Road Tips

Twenty Tap - Indianapolis

I've had a place in Indianapolis on my radar for quite sometime and I finally got a chance to visit this place on a trip to Indy earlier this year.  Twenty Tap is one of the many brewpubs that have popped up all over the Midwest over the past five or six years.  But the background of the guy who owns Twenty Tap is what intrigued me the most about the place. 

Back in 1990, the Broad Ripple Brewpub was the first place in Indiana - and one of the first places in the nation - to brew their own beer and serve it on-site.  Not long after they opened, a young guy by the name of Kevin Matalucci showed up to ask for a job.  For the first year, he did a little bit of everything, but he really wanted to learn how to brew beer.  Broad Ripple founder John Hill took the young Matalucci under his wing and showed him the process of brewing beer.  

Hill was a mentor to a number of young men who worked for him at Broad Ripple.  His first brewer when he opened 27 years ago, Gil Alberding, eventually went to MillerCoors as a brewing specialist.  His second brewer, Greg Emig, went on to open Lafayette Brewing Company. (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Lafayette Brewing Company.)  Following Emig, Ted Miller was the brewer at Broad Ripple and he went on to open Brugge Brasserie, a Belgian-style brewpub in Broad Ripple.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Brugge.)  

Kevin Matalucci worked his way up the ranks in the brewery assisting Hill and the other brewers in the making of Broad Ripple's beers.  When Miller left to open Brugge, Hill installed Matalucci as the head brewer.  During Matalucci's tenure as the brewmaster at Broad Ripple, one of his helpers was John Treeter who eventually ended up as the head brewer at the Oaken Barrel brewery on Indianapolis' far south side, another incubator of brewmasters who went on to do their own thing. (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Oaken Barrel.)  

Pictured right - Kevin Matalucci.  Photo courtesy Indianapolis Metromix.

Matalucci worked at Broad Ripple Brewpub for 18 years - 17 of those years as an assistant or head brewer.  But seeing others who worked at Broad Ripple go on to do their own thing always stuck in the back of his mind.  Along with his wife, Tracy, they started to plan out their own brewpub where Kevin could continue his love of brewing beers.  At first, he wanted to have a place that did nothing but cask drawn beers, but he found that it was wasn't efficient to have multiple firkin taps.  

He eventually found a space at the corner of N. College Ave. and E. 54th St. that was once home to a place called Northside News.  Matalucci changed his concept of his place to focus on serving the locally and regionally brewed beers of friends that he knew in the industry.  He eventually wanted to have his own nano-brewing operation, but getting started with 20 beers on tap to pair with a menu that featured interesting locally-sourced foods was the goal to get open.  After leaving Broad Ripple Brewery - and with the full support of Broad Ripple's John Hill - Matalucci and his wife opened Twenty Tap in the late summer of 2011.  (Matalucci has since opened his basement nano-brewery Twenty Below Brewing.) 

I had finished a meeting with one of my dealers in Indy and was wanting to get some lunch before I left town.  I stopped into Twenty Below around 1 p.m. after finding parking just down College Ave.  (see map)  There are two sides to Twenty Tap - the dining room is on the right as you walk in.  It featured a number of high-backed wooden booths with framed beer posters on the wall.  I read somewhere that Kevin Matalucci and friends did most - if not all - the renovation in the place before it opened.

I ended up going to the bar area and took a seat at the bar.  Bobby, the bartender that day, greeted me and gave me a beer menu and a food menu.  I ended up getting an Oaken Barrel Superfly IPA - a beer I'd had before during my visit to the Oaken Barrel brewpub.  Bobby also appeared to be a brewer as he was chatting up a couple guys down the bar from me about brewing techniques and recipes.  And this was definitely a beer bar as there was just one television set on the wall near the bar.  

The food menu at Twenty Tap features a small list of appetizers that can be eaten individually or shared over craft beers.  They have a pretty good list of artisan burgers and a number of interesting sandwiches.  But they had something on the appetizer part of the menu that really piqued my interest.  It was a pimento mac & cheese appetizer that came in two sizes.  I ended up getting the smaller size, but for $1.50 more I could have gotten real bacon bits added.  I decided against the bacon and while the bacon probably would have given the pimento mac & cheese another dimension in taste, I couldn't complain about the taste of the appetizer.  It was creamy, rich in taste, and a perfect start to the meal.  

For my lunch that day, I thought about getting a burger - the "Wrath" burger featured toppings that included sautéed mushrooms, bacon, caramelized onions and a blue cheese sauce that I thought sounded pretty good.  But I was getting sort of burned out on burgers on the road.  The New Orleans-style muffuletta sounded pretty good, as did the pulled beef brisket sandwich topped with cheddar cheese and a jalapeño marmalade.  But I ended up going with the braised short rib grilled cheese sandwich.  

They slow roast the beef - locally raised by Fischer Farms in Jasper, IN (my sister and her family lived in Jasper for over 20 years so I know where Jasper is) - shred it by hand and put it on Texas toast and add a cherry bourbon glaze on the meat.  They cover the beef in a combination of creamy havarti and a smooth smoked gouda cheese, then finish it off with caramelized onions, romaine lettuce and the jalapeño marmalade.  I got a side of the cole slaw to go along with it.  

This was simply an outstanding tasting sandwich.  The Texas toast was lightly grilled and the coagulation of the harvarti and smoked gouda cheese gave the sandwich a rich taste.  The braised short rib beef was tender and very flavorful.  The jalapeño marmalade gave it just a bit of a spicy bite.  There were so many taste sensations going on with the sandwich that I seemed to taste something different with each bite.  I was more than happy that I got the braised beef grilled cheese sandwich.  

I thoroughly enjoyed my lunch at Twenty Tap.  The braised beef grilled cheese sandwich was outstanding, as was the pimento mac & cheese appetizer that I couldn't pass up.  The beer selection was very good and features not only some of Twenty Below's nano-brewery beers, but local and regional beers that are brewed by friends of owner Kevin Matalucci.  The atmosphere was laid back and casual.  This was a place that I thought I could go to on a regular basis if I lived in Indianapolis.  Good beer and good food in a great atmosphere is a winning combination for Twenty Tap.

(Update - Not long after I was in Twenty Tap, a devastating fire ravaged the building effectively closing it down.  They were shut down for a few months for clean-up, rebuilding and renovations, and reopened in August of 2017.)

90 Miles Cuban Cafe - Chicago (Lincolnwood)

I've been on the hunt for a good Cuban sandwich similar to the ones that I first enjoyed during trips to Miami over 25 years ago.  The sweet Cuban bread is the key to the sandwich.  But most places in the Midwest usually just use a pressed ciabatta panini and all it becomes is nothing more than a seasoned pork sandwich with ham and cheese and yellow mustard.   I had asked Judith Dunbar-Hines who has taken us on a couple of culinary tours of Chicago neighborhoods - and who has visited Cuba, as well - which restaurant had good - as in REAL - Cuban sandwiches.  She mentioned a couple three to me and one that I was near one day on a trip into Chicago was 90 Miles Cuban Cafe.  I decided to give their Cuban sandwich a try.  

During the Mariel Boat Lift in 1980, Alberto Gonzalez decided to make the treacherous crossing from Cuba to Key West with is family.  Along with his wife Maria Magdalena and his young son Alberto, Jr., the Gonzalez family made the 90 mile trek to the United States over a 15-hour period in stormy weather in a shrimp boat loaded with dozens of people.

The Gonzalez's settled initially in Key West where Alberto Gonzalez, Sr. and Alberto, Jr. caught fish from the sea and sold them on the dock.  The family eventually came north to Chicago where family members had settled and the family began their new life in America.  Alberto, Jr. eventually got into the mortgage business as a young adult. 

One thing that Alberto, Jr. really missed was his grandmother's cooking and there wasn't a lot of Cuban restaurants in the greater Chicago area.  He had talked about opening a restaurant with his parents, but the timing always seemed to be wrong.  However, in 2008 an opportunity to take over a spot on Armtiage Ave. in the Wicker Park/Bucktown neighborhood came about and Alberto, Jr. and his wife Christina opened 90 Miles Cuban Cafe in the fall of that year, naming the place after the 90 miles his family had to sail in a crowded boat in stormy seas to get to freedom.  Friends were telling the Gonzales' that this was a risky adventure given the economic crisis that was going on at the time.  But armed with recipes from his grandmother's kitchen, Alberto Gonzalez, Jr. found that 90 Miles Cuban Cafe was a hit with not only many of the nearly 20,000 Cuban citizens of the greater Chicagoland area, but with people looking for something different to try.  

Within six months during a time when restaurants were closing, the Gonzales' were already planning for a second location.  In July of 2009, they opened a second location at the corner of Clybourn and Belmont in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago.  Both places were small and had a BYOB policy if you wanted to have your own Cuba Libré's and Mojitos.  

Pictured right - Alberto Gonzalez, Jr. and his wife Christina. (Photo courtesy dnainfo.com)

The Lincolnwood Town Center shopping mall is located at the corner of Touhy Ave. and McCormick Blvd. literally across the street from the Chicago city limits in Lincolnwood.  (see map)  The upscale mall that catered to upper-middle class shoppers had fallen on hard times after the economic downturn in 2008-09 and many of its stores had gone out of business.  A space that housed a Ruby Tuesday restaurant stood vacant for over two years after it closed in 2012.  After a new ownership group came in to take over the struggling mall, they were aggressive in getting new businesses to come to the property.  In 2014, the ownership of the mall approached Alberto and Christina Gonzalez about putting a 90 Miles Cuban Cafe in the old Ruby Tuesday spot.  Within a year, the third location of 90 Miles Cuban Cafe opened at Lincolnwood Town Center.       

It was around 2 p.m. when I had finished with an appointment and I was near the Lincolnwood Town Center heading toward a dealer in Chicago.  I decided to stop in and try a Cuban sandwich at 90 Miles Cuban Cafe.  The restaurant is located on the east side of the mall at ground level.  There's an outside entrance to the restaurant as well as a mall entrance inside.  

The decor of the 7000 square foot space was designed to look like a true Cuban restaurant complete with art deco style lighting and tile floors - a restaurant that was literally stuck in time like many buildings are in Havana.  Tiled walls with leaded glass windows were also prominent along the mall side of the restaurant.  

The Gonzalez's called upon Cuban artist Alejandro Arango to paint a series of murals on the walls of the restaurant.  The brightly colored murals were found in a back room that could be used for receptions and meetings complete with small lights hanging from the ceiling.

Another mural was on the wall near the bar area.  (This is the only 90 Mile Cuban Cafe that features a bar.) Most of the mural paid tribute to Ernest Hemingway who spent many years in Cuba.  A Corona 3 typewriter, two cats (Hemingway loved cats) and a couple of books that Hemingway wrote while he was in Cuba were depicted in the mural.  

There was a coffee bar at the restaurant which features a small alcove of non-matching furniture.  The furniture may have been used, but the area reminded me of an old time hotel lobby.  Elsewhere in the restaurant were benches made from old windows shutters.  Alberto Gonzalez, Jr. once said that this was his way of showing how resourceful Cubans can be when faced with a need with little to work with.  

Along the wall heading to the restrooms were a number of vintage photographs depicting life in Cuba.  Cuba has always fascinated me and I lingered for awhile in this area taking in the photos from life in the 1950's Cuba just before the revolution.  

I asked the hostess if I could sit at the bar and she said that would be no problem.  Well, it turned out to be a problem.  There didn't appear to be a bartender or any staff behind the bar.  I looked through the menu while I waited for someone to show up and it was a good five minutes - maybe longer - before someone showed up behind the bar.  And, of course, he completely ignored me.  He brought some food out for another couple seated at the bar, but then disappeared again for another couple of minutes.  I had to flag him down to get his attention.  He asked if I wanted anything to drink and I told him that I'd take a Revolution Anti-Hero IPA that they had on tap.  He poured it for me, wordlessly set it down in front of me and then disappeared again.  

