Road Tips

French Market - Chicago

During a recent long weekend in Chicago, my wife wanted to go to a place that she had read about on-line awhile back.  She was telling me that it was a market place somewhat similar to Eataly, but only with more of a French emphasis.  I wasn't familiar with the place she was talking about, so we decided to head over to the French Market to check things out.  

In 1910, Aaron Bensidoun opened his first outdoor market in Algeria.  Over the years, he was helped by his sons Isidore and Marcel.  The market continued throughout World War II and after the war was over, Isidore and Marcel took the open market concept to France.  They convinced a number of bakers, butchers, fruit and vegetable vendors, and soft goods merchants to rent space from them and they would do all the marketing to get people to come to the open air market.  The concept in post-war Paris was a hit and soon the Bensidouns were managing a handful of markets in and around Paris.  

In 1953, Isidore's son Rolland joined his father and his uncle in the business and set course for expansion of the markets across France.  Rolland Bensidoun oversaw the expansion of the open air market concept and even moved some markets indoors for year round commerce.  By the 60's, there were over nearly 30 Bensidoun outdoor markets and a half dozen indoor markets that the family was overseeing.  

In the 90's, Rolland Bensidoun was joined in the business by his sons, Sebastien and Pascal, who helped oversee expansion of the market concept across France.  By the mid-90's, there were over 80 Bensidoun markets across France.  But the fourth generation of Bensidouns had an even greater plan in expanding the family business.  

As a young boy growing up in Paris, Sebastien Bensidoun had a medical condition that was so severe that his parents took him to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN for treatment.  After he became well, the young Sebastien had a love for America and wanted to eventually move there.  He would visit an aunt who moved from France to the Chicago area in the late-50's and developed a deep affinity for the Chicagoland area.  

In the mid-90's, Sebastien Bensidoun moved to the U.S. to develop the concept for family managed seasonal outdoor markets similar to the ones his family managed in France.  In 1997, Sebastien Bensidoun opened the first French Market in the Chicago suburb of Wheaton.  Of course, it was an immediate hit and soon other seasonal French Markets were opening in the Chicago area.  Today, there are 10 seasonal French Markets around the Chicago suburbs, with another four markets in the New York City area, and a Bensidoun French Market in Niles, MI, just north of South Bend, IN.  

In 2009, Sebastien Bensidoun came up with a new concept for a year-round French Market that would be housed on the street level of the Richard Ogilvie Transportation Center in downtown Chicago.  The 15,000 square foot market opened in December of that year and served 110,000 commuters who came through the train station daily as well as 40,000 local residents whose closest grocery store was over a mile away.  

We took an Uber to the west side entrance of the French Market on N. Clinton Street, just south of W. Randolph in the West Loop.  (see map)  Since it was a drizzly Saturday afternoon, we figured there would be somewhat of a crowd in the place.  But it turned out that it wasn't all that busy up and down the two main aisles of the market.

There are over 30 vendors who are located in the French Market.  There's a little bit of everything for everyone.  They have fresh produce, baked goods, fresh meat and fish, a florist, a cheese shop...  Well, you get the idea.  And that's the concept behind the French Market - it's a one stop shop for whatever you may be looking for in an urban environment.

Figuring that it was a real French market, I was on the lookout for French products such as Amora mustard.  But there seemed to be no French products on the shelves in the City Fresh Market grocery.  They had a wonderful array of fresh veggies and fruits, but nothing that even smacked of being from France.  

There were a number of deli's throughout the place.  One specialized in ready-to-eat foods for those on the go.  I suppose they did a pretty good business with the commuters coming through the train station upstairs.  

We were amazed at the wide variety of baked goods in the market.  Chicago bakers such as Delightful Pastries, Vanille, as well as City Fresh Market featured a wide array of baked goods from macaroons, croissants, Danish, and sheet cakes.  There was also a coffee and donut place where they fried the donuts right there in front of patrons.  

One of the more popular places at the French Market was Lolli and Pops, a small family-owned chain of chocolatiers who describe themselves as "purveyors of sweetness."   A seemingly never ending case full of truffles, chocolates and caramels wound around one of the end rows of the market.  It was all we could do from loading up on a bunch of stuff there.  

Since there were a number of restaurants in the market - there were well over two dozen places where you could get sandwiches, barbecue, sushi, even Hawaiian poke - we decided to have lunch there.  We had our choice of such diverse items as Vietnamese food, wood-fired chicken, Greek specialties, and Indian food from the Klay Oven Kitchen.

There was a pretty popular seafood place called Da Lobsta that we hung around at looking at what they had to offer.  Their specialty were lobster rolls with a special twist that owner/chef J. Wolf has come up with.  Da Lobsta can take ordinary New England-style lobster rolls and make them with a Italian twist, or with an Asian taste, or even a Mexican twist.  We thought about getting a lobster roll to try, but there were other things that caught our eye.  

Right near Da Lobsta was a little deli that we had been by a couple of times - Pastoral Artisan Cheese, Bread and Wine.  And that's what they sold.  They also had a number of sandwiches that they could make, as well. My wife looked through their menu to see if there was anything that she wanted them to make her for lunch.

The cheese bin was chock full of different types of cheese.  They had a young guy who was more than willing to cut off small bits of the cheese for samples.  They also sold beer and wine by the glass - I ended up getting an Oskar Blues Dale's pale ale just to have in case I decided to get something to eat, too.

Down the aisle from Pastoral Artisan was a place called Fumaré Meats.  The awning over Fumaré Meats said that they had Montreal Smoked Pastrami.  I figured that it had to be similar to Schwartz's Deli or the neighboring Main Deli in downtown Montreal.  I understand that they brine their meat at Fumaré for 10 to 14 days, then they soak it in water to get the salt out.  Then they smoke it for up to two hours, then slow roast it overnight to serve the next day.  I ordered up a smoked pastrami on rye.  Well, they were out of rye bread.  I wondered, "How in the hell can a deli be out of rye bread?"  I then had a choice of white bread or sourdough.  I initially said I'd take the white bread, then at the last minute I changed to sourdough.  

Toward the back of the market was a public seating area where people could bring their food to sit and eat.  It had a mural of the skyline of Paris on the wall and there were some lights strung over some umbrellas in the area.  The strung lights didn't make any difference - they had bright fluorescent lights hanging from an industrial framed ceiling.  It was actually pretty cheesy.  

My wife's sandwich from Pastoral Artisan Cheese was called Sinfully Healthy.  It featured sliced locally raised turkey, topped with Fromager d’Affinois - an artisan French cheese that is similar to a cream cheese, a mango chutney, lettuce greens and yellow mustard on whole wheat bread.  She thought it was a very good sandwich.   She was especially happy with the taste of the bread.  "Oh, my god, this bread is so fresh," she gushed in between bites.  

My sandwich was well, it wasn't very good.  It had a crusty outer shell to the meat, but I thought it was sort of dry, tough and overcooked.  The bread was dried out and not very flavorful.  It was nowhere near the taste quality of the Montreal-style smoked meat sandwiches that I've had in the past.  I was not impressed with this sandwich.

OK, so we went to the French Market.  My wife was a little let down with what it was.  I'm not certain what she thought she would find there, but she was sort of like "eh!" when we were leaving.  I mean, she loved her sandwich from the Pastoral Artisan Cheese, Bread and Wine shop.  But I was more than disappointed in my smoked pastrami sandwich from Fumaré Meats.  It was just plain bad.  Would we go back to the French Market?  Possibly, if we were in the immediate area.  But we probably wouldn't go out of our way to go there again.  

Steel Plow Burger Company - Moline, IL

A friend of mine had mentioned earlier this summer that he had eaten at a new burger place over in Moline and he thought it was pretty good.  I had heard that a new place had opened in September of last year in what used to be the old Governor's space in Moline, but we had not been there to give the place to try.  On a lazy Sunday afternoon, my wife and I made the trip over to 53rd St. just north of Avenue of the Cities to give Steel Plow Burger Company a try. (see map)

The Steel Plow Burger Company is a collaborative effort between four men - Dan Whitaker, Mike Harper, Larry Anderson and John Barrett - off of an idea Harper had for a restaurant concept of classic gourmet burgers and monster-sized ice cream drinks for adults and kids.  Whitaker had restaurant experience - he runs the River House in Moline (a place that we like to go to from time to time, but curiously I've never done a Road Tips write-up on the River House) - and when the old Governor's space along 53rd St. became available, the group jumped on the chance to open their burger joint there.  

