over 60 years.  On a late day trip from Fort Wayne to South Bend, I drove through Elkhart and stopped off for dinner at Heinnies.  

Even though the place opened in 1951, the legacy behind Heinnies goes back even further - into the days of Prohibition.  That's when Tom DeShone opened a little speakeasy as part of his hotel in the downtown Elkhart.  DeShone would ferry illegal booze from Chicago and offer entertainment and gambling in his little place near the tracks in Elkhart.  

His son Henry - a.k.a. Heinnie (pronounced HI-nee) - worked for his dad helping run the hotel and what later became a licensed bar after Prohibition.  Around 1950, the U.S. Postal Service wanted the land that the bar stood on to build a new post office.  Looking around for land to purchase to build a new place, Heinnie found a small tract of land on Lusher Ave. which, at the time, was pretty much on the outskirts of Elkhart.  It's still the spot where Heinnies sits today.  (see map)  People thought he was nuts to build a bar that far out of town, but he went ahead and did so.  Heinnie ran the front of the small place while his wife, Maxine, ran the kitchen making sandwiches (hot beef or cold ham) and soup (bean or chili).  

20 years after opening on Lusher Ave., Heinnie's son Harry joined the family business.  After Heinnie died in 1979, Harry expanded the bar area.  In 1985, he added a restaurant in the back of the place - the Back Barn.  Harry DeShone's son, Troy, was already working at the place, and after building the restaurant in the back he convinced his other son, Bill, to quit his electronics job in Albuquerque and move back to help run the family business.  Harry sold the business to his boys in 1987 and they continue to run Heinnies today.  Bill and Troy's children are now also working in the bar/restaurant making it five generations of the DeShone family working in the family business.  

It was around 7:30 when I pulled into the parking lot on the side of Heinnie's.  I went through a side door under an awning that had "Heinnies Back Barn" printed on the canopy.  I was met at the hostess stand by a young woman who directed me to a high-walled booth in the dining area.  All of the eating areas were surrounded by high barn-board walls so there wasn't a good photo opportunity of the dining room.

The tables were covered with a vinyl faux-cowhide print.  The dining room was well-lit and featured some antique items on a landing above the dining area.  My server for the evening - Sharon - came by to take my drink order.  I ordered a Sam Adams beer while I looked through the menu.    

Their signature burger at Heinnies is the Claybaugh, two seasoned beef patties topped with American, Swiss, mozzarella and cheddar cheese, then they throw on bacon, mushrooms, grilled onions, lettuce and a tomato slice.  That actually sounded pretty good, but I thought it would have been too much for me.  While I did want to try a burger, I'd had one earlier in the day and didn't feel like having another that evening.  (Photo courtesy South Bend Tribune.)

Other featured items on Heinnies menu included a 1/3 lb. pork loin sandwich that you can get either grilled or breaded and deep-fried, seafood such as baked or battered and fried orange roughy, and prime rib that is served Monday, Friday and Saturday.   They have a 20 ounce "Clydesdale" cut in addition to a 16 ounce and a 10 ounce cut of prime rib.  

I decided upon getting a steak, but the only size of filet they had on the menu was a 6 ounce cut.  I was more hungry than that, so I ended up getting the New York strip, the 10 ounce size.  Sharon, who seemed rather indifferent as a server, casually asked me if I wanted any sautéed mushrooms with the steak.  Sure!  I love sautéed mushrooms!  I got a side of rice rather than a potato side.  I figured between the steak and the mushrooms, that would be enough food.

I started out with a basic dinner salad with blue cheese dressing that was served in a small plastic container.  I thought, "How Midwestern!"  The salad featured fresh greens with thick cut onion slices, cherry tomatoes and shaved cabbage.  The blue cheese dressing was thick and didn't go very far.  I could have used a second tub of dressing.  

I was still working on my salad when Sharon brought out my steak and wordlessly set it down in front of me.  The small sautéed button mushrooms were loaded on the New York strip, almost covering the piece of beef.  A piece of grilled garlic bread was served with the steak.  

The steak was, well, all right.  It wasn't anything that was extraordinary, nor was it sub-par.  It was a little overcooked from the medium-rare that I'd asked for, but it wasn't that bad.  It had a nice juiciness to the cut and had a nice steak flavor.  

The mushrooms, however, I wish I would have gotten them on the side.  The earthiness of the mushrooms was prevalent and detracted from the taste of the beef.  They were also very salty and for someone who doesn't eat a lot of salt, they were almost too salty.

But I will say that what struck me the most about the meal was how good the grilled bread was.  It had a succinct taste and full of flavor.  I sopped up some of the juice from the steak with the bread and it made it taste even better.   

Before I left, I took a look around at the bar area of Heinnies.  It looks like someone is a big race car fan at the restaurant as there were loads of race car pictures and memorabilia on the walls in the bar area.  I took a couple pictures of the bar area, but they were too blurry to put on here.  It looked like it would be a nice place to belly up to the bar.  

My experience at Heinnies was fine.  The New York strip was all right, albeit a tad overcooked for my tastes.  My server seemed a little disinterested and very neutral in her demeanor.  The atmosphere was fine, even down to the vinyl faux-cowhide table covers.  I am going back at some point to get a burger from Heinnies.  I have feeling that it will be even better than the steak.     

Sonny Bryan's - Dallas, TX

Well, of course we had to get barbecue when we were in Dallas for the CEDIA Expo last fall and the Godfather of Dallas barbecue joints is quite possibly Sonny Bryan's whose family has been doing barbecue in the Big D for over 100 years.  There happened to be a Sonny Bryan's in the historic West End entertainment district, about a 10 minute walk from our hotel.  Our group took off on foot on an unseasonably warm evening to go have barbecue at Sonny Bryan's.  

It was 1910 when Elias Bryan moved from Cincinnati to Dallas with his family and opened his barbecue place in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas.  Elias Bryan had come up with a new way to smoke meats with sausage being his specialty.  He would place the meats in large pans and smoke them over a mesquite fire.   Bryan's oldest son, William Jennings - also known as Red - (and not the former Presidential candidate, but named for him) helped his father out in the barbecue business, but had dreams of doing something else with his life after he graduated from Oak Cliff High School in 1920.  The younger Bryan went to Southern Methodist University and studied botany in hopes of being a florist after college.  And he did just that, graduating in 1924 and opening his own floral shop.

Pictured right - Elias Bryan.  Photo courtesy Texas Monthly BBQ.

After Elias Bryan passed away in 1929, Red Bryan realized that the Oak Cliff area was growing and the residents had an insatiable appetite for his father's barbecued meats, Red Bryan decided it was time to get into the barbecue business to continue his father's legacy.  He sold his floral shop and bought an old tin street car that he set up on W. Jefferson St. as Red Bryan's Smokehouse in 1930.  "The Tin Shack" served all walks of life from captains of business to blue collar workers trying to make their way through the Great Depression.  Red Bryan sold burgers for 5 cents and barbecue sandwiches for a dime.  

As World War II raged, Red Bryan started to think that it was time to get out of the barbecue business.  He put this business up for sale in November of 1942 for just $1500.  His sales were averaging around $800 a month, so it was clear that Red wanted to sell and sell fast.  However, there were no takers for the business and the Bryan family barbecue legacy stayed intact.  