I pretty much knew that all I wanted was a Cubano sandwich, but the rest of the food was authentic Cuban fare.  Appetizers included meat or seafood filled empanadas, tuna ceviche and beef filled potatoes called Papas Rellenos.  Cuban staples such as Ropa Viejas (slow roasted beef with onions, peppers and garlic), Lechon (slow roasted pork with citrus mojo), and Pargo (flash fried whole Red Snapper).  One thing that I noticed on the menu was that not all entrees came with plantains.  I don't care for plantains and the Cuban restaurants I've been to before seem to serve plantains with everything.  

When the bartender finally showed up again, I had to get his attention to place my sandwich order.  His service was absolutely horrid.  And when someone from the kitchen brought my sandwich out to me, I quickly realized that I didn't have a napkin or any utensils.  I had to flag down someone else to get those.  

Now, maybe I don't really know what a Cuban sandwich really is.  Once again, this was not what I've had before during previous trips to Miami.  The bread was not the Cuban sweet bread that I've had.  The crust was crisp, but it was like any other panini-style Cuban-style sandwich that I've had around the Midwest.  Overall, the taste of the sandwich was fine, but I was mildly disappointed in that it was still not the great Cuban bread that I've had years ago.  I sat there after finishing up a good portion of the sandwich and some of the seasoned fries that came with the Cubano and I thought, "Well, maybe I really don't know what a Cuban sandwich really is."  

Coupled with the poor service I experienced, the Cubano sandwich I had at 90 Miles Cuban Cafe made for an overall disappointing experience.  Oh, don't get me wrong.  The Cuban sandwich was fine, but it was like any other Cuban sandwich that I've had around the Midwest.  Being an authentic Cuban restaurant, I expected the sandwich to feature the sweet Cuban bread and to have the pork and ham explode with flavors.  It turned out that it had neither.  There are, however, some other items that I found on the menu that intrigued me and I would have no problem going back to the Lincolnwood 90 Miles location to give some of them a try.  I just won't sit at the bar the next time I go.  

me & Billy - Davenport, IA

I've been hesitant on doing a post on a restaurant called me & Billy in downtown Davenport that we've been to about four or five times since it opened nearly 4 years ago.  The reason is because I know the owners, they live in our neighborhood, and I've had what I would not call stellar experiences during a couple of my previous visits to the restaurant.  But after a recent visit, I thought I'd do a write up of the place and share my thoughts.  

When I first moved to the Quad Cities over 25 years ago, one of the first people I met was a local tavern owner Bill Collins.  Bill came from a large, well-known and well-connected family in the Quad Cities - his father, the late Dr. John Collins, was a general practitioner in Davenport for nearly 40 years.  (When my wife and I moved to our present house 15 years ago, Bill Collins' parents lived two doors down from us.)  Ironically, I didn't first meet Bill at his bar at the time - the venerable Mac's Tavern in downtown Davenport (click here to read about Mac's Tavern).  I first met Billy when he came in to the audio/video store I was managing looking to have us put in a projection system for a big screen television.  After making the sale and supervising the installation, I started to hang out at Mac's.  For years it was my go-to place to have a beer and socialize in the Quad Cities.  

Bill and his wife Mary eventually sold Mac's Tavern after a 15 year run and Billy worked a few gigs at bars and restaurants around the area for a few years after.  Mary and Billy eventually moved to a house a couple blocks away from us in Davenport.  We always thought that Billy would end up running his own place again, but it wasn't until the Collins' daughter Fran moved back to the area around 2010 that the idea for her to run a restaurant started to sprout.  

Fran Collins Maus had grown up with Mac's Tavern and she had the restaurant bug in her bones.  She eventually studied hotel management at the University of Iowa and she and her husband, Jordan, lived in the Chicago area for around five years.  After moving back to the Quad Cities, she saw a void in the marketplace for a gastropub-type of place that Fran came to love while living in Chicago.  She focused on downtown Davenport that was undergoing a renovation renaissance with a number of old buildings.   

Pictured right - Fran Collins Maus.  (Photo courtesy Quad City Times.) 

Fran Collins Maus settled on a site that used to be the old United Cigar Building at the corner of 3rd and Main in downtown Davenport.  (see map)  A local insurance executive and the co-owners of a local construction company had purchased the building and were renovating the space when Fran approached them about her idea for a restaurant.  It wasn't long before the plans came to fruition and work on a full-fledged restaurant started up. 

Co-owning the restaurant with her mother, Fran Collins Maus opened me & Billy in the fall of 2013.  The name for the restaurant came from the name of a rowboat her grandparents had given her father and his younger brother, Dave, when they were young boys.  Billy Collins is basically the general manager of the restaurant, recreating his gregarious and outgoing nature as he greets customers while darting from table to table making sure things are all right.  And the other two Collins daughters - Sarah and Tricia - have significant roles in the restaurant, as well.    

As I said, we've been to me & Billy a handful of times in the past.  We were there for a birthday party not long after they opened and they actually ran out of some food items on the menu that evening.  (Bill confessed to me that they weren't prepared for the large crowd that showed up that evening.)  We went back another time a few weeks later and had a very good New York strip steak they had on special that evening.  However, we were there with another couple not long after that and I had a burger that was literally inedible.  (Billy told me that they were having problems with a chef in the kitchen and I believe he was let go not long after that evening.)  We were a little skittish about going back to me & Billy, but my wife and I went there last summer and had a nice meal.  On this trip to me & Billy, we had met up with some friends of ours for a couple pre-dinner drinks before the four of us went down to me & Billy for dinner.  

It was a Saturday night and it was typically busy - and loud - in me & Billy.  The restaurant features a number of hip cocktails and drink selections, and it's become a popular place with many of the young adults in the community.  me & Billy is known for their ever-changing selection of premium martinis, their Moscow Mules (one of Billy's favorite drinks), and their fishbowl drinks that are usually a hit with the 20-somethings who are willing to share a $30 dollar vodka or rum drink mixed with a choice of a berry puree, Sprite, cranberry juice or lemonade.  (I've heard that they will not serve a fishbowl to a single person, although a friend of mine thinks that I could probably finish off a whole lemonade/vodka fishbowl at me & Billy.)   Here's a picture of one of me & Billy's fishbowl drinks that I lifted from their Facebook page.  

We were greeted at the hostess stand up front by Mary Collins who appeared to be frazzled by the large crowd in the place that night.  Billy Collins was not there that evening, he was out of town attending some function and I could tell that Mary wished he would have been there that night.  She told us it would be 15 to 20 minutes before we could get a table.  We went to the bar area for a moment and I went off to use the restroom.  When I got back to the bar area where we were waiting, Mary came over and said in a somewhat clandestine fashion, "Hey, you guys!  Come on.  I have a table for you."  She took us to a table directly behind the hostess stand.  She took care of us that evening. 

The lay-out at me & Billy's features a dining room with high tiled-ceilings with exposed metal ductwork, large windows that look out onto Main Street and 3rd Ave., and tiled pillars.  Because of that, the place can get loud pretty quickly.  And with a large crowd in there, it was very loud.  

The bar area of the place features a wide and ornate back bar with a long dark walnut front bar.  Billy told me the story of how he had found and repurposed the bar for the restaurant, but I can't remember exactly where he got it from.  But it's a very nice bar and it always seems to be full whenever we're in there.  

There is also a rather large reception/party room behind the bar.  My wife has attended a function in the reception room and she said it was a very nice area.  It has its own bar area with a lighted "Cheers" sign behind it spelled out in cursive.  

Mary had dropped off menus for us to look through before our server for the evening, Katie, came over to greet us.  me & Billy also has a nice selection of craft beers on tap, in bottles and in cans.  I ended up ordering a Ruthie, a nice deep blonde lager from the Exile Brewing Co. located in Des Moines.  The only problem was that it was woefully flat.  I let Katie know that it was flat and they needed to change out the keg.  I ended up ordering a Lagunitas IPA for my second beer that Katie didn't charge me for.  

Appetizers, salads, sandwiches and burgers make up much of the menu at me and Billy.  They also have a short entree list that consists of items such as a flat iron steak, a seared tuna filet, shrimp and grits, and a brined pork chop dusted with smoked paprika.  They'll also have nightly specials from time to time at me & Billy.

And I happened to get one of the special that evening - the hot brown sandwich.  This was me & Billy's take on the Louisville favorite of the open-faced turkey sandwich with sliced tomatoes, a creamy cheese sauce, with shredded cheddar and parmesan cheese on top, then broiled.  It filled a good portion of the plate with some fries on the side.  

However, there seemed to be a distinct petroleum taste to the hot brown at me & Billy.  I couldn't quite put a finger on it, but it tasted like it was sort of a burnt propane taste to the top of the sandwich.  Then I realized that they had taken a propane torch to the shredded cheese on top of the hot brown instead of putting it under the broiler for a few minutes.  The cheese was scorched.  Once I figured out that was the root of the unpleasant taste on the sandwich, I just pulled that off and ate the rest of the hot brown.  It was actually pretty good, except for the propane taste on the cheese.    

Our friends went the sandwich/burger route.  My buddy went with me & Billy's pork tenderloin sandwich.  He said he had gotten it before and he thought it was very good.  This one seemed to be no exception.  He got his breaded, but the thick cut pork tenderloin is also available grilled.  The pork tenderloin sandwich comes on a pretzel bun with pickles and red onion slices with a side of fries.

His wife got the Franny Burger named after Fran Collins Maus.  It is topped with a slice of American cheese, then topped again with cheese curds.  And if you can't get enough cheese on the burger, it comes with a side bowl of what appeared to be the same cheese sauce that was on my hot brown.  It, too, was on a pretzel bun and came with fries.

My wife ended up getting the bison burger topped with white cheddar cheese, lettuce, grilled onions, a garlic aioli, and served on a whole grain bun.  Instead of fries for a side, she got a salad with their housemade garlic parmesan dressing.  She thought her bison burger was very good.  

me & Billy also has a "Build-Your-Own-Burger" part of their menu that features a regular burger patty (or a chicken breast or veggie patty), then you have your choice of six different types of cheese.  Toppings include avocado slices, fried egg, pickled red peppers, bacon marmalade, and even mac & cheese.  If they aren't overcooked to death like they did the first time I was there, it can be a pretty good burger - just like the one that I had on my previous visit to me & Billy.  

Once again, I had mixed results at me & Billy.  In the handful of times I've been there, I've had a couple of bad experiences.  But then I've had some good experiences on other occasions.  On this visit, there were the minuses - the flat draft beer and the petroleum taste on the melted cheese on top of my sandwich.  But the pluses were the rest of the hot brown sandwich tasted very good after I pulled the scorched cheese off the top, and our server was very good.  Everyone in our group liked their food - the Franny Burger, the bison burger and the breaded tenderloin sandwich.  I really want the Collins family to succeed, and it appears that they're doing very well given the crowds that are in me & Billy every time we've been there.  I only wish there would be some more consistency in the foods I've been served there. 

Avanzare Italian Dining - Springfield, MO

On a recent trip to Springfield, MO, I was in the mood for some Italian food.  I've found some good Italian restaurants in the city during my past visits (click here and here to read about a couple of the ones I've been to) and I wanted to try another one that wasn't too far from my hotel on the south side of the city.  This particular evening, I drove up Glenstone to have dinner at Avanzare Italian Dining.  

Avanzare owner Tony Garcia is a Chicago native who worked in a number of restaurants in that city starting at an early age.  Many of the places were famous Italian restaurants in Chicago  - Spago, Cafe Fresco and Tuscany, to name just three.  When chef/co-owner Nicola Gilardi left Ristorante Teatro in Springfield, MO, Garcia was recruited to take his place.  (Nicola Gilardi now runs Nicola's Ristorante in Springfield.)  Garcia wasn't certain that Springfield was a good fit for him, but he soon found that it fit perfectly to his lifestyle and he fell in love with the people and the surrounding area.  It took him just 3 months to figure out that he actually did like the place enough for him to have his wife Carmen move from Chicago to join him.   

After four years at Ristorante Teatro, Tony Garcia felt it was time to strike out on his own and open his own restaurant.  Along with a partner/investor, Garcia opened Avanzare Italian Dining in 2002.  He named his new restaurant for the Italian term for moving along or advancing in one's life.

