My sister's boyfriend had invited my wife and I to join them along with my two nieces and their husbands in Des Moines for the NCAA men's basketball tournament regional games earlier this March. We wanted to meet up for lunch beforehand and someone had suggested that we go to Zombie Burger in Des Moines' East Village. (Click here to see Road Tips visit to Zombie Burger.) My wife and I were the first to arrive at Zombie Burger and we found that there would be a two-hour wait for a table for 8. We had to spring into Plan B pretty quickly and we did some checking on restaurant apps on our phones for available restaurants in the area. About a block and a half away from Zombie Burger there was a restaurant that sounded promising. We walked down a block and turned left on E. Locust and walked up to the front of The Continental. It was less than half full and they said they could push together a couple three high-top tables up front. We sat down and it wasn't much more than five minutes when the rest of our group showed up. My sister took a look around the place and said, "I've always wanted to try this place. Sure! This will do!"
Kevin Dubay was a Des Moines native who was teaching art at the University of Missouri/Kansas City. He and his wife, Jennifer, had longed to open their own restaurant and began to look for places to start one. In 2005, Kevin Dubay quit his teaching job in Kansas City and moved back to Des Moines to search for a site for his restaurant dream. The East Village in Des Moines was beginning to become a shopping and entertainment destination with bars, restaurants, shops, and music venues popping up. The DuBay's focused on a space on E. Locust Street and they recruited Dubay's brother Brian - a chef during the day and a local musician at night - to help get their restaurant going. The Dubay's opened The Continental Lounge in the summer of 2006 offering craft beers, eclectic cocktails and an interesting food menu consisting primarily of small plate and tapas offerings. The name was eventually shortened to just "The Continental" at some point.
The bar area at The Continental was up front and featured a long "L"-shaped bar with a back bar going the length of the front bar. They had a couple three bartenders working - one appeared to be a mixologist doing nothing but mixing drinks from the somewhat extensive craft cocktail list that they had. My wife immediately ordered up a drink that had gin, tequila and citrus juice in it. She was sort of taken aback by the taste at first, but she quickly learned to like it.
The restaurant featured a number of booths upfront with a number of paintings hanging on the exposed brick wall. Many of the prints were by local artists and were for sale. It got increasingly more dark as you went back into the restaurant.
The far back area of the long and narrow restaurant featured more artwork on the walls above tables. Initially, after they offered to push the high-top tables together up front, we found this little area and thought it would be better to have a couple square tables pushed together back here. But, it was sort of dark in the back area and my wife made the executive decision to sit up front in the natural light.
Before the rest of our group had joined us, I'd ordered up a Bloody Mary with a Bell's Two Hearted Ale that they had on tap. One of the bartenders - a very laid-back guy whose easy demeanor seemed to be stuck on idle the whole time he worked with us - told me that it takes some time for the Bloody Mary to be made. He got me my beer while I waited, and then after everyone showed up he brought me the Bloody Mary. Once they saw the Bloody Mary he brought me, other people in our group immediately signed up for one. It was worth the wait.
The food menu at The Continental features a number of shareable plates, a few salads and a handful of sandwiches. (They also have large plate entree specials after 5 p.m.) The sharable plates or tapas included truffled button mushrooms, pastrami egg rolls, spicy minced pork & beef meat balls, and chicken & chorizo brochettes. There were so many interesting things on the menu that we just decided to start ordering stuff up and share it all around.
When our laid-back server came back out from behind the bar to take our food order, I noticed that he wasn't carrying a pad to write things down. Now, it absolutely drives my youngest niece crazy when servers don't write stuff down - it sort of unnerves me, as well, especially when it's a large group. Like ours that day. I've found that more often than not nothing good ever comes out of that. But we decided to see if the guy could pull it off.
And we were pleasantly surprised - he was very good. When he brought the food out, he had everything correct with the exception of an order of cheese and olive-stuffed empanadillas that he didn't bring out from the kitchen. I had to say that I was impressed. But my niece wouldn't give him a pass on the empanadillas. I told her that I've had servers who wrote stuff down who forgot food or gave me the wrong thing. This guy almost nailed it.
Here are some of the items that we had that day -
We ordered up two or three plates of The Continental's poutine. It was classic Quebec-style poutine with crispy fries, cheese curds and a brown gravy poured over the top. For a poutine - and I've had some good poutine in my visits to Montreal - this was very good.
The braised beef sandwich was also a popular choice at the table. It featured brisket slow roasted in a cranberry/tomato sauce and served on a kaiser roll. My sister gave me a bite of hers and the combination of the tender beef with the tangy tomato sauce with just enough of a sweet fruity taste from the cranberries was an exceptional taste.
Some of us ordered tacos. They had pork tacos where the meat was marinated and roasted in a combination of citrus juice, achiote paste and Patron tequila. They also had the braised beef tacos, similar to the braised beef sandwich some had. The braised beef tacos came on deep-fried flour taco shells topped with chopped lettuce and tomatoes, and a chipotle cream sauce came on the side. The braised beef tacos were yummy! I almost ordered up some of the grilled tilapia tacos to go along with the pork and braised beef tacos, but we had more than enough food on the table.
My wife wanted to try the crab/shrimp cakes and she definitely didn't get cheated on the portion. The crab/shrimp cakes were encrusted in a panko bread crumb and parmesan mixture and served on a slick of remoulade sauce. Big, thick, and rich in taste, my wife said she could have just had a couple of those and she would have been good for lunch. She also helped share some of the chipotle hummus they had at The Continental. The hummus was served small pita points and my wife liked the spicy flavor it had.
While The Continental wasn't our first choice for lunch that day, I'm guessing we had a much better meal than if we had decided to wait it out at Zombie Burger. I was more than impressed with the food, drink selection, craft beer list, and the service we received that day. The decor was tasteful and the atmosphere was relaxed and folksy. It was a great re-purposing of a space in a building that probably had been built well over 100 years before. The Continental was a great place to share food in a group and they were more than eager to take care of every little thing that we asked for.
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