Pictured left - William Jennings "Red" Bryan.  Photo courtesy Texas Monthly BBQ. 

In 1946, Red decided that it was time to get out of the old street car and he commissioned famed Dallas architect Charles Dilbeck to come up with a new building that would seat up to 200 people.  The new Red Bryan's Smokehouse opened down the road on Jefferson at Llewellyn on February 13, 1947, the exact same date that his father had opened his barbecue place 37 years prior.  

The new building didn't come without a healthy cost.  Estimates are that it cost around $50,000 to build (that's around $535,000 to $550,000 in 2016 money) and because of that Red had to raise prices, but he also added items to the menu such as ribs, smoked chicken, steak sandwiches and - the most important item when it comes to barbecue (in my book) - cold beer.  The restaurant was open from 7 a.m. to 12 a.m. seven days a week.  It featured cowhide booth seats, table-top warmers for the barbecue sauce (can't have cold or even room temperature barbecue sauce on Texas barbecue), and had a huge stone fireplace near the entrance.  Much of the stone work on the outside of the ranch-style building was salvaged from an old East Texas courthouse.  

Red Bryan's son, William Jennings II - who was known as Sonny - worked for his father in the new building.  Sonny Bryan lived in the apartment above the restaurant and learned all the family secrets of barbecue.  But Sonny saw that the new place was zapping the life out of his father.  When Red was in the "Tin Shack", he was making the sandwiches and interacting with the customers.  In the new building, all the meals were made in the kitchen and sent out to customers via servers.  Sonny Bryan observed that his father wasn't happy in the new place, even though business was booming.   Red Bryan had literally handed the keys to the place over to his son and he began a career as a prominent member of the Dallas City Council.  

But it was beer that was possibly the cause of Red getting out of his eponymous restaurant.  In 1957, a temperance group headed by members of churches around the area voted to make Oak Cliff dry.  By this time, Red had had enough of the business and he ended up selling the place in 1958.   (The original building is still there - it houses a Mexican restaurant.)  

While all this was going on over a 10 year (or so) period, Red's younger brother, Fred Bryan, had moved to the West Coast in the early 50's and began selling barbecue sandwiches - made with the Bryan family barbecue sauce recipe - out of a stall at the Los Angeles Farmers Market.   (Even though Fred Bryan's family sold the spot in 2011 after 60 years of ownership, Bryan's Pit Barbecue is still located at Stall 740 in the market.)  

After Red sold the restaurant in Dallas, he got into the frozen meat business where he made a line of pre-cooked frozen barbecued meats and sold them in grocery stores.  The Bryan brothers must not have gotten along very well because Red Bryan began to send frozen packages of barbecue to Los Angeles to sell against his brother at the L.A. Farmers Market.  That only lasted for a couple three years up to the time that Red sold the frozen meat business to another company.  

To carry on the Bryan family name in barbecue, Sonny Bryan decided to strike out on his own.  In 1958, Sonny convinced his wife Joanne that they needed to open their own barbecue place.  But they needed to raise capital to do so.  Sonny and Joanne sold their house, sold their beloved 1955 Ford Thunderbird car, and sold a collection of antique Colt rifles and pistols to get the money to open the business.  They had only been able to put $6500 into the new place which was located at Inwood Road and Harry Hines Blvd, not far from Parkland Hospital.  The Bryan's opened their barbecue place on - yep, that's right - February 13, 1958.  They were on such a tight budget that they didn't even have the electricity turned on for their opening day.  

Pictured right - William Jennings "Sonny" Bryan II.  Photo courtesy Texas Monthly BBQ.

Five years after Sonny opened his smokehouse, he found himself in direct competition with his father who was flush with money from the frozen barbecue meat business he had just sold.  Red Bryan - who also doubled as a distributor for rotisserie smokers - opened up what became four locations of a new rendition of Red Bryan's Smokehouse.  But he also had a franchise idea that he tried to get off the ground - literally.  He devised a complete barbecue restaurant on a trailer and called it The Bar-B-Q House.  The "pop-up" barbecue smokehouse wasn't like the food trucks of today - they actually had seating in a dining area, they were air-conditioned, and they were outfitted with an Oyler rotisserie smoker - the same ones that Red was the distributor for.  He tried to franchise the concept, but it never really caught on. 

A Dallas Cowboys fan since they came to town in 1960, Red Bryan was enjoying a Cowboys game in his plush seats at the then new Texas Stadium in 1973 when he suffered a stroke and died not long after.  But his barbecue legacy continued with Sonny Bryan's Smokehouse.  

Sonny had two sons, William Jennings III - known as Bill - and Burt.  They both began to work in the restaurant as 10-year-olds starting out as dish washers.  Bill and Burt learned enough about the restaurant business that they decided that they didn't want to follow in the family tradition.  Both became doctors - Bill is now Dr. Bill Bryan, the Associate Dean of Student Affairs at Southern Methodist, while Dr. Burt Bryan is on the faculty at Texas A&M's Health Science Center's Baylor College of Dentistry as an assistant professor in the school's Department of Restorative Sciences.    

Sonny Bryan once said the smartest thing he ever did was not expand or franchise out his restaurant.  He continued to run his smokehouse until his health began to deteriorate.  In 1989, he ended up selling the Sonny Bryan's business, complete with the family recipes, to a group of four long-time customers to carry on the Sonny Bryan's name.  Sonny Bryan died of cancer at the age of 63 just a few months after selling the business.  (Joanne Bryan passed away in 2005.)  

Even though Sonny Bryan never wanted to expand his business, the group of investors did just that.  In addition to the original Sonny Bryan's on Inwood Rd, there are six other locations in the greater Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex.   The group of investors - headed by CEO Brent Harman - continues to run the Sonny Bryan's Smokehouse restaurants.  

(For those of you worried about the legacy of the Bryan family in the barbecue business, there's actually another Bryan family member that is involved in making barbecue.  David Bryan Harris - the son of Red Bryan's youngest of two sisters, Mildred - opened David's Barbecue in Arlington, TX in 1988 using the same family recipes and smoking methods that were started by his grandfather, Elias Bryan.  Today, David Bryan Harris' son, Jimmy Harris, is the owner and pitmaster of David's Barbecue.)  

The Sonny Bryan's location in the West End is located on N. Market Street at the corner of Elm.  (see map)  Being from the Quad Cities, I saw the name "Moline" above the front door of the entrance to Sonny Bryan's.  It turns out that this Sonny Bryan's location is housed in what was the old Moline Machinery office building that was used for the Dallas operations in the early 1900's.  

Inside the restaurant, it featured a long and narrow dining area with an open kitchen in the middle.  Our hostess took us toward the back part of the restaurant and sat us at a large table that was entirely too close to other large tables.  Getting up to go to the bathroom was sort of a hassle - you had to sort of zig-zag around tables and then had to push in a code to activate an elevator that took you to the restrooms on the lower level of the building. 

The menu at Sonny Bryan's is your typical barbecue fare - there isn't a lot of things to choose from and that was fine with me.  Ribs, barbecue sandwiches, pulled pork, brisket and chicken entrees were available.  Of course, we had to get a couple large orders of Sonny Bryan's huge and thick onion rings to start out.  The onion rings were big and delicious.  You almost needed a knife and a fork to eat them. 