Now, the old Governor's location in Moline held a special place for my wife and me.  It was the spot where we had our first legitimate date 24 years ago.  We both got taco salads and I drank a lot of water because I was severely hungover from a previous long day of heavy drinking - it turned out to be my last as an unattached man.  So, we got a minor kick out of going back to the place where we had our first meal together so many years ago.  

And the place had changed dramatically.  While Governor's was a little cozy and dim with dark wood booths, the atmosphere at Steel Plow Burger Company was much more lighter and lively.  The main feature was a large fireplace in the middle of the dining room - the placement was sort of curious to me, but I figured that it also acted as a support for the roof.  There was a nice bar toward the back of the dining area and a number of booths along the other walls of the room.  

There was an indoor/outdoor space on the back of the building that looked like it could also seat people in the winter.  We had a chance to sit out there, but I asked to be put into a booth in the dining room.

After being seated and given menus to look over, our server - Chelle (Shelley) stopped by to greet us.  I was looking over the beer selection they had to offer - it wasn't extensive, but it was good enough.  I ended up getting a Revolution Fist City pale ale.  My wife was marveling at the huge ice cream milk shakes that were being delivered to tables near us.  I tried to talk her into getting one with a shot of liquor mixed in, but she said that if she had one of the "above-the-rim" milk shakes she would go into a coma just from the sugar alone.  

The burgers at Steel Plow are a mixture of prime rib steak trimmings that are ground together and flat grilled.  They also feature hormone and antibiotic-free grass fed beef for burgers, as well as lean ground bison.  My wife is a big fan of bison, but I find that it can get dried out pretty quickly during the cooking process if it isn't handled properly.  For the health conscious, turkey and black bean burgers are also available.

They have a number of specialty burgers on the menu including a French onion burger, a Firehouse burger that is topped with jalapeños, chorizo, pepper jack cheese and a hot sauce, a truffle sauce Swiss cheese and mushroom burger, and the "Double Dare Ya" burger that features a 1 pound ground prime burger stuffed with jalapeños, red onions and bacon, then mixed with an onion mix with American and Swiss cheese.  Steel Plow also as a number of non-burger sandwiches including a grilled or breaded pork tenderloin, a New Orleans-style muffuletta, a grilled chicken sandwich, and something that caught my eye - mahi mahi grilled tacos.  They also had a smoked gouda/American/cheddar/Swiss grilled cheese sandwich with tomatoes and bacon added.  For a dollar more, you could get avocado slices added.  My wife perked up when she saw that.

Appetizers at Steel Plow featured large chicken wings - they looked more like legs for the ones I saw, a poutine appetizer, nachos, housemade deviled eggs, and a large 12" pretzel that they called family size.  One other interesting thing I found on their menu was a number of variations of macaroni and cheese, all named for one of the Three Stooges.  The "Moe" was just basic mac and cheese with aged cheddar, the "Larry" had chorizo mixed in with the mac and cheese, the "Curly" had sliced hot dogs mixed in (something I'd never seen in a mac and cheese before), and the "Shemp" had bacon mixed in.  They had a little bit of everything on the menu at Steel Plow.  

They have a "build-your-own" burger on the menu at Steel Plow and that's the way my wife and I ordered up our burgers.  The first step is choosing your type of burger (she ordered bison, of course), then the type of bun (or you can go "topless" as my wife ordered), then a choice of cheese (six different cheeses to choose from) and then if you want lettuce, tomato, pickles or onions.  For a $1 upcharge, you can get jalapeños, bacon, avocado slices, sautéed mushrooms or onions, and a fried egg.  My wife got cheddar cheese on her burger.  For her side, she got the cole slaw after Chelle told her that it was a vinegar-based cole slaw.  Only it wasn't - it was cream-based and she thought it tasted pretty bland.  But she enjoyed the burger very much.  She said that the bison burger wasn't dried out and had a wonderful flavor.  I don't know how she could taste the bison as there was a big slab of melted cheddar cheese on top of it.  

I went with the regular prime rib burger on an onion bun with smoked gouda cheese.  I also had them put sautéed mushrooms, a slice of red onion and pickles on the burger.  I also asked her to put bacon on the burger, but they forgot to put the bacon on.  (I pointed that out to Chelle about halfway through finishing the burger.  She offered to bring some bacon out, but I just had her take it off the bill.)  For my side, I got what they called a medley of fries - French fries, waffle cut fries, sweet potato fries, steak fries and curly fries.  My wife ate more of the fries than I did considering she didn't care for her cole slaw all that much.  

The burger was juicy and flavorful.  The slice of smoked gouda was pretty thin and I didn't get much of a taste sensation from the cheese.  But the onion bun was light, fluffy and held together very well with what turned out to be a multi-napkin burger.  The red onion was very forward in taste and went well with the other things on the burger.  Yes, this was a very good burger.  

My wife and I pretty much liked everything about our first visit to Steel Plow Burger Company.  Oh, I had a couple quibbles along the way - they forgot the bacon on my burger and the craft beer list was just OK, in my opinion.  And my wife didn't care much for her cole slaw that she got as a side.  But the burgers we both had - she had the bison burger with no bun, and I had the regular prime beef burger with an onion bun - were very good.  We like to go out and get a good burger from time to time, and Steel Plow has now entered into the rotation of places that we'll head to for a burger and a beer.  I just don't know if we'll ever try one of those huge ice cream drinks that they have. 

The Crossing - Dickinson, ND

 During my trip to Dickinson, ND earlier this summer, I took      my dealer and some of his guys out to dinner.  He told me  that he had just helped put in an audio video system into a  new steakhouse just up the road from his shop and he  suggested that we eat at the place.  We ended up going up  to The Crossing.  

 Seth Murphy grew up in Kildeer, ND and went to Dickinson  State for college.  During college, he was a regular on the  Northern Plains rodeo circuit as a steer wrestler.  He thought  he'd end up as a full-time professional rodeo cowboy, but his  entrepreneurial spirit got the best of him while he was still  attending college.  He started SM Fencing in 2006 with the  primary business consisting of fencing the fast growing oil      fields in Western North Dakota.  His only employee at first was his cousin, but as time went on his business began to expand.  Murphy soon got into welding services, landscaping, erosion control, and maintenance work.  By the time he was 29 years old, Murphy employed 100 people and had 75 clients - most of whom were oil companies.

When OPEC decided not to cut, but increase oil production during a meeting in late 2014, oil prices began to plunge in North Dakota.  The oil boom that the state had enjoyed for the previous five-plus years was suddenly over.  Oil companies pulled out of the state, oil rigs stopped pumping, and workers who had come to North Dakota to get rich working in the oil fields suddenly vanished.  

Pictured right - Seth Murphy.  Photo courtesy Grand Forks Herald.

While Seth Murphy acknowledged a slow down in his business, he looked for other ways to grow.  He viewed the bust in oil prices as a opportunity to grow in different directions.  He offered his problem solving services to government, military and private business entities and began to diversify his company.  He was able to weather the storm and actually grew his business in the meantime.  

Murphy is also known as somewhat of a philanthropist in the Dickinson community giving back to organizations and donating time, money and services to local youth groups, rodeos, and hospitals.  But it was an idea for adding a community amenity that he and his wife, Chantel, came up with that triggered the plan for what would be a new restaurant/community building.  

A lot of Seth Murphy's meetings were held at various restaurants around the Dickinson area.  He envisioned a place where businessmen in three-piece suits and ranchers with dirt on their pants could come together for a top-notch meal.  Murphy knew absolutely nothing about the restaurant business, other than he liked to eat in them.  He was much more comfortable out in the field than he was in an office.  Along with his wife, he started a new company - Endeavor West - that would oversee not only the restaurant, but all aspects of event hospitality that the restaurant could host.  

The Murphy's bought a plot of land at the corner of State Ave. and 19th St. W. in northwest Dickinson and started on the construction of their restaurant.  Seth Murphy's mother was an interior designer and she used a handful of local artists to come up with the contemporary western motif for the restaurant.  None of the people planning the restaurant had any experience of running a place, but they all knew what they liked and didn't like about places they had eaten at.  The end result was The Crossing, a two-level 11,000 square foot space that opened just right at a year ago this week.  

I pulled into the large parking lot of The Crossing around 7 p.m.  (see map)  The first thing I saw regarding the large brick building the that houses the restaurant was that it was void of windows.  I thought it to be somewhat odd that there were no windows in the restaurant.

Just inside the restaurant was the bar area.  It was heavy on stonework, but the colors were mild and muted.  The sound and audio system my dealer put in the restaurant was top-notch.  He explained to me that the Murphy's wanted the best of everything in the restaurant.  

