Road Tips

Colorado - 2018

My wife and I took a recent trip to Colorado for vacation.  We had discussed a number of things including a baseball trip to watch Major League Baseball games in St. Louis, Atlanta and Cincinnati; a trip to Louisiana; or going back out to Colorado for a few days.  In the end, the Colorado won out for a various number of reasons.  

After a trip across Iowa and Nebraska, we stopped in Cheyenne, Wyoming to check out a brewpub there that was in the old Cheyenne Depot.  The depot also housed a museum that depicted the ties between Cheyenne's growth and the railroad that brought people to the west.  The Union Pacific still has a large working yard next door to the old depot.  

After having a couple beers and a bite at the Accomplice Beer Company (you'll read about A.B.C. in a future Road Tips post), we drove down the street to see the Wyoming State Capitol Building in Cheyenne.  When I was five years old, I could tell you the capital city of every state in the union.  My parents would parade me out in front of their friends when they would host people at our house and tell them to ask me what the capital of Vermont was, or the capital of Montana.  (Montpelier and Helena, respectively.)  So, I've been a bit of a geek for state capitals and their capitol buildings for years.  Wyoming's state capitol was the 20th state capitol building I've seen.  Unfortunately, the state capitol building in Cheyenne was undergoing an extensive external renovation and was shrouded in tarps.  Streets around the capitol building were also shut down due to construction.  

From Cheyenne, we made the short (45 minutes) drive down to Fort Collins, CO.  We had friends who talked highly of Fort Collins, especially the number of brew pubs they had in the area.  We got into town right at the tail end of the annual Bohemian Nights at NewWestFest, a three-day music festival across downtown Fort Collins that features a number of Colorado-based musicians and bands.  (Although Blondie headlined the festival on Saturday night and I said to my wife that I didn't know Deborah Harry had moved to Colorado.)   We walked up to the main stage just in time to hear the Sunday headliner The Decemberists, an indie-rock band from Portland, OR, finish up their show.  

We spent time in some of Fort Collins' very good brewpubs and taprooms, but we were not as enamored with Fort Collins as we thought we would be.  The breweries are all spread out in Fort Collins and not within walking distance like we found during our visit to Asheville, NC.  Many of them were very good, but having to get in a car and navigate around the city to the next one was not what we expected to do.  We did spend some time in the Colorado State Trial Flower Gardens (pictured above right) looking over various annual flowers and plants that the botanical department at Colorado State University plants each year to test different varieties of annual plants.

After spending a couple three days in Fort Collins, we were sort of wondering where to go next.  We were talking with a young woman who waited on us at one of the brewpubs and she suggested that we head up to Steamboat Springs, approximately a two-and-a-half hour drive from Fort Collins.  We really wished we had spent a longer time in Steamboat Springs as it was the type of place that we both really liked - laid back, off-the-beaten path, friendly people, good restaurants, great brewpubs and just a wonderful peaceful vibe to the area.  We stayed at a hotel near the banks of the Yampa River and we spent our mornings walking the beautiful trail along the river.  Steamboat Springs immediately became our most favorite place in Colorado.  

One of the things that my wife was hell-bent on doing during our trip to Colorado was to spend times in a natural hot springs bath.  There were two in the Steamboat Springs area - the Old Town Hot Springs, a sort of combo hot springs/health club/athletic center in downtown Steamboat Springs; and the Strawberry Park Hot Springs located about six miles outside of Steamboat Springs.  The guy at the front desk at our hotel was very cautionary to us - "The road out there turns into a mountain dirt road with some ruts and such.  But if you go slow, you can make it.  Oh!  And it's clothing optional after sunset."  We weren't planning on being out there after sunset, so that was no problem.  My wife was sold on going out to Strawberry Park for her natural hot springs session.  

Nestled at 7500 feet above sea level in the mountains north of Steamboat Springs (see map), Strawberry Park has been there for a number of years.  It consisted of a couple of main pools where the water temperature was at 101°(F), and a smaller pool where the temperature was at a balmy 106°(F).  The steamy babbling brook coming out of the mountain went into a cooling area and then sent into the pools.  (There was a third pool up toward where the hot springs came out of the mountain, but it appeared that it was closed off possibly because it was too hot.)  

It cost $15 a person to use the pools - and even though I was just going to hang by the pool and read while my wife used the pools, I still had to pay $15 bucks.  But it was worth it.  It was - by far - the most relaxing aspect of our vacation.  Water trickled from pool to pool and continued on to a new pool that was being constructed on the north end of the property.  I could have stayed there all day (no food or drinks are allowed by the pools), but my wife decided that she had enough after being in and out of the pools numerous times over a two-and-a-half hour period.  (Here's a tip from my wife if you go - wear an old bathing suit.  The sulphur in the water and the algae from the rocks in the pool stain your clothing.)  

Also north of Steamboat Springs were two state parks that were about a 45 minute drive from the city - Pearl Lake State Park and Steamboat Lake State Park.  Pearl Lake State Park was the more primitive of the two state parks with a couple of small, non-electric campgrounds that overlooked the lake.  (The photo at the top of this blog post is Pearl Lake.)  Pearl Lake had a handful of kayakers and paddle-boarders on the lake and it was also a wonderfully laid back place.  Steamboat Lake was much more modern with a welcome station and larger campgrounds that featured electrical and non-electrical hook-ups.  Steamboat Lake was literally in the shadow of Hahn's Peak, one of the taller mountains on the northern end of the Colorado Rocky Mountains.  

      After an all-too-short stay in Steamboat Springs, we headed down to Breckenridge.  We took the backroads down through the Colorado River valley to Interstate 70 and up to Breckenridge.  The drive on State Highway 131 through the high plains and valleys of western Colorado featured a number of magnificent vistas.  We were anywhere from 5000 to 8000 feet above sea level along the route and we went through a number of small towns before hooking up with Interstate 70 near the town of Eagle, CO.  By the time we had gotten to Interstate 70, the weather had gotten cloudy and cool.