For my meal, I got a combo plate that consisted of two pork ribs, pulled pork, sliced brisket (I could have also gotten chopped brisket - East Texas-style) and a side of baked beans and green bean casserole.  I had ordered a Deep Ellum IPA, a locally brewed India Pale Ale when I first sat down.  Then I pulled my head out of my butt and ordered a Lone Star - the National Beer of Texas - to go along with my Texas barbecue. 

The ribs were good - not the best I've had, but good for where we were.  They had a nice smoke ring along the edge and were easy to chew off the bone.  With the warm barbecue sauce - naturally - served in a Corona beer bottle, the ribs were pretty tasty. 

I got about three slices of the brisket.  The brisket was yummy.  It, too, had a nice smoke ring around the outer edge of the meat.  It was easy to cut with a fork and tasted good with the rather basic sweet and tangy Sonny Bryan's sauce. 

But the best thing on the plate was the pulled pork.  Moist and flavorful with a good smoky taste, I didn't put much of the barbecue sauce on the pulled pork because it was good on its own.  In fact, there was a lot of meat on the plate and I didn't eat much of the baked beans - which were good - and the green bean casserole - which was, basically, just green bean casserole.  

Our marketing guy who hails from Montreal was seated next to me and he got the rib dinner.  It consisted of 7 or 8 meat pork ribs with a couple of sides of his choosing.  He didn't really know what fried okra was and a couple of us talked him into getting the okra along with the mac & cheese side.  He sort of chuckled that mac & cheese was considered a side at a barbecue restaurant.  But he seemed to like the ribs just fine.  He pretty much devoured them and still had room to eat some of the okra - which he discovered that he liked - and the mac & cheese. 

I believe everyone was happy with their meals at Sonny Bryan's.  For the first stab at real Texas barbecue I think it's probably best to go to Sonny Bryan's and then go out from there.  My barbecue was good - not the best I've had considering I've had some great barbecue in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Memphis in my travels over the past few years.  But there's something sort of religious about Texas barbecue and while the West End Sonny Bryan's isn't quite like worshiping at the barbecue alter at the original location, this was good enough barbecue on its own. 

Eataly - Chicago

When Eataly opened in Chicago to much fanfare in late 2013, it immediately went toward the top of the list of places I wanted to visit.  And after friends had gone and raved about the place, it shot to the top.  The only problem is that my wife put her foot down and said that we both had to visit the place at the same time.  So, I've passed Eataly on E. Ohio St. in downtown Chicago (see map) a handful of times over the past couple of years, but never went in.  With a late December birthday for my wife, we decided to go in and check out Eataly when we stayed in downtown Chicago just before Christmas. 

The concept of Eataly is pretty simple - it's an all-encompassing Italian market that features everything from a pastry shop, to a fishmonger, to a wine shop, to a butcher counter, to a brick oven bakery, to a cured meats and cheese area, to eight separate restaurants.  And it's all under one roof.  Eataly is the brain-child of Italian entrepreneur Oscar Farinetti who opened the first Eataly in Turin, Italy in 2007.

In 1967, Farinetti's father, Paolo, started a small supermarket in the city of Alba, Italy.  Paolo Farinetti was a follower of Altiero Spinneli, an Italian writer and politician who envisioned a united Europe long before the European Union was formed in the early 1990's.  Farinetti called his supermarket UniEuro and it featured a little bit of everything from basic groceries to small electronics.

Oscar Farinetti joined his father in the business after he graduated from college in 1978.  The younger Farinetti focused on consumer electronics within the store and the business began to take off.  Oscar Farinetti eventually took over UniEuro and expansion took it from a handful of stores in the late 70's to over 150 stores by the turn of the century. 

Pictured right - Oscar Farinetti

Farinetti sold UniEuro in 2003 and turned his attention to a new concept - an open market, an upscale food court, and a culinary learning center all under one roof.   In January of 2007, Farinetti opened the first Eataly in Turin in a 30,000 foot space in what was once a vermouth factory.  A second Eataly opened in Tokyo in September of 2008.

Oscar Farinetti wanted to put a store in New York City, but he ran into a big obstacle - the economic crisis of 2008 caused a series of investors to pull their support.  It was in 2008 when he met Joe Bastianich, a restaurateur and world-class sommelier from New York City who was a partner with his mother, author, restaurateur and Emmy Award-winning television chef Lydia Bastianich, and celebrity chef Mario Batali in the B&B Hospitality Group of restaurants. 

Pictured left - Joe Bastianich, Lydia Bastianich and Mario Batali.

Intrigued with bringing the Eataly concept to Manhattan, Joe Bastianich brought in brothers Adam and Alex Saper into the investment group for the New York Eataly.  Adam Saper had spent summers during his youth in Italy and fell in love with Italian food and culture.  After graduating from Columbia, Adam Saper spent a year in Florence, Italy before coming back to New York to work as the business development director of a medical equipment company.  His travels took him overseas and he visited Italy on business on a few occasions.  It was during one of his visits that he found Eataly in Turin and he fell in love with the place. 

Adam Saper raved about Eataly to his brother, Alex, who was a frustrated financial planner who also loved everything about Italy as well.  Alex started to work for the original Eataly and was instrumental in opening the Tokyo location as well as other locations around Italy.  (There are now over 30 Eataly locations in Italy.) 

Pictured right - Adam and Alex Saper

On August 30, 2010, Farinetti, the B&B Hospitality Group, and the Saper brothers opened the New York Eataly in a 50,000 square foot space in Manhattan's Flatiron district.  The New York Times called Eataly a "megastore that combines elements of a bustling European open market, a Whole Foods-style supermarket, a high-end food court and a New Age learning center."

Looking to expand across North America and into South America, the group set their sights on Chicago and found a large space (63,000 square feet) that formerly housed the ESPN Zone sports bar and restaurant on E. Ohio St.  They opened the Chicago Eataly on December 2, 2013 and from the start the crowds in the place were tremendous.  Lines formed on E. Ohio St. to get into Eataly and it continued that way for a number of months after it opened. 

Since the Chicago opening, additional Eataly's have opened in places such as Munich, Istanbul, Seoul, and a mega-location opened in Rome.  The group of investors in the New York and Chicago Eataly locations have opened an Eataly in Sao Paulo, Brazil and are looking to open other Eataly locations in North and South America in the future. 

There are two floors to Eataly and below left is the map of the first floor of the place.  You enter Eataly from Ohio Street and you turn right to enter the main welcoming area of the place.  (Click on the map below left to get a larger view.) 

The first thing you see is a customer service kiosk that is manned by a couple of employees to help answer any questions.  They have maps of the two floors at Eataly and I highly suggest you take one on your first visit.

From there, just wander about.  There are no set traffic patterns at Eataly so you can go in any direction you like.  The first thing that we were drawn to was the pastry shop.  Fresh mouth-watering pastries were brought out through a window from the baking area and put into the pastry case.  A number of cakes were in a glass enclosed cooler behind the pastry counter.

