Road Tips

The Playwright Irish Pub - New York City

When I was in New York City, there was still a lot of college basketball to be played and I was hoping to be able to watch some of the Iowa women's basketball game one night.  The University of Iowa I-Club has a number of chapters around the United States and I looked up on their web site to see if there were any Iowa game watch sites in New York City.  It turned out that there was an Irish pub about 10 blocks from my hotel that was a game watch site.  I would have walked to the restaurant, but it was spitting rain and rather cool out.  So, I took an Uber down to The Playwright Irish Pub on W. 35th Street between 5th and 6th avenues in Manhattan.  (see map) 

Frank Dwyer was born and raised in County Leitrim in the northern part of Ireland.  At the age of 19, he immigrated to the U.S. and settled in New York City working as a carpenter in building construction and renovations.  For the next 20-plus years Dwyer worked on a number of bars and restaurants in various places across New York City.  By the time he was in his early 40's, he decided that he'd rather run his own restaurant/pub that build them.  

Dwyer had just finished building two pubs for Pete Fitzpatrick near Times Square - McGee's Pub and Connolly's.  Dwyer let Fitzpatrick know that he was interested in having his own pub and the last restaurant he built for Fitzpatrick was going to be his first restaurant as a co-owner of a tavern/restaurant.  In 1995, Fitzpatrick and Dwyer opened the first Playwright Tavern and Restaurant at the corner of W. 49th Street and 7th Avenue.  Three years later, the two opened a second Playwright Tavern on 8th Avenue between 45th and 46th Streets.

From there, Dwyer and Fitzpatrick opened a number of other pubs and restaurants in New York - Jack Demsey's, McHale's, another Connolly's location, Legends, and Hurley's Saloon just to name a few.  Dwyer and Fitzpatrick also own a hotel near Times Square, as well as restaurants/pubs in New Orleans and West Palm Beach, FL.  And around the turn of the millennium, they opened their third Playwright Irish Pub on W. 35th St.  

My Uber driver pulled up in front of the restaurant/pub with a red facade situated underneath a series of scaffolds that seem to be omnipresent in New York City.  Walking into the bar, I found a two story facility with a packed downstairs bar area.  It was definitely an Irish/sports bar with multiple televisions on the wall behind the bar.  

In the back of the downstairs bar area was a smaller room with a low ceiling that was even more packed with Iowa fans getting ready to watch the Hawkeyes women's game.  There was no place to sit and I didn't feel like standing for the next two-plus hours, especially if I wanted something to eat.  I decided to check out the rest of the place.

I ended up heading upstairs and I found a large bar area with more televisions interspersed around the room.  There was a nice dark wood bar along one wall with a number of tables and chairs along the opposite walls.  It was much less crowded upstairs than down, and I ended up seated at the bar in front of a television set.  

The bartender that evening was Michael - at least, that's what I thought he said it was.  He had such a thick and genuine Irish brogue that it was sort of hard to understand him, especially with music by the likes of Republic of Loose, Måneskin and The Lumineers playing in the background.  Michael - I'll call him that - gave me a food menu to look over and he started to change the televisions for the Iowa women's game coming on in a bit. 

I ordered a Smithwick's on tap to start.  It tasted flat, but I ended up drinking it.  Later on, I got a Founders IPA on tap - and that tasted horrible.  I was able to choke it down, but it was pretty bad.  I've had the Founders IPA before and this one didn't taste close to the ones I've had.  Then I got a Goose Island IPA draft - and THAT tasted bad.  I finally said something to Michael and asked him if I could just get a Bud Light they had on tap.  And the Bud Light tasted bad - not because it wasn't a craft beer, but because it just tasted weird.  I figured out later on that they really needed to clean their lines out for the upstairs bar.  

Another couple came and sat down by me.  They were also from Iowa - from Altoona - and they were in New York for a long weekend.  They also wanted to watch the Iowa game and they did the same thing as me - looked up to see where a watch site would be and found The Playwright.  The lady ordered a Corona and her husband followed suit.   I saw that they had a number of bottled beers in an enclosed cooler under the bar.  I had already downed about the equivalent of 3 beers and I saw that they had Bud Light in bottles.  I figured that if I was going to sit there and watch a game, I'd better go to a lighter beer.  