We pulled into Breckenridge around 2 p.m., and as we drove down the main drag of the small ski town it reminded us of Gatlinburg, TN - only wearing a fur coat and a leather cowboy hat.  There were a number of shops and small restaurants that catered to tourists.  Breckenridge had much more of a commercial feel to it than Steamboat Springs.  Brewpubs were also scarce - we did go to the original Breckenridge Brewery (there will be a future post on that, as well), but walking the main street of Breckenridge showed us nothing more than boutique clothing shops, toy stores, and ski shops.  One pass up and down the street left us pretty numb.  

Above is our "alpine" view from our hotel balcony of the mountains to the east of Breckenridge.  It was a very nice town, but even with it not being ski season the place was swarmed with a lot of people.  We were very happy to leave Breckenridge the next day.  

But one of the main reasons we wanted to go to Breckenridge was to drive from there down to Colorado Springs.  One of my accounts told me before we left to go to Colorado that the drive from Breckenridge to Colorado Springs across the Continental Divide, down through the high plains of South Park, and across the Wilkerson Pass down to Colorado Springs was one of the most breathtaking drives he'd ever been on.  "It's probably a two-and-a-half hour drive, normally," he told me.  "But by the time you stop every 10 minutes or so to see something along the way, it could end up being close to 4 hours."  I think I had to talk my wife into this route considering that she really wanted to go back to Colorado Springs on our trip.  

We took Colorado State Highway 9 south out of Breckenridge around 8:30 in the morning and headed down the road.  We started out at 9600 feet above sea level when we were in Breckenridge and the altitude indicator on my GPS immediately began to go up.  In fact, there was a time where it seemed like we were actually going down on a grade, but the altimeter on my GPS was going up!  It wasn't long before we passed 10,560 feet - exactly two miles above sea level.  There were a number of switchbacks with turnouts that allowed us to stop to let traffic pass and to get some pretty nice shots along the way.  

We crossed the Continental Divide at Hoosier Pass at an altitude of just over 11,500 feet.  Hoosier Pass is named for  the nearby gulch where men from Indiana were living in a placer camp panning for gold in the late 1850's and early 1860's.  And like a handful turn-out areas in the mountains, Hoosier Pass was the trailhead for a couple three hiking paths that went up further into the mountains.  

Leaving there, we wound down the mountain toward Alma, dubbed as the highest incorporated city in the nation.  At 10,335 feet above sea level, Alma is at the start of South Park, the high plains region of southern Park County consisting of flat lands between mountains with peaks of up to 14,000 feet.  (South Park, Colorado bears little resemblance to the television show South Park, although Alma did have a wooden cutout of the characters from the TV show where people could place their faces in the holes for pictures.)  

My wife was completely enamored with the nearly tree-less, flat terrain along both Colorado State Highway 9 and then after we turned on to U.S. Highway 24 at Hartsel, CO.  She was even more enamored with the dozens of camper trailers that just seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere on both sides of Highway 24 as we worked our way up to the Wilkerson Pass.  My wife wondered aloud many times as we drove southeast on the highway how people could live out there like that.  When we stopped at the visitor center at Wilkerson Pass, she had to ask the lady working the desk what all the campers were all about sitting out in the middle of nowhere with no trees around.  

Turns out they aren't squatters - the first thing she assured my wife - but merely people who have acquired 10 to 40 acres of land at a pretty cheap price.  She told us that they'll put campers on the property and they'll come out and stay over the weekend or for vacations.  The people supposedly have two years before they have to do something with the land - like build a house on it - or they have to sell it or they lose it.  She also told us a couple of other things about Colorado Springs and Pikes Peak that we found out later on weren't true, or her facts were twisted, so we don't know if we know the real story about the campers on the land.

After a stop at Lake George to go to a gem and rock show that my wife wanted to go to after we drove by, we wound our way down the mountains and around Pikes Peak to Manitou Springs where we got off U.S. Highway 24 to go to the Garden of the Gods.  We had been there before five years ago and my wife liked it so much that she really wanted to go back.  However, the place was packed with people of all ages and many nationalities.  We had hoped to have a leisurely walk around the towering jagged sandstone formations that rose over 300 feet above the base.  But with a ton of little kids - many of whom were probably wondering why the hell why their parents drug them there in the first place - and a boatload of inconsiderate people who would hop over the fence and climb a smaller rock formation for a picture (even with signs telling them to not do that), it wasn't as peaceful and laid-back as our first visit years ago.  

We decided to get out of there and check out Colorado Springs again.  It wasn't quite the city that we remembered it being was when we first came out five years before.  There seemed to be a healthy number of vagrants in the city, something that we really didn't see that much of (or didn't notice) on our first visit.  They were near freeway exits, hanging around downtown and other areas of the city, and it seemed like there were a lot of them.  We talked to a guy later that evening and my wife - who always has to ask questions - asked him about the number of homeless people in the city.  "When they legalized pot in Colorado, it brought an influx of all different types of people," the young guy told us.  "Some came out to work in the cannabis industry, either growing it or working in dispensaries.  But many came out thinking that maybe they could bum pot off people instead of money.  They thought jobs would be easy, but it's a highly competitive work force out here."  He said the homeless population in the area is higher now than when it was during the recession of 8 to 10 years ago.  "Yeah, the optics of the transient population out here isn't good for the locals," he said to us.

But it was other aspects of Colorado Springs that sort of left us limp.  We spent some time in downtown Colorado Springs which we felt was sort of dull.  We went over to Manitou Springs which was all torn up with road construction.  We had already done all of the tourist things before - Pikes Peak, Garden of the Gods, Broadmoor.  We'd sort of fantasized about possibly retiring in Colorado Springs.  But this visit may have changed our minds on that.  