Next to the pastry area was the Venchi dark chocolate counter.  Venchi dark chocolates started in Turin, Italy in the late 1870's and are known worldwide for their rich flavor and blended aromas.  Many of the Eataly locations around the world feature a Venchi dark chocolate counter.

The first floor at Eataly featured a Nutella bar, a coffee cafe, and a gelato counter.  We came back to Eataly for some gelato one evening after going out for dinner as it was just around the corner from our hotel.  I got a lemon gelato and Cindy got a hazelnut coffee gelato.  I'm such a sucker for any type of frozen treat that has lemon in it and the gelato served at Eataly was simply excellent.  It was thick, creamy and full of flavor.  Cindy's hazelnut coffee gelato was equally as good as what I had.  

Also on the first floor were a number of housewares and gadgets for the kitchen.  I always like looking through the gadgets to see if there's something that grabs my attention and makes my life easier when cooking.  There was also a large area near the cashiers area that was full of imported coffees, teas and sweets.  Organic foods, juices and milk were in a refrigerated case in this area, as well. 

After lingering downstairs for awhile, we headed up the escalator to the second floor.  Below left is the map for the second floor.  (Click on the map to get a larger view.)  The first floor was impressive.  But the second floor is what truly makes Eataly an interesting place. 

In the center of the floor is La Piazza - an area fashioned after an old world Italian city square where friends and family gather for food and wine.  There are a number of small counters around the La Piazza that feature different foods to choose from.  One can pick something out from one or more of the counters, take it to a table to dine and linger over a glass of wine. 

We noticed that one of the counter stations featured an oyster bar.  They had oysters on ice behind the counter.  No one was at the station when we were there, but we thought it might be fun to come back at some point and belly up to the oyster bar, down a dozen on-the-halfshell and enjoy a glass of chardonnay.   

Also near La Piazza is Eataly's La Rosticceria - a rotisserie that features a number of roasted meats.  I understand that Eataly is famous for their roasted prime rib sandwiches with the beef coming from Donley Ranch near Ellsworth, KS.  Donley Ranch is somewhat famous for their grass-fed 100% black angus prime beef.  Rotisserie chicken at La Rosticceria comes from 3 different independent range-free farms located near Lancaster, PA.  Each day La Rositcceria features a different roasted meat special and the meats are available on panini or bread baked there at Eataly.  

The one thing that you can't miss on the second floor is the cheese counter.  It's one of the largest cheese counters that I've ever seen. 

They had hundreds of different types of imported cheese choose from.  The amount of cheese they offered was quite dizzying.  If you asked for romano cheese, they would probably ask if you wanted pecorino (made from sheep's milk), vaccino (cow's milk), or caprino (goat's milk) romano cheese.  And they may ask you if it matters which area from Italy where the cheese was made.    

Eataly featured a number of large cheese wheels on display with signage that asked people not to touch the wheels.  The one thing that we liked about Eataly were the number of small signs on or near the foods on display that explained what that particular food was all about, what it was used for, how it was made, etc. 

The blue cheese in the cheese counter was also very interesting.  There was a staggering number of blue cheese bricks and wheels in the counter.  And because it's all imported, I'm guessing that's why I didn't see any Maytag blue cheese in the display. 

Behind the cheese counter is a long self-serve cooler full of dozens of different types of cheese to choose from.  The amount of cheese they had available was just mind-blowing. 

Along with cheese, you gotta have some meat.  They had a great charcuterie section next to the cheese area.  Eataly had practically any type of Italian meat you could think of.  I considered picking up some Italian meats to take home, but we decided on our first visit we'd just get the lay of the land and not get caught up in buying stuff that we necessarily didn't need to get. 

From the charcuterie section, we wandered around a corner and found the meat counter.  Now, this was far from your neighborhood grocery meat counter.  They had some pretty amazing things in the meat case.

It was tough to miss the tomahawk prime aged ribeye in the case.  Long rib bones stuck out of a slab of beef and I had a hard time imagining how I would be able to cook a couple of those on the grill.  And at nearly $39 bucks a pound, these guys weren't cheap. 

The meat counter also featured regular cuts of beef, lamb and pork.  Some of the beef offered at butcher shop was dry aged.  No, this was not your typical Fareway or Hy-Vee  meat counter.  Eataly sources their no-hormones/no-antibiotics beef from family-owned free-range farms and use 100% Black Angus prime beef as well as Piemontese beef.  Piemontese beef originated from Italy from the Piemontese cattle breed.  It is supposedly more lean and lower in cholesterol and calories, and is recognized as some of the finest beef on the planet.  Eataly sources their Piemontese beef from the Toro Ranch near Broken Bow, NE which calls their beef by the Americanized "Piedmontese" name. 

Around the corner from the meat counter were the coolers they use to dry age their beef.  They age their beef anywhere from 28 to 40 days at Eataly.  Quite actually, I'm not that big on aged beef.  I've had a aged beef a number of times at restaurants and - to me - I'm not really sure that it's that significantly better than a day-old cut of beef.  I will admit that some of the aged beef I have had has been excellent, but other times it's just sort of a let down.  I guess it varies from steakhouse to steakhouse.    

We then went from the land to the sea.  Eataly has an extensive fishmonger counter that features a number of fresh seafood on display. 

The seafood is flown in on a daily basis and is never frozen.  They had an extensive array of fish both ocean caught and farm-raised.   The salmon looked especially delicious.  We thought about taking some back home, but we didn't bring a cooler with us. 

The fresh pasta counter was especially busy.  The case was filled with house-made pastas including meat filled ravioli, balls of angelhair pasta, and spinach fettucine.  Prepared foods were also available for those who would like to heat the food up at home.  Of course, the house-made pasta wasn't cheap, but it's a step above the boxed or bagged dry pasta.

Speaking of pasta, Eataly had a huge section of imported dry pastas in dozens of diverse styles.  We noticed that they had only imported pastas which included Barilla brand pastas.  Barilla has a large pasta plant outside of Ames, IA, but all the dry pastas in the Barilla boxes on the shelves all came from Italy. 

One of the more popular places during our initial visits to Eataly was La Birreria, a beer bar/brew pub that looked out over the corner of Ohio and Wabash streets.  It featured house-brewed beers, a handful of craft and microbrews, as well as imported beers from Italy.  Appetizers were also available in La Birreria, but I'm guessing that you could bring food in from other areas in Eataly. 

The brewery was right next door featuring a number of vessels for brewing the beers.  La Birreria brews four different types of beers - a Belgian strong ale (8.9% ABV), a rye-based pale ale, an India pale ale and an English-style brown ale.  

There are over a dozen different eating venues within Eataly.  And that doesn't include Baffo, a Mario Batali/Joe Bastianich restaurant that is part of Eataly, but has a separate entrance on E. Grand Ave. on the back side of the complex.  One of the more popular places was La Pizza and La Pasta, a pizza and pasta restaurant on the second floor.  Eataly teamed up with Rossopomodoro, a Naples-based pizza maker to bring authentic Napoli pizza to the U.S.  The pizza kitchen featured two large wood-fired copper-clad pizza ovens and a fresh pasta kitchen was off to the side.  People were standing in line to be seated in the area even in the middle of the afternoon. 