We watched the Iowa women play - they won handily 95-62 over Penn State - and found that we had some friends in common since I grew up in Central Iowa and still had a bunch of friends there.  They were good people to hang with while we watched the game.

After the game finished up, I decided I wanted to get something to eat before I went back to the hotel.  It wasn't an extensive menu, but it had a number of appetizers, sandwiches, burgers, and salads available.  I thought about getting the wings for a moment; the burgers sounded good, but I wasn't in the mood for a burger; and the filet mignon sandwich that sounded more like a Philly cheesesteak sandwich with carved beef tenderloin.  

I got it down to one of two things - the pastrami and Swiss on rye, or the shepherd's pie.  I ended up going with the shepherd's pie.  

It was a traditional Irish casserole with a mixture of ground beef, peas, and carrots in a rich brown gravy topped by ropes of golden brown mashed potatoes on top.  This was the real deal in terms of a shepherds pie.  The dish was hearty and robust in taste.  The mashed potatoes - it looked like they had been placed in a tube and pushed out into little squiggly ropes on top of the ground beef mixed with the veggies and gravy.  This meal was a definite spot-hitter and more than made up for the crappy tasting beer they had on tap.

There are hundreds of Irish pubs in New York City, many of which are combination sports bars/Irish pubs.   And the Playwright Irish Pub didn't really do much of anything to distinguish themselves from any of the other places.  They really needed to clean out their beer lines going up to the second floor bar, but other than that it was a good place to hang out and watch an Iowa women's basketball game.  The shepherd's pie was excellent and the service I had from Micheal was good.  The Playwright Irish Pub was a good place to hang for a couple three hours watching sports and having some pretty good food.  

 

San Marcos Mexican Restaurant - Raleigh, NC

During my visit to the Carolinas late last year, I spent a night in Raleigh.  Since it was my first visit to the area, I really didn't know places to eat near my hotel.  I was sort of in the mood for Mexican food and I asked the young lady at the front desk when I was checking in if there were any good Mexican restaurants in the area.  She mentioned that one of her favorite places was San Marcos Mexican Restaurant and it wasn't very far from the hotel.  After getting settled into my room, I ended up heading toward San Marcos to get something to eat that night.

It turns out that San Marcos is a small chain of restaurants that was started in 2005 by José Hernandez.  The first location was in Burlington, NC just east of Greensboro.  A second location opened a few years later in Smithville, NC, just south and east of Raleigh.  So, it was a natural decision to open a third San Marcos Mexican Restaurant in Raleigh in 2016.  Today, there are six San Marcos locations including one in the small town of Mayodan, NC north of Greensboro near the Virginia border, one in Danville, VA just across the border from North Carolina, and another one just north of Danville in Chatham, VA.  

The San Marcos in Raleigh is located in the Crabtree Valley section of the city.  I didn't know what to expect when I set off from the hotel and my GPS took me down a hill and crossing over a creek onto a road that was directly behind the Crabtree shopping mall.  A quick left up a small hill put me in front of San Marcos Mexican Restaurant along Homewood Banks Dr.  (see map)  There was a spacious parking area just to the east side of the restaurant and it was slowly filling up with evening diners when I pulled in. 

From the outside, it appeared to be an upscale Mexican restaurant.  Stepping inside, I could easily tell that this was a nice place.  There was a large dining area with brightly colored walls with Mexican artwork between the molding and the ceiling.  

The other dining room was also part of the bar area at San Marcos.  Faux vine walls decorated the step-up seating area along with ornate columns and large painted vases.  More faux vines hung from the ceiling in the area next to the bar.  

I ended up seated at the bar and was greeted by Catalina who was one of the ladies working as a bartender/server that evening.  The bar room area was highlighted by a large mural that cover the wall above a stone wall.  Accent lighting under the bar set off a warm deep blue glow on patrons seated around the bar.  The only problem was that the Mexican music they were playing in the bar area was really loud.  There weren't a lot of people in there when I first got in there, but it filled up as time went along.  While the music was good, they just had it cranked up a little too loud for the type of restaurant San Marcos was.  