Pictured right - Tony Garcia.  (Photo courtesy 417 Magazine.)

Within four years Garcia had bought out his investor and became the sole owner of Avanzare and he continues in that capacity to this day.  (In 2013, Garcia opened a short-lived restaurant - Tony's Italian Cafe - on S. Campbell in Springfield.  The restaurant closed within a year so Garcia could solely focus on Avanzare.)

Avanzare Italian Dining is located in the Plaza Shopping Center, a strip mall at the corner of S. Glenstone and E. Sunshine in Springfield.  (see map)  There was plenty of parking out front of the restaurant when I got there around 8 p.m.

It had been a long day of driving when I finally got into Springfield and I knew I could use a cold beer.  I was seated at a booth along the wall and given a menu when my server for the evening, a young man named Roy who spoke in an easy manner without any pretension in his voice.  He asked me what I wanted to start out with and I ordered a Greene Ghost beer, a West Coast-style IPA from the Springfield Brewing Company that was sort of hoppy to the taste.  It was a nice sipping beer to start out with.  

The restaurant was actually pretty nice for being in a strip mall.  I've long ago gotten over my aversion to strip mall restaurants (it began when I was working for a guy 30 years ago who completely avoided strip mall restaurants like a plague) as I've found some pretty fine places to eat in strip malls.  Avanzare was elegant without being snooty.  The main dining room featured a number of booths along the wall in a narrow space with tables with banquette seating along the other wall.  Contemporary jazz music including a great track by tenor saxophonist JD Allen was playing in the background.  

There was a smaller room on the way back toward the restrooms that I gathered could be used for small parties or private dining.  The room featured some pretty interesting artwork, as well.  

Now, I have to say that the men's restroom was rather unique.  It featured soft lighting and a couch along the wall.  At first, I thought I had walked into the women's restroom.  But when I saw the urinal on the wall, I knew I was in the right place.  It was like peeing in a den.  And, sorry, no pictures of the restroom.  

The bar/kitchen area had a contemporary look with small tiles on the back wall of the open kitchen and soft lighting around the bar.  The bar wasn't very big - I think it only sat 6 people.  But it was a nice and cozy little bar area.  

When I went into Avanzare, I didn't really know what I was hungry for - I just wanted something with a tomato sauce on it.  The did have a rigatoni dish that had a spicy tomato sauce and housemade Italian sausage that immediately caught my eye.  But when I saw the cheese-stuffed tortellini in a rich cream sauce with prosciutto, mushrooms and peas, my mind momentarily wandered away from a red sauce.  But if the tortellini would have been stuffed with beef or prosciutto, I probably would have pulled the trigger on that.  They had a lasagna on the menu, but I didn't want lasagna at a nice place like this.  

Avanzare featured a number of northern Italian specialties - they had a grilled rack of lamb with assorted mushrooms, a seafood linguini, and a pan-seared salmon filet with artichoke hearts, red bell peppers, and mushrooms in a garlic white wine sauce.  I finally made up my mind for dinner and ordered it up with Roy.  I also ordered a glass of the house malbec they had on their somewhat impressive wine list that featured a number of great wines from California, South America and Italy.  

Roy brought out the salad along with a loaf of fresh bread and a small plate that included a dollop of freshly chopped garlic.  And it was very fresh garlic - as in spicy garlic.  The bread was fabulous and it was made even better by the wonderful fresh garlic.  No vampires were going to be bothering me after this meal.  

The salad was also very good.  It was a mixed green salad with slices of tomatoes and topped with a red wine  vinaigrette with olive oil and shredded parmesan cheese.  The greens were cool, crisp and very fresh.  

For dinner that evening, I went with the chicken parmesan.  A side of spaghetti with their housemade marinara came with the entree.  It was topped with Avanzare's tomato/basil-infused sauce, melted mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese.  A drizzle of aged balsamic was squiggled on the plate.  The chicken was thin cut, lightly breaded and flash fried in a pan.  

The chicken parm was wonderful.  The combination of the mozzarella and tomato-basil sauce was the taste sensation I was looking for that evening.   The basil was especially fresh and forward tasting in the sauce.  The chicken was tender and flavorful, there wasn't a lot of breading that gummed up the taste.  And I really enjoyed their sweet and tangy marinara sauce that came on the side of spaghetti.  Overall, this was a very good meal.  

One of the problems of dining out alone on the road is feeling comfortable.  And I felt more than comfortable while dining at Avanzare.  Roy did a great job of taking care of me all evening long with his good sense of humor, down-home demeanor and flawless service.  The chicken parmesan that I had was outstanding, as was the homemade bread and the fresh garlic chunks they provided with the bread.  There was little to nothing I could find wrong with my visit to Avanzare.  There's a number of good to very good Italian restaurants in the Springfield area and Avanzare is one of the best of the lot.

Zeno's Pizza - Marshalltown, IA

I grew up in Newton, Iowa and my first pizza experience was with Pizza Hut when I was in junior high.  (I know - that sounds weird as 3 year-olds are eating pizza these days.  But we didn't have pizza places back then like they seem to have on every corner today.)  My second pizza experience is what changed my life on my tastes in pizza.  We had a Zeno's Pizza in Newton (now Giovanni's Pizza) that became my go-to for pizza.  The pizza was cut in party squares with the wonderful "honey pot" square center cuts where the cheese and grease would congregate.  We would fight over the center squares of a Zeno's pizza.  It turns out that the original Zeno's Pizza was just 32 miles north in Marshalltown.  I used to help out from time to time at a sporting goods store in Marshalltown in the mid-70's and Zeno's was always one of my favorite stops before I would drive back home.  Not long ago, I realized that I hadn't been to Zeno's in Marshalltown in, well, a long, long time.  I was driving between Waterloo and Ames during a recent outing and I decided to stop into Zeno's in Marshalltown to get reacquainted with one of their pizzas.  

The history of the Zeno's Pizza in Marshalltown starts out in 1952 when two Chicago natives Cosmos Nigrelli and his brother-in-law Joe Liberio decided to open a pizza place in Marshalltown.  It was one of the first pizza places in Iowa and the novelty of the new food won over many in the Marshalltown area.  The original place - called Joe's Pizza - sat in what is now the middle section of Zeno's.  It was approximately 20' X 60' in size and sat 50 to 60 people.  

In 1955, Nigrelli and Liberio sold the pizza place to Rocky Lavalle and Elmer Kluck who renamed the place Rocky's Pizza.  Four years later, Elmer Kluck bought out the shares owned by Rocky Lavalle and took sole ownership of the restaurant.   He also renamed the place Zeno's Pizza - Zeno was Elmer Kluck's middle name.  Along with his wife Margy and their son Terry, Elmer Kluck ran the restaurant - and Zeno's Coachman Inn, a tavern next door to Zeno's - until he passed away in 1966.  Margy and Terry Kluck continued to run Zeno's after Elmer's death.  In 1972, Terry Kluck and his wife Jan took over ownership of the family business and promptly expanded and renovated the decor of the restaurant.  Margy Kluck continued to work at Zeno's until she retired in 1984.  

Now, I don't know if the Kluck's owned or franchised out the Zeno's Pizza in Newton.  There was a difference in the pizzas - Marshalltown used provolone cheese on their pizza while Newton had mozzarella.  (I liked the one in Newton better, but the one in Marshalltown was still very good.)  I seem to remember a couple three other Zeno's Pizza locations around Central Iowa in the 70's and 80's, but I don't know if those were franchises or owned by the Klucks.  

By 2013, Terry and Jan Kluck had turned 70 years old and they decided prior to that milestone that they wanted to sell they business.   Terry had worked at Zeno's since he was in the 8th grade and he felt it was time to move on and let someone else run the business.  But they didn't want to just sell it to anyone.  They wanted the new owners to keep the same recipe and the tradition of the place the Kluck family had built up over the years.  Once they let it be known that they were looking to sell, they felt that if they didn't have a solid buyer within four years, they would just close the place down.  

Aaron Buzbee had grown up in Marshalltown and knew all about Zeno's Pizza.  Aaron and his wife Michelle - who grew up in Chicago and knew a thing or two about pizza - had been in the hospitality business for a number of years before they moved back to Marshalltown to open an Irish Pub, the Fiddle and Whistle.  They had owned the pub for about a year when they heard that the Kluck's were looking to sell the business and the Buzbee's approached Terry and Jan about the possibility of taking over.  The Kluck's liked the fact that a local - with restaurant experience - who grew up on Zeno's pizza was interested in buying them out.  After some negotiations, the Kluck's handed the keys over to Aaron and Michelle Buzbee in the summer of 2013.  From what I understand, the Buzbee's haven't changed a thing.

It was around 6 p.m. when I pulled into Marshalltown and pulled up to Zeno's on E. Main Street.  (see map)  The sporting goods store I would help out at from time to time years ago was on E. Church Street, just a block south of E. Main and an easy walk to Zeno's on Saturday evenings for a pizza before my drive home.  The facade of the building that houses Zeno's was exactly the same as when I first went there in the 70's.  About the only difference was that the building that used to be just east of Zeno's had been torn down since the last time I was there over 25 years ago.  

The center dining room hadn't changed since the first time I walked in over 40 years ago.  The original dining room still featured the low ceiling with the high-backed booths.  The famous "box" where people paid their bill and picked up pizza-to-go was still off to the side. 

The dining room to the right was still the same as I remember.  I sort of remember there was dining upstairs, but it appeared the upstairs seating area was closed off.  Booths and tables were exactly as I remember in the wood-paneled room.  

However, there were some changes from the last time I was in Zeno's.  The room below left was new to me.  It was definitely more updated than the two main dining areas and looked like a room where they would hold private receptions, parties or meetings.  "Marshalltown" was spelled out with large wooden letters along one of the walls.

The room off to the left of the original dining room was also different from what I remember.  (Above right)  I seem to remember there was a bar in there at one point, but that was no more.  It, too, could be used for overflow dining as well as private receptions and parties.  

They were cleaning a center row booth in the original dining area when I walked in.  The young lady who greeted me at the front took me to the booth and handed me a menu.  I ordered a beer and took a quick look through the menu.  

I knew what I was going to have - my standard sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza - but I wanted to see if there was anything different from the last time I was in.  I immediately noticed that they had two Mexican-style pizzas - a taco pizza and a Mexican Fiesta pizza that featured seasoned beef taco meat, onions, black olives, and jalapeños.  I don't remember seeing pizzas like that when I was last in Zeno's.  

Like clockwork, I got the same thing that I always get when I get a pizza by myself.  Now, some people have told me that my pizza choices are boring and predictable.  Predictable, yes.  Boring, hardly.  The toppings I like - Italian sausage for the bit of the savory spicy bite; pepperoni for the salty taste, and mushrooms for the earthiness that offsets the Italian meat choices.  Oh, I do like cooked onions and green peppers, but they don't like me.  I usually get indigestion from the cooked onions or peppers after eating them.  But taco pizzas and pizzas with Canadian bacon and sauerkraut?  Uh, no.  I like tacos in tortilla shells and while I like Canadian bacon and sauerkraut, I like them better on a sandwich than on a pizza crust with cheese and tomato sauce. 

(And to the lady who said that I screwed up by not getting the chili dog pizza at Zipp's Pizzaria in Adair, IA  -click here to read about Road Tips' visit to Zipp's - to me that's not real pizza.  With all due respect to my new friend Jim Zimmerline, the owner of Zipp's, that's a novelty pizza.  Sure, I may try a piece, but I won't be ordering a chili dog pizza, anywhere, anytime in the future.  And I'll guaran-damn-tee you that you won't be able to walk into any pizza place in Italy and be able to get a taco or a chili-dog pizza.)  

On this visit, I ordered a 12" medium pizza.  Now, I was hungry, and I thought I could possibly finish a 12" pizza.  At least, I used to be able to finish a 12" Zeno's pizza when I was younger.  But at the Marshalltown Zeno's they pile the cheese and toppings on the pizza that it's just overflowing.  And because of that, it's a little more expensive than most other pizza places.  This pizza cost me $17.15 for cheese and three toppings.  But I wasn't able to finish the whole thing.  I think I left about five pieces to take with me to the hotel over in Ames.  