Next to La Pizza and La Pasta was Osteria de Eataly.  This was originally La Carne, a meat-centric restaurant that was changed in early 2015 after a number Eataly patrons were confused by the lack of a non-Italian-centric restaurant within the complex.  Osteria de Eataly features a menu that is more along the traditional lines of Italian cooking with three or four course meals available. 

Also on the second floor, you'll find Il Pesce and Le Verdure, a restaurant that featured fresh seafood complemented by fresh vegetables. The menu changes constantly in this area given the availability of fresh ingredients.  

One thing that I noticed on the walls of the second floor - well, actually, throughout the whole Eataly complex - were a number of photographs and quotes from Ernest Hemingway.  Hemingway was born and raised in suburban Oak Park and spent an amount of time in the Venice and Treviso areas of northeast Italy.   The area - known as Veneto - is famous for the love of wine and food by its people.  The Eataly ownership group decided to pay homage to one of the Chicago area's famous sons who also had ties to Italy by displaying a number of pictures of Hemingway during his time in Veneto.  

Eataly has a good sized artisanal baking area behind a large plexiglass wall on the second floor.  It featured a huge wood-fired brick oven that baked the in-house made artisanal breads.  The smell of the freshly baked breads on the shelves outside the baking area was heavenly.

Past the olive oils, balsamic vinegars and spices was the extensive wine area of Eataly.  All the way, naturally, was imported from Italy.  Now, I know little to nothing about wines from Italy, but my colleague, Ian, has an extensive knowledge of Italian wines and this was one time that I wished he was around to point out the better wines they had at Eataly.

Eataly featured hundreds of wines from different regions around Italy.  Signs above shelves showed the area where the wines were from.  Also part of the wine area at Eataly was a wine bar - Vino Libero - that offered wines and antipasti plates.  There was also a wine tasting area as part of Vino Libero for people to try the wines they may purchase.

The amount of Italian wines they had at Eataly was staggering.  Shelves were lined with individual crates full of wines.  A locked case featured the high end wines were the prices extended well over $500 a bottle and up. 

Wrapping around the wine area, we ran into the fruits and vegetable area.  The stands were full of all different types of fruits - all looking somewhat out of place at the start of winter.  I mean, they all looked freshly picked and robust.  The lemons were large and looked like they had just been picked from a tree out back. 

The vegetables were equally fresh and the array was impressive.  Fresh herbs and a large number of vegetables were available in this area.  They had signage above the vegetable bins to identify what was what for the untrained eye.  I was sort of mesmerized looking at what they had available.  For mushrooms alone, they had nine different types to choose from.  It was a head-shaking experience.  

And that was it!  We went back to Eataly four times during our time in Chicago.  We didn't want to get sucked in buying a lot of stuff because we knew that it would be very easy to drop a couple hundred dollars on a visit to Eataly.  We stayed conservative - our first visit was just that.  We just wanted to get a lay of the land, so to speak, and not get sucked in by the wonderment of Eataly.  Our second visit was for gelato.  Our third visit was for espresso in the morning, and our fourth visit we did buy some pasta and sauces to take back with us.  But we did say that the next time we went into Chicago with an expressed intent on going back to Eataly, we would need our large cooler.  I'm still not certain about the restaurants yet, but we'll probably try one of the food areas at some point, as well.  Eataly is truly a destination and it's best to budget in a couple hours for your first visit.  But don't be surprised if you end up lingering longer than expected on subsequent visits.  

Stone Eagle Tavern - Hoffman Estates, IL

I have a dealer in the far western suburbs of Chicago and we had been missing each other on a couple previous trips I had made into the area.  We made a point to get together for dinner some evening and he suggested getting together at a place that wasn't far from his home.  The place - Stone Eagle Tavern - was one that I've been wanting to try for quite sometime.  On a weekday evening, we met up at Stone Eagle Tavern in the Chicago suburb of Hoffman Estates.  

Jimmy Vitale was a native of Rockford, IL who in his early 20's was a manager at the famous Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island off the upper peninsula of Michigan.  He moved back to Rockford in 1975 and opened his first restaurant - the wildly popular Jungle Jim's Oyster Bar - one of the first Cajun restaurants in the Midwest.  In addition to a handful of other restaurants that he ran over the years, Vitale also owned the popular Cliffbreakers Hotel and Restaurant in Rockford until he sold the place in 2006.  He was lured out of retirement to be the G.M. of the hotel and restaurant two years later, but was looking to do something more along the lines of another Jungle Jim's Oyster Bar concept.  

In 2009, Vitale opened the Stone Eagle Tavern in Rockford in an old Cheddar's location.  Like the restaurants he ran before this, the Stone Eagle Tavern instantly became a local favorite with a varied and value oriented menu.  But the Stone Eagle Tavern also incorporated a number of architectural antiques into the decor of the building.  These antiques include a couple of stone eagle statues that flank the entrance to the restaurant given the eatery its name.   He got those from a old Federal Bank building in New Jersey.  

Pictured right - Jimmy Vitale

In 2012, Vitale opened a second location in Hoffman Estates hoping to tap into the growing NW Chicago suburbs.  By all accounts it's been a rousing success.  He's looking to add a third Stone Eagle Tavern in the near future, possibly in Madison, WI.  

The Hoffman Estates Stone Eagle Tavern is located between Higgins Road and the Highway 59 Exit of of the Jane Addams Tollway (I-90) located on the south end of the Poplar Creek/Prairie Stone Shopping Center (see map).  Walking past the two big stone eagles out front, I made may way into the place around 6:30 that particular evening.  My dealer had not yet made it into the Stone Eagle Tavern when I got there.  I told the hostess that I'd just go into the bar area and wait for him there.  

As a throwback to the days of the original Jungle Jim's Oyster Bar, the bar at Stone Eagle Tavern features an oyster bar as part of the bar.  However, in keeping with the architectural antique concept of his Rockford restaurant, Vitale installed a beautiful domed stained glass insert that he procured from a place on Long Island into the ceiling.  It gave the bar area sort of a church-like feel to the place.    

Curiously, some of the other displays in the bar area sort of made it look like it was run by the head of a Russian oligarchy.  There was a vintage Indian motorcycle flanked by a stuff lion on one side and a stuffed Bengal tiger on the other.  It sort of made me chuckle and shake my head as it was seemingly out of place for a classy place such as Stone Eagle Tavern.  In contrast to the bar area, the walls in the dining area are adorned with the original walnut panels from the old Continental Bank building in downtown Chicago.  

My dealer showed up not long after I got there and we decided just to eat at the bar.  We took a table and our server for the evening, Jennifer, showed up with a couple of menus.  My dealer had a late night/early morning of travel previously and was just wanting to drink iced tea.  I ordered up a Goose Island Goose IPA.  

The menu at Stone Eagle Tavern is extensive - wood-fired pizzas cooked in an American-made Renato brick oven; oysters on the half-shell, peel-and-eat shrimp, and steamed mussels from the oyster bar; and, of course with a name like Vitale, there has to be a number of Italian specialties on the menu.  Stone Eagle Tavern also features a number of sandwiches, burgers, and appetizers along with a kids menu.  And if you're looking for a good steak, you can ask the server for the "back pocket" menu.  