Catalina gave me a menu and I took some time to look through it.  They had a little bit of everything on the menu at San Marcos - steaks and beef dishes, pork, chicken and seafood entrees, enchiladas, big burritos, variations of nacho plates and street tacos.  I knew I'd have no trouble finding something to eat there that night.  

Of course they brought out chips and salsa.  I asked for a green tomatillo sauce and it was brought out warm a bit later on.  The chips were fresh and crunchy, and the salsa had a wonderful flavor with fresh tomatoes, chopped onions and cilantro mixed in.  The tomatillo salsa also had a great flavor with a spicy bite on the back end.  

I also ordered up a Cadillac margarita to start out with.  It was served on a small platter with an Astroturf base. I forget which top-shelf tequila they used, but it was made with fresh-squeezed lime juice, and a shot of Grand Marnier.  The shot of the Grand Marnier actually hung on the side of the glass - an interesting sight that I had never experienced before.  I had to take a couple sips from the glass in order to add the shot of the Grand Marnier.  The Cadillac margarita was garnished with a smoked lime slice.  It was a killer margarita - and, man, was it packed with liquor!

I considered a couple three things for dinner that night - the Carnitas platter sounded pretty good to me, as did the beef enchiladas and the chicken & beef fajitas.  But in the end I went pretty simple.

San Marcos had a number of street tacos on the menu made with choices of grilled chicken, grilled shrimp, steak & chorizo, beef birria (marinated beef short ribs), and even grilled lengua (beef tongue).   And the great thing is that San Marcos allowed me to pick and choose which tacos I wanted instead of having to order 3 of one kind of taco that I've run into at other Mexican places in the past.  

I ordered up a grilled fish taco, a carnitas taco, and a carne asada (steak) taco.  The tacos came with a side of Spanish rice and refried beans set in a deep-fried taco shell.  A garnish of chopped cilantro and onions along with radish slices came on the side along with a spicy red sauce and more of the tomatillo sauce.  I got a Dos Equis Ambar to go along with the meal. 

The fish taco was interesting in that it was a full filet placed inside the grilled tortilla.  When I've had fish tacos in the past, they're usually chopped up before going into the tortilla.  And this was a generous sized tilapia filet in this taco.  The fish was light, flaky and had a nice seasoning on it.  With the cilantro, onions and a dose of the tomatillo sauce, it tasted wonderful.

I didn't think the other two tacos would come close to the flavor of the fish taco, but I was wrong.  The carnitas taco was fabulous, as well.  The pork was crunchy, yet juicy and full of flavor.  The tomatillo sauce was a nice additive with the carnitas taco.  

And the steak taco was also very good.  The chopped steak still had some pink on the inside and was very tender.  I used some of the spicy red sauce on the carne asada taco and it was a pretty zippy flavor with each bite.  

I really didn't know what to expect when the young lady at the hotel told me that she really liked San Marcos Mexican Restaurant.  Based upon her recommendation, I'm glad I gave San Marcos a try.  It was more upscale than most Mexican restaurants I've tried in the past and the food I had was excellent.  And their Cadillac margarita was also one of the better ones I'd had.  Catalina and a couple of the other ladies working behind the bar and in the lounge area that evening took very good care of me on my visit.  If any of the other five San Marcos locations are as good as the one in Raleigh, it's easy to see why it's one of the more popular Mexican restaurants in the area.  

The Crab Cooker - Newport Beach, CA

While we were out at the NAMM Show earlier this year, the father-and-two-sons team from Maag Audio were right behind us with their booth.  My boss from Germany had known the owner who started the business for a number of years and I had the pleasure of meeting the guys the day before the show started.  They even had one of their guys - more of a friend of the two sons - there who worked part-time in their factory.  Of course, we got to talking about food and the guys were effusive of their praise of a seafood restaurant over in Newport Beach.  On Thursday, they invited the four guys from my company out to dinner the following evening.  One of our guys is vegetarian and seafood isn't on his menu, and the one of the other guys from France has dietary restrictions which discourages rich food like seafood.   A quick look at the menu on-line pretty much told him that there wouldn't be anything that he would be able to eat.  So, after the day was done on Friday, my boss from Germany and I piled into their rental van for the 30 minute drive from Anaheim out to Newport Beach for dinner at The Crab Cooker.   