We were seated in the dining room off to the side of the bar area.  It was was better lit than the bar and featured the same soft red walls as what was in the bar.  We were given menus and our server Alysee (pronounced A-lee-see) came over to greet us.  They had a nice wine and beer selection at The Crossing and I got a Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA to start out.

Steaks were the main focus of the menu at The Crossing.  The menu featured two different sizes of beef tenderloin filets, a T-bone steak, a New York strip and a bone-in Cowboy ribeye steak.  The menu featured seafood such as shrimp scampi, scallops, seared halibut and a lobster mac-n-cheese.  But the appetizers were what I thought the most interesting things on the menu.  They had a charcuterie board with sliced meats and cheeses, they had a very intriguing beef carpaccio appetizer with a sliced red onion, fried capers, a lemon garlic aioli, and served with a peppercorn crostini, a braised pork belly, and a smoked bacon prawns appetizer that came with a housemade horseradish marmalade.  My dealer and his guys are pretty basic eaters and no one wanted to share any of the appetizers, so I passed on getting something for the table.

We went on to ordering dinner.  Since the guys didn't want any of the appetizers, I ended up getting the wedge salad instead of the dinner salad that normally comes with the meal.  It was an interesting cut of romaine lettuce with a light dressing on the greens.  But it wasn't a wedge, it was more like a lettuce spear.  The salad came with some roasted crostini and grape tomatoes.  Although I was hopeful for the salad, I was pretty underwhelmed by it.  

As I said, my dealer and his guys are pretty simple eaters.  Most of the guys got the 1/2 pound Black Angus burger with Applewood-smoked bacon and a roasted tomato aioli.  My dealer went with the double patty burger topped with Swiss cheese and deep-fried onions. Instead of fries, he got the grilled asparagus. 

However, one of the guys and I ended up getting the 8 ounce beef tenderloin filet.  I got mine topped with sautéed mushrooms and some of the peppercorn cognac butter on the side.  None of the sides - which included a loaded baked potato, broccolini, herbed baby carrots, and seared-pistachio and parmesan Brussels sprouts - really appealed to me.  I ended up getting a bowl of the steak soup.  

I ordered my steak rare, but unfortunately it came out more medium.  I wasn't going to send it back, but I was disappointed in the temperature.  Still, the piece of steak was tender and had a good beef flavor to it.  The sautéed mushrooms were a nice addition to the steak.  But I would have rather had it cooked less than what it was. 

The steak soup was, well, it was all right.  It was actually kind of bland in taste and seemed a little too salty to my palate.  The steak soup was also pretty underwhelming.  

I would say that while I enjoyed my visit to The Crossing, the food - to me - was just a little disappointing.  I'd never had a wedge salad quite like what they served me before, the steak was overcooked - but still tender enough, and the steak soup was more salty in taste than anything.  The restaurant, itself, was top-notch in its decor and ambience, and our server was efficient, energetic and fun.  They've only been open a year and I'm sure The Crossing has had some growing pains.  I'm sure I'll be back there at some point and I can only hope it's somewhat better than my first visit.  

Foothills Brewing Company - Winston-Salem, NC

When we were in Winston-Salem earlier this year for a relative's wedding, we'd been out sight-seeing in the northern North Carolina countryside and when we got back into the city we decided to get a bite to eat to tide us over until the wedding later in the day.  I decided to find a brewpub in the area and the first one that came up in a Google search was the Foothills Brewing Company.  My wife had one of their beers during the lunch at another restaurant the day before, so I was looking forward to checking out the place.

Jamie Bartholomaus was an anthropology major at the University of Georgia and an avid home brewer since the early 1990's.  He volunteered his time - up to 30 hours some weeks - at a small brewpub in Athens, GA, the now-defunct Blind Man Ales.  After graduating from Georgia, Bartholomaus did some archeology work around the Southeast, but brewing beer became his calling.  

In the mid-90's, Bartholomaus would commute a couple times a week from Athens to Columbia, SC to help brew beer at the Vista Brewing Company.  He continued to do his archeology work and work at Vista Brewing for three years before he decided to focus on brewing beer full time.  In 1999, Bartholomaus landed a full-time brewing gig at Olde Hickory Brewing Company in Hickory, NC.  During his time at Olde Hickory, he also helped out the people who ran the Blue Ridge Brewing Company in Greenville, SC. 

Pictured right - Jamie Bartholomaus.  Photo courtesy The Business Journals.

During his stint at Olde Hickory Brewing Company, Bartholomaus met a young waitress by the name of Sarah McNeill who shared Jamie's love for craft beer.  The two eventually married and shared a dream of owning their own brewpub someday.  A chance to move to Winston-Salem to take over an old nightclub and turn it into a brewpub soon came around. They formed a business plan, looked for investors and founded the Foothills Brewing Company in 2004.  Along with co-owner Matt Masten, a local Winston-Salem financial advisor, they opened the doors to the brewpub in March of 2005.  Jamie Bartholomaus was the President/CEO and Brewmaster, while Sarah Bartholomaus was the COO.  

In 2011, Foothills took over the operations for the Carolina and Cottonwood brands of craft beer and opened up a 50,000 square foot brewing facility on the south side of Winston-Salem with a capacity of nearly 55,000 barrels of beer annually.  In 2014, Foothills Brewing Company opened a tasting room at the brewing facility.  And in 2016, Bartholomaus stepped aside as the brewmaster to focus upon expansion of the Foothills brand in the Southeast.  Bartholomaus handed over the brewing reins to T.L. Adkisson who came to Foothills in 2010.   

We found the Foothills Brewpub on 4th St. E. in downtown Winston-Salem.  (see map)  The building that houses the brewpub was originally a car dealership that was built in the late 1920's.  When the Bartholomaus' and investors took over the building, it was pretty trashed out from years of use as nightclubs in a not-so-nice section of town.  They completely gutted the building from top to bottom and turned it into a neighborhood showcase.  As Foothills Brewing Company grew, it spurred development of older buildings in the area.  When we were there, it appeared that a number of buildings that will house apartments or condos were going up along 4th St.  

In the front of the brewpub was the front dining area.  When we got there, no one was seated in the room.  But when we left, it was about 1/3 full of diners.  It was bright, open and airy.  

A hostess met us in the front dining room and asked if we wanted to sit up front or back in the bar.  We opted for the bar area in the back of the structure.  The original tanks were on display in the back of the bar area. 

The bar, itself, was a wonderfully ornate structure of dark walnut behind and above the long bar.  If I would have been dining by myself, I would have sat at the bar.  But we found a table near the bar next to a staircase that went to upstairs party rooms.

We were given menus to look over and it wasn't long before our server, a nice young lady by the name of Scarlette (how's that for a Southern name?) came over to greet us.  We took a quick look at the beer menu they had and my wife got a pint of the Jade IPA, one of their year-round beers.  They had a limited edition India Pale Ale called Move that I tried a sample of.  I thought it was pretty good, but then Scarlette told me that they had a Kolsch on tap - a great summertime beer.  I ended up getting the Kolsch.  

The food on the menu was your typical brewpub fare - burgers, sandwiches, soups and sandwiches.  They also had a number of entrees including shrimp and grits cakes, pork ribs, beer brats and a pulled pork chimichanga.  The Foothills Brewpub also featured a number of appetizers including a veggie quesadilla, beer-battered fried mushrooms, housemade potato chips with French onion dip, hickory smoked wings and flash-fried calamari.  Chef Shane Moore also has a number of featured items that he likes to pop up on a daily basis.  

I thought about getting a burger - the Dirty South burger featured a 1/2 pound patty with pimento cheese, bacon, tomato and fried pickles - but I'd had a burger the day before.  The reuben sounded good - they make the corned beef in-house, as well.  But I ended up getting the grilled smoked gouda/pimento cheese with bacon and tomato slices on sourdough bread.  I had a choice of a side with it, but none of them really appealed to me.  I noticed, however, that I could get onion rings for a $2.00 upcharge.  I asked Scarlette if the onion rings were good and she said, "They're fabulous.  They're my favorite."

The grilled smoked gouda/pimento cheese sandwich was a nice adult grilled cheese sandwich.  The sourdough bread was spongy and lightly grilled.  The bacon had a nice smoky taste and the tomatoes were fresh enough.  And Scarlette didn't steer me wrong with the onion rings.  They were thick with a wonderful beer-batter on the outer shell.  I usually like onion straws, but if they aren't available my close second choice are thick cut onion rings with a beer-batter like these.   