They also featured a couple of good ol' comfort food items on the menu - the pot roast and the Tavern meatloaf.  I had been eating crap for the past couple of days and comfort food sounded pretty good to me and I got the meatloaf.  It came on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes with a side of cooked carrots.  It was topped with a generous portion of onion straws and finished with a gravy sauce.  

My dealer got the muffuletta sandwich which featured imported salami and ham with cheese, topped with an olive oil dressing and served on a Tuscan-style tomato focaccia bread.  A chopped olive dressing - usually served on a muffuletta sandwich, no questions asked - was in a small bowl off to the side.

The meatloaf was thick cut, but it had sort of a peculiar taste to me.  I thought it might have been the gravy, but it was definitely in the meat.  It had sort of a medicine-like taste to me - sort of like they had put anise in the meat or something like that.  It was noticeable enough to make me think that I didn't care for the taste of it that much.  Still, it was good enough for me to eat nearly the whole slab of the meatloaf.  

My dealer enjoyed his muffuletta sandwich.  He said the sandwich was full of flavor and he said that he liked the bread very much.  It was a big sandwich for the price and he was able to finish all but a couple three bites.  

The food at Stone Eagle Tavern is a very good value - you get a lot for the price.  I don't know if I care that much for the taste of the meatloaf, but my guest enjoyed his muffuletta sandwich.  The decor ranges from curious to elegant, and if there is one problem with our visit was that our server - who was also a bartender - was too busy to take care of customers in her immediate area.  With an extensive and varied menu, Stone Eagle Tavern does everything pretty well, just not great.  And that's the problem with having so many things on a menu to choose from.  But Stone Eagle Tavern seems to do it better than most. 

Colonial Cottage - Erlanger, KY (Cincinnati)

Spending a couple nights in the Kentucky suburbs of Cincinnati, we wanted to find a place to have breakfast before we hit the road for our trip to the Great Smoky Mountains.  We asked a young lady at our hotel where a good place for a good ol' down home breakfast could be found.  She didn't even hesitate when she said, "Oh, you need to go to the Colonial Cottage."  She gave us quick directions and we set out to find the place.  

It turns out that the Colonial Cottage has a somewhat historic past.  In the midst of the Great Depression, Erlanger - a small town about 10 miles south and west of downtown Cincinnati - was the center of tobacco trading with farmers bringing crops to a large warehouse there.  Carla Rich saw an opportunity to serve food to the farmers who visited the city, as well as the local residents, many of whom worked in the tobacco warehouse.  She opened the Colonial Cottage in 1933.

The original Colonial Cottage was a small structure along the road known as the Dixie Highway.  Carla Rich served up delicious home-style breakfasts, lunch and dinner to travels heading to and coming from the South.  There is a story that Elvis Presley supposedly dined in the restaurant when he was on his way back to his home in Tennessee after getting discharged from the U.S. Army.  

Carla Rich ran the restaurant for 37 years before deciding it was time to sell the place.  Verne and Bonnie Epperson lived in Dry Ridge, KY, about 25 miles south of Erlanger, and they had dined at the Colonial Cottage a few times.  When they heard the place was for sale, the couple bought the place from Carla Rich.

The Epperson's continued Carla Rich's tradition of serving great comfort food at a reasonable price.  As the demand grew, the Epperson's knew that they were bursting at the seams.  In 1987, they built a new building about a block away from the original restaurant.  The new location had double the amount of seating as the original building and business began to boom.  

After 29 years, Verne and Bonnie Epperson hung up their aprons and sold the Colonial Cottage to Matt and Noelle Grimes, a young couple whose love of Kentucky history and Kentucky cooking ran deep.   Noelle Grimes grew up in the area and knew about the historical and culinary significance of the Colonial Cottage.  The Grimes' added a catering department, they re-configured the floor plan of the restaurant, and added a banquet room for gatherings.  In 2006, the Grimes made the Colonial Cottage one of the first smoke-free restaurants in Kentucky, something that many people said would cause the restaurant's demise in a tobacco growing state.  But they found that their business actually got better after the ban.  About the only thing they didn't change was the philosophy of great home-style cooking with a good value that Carla Rich started over 80 years ago.  

We pulled into Colonial Cottage around 8:30 a.m.  It's located on Dixie Highway in front of a Kroger grocery store.  (see map)  We parked off to the side on sort of a hill that felt a little strange to get out of the car on a slope.  

The inside of the restaurant was pleasant, well-lit and comfortable.  We were guided to a corner booth by a hostess and given a couple of menus.  The menu encompassed the whole variety of food served at the Colonial Cottage from southern-style entrees - fried chicken (which the Colonial Cottage is famous for), country fried steak, baked ham, and pan-fried chicken livers - to down-home specialties such as open faced beef or turkey sandwiches, center-cut pork chops and, of course, a Hot Brown, a Kentucky staple consisting of sliced ham and turkey, with tomatoes and bacon served on toast then covered with melted cheese sauce.  They also feature burgers, sandwiches, soups and salads at the Colonial Cottage, and I understand their house-made cream pies are to die for.  

But we were there for the breakfast and the breakfast page was the last one on the menu.  One of the things that caught my eye was something called Goetta that they served at the Colonial Cottage.  Pronounced "get-uh", Goetta is a German dish that is found primarily around the Cincinnati area.  It was brought to the Cincinnati area by German settlers in the 1800's and consists of a mixture of ground pork and ground beef (people in and around Cincinnati will bicker at the exact ratio of beef to pork) with pin oats, herbs, spices and sometimes onions.  It was originally a peasant dish designed to make meat go a long way in the old country.  They sell tons - literally - of Goetta annually at the Colonial Cottage.  Pictured above is Matt Grimes holding a plate of Goetta.  (Picture courtesy Northern Kentucky Tribune.)  

No, I didn't try it, but it sounded interesting.  

Frankly, I wasn't all that hungry from eating too late the night before so I was thinking about just getting a couple of eggs and some bacon and toast.  Then I saw that they had French toast at the bottom of the menu. And they had half-orders of the French toast.  Oh!  And for a dollar more, they'd add fresh blueberries to the French toast!  That's what I signed up for, along with a side of grits.  

Cindy got something called the Bluegrass Special, named after the Bluegrass state of Kentucky, no doubt.  It consisted two eggs any way (she got scrambled egg whites), hash browns topped with cheese, bacon (four strips!) and a couple of pancakes.  Wow!  That was a lot of food.  She immediately gave me two pieces of her bacon.  

The French toast consisted of four halves of battered and grilled bread topped with a generous amount of blueberries.  The French toast was fluffy and had a good flavor.  I was happy with what I got.  

The grits, however, were a little too runny for my liking.  I'm far from a grits connoisseur, but I know what I like and the gold standard for grits - for me - continues to be the restaurant in the Hilton DeSoto Hotel when we stayed there on our trip to Savannah, GA a few years ago.  Those had a great taste with a firm body.  The grits at the Colonial Cottage were not on that level.    

Cindy was having trouble with even making a dent in her breakfast.  She had a lot of egg whites on her plate - she wondered if they gave her three or even four scrambled egg-whites.  The pile of real potato hash browns was huge and they put a lot of cheese on top, and the pancakes were bigger than dollar-sized pancakes you'd find at other restaurants.  "I don't know what I was thinking," she said as she picked and nibbled at different items on her plate.  "This is a lot of food."  I took a couple bites of her pancakes to try them out.  They were fine, not great, but fine.  