So, that was pretty much our trip out to Colorado.  We fell in love with Steamboat Springs, we were underwhelmed by Fort Collins, we thought Breckenridge was too touristy, and we were disappointed in our second visit to Colorado Springs.  Thanks to forest fires in the northwest United States and up into Canada, most of the days were hazy cutting down on some spectacular views.  But, still, it's tough to say anything bad about the mountains, lakes and streams that make Colorado, well, Colorado.  I'll be telling you more in the coming weeks about some of the restaurants and brewpubs that we went to during our trip.  

Ignotz Ristorante - Chicago

Last year, a friend of mine told me about how great the food was at Ignotz Ristorante on S. Oakley Ave. in Chicago.  My wife and I were in Chicago last winter on a Monday night and decided to find Ignotz to have dinner there.  Unfortunately, Ignotz is closed on Monday's, but we were able to find a restaurant that I had eaten at years ago, but I could never remember the name of the place - which was Bruna's Ristorante - or where it was located.  (Click here to see the Road Tips review on Bruna's.)  We were determined to go back to Ignotz Ristorante at some point and during a weekend trip into Chicago late last spring, we ended up having dinner there.  

Roger Wroblewski grew up near the small "Heart of Italy" enclave in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood.  His family had settled in the area in the late 19th century working in nearby factories.  The 1930's thru the 1950's were the golden years of the neighborhood with a number of restaurants, retail store fronts, and bakeries sprouting up along Oakley Street.

When the nearby McCormick/International Harvester plant closed in the late 1950's, it signaled the start of a mass exodus of Italian families to the suburbs of Chicago.   The Italian emphasis of the neighborhood was still there, and S. Oakley Street was still a thriving magnet for dining and nightlife into the 70's.   But Taylor Street soon became known as "Little Italy" with the opening of a number of Italian restaurants and bakeries up and down the street beginning in the 80's as some of the restaurants, bakeries and store fronts in the Heart of Italy neighborhood closed down.

Roger Wroblewski's only restaurant experience was as a teenager working in the kitchen of the neighborhood Woolworth's store.  So, it was no wonder that his wife Joan thought he was out of his mind when he announced that he was going to open an Italian restaurant in 1999.  But Wroblewski was certain that he could make a go of the restaurant and he named it after his father-in-law Ignatius.  He hired Frank Thomas to be his head chef and next year Ignotz will celebrate 20 years in business.  

It was an unseasonably cold Sunday evening when we made our way to Ignotz Rristorante.  I had called earlier in the day to make reservations and Roger Wroblewski answered the phone.  "Uh, I don't know if we'll be open for dinner tonight," he said over the phone.  He explained that he had two receptions going on at once.  "Somehow, they got double-booked and it's sort of taxed us today."  He said that he captured my number and he would let me know by 6:00 p.m. if they would be open.  At 6:15, he texted me and said, "Come on in!  We're open tonight!"

We found parking just down the street from Ignotz on S. Oakley.  (see map)   We walked down a long brick- walled corridor off Oakley to the entrance of Ignotz.  We were greeted by Roger Wroblewski, an amiable guy with a quick smile and bright blue eyes.  His Chicago accent was heavy when we were talking on the phone and he seemed genuinely happy that we were able to make it in.  I told him that we had tried to come on a Monday - "No, we're closed on Mondays," he said - and then when he told me on the phone that he didn't know if we would be able to have dinner there again that night, we were sort of crestfallen.  He threw up his hands and said, "Oh, this was just a mess today.  We didn't have our calendars coordinated.  But we made it through all right.  Please, have a seat anywhere."   

The dining room was small and cozy with a large mural on one wall and a fireplace hearth on the opposite wall.  A number of tables were somewhat jammed into the room and I could see where if the place was packed it may be a bit overwhelming with people seated so close together.  There was a bar area in the back of the restaurant and they had a reception room opposite the dining area on the other side of the long outside corridor.  Old time Italian crooners such as Dean Martin, Jerry Vale, and Tony Bennett were playing in the background.  

Our server for the evening was Lisa, a very nice and very outgoing young lady who said she lived in the neighborhood and had worked part-time at Ignotz for a number of years.  She brought out a basket of warm bread that Ignotz gets daily from the great D'Amato's Bakery and a large head of roasted garlic to spread on the bread.  My wife and I remarked that we had a garlic roaster at home and it was so easy to do something like this on our own.  The bread with the roasted garlic spread across the face was delicious.  

The menu at Ignotz could be easily characterized as Old School Italian.  They had a number of pasta dishes, chicken and beef - including veal - entrees, and some seafood items to choose from.  Lisa told us that Ignotz was also well-known for their thin-crust pizza.  We saw one that someone was coming in to take out and it looked very good.  

After we started out with minestrone soup for my wife and a house Italian salad for me, our entrees showed up.  My wife got the Veal Alexis - one of three dishes named after Roger and Joan Wroblewski's three daughters.  It featured veal medallions with chopped artichoke hearts and sliced mushrooms in a light white wine sauce.  The veal was so tender that my wife never needed the knife that was provided for the meal.  

She also got a side of the fettuccine with Ignotz's brandy cream sauce.  I had a bite of it after my wife raved about the fettuccine, but I thought I was a bit too sweet for my tastes.  She loved it, though.  

I ended up going with the meat-filled ravioli in Ignotz's signature marinara sauce.  I asked Lisa if I could get a couple meatballs with the ravioli and she said it would be no problem.  "Our chef can pretty much do about anything you like," she told us.  "He makes almost everything from scratch in the kitchen."  And the ravioli with the marinara sauce certainly tasted like it was all made from scratch.  The marinara was slight sweet with a tangy taste.  The individual ravioli were large and packed full of a ground pork/beef/veal mixture.  It was a lot of food.  

But the meatballs were simply outstanding.  They may have been the best meatballs I've ever had.  They were moist, flavorful, tender, and utterly delicious.  We had ordered a bottle of the Coltibuono Cetamura Chianti, a reasonably priced red wine that went extremely well with my ravioli and meatballs, and my wife's veal.  