The sausage on the pizza were large chunks that had a great spicy taste, the pepperoni slices were plentiful and added that great salty taste to the pizza, and the mushrooms appeared to be fresh and had a nice, natural flavor.  The cheese was just slathered all over the top of the pizza covering the toppings - a Zeno's tradition.  Of course, the center squares - the "honey pot" of any party-cut pizza - were the most delicious part of the pizza.  This is were all the flavors come together and the thin crust of the pizza is a little more soggy and chewy.  Zeno's easily passes my "Does it taste good with a beer?" test when it comes to pizza.

But it seemed a little different in the overall taste.  It wasn't exactly I remember a Zeno's Pizza tasting like, but I did go to the one in Newton a lot more than the one in Marshalltown.  And there was a taste difference between those two pizzas.  My guess is that they put more cheese and toppings on the one in Marshalltown these days from what I remember from the Zeno's of years ago.  I don't know - I may be wrong on that.  

It had been over 40 years since I first tried a Zeno's pizza and over 25 years since I last enjoyed one from the original Zeno's Pizza.  Everything about the place - from the decor in the original dining room, to the quality taste of the pizza - I remembered vividly.  And not much has changed over the years.  Even with new ownership, the pizza at Zeno's was nearly the same as I remember it was years ago.  Expect to pay a little more for the pizza at Zeno's, but it's only because they put a lot more cheese and toppings on the pizza than most other places.   Everyone everywhere has a pizza that they were brought up on and think it's the best in the world.  But the people of Marshalltown - at least the ones who grew up there - are lucky to still have Zeno's Pizza in their lives.  

The Garden Grill and Bar (Hilton Garden Inn) - Des Plaines, IL

When I'm in Chicago for business - which seems like an awful lot as of late - my base of operations is usually the Hilton Garden Inn - O'Hare along River Road in Des Plaines.  (see map)  I've been staying there for years and I call it my "home away from home" when I'm in Chicago.  The past three or four years, we've participated in a trade show just down the street and I've put some of my colleagues up at the place and many are amazed at the level of service they get and the overly pleasant nature many of the staff possess.  "I've never stayed at a hotel where everyone is so nice," one of my colleagues remarked a couple years ago.  While I'm usually not big on eating at a hotel, I have to say that the Garden Grill and Bar actually serves some pretty damned good food.  I decided to let the secret out and tell you about this place where I like to stay.  

I used to stay out in Addison at a Hampton Inn for a long time.  But my wife and I stayed at the 9-story, 253 room Hilton Garden Inn near O'Hare International Airport during a Chicago excursion weekend not long after it opened in 2005 and I thought it was a nice place.  Trying to save my company money, I kept staying out in Addison for basically $20 bucks a night less than what they were charging for rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn.  Finally, I made the decision after driving for an hour and a half in rush hour traffic to get all the way out to Addison that it was worth the extra money in time saved and aggravation reduced to stay closer in.  With access to the Tri-State Tollway, the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway and the Kennedy Expressway all within a mile of the hotel, I could easily go in any direction to get to appointments around the Chicago area.  

After staying there as long as I have, I've been recognized as a regular customer and that has some advantages.  While the hotel doesn't offer a Park-and-Fly program like other hotels around O'Hare, they do have shuttles that go to and from the airport every 20 minutes.  Last year when my wife and I went to Hawaii for a week, the manager allowed me to park my car there while we were gone.  We spent the night before we left at the hotel, shuttled to the airport the next morning, and then they picked us up at the airport when we got home a little over over a week later.  It was sweet and saved us about $150 to $200 bucks.   

The Hilton Garden Inn - O'Hare in Des Plaines is managed by The Raymond Group, a Middleton, WI-based hospitality company.  Most of them are Hilton and Marriott-branded hotels and I've stayed in a number of Raymond properties around the Midwest during my travels.  I'd have to say that all of the Raymond hotels that I've stayed at over the years are very nice, clean and comfortable.  The Raymond Group got their start in the late 70's managing a number of Country Kitchen restaurants around Wisconsin and Illinois. By the early 80's, the group had branched out into hotel management with four Super 8 properties.  In the mid-80's, the Raymond Group partnered with a hospitality company to develop hotels for the fast growing Hampton Inn hotels.  In 1989, The Raymond Group was recognized as the "Developer of the Year" by the Hilton corporation for their work with Hampton Inn's.  In 1994, the company sold their interests in Country Kitchen and began to solely develop hotels.  Today, the company oversees three dozen hotel properties in 11 states.  

About three years ago, I was traveling with one of my newer colleagues and a guy from one of our manufacturers through the Midwest.  One night we stayed in a Hampton Inn in Omaha and I made the mistake of not booking us at a hotel with a bar.  We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn - O'Hare a couple nights later and they liked the bar so much that I was immediately absolved of all transgressions I committed on the trip.  The bar is cozy and comfy with a couple of flat-panel televisions that are usually tuned in to a game involving a Chicago team.  The main bartender through the week is a Greek guy by the name of Jim who speaks with a heavy Chicago accent.  He's a great guy and he treats me like a friend every time I pull up a seat at the bar.

One of the perks as a Hilton Diamond member (actually, I'm a Hilton Lifetime Diamond member - I no longer have to annually qualify to earn that level) of staying at Hilton Garden Inn properties is the free breakfast.  And the breakfast at the Hilton Garden Inn - O'Hare is very good.  (The bacon they serve is exceptionally good!)  The servers - Wioletta (pronounced Violetta), Maria, Lily, Elisa, and Vicki all know me and take great care of me.  

A few years ago, I was staying at the hotel one night and I was stuck in traffic.  A friend of mine was waiting for me at the hotel and I told him that I would be at least 45 minutes before I got to the hotel.  He said that was no problem, he'd grab something to eat in the restaurant.  He had the salmon that evening while he waited for me to show up.  When I finally did get there, my friend was raving about the food.  "This salmon is so fresh," he exclaimed.  "I can't believe I'm having this at a hotel restaurant."  

Jim came over and said to my friend, "Isn't it good?  Didn't I tell you the salmon was great?"  

My friend couldn't find anything wrong with his meal.  "I've had much worse salmon in upscale seafood restaurants," he said.  "You certainly didn't steer me wrong on this." 

Jim explained that they have their seafood flown in daily.  "And we have a real chef in the kitchen," he said.  "He knows his way around the kitchen."  

The menu for the Garden Grill and Bar is definitely upscale compared to comparable Hilton Garden Inn's that I've stayed at.  Steaks, seafood and pasta dishes make up many of the main entrees the restaurant serves.  They also have burgers, sandwiches, soups and salads to choose from, as well.  Their burgers are very good, I like their open faced tuna melt made with fresh tuna, and even though it's a little more salty than I like the French onion soup with housemade croutons and gruyere cheese is a spot hitter on a cold evening.  

Every couple of weeks they will have a number of dinner specials that they feature in the restaurant.  On this visit, it was around Mardi Gras time so they were featuring a number of Cajun-inspired dishes off the menu.  It was a cold evening, spitting rain and an east wind off Lake Michigan that just cut through the body.  I decided to eat at the bar and I sat down at the bar to let Jim take care of me.  I started out with a Bell's Two Hearted Ale that they perpetually have on tap.  (They also feature a rotating selection of local Chicago area breweries on tap.  Jim is a beer guy and he knows his beer.)

One of the specials they had that evening was a bowl of gumbo.  I've had gumbo in a number of places over the years and this was very good.  It featured chunks of chicken, andouille sausage and shrimp along with chunks of vegetables.  I gave it a little more of a kick with some Tabasco sauce, but on its own it was very flavorful.  

Surprisingly, the meat loaf that they serve on a regular basis is also very good.  I think I make great meat loaf at home and having meat loaf in a restaurant is usually a dicey proposition.  But the meat loaf they have at the Garden Grill and Bar is well above average.  For one of their specials that evening they kicked it up a notch with a Cajun meat loaf.  It featured Cajun spices on the meat loaf and a somewhat spicy sauce.  Usually, their meat loaf comes with mashed potatoes, but the Cajun meat loaf came with white rice and a side of fresh sweet corn kernels.  The spiciness on the meat loaf wasn't overly hot, but it was enough that it got my attention.  It made me think that I could make a Cajun-style meat loaf at home, it tasted so good.  

So, my little secret is now out.  The Garden Grill and Bar has some excellent food for a hotel restaurant.  The Cajun meat loaf special along with the gumbo they had that evening were both very good and hit the spot on a cold evening.  But other things that I've had in the past have also been very good - surprisingly good considering most Hilton Garden Inn's that I've stayed at don't compare in the quality of the food served at the Hilton Garden Inn - O'Hare.  The staff is always courteous, friendly, and helpful.   This is my home-away-from-home when I go to Chicago for business and one of the reasons is the very good food they serve at the Garden Grill and Bar.  

HF Crave - Lincoln, NE

A guy I know at a dealer in Lincoln was telling awhile back that there was this place that he really liked in the city that served a good burger.  It's evidently owned by a farm family who raises their own beef not only to serve at their restaurant, but at other restaurants around the Omaha and Lincoln area.  On a recent visit out to Lincoln, I decided to stop into HF Crave and have one of their burgers.  

In 1901, Isaac and Rachel Hollenbeck left St. Joseph, MO and homesteaded a farm on federal ground about 20 miles east of Lincoln.  They farmed the land and raised Hereford cattle.  Issac and Rachel passed the farm along to their son Don who, in turn, eventually passed the farm along to his son Myron.  

In 1992, Myron Hollenbeck and his son Myron, Jr. - known to all as J.R. - started to do an artificial breeding technique that would create a herd of genetically superior cattle known as Maine-Anjou.  Maine-Anjou cattle originated in France and was registered in the United States in 1969.   There are about 20,000 head of Maine-Anjou in the U.S. and most - if not all - are bred for beef consumption.  The Hollenbeck's cattle were range-free and grass-fed with no injected antibiotics, steroids or hormones.

Now the fourth generation Hollenbeck at Hollenbeck Farms, JR and his then-wife Marcy started marketing Hollenbeck Farms All Natural Beef in 2005 in frozen packs at farmers markets and local grocery stores around Nebraska, often grilling burgers on site at local events for people to try.  It wasn't long before restaurants took notice and a number of places started to use Hollenbeck beef on their menus.  When the Twisted Cork Bistro in Omaha was named as having the best burger in the state of Nebraska by the Food Network in 2009, they said that their main secret was using Hollenbeck Farms beef.  (Click here to read about the Road Tips visit to try a burger at the Twisted Cork.)  

By 2010, the Hollenbeck's began to look more in depth at the burgeoning gourmet burger market and came up with an idea called the Better Burger concept that they would use to highlight the beef they sold to stores in a restaurant setting.  They looked for a spot to open their restaurant and found an opening in a strip mall on Lincoln's far south side that used to house an Indian restaurant.  HF Crave opened in the summer of 2011.  Partners in the business at the beginning, J.R. and Marcy Hollenbeck eventually divorced in 2015.  

HF Crave is located along Pine Lake Road as it intersects with S. 27th St. across from the SouthPointe Pavilions shopping district.  (see map)   It's counter service at HF Crave with the menu hanging on the wall behind the front counter.   They had a dozen signature burgers to choose from including a smoked bacon, cheddar cheese and ancho chile barbecue sauce burger, a pepper-crusted patty topped with cheddar cheese, onion strings and steak sauce, and for the really hungry they had the Barnyard Massacre burger that featured three-8 ounce burger patties, topped with 3 eggs, ham, bacon and six slices of cheese.  And it also comes with a pound of fries.  It's also a "food challenge" burger as for those who finish the burger and fries in 25 minutes they'll get a gift certificate, a t-shirt and their picture up on a "wall of fame" at HF Crave.  

The dining area at HF Crave is what I would call contemporary industrial.  The space was narrow, but open.  The booths were basic wood benches while the chairs at the various tables were a heavy metal.  And they weren't very comfortable.  HF Crave definitely didn't want their patrons to linger after eating as the seats were pretty hard.