In 1926, Bob Roubian was born to an Italian immigrant mother and an Armenian immigrant father in Pasadena, just north of Los Angeles.  After graduating from high school in 1944, Roubian joined the Navy Seabees seeing action in the Pacific while building bases ramping up to the end of the Pacific Theater of World War II.  After coming back home, Bob helped his father in his construction business.  On the weekends, they'd go deep sea fishing.  They'd cook their catch over an open flame using leftover wood pieces that Bob's father would bring home from construction sites.  Bob learned from his father that frying fish cooked out all the flavor.  

In the late 40's, Bob Roubian was working on a building that used to be a Bank of America branch whose new owners were turning it into a fish market.  Three years later when the opportunity to buy the place came up, Bob jumped at the chance to own his own business.  

Pictured right - Bob Roubian.  Photo courtesy Orange County Register.

Even though there were more than a dozen competitors in the area serving fresh caught seafood.  With the ordinary name "Seafood Varieties" Bob not only cooked the fresh caught seafood, he sold it from counters in his store.  Bob started out frying fish since that's what his competitors did.  But when he returned to his roots by steaming or grilling his seafood, people began to notice.  He set up a steamer in front of the store and cooked crab or locally caught lobster.  It got to a point that people would say, "Let's go to that place with the crab cooker."  The name stuck and Roubian changed the name to The Crab Cooker in 1954.  

To say that Bob Roubian was an interesting guy is an understatement.  Bob was called a "renaissance man" by his family after he passed away in December of 2017 at the age of 91.  Bob was a craftsman who hand-carved the restaurant's front door.  He was a sculptor who made some of the figurines and decorations for his restaurant.  He became a photographer who took a number of photos that hung on the walls in the restaurant.  And he also took up painting with many of his works of art were on display at the restaurant.  He also became a collector of art with much of his collection decorating the walls of The Crab Cooker over the years.  It was said that he sold some of his collected artwork right off the wall to Hollywood stars such as Ray Milland and James Cagney.  

But Bob was also well-known in the 1950's as a songwriter/performer who wrote songs and recorded 45's for Capitol Records.  In 1955, Roubian teamed with country musician Cliffie Stone to co-write and sing a novelty hit "The Popcorn Song" which turned out to be a national hit eventually reaching No. 14 on the Billboard charts.  The royalty income from the song allowed Bob to pay off all debts - including a mounting back-tax bill -  on The Crab Cooker.  

Bob continued to write, record and perform music and even went out on tour to promote his songs with his wife Helen and their two children Robbie and Rhonda (Ronnie) running the restaurant.  However, by the end of the 50's, he'd had enough of the travel and gave up the music business to fully concentrate on The Crab Cooker.

The Crab Cooker was a very popular place to eat.  It was common to see lines form out the door and around the building.  In addition to James Cagney and Ray Milland, celebrities and politicians such as John Wayne and Richard Nixon frequented the restaurant.  There was a time when Nixon was president in the early 70's that his advance team came to The Crab Cooker during the height of the evening rush asking Roubian to find space for the president to eat.  Bob reportedly said, "He can wait in line with the other people waiting to eat, as would any president who wanted to get in."  

Jim Wasko was a 1984 graduate of the Naval Academy and he eventually married Ronnie Roubian.  As a reconnaissance pilot for the Navy, the Wasko family moved from base to base for his assignments.  When the Waskos moved from Guam to a new assignment at the Naval Air Station at Point Mugo near Oxnard, the family finally got to spend more time at The Crab Cooker.  In 1990, Jim Wasko left the Navy and entered into a partnership with his father-in-law to run The Crab Cooker.  

Wasko adopted many of Bob Roubian's tried and true methods of cooking fish and running the restaurant.  Cooking the seafood over mesquite and lightly - or never - seasoning the fish was a key to the success of the restaurant.  In 1993, Wasko opened a second Crab Cooker location in Tustin, about 12 miles northeast of Newport Beach.  It, too, became an instant hit with people who didn't have to make the drive out to Newport Beach to enjoy The Crab Cooker.