We ate as much as we could, but the portions were huge.  Lisa came over and asked if we wanted boxes to take our leftovers home.  My wife explained that we were traveling and, besides, it never tastes as good heated up as it does in the restaurant.  "Where are you folks from," Lisa asked.  We told her we were from the Iowa Quad Cities and she said, "Really?  That's great!  We get a few out-of-town people in here.  It's mainly a lot of people from the neighborhood and surrounding area."

Lisa told us that we would both get complimentary spumoni ice cream after our meal.  But I wanted to have some of their house-made tiramisu.  She sort of cringed and said, "You know, I think we sold out of our tiramisu today with the two receptions we had."  She went back into the kitchen to check and came back out and said, "No, I'm sorry.  We're out."  She said that they did have cannoli's and we decided to get one of those along with a scoop of the spumoni.  The cannoli was very good, but it wasn't tiramisu that we had hoped to try.   

Roger Wroblewski came over to our table about halfway through the meal and said that he had to take off for a moment and didn't know if he would be back before we were finished with our meal.  He asked how our meals were and we said they were outstanding.  "Thanks again for stopping in tonight, folks," he said in a very appreciative manner.  "I'm glad we were able to get you in tonight."  

And Ignotz Ristorante was just that kind of a place - welcoming, warm, charming, cozy, and comfortable.  From the time we arrived to the time we left, we felt at home at Ignotz.  The food, we felt, was very good, the portions were large, and the service was friendly and efficient.  This is a great little family-run Italian restaurant in the Heart of Italy neighborhood that more than holds their own against some of the more upscale Italian restaurants in the Chicagoland area.  And it may have become our most favorite Italian place to eat at in Chicago.

HopCat - Indianapolis

After meeting with one of my accounts in the Broad Ripple area of Indianapolis, I ended going to have a late lunch at a place I had spotted along N. College Ave. at Broad Ripple Ave./E. Westfield Blvd. a few times.  I knew it was a beer-centric restaurant with the logo of a cat holding a pint of beer on the sign out front.  Here's what I encountered when I went to HopCat.  

Well, little did I know that HopCat was actually a regional chain with 16 locations (the St. Louis location opened on July 28) that got its start in the great beer city of Grand Rapids, MI.  Former hedge-fund manager Mark Sellers started the first HopCat in 2008 and today his BarFly Ventures oversees locations in large Midwestern cities such as Detroit, Louisville, Chicago and Minneapolis, as well as in college towns such as Lincoln, NE, Madison, WI, E. Lansing, MI, and Lexington, KY.   The Broad Ripple location in Indianapolis was the first HopCat location outside of the state of Michigan when it opened in August of 2014.  After recently receiving a $30 million dollar equity stake in the company, Sellers' BarFly Ventures is planning on opening up to 20 more HopCat locations - mainly in college towns - over the next couple three years.  

HopCat's beer philosophy is that they only support craft breweries, so don't expect to see Anheuser-Busch or MillerCoors products - or their subsidiaries such as Goose Island or Revolver - on the spigots at their restaurants.  Each HopCat location across the Midwest focuses on serving local craft brews as well as beers from such well-known craft breweries as Dogfish Head, New Belgium and Stone.  

I was able to find parking in a public parking garage next to HopCat just south of the corner of N. College Ave. and E. Westfield Blvd. (see map).  Entering Hopcat, I found a contemporary industrial space with an expansive dining and bar area.  An eclectic mix of music by artists such as Nazareth, Bob Dylan, The Cure and Grizzly Bear was playing in the background at Hopcat.  

There are a number of prints of rock stars on the walls throughout the place.  Prints of Bruce Springsteen, Keith Richards and Frank Zappa flanked flat-screen televisions on the hanging back wall in the middle of the bar area.   They feature nearly 150 different types of beer on tap at the Indianapolis HopCat including over four dozen local beers.  

There was a back bar area that is evidently used for overflow during more busy hours at HopCat.   It didn't have nearly the number of beers on tap as they had at the front bar, but there were still a couple dozen on tap.  They had a large keg room off to the side with a large window to the sidewalk outside to show the kegs of beer on tap.  The keg room runs at a constant temperature of 41 degrees. 

The men's restroom was wall-papered with covers of old Rolling Stone magazines.   After using the facilities, I lingered in the men's room to take a look at some of the vintage covers I remember receiving in the mail over 30 years ago.  

I ended sitting at the bar and was given a food menu and a beer menu to look over.  The bartender explained to me that the various beers they have on tap are paired with specific glasses in which the beer is served.  The beer list was almost too extensive as I found myself sitting there for a couple minutes looking over all the beers they had to offer.  I finally saw that they had a Stone IPA and I told the bartender that I'd have one of those while I looked over the menu.  It was served in a contoured pint glass that allowed for the foam head to settle majestically on top of the golden ale.

The food menu didn't seem to be any different from most brewpubs/beer bars that I've encountered in my travels.  They had a number of appetizers on the menu, as well as soups, salads, burgers - including three or four cheese-stuffed burgers - sandwiches, and other items such as fish and chips, blackened fish tacos, and their "killer" mac & cheese where you could add items such as grilled chicken, pulled pork, peppers, marinated tomatoes, fresh spinach or basil.  

I almost went with the blackened tilapia fish tacos, but I ended up getting the reuben sandwich.  For a side, I got HopCat's French fries that they categorized as "crack fries". They played the fries up so much in the menu that I had to give them a try.  Food Network Magazine called the fries at HopCat as among the Top 10 in America, but I didn't really think they were all that special.  They were beer battered and sprinkled with a cracked black pepper seasoning.  Quite actually, I thought the fries were rather basic in taste.

But the reuben was good - very good, in fact.  It featured a thick layer of corned beef topped with melted Swiss cheese and Thousand Island dressing.  The sandwich was encased in swirled marble rye bread and lightly grilled.   The corned beef was tender and had a wonderful flavor.  I concentrated on the sandwich much more than the crack fries they ginned up in the menu.

