My wife's recent birthday happened on a Monday and we had to cancel plans to go into Chicago for a long weekend due to inclement weather and me getting stuck for an extra day in Montreal. So, we were home for her birthday, much to her consternation. But I decided to take her out to a place that she had been wanting to go to for quite some time. I made reservations for us to have dinner that evening at the Crane and Pelican in the quaint river community of LeClaire, just up the Mississippi from the Quad Cities.
Daniel Dawley was a riverboat captain along the Mississippi in the mid-19th century and in 1851, Captain Dawley built a magnificent home for his wife and their nine children on a hillside in LeClaire. The house was very well maintained by families who lived in it over the years and in 1979 the house was put on the National Register of Historic Places.
When Amanda "Mandy" Harvey was looking for a unique place to start a restaurant, she found that the Dawley house - which had been a funeral home for a number of years - was available. She asked the LeClaire city council to rezone the building for a restaurant with a liquor license, and in the spring of 2009 - with some opposition by nearby neighbors - the city approved the Dawley house rezoning.
Harvey then supervised the transition of the house to a restaurant along with her step-father who headed the build-out effort. The former garage in the house was transformed into a commercial kitchen, much of the original woodwork was restored, and the large rooms on the main level were made into dining areas while the bedrooms upstairs were turned into a gift shop and art galleries. Crane & Pelican opened in the fall of 2009.
Mandy Harvey had a long career as a mixologist before opening the Crane & Pelican. While working at Steventon's in LeClaire (click here to read the Road Tips' entry on Steventon's), she met Marvin Kane who started his kitchen career when he was still in high school. Starting out as a dishwasher, Kane worked his way up in a handful of kitchens in the LeClaire area before joining Harvey as the executive chef at Crane & Pelican a few years back. With meals made from scratch by Kane, Harvey pairs many of the entrees with different wines as the menu changes.
We had made reservations for 7 p.m. at the Crane & Pelican, but it turned out that we really didn't need to do that. When we pulled into the parking lot next to Crane & Pelican located at the northeast corner of Dodge and S. 2nd in LeClaire (see map), it turned out that there were only two other vehicles in the parking lot. We entered the building and found an ornate entry way with a winding staircase that led the way up to the gift shop and galleries on the second floor. It was still during the holiday season and the rooms were adorned with festive lighting and decorations.
We were greeted by a young lady were taken to the dining room toward the back of the place - or for some people who live along the river, it's known as the front as there is a deck on the east end of the Crane & Pelican that offers a nice river view in the summer months. As we walked into the room, we were surprised to see a friend of ours - Nathan - that I work with at summer events around Davenport and his parents. His birthday was the previous day and his dad's happened to be that day - the same as my wife's. It turns out that his parents live just a couple blocks away from the Crane & Pelican and dine there on a regular basis. "We love this place," Nathan's mom told us. "It's convenient for us to come to."
Nathan and his parents were seated in a booth along a short wall next to the small bar in this room. The dining room was just off the kitchen. The antique-style wall lights hanging on a mustard-colored wall gave the room somewhat of a yellowish hue to the room. The atmosphere was very laid-back, but still had an old-time charm to the place. It was a place where you could wear a coat and tie or a pair of jeans and a sweater.
We were seated at a table in the corner of this dining area and given menus to look over. I started off with a Daytrotter, a limited release pale ale from the Exile Brewing Company in Des Moines that was named after the Daytrotter music studios and live music venue located in downtown Davenport. My wife got a glass of the La Crema chardonnay to start off with.
We started out with a Caesar's salad and a cup of the asparagus/red onion soup to share. The salad was pretty small and it was probably overpriced at $8.95. I would have to say the salad was pretty basic for a Caesar's salad.
The asparagus/red onion soup was actually very good. It was rich and creamy with a hint of asparagus and fresh onion with each taste. We decided that we should have both gotten the soup other than splitting the salad and the soup.
For dinner, I was torn between a number of things. They had a pan-seared meat loaf entree that was topped with a red wine and mushroom demi-glace. They had a sautéed chicken breast topped with a mushroom Marsala wine sauce. And they had a lobster mac & cheese entree with chunks of lobster with pasta shells with mushrooms and roasted red peppers in a cheddar and smoked Gouda cheese sauce and topped with panko bread crumbs.
I did end up going the pasta route with the tortellini Alfredo - cheese-stuffed tortellini pasta shells in a cream Alfredo sauce with chopped mushrooms, chopped asparagus and andouille sausage. Some house-made beer bread came with the pasta on the side. I also got a glass of the Massimo sauvignon blanc to go with the meal.
Now, I normally don't care for cheese-filled tortellini, but this was excellent. The sauce was thick and rich, the tortellini were large and stuffed full of cheese. It was one of those kind of meals where you look at the portion size and think, "Wait a minute..." But the dish was so rich and filling that it turned out to be the perfect size for dinner. The taste of the asparagus was prevalent, but not overpowering, as was the flavor of the mushrooms in the sauce. This was an outstanding meal and I didn't regret getting any one of my the other things I thought about that evening.
After thinking about getting one of the pasta dishes, my wife went with the pan-seared Atlantic salmon topped with a béarnaise sauce. Seasonal vegetables came on the side, but she asked our server if she could get just a side of pasta noodles to soothe the pasta hankering she was having. The chef was able to accommodate her on that request for a slight upcharge. She thought the salmon was fabulous with the béarnaise sauce which had a slight vinegary taste that went extremely well with the salmon. The cooked vegetables had a lot of natural flavor and the crispness hadn't been cooked out of them. My wife was extremely happy with her meal.
Our friend Nathan and his parents started to leave about halfway through our meal, basically leaving my wife and I as the sole diners in the place that evening. Before they left, they told us that we needed to get the orange crepes for dessert. "Sometimes I'll just come down here for the orange crepes," his mother told us. We couldn't say no for a recommendation like that. But I also saw that they had a housemade blueberry pie on the board when we first came in. I had to have a piece of that.
And I'm glad I did. The crust was thin, light and flaky. The blueberry compote filling was thick, tart and a little sweet. This was one of the better blueberry pies that I'd ever had and I was surprised it was so good for that time of the year.
But the orange crepes were to absolutely die for. There were two orange créme filled crepes criss-crossed over one another and drizzled with a warm orange caramel pecan sauce. Oh, my GOD! These were so sinfully great. The tangy orange taste with the sweet caramel and pecan sauce was a heavenly combination. The blueberry pie was excellent, but the orange crepes were out of this world. I messaged Nathan later on to thank him and his family for the recommendation. "Aren't they great," he replied in what was a severe understatement. They were incredible.
My wife felt this was on of the most memorable birthday dinners she has ever had. The food at Crane & Pelican was very good to outstanding. My wife felt her salmon dish was delicious, while I was more than happy with my tortellini Alfredo. I thought the Caesar's salad was a little bland and well-overpriced, but the cup of the creamy asparagus/red onion was very good. And the desserts - especially the out-of-this-world orange crepes were both fantastic. I was sort of apprehensive about going to the Crane & Pelican, but after our experience there I will have to say that it has gone into the top 3 of our favorite Quad Cities-area upscale restaurants.
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