Pictured left - Jim Wasko.  Photo courtesy Medium.com

In 2014, a new condominium building was being built next to The Crab Cooker in Newport Beach.  Construction workers accidentally damaged the foundation of the 76-year-old building.  City of Newport Beach engineers said that the building was safe for occupancy, but it turned out that they couldn't restore the building's foundation.  The restaurant stayed open for four more years even as the building began to list to one side.  It was determined that it would be better to evacuate the building and rebuild a new Crab Cooker.  Wasko closed the doors to the restaurant at the end of September 2018.   

Wasko estimated that it would be a year - 18 months tops - to have the old building razed, then rebuilt on the same spot.  But plumbing issues caused by foundation problems effectively pushed back the new opening by 8 months.  After an intensive re-engineering of the foundation (it was found the foundation was in unstable sand rather than bedrock), it was late 2019 when the foundation was poured.  Then, of course, the pandemic hit in March of 2020 causing logistical problems with workers in the space.  No more than 10 workers could be on the property at any time and all had to be spaced apart appropriately.  But by the summer of 2021, everything was back in place - including the hand-crafted door and the 12-foot long mounted great white shark that had been caught off the Newport Beach pier in 1960 - and the Newport Beach location of The Crab Cooker reopened for business.  

We finished the day at the NAMM show and one of the guys from Magg Audio had left early to go get their rental van and to meet us at a lot near the Anaheim Convention Center.  It was about a 20 minute drive from where we were picked up and the front of The Crab Cooker located at the corner of Newport Boulevard and 22nd St.  (see map)  We were let off at the front door while our driver took off to find a space to park in just around the corner on 22nd St.  

There was a line that stretched back to the door when we walked in.  But it seemed to be moving fast.  As we stood in line I noticed all the fresh seafood they had on sale in a case by the front door.  And the seafood wasn't cheap.  Large salmon and mahi mahi filets were $19.95 a pound.  Whole Dungeness crabs were $25.95, and King crab claws were $74.95!  

When one of the guys checked in at the hostess counter, he asked if we could have Caroline as our server.  They had been there a couple days before and Caroline waited on them.  Turns out Caroline was a perky blonde with a great sense of humor.  She was more than accommodating and very patient with six guys who were constantly changing their minds or asking for something after they forgot to ask for it before.  

We were seated at a long table in the front dining room.  It was an interesting mix of artwork, photographs and kitsch with the great white shark hanging from the tin-plate ceiling.  The shark was facing my boss who looked up at one point and said, "Jesus, he looks like he's coming after me!"  

Behind windows in the front dining was the kitchen area where a large kettle grill that was used to cook the seafood.  I couldn't tell if it was one of the Weber industrial kettles that I've seen at one of their Weber Grill restaurants, but it was definitely at least 42" across.  A flattop grill next to the kettle grill was in use making their famous Romano cheese mashed potatoes.  The potatoes are put on the grill to give them a crispy edge maintaining the fluffy inner core of a combination of potatoes and cheese.

The back dining area was bigger than the front and not quite as gaudy.  More historic photographs, artwork and stained-glass windows were on display in the room.  It also seemed a little more quiet in that room, probably because it had a vaulted ceiling with wooden beams over the dining room.  

Caroline had given us menus to look over and a couple of the guys already knew what they were going to get - the lobster skewer.  But they also had other seafood varieties on skewers - shrimp, scallops, and oysters all cooked over mesquite.  They had a salmon filet that tempted me, but I knew I couldn't eat cooked salmon.  They did have a smoked salmon appetizer that I damned near ordered, but we were guests and I didn't want to appear to be taking advantage of our host's hospitality.  Crab cakes, King crab legs, and soft-shell crabs were also part of the dinner menu.  

Appetizers on the menu included the aforementioned smoked salmon, but they also had smoked albacore tuna, as well.  Shrimp cocktails, oysters and clams on the half-shell (I'd never had clams on the half-shell), and calamari were also part of the appetizer portion of the menu.  But our host insisted that we try The Crab Cooker's clam chowder.  It was a Manhattan-style clam chowder in a rich and somewhat spicy tomato broth.  I spiced it up even more with a few shakes of Tabasco into the chowder.  It tasted wonderful and went very well with the Hazy IPA from the Harland Brewing Co. out of San Diego.  Some of The Crab Cooker's famous Fisherman's bread had been ordered and I dipped some into the broth after spooning out the meaty clams that proliferated the chowder.  Crispy bread sticks, crackers and these little bread bites also came with the chowder.