Even though I found out that HopCat was a Michigan-based chain after the fact, it's tough for me to denigrate a place that features well over 100 beers while focusing on a number of locally-brewed beers.  In a time where shelf space in stores is getting critical for a number of fledgling microbreweries, places like HopCat showcase a number of local brews that some people may not have the chance to try.  And although I thought they oversold their signature "crack fries", I thought the reuben sandwich I had was very good.  The food menu isn't all that exciting relying upon the standby burgers, sandwiches, and appetizers to go along with the extensive beer menu HopCat has to offer.  If you're looking for good standard brewpub/bar food to go along with a long list of beers, you'll find just that at any HopCat location across the Midwest.  

Little Angelo's Pizza - Rosemont, IL

When I stay at the Hilton Garden Inn near O'Hare Airport, I like to go down and have a beer or two at the bar served by Jim, the bartender extraordinaire at the hotel.  He's turned me on to a number of places to eat over the years and a couple years ago he was telling me about a place not far from the hotel that served great pizza. "The great thing about this place is that they'll deliver up to about 3 a.m.," Jim told me one time.  He said that he would sometime order a pizza for delivery just before his shift was over so he could take it home to eat.  He said so many good things about Little Angelo's Pizza in Rosemont that I had to go give it a try earlier this summer.  

Angelo Pegni was a franchisee of Rosati's Pizza, a chain of Chicago-style pizza places with over 200 locations across the nation.  I was told Pegni got into a tiff with the suburban-Chicago based chain and quit his franchise agreement.  He opened Little Angelo's Pizza in the same spot where he had the Rosati's a few years back.  

Little Angelo's is located in a strip mall at the corner of Touhy and Mannheim in Rosemont.  (see map)  There was a small patio out in front of the place and the dining area inside was nice, but very small.  I would say that it didn't sit much more than 26 to 30 people.  They had high-top and low-top wooden tables in the dining area. 60's-era rock music was playing in the background. 

It's counter service at Little Angelo's and Angelo Penni, himself, took my order at the counter.  A short man with sort of a gruff personality, Angelo asked if I wanted thin crust, double crust, Chicago pan-style, or stuffed pizza.  I got a thin crust pizza and a couple of domestic beers.  In addition to pizza at Little Angelo's, they also have pasta dishes such as spaghetti, mostaccioli, lasagna, and chicken parm and their menu that hangs on the wall behind the counter.

I got my standard sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  The toppings along with the mozzarella cheese and a sweet tomato sauce were thick across the top of the thin crust pizza.  The 12" pizza was expensive - over $20 bucks, but it would have easily fed two, and possibly, three people. The cheese was so thick on top of the pizza that on a couple of bites everything slid off the crust.  But it was good - very good.  There were large chunks of sausage, the mushrooms appeared to be fresh, and the pepperoni slices were thick, spicy and somewhat salty.  It was a very good pizza.  I like a pizza with a load of toppings and cheese on it.  The pizza at Little Angelo's did not disappoint.

I wasn't able to eat the whole thing, so I went to get a to-go box at the counter to take half of the pizza back to my room.  Angelo asked me, "So, what did you think?"

I told him it was a very good pizza.  And that was the same thing I said to Jim when I got back to the hotel.  "Didn't I tell you," he said to me.  "It's excellent pizza."  I had half of the pizza in the box and I got to thinking when would I have time to eat it.  I told Jim that I had half a sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza in the box and asked if he wanted the leftovers.  "Are you sure," he asked.  He took it from me and said he'd share with the staff.  

Little Angelo's was all that I was told it would be.  It was a very good thin-crust pizza that was loaded with mozzarella cheese and fresh toppings.  The dining room at Little Angelo's is small, but tidy, and there's only counter service and no wait staff at the small pizzeria.  About the only thing that gave me pause about the place was that the pizza was very expensive.  A small three-topping pizza with a couple of domestic beers came to over $30 bucks.  But, other than that I didn't have much of any other problems with my pizza at Little Angelo's.  

 

 

Jonah's Seafood House and Oyster Bar - East Peoria, IL

For our anniversary dinner earlier this year, my wife and I decided to head down to Peoria for the evening.  One place that we had eaten at a couple times before - but hadn't been to in years - is Jonah's Seafood House and Oyster Bar along the Illinois River in East Peoria.  I made reservations for a Saturday night and we headed down the road to Jonah's.   

Terry Waldschmidt and his wife, Pattie, started in the restaurant business in Peoria a number of years ago with a restaurant called Cock-a-Doodle-Doo.  The Waldschmidts decided they wanted to put a second restaurant on a beach in Florida, not far from where Terry Waldschmidt went to college.  Business was good at both restaurants, but it was taxing on the Waldschmidts who ended up selling the Florida location to concentrate on the restaurant in Peoria.  

Terry Waldschmidt's brother, Gary, was also in the restaurant business and in 1976 the brothers transformed the Peoria Cock-a-Doodle-Doo restaurant into a seafood place called The Fish House.  Terry and Gary worked together for 10 years before Terry Waldschmidt left The Fish House to open his own seafood place in a run-down, abandoned building along the Illinois River that housed a former restaurant by the name of The Sea Merchant.  Terry and Pattie Waldschmidt opened Jonah's in 1986, adding the 2601 Oyster Bar next to the seafood restaurant in 1998.  

Terry and Pattie's son, Todd, grew up in the restaurant along with his two sisters.  He eventually became the general manager of Jonah's and oversaw an expansion in 2016 with the opening of Jonah's Market and Bake Shop - a combination seafood/meat/gourmet food market and bakery.  The market and bakery had been planned by the Waldschmidt family for a number of years - 15 to be exact - before they finally opened the addition on March 1, 2016.  

We pulled into the parking lot at Jonah's about a half hour earlier than our 7:30 reservation.  (see map)  That's when we discovered that Jonah's now had a gourmet market.  Since we had some time to kill, we went inside the market to look around.  The market featured fresh seafood, fresh cut and deli meats, craft beers, wines, sandwiches and wraps.  They also had a number of soups, salads, dips and seasonings for sale, as well.