My wife really didn't know what to get.  She thought about getting the chopped romaine Caesar salad with grilled chicken, but ended up going with the grilled chicken wrap.  Actually, it was called the Spicy Buffalo Chicken Wrap on the menu and it came with either fried chicken strips or grilled chicken tossed in a spicy sauce.  But she didn't want it to be too spicy and Scarlette said that the kitchen would be able to accommodate her on keeping the sauce off the chicken.  It came wrapped in a large flour tortilla cut in half with lettuce, tomato and provolone cheese with a side of ranch dressing.  It was a large wrap even cut in two.  For her side, she asked about the Moravian slaw they had and Scarlette described it as a cole slaw with chopped peppers, onions, pickle relish and pimento.  My wife turned up her nose at that and ended up getting the sautéed veggies.  (Personally, I was hoping that she got the mac and cheese side as I was really thinking about getting that before I pulled the trigger on the onion rings.)   She thought her grilled chicken wrap was delicious, but it was too much food for her to finish.  She said, "We could have split this."  I said that, yes, we could have.  But I didn't want the grilled chicken wrap.  My grilled smoked gouda/pimento/bacon/tomato sandwich was very good on its own.    

So, for our visit to the brewpub for the Foothills Brewing Company, we thought our food was good and hit the spot for a nice lunch.  The beer, I felt, was very good and I ended up having a couple more Foothills beers during our trip to North Carolina.  And Scarlette's service was impeccable.  She was friendly, helpful with suggestions, and on top of things for us.  We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the Foothills Brewing Company, one of the better brewpubs that we encountered on our trip to North Carolina. 

Bella Sera - Schiller Park, IL

Looking to change things up after a long and taxing day of calling on dealers in the Chicago area, I was wanting some Italian food that evening.  As I usually stay out near O'Hare International Airport when I'm in Chicago, I was looking for something in the area that I hadn't been to before.  My new GPS gave me some suggestions in the area and there was one place - Bella Sera - that I wasn't familiar with.  (see map)  I thought I'd give it a chance and see what Bella Sera was all about.  

Over 50 years ago, Holiday Inn built a hotel along Mannheim Road near O'Hare. It was one of the first hotels built in the area and it had a restaurant on the premises - the Armada Room.  When the movie The Blues Brothers was filmed in the Chicago area in the late 70's, the Armada Room was prominently featured in a scene in the movie where Jake and Elwood Blues went to convince former bandmates "Murph and the Magic Tones" to come back to work for them.  

The restaurant changed hands - and names - over the years becoming Spiazzo's, then Cafe USA, before Ron Kammo opened Bella Sera Restaurant and Lounge 20 years ago.  It is now located in what looked to be a rather rundown Quality Inn that had a local disaster restoration company working on some renovations on the building.  Yellow tape and fencing was prevalent on the outside of the building.  But the front of the restaurant looked like it had just had a facelift, so I was somewhat hopeful about the place.  There was also limited parking, but I was able to snag what proved to be the last space in front of the restaurant.  Everything in my body was telling me this was a mistake, but I decided to trudge ahead and see what it was all about.  

It was truly a restaurant/lounge with a three-sided bar area, neon lights and pop/dance music pumping from the sound system.  The ambience was pretty horrid for an Italian restaurant.  Well, really for ANY restaurant.  The bar area had a number of people sitting there, but there were only a couple of tables that were filled in the dining area.  My deep down feeling was that I needed to flee the joint, but I decided to stay.  

There was only one waitress working in the restaurant, a young lady by the name of Yovana.  She dropped off a menu and said that she'd be right back.  Well, she wasn't.  It was over five minutes before she was able to get back to me to take my drink order.  In the meantime, I looked through the menu to see what they had available.  

The menu wasn't very lengthy, but they did have a nice offering of items.  Chicken parm, chicken Marsala, lasagna, grilled salmon, and steaks were on the main entree page.  They  also had pizza at Bella Sera, as well.  But the thing that caught my eye was the "Build-Your-Own" pasta page.  

You start out by selecting one of four different types of pasta - mostaciolli, bow-tie, fettuccine or spaghetti.  Then from there you have a choice of six different types of sauces including a straight marinara, a meaty bolognese, an alfredo sauce, a spicy diablo sauce, a simple olive oil topping, and the Concasse sauce which had chopped tomatoes, garlic, and fresh basil in an olive oil.  You can top off the pasta dish with a variety of vegetables, chicken, shrimp, Italian sausage or meatballs.  

And that was the route that I took - well, once I was able to get Yovana back over to the table to take my food order.  (She did apologize a couple of times during the course of the evening, but I was surprised that she was the only one working the floor of the restaurant.) I got the mostaciolli with the bolognese sauce, sliced fresh mushrooms, and four meatballs.  

For as slow as the service was and as bad as the ambience of the place was, the pasta entree was - I felt - outstanding.   The bolognese sauce was meaty and had chunks of tomatoes mixed in.  The meatballs had a great Italian herb taste, and the combination of the mostaciolli pasta with the fresh mushrooms was a wonderful taste experience.  I was really glad that I didn't bail on the place when I had the chance - more than once.  

Sometimes you can't judge the book by the cover.  But, quite actually, the outside of Bella Sera was nicer than the inside.  The cheesy lounge decor, the neon lights and the pumping dance music aside - not to mention the slow service - I forgot about all of that with the pasta combination dinner I got that evening.  It was one of the more surprising meals I've had at a restaurant where my expectations were so low by the time my meal was served to me.  The mostaciolli with the meatballs, bologese sauce and sliced fresh mushrooms was simply outstanding.  Had the meal been mediocre - at best - I would have been more harsh on the overall experience of the restaurant.  But the food was good enough to balance out the bad that I experienced at Bella Sera.  

Lucca Grill - Bloomington, IL

When I first started Road Tips nearly 11 years ago, one of the first place that I wrote about is one of my all-time favorite pizza places I've found in my travels, Lucca Grill in Bloomington, IL.  The writing style and information was pretty poor - in my book - and it was long before I found my style and "voice" for the blog.  I've always wanted to stop back in and do a proper Road Tips write-up on Lucca Grill.  I had that chance on a recent trip through Bloomington.  

I had a good friend who was living just outside of Bloomington and who worked at Illinois State University who initially turned me on to Lucca Grill about 20 years ago.  But the business, itself, has in been in business for over 80 years.

Fred and John Baldini were first generation Italian-Americans whose parents emigrated to the U.S. before the boys were born.  The two opened their restaurant in 1936 and named it after the town where their parents came from, Lucca, Italy, not far from Pisa.  They served grilled sandwiches along with Italian specialties from recipes that were handed down through their family.  

Fred Baldini had a son also named John and a son named Charles - who also went by the nickname of "Tot" (since he was the youngest) - who came into the business with their father and the older John Baldini in the 1950's.  It was the younger John Baldini who went to St. Louis and came back with the recipe of how to make pizza pies.  However, his brother Tot thought that pizza was a fad and he didn't think it would stick.  It was in 1953 that the Baldini family served the first pizza at Lucca Grill, the first place in Central Illinois to serve pizza.  

Well, pizza did stick and the Lucca Grill thrived.  Their most popular pizza - the a la Baldini - initially featured anchovies along with sausage, pepperoni, ham, onions, mushrooms, green peppers and pepperoncini.  The Baldini's dumped the anchovies off the a la Baldini a number of years ago, but that style continues to be the most popular pizza at Lucca Grill.  

Lucca Grill was one of those local places where professional people would be seated next to union laborers who were seated next to clergy members who were seated next to everyday mom and dads out with their kids.  Politics was always discussed in Lucca Grill as the younger John Baldini was the longtime local Democratic Party chairman and a huge admirer of President John F. Kennedy.  A portrait of Kennedy still hangs on the wall behind the bar at Lucca Grill.

In the early 80's, Tot Baldini retired and John Baldini sold the Lucca Grill to his son-in-law Chuck Williams.  Today, Tony Smith and John Koch run the day-to-day operations for the Williams family.  Longtime patrons of Lucca Grill will tell you that nothing has changed in the taste and quality of the food over the years.  

Lucca Grill is located at the corner of N. East Street - the one-way going north through downtown Bloomington - and W. Market Street.  (see map)  Parking is available on the side streets near Lucca Grill.  I found a parking spot on N. Main just around the corner from the place and went inside.  

The dining/bar area hasn't changed a bit since the first time I walked in 20 years ago.  It still has the same tin ceiling tiles from when Lucca Grill opened over 80 years ago.  It features a long bar with a number of tables closely placed near one another.  It was packed - as usual.  

The walls are adorned with beer signs and old-time college pennants that probably date back to the 50's.  It's sort of a cozy, comfortable feeling in the place.  Lucca Grill has had their share of celebrities and big-name politicians come through the front door over the years. 

The original pizza oven is right up front on your right just as you walk in the front door.  The zest from the countless numbers of pizzas cooked in the oven over the years helps with the unique taste of a Lucca pizza.  