After we all had ordered, Caroline had come out with paper plates and plastic utensils for us to use.  Now, this thoroughly confused my boss from Germany who had probably never eaten on paper plates and used a plastic fork or knife at a sit down restaurant before.  I had to assure him that a lot of the seafood "shacks" I've eaten at in the past were like this.  It wasn't like I had to talk him down from a ledge, but I told him to just go with the flow.  Once he understood what was going on, he was good with it.  

When our food came out, I don't think anyone cared what they were served on.  I went with the wholesale recommendation of the lobster skewer.  Two sides were also included in the meal and I went with the Romano cheese potatoes and the cole slaw.  The cheese potatoes were excellent, but cole slaw was sort of "meh!"  I also had the choice of rice pilaf or sliced tomatoes.  I should have gone with the tomatoes.  

And the lobster skewer was everything the guys raved about beforehand.  The grilled lobster meat had a bit of a char on the outside, but it was tender and juicy on the inside.  It was about 8 to 10 ounces of lobster meat and it was great, but it was - oh! - so rich.  I was definitely full after I finished the skewer and the potatoes.  (And I continued to load up on the Fisherman's bread.  It was killer.  They make about 600 loaves of it a day.)  

One of the other guys got the shrimp and scallops skewer.  I looked long and hard at that on the menu before I made my final choice of the lobster skewer.  It featured pieces of shrimp and scallops that were spaced apart by little slices of bacon.  "I've had the lobster skewers before," he said.  "But this is out of the world.  The bacon just adds some kick to the overall flavor of the shrimp and scallops."  A small tub of melted butter came on the side with the skewers.  We had Caroline running back to the kitchen to get us all more butter about halfway through our meals.  

Of course, Caroline tried to tempt us with dessert, but by the time we were done we'd all thrown in the towel.  The richness of the seafood skewers just put us all back in our chairs patting our stomachs.  It was an outstanding meal.  We were all pretty quiet as we drove back toward our rental house where they graciously dropped us off and continued on to their hotel for the night.

The next day, we profusely thanked our hosts who took us to The Crab Cooker the night before.  They were ecstatic that we liked it so well.  How could we not?  The Crab Cooker is one of the more popular seafood places in Orange County, the food was outstanding and the service we received from Caroline was A+.  It was no wonder those guys asked if she could wait on our table after she had taken care of them a few nights before.  The Crab Cooker turned out to be one of more memorable visits to a restaurant I've ever experienced.

 

Chazz Palminteri Italian Restaurant - New York City

In New York City recently for a trade show, I stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn on West 46th Street.  (see map)  Attached to the hotel was an upscale Italian restaurant that definitely caught my attention - not only for the name on the restaurant, but for it being an Italian restaurant in New York City.  I had been traveling for a good portion of the day and I didn't feel like going far from the hotel for dinner that evening, so I ended up going downstairs and having dinner at Chazz Palminteri Italian Restaurant.

You've probably seen Chazz Palminteri in any one of a number of films or television programs over the past 30 years.  His breakout movie role was in his own screenplay adapted from a one-man stage act he wrote and performed - A Bronx Tale.  He was nominated for an Academy Award for his co-starring part in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway.  And he also starred in on my all-time favorite movies - The Usual Suspects.  

Calogero Lorenzo Palminteri was born and raised in New York City to second generation Sicilian immigrants.  At the age of 9, young "Chazz" Palminteri witnessed the murder of a Mafioso in front of his apartment building in the Bronx.  Questioned by the police, Palminteri maintained that he didn't see anything.  Much of his upbringing in the Belmont section of the Bronx was the impetus for him writing A Bronx Tale.  

As a young man, Palminteri was a singer in a band, a bouncer at night clubs, and dabbled in acting in New York.  Once working as a doorman at a night club that was hosting a private party in honor of Hollywood super agent Irving "Swifty" Lazar, Palminteri denied Lazar access to his own party because Palminteri didn't know who Lazar was.  Lazar had the club owner fire Palminteri and the 36-year-old actor found himself out of a job and broke.

Pictured right - Chazz Palminteri.  Photo courtesy Tampa Bay Times.  