We walked down a hallway and into Jonah's.  We checked in about 7:15 and the hostess said it would be a few minutes before we would be able to be seated.  She invited us to have a seat in the bar area while we waited.  The bar was just next to the hostess stand and it featured a long bar with neon backlighting.   We sat at one of the highback chairs at the bar and ordered a drink.

About 15 minutes later, we were given the high sign to follow the hostess to our table.  We were seated in the upper dining room - there's a lower dining room that looks out onto the Illinois River where we've sat in the past.  We were given menus and it wasn't long before our server for the evening, a young lady by the name of Maria, came to greet us.  I immediately ordered up a bottle of the Dry Creek Sauvignon Blanc they had from their short, but good, wine menu.  

They had a number of items on their "fresh catch" list that evening.  Jonah's menu changes daily depending upon what the can get their hands on in terms of fresh seafood.  They had scallops from Massachusetts on the menu, as well as grouper from the Gulf of Mexico and ahi tuna from Hawaii.  They also had fresh water whitefish from Lake Superior, and their shrimp also came from the Gulf of Mexico.

We were sort of at a loss as to what to get, but we decided that we wanted to try a bowl of both their seafood gumbo and clam chowder.  The gumbo came with chunks of chicken and shrimp in a spicy broth topped with a dollop of rice.  It was pretty good.  The seafood gumbo was rich and creamy with chunks of clams mixed in.  It, too was, good.  The gumbo and chowder came with a basket of sourdough bread with a cream cheese spread.  

Of course, we needed to get some oysters on the half shell from the 2601 Oyster Bar next door.  I forget which oysters they were highlighting that evening, but they were a little undersized and less meaty than we've had at other places.  A little Tabasco sauce and a small chunk of fresh ground horseradish helped keep the fishy taste at bay on the oysters.

For dinner that night I went with the Great Lakes walleye with a creamy portobellos mushroom and red pepper sauce.  The walleye was lightly grilled and topped with a rich creamy sauce with chopped mushrooms and red pepper flakes.  It was a small walleye filet - probably six ounces, if that.  But the cream sauce was so rich and flavorful that I'm glad I only had that amount of the walleye.  The walleye was flaky and had a wonderful taste on its own.

My wife went with the blackened Ora salmon from New Zealand that was topped with a raisin sauce.  Zucchini came as a side that my wife got that evening.  She loved her blacked salmon - it had a little bit of a spicy taste to it.  But it was cooked perfectly for her and she thought the raisin sauce was a good complement to the salmon.  

After we finished up, Maria brought over the dessert menu for us to look over.  They had a number of delectables to choose from including Bananas Foster, creme brûlée, an orange liqueur cheesecake and a devil's food dark chocolate cake.  We were torn between the key lime pie, the orange liqueur cheesecake and the bread pudding.  Maria said she really liked the bread pudding and I was sort of leaning toward the key lime pie.  My wife was talked into the bread pudding and we decided to each get a dessert to try.  

Maria had warned us that the bread pudding was a large portion and she wasn't kidding.  It featured four large chunks of bread pudding with custard and a caramel sauce liberally doused over the top.  The key lime pie had a tart and sweet taste - Maria said the pie was made with real Florida Key limes.  It was very good.  But the bread pudding was just so-so in our book.  It was too dry - even the custard and the caramel sauce couldn't help it - and there was a taste of baking soda in the bread that almost overpowered the overall taste of the bread pudding.  While we really liked the key lime pie, we were disappointed in the bread pudding.  

After finishing up with dinner we decided to go check out the 2601 Oyster Bar next door.  Now, admittedly, it had been quite awhile since we had been at Jonah's, but when we found out the oyster bar part of Jonah's had been there since 1998, we were incredulous that we hadn't been there for over 20 years.  Maybe we just didn't notice it on our last visit which had to be within the last 20 years.  It was a lively place - much more lively and casual than Jonah's Seafood House - and it featured its own more casual menu that had sandwiches, flatbreads, salads, some seafood entrees, and appetizers including - of course - oysters, as well as sesame-crusted tuna, crab cakes and a smoked fish pâté.

We took a seat at the corner of the bar near where a guys was shucking oysters.  We each ordered a Macallen 15-year-old Scotch and enjoyed a nice relaxing drink watching the hub-bub around the oyster bar area.  It was a great ending to a great anniversary dinner.  

It's not cheap when you get the works at Jonah's Seafood House.  But it was our anniversary and we decided to splurge on a nice meal at a good restaurant.   Both the walleye that I got and the New Zealand Ora salmon that my wife got were very good and very fresh in taste.  We liked the chowder and the gumbo, and the oysters-on-the half shell were very good.  We had a hit in the key lime pie for dessert, but the bread pudding was disappointing.  But the atmosphere, the service we received and the nightcap at the 2601 Oyster Bar next door just added to what was a great experience during our visit to Jonah's Seafood House.   

V's Italiano Ristorante - Independence, MO

I've been spending some time in Kansas City this summer thanks to some renewed interest from a couple accounts regarding some of our products and I had an early morning meeting with a dealer on the east side of Kansas City that I came into town a day early for.  I was looking for something along the lines of Italian food that evening and I found a place that has been around for well over 50 years that I decided to try.  Here's what I experienced at V's Italiano Ristorante in Independence, MO.

The "V" behind V's Italiano Ristorante is the former Vita Barber, also known as "Mama V" to many family members and patrons.  Vita Barber grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Kansas City near a young boy by the name of Jay Totta.  Vita and Jay knew each other nearly all their lives and eventually got married.  

Jay became an architect and Vita stayed at home to raise their four children.  However, a trip to California in the early 60's changed the Totta's life.  They visited Jay's cousin who was running a pizza restaurant.  Seeing the patrons eating the Italian specialty gave Vita an idea.  She wanted to open her own pizza restaurant back home in Kansas City.