There is an upstairs dining area at Lucca Grill - I'd been going there for over 10 years before I realized that there was an upstairs to the place.  It's much more updated and modern than the main dining room on the ground floor.  I've eaten up there a couple three times, but I prefer sitting in the main dining room downstairs.

I almost had to sit upstairs as there was no place to sit on the main floor.  However, just before I was going to up the stairs, a guy stood up at the bar and I ended up taking his seat when he left.  There was a couple seated next to me on the right chomping down on an a la Baldini pizza.  Since Bloomington is basically half-way between Chicago and St. Louis, there are allegiances to both the Cubs and the Cardinals in the Bloomington/Normal area.  During baseball season, Lucca Grill will have one television turned on to a Cardinals game while another - or two - will have on the Cubs game.  The owners also have a deep fondness for the Chicago Blackhawks in professional hockey.  

There's more than pizza on the menu at Lucca Grill.  They also feature Italian specialties such as lasagna, chicken parmesan and baked ziti along with a number of pasta dishes including spaghetti, meat or cheese-filled ravioli, and fettuccine alfredo.  I was seated next to a guy one time who was having the fettuccine alfredo and the smell of the garlic coming from the rich and creamy alfredo sauce almost made me want to ask him for a bite.  Lucca Grill also has a number of sandwiches to choose from, build-your-own burgers, and a long list of appetizers, as well as soups and salads.  

But I was there for the pizza.  I got a small (10") Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  The crust on a  Lucca pizza is thin and crisp, but not paper thin or brittle.  They cut the pizza in what is known as a tavern or party cut - the best way to cut a pizza in my book.  The toppings were plentiful and the mozzarella cheese was caramelized on top of the pizza.  The mushrooms are fresh, the pepperoni had a bit of a spicy and salty taste, and the sausage they use is so savory in taste that it just makes my mouth water as I'm writing about it. This pizza easily passes my "Does It Taste Good with Beer?" protocol for a good pizza.  They had the Schlafly pale ale on tap and I had a couple of those before and after my pizza showed up.  

The center "honey pot" pieces in the middle are always the best with a party cut pizza.  There's no crust, most of the flavorings coagulate in the middle, and it's generally a happy, gooey mess of cheese and toppings that come together there.  The "honey pot" cuts on a Lucca's pizza are just heavenly in taste.  

For me, it's always a treat to stop at Lucca Grill.  I've been saying for a long time that I would like to try something else - like the fettuccine alfredo - but the pizza is so good that I don't want to waste a trip there to try anything else.  If I lived closer and went more often, then, yeah - I may try something else.  But it's tough to beat the wonderful pizza they have at Lucca Grill.  It's one of the best places for pizza I've encountered in my travels over the years.  

Twisted Laurel - Asheville, NC

During a walkabout in downtown Asheville during our stay there, it was getting later in the day where we needed something for lunch, but we didn't want to have something that was heavy.  My wife remembered seeing a Mediterranean restaurant that caught her fancy - Twisted Laurel.  We decided to head over there for a light lunch before heading back to our hotel to rest and get cleaned up.  

The Twisted Laurel in Asheville is one of three locations of the restaurant that was originally opened in March of 2014 by Angelo Karnezis.  Karnezis is the owner of Bellagio Bistro (formerly one of the Apollo Flame Bistro restaurants around Asheville), a Greek/Mediterranean restaurant about halfway between Asheville and Weaverville to the north of the city.  When the popular Arcade bar shut down in late 2013, Karnezis saw an opportunity to put in a new concept restaurant he had in mind and that was the first Twisted Laurel.  In August of that year, Karnezis took over the former Jack of Hearts tap room in Weaverville for the second Twisted Laurel location.  And not long after we were in Asheville, Karnezis opened a third location - Twisted Laurel at Grassy Creek - in Spruce Pine, a tourist destination in the Blue Ridge Mountains about an hours drive north of Asheville.  

We had walked by Twisted Laurel a number of times on our way back to our hotel from Asheville's downtown. It's located at the corner of College and Spruce on the east side of the downtown.  (see map)  It was well after 2 p.m. when we went there.  It was a warm day and we decided to eat inside instead of on the large patio they have in front of the place.  The main dining room/bar features a decor of exposed bricks, steel beams across the ceiling and a concrete floor.  A small bar area was toward the back of the restaurant.  

We sat ourselves at a table near the bar and we were soon greeted by a server who dropped off a couple menus for us to look over. I noticed on their beer menu board that they had a locally brewed Kolsch on tap and I ordered that.  I like a nice light Kolsch on a warm summer day, but I was soon informed by our server that they were out of the Kolsch.  Slightly bummed, I resorted to a Green Man IPA - that pretty much became my local beer of choice after a few days in Asheville.  

It's a limited menu during the daytime at Twisted Laurel.  During the evening, they feature a number of pasta dishes, Greek specialties and pizza.  It's mostly sandwiches and salads during the day.  And that was fine with  us, we didn't want a big lunch as we had dinner plans for the evening.  

My wife ended up a sandwich/salad combo - the Super Sub with turkey and roast beef with a Greek salad.  The sandwich was topped with fresh onions, chopped lettuce and tomatoes.  The Greek salad featured the sliced onion and tomatoes, Kalamata olives and pepperoncinis.  The bread was spongy and fresh, and my wife thought it was fine for what it was.

I got the gyro with a side of fries.  The sliced gyro meat didn't seem like it had come directly off a spit, and the pita bread was a little dried out.  It wasn't the greatest gyro I've had, but it was all right.  Just all right.  The fries were basically throw away - lukewarm and sort of limp.  We just shrugged our shoulders and finished what we could - or what we wanted to finish.  

While we liked the decor of the Twisted Laurel and the service was very good, we thought the lunch that we both had was pretty average, at best.  I'm guessing their night time fare - which features a more extensive menu for lunch - is a step above the bland gyro and basic sub sandwich we got on our visit.   We noticed that it was a popular place in the evenings when we would walk by going back to our hotel, so I'm guessing that the food is probably better in the evening.  Still, it was pretty basic for lunch and even thought that was sort of all we needed that day, I wish it would have been a little better. 

Tuscany (on Taylor) - Chicago

While in Chicago celebrating our wedding anniversary earlier this year, we decided to head out to Chicago Little Italy neighborhood to have some delicious Italian food.  We took an Uber out to a small Italian restaurant along Taylor that we had found on-line.  When we stepped into the nearly deserted place around 7 p.m., we were told that if we didn't have reservation we couldn't possibly be seated until 9 p.m.  Somewhat crestfallen (it was a cute little Italian place), we wandered back east on Taylor checking out a few other restaurants along the way.  We ended up in front of Tuscany, a restaurant that I was familiar with, but had not tried before.  Even thought the place was packed, it turned out that we could get in with a minimal wait.  (see map)

Phil Stefani is one of the longtime well-known names in the restaurant business around Chicago.  Along with his uncle Lino Stefani, they opened the original Stefani's restaurant in Chicago in 1980.  The original Stefani's is long closed, but he has three Tuscany restaurants - the one on Taylor Street that we went to, one up in the far northern suburb of Wheeling, and one out in west suburban Oak Brook.   

Pictured right - Phil Stefani

Along with the trio of Tuscany restaurants, the Phil Stefani Signature Restaurants group also owns Riva Crab House at Navy Pier, MAD Social in Chicago's West Loop (it is run by Stefani's daughter Gina), and Tavern on Rush, an upscale steakhouse near Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood.  The Stefani group also owns the Crystal Gardens, a one-acre indoor botanical center at Navy Pier that hosts receptions and events with food catered by Stefani's catering company headed by his wife Karen and their daughter Gina.  

The rainy day had turned into a beautiful sunlit evening by the time we made it down to Taylor Street.  When we walked up to the maître d' at Tuscany, he told us that we would have a 15 minute wait to get a table.  There was one other couple seated at the bar waiting for a table to open, so we sat down to get a pre-dinner drink.  Karen was the bartender that evening and she got a Lagunitas IPA for me and a Ruffino chianti for my wife while we waited.  

The restaurant featured a number of cloth-topped tables with accent lighting on some mural paintings on wall.  Even though the dining room was packed, it wasn't loud in there.  The only thing I didn't care for was that the tables were literally on top of one another.  It was pretty cramped in the dining area.  

We were seated right next to the open kitchen at Tuscany.  We were able to see into the kitchen to see both the food prep and the wood-fired oven they used for their pizzas at Tuscany.  Pizza sounded good, but I was in the mood for pasta that evening.  

