My wife and I were out for drinks one late afternoon on a recent Saturday when we decided we better make up our minds as to where to have dinner. Across the parking lot from the little wine bar that we like to go to from time to time is a restaurant that my wife has always liked, but I've not been too enamored with. It had been a long time since I was last there, but my wife insisted that they had evolved and had a more interesting menu than the previous time I had been in there. She talked me into walking across the parking lot to have dinner at Indigo Grill.
Now, there's some confusion for me as to the real name of the place. If you do a search for the restaurant on Google, it comes up Cafe Indigo. However, if you go to their Facebook page, they call themselves Indigo Grill. Their webpage features a nondescript logo of an "I" and a "G", and the sign on the front of their business says, "Indigo Grill". I asked my wife when they changed the name and she said she hadn't noticed that they had.
Nevertheless, Cafe Indigo/Indigo Grill (I'll refer to them as Indigo Grill for this entry) is owned and operated by the husband and wife team of Andy and Tammie Gruenhagen, long-time restaurant veterans in both Des Moines and the Quad Cities. The Gruenhagen's moved back to Quad Cities in 2006 after working at Centro in Des Moines. They were a little perplexed as to what to call their restaurant at first. But after Tammie found some china for the cafe called Indigo, it all came together. The Gruenhagen's opened Cafe Indigo in January of 2007 and styled it after a Mediterranean bistro.
(The Gruenhagen's were also involved for a time with a restaurant in Moline called Steel Head Tavern. It closed after a nearly five year run in 2018. And while the Gruenhagen's still own and operate Indigo Grill, Tammie is also the general manager at The Tangled Wood in Bettendorf. Click here to see the Road Tips entry on The Tangled Wood.)
Indigo Grill is open at 8 a.m. Wednesday thru Sunday for breakfast and closes most evenings at 8 p.m. (They are open just for breakfast on Sundays until noon.) It was about 7:00 when we ventured across the parking lot from R Bar, the little wine/cocktail place that we like to hang out from time to time. Indigo Grill isn't all that big - they have two sections of their front dining area which had every other table closed off for social distancing protocols. They also have a larger room in the back for banquets, meetings and catered events. A group of five people came in not long after we had got there and were seated back at one of the larger tables in the banquet room. The place is not fancy, but cozy and comfortable.
We were seated at a four-seat table on what would be the north side of the restaurant. Our server for the evening was a pleasant young lady by the name of Morgan. She dropped off a couple dinner menus for us to look over. I also ordered a Stone IPA and my wife got a glass of Indigo Grill's pinot grigio. That usually means she's going to get seafood or pasta with a cream sauce.
The menu changes seasonally at Indigo Grill and usually features sandwiches, pasta dishes, and meat entrees with beef or chicken selections. They had seafood entrees including a parmesan encrusted walleye and a fennel & black pepper salmon dish. Pasta dishes included a fettuccine alfredo, Cajun mac & cheese, and a chicken & cheese tortellini.
As I said, it had been some time since I'd been to Cafe Indigo - Indigo Grill and, quite frankly, I don't remember having this diverse of a menu. I remember they had sandwiches and a few other things, but they seemed to have a nice mix of different styles of foods to choose from.
My wife was looking at a couple things - the fettuccine alfredo being one and the chicken piccata being another. But it turns out that some of the items that are available on their lunch menu are also available along with the dinner menu. My wife found out that she could get one of the lunch entree salads, too. She was in a quandary as to which direction to go.
I was intrigued by many things on the menu - the Muffaletta sandwich was interesting to me, as was their reuben sandwich. I was this close to ordering Andy's Famous Meatloaf, but I'm usually disappointed in meat loaf at a restaurant, even it was "famous". (I make a great meat loaf at home and I'm sort of particular about my meat loaf.) And the pot roast was sounding good, too.
But there was something else that really caught my eye. When I told my wife it was down to two choices, one being the meat loaf. The other was the Cajun grouper - a pan-seared grouper filet served on asiago risotto and topped with a green olive/red pepper tapenade. Steamed broccoli came on the side. I asked Morgan to tell the chef to "stomp on" the grouper with Cajun seasoning.
My wife went with one of the salad entrees - the beet salad with grilled salmon. It featured chopped beets and lettuce greens mixed with chopped red onions, chopped cucumbers and pecans. It came with a lemon vinaigrette dressing. After a few bites, my wife said, "This is perfect. The salmon is cooked perfectly and everything in the salad tastes great and fresh."
I was sort of apprehensive about my Cajun grouper, until I took the first bite. It was delicious! The chef had definitely stomped on the Cajun seasonings for me. I was thinking of getting a glass of white wine with my meal, but after a bite or two of the Cajun grouper I was glad I had the Stone IPA. The fish was spicy, but in a very good way for me.
OK, so I was pleasantly surprised with my meal at Cafe Indigo, excuse me, Indigo Grill. I remember years ago that I didn't really care for it all that much, even turning up my nose many times at the suggestion of going there for a meal. But my Cajun grouper was very good. And my wife was very happy with her grilled salmon beet salad. The menu was interesting and diverse - it would be tough not to find something that you didn't like on the menu. OK, I'm sold. Indigo Grill is back in our rotation.
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