With all four of their children now in school, Vita thought that she had better learn how to run a restaurant before she jumped in without any experience.  She found a part-time waitressing job from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through the week to learn the ins-and-outs of the restaurant business.  

The next thing she had to do after she had some experience was to find a place for her restaurant.  It turned out there was a small cafe not far from Interstate 70 on the east side of Kansas City where the owner was getting ready to sell the place for $3000.  Jay and Vita had $2000 of their own money, so they went to the bank to borrow the other $1000.  They explained to the banker their business plan of opening a pizza restaurant, but the banker didn't know what pizza was.  Nonetheless, he loaned the Totta's the money for them to buy the cafe.  They opened V's Cafe in October of 1963.  

Pictured right - Vita "Mama V" Totta.  Photo courtesy of the Jackson County Examiner.  

At first, not many people around Kansas City knew what to think of Mama V's pizza.  But things started to pick up - especially after Jay and Vita discovered that pizza tastes pretty darned good with beer - and it wasn't long before the little 35 seat cafe was filled on most nights. 

V's Cafe outgrew it's original location in less than three years and they moved to a new location in 1966.  It wasn't much larger than the small cafe, and Vita expanded the menu with Italian specialties made from recipes from her mother, Carrie Barber.  Success continued and within five years the Totta's knew they had to move to a larger location.  

They found a lot along U.S. Highway 40 in Independence and bought the property in 1971.  Jay designed the new restaurant with a large dining area, a lounge, and three banquet rooms that sat another 135 people.  Vita's father Tony Barber planted grape vines on a wood arbor in front of the new restaurant.   When everything was complete, V's Italiano Ristorante opened their doors in 1972.  

Jay and Vita's children all worked in their restaurants at one point in time or longer.  But it was when a young boy by the name of Greg Hunsaker came into the brand new V's in April of 1972 to ask for a job, little did anyone know that he would eventually become a part of the Totta family.  Greg Hunsaker's older brother worked in the restaurant, but the Totta's thought that Greg was too young to work in the place.  Perseverance paid off for Greg who was eventually hired in December of 1972 after a busboy didn't come in to work one evening.  

He bussed table for the next seven months, but one evening he was chewed out by a lady and he thought about quitting and going back to mowing lawns.  But Vita Totta saw something in the young Greg Hunsaker and she reassigned him to work in the kitchen.  

After working in V's Italiano kitchen for a year, Greg Hunsaker - now at the ripe age of 16 - knew that he wanted to continue to work at the restaurant.  Over the next few years, Hunsaker did a little bit of everything - server, kitchen manager, and finally becoming general manager by the age of 24.   Jay and Vita's daughter, Mary, was the bar manager at V's Italiano and she and Greg worked together in management.  But things changed from a working relationship into a matrimonial situation as Greg and Mary were married in 1983.  

A number of years later, Vita offered Greg Husaker, Sr. a chance to become part owner of the restaurant and he jumped in with both feet.  When Vita eventually retired from the day-to-day operations a few years back, Greg and Mary took over the restaurant full time.  Their son, Greg, Jr., started working in the restaurant when he was 10 as a busboy before he started to work in the kitchen.  The younger Hunsaker eventually went to college and studied hospitality management before coming back to work at the Totta/Hunsaker family restaurant.  Today, Greg Hunsaker, Jr. is the manager of V's Italiano Ristorante.  Jay Totta passed away in 2007 and now in her mid-80's Mama V continues to check in on the restaurant nearly every day.  

After pulling into the parking lot at 10819 E. U.S. Highway 40, I made my way into the restaurant where I was met by Greg Hunsaker, Jr., himself.  (see map)  He took me to a booth in what appeared to be a main dining room in the place.  

There were a couple of other segments to the dining room.  There was a small room off to the side just as you come into the dining area that could possibly be used as a small reception or private dining area.  There was also another area that looked like it could have been used for brunch or a lunch buffet.  The lounge was off to the side when you come into the place.  There was kind of a rustic Tuscan feel to the interior of V's Italiano.  Classic Italian crooners such as Dean Martin, Tony Bennett and Perry Como were playing in the background.

I was greeted by Susan, a nice middle-aged lady who was friendly and sassy.  I started out with ordering a Boulevard Pale Ale as I looked through the menu to see what they had to offer.  

The menu featured a number of classic Italian favorites - osso bucco, chicken parmigiana, and cioppino.  Pasta dishes included fettuccine alfredo (they had a seafood option that added lobster meat and shrimp), spicy linguine in a white cream sauce, spaghetti in a meat sauce, and Mama V's lasagna that she has served at the restaurant for over 50 years.  (When it was first introduced at V's Cafe in the 60's, patrons had trouble with the pronunciation calling it "la-zag-na".)  And being in Kansas City, V's Italiano has a number of steaks on the menu, as well as prime rib and seafood.  But, of course, V's Italiano Ristorante features Mama V's original pizza which started the whole thing back in 1963.  

After ordering up my meal, I was brought out a house salad with a sweet Italian dressing.  The salad consisted of fresh iceberg and romaine lettuce topped with shredded mozzarella, red onion rings, and cherry tomatoes.  Along with the salad came a basket of pumpernickel and Italian bread.  The bread was delicious, as was the salad.

For dinner that evening, I went with the penne pasta in the bolognese sauce with sautéed mushrooms added in.  For good measure, I got a couple of meat balls to go along with the pasta.  Susan talked me into a half-order of V's garlic cheese bread.  I'd already had too much of the excellent Italian and pumpernickel bread, but she made it sound like the garlic bread was to die for.  (Here's a tip - it was just all right.)

The meat sauce was sweet, but it was very good.  The meat balls were also very good as they held together very well.  The pasta dish went very well with a glass of Josh Cellars cabernet that I had ordered up before the meal came out.  It was a great - and filling - classic Italian meal.  