Within a year, Palminteri had written A Bronx Tale and moved to Los Angeles to perform the one-man play at a theater there.  The play got tremendous reviews and within months Palminteri was getting offers of upwards to $500,000 for the screen rights to the film.  After making friends with Robert DeNiro who sought out Palminteri after seeing him perform A Bronx Tale, the two made the movie with Palminteri writing the screen play and DeNiro in his directing debut with both men playing lead roles in the film.  At the age of 41, Chazz Palminteri had finally made it as an actor and screenwriter.  

But it was a friendship with Frank Sinatra that inspired Palminteri to open his own restaurant.  Sinatra used to tell Palminteri about the great New York restaurants of the 50's and 60's.  Sinatra once told Palminteri, "You always need a place to go and eat when your friends are in town." Palminteri's vision of a restaurant featured classic Sicilian dishes served in an elegant, yet casual setting where the customers may initially come because of Palminteri's name, but come back again and again because of the food. 

It was in 2011 that Palminteri and a couple partners opened Chazz: A Bronx Original in Baltimore's Little Italy neighborhood.  The restaurant was in business for 4 years before Palminteri pulled the plug saying that he overestimated the city's love for authentic Sicilian cooking.  

It was also in 2015 when a trio of brothers who owned steakhouses in the New York City area approached Palminteri with a chance to be an investor of a restaurant that rivaled some of the New York haunts Sinatra told Palminteri about.  And when he was told that the restaurant would have his name on it, Palminteri jumped at the chance.  The first Chazz Palminteri Italian Restaurant opened on 2nd Avenue in New York City in 2015 before moving to its present location in the Times Square area three years later.

The three brothers behind Palminteri's restaurant - Russ, Jack and Jeff Sinanaj - were immigrants from Montenegro.  Russ was the first to leave the country and immigrate - albeit illegally - to the United States to live with relatives in New York City.  Not long after, his younger brother Jack also entered the United States on a stolen passport.  Younger brother Jeff took over a year to get from Montenegro to the U.S., also illegally crossing the border in Texas after stops in Germany and Cuba.  

Pictured left - (from left) Chazz Palminteri, Russ Sinanaj, Jeff Sinanaj and Jack Sinanja.  Photo courtesy Forbes Magazine.   

Russ and Jack lived with 8 other relatives in an apartment in New York City where Russ found work as a busboy at Manhattan Grill, an Italian steakhouse.  Jack soon went to work there as a dishwasher and a busboy, but was promoted to bartender within 6 months.  Jack had previous cooking and restaurant experience back home helping his mom cook family meals and helping out in the family's restaurant in Montenegro.  

While at Manhattan Grill, Jack learned the ins-and-outs of what running a kitchen at a steakhouse was all about.  And while Russ eventually left the restaurant business to go into commercial real estate, Jack continued his restaurant career by opening a small pizza place in 1993.  Two years later, Jack sold the pizza joint and got a job as a waiter at the legendary Peter Luger Steak House in Manhattan.  

Jack Sinanaj soon got his younger brother Jeff a job starting out as a busboy before eventually becoming a waiter at Peter Luger.  Before and after their shifts, Jack and Jeff picked the brains of the chefs in the kitchen to learn the proper way to cook steaks, how to season them, and the best temperature to serve the steaks.  The brothers also learned the ropes when it came to running a steakhouse from the management team.  Jack Sinanaj viewed his time at Peter Luger as a masters course in how to run a top-notch steakhouse.    

In 2005, Russ, Jack and Jeff Sinanaj pooled their financial resources along with their cousin Ben to open Ben & Jack's Steakhouse on E. 44th St. in a building that Russ Sinanaj found as a commercial real estate broker.  From there, the Sinanaj family opened a second Ben & Jack's Steakhouse (now closed) in 2008. 

In 2010, the Sinanaj brothers opened their first Empire Steakhouse under the ESH Restaurant Group umbrella.  A second Empire Steakhouse opened in 2012 and the brothers opened a third one in Arizona (now closed) in 2014.  Today, ESH Restaurant Group owns two steakhouses in New York, as well as an Empire Steakhouse in Tokyo.  In addition to the Chazz Palminteri Italian Restaurant in Manhattan, the group opened a second Chazz Palminteri Italian Restaurant in 2021 near both Palminteri's and Jack Sinanaj's homes in suburban White Plains, NY.  And in 2022, ESH Restaurant Group opened the Empire Burger House on E. 50th Street in Manhattan.  