When I placed my order at the counter, I went with the "build-your-own burger".  When I stepped up to the register to order, I told the young lady that I wanted to build my own burger.  "You don't want one of our specialty burgers," she asked.  Uh, no.  Sorry.  She then proceeded to tell me that she was new and she really didn't know the procedure for the build-your-own burger.  I had to point out to her that it was a five-step process - 1) select the type of meat you want (HF burger, chicken breast, portobello mushroom or veggie burger), then 2) select what kind of bun you wanted.  Step 3 was to choose the type of cheese you wanted on the burger from a list of seven different types of cheese, then the fourth step was to choose the type of veggies or condiments you wanted on the burger.  (Interestingly, mustard and ketchup was not made available as a choice.)  The final step was the "extras" such as smoked bacon, a fried egg, guacamole, onion straws or an extra patty - all for a price.  

I placed my order for my burger - a Swiss cheese burger on a brioche bun with bacon, sautéed mushrooms, red onion slices and dill pickles.  She was having trouble figuring out what to push on the point-of-sale register to get my burger made up.  I thought, "Oh, boy.  This could be interesting."  When I ordered up a bottle of the Omission pale ale, she excitedly remarked before she handed it to me, "This beer is gluten free?  Really?  I'm into gluten free foods.  I didn't know you could get beer that was gluten free!"  Geez, come on!  Just give me the beer and let me go sit down!

As I was sitting there, one of the guys came out of the kitchen and came to talk to me.  He asked me questions about my burger - what exactly did I order and did I not want fries with the burger.  I let him know what I had ordered and, no, I didn't want any fries.  But I became more and more concerned as it seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to get my single burger out to me.  After about 20 minutes after I ordered, another guy from the kitchen brought it out to me.

Well, someone screwed up.  It didn't have the bacon - for which I paid extra - or the Swiss cheese on the burger.  By this time, I was so disgusted by the experience that I just wanted to eat what I had and get out of there.  Once again, there was no ketchup or mustard on the table and there was only some ketchup in a dispenser in the corner for fries.  I got some ketchup out of that and put some on my burger since it didn't have the bacon or Swiss cheese on it.  

The chargrilled burger was thick and juicy, something that I've found is tough to do for some places who chargrill their burgers over direct flame.  It did have a good taste to the meat, but I was still somewhat discouraged by the lack of the cheese and bacon they forgot to put on the burger.  The brioche bun was lightly toasted and was spongy.  It held together very well with the juiciness of the burger.  The sautéed mushrooms were tasty, the red onion slices were very fresh and forward tasting, and the dill pickles had a great vinegary taste.  Yeah, it was a good burger, but they really screwed it up for me.  

Sometimes bad experiences in restaurants puts a sour taste in my mouth.  Psychologically, it doesn't make the food taste any better when they screw up my order.  And that's exactly what happened on my visit to HF Crave.  I can't give the new girl at the counter a pass, nor can I give a pass to the cook who came out to confirm the toppings on my burger.  They still left off the Swiss cheese and the bacon - and I paid extra for the bacon.  It was a good tasting burger, but it would have been better with the toppings I had ordered.  I wish my experience would have been better at HF Crave.  I really don't know if I would go back to see if they could get it right a second time.  

Quincy Street Bistro - St. Louis

Looking for a new place to dine in St. Louis, I came across some Internet reviews on a place on the south side of the the city that sounded pretty interesting.  It featured many items that are locally and regionally-sourced with a down-home St. Louis-style flair to the food, as well as a good beer list.  I took off from my hotel in the Forest Park area to go check out Quincy Street Bistro.  

Mike Enright grew up in South St. Louis in the Princeton Heights neighborhood - actually right on Quincy Street.  A longtime neighborhood watering hole - Jimmy's Saloon - sat at the corner of Gravois Ave. and Quincy Street.  On the ground floor was the tavern while four apartments with a shared bathroom occupied the upper floor of the building that was originally built in the early 1900's.  

Jimmy's Saloon closed about 10 years ago and Mike Enright - who became a contractor - bought the building in October 2009 along with his childhood friend Kevin Winkler who had an extensive background in the restaurant industry.  Enright, along with his brother and his nephew, renovated the building taking out the rooms upstairs for a spacious over-flow dining or private dining area, rebuilt the bar area exposing the brick walls and putting in wood floors, and put in a full kitchen that any chef would be proud to work in.  Quincy Street Bistro opened its doors on March 1, 2011 and immediately became a hit with their blue-collar foods prepared by Winkler. 

A year after opening, Winkler relinquished the kitchen to Mike and Sue Enright's son-in-law, Rick Lewis who put his own stamp on the down-home regional foods that Quincy Street Bistro was serving.  Lewis was subsequently named a James Beard Award semi-finalist for "Rising Star Chef of the Year" in 2014.  (I'm not certain that Kevin Winkler is still involved in the restaurant.)   Lewis networked with a number of chefs and restaurant owners in the St. Louis area - most notably Mike Emerson of Pappy's Barbecue - over the years, and in 2015 he left the Quincy Street Bistro to partner with the Mothership organization (Pappy's, Bogart's BBQ, Adam's Smokehouse) to open his own restaurant Southern, a Nashville-hot chicken restaurant next to Pappy's in St. Louis' mid-town area.  The kitchen at QSB is now headed by Matt Birkenmeier who took over the kitchen last fall and goes by the moniker "Chef Birk". 

I drove down Hampton Ave. before cutting across on a side street through the Princeton Heights neighborhood to make it over to Gravois Ave.  Many of the houses in the neighborhood are small bungalows built before World War II that housed mainly brewery and factory workers and their families.  I found Quincy Street Bistro at 6931 Gravois, about a 10 minute drive from my hotel.  (see map)  

I walked into Quincy Street Bistro and I found myself entering the bar at the front of the restaurant.  It was a vibrant crowd in the bar area watching flat screen television showing hockey and baseball games.  I wanted to sit at the bar, but it was full.  There were a handful of hi-top tables in the bar, but those were full, as well.  I paused for a moment to take a look at what they had for beer offerings on tap.  It was a short, yet impressive list of beers that included a number of locally brewed beers from Schlafly, Urban Chestnut, Perennial and 4 Hands breweries, as well as regional beers from Bell's, Tallgrass and Piney Rivers.   QSB also offers a number of artisanal cocktails that their bartenders have perfected over the years.   

I was greeted by a server who took me to a small table along a wall lined with what appeared to be family heirloom portraits.  He dropped off a menu and it was a short while later when my server for the evening - a friendly guy by the name of Bax - came over to greet me.  He got my drink order - a Schlafly Kolsch that they had on tap.  

The downstairs dining area was rustic in its appearance with a number of antique farm tools, kitchen utensils, and window frames hung on the wall.  The flat screen televisions along the wall in the room looked a little out of place.  Quincy Street Bistro was far from what I would call a bistro and more of something that I would call a quaint little rustic restaurant.  

The menu at Quincy Street Bistro features a unique style of appetizers, soups and salads.  The appetizers featured hogs head-stuffed toasted ravioli, corn meal-battered cheese curds, and QSB's signature Buffalo chicken dip served with tortilla chips.  For dinner choices, they had a handful of gourmet burgers including their "ultimate" burger that featured a 10 ounce ground patty of locally-raised beef wrapped in bacon.  Sandwiches included a charcoal slow-pit roasted beef on a garlic hoagie, and a pastrami sandwich with the pastrami made in-house, topped with pickled cabbage, gruyere cheese and 1000 island dressing and served on New York-style Jewish rye bread.  They also had a banh mi-style sandwich with crispy pork belly with a sweet chili glaze and five-spices chicken.  

I was looking for something sort of hearty that evening and a couple things caught my eye.  The meat loaf featured locally-raised beef mixed with bacon, oats and seasonings, then topped with a house glaze and onion straws.  Mashed potatoes came on the side.  But when Bax came around to take my order, I ended up ordering the churrasco beef tri-tip they had on the menu that evening.  It came with roasted potatoes topped with a Brava sauce and a side of creamy cole slaw with bits of bacon mixed in.  

The tri-tip was seasoned with spices and smoked.  It was a little over-cooked, but still was tender enough.  There was a healthy amount of beef on the plate and each piece had a smoky and there was a bit of a spicy bite to the seasoning. While the tri-tip was good, it made me wish I would have maybe tried the meat loaf or their ultimate burger.  

The roasted potatoes with the Brava sauce were tasty enough, but the creamy cole slaw with the real bacon bits was simply outstanding.  The tangy vinegar with the creamy slaw went exceptionally well with the bacon. Sometimes the sides outshine the main entree and this so happened on my visit to the Quincy Street Bistro.

That's not to say the smoked tri-tip was bad - it was actually good.  It was a tad overcooked, but it was still edible.  The potatoes with the Brava sauce were fine enough, but the creamy cole slaw with bacon was the hit of the evening.  Bax's service was prompt and friendly, joking with me from time to time and making this single diner feel welcome at the restaurant.  The Quincy Street Bistro isn't what I would call a traditional bistro, but their take on locally-raised farm-to-fork foods is more rustic than chic or upscale.  And I like unpretentious places like that.   

(Update Nov. 2018 - This article in St. Louis Magazine announced that Quincy Street Bistro would close in late October of 2018.  Owners Mike and Sue Enright felt that their seven and a half year old "adventure" had "run its course.)

Nonna Silvia's - Park Ridge, IL

A place I'd really been wanting to try for quite sometime is an Italian restaurant in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge by the name of Nonna Silvia's.  When I found out that there was some family lineage between one of my new favorite Italian restaurants on the northwest side of Chicago - Pasta d'Arte (click here to see the Road Tips entry on Pasta d'Arte) - then I knew that I really wanted to try Nonna Silvia's.  My first visit to Nonna Silvia's was a strike-out - they were having one of their four-course/wine dinners the evening I showed up and I couldn't get in.  But on a couple of subsequent visits, I was finally able to give the place a try.  

Cousins Steve Marti and John Giannini are the men behind Nonna Silvia's.  Both were raised on their grandmother Silvia Giannini's food while growing up.  Marti and Giannini cut their culinary teeth while working at their uncle's restaurant Via Venuto (click here to read the Road Tips entry on Via Venuto).  

Pictured right - Steve Marti and John Giannini

Steve Marti was trained as a chef by his brother and by a number of chefs in Italy.  Getting together with John Giannini after Marti came back to the U.S., the cousins opened Nonna Silvia's in 2000 using many of the base recipes handed down from their grandmother who grew up in the Italian countryside, but adding a contemporary take to many of the dishes they make.

Nonna Silvia's is located at the corner of North Canfield Ave. and West Talcott Road in Park Ridge.  (see map)  There's diagonal parking along Canfield from Nonna Silvia's and down, and there's also parking across the street to the southeast in a lot after 5 p.m.

As I said, the first time that I tried to go to Nonna Silvia's, they were packed from a four-course wine dinner they have scheduled from time to time.  The hostess apologized profusely when I came in after telling me there were no seats to be had that evening.  I ended up going back the next night when it wasn't anywhere close to being as busy as it was the night before.  

Nonna Silvia's is not that large with two cozy dining areas in the place.  The front dining area has a small bar while the back dining area also features a small bar and can be used for private parties or receptions.  

I was seated in the front dining room along a wall and given a menu to look over.  My server for the evening, a man with a thick Eastern European accent by the name of Karol, came over to greet me.  I ordered up a glass of the Avalon cabernet to start out with while I looked through the menu.  

The menu consisted of antipasto appetizers such as grilled or fried calamari, beef carpaccio, grilled portobello mushroom caps, and Prince Edward Island mussels in a San Marzano tomato broth with fresh basil, garlic, and red pepper flakes.  I almost got those along with an order of baked little neck clams as my dinner.  

But the main entree options were just too good to pass up on my first visit.  Pasta dishes - with all pasta made from scratch in the kitchen - included pumpkin ravioli, linguine vongoli with clams, gnocchi in a vodka cream sauce, and Nonna Silvia's signature dish - a housemade Swiss chard fettuccine mixed with extra virgin olive oil, roasted garlic, cherry tomatoes, red pepper flakes, and topped with a parmigiano reggiano cheese.  