At the end of the meal, Susan told me that I also got a piece of Mama V's Italian rum cake.  I was so full that there was no way that I could eat it.  She said, "I'll get you a piece to go."  I told her that I was staying in a hotel and she said, "No worries.  I'll give you a fork to use."  She gave it to me in a small bag and I took it with me.  I put it in the refrigerator at the hotel - and promptly forgot about it.  I didn't take it with me when I left the next day.  But that was fine - I had more than enough to eat that night.  

V's Italiano Ristorante is one of those places that are like you're going to your Italian grandmas for dinner.   The food was old school Italian - and there was a lot of it.  I was happy with everything that I had at V's.  It's not a fancy place, but it's comfortable and unpretentious.  There are a handful of good Italian restaurants I've eaten at in Kansas City over the years and V's Italiano may be the oldest of the ones that are still around.  I thought the food, service and atmosphere were well above average, and I wouldn't hesitate to head back to V's Italiano Ristorante for a good Italian meal if I'm up for one when I'm in Kansas City.  

Flamme Burger - Indianapolis, IN

My M.O. for Road Tips is that I'll visit a restaurant and then write about it a few weeks later.  Every once in awhile, I've been burned to find out that the restaurant closed down from the time I visited to the time I was getting ready to write about the place.  (And, more often than not, I wasn't going to give that now-closed restaurant a great review.)  So, in late May of this year, I had to go out to see clients in Indianapolis and stayed the night in the northeast suburb of Fishers.  Near where one of my accounts had their store was a burger place that had always intrigued me - Flamme Burger.  I went there that one evening, but in doing research for this place, I found that they had closed the Fishers location and had moved into the Keystone Commons complex on the north side of Indianapolis in June of this year.  I thought, "Well, they're still open, but at a couple of other locations, and they still have the same burgers."  What the heck?  I'll still tell you about my visit to Flamme Burger.  

Henri Najem has the restaurant business in his blood.  He was born into a family where his parents owned a number of restaurants and bars around the Indianapolis area.  When he was 12 years old, Henri was helping out in the kitchen at his uncle's Italian restaurant on the west side of Indianapolis.  So, it was no surprise that Henri opened his first restaurant - Bella Vita, a lakeside restaurant on the Geist Reservoir north and east of Indianapolis - in his early 20's.  Henri, along with his wife, Shelley, ran the restaurant for 17 years before selling it in 2014.

The Najem's saw the boom in quality burger places, not only in Indianapolis, but around the rest of the country.  They designed a place that would have wood-fired 100% natural blended Angus beef burgers, and pair the burgers with fresh, high-quality, locally grown produce and other ingredients.  They wanted to have an open kitchen and make the place a fast-casual restaurant with a good selection of local craft beers.  In 2015, the couple opened their first Flamme Burger in downtown Fishers.    

Pictured at right - Henri and Shelley Najem.  Photo courtesy Carmel Current.

The success of the Fishers location led to a second Flamme Burger in the small - but rapidly growing - town of Whitestown on the far northwest side of Indianapolis in 2017.  However, with the growth in restaurants and other entertainment venues in the downtown Fishers area over the past couple of years, the Najem's customers found that parking was getting tough to find on some evenings.  Less than a month after I was there, they decided to shut down their original Flamme Burger in Fishers and they relocated to the their new spot along 86th Street across from The Fashion Mall at Keystone on Indianapolis' north side.  (see map)

My account in Fishers is literally just down the street from the original Flamme Burger and I parked in a parking garage behind my account and walked through a walkway that took me to E. 116th Street, the main east-west street through the downtown area of Fishers.  I walked into Flamme Burger and found a contemporary-looking restaurant with sort of an orange hue throughout.  Murals of flames danced along one wall of the place with large windows up front letting in a lot of natural light into the place.   

I ended up seated at the bar that featured loops coming out from the open kitchen area.  I was greeted by one of the bartenders, given a food menu, and I ordered up a Railsplitter IPA from the Triton Brewing Company in Indianapolis.  It was somewhat hoppy, but had a smooth finish.  

The burgers at Flamme Burger start out as a ground blend of beef brisket, short rib and sirloin, then they're cooked over an open flame from Indiana oak and apple wood on a grill designed by Henri Najem.  They feature a dozen signature burgers on the menu at Flamme Burger including a cheddar cheese and applewood -smoked bacon burger with a chipotle mayo, a Maytag Blue cheese and peppered bacon burger that is finished with a blue cheese spread, and a burger topped with bourbon sautéed mushrooms and onions and jalapeño jack cheese.  Flamme Burger makes over 20 different types of sauces that they use on not only many of their burgers, but on grilled chicken sandwiches and seafood they have on the menu.

They also have a "make-your-own" burger on the menu and that's what I did that evening.  For toppings on the burger, I got onion straws (that I pulled off when I got the burger), sautéed mushrooms, Swiss cheese and applewood-smoked bacon on a brioche bun.  It was served on a small wooden butcher board with fries on the side.  Housemade ketchup also came with the burger.

The burger at Flamme Burger was very good.  The beef was juicy with a great rich flavor.  The Swiss cheese was slathered over the top of the beef patty with the mushrooms and bacon on top of that.  The beef was so good that I could get the flavor of the meat with each bite and it wasn't masked by the cheese, mushrooms and bacon that complemented the burger more than hindered the taste.  The brioche bun was light and spongy, but held together very well.  This was a top notch burger.

The onion straws that I pulled off were very good, as well.  I probably could have gotten the onion straws on the side instead of the fries, but the amount that they put on top of the burger were just enough for me to try and enjoy.  

I decided to try some of the fries and they were surprisingly very good.  They had a crunchy shell on the outside and a great flaky potato texture inside.  Along with the housemade ketchup, the fries were a great compliment to the excellent burger.

The Flamme Burger location in Fishers may be gone, but there are two other locations around the Indianapolis area that serve their great burgers.  I was very happy with the burger I had, as well as the onion straws and the fries.  They have a good selection of craft brews at Flamme Burger and the atmosphere was casual and laid back.  I'm sure there are people around the Fishers area who are upset that Flamme Burger moved, but at least they didn't go out of business.