A couple years ago we had noticed a new strip mall going up on the west end of Davenport's downtown on Myrtle Ave. between 2nd St. and River Drive, across from Centennial Park. About a year and a half ago, a restaurant opened in the corner space of the plaza next to River Drive. One recent Sunday morning, we decided to head down to the Corner Kitchen to give the place a try.
The little strip mall - River View Plaza - was built by Dev Bastola who owns the convenience store just across the street at the corner of Myrtle and River Drive. Hoping to put a restaurant or two into the two building plaza, Bastola recruited one of his regular customers - Bill Abduli - who was running two restaurants in Muscatine with the help of his son, Lirim. The restaurants - Riverside Restaurant and Brickhouse Diner - were breakfast and lunch only places that closed daily at 2:30 p.m.
Bill Abduli immigrated to the U.S. from Greece nearly 50 years ago, landing in Chicago before ending up in eastern Iowa. Abduli has spent over 40 years in the restaurant business, the last 16 years in Muscatine. Bill and Lirim Abduli opened Corner Kitchen in April of last year. The restaurant is different from the ones the father and son run in Muscatine - they serve dinner including steaks, seafood, Italian specialities and chicken - and is open until 8:30 p.m. Monday thru Saturday. (They're open until 3 p.m. on Sunday.)
It was just around 8:30 when we pulled up in front of Corner Kitchen. (see map) The parking lot is at a pretty good slope next to the building, primarily because the south end of the plaza had to be built above the 500 year floodplain. It was sort of difficult to keep the car doors open because of the steep degree of slope.
The dining room at Corner Kitchen was open and well-lit. The windows let in a lot of natural light and had a nice view across Centennial Park toward the Mississippi River. We took a seat in a booth in the corner of place and got some menus from one of the servers working that day.
Most of the menu features breakfast items that are served all day long. It was the usual breakfast fare - omelets, pancakes, skillets, and egg dishes. I saw something that tripped my trigger - French toast. It featured six half-slices of egg-battered French toast. I asked if I could get some blueberries on the French toast and the server said that it would be a slight upcharge. I waved at her and said, "No problem." I also got a side of bacon to go along with the
The blueberries were the canned variety, but that was fine. And they didn't scrimp putting them on the French toast. The French toast was rich and flavorful - not as good as I make at home. But, still, it was very good. I couldn't finish all six half slices, but I did eat up most of the blueberries.
My wife got the ham, egg and cheese croissant sandwich. It featured a hard fried egg (or it may have been two hard fried eggs) with cheddar cheese and sliced ham. The sandwich was huge. She remarked that we could have easily split the croissant sandwich between the two of us. And she liked it very much. The croissant was moist and flaky which helps with the overall taste of anything mixed with ham, eggs and cheese.
We were impressed with our first visit to Corner Kitchen. The food was above average, the menu offered a wide variety of items, and the service was fine. Corner Kitchen isn't a fancy place, but if you're in the Quad Cities looking for a good breakfast, it would be a good place to get a breakfast where the portions are definitely generous. Corner Kitchen has just entered the rotation of breakfast places we'll go to in the Quad Cities.
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