In addition to pasta dishes, Nonna Silvia's had bone-in Cajun spiced pork chops, a red snapper entree, a couple of chicken dishes, a beef tenderloin filet with a blue cheese crust and served in a shiitake porto mushroom reduction sauce with garlic mashed potatoes.  But something else on the entree list caught my eye and I ordered that up.  

With my meal, I got a basket of fresh baked bread.  Now, the bread was absolutely fabulous.  It had a thin crust that wasn't too crunchy and the inner part was soft, spongy and literally melted in my mouth.  

I got the house salad which consisted of organic greens with sliced cucumbers, halved cherry tomatoes, shaved carrots and topped with a red wine vinaigrette dressing.  The salad was fine, but it was at this point that I started to notice something.  My server was ignoring me.  

Now, eating out alone is always a tricky part of traveling for a living.  Finding restaurants that are keen on making sure the solo diner is comfortable and welcome has been easier as the years have gone on as restaurateurs have figured out that single diners can make up a significant portion of their business.  I'm still self-conscious enough when I dine alone in a nice restaurant, but a server who is friendly and accommodating can help out a lot.  (Plus, it's bad enough when loud-mouthed diners point out to others at their table that you're eating alone, as what happened on my second visit to Nonna Silvia's.  A typical Chicago wise-ass saw me sitting along at the table next to him, his wife, and another couple and he told his wife to go over and sit with me as I was all alone.  It was pretty embarrassing and I damned near got up and walked out.)

In this instance, I noticed that Karol - who was very friendly with a number of tables he was working around me - had offered freshly cracked black pepper to a table of four people who had gotten their salads after me.  I was never offered the fresh black pepper.  Karol wordlessly placed the salad in front of me and scampered away.  I just sort of brushed it off as him being busy.    

For my main entree that evening, I got the veal piccata.  It featured three veal cutlets, pan-fried and served with capers and garlic on a bed of linguine in a lemon/white wine sauce.  The veal was tender and delicious, as was the linguine in the sauce.  The linguine noodles were thick, yet soft and pliable - cooked to perfection.  Along with the sharp and salty taste of the capers, as well as the pungent fresh chopped fresh garlic there were a lot of taste sensations going on all at once. 

However, Karol continued to ignore me.  Not once did he come over to check on me or ask if I needed anything else.  I was nearly finished with my glass of wine and I would have ordered up a second glass to savor with my dinner.  My water glass, too, was nearly empty and I would have liked to have some more water to counter the salty taste of the capers.  Plus, I really needed a spoon to twirl my linguine with my fork.  As it was, I was having to twirl it on the plate, but that wasn't working well thanks to the laws of gravity and the lemon/white sauce.  

As I continued with my meal, Karol continued to accommodate the tables with three or four people seated at them around me.  He carried on conversations with them - I was guessing that some may have been regular diners.  But he continued to ignore me, right up to and after my plate had been removed by a busboy.  I could only shake my head thinking that he could have been a LOT more attentive to my needs as a solo diner.  When he dropped off the check (not asking if I wanted any dessert - which I didn't), he laid it on the table in front of me and merely said, "Thank you, sir."   Let me just say that Karol didn't get any more than a 10% tip from me that evening.  And I could make the argument that the 10% was possibly too much of a tip.  I was extremely disappointed with the level of service I received that evening.  

Having been thoroughly disappointed in the service, but being thoroughly happy with all aspects of my food, I knew that I couldn't let the lack of attentive service by one person stop me from trying Nonna Silvia's again.  Besides, when I was there on my first visit, a table of four seated near me got a couple of pizzas that looked absolutely great.  Thin crush, fresh toppings - and plenty of them.  It was my kind of pizza.  I had to go back to Nonna Silvia's and try their pizza.  

It was about two months after my initial visit to Nonna Silvia's when I went back into the place to get one of their pizzas.  I was seated at a table in the middle of the cozy dining room (close enough to the table of four people with the jack-ass who made the joke of having his wife go sit with me because I was by myself) and given a menu.  The only problem I saw, initially, were that the pizzas they had on the menu were Italian artisan-style pizza.  They had a margherita pizza with San Marzano tomatoes, fresh basil and bocconcini mozzarella cheese balls; a house-made duck sausage pizza with goat cheese and bocconcini; and a rustic Italian-style pizza with sun-dried tomatoes, black olives, sliced red onions with marinara and mozzarella cheese.  

I was there for a couple minutes - they were busier than the last time I was in - and I noticed Karol was there that evening.  Thankfully, a lady by the name of Rachel rushed past the table, stopped for a moment and came back to me.  "I'll be with you in a moment," she said somewhat breathlessly.  "Can I get you anything to drink in the meantime?  I ordered up an Anchor Steam beer and she cheerily said, "Great!  I'll get it for you and be right back."  

She came back a couple minutes later and said, "Gosh, I'm sorry.  We're out of the Anchor Steam."  I ordered up a Revolution Brewing Co. Anti-Hero IPA instead.  "We have that one, I know for sure," she said to me in an assured and good-natured tone.

When Rachel came back with my beer, she started to give me the specials for the evening.  (Hmmm... come to think of it, Karol never offered any specials to me the night I was there for my previous visit.  Maybe they didn't have any that particular night, but I doubt it.)  I stopped her and told her that I was going to get a pizza.  I was getting ready to order the roasted mushroom medley pizza with the burrata cheese and marinara sauce when Rachel said, "We can do just about anything on a pizza.  Sausage, black olives, Canadian bacon..."

I asked if they could do my standard - Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom - a 10-inch size.  (They also have a 12-inch pizza available.)  "Absolutely," Rachel exclaimed.  "Mmmm...  That's sounds delicious!  I'll get it in right away for you."  Rachel's demeanor was already making up for the lack of service I received on my first visit.  

When she brought the pizza out to me about 15 minutes later, I was ready to eat.  She sat this pizza down in front of me with a load of sausage chunks, fresh sliced mushrooms and pepperoni slices all mixed in with fresh mozzarella and a marinara sauce.  The thin-crust of the pizza was light and flaky, but held together very well with all the weight on top.  

And the overall taste of the pizza was excellent.  This was one of the better thin-crust pizzas I've had in all my travels.  While it wasn't big, it was more than filling with all the toppings.  By the time I was done, I was more than satiated.  

And Rachel couldn't have been a better server.  She poured my beer into new glasses at the table with each one I ordered (I had three - and the pizza went very well with beer), she checked on me at least twice while I was waiting on the pizza and a couple more times after the pizza arrived.  She did everything that Karol didn't on my first visit.  You think I'm throwing Karol under the bus in this entry?  I am.  But Rachel did more than enough on this visit to make up for the poor service I received on my initial visit to Nonna Silvia's. 

I knew that I needed to give Nonna Silvia's a second chance after the horrible service I received on my first visit.  Even with that said, the food I had on both visits was outstanding.  The veal piccata I had on my first visit was excellent, and the pizza I had on my second visit was exceptional.  My server on the second visit, Rachel, more than made up for the crappy service I received on my first visit.  She made me feel welcome and she was attentive and pleasant during my second visit.  I'm glad I went back to Nonna Silvia's and I'll probably be going back again sometime soon.  

Rolling Stones Exhibitionism - Chicago

The Rolling Stones are one of the most famous rock and roll bands in the world - if not THE most famous.  Since I was a youngster, I've been a fan of the Stones.  But I can't really say that I'm a fanatic about the group, per se.  I mean, I like their music.  I've quietly assembled a large collection of their albums over the years.  I've bought a couple three books on the group including Keith Richards' exceptional autobiography "Life".  And I've seen them twice in concert - once in Cedar Falls in 1981 (one of the few concerts where I didn't want the music to end) and again in Ames in 1989 (not a good time as my girlfriend and I were on the verge of breaking up).   When I found out the Rolling Stones Exhibitionism showcase tour was coming to Chicago for an extended run, I decided that I'd like to go to it.  One recent weekend, my wife and I made it in to Chicago to see the exhibit touting the "Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World."    

Now, a friend of mine from St. Louis is a Rolling Stones fanatic.  So much so, that when they announced the inaugural Exhibitionism stop in New York City last fall he flew to the Big Apple earlier this year and went through the exhibit before it closed in late March.  However, from the time that he saw the exhibit in New York, they announced that it was coming to Chicago's Navy Pier for an extended showing.  I called him up immediately after I read about it on the Chicago Tribune web site and he told me that had he known it was coming to Chicago, he would have just waited.  "But you know what," he said matter of factly.  "I'll probably go to it in Chicago at least once and maybe twice."  He's that big of a fan.  

When we were looking for tickets on line, we found that general admission was $40 bucks plus a handling fee if you bought them from the web site that would have put them close to $90 dollars for a pair.  However, the night I was going to buy the tickets on-line, I saw a Groupon ad during my Google search for tickets that basically knocked the price down to $20 each with no handling fee.  It was one of those "too good to be true" moments for me, as in "What's the catch?"  Turns out there was no catch and all I had to do was purchase the Groupon deal, download and print off a couple sheets of paper with bar codes on them that we had to turn in to the box office and we were supposedly admitted to the exhibit.  

And that's basically what happened.  We took an Uber over to Navy Pier from our downtown Chicago hotel (we could have walked, but the weather was rainy and cool - the perfect day to be inside) which dropped us off about halfway down the pier.  We had to walk about 10 minutes to the very east end of the pier to find the Exhibitionism traveling museum.  We exchanged our printed paper tickets for two "flex" tickets for that day and we stood in line for a moment waiting to get in.  

A security guard was standing near us and I showed her our tickets and asked what the term "flex" meant.  She said, "Oh, that means you can go in any time.  You don't have to stand in line."  I looked in amazement at my wife and we broke out of the queue and walked toward the door.  As we did that, the security guard announced that if anyone had flex tickets that they didn't need to stand in line.  I estimated that 80% of the people in line suddenly broke out and came to the door.  But we had a head start on most of them.  I immediately felt sorry for the people who A) paid full price for their tickets; and B) bought the tickets that only allowed them in at a specific time.  

We passed up the headsets that were only five bucks, but which offered an audio tour of the exhibit.  I didn't want to get bogged down in a spot that wasn't all that interesting to me.  But from the start, there wasn't much that was NOT interesting to me.  The exhibit traced the origins of the Rolling Stones with a walk-thru exhibit of a small flat the band lived in when they were first starting out.  I've read somewhere where Charlie Watts said that the reproduction of the room - down to the garbage on the table tops, overflowing ashtrays and filthy dishes in the sink - was chillingly realistic.  

From there, we went into a room that offered a number of interactive stops that chronicled the groups rise with early recording sessions, shows, and the equipment they used in the early years.  Pictures and videos told the story of the early Rolling Stones while Charlie Watts' original drum kit stood prominently in the center of the room.  In an enclosed room off to the side was the recreation of a recording studio which included a number of instruments used by the Stones during their early recordings.  A 60's-style mixing board was also on display off to the side.  And one of the more famous recording sessions the Stones participated in was at the old Chess Records studio on S. Michigan Ave. circa 1964.  Chicago bluesmen such as Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Little Walter and Jimmy Reed were big influences to the Stones, and during a two day period in the summer of 1964 they got to record about a dozen songs with Muddy Waters looking on in amusement at these long-haired kids from England recording his songs.  The Rolling Stones recorded two more times at the Chess studios in later years.

The late Brian Jones was featured prominently in the early years part of the exhibit.  But once the Rolling Stones turned more rock and roll than the playing the blues that Jones loved so well - coupled with Jones' growing drug dependency - it came time for a Jones split from the band.  The exhibit didn't really dwell much on that portion of Stones history - and rightly so.  But much of their best work came after the shackles of appeasing Jones came off.  

From there, the exhibit focused on the 70's when some of their most iconic music came out.  Starting in 1971 with Sticky Fingers, followed the next year by Exile on Main Street, then 1973's Goats Head Soup, and then in 1974 with It's Only Rock and Roll, the Rolling Stones started a run of what turned out to be 8 number one studio albums in the U.S. over a 10 year period.