While the food at the Colonial Cottage was basically good, I couldn't argue that the value of the meal was excellent.  We got a lot of food for just under $17 bucks before taxes and tip.  My wife wasn't able to finish all she had on her plate and looking back we probably could have split her breakfast and been happy at the end.  The service at the Colonial Cottage was efficient and friendly, the environment was comfortable and the food was, well, good breakfast food.  For being in business for over 80 years now, the Colonial Cafe is a good destination for home-style cooking - day or night - in the Northern Kentucky suburbs of Cincinnati.  

Drekker Brewing Company - Fargo, ND

I was up in North Dakota a lot later  than I wanted to be toward the end of 2015.  I was in Fargo and invited my dealer to go out for something to eat.  He said, "I'm taking you to a place that has some great beer before we go get some food."  We pulled up in front of the Drekker Brewing Company along 1st Ave. N. in downtown Fargo.  (see map)

The impetus for Drekker Brewing Company began many years ago when four friends - Mark Bjornstad, Jesse Feigum, Darin Montplasir and Mason Montplasir - started to brew beer together in the Fargo area.  Like most home brewers, they all had a passion for good beer with dynamic flavors.  They decided to start their own brewery complete with a tap room.  

They found a space in downtown Fargo that is part of the Cityscapes Plaza project of retail and residential property along 1st Ave. N.  The group then contacted the Bennett Forgeworks from Colorado that specializes in build-outs of microbreweries.  By June of 2014 they had their fermentation and conditioning tanks from the Portland Kettle Works in Portland, OR in place.  The Drekker Brewing Co. opened in October of 2014.

The group named their brewery the Drekker Brewing Co.  The word is a combination of three different Old Norwegian terms - drakkar is a feared Viking ship with a dragon head on the bow (hence, the Viking in the logo), drykkr is a draught drink, and drekka is simply "to drink".  

Pictured right - Darin Montplasir, Mason Montplasir, Mark Bjornstad and Jesse Feigum.

The partners soon discovered that one of the problems with running a brewery with a tap room in Fargo is that a city ordinance prohibited them from serving beer after 10 p.m.  With a vibrant downtown entertainment district, when they would yell, "Last call!" at 9:30 p.m. they'd get stares of disbelief from a usually full crowd on the weekend.  Mark Bjornstad was instrumental in getting the ordinance changed to allow brewpubs to stay open until midnight on Friday and Saturday nights in Fargo.  (They still stay open until just 10 p.m. the other nights.)  

And one of the reasons why my dealer wanted to take me to Drekker Brewing Company was that he was the one who put in the audio/video system in the place.  He told me, "They're good guys and they make some pretty damned good beer."  The space in which Drekker is located has a decidedly contemporary industrial look to it.  The minimal decorations in the place gave it sort of a hard feel, but not something that was overly unpleasant.  

The fermentation and conditioning tanks were out in the open back behind the bar area.  The brewery had that faint brewery smell to the place, but it wasn't overpowering like I've found at other similar microbreweries. The one thing about the Drekker Brewing Co. - it was very clean and polished in there.  They were in the midst of a brewery tour when we were there.  

My dealer went up to the bar and ordered a couple of sampler flights for us.  The beer menu was on the wall behind the bar area.  I didn't know what he ordered unit the waitress brought the two flights to the table.

They were served in 8 ounce glasses and came in wooden holders.  The first flight consisted of the Techno Viking Berliner Weisse - a wheat beer; the Ryessistance Rye Saison - a farmhouse ale; the Glacier Leavins NoDak Pale Ale; and the "Oh My Gourd, Becky" Pumpkin ale.  I'm not big on wheat beers, nor farmhouse ale's, but I willingly took the pale ale and the pumpkin ale to try.  The pale ale had a nice hoppy taste with a nice finish on the tongue.  It wasn't forward in taste, nor did it lack body.  It had a great fresh taste.

While I love the taste of pumpkin pie and pumpkin bars, I'm not usually big on pumpkin beers - a lot of them have a bitter flavor that gives the beer sort of a flat taste.  But not so with the pumpkin beer at Drekker Brewing Co.  It had a nice nutmeg after taste and was very pleasing.  This was one of the better pumpkin beers that I've had.

The second flight consisted of the Broken Rudder Irish Red Ale; the Roastmaster Series Broken Rudder Red with 20 Below Coffee - they take the Broken Rudder red ale and mix it with coffee from the 20 Below Coffee company located just around the corner from Drekker Brewing; the Pillager Porter; and the Azacca Attacka American Pale Ale.  I chose the American Pale Ale - not as hoppy as the NoDak pale ale, but with a very good taste and a fresh finish - and the Broken Rudder Red Irish Red Ale.  The Irish Red had a nice body with a nice copper color.  I found the Red Irish Ale to be refreshing and flavorful.  

My dealer was raving about the Irish Red Ale/20 Below Coffee beer.  He allowed me to take a drink of it and I have to say that it floored me in the quality of the taste.  I've had coffee beers in the past, but they're usually thick and muddy.  This was actually lighter with a deep brown color to the beer.  The coffee smell of the beer was very forward and the taste was more coffee than beer.  The two tastes went together very well.  

As we were finishing up, my dealer's wife came in to join us before we went for dinner.  I mentioned that I was sort of upset that they didn't serve food at the Drekker Brewing Co. - I wasn't certain that I wanted to go elsewhere to get away from the beer.  She mentioned that we could bring food in from other nearby establishments, but they had a place in mind they wanted to take me.  (Look for an upcoming entry on where we ate that evening.)

My dealer was certainly spot on about the quality of the beers at Drekker Brewing Co.  The five beers that I tasted were all very good.  It's good to find places like Drekker where a group of guys with a similar passion for good beer have developed a winning business formula.  Fargo continues to surprise me with some of the eclectic eating and drinking establishments I've visited and Drekker Brewing Co. is certainly no exception.  

Blackerby's Hanger 5 - Columbus, IN

I've been somewhat enamored with John Purner's book - The $100 Dollar Hamburger - that chronicles restaurants and cafes that are at or near small municipal and private airfields across the nation.  (The $100 Dollar Hamburger denotes the fact that in order to fly somewhere to get a burger at one of these places, pilots usually use up to - and above - $100 in aviation fuel getting there and back.)  I've made notes of some of the ones that are listed in the Midwest and there was a place in Columbus, IN, south of Indianapolis that caught my interest.  On a recent trip between Indianapolis and Louisville, I took the time to get off Interstate 65 and go to Blackerby's Hanger 5 at the Columbus Municipal Airport.  

Sharon and Wayne Blackerby were high school sweethearts who just happened to get into the restaurant business.  They opened their first restaurant, Broad Acres, in North Vernon, IN south and east of Columbus.  In 1988, the Blackerby's opened the Hanger 5 at the Columbus airport.  It became known as a place where the pilots and the locals would come to eat breakfast and lunch.  Sadly, cancer took Sharon's life in 2009.  Wayne Blackerby and his son, Caleb, continue to run Blackerby's Hanger 5 restaurant.  