In the back of the restaurant is a large room that is used for private dining, receptions, meetings and overflow.  Even though the restaurant was full that evening, the back room was not in use that evening.

While we looked through the menu, our server for the evening - Saul - came over to greet us and to drop off a basket of fresh-baked bread.  He also had some freshly roasted whole garlic with him.

Saul poured some olive oil and put some parmesan cheese top of the oil, then he took some garlic cloves and crushed them in the oil.  The pungent smell of the garlic smelled wonderful.  Even more wonderful was the somewhat spicy taste of the fresh garlic on the bread along with the olive oil and parmesan cheese.  If that's all we got for dinner that evening, we would have been more than happy.  

It was old world Italian dining at Tuscany with items they featured on the menu.  They had a veal chop entree, as well as a rack of lamb entree.  They had a seared beef tenderloin filet on the menu, as well as a roasted pork chop with sage and rosemary that came with a side of garlic-sauteéd rapini.  They also had a number of pasta dishes on the menu, as well, but none of which were exactly what I was looking for.  But I did find something that appeased me with the help of some suggestions from Saul along with some modifications from the kitchen.

After a nice house salad that featured fresh iceberg lettuce along with sliced cucumbers, tomatoes and carrots, Saul brought our main courses out.  They had a pappardelle pasta plate that was topped with a wild boar ragout sauce and shaved fresh parmigiana cheese.  I was looking for something kind of spicy and Saul suggested that I get a side of grilled Italian sausage.  

I cut the sausage into chunks and put it on top of the pasta and the wild boar bolognese sauce.  The grilled sausage was the spicy taste I was looking for and it was a great compliment to the boar ragout.  The pappardelle pasta was fresh and had a great egg taste.  (Tuscany has a facility that produces up to 40 different types of pasta daily for the various Stephani restaurants.)   I was more than happy with the meal I had that evening.  

My wife ended up getting the Spignola del Chile Livornese - Chilean sea bass topped with chopped Taggiasca olives, capers and Swiss chard and topped with a tomato sauce.  Organic polenta came on the side.  The fish was light and flaky, and my wife thought the tomato sauce with the capers gave it a nice balance in flavor.  I normally don't like tomato sauce with fish, but my wife thought it was a nice combination.  

For dessert, we had to try a slice of their tiramisu.  The presentation was nice with a side of whipped cream cheese and a chocolate sauce drizzle.  The tiramisu was rich and filling, a nice ending to what we thought was a very good meal.   

For walking in off the street with no reservation on a Saturday evening, we couldn't have been more satisfied with how we were treated during our visit to Tuscany.  Everyone was welcoming and accommodating, our server was professional and proficient, and the food - we thought - was excellent.  While we were disappointed we couldn't get into the restaurant we initially chose, Tuscany turned out to be a very good Plan B for dinner that evening.

Santa Ana - Columbus Junction, IA

My wife and I decided to take off one warm Saturday to just go do and see around Southeast Iowa.  We pulled into Columbus Junction, IA around 1:30 p.m. and decided to find some place to get something to eat.  Columbus Junction has a large Hispanic population and there are many Mexican restaurants in its downtown area.  We really didn't know where to go, so we just parked our car and walked into the first place we came to.  It turns out that it was a combination restaurant and bakery called Santa Ana.  

Eustaquio Vergara grew up in Puebla, Mexico and immigrated to New York City in 1974.  He worked in a bakery in New York City for a number of years.  In the early 90's, he came out to Iowa on a bus to visit relatives who were working in a local packing plant.  Realizing that the way of life in Iowa was less hectic and the cost of living was precipitously lower than New York City, Vergara - along with his wife, Rosa - moved out to Iowa in 1995.  When he stepped off the bus, he had all of his worldly possessions packed in a suitcase and $10,000 that he had saved up.  With the money, the Vergara's opened Santa Ana as a bakery and a restaurant that serves lunch six days a week.  

After parking out front on Columbus Junction's Main Street (see map), we walked into Santa Ana and Eustaquio and Rosa Vergara were behind the counter which was part a pastry display case and a flat top bar-style counter.  The restaurant part of the place featured a handful of tables along with Mexican soft drinks available on shelves.  

The small place was empty so I asked if they did lunch.  "Lunch," Eustaquio asked back to me.  "Sure, we do lunch.  Anything you want.  We make it for you!"  And he pointed out the menu board along the far wall of the place.

And the menu had a little bit of every kind of Mexican-style foods along with about every kind of meat that are found in truly authentic Mexican restaurants.  Tacos, burritos, chimichangas, flautas, tamales and fajitas were available.  For meats, they had chicken, pork, ground beef, steak, chorizo - just about anything I could think of that went on a taco.  

My wife and I ordered up a couple tacos each and went to sit down at one of the tables.  Rosa brought out a small basket of fresh tortilla chips and a medley of salsas that ranged from mild to burn-your-face-off hot.  She pointed out the two salsas that she said were the hottest.  I tried a bit of one of the two and if that was milder of the two, I didn't want to try the other one.  Wow!  It was hot.  But they had a great salsa verde that we used up rather quickly.  

Eustaquio brought our tacos out to us.  My wife went with a chicken taco and a carne asada (steak) taco.  Fresh chopped cilantro and chopped onions topped the tacos.  The tacos were larger than we normally see at Mexican places like Santa Ana and we were glad we only went with two instead of the three we had debated getting.  My wife was very happy with the chicken taco, but she thought the steak taco was sort of overcooked.  

I went with a barbacoa beef cheek taco and a pork carnitas taco.  The barbacoa beef cheek taco was fabulous.  It was tender and tasty - and there was a lot of it on the taco.  I poured the rest of the salsa verde onto the barbacoa taco and the overall taste was just outstanding.  However, I felt the pork carnitas taco was sort of a disappointment.  I'm guessing the pork had been cooked days in advance and was warmed up when ordered.  It featured pork chunks that were a little tough to chew and sort of lifeless in taste.  I really wished I had gotten two of the barbacoa beef cheek tacos as those were really delicious. 

While we were having lunch, we noticed a couple different people come in to pick up cakes that the Vergara's had baked earlier in the day.  They looked pretty good and were very ornate.  After lunch, we took a quick look at the pastry counter to check out what they had.  Actually, it was a mix of both Mexican pastries - such as empanadas - and American pastries - such as fruit Danish rolls.  Eustaquio said to us, "I just made a tres leches cake.  You want some tres leches?"  

He went into the back room and came out with a large cake and started to cut into it.  We really couldn't say no to him as he was slicing into the cake.  He got a piece for us to go.  

And the tres leches cake was also out of this world.  It was moist, spongy and it was so rich.  We're glad we only got one piece of it because the cake was so filling.  I haven't had a good tres leches cake in a long time - it usually gets mushy if it sits for awhile.  But this cake was firm, yet moist and tasty.

And for all of that, the bill came to $12 bucks - and that included 3 bottles of water we got to go along with our meal.  I was absolutely shocked at the price - so shocked that I forgot to leave a tip with the Vergara's.  We just couldn't get over how much food we got for the money.  Santa Ana Bakery and Restaurant isn't fancy, it's not very big, and it's just basically Eustaquio and Rosa working in the place and that's it.  While we thought our barbacoa and chicken tacos were exceptional, the same couldn't be said about the carne asada and the carnitas tacos that we got.  That meat was overcooked, dry and tough.  Still, our experience at Santa Ana was overly positive and I wouldn't hesitate going back if I ever make it back down toward Columbus Junction - even if it's just for some pastries or a piece of tres leches cake.  And if I do, I'll be sure to leave a tip. 

Early Girl Eatery - Asheville, NC

During our stay in Asheville, we wandered out one morning to find a breakfast place that featured a good ol' Southern-style breakfast.  We had passed a little breakfast/lunch restaurant a couple times in downtown Asheville that had piqued our interest and decided to give it a try - it was a fun and funky little farm-to-table place called Early Girl Eatery.

John and Julie Stehling met while they were both working at the Hominy Grill, a place that specializes in Lowcountry cuisine located in Charleston, SC where John's brother, Robert, was the chef/owner.  The Stehling brothers both knew their way around a kitchen growing up on a North Carolina acreage where the family grew their own fresh vegetables and cooked fresh, natural foods in the kitchen.  

John and Julie left Hominy Grill and began to travel across America, then their travels took them to Asia for a time.  The two had talked about eventually settling down - probably in Asheville - and opening their own restaurant that would feel like walking into someone's grandmother's home and having a good ol' down-home Southern meal.  The Stehling's found a spot in downtown Asheville and they opened Early Girl Eatery in October of 2001.  