Each of the albums in that period had a story about the songs, the recording process and - interestingly, to me - the design of the album covers.  Some of the Rolling Stones album covers are the most famous in the history of rock and roll, from the Andy Warhol-designed Sticky Fingers (I found that early releases of the album had a flaw from the zipper indenting the album - they got around it by shipping the albums out with the zipper all the way down), to the Some Girls cover that was designed by Peter Corriston that was based on an old Valmar Products catalog for 1960's hair styles for black women and featured the likenesses of the Stones next to women such as Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe and Raquel Welch.  (Some of the women - or their estates - featured on the die-cut designed cover sued the Stones for lack of permission to use their images.  Valmar Products also sued the Stones for using their design.  The Stones reissued the album without the women's images and settled out of court with Valmar.)  

But possibly the most famous icon in rock and roll is the Stones' "tongue and lips" logo, now just known as "Hot Lips".  In 1970, Mick Jagger went to the Royal College of Art, a prestigious art school in London, to see if one of the students could come up with a tour poster for the Stones' upcoming European tour.  The school suggested a student by the name of John Pasche who was showing some of his designs as part of a student finals exhibit.  Pasche and Jagger met and found that they both had a fondness of 1930's and 1940's art deco movie posters.  Pasche's second poster design (after being told that he could do better by Jagger after seeing the first design) was chosen for the tour and soon thereafter he was commissioned by Jagger to come up with a logo for the group.

Jagger had given Pasche a picture of a Hindu goddess with a prominent pointed tongue that he somehow wanted to be featured in the logo.  Legend has it that Pasche was enamored with the size of Jagger's mouth and lips, but he later said the logo really didn't have anything to do with Jagger.  He admitted that subconsciously he may have thought about the tie-in to Jagger's mouth and lips, but he said that over the two weeks he worked on the logo that many ideas sort of dove-tailed into the finished product.  For his efforts, he was paid £50 pounds (about £700 pounds - or $875 bucks - in today's money) and continued to make posters for Rolling Stones tours for the next four or five years.  Many of the posters that the Rolling Stones used for their concert tours since the 1960's were on display at Exhibitionism.  

I didn't take many photographs while we were touring the exhibition, but I did stop for a long moment to take pictures of the "Hot Lips" logo that was hung on a black background with a projector projecting different combinations of colors and designs onto the logo.  It was rather fascinating how they were able to morph designs and colors every five seconds or so onto the logo.  The photos of the logos featured on this Road Tips entry are all of the changing designs projected onto the logo at the Exhibitionism show.

From there, the exhibit showcased stage designs the Stones have used over the years for their large stadium tours.  Interactive exhibits of guitars used by the Rolling Stones over the years were on display behind glass partitions.  An interactive exhibit of being able to mix different instruments in Rolling Stones songs was a popular stop, as was the display of clothing worn by the group over the years starting with the matching houndstooth suits that their first manager Andrew Loog Oldham had them wear when they were first starting out.  But the Stones didn't like the suits and convinced Oldham to allow them to wear what they wanted on stage in what would be the first thumbing of their noses - or sticking out their tongues - by the Stones against the conventional nature of the music business in the 1960's.  The Rolling Stones rarely wore matching suits after that.  

The exhibit wound down into a room that depicted a back stage area where we waited for the final part of the showcase - a 3D video of the Rolling Stones playing Satisfaction live in concert.  The 3D visuals and the pumping surround sound was fine, but I've heard Satisfaction hundreds - if not thousands - of times in my life. Jumpin' Jack Flash would have been a better song to show.  

It took us about 2.5 hours to go through the exhibit and after the 5 minute video was over we poured out into a room that had a few more posters and pictures, which, in turn, led into the gift shop for the exhibit.  We stayed in there for about two minutes completely disgusted at the high price of clothing, souvenirs and tchotchke-type items they had the gall of charging for.  

Did I enjoy Exhibitionism?  Yeah, sure.  It was pretty cool in some spots, just all right in others.  I remarked to my wife that I was happy that we didn't spend more than $20 a ticket to get in.  I would have been pissed had I paid $40 bucks, but found that we could get in for a 2 for 1 deal through Groupon.  I'm guessing that attendance hasn't been that good for Exhibitionism - which runs through July 31 at Navy Pier - as they are now touting $25 tickets through the week (Monday thru Friday) on the web site for the exhibit through the month of June.  But, you know, if I was in the area, had some time through the week and wanted to drop $25 bucks going through Exhibitionism again, I would.  I'm sure there are some things that I missed (my wife says I'm not very observant) and there would be some things that I'd like to experience again.  If you're a big Rolling Stones fan, this shouldn't be missed.  But even if you're a fan of the Stones on the periphery, I still think it would be worth a $25 dollar admission fee and 2.5 to 3 hours of your time to go through.  Or check Groupon to see if there's any better deals on tickets like the 2 for 1 that we got.  

The Drake - Burlington, IA

We had a couple that used to live next door to us who we became very good friends with.  To our dismay, they moved back to their hometown in Southeastern Iowa about six years ago.  We still stay in touch and when our friend was having a significant birthday earlier this year, we went down to help surprise him at a bar in his hometown outside of Fort Madison.  After we'd been there for about 90 minutes, we took off and started back home.  However, we ended up in Burlington to go have dinner at a place we had tried to get into last summer, but it turned out they were closed on Sundays.  This time we were able to get into The Drake for dinner.  

Burlington is an old river city whose first permanent settlers date back to 1834.  Just four years later, the city had grown precipitously and when Iowa was named a territory that year, Burlington was named the territorial capital.  In 1841, the territorial capital was moved to Iowa City, but Burlington continued to grow thanks to river and rail commerce.  One of the companies that was founded in Burlington was Drake Hardware.  Dating back to 1864, Drake Hardware became one of the largest hardware distributors in the Midwest by the turn of the 20th century.  In 1906, they built a large building taking up about a half a block along Front Street between Washington and Columbia along the river front in downtown Burlington.  Drake Hardware continued in business until 1980 when they closed their doors.  

In the early 1920's, Dan Riley and his brothers started an oil company in Burlington getting his product from Pennsylvania.  Riley Pennsylvania Oil Company became regionally famous for their slogan, "Riley Brothers, That's Oil!"  By the 1950's, the Riley Brothers had branched out to manufacturing paint for farms and homes.  And by the 60's, the Riley Brothers were involved in selling industrial coatings to manufacturers around the Midwest.  

In 1971, partners Sam Jennison and Ken Bartels purchased Riley Brothers and renamed the company Riley, Inc.  When lightning struck their oil production facility in 1976 destroying the plant, Jennison and Bartels refocused their business with the paint operation renaming the company Riley Paint continuing to service home, farm and industrial paint needs.  

The big building that once was the home to Drake Hardware had sat empty for five years before Sam Jennison decided to move the offices of Riley Paint into the building.  But the large warehouse in the back was what Jennison really wanted to develop.  The original thick brick walls were still in place throughout the space, the five-foot-wide foundation of the building was still solid, and the Southern white pine support posts and beams were in great shape.  Jennison plotted out the floor plan of the restaurant so that every seat in the place would have a river view.  Not all would have an expansive view of the Mississippi, but at least you'd see some water with every seat.    

Pictured right - Sam Jennison.  (Photo courtesy Iowa Restaurant Association)

In addition to being the owner of Riley Paint and The Drake, Sam Jennison is also on the board of directors for the Iowa Restaurant Association and is also an author, penning his book "This Way to Happiness" in 1978.  Jennison is also an adventurer who once solo canoed on the Mississippi between Minneapolis and St. Louis. Jennison is currently semi-retired with his three sons now running Riley Paint, but there's a good chance you'll see him most nights at The Drake which is run by his son Jim "Jimbo" Jennison. 

We got into The Drake around 8 p.m. on a Saturday night.  We parked on Washington in front of the Riley Paint offices.  (see map)  We entered the door and no one was at the hostess stand.  We looked around the lobby area and found a number of antiques and historical items that were on display.  

We took a quick look around the corner to a large room that was evidently used for a banquet room.  A smaller room was off to the side with a bar.  While the banquet room was empty, there was a party going on in the smaller room.

A hostess finally showed up and she said there would be no wait for a table.  We were taken past the open kitchen that featured the essence of smoked wood in the air.  

Along the wall across from the kitchen were a number of plates on display with autographs of famous performers, politicians and personalities who had dined at The Drake over the years.  We saw autographs from the groups Styx and Lady Antebellum, as well as politicians such as Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, and an autographed plate from the 2004 British Open winner Todd Hamilton who grew up in nearby Oquawka, IL. 

The dining areas at The Drake are sort of split up into different areas.  There was a step-up room across from the front of the kitchen that was sort of reminiscent of dining on a rail car.  Along one wall of the restaurant were a number of booths for dining.  

We were seated at a table along the north wall of the restaurant.  It had a paper covering and crayons were supplied at the table.  We played Tic-Tac-Toe a couple three times as we settled in.  The exposed brick walls gave the restaurant an old-time feeling, yet it was comfortable.  We were given menus to look through and it wasn't long before our server for the evening came over to greet us.  She was a young lady with an even demeanor who looked like she may have been a bit overwhelmed.  My wife ordered a glass of the house pinot grigio while I ordered up a beer while we looked through the menu.

There was an Iowa basketball game going on that evening and I got up to check the score in the bar.  The bar area was also expansive with a number of tables and booths throughout.  There is also a patio that is open in the warmer months that give diners a great view of the Mississippi.  

I went back to the table and my wife asked what the score was.  "I don't know," I said.  "They didn't have the game on.  They had the ESPN game on."  I thought it was rather odd considering the vast majority of places in Southeastern Iowa would have had the game on.  

Our server was serving our drinks as we were talking and she asked, "Are you talking about the basketball game?"  I told her that I was.  "Oh, our owner is a big Iowa State fan," she explained.  "When he's here, the Iowa game usually isn't on the TV's in the bar."  Well, that explained that!

The menu at The Drake consisted of a number of wood grilled meats, as well as ribs, seafood, pasta, sandwiches and even pizza.  They featured a number of barbecued items such as burnt ends, smoked pork chops, wood-fired chicken, and a slow-smoked brisket.  Steaks included ribeyes, tenderloin filets and New York strip cuts.  Seafood featured on the menu included a Jamaican-jerk seared ahi tuna, grilled grouper, and an almond-crusted walleye.  On Friday and Saturday nights they also feature smoked prime rib, but we were informed by our server that they had run out of the prime rib about a half-hour prior.  

We ordered our main entrees and after basic dinner salads for openers, our food came out.  I ordered the beef tenderloin filet with my customary rare temperature.  It was 12 ounces in size and it came with a side of the Drake fries.  I got a glass of the house cabernet to go with the meal.  

The outer shell to the steak was rather dry and tough, but inside it was cooked to an acceptable temperature with a deep red center.  There was something missing in the taste of the steak, however.  It was very lean and not very juicy.  It was almost like bison in its taste.  I added some fresh ground horseradish to the outer layer of the steak to help with the taste, but seemed rather lifeless.  For as dry as the outside was, I'm glad I didn't order the steak medium-rare as it probably would have been even more dry.  

The Drake fries were - from my guess - nothing more than leftover potatoes that had been wedged and deep-fried.  They, too, were just all right.   I'm not a big potato guy, but these were dry and somewhat overcooked. 

My wife ended up getting the 4 ounce grilled salmon with vegetables.  She thought the salmon was fine, but once again it was a bit dry on the outside from the high heat from the wood grilling process.  Her mixed vegetables she deemed to be just "all right".  She said they were overcooked and sort of mushy.  

We passed on dessert as we were both pretty full from our meals.  Before we left, we took a look around the restaurant to see what it was all about.  Actually, it was a pretty neat place.  The decor and use of the original building gave The Drake a wonderful ambience.  

As we were taking pictures of the place, Jimbo Jennison came over to see why I was taking pictures of the place.  I didn't identify myself as a restaurant blogger, but I told him that I like to take pictures of interesting places where we've eaten.  He was gracious and told us a bit about the history of the building, as well as about the outdoor deck that they have open in the warmer months.  "You need to come back when the weather gets nice," he said.  