The Columbus Municipal Airport is located on the far north side of Columbus on Ray Boll Drive.  (see map)  The street is named after Charles Raymond "Ray" Boll, a Columbus native who worked closely with General Douglas MacArthur as a radio and radar intelligence specialist in the Pacific Theater of World War II.  After the war, he returned to Columbus and eventually became an executive for Cummins Engines.  Boll was also a long time commissioner on the local aviation board.  

The terminal at the airport in Columbus is a modern, but nondescript building.  You go through the front door of the terminal, take a hard right and you'll find yourself standing in front of the main entrance to Blackerby's Hanger 5.  The dining room is spacious, open and well-lit - thanks primarily to the large windows that look out onto the tarmac and beyond.  

I took a seat at a table and immediately opened a menu that was given to me by my server, Brittany.  Blackerby's Hanger 5 is only open for breakfast and lunch, closing at 2 p.m. daily.  They have an extensive breakfast menu including omelets, pancakes, French toast, Eggs Benedict, and a number of specialty breakfasts that are skillet-style offerings.

Their lunch menu includes soups, salads, sandwiches, burgers, wraps and entrees such as a housemade meatloaf platter, country fried steak, traditional pot roast, and a battered whitefish dinner.  On Sunday's at Blackerby's Hanger 5, they serve their famous pressure cooked chicken.  

Believe it or not, I hadn't had a burger for quite awhile and I went with the mushroom/Swiss cheese burger.  I asked Brittany if they could throw some bacon on it and she said it would be no problem.  Fries came with the burger.  And, of course, since it was a restaurant at an airport, they don't serve alcohol at Blackerby's Hanger 5.  And that was fine - I went with water.  

I had some time to return e-mails thanks to the free wi-fi they had at Blackerby's.  About the time I was finished and packing up my computer, Brittany brought out my burger plate. 

The burger was flat-grilled and slathered with a thick slice of Swiss cheese covering the sautéed mushrooms and bacon slices on top of the burger patty.  The burger also came with sliced red onions and dill pickles.  The first bite yielded a great taste of a medium grilled burger complete with the pungent Swiss cheese, crispy bacon, and the wonderful earthy tasting sautéed mushrooms.  The sliced red onion was very fresh and really forward in taste.  Everything tasted so great, it was a really good burger.  

The fries were also very good.  They were sort of the battered style of French fries - crispy on the outside, yet moist and flaky on the inside.  This was a very good lunch.  

And it was a very good value.  While it tasted like a $100 burger, it was only a shade over $8 bucks for the price.  With tax and tip, I got out of Blackerby's Hanger 5 spending about $12 bucks.  The burger was excellent, the restaurant was clean and comfortable, Brittany's service was prompt and efficient, and it was kind of a nice treat to eat at a small municipal airport watching the small planes take off and land.  Blackerby's Hanger 5 is a good destination for breakfast or lunch - even if you aren't a pilot.  It's sort of tough to find, but I'm certain you'll be happy you did find the place.  

Schmaltz Deli - Naperville, IL

I love to find good ol' Jewish deli's when I'm on the road - I'm particularly fond of a good hot pastrami on rye sandwich.  I was somewhat surprised to find a somewhat long-time Jewish deli in the Chicago suburb of Naperville.  Surprised, mainly because I didn't know of the place until a few weeks before.  On a sunny late fall day, I stopped in to try the Schmaltz Deli.  

Schmaltz Deli was founded in 2004 by Howard Bender, a Culinary Institute of America grad and a former chef at The Four Seasons in downtown Chicago.  Finding that most of the best Jewish deli's were miles away from Naperville, he set out to recreate a classic Jewish delicatessen in the far western suburb that would feature over-stuffed sandwiches, homemade soups, bagels made in house, and a full-service meat counter.  He called his delicatessen Schmaltz after the term for rendered chicken or goose fat used for cooking Jewish foods in Central Europe.  (Schmaltz is also a Yiddish term for sentimental, as in, "This movie makes me all schmaltzy.")  

Pictured right - Howard Bender.  Photo courtesy meatpoultry.com

Bender has also pushed the envelope in developing something that is slowly getting some national press - beef bacon, or as he calls it, Schmacon.  Schmacon is a smoked, uncured beef that is similar to bacon, only with less sodium, less fat and less calories.  They've come up with a patented process during the making of the Schmacon to give it the same texture and crispness as pork bacon.  It's available primarily at grocery stores in the Chicago area, but is also available in Indianapolis, parts of Western Michigan, Southern Wisconsin and it's also available in Eastern Iowa at many Hy-Vee stores.  I've tried it and it tastes like pastrami.  I'm not certain that I'd replace bacon with Schmacon, but I think it would be interesting to try on a BLT instead of bacon. 

Schmaltz Deli is located in a strip mall on the northeast corner of Ogden Ave. and Naperville Road in Naperville.  (see map)  There's plenty of parking in the lot in front of their space.  Entering the establishment, you come to the front counter with the lunch menu on flat screen monitors behind the cash register.  (Schmaltz Deli also features a breakfast menu that features traditional lox and bagels, egg sandwiches, omelets, and scrambled egg dishes.  They also have challah French toast.)  You place your order at the register and wait at the other end for them to make your order.

Schmaltz Deli features a good ol' fashioned meat counter with a half dozen people working behind it.  It was just getting into the start of the lunch time rush and they weren't as busy when I came in as they were when I was leaving.  

I found a table along a wall in the dining room on the opposite side of the deli counter.  It was a long, narrow well-lit room with a number of photos of patrons on the wall.   

Of course, I got a pastrami and Swiss on rye topped with some yellow mustard - overstuffed.  When they gave me the sandwich at the counter, I thought, "Good God!"  I didn't know if I could eat the whole thing.  Thankfully, there are styrofoam boxes near the front of the dining room that you can take your leftovers.  (If you don't want a stuffed sandwich with so much meat, they do have "half-stuffed" sandwiches at Schmaltz Deli.)

The pastrami was cut thin and was very lean.  The sandwich came with a half kosher dill pickle and housemade bagel chips.  Two hands were needed to keep the meat from falling out of the sandwich.  

This was quite the sandwich.  The swirled rye bread was soft and had that great rye taste to it.  But the pastrami was exceptional.  The seasoning was forward in its flavor, but not so much to overpower the other things involved with the sandwich.  The Swiss cheese was lightly melted onto the hot pastrami and you could easily taste it with the bites of the meat.  

The next thing I knew, I was having the last bite of the whole sandwich.  Whoa!  I went into this thinking that I'd take half the sandwich with me, but it was so good that I couldn't stop eating it.  Yes, I was as stuffed as the sandwich was.  I concentrated so much on the sandwich that I only had a couple bites of the kosher dill pickle and maybe a couple of the delicious bagel chips.  

Schmaltz Deli was simply outstanding.  It was one of the best pastrami and Swiss on rye sandwiches I've ever had.  Everything - from the lean and delicious pastrami, the flavorful rye bread and the fresh Swiss cheese - made for a fantastic sandwich.  For a great sandwich in a classic Jewish deli in the far western suburbs of Chicago, Schmaltz Deli is definitely the place to go.