Pictured right - Julie and John Stehling.  Photo courtesy Explore Asheville.com

The Stehling's have branched out with another restaurant that they opened in Asheville in 2014, a chicken-and-waffle place in West Asheville called King Daddy's that features five different types of waffles and nine different styles of fried chicken.  Now, I like waffles and I like fried chicken, but I've never been able to grasp the concept of having waffles and chicken together for the same meal.  

Early Girl Eatery is located along Wall Street, a small side street in downtown Asheville.  (see map)  It was around 8:30 when we got there and they had been open for about an hour.  We entered the place to find a small area up front with a bustling kitchen area behind a counter.  A young lady greeted us, grabbed a couple of menus and escorted us down a long hallway into the dining room.

The dining room reminded me of a small-town farm community cafe.  Wooden tables and chairs lined the floor space in the brightly naturally lit room.  We were greeted by our server, a nice young lady by the name of Lene who got coffee for my wife and fresh-squeezed orange juice for me to start out.  

The menu at Early Girl Eatery features a number of Southern cuisine items with a healthy twist.  Nearly all of the foods served at the restaurant are locally-grown and farm-fresh.  There were some decadent things on the menu - the Porky Bowl featured barbecued pork and home fries with scrambled eggs and cheese topped with a bacon gravy.  But they also had healthy items such as the Veggie Breakfast Bowl, Spinach potato pancakes, and a sweet potato egg scramble.  

My wife wasn't certain what she wanted to get.  She's been on an egg-whites only kick for sometime and she ended up ordering the "omelet of the day" made with egg-whites.  It featured fresh mushrooms - a lot of mushrooms, local Heritage Homestead cheese, scallions and chopped bacon.  A side of home fries came with the omelet and she ordered toasted fresh-baked rye bread to go along with her breakfast.  She declared her omelet to be delicious.  But she did say there were probably too many mushrooms in the omelet - she's been slowly ramping up to liking fresh mushrooms in some of her foods after a lifetime of completely hating mushrooms.  She picked a few of the mushrooms out and put them on my plate to eat.  They were earthy and flavorful liked they had just been picked, sautéed and served up.  

I was in a bit of a quandary as to what to order.  I thought about the multi-grain pancakes - for a moment.  I saw something on their lunch menu - the hormone-free meat loaf - that got me thinking.  But I ended up going with the Southern breakfast - farm-fresh eggs fried over-easy, with grits, bacon and toasted fresh-baked whole wheat bread.  It was a basic breakfast, but the bacon was delicious.  Early Girl Eatery gets their bacon from Benton's, a 70 year-old butcher shop located in the shadow of the Smoky Mountains in eastern Tennessee.  The bacon was lean and flavorful with a great smoked-meat taste.  

The grits I had were also very good.  My gold-standard for grits are the ones I had while we stayed at the Hilton DeSoto in Savannah, GA a number of years ago.  These rivaled the taste of the grits served there.  While I'm far from a connoisseur of grits, I know that I like them to be a little creamy, not too dry, but not too runny.  The grits at Early Girl Eatery pressed all the right buttons and I was extremely happy to eat them.  

One other thing I have to talk about is the grape jelly that they had in a squeeze bottle on the table.  I don't know what it was about the grape jellies or jams that were served in Asheville, but they were some of the most delicious I've ever had.  I couldn't get enough of the grape jelly that tasted like it was homemade and not commercially produced.  I was kicking myself for not asking Lene if they got the jelly locally and if it were available for purchase. 

We were more than happy with our breakfast at the Early Girl Eatery.  It was a quaint little place that featured a nice comfy atmosphere along with farm-fresh food and very good service.  It's not fancy at Early Girl Eatery and it really is like going to someone's home to have a good down-home cooked breakfast.  It's sort of hidden in downtown Asheville, but it was worth the find. 

Lagunitas Brewing Company - Chicago

For a few years now, I've been able to enjoy various Lagunitas Brewing Company beers in the Midwest.  I'm particularly found of their IPA and Lil' Sumpin' Sumpin' - one of the few wheat-based beers that I like.  My beer fridge usually has one or the other in there most of the time.  Lagunitas became more plentiful in the Midwest when they opened a Chicago facility in the Spring of 2014 and you can find their beers on nearly every shelf in every grocery store or convenience store across the region.  During a trip into Chicago earlier this year, my wife had a great suggestion - let's go over to the Lagunitas Taproom at the Chicago brewery.  It was a drizzly day outside and it was the perfect day to go check the place out.  

Tony Magee was a Chicago native who wandered out to Northern California as a young multi-instrumental musician trying to find himself.  He ended up playing in a reggae band that toured the country before he became a musical arranger for commercials for Bud Light, Hallmark and Pizza Hut.  He fell into another business as a printing salesman whose biggest client was a San Francisco bank.  When the Iraq war hit in 1991, the bank decided at the last moment to cut a promotion on Visa credit card solicitation - pretty much negating what would have been a big payday for Magee.  Then in the following weeks the bank decided to move their advertising projects to Seattle and Magee suddenly went from a six-figure paycheck to having bill collectors calling at all hours of the day.  

With his marriage crumbling and his house facing foreclosure, Magee was able to stave off doom and gloom for the next few months.  Finally seeing the financial light at the end of the tunnel, Magee and his immediate family spent Christmas of 1992 together.  His younger brother had been working at a brewpub up in Oregon and he presented Tony with a homebrewing kit as a present.  Magee immediately liked playing with the equipment and had been thinking of doing something other than the print-sales game.  

Pictured right - Tony Magee.  (Photo courtesy Chicago Tribune.)

Magee had been a regular at the Marin Brewing Company, the oldest brewpub in the area.  He loved the taste of the craft beers and he was intrigued by what he could come up with on his own.  His first foray into brewing was a beer that tasted similar to Anchor Steam.  He thought it was good, but his second batch - a pale ale - was much better.  That piqued his interest in brewing even more.   Magee went to his local homebrew shop and asked, "Which yeast strain might convert the most sugars to alcohol?"  The proprietor blew him off saying that a real brewer wouldn't ask that question.  

That didn't stop Magee who read a slew of books on micro-brewing.   Then he spent his nights and weekends coming up with a business plan to start a microbrewery.  The only problem was that he figured that it would cost over $100,000 dollars to get a brewery off the ground.  

Undeterred, Magee found a guy through an ad who was selling a Grundy brewing tank system.  Thought of as  antiquated and obsolete by brewers in the U.S. and Europe, the man bought a number of the Grundy tanks for pennies on the dollar and was offering them to budding brewmasters on the cheap.  Magee drove to a small town in the San Joaquin Valley north of Bakersfield to see the tanks and brewing assembly the man had made for a Russian customer who had backed out of the deal.  Once Magee found out the cost of the tanks and brewing apparatus, he quickly figured out that there was no way he could afford them.  "What can you afford," the man asked.  Magee said, "$5000 bucks."  The man hesitated, took a long look at Magee and saw an earnest young man who had the passion to start his own craft brewery.  The man said, "OK, it's a deal," and Magee went back home to start brewing beer.

In early 1993, Magee ended up renting a 750 square foot space near his home in Lagunitas for his three-tier brewing process.  Still with a day job in printing sales, Magee would mill the grains he would use for his next batch around 9 p.m., then get up at 3 a.m. to mash the grains.  By the time he boiled the mash and cleaned up, it was 10 a.m. and he went to work.  

By his own admission, the initial beers that Magee made ranged from horrid to excellent.  The funky brewing system caused some of the fluctuations at first before Magee finally figured the whole thing out.  After procuring a $5000 kegging machine, he personally distributed the beers to local bars in the touristy areas of Marin County.  His pale ales and amber beers were an immediate hit with many who drank them, but grocery and beer stores were leery of the Lagunitas beers because they had an alcohol by volume content of a minimum of 7%.  Most place were selling beers with an ABV of 5%, at most.  The store owners were worried that with the higher alcohol content, people wouldn't drink the beer as fast.  

It was when Magee came out with his signature India Pale Ale that Lagunitas took off.  His small 750 square foot brewery had proved to be too small - plus a pesky septic tank was causing some problems.  Lagunitas moved into a larger facility in Petaluma.  Along with that, he needed to change his Russian brewing machine and the old Grundy tanks.  He was growing at a wicked fast pace, but he soon found that banks were not willing to finance his growing operation.  However, he found a number of "angel" investors that believed in his little beer company and he soon proved them correct.  By 2000, he had expanded his Petaluma brewery and built a brewpub onto the side of the building. 