While we really wanted to like our meals at The Drake, we just felt that they were slightly above average, at best.  The beef tenderloin filet I had was sort of dry on the outside, but nice and tender inside.  But it was sort of lifeless in its taste.  The Drake fries were bland and also somewhat overcooked.  My wife's salmon also had a tough outer shell, but the filet was flaky and wasn't fishy in taste.  However, she thought her vegetables were mushy and overcooked.  I couldn't complain about the service we had, although our server's demeanor was almost void of personality and robotic.  But the ambience and decor at The Drake was worth the visit.  I only wish our food would have lived up to the anticipation we had for the place.   (Picture courtesy The Great Lakes Casual Traveler.)   

Nebraska Brewing Company - Papillion, NE

Out in Omaha earlier this year, I decided to find a brewpub for dinner.  I wanted to try something other than ones I'd been to such as the Benson Brewery (click here to see the Road Tips entry on Benson Brewery), or the Upstream Brewing Company (click here to see the entry on Upstream).  I had read about the Nebraska Brewing Company on a handful of occasions and I decided to head over there to find out about the place.  

Paul Kavulak liked good beer and in the early 1990's he decided to try his hand at home brewing.  Brewing beer at home went from a weekend hobby to a deep passion for Kavulak, helped along with encouragement from his wife, Kim.  After over a decade of brewing beers at home, Kavulak was getting good at the subtle variations in his concoctions.  Still, he wasn't where he wanted to be in terms of what he thought was a "good beer".  Trying to come up with a home brew that was similar to Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Kavulak was having trouble finding the right blend of ingredients for his beer.  Coming home from work one day, he checked the smell of his beer in the fermenter.  Disgusted with the results, he contemplated pouring out the beer, but at the last moment he threw a one pound bag of Cascade hops into the fermenter and shut the lid.  

Two weeks later, Kavulak went back to check on the beer that he had almost thrown out.  Resigned to the notion that this batch would not be good, his plan was to pour out the beer and clean the fermenting tank.  However, when he took the lid off, Kavulak discovered an aroma that he had been searching for in his pale ale beer.  He decided to finish off the batch and carbonate it.  When the moment came to test his beer, he found that it was very good, as in, "I think people would buy this beer."  

Pictured right - Paul Kavulak

The only problem was that in his fit of anger of adding more hops into the beer during the fermenting process, he didn't have the correct measurements written down.  But going back to measurements of previous batches that he had brewed - but wasn't fully happy with - coupled with some quick experimentation along the way, he was able to recreate the pale ale that he eventually named Cardinal Pale Ale.  He named the beer after the Cardinal Bar, a South Omaha bar that he grandparents ran in the early 1950's.  

Now armed with a beer that he felt would be accepted by beer connoisseurs, Kavulak started his plan to open a brew pub to showcase the Cardinal Pale Ale and other beers that he had come up with.  However, his demanding day job was taking up much of his time and he wasn't able to fully concentrate on the planning process for the brew pub.   Over lunch one day with his wife, Kavulak expressed his frustration with how slow his plan was coming together.  Surprisingly, Kim Kavulak agreed that he needed to focus his efforts on the brewpub.  Paul Kavulak picked up his cellphone, called his boss and resigned on the spot.  

Suddenly, the Kavulak's realized that Paul had quit his job, he had no business plan, no bank funding and no location for his brew pub.  But he knew that panic was sometimes a good thing during the years he was brewing beers at home.  Fully focused on getting his brew pub up and going, he formulated a business plan, procured funding, and found a spot in a new shopping center in Papillion on the far south side of the Omaha metro area.  They found a used brewing system from a brewery in Japan, and with everything in place the Kavulak's opened the door to the Nebraska Brewing Company in November of 2007.  

Their initial employees included some of Kim's family, but they also found a young guy by the name of Tyson Arp to help out in the brewery.  Arp was also a home brewing hobbyist who had a knack for solving problems quickly.  Enthusiastic in his work, Arp soon became Kavulak's right hand man and continues with Nebraska Brewing Company to this day.

The first year in business for Nebraska Brewing Company, the U.S. was going through a debilitating recession that forced many new and established restaurants out of business.  The Kavulak's were resilient and focused on selling their beers outside of the brewpub.  Paul Kavulak turned the brewing process over to Tyson Arp while he worked on plans to distribute his beers through retail and restaurant channels.  While Kavulak began to network with beer distributors, Arp worked on tweaking the beers that he brewed.  The result was a demand for N.B.C.'s beers that culminated in an off-site brewing facility in nearby La Vista.  The brewery opened in 2014 and a tap room at the brewery opened about a half year later.  Today, you can find Nebraska Brewing Company beers in nearly 30 states and in foreign countries such as Germany, Japan and Denmark.  

The Nebraska Brewing Company is located in the Shadow Lake Towne Center in Papillion.  (see map)  It was around 7:30 p.m. when I got there.  I parked across the street from the brewpub, a comer building with a brick facade and a small tower above the place.  Inside, I found an open floor plan with a small upstairs dining space.  There was sort of a contemporary industrial look to the place with Edison lights hanging from the exposed truss ceiling.  

It was Trivia Night at Nebraska Brewing Company.  The restaurant was nearly full with patrons, many of whom were playing trivia that night.  Between the Trivia M.C. talking on the P.A. and the back and forth banter at the tables it was loud in there.

I took a seat at a high-top table near the bar.  The bar was full when I got in there and there were basketball games on the flat panel televisions hung high above the bar area.  I was given a menu and my server for the evening, a friendly young man by the name of Angus, came over to greet me.  I ordered up a Cardinal Pale Ale.  "Great choice," Angus assured me.  "It's my favorite."  

And the pale ale was very good.  It had a good hoppy taste, but it wasn't overly forward in its taste.  It had a smooth finish and was very enjoyable.  

The menu at Nebraska Brewing Company is the typical pub fare - sandwiches, salads, burgers and flatbreads.  They did have entrees such as Cajun chicken pasta, a ribeye or tenderloin filet, and a sweet chili and Sriracha mac & cheese.  Appetizers included fried pickles, smokey beer marinated wings, mesquite-seasoned onion rings and seared ahi tuna sliders.  

I wasn't exactly certain what I wanted for dinner that evening.  I'd had a burger earlier in the day so that option was out.  Their Cuban sandwich was highlighted on the menu, but I haven't had a good Cuban sandwich in the Midwest - ever.  At least, not as good as the ones I've had in Miami years ago.  It was down to the Insane BLT - "insane" amounts of bacon with lettuce and tomato slices with mayo with an optional fried egg on a jalapeño Texas toast; and the reuben sandwich.  

I ended up going with the reuben - mainly because Omaha may be the reuben capital of the Midwest, if not the nation. There are a number of great reubens that are found around the city and I figured that if Nebraska Brewing Company had a reuben on their menu, well, it had better be good.  

And I thought it was very good.  It featured thick slices of corned beef with melted Swiss cheese, a bed of sauerkraut and an ample amount of Thousand Island dressing on light rye bread.  The sandwich was lightly grilled and came with a side of fries that I weren't too interested in.  The blended flavors on the sandwich were delicious with each bite.  It was a reuben that could easily hold its own against some of the more established reuben sandwiches that are found around the Omaha area.   

By the time I finished my sandwich, trivia was over and the place had pretty much cleared out.  The noise level in the place was much lower and more tolerable.  I don't know if it's a function of eating alone or getting older - probably both - but I'm getting to the point that I don't care much for loud places when I'm eating on the road.  

I have nothing but good things to say about my experience at Nebraska Brewing Company.  Well, maybe the place was a little loud, but you almost have to expect that from a full restaurant these days.  The reuben sandwich that I had was one of the better ones you'll find in a city that has world class reubens.  Their signature Cardinal Pale Ale was very tasty, as well.  And I can't quibble with the service I received from Angus that evening.  He was fun, yet prompt and professional.  Nebraska Brewing Company is one of the better brewpubs I've encountered during my travels.  

Smoking Barrels Barbecue - St. Louis

In St. Louis recently, I was in the mood for some barbecue and I decided to seek out a place that I'd read about a couple years ago that was getting a bit of a following in the area.  I ended up heading over to Smoking Barrels BBQ which was located in the Princeton Heights neighborhood on the south side of St. Louis.  

Usually, the back story of a barbecue restaurant usually centers around a team of weekend competitive barbecue aficionados who are convinced to open their own place.  Or maybe the guy behind the restaurant learned how to barbecue from his grandfather who had an old smoker in his backyard.  Well, the story behind Smoking Barrels is far from that.

Dennis Machado grew up in poverty in his native country of Honduras.  His father passed away when Machado was a young boy and he was forced to find work to help his widowed mother raise his seven other siblings.  As a teenager, Machado literally walked into the United States to find work north of the border.  

He ended up in St. Louis and opened a short lived Mexican restaurant along Cherokee Street.  After that closed down in the mid-90's, Machado found work in the kitchen of a new barbecue place on the far south side of St. Louis - Bandana's.  He found that working in a barbecue joint was much more to his liking.  He worked at Bandana's for 17 years getting enough money saved up to send for some of his brothers to join him in the U.S. and to build a house for his mother in Honduras.  

17 years on the job at Bandana's taught Dennis Machado the art of smoking meats.  Along with his friend Fernando Ordonez, they decided to open their own barbecue place in St. Louis' South City.  They found a place on the corner of S. Kingshighway and Milentz Ave. in Princeton Heights that had been a number of restaurants, most recently - and somewhat ironically - a Mexican restaurant.  They opened Smoking Barrels BBQ in late March of 2013.  

It was about a 10 minute drive from my hotel to Smoking Barrels BBQ.  I found a parking spot on Milentz Ave. next to the restaurant.  (see map)   Behind the restaurant was a large smoker and up front near the street was a smaller smoker on a trailer with a wood-covered top and a family of pig statues peering out to the cars traveling along S. Kingshighway.  

Inside the restaurant, I found a chair at a four-seater table in the middle of the restaurant.  The place wasn't all that big, but the tables were spread out enough that you didn't feel like someone was sitting in your lap at the next table.  There was a small bar area toward the back of the restaurant.  Smoking Barrels BBQ was well lit with industrial lights hanging from the ceiling.   

I was greeted by my server - Dylan - who dropped off a menu for me to look through.  I ordered up a beer - a Budweiser, of course - to have while I looked to see what I was going to get that evening.  Smoking Barrels has ribs, pulled pork, brisket, smoked chicken, smoked turkey, and smoked sausage for their barbecue items. They feature many of their meats in sandwiches and they also have a number of "barrel" specials on the menu for family or group dining, or for those with a ravenous appetite.  

I ended up getting the three meat combo plate - chopped pork, sliced brisket, and ribs.  For my sides I got baked beans and battered French fries.  Grilled garlic bread also came with the meal.  There was a lot of food on my plate.  

The chopped pork was moist and tender, but sort of bland in taste.  The sauces - a Midwest sweet and smoky sauce and their Texas spicy sauce that wasn't all that spicy and was rather thin and runny - helped the taste of the pulled pork a bit.  The brisket, on the other hand, was very good.  The beef was tender and had a nice smoky taste to the meat.  The ribs were probably the best part of the meal - they were meaty with a sweet glaze on the outer bark of the meat.  The pork pulled away easily from the bone and it was moist and far from overcooked.  

I sort of liked the battered fries - they had a crispy outer shell and a nice flaky inside.  I enjoyed dipping them in a combination of the sweet and spicy sauces.  The baked beans I would call "church lady" beans - they were sort of sweet and runny, the kind that I remember getting at church pot lucks when I was a kid.  I did add some spicy sauce to zip them up a bit, but they were still sort of what I call unoffensive.  

Smoking Barrels BBQ was good - maybe not the best I've had in St. Louis - but still good enough to be put into the conversation about the better place in the city.  The ribs were meaty and cooked perfectly with the meat easily falling away from the bone.  The brisket was also very good with a great smoky taste to the meat.  The pulled pork was a little bland, but the sauces Smoking Barrels provides helped with the overall taste.  The service I received that evening was prompt and efficient, and my server also had a good sense of humor.   I'd have to say the barbecue I had at Smoking Barrels BBQ was enjoyable and satisfying.