Lagunitas came out with a number of wacky brews with wacky names.  Magee embraced the marijuana counter-culture in Northern California and detested the "elitist" beer drinkers who had a tendency to look down their noses at some of his beers.  Magee despised this established pompous culture so much that when asked his philosophy behind his beers by beer "experts", he would purposely write up long-winded and very wrong synopsis of what made him come up with a specific concoction.  Many of these reasonings had very thinly veiled marijuana references throughout the writings.  Suffice to say, the beer "elitists" weren't amused.  (When I read that in Tom Acitelli's great book on the history of the craft brewery movement in America, The Audacity of Hops, I immediately liked Magee and I liked his beers even more.)

It was no surprise that Magee thumbed his nose at both conventional thinking and at authorities with some of the names of his brews.  His Kronik beer was deemed by the federal government that it was not a suitable name because of the thinly veiled urban reference to marijuana.  Magee put a "censored" sticker over the front of the bottle, reapplied for the name to be accepted and the government said it was OK.  In 2006, Lagunitas was shut down for a period of time after federal agents observed some patrons smoking marijuana during an open house before the current brewpub was opened at the Petaluma facility.  Magee came up with a commemoratory brew called Undercover Investigation Shutdown Ale.  

Many of the Lagunitas beers had "420" references on the labels - the universal code of hipsters for smoking marijuana - until Atlanta-based SweetWater Brewery - known for their 420 Extra Pale Ale (also a very good beer and a sometime occupant of my beer fridge) - charged Lagunitas with copyright infringement.  Magee dropped all the "420" references saying it was time to move on.  (Batch runs at Lagunitas, however, all end in 420.)  

By 2010, Lagunitas was brewing 106,000 barrels of beer a year.  (A barrel of beer is 31 gallons.)  In 2011, Magee announced an expansion that would increase the company's brewing capacity to 600,000 annually.  To do that, he looked back toward his home town of Chicago and found a property in the Douglas Park neighborhood in North Lawndale on the city's southwest side the used to house the Cinespace Film Studios which moved to a larger facility on 60 acres a couple blocks from its original studio.  (Cinespace provides production for movies and television shows that are shot locally in Chicago.)  And before Cinespace was in the building, it was a former steel mill.  By April of 2014, the Lagunitas facility was up and running and the taproom opened a few months later.

In September of 2015, Heineken acquired a 50% stake in Lagunitas and promptly announced a plan for worldwide expansion of the Lagunitas brand.  They announced a larger brewing facility in Azusa, CA that will push Lagunitas output to nearly 2 million barrels annually.  Because of Heinekin's investment in the ownership of Lagunitas, the Brewers Association - an organization that promotes small, independent craft breweries - no longer classified Lagunitas as a "craft brewery".  Magee scoffed at this and criticized the Brewers Associations guidelines for what "is" and what "isn't" a craft brewery.  His beer hadn't changed, he just partnered with an international company to grow his brand.  That set off a whole new discussion from both sides of the "purists" and the guys like me who like to drink Lagunitas as to Magee "selling out" his moral obligation to sustaining the craft beer movement.   Magee said that the criticism leveled at him by those who deemed Lagunitas not worthy now that they were bought by "big business" seemed like a "frat boy mentality" where they could only see one option - keeping the brewery small and quaint - and not the multiple options Magee sees in the growth of Lagunitas brand.  

(As an aside, my favorite beer in the whole world is Kona Big Wave Golden Ale.  Kona Brewing Company is a member of the Craft Brew Alliance along with breweries such as Widmer Brothers and Redhook.  Anheuser-Busch/InBev bought a 32% stake in the Craft Brew Alliance in 2012.  Had A-B/InBev not bought a nearly 1/3 share of the Craft Brew Alliance, I would not be able to walk in to my local grocery store and pick up a sixer of Big Wave Golden Ale.  A-B/InBev was able to use its distribution network to deliver Kona beers that were once only available in Hawaii, California, Oregon and Washington just seven years ago to all 50 states today.  And guess what?  The beer is the same as it was BEFORE A-B/InBev bought them.  These large breweries are not going to screw around with a winning recipe these smaller breweries had before they were purchased.)

To make matters even worse for those wringing their hands over the large beer corporations taking over the smaller craft brewers, Magee sold the remaining 50% of his stake in Lagunitas to Heinekin just days before we visited the Chicago brewery and taproom.  Magee will stay on as the CEO of Lagunitas and will oversee the day-to-day operations of the three breweries and work on distribution plans with Heinekin to take the brand all over the world.  

It was a 10 minute Uber ride from the near west side of Chicago to the Lagunitas Brewery, a large nondescript building at the corner of W. 17th and S. Washtenaw.  (see map)  The parking lot on the north side of the building as packed with cars.  We saw some people going in a side door and we followed them in.  We were greeted by a guy at a stand checking I.D.'s.  He warned us that the wait to get into the taproom would be around 35 to 45 minutes.  "Cubs were rained out today," he explained.  "Lots of people who were going to the game came here."

The long hallway from the stand was black lit and painted with florescent colors on the wall.  It was kind of a surreal feeling walking down the hall, but rather cool, as well.

At the end of the hallway was a large tiled piece of art that depicted the lady on the logo of the Lagunitas Lucky 13 red ale that was first brewed in 2006 to commemorate 13 years of business for Lagunitas.  

If there was any immediate fallout from beer lovers with Lagunitas being fully purchased by Heineken, well, it wasn't evident that day.  The line to get into the taproom started about 20 feet before the end of the black-lit hallway, then curved around and stretched down another long hallway.

The tasting room was open allowing those in line to go get a beer and enjoy it while they were waiting to get into the taproom.  If the amount of people in the tasting room and in line was any indication, there were a lot of people waiting to get into the taproom. 

Like most breweries, there's a gift shop at Lagunitas.  We took some time to browse around to take a look at what they had to offer.  Our neighbor likes to collect stickers from breweries and brewpubs so we picked up some stickers from the gift shop to give to him.  They had a nice collection of clothing, glassware, and other various tchotchkes to choose from.  

After a nearly 40 minute wait (I normally don't like to wait, but we were there, and, hey!  What else were we going to do on a rainy Saturday in Chicago?), were allowed to go up the two flights of stairs to the taproom level.  We encountered sort of a common area just outside the taproom where people were seated on couches and comfy chairs enjoying a beer.   

Inside the taproom, we found a large room with community tables full of people.  There was a bar area on one end and on the opposite end was a stage that featured live music.  That afternoon the Black Oil Brothers were playing on the small stage.  Lagunitas is planning on building an amphitheater that will seat 500 to 600 people for concerts, as well as a roof top bar.  Both are scheduled to open in 2018.  

We were fortunate to get a couple seats at the very busy bar.  It's a long rectangular bar that had about a half-dozen bartenders working furiously to keep up with the beer orders.  It took us a couple minutes to get the attention of one of the bartenders so we could order up some beer.  

We got a couple of freshly brewed Lagunitas IPA's to enjoy while we listened to the music and took in the scenery.  They have a short food menu in the taproom that features sharable snacks like a sliced meat and cheese tray, chips and salsa, nachos and beer mussels.  There's a short list of burgers and sandwiches on the menu that proudly announces there are no microwaves or deep-fryers in the tap room's kitchen.  The food on the menu at the Lagunitas tap room is also locally sourced, organic, and seasonal and nearly everything is made with beer.  

Outside of the tap room was another common area that overlooked the brewery, itself.  More sturdy wooden tables were found out there for people who wanted to get away from the din of the tap room.

The brewing facility was rather impressive.  The total square footage of the Chicago plant stands at 300,000 and they are planning on adding an additional nearly 10,000 feet for a shipping facility in 2018.  The labyrinth of pipes that symmetrically wove through the plant was pretty impressive.  When the Lagunitas Chicago operation first opened in April of 2014, they were able to brew 2,000 barrels of beer daily.  Additional installed tanks and brewing apparatus doubled the output by November of that year.  

There are tours daily at the Lagunitas brewery in Chicago at 1 p.m., 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.  (The first two tours are tasting tours, while the 5 p.m. tour is not.)  There was a 3 p.m. tour that was going on on the catwalks over the brewing facility when we were there.  Quite actually, from  inside and just outside the tap room you could see a large portion of the brewery.  

Other than the long wait to get into the place, we had a good time at the Lagunitas taproom.  It's certainly tough to beat fresh beer and live music in a casual setting on a rainy afternoon.  If you're into craft beer - and Lagunitas is still craft beer in my book contrary to what the Brewers Association says - and you don't mind that a large European brewery now owns Lagunitas, it's a great place to visit for a tour, to have a beer in the tap room, or to check out the gift shop.  (The taproom at the Lagunitas brewery in Chicago is open five days a week - Wednesday thru Sunday - from 12 noon to 9 p.m.)