(As an aside - all three Sinanaj brothers are legal U.S. citizens gaining their citizenship after initially being granted the ability to stay in the country after declaring for political asylum due to the hostilities in the civil war that was going on in their home region.)  

The small lobby area at the Hilton Garden Inn was downright plain and simple compared to walking into Chazz Palminteri Italian Restaurant.  The main dining room was in the back of the small restaurant.  The tables were all covered with linen tablecloths with paintings of the New York skyline and scenes from Sicily hanging on the wall.  

On the walls of the bar area were publicity pictures and stills from some of the movies and television shows Palminteri has been in.  There was a small dining area in the front bar area along with outside seating in front of the restaurant.  It was definitely too cool to be seated outside that evening.  

I ended up taking a seat at the bar.  The chairs were low-backed and I have to say they weren't all that comfortable. There were two female bartenders working that night and the one that greeted me was Nora.  Nora had a heavy Eastern European accent and I had a bit of trouble making out what she was saying at times.   I heard Nora talking to a lady just down the bar later in the evening and Nora told her that she was originally from Albania, right next to Montenegro.  Nora told the lady that a large number of people from Albania had immigrated to the New York City/New Jersey area and a lot of them worked in the hospitality industry.  

Nora asked me what I wanted to drink and I saw that they had Stella Artois on tap.  I took one of those for the time being, but I switched up to a Ruffino Modus Primo super Tuscan red for dinner.  She gave me a menu to look over while I heard some interesting music playing in the background of the restaurant.  They were playing soft music covers of 70's rock songs such as "Right Down the Line" (Gerry Rafferty) by Scuba and Dinah York; "Behind Blue Eyes" (The Who) by Amazonics, and "Love Hurts" (Nazareth) by Sarah Menescal.  I sort of got a kick out the soft-rock versions that were playing of those rock classics.  

I started off getting a Caesar salad - hearts of romaine lettuce tossed with a house-made Caesar dressing topped with croutons and shaved parmesan cheese.  It was a pretty good salad, but it was expensive - $17.95.  Then again, I was in New York City where prices are usually outrageous anywhere you go.  It came with a small basket of crusty Italian bread served with an olive oil/garlic spread, Italian olives and chunks of parmesan cheese.  The olive oil/garlic spread with the bread was outstanding.  

There were a lot of good things on the menu to choose from.  And I'm not saying that the menu was expansive - it just had a lot of Italian specialties that I was interested in.  

They had a lot of pasta dishes, main entrees included seafood dishes and steaks, they had Italian specialties such as a chicken breast rolled and stuffed with eggplant, prosciutto and provolone cheese, a chicken parm entree, and veal marsala.  Some of the pasta entrees included a spinach fettuccine alfredo, bucatini carbonara, lobster ravioli in a brandy cream sauce, and linguine with clams.  There was a lot of great choices.  I could have gone in any different direction and been happy with what I got.

I ended up getting the pappardelle pasta with a hearty bolognese sauce.  It was simply sensational.  The hearty meat sauce was tangy with a bit of spiciness.  The large pappardelle pasta noodles were fresh and I could easily taste their flavor through the sauce.  This was truly a great Italian dinner.  

I wasn't certain that I wanted any dessert - they had cheesecake, cannoli, creme brûlée, panna cotta, and a chocolate mousse among many things on their dessert menu.  But Nora told me that all their desserts were made in-house and with that I couldn't pass up getting some of their tiramisu.  It was served on a plate with criss-crossed chocolate syrup and cocoa powder with a dollop of whipped cream on the side.  Just like the meal, the tiramisu was fantastic.  It was so good that a couple nights later I stopped by the bar for a nightcap and I couldn't help but order up another slice of tiramisu to enjoy before retiring for the night.  

Chazz Palminteri Italian Restaurant wasn't cheap - it was $150 bucks with tax and tip.  But it was truly an outstanding meal.   Although I had the pappardelle pasta with the bolognese sauce, it appeared that anything I would have chosen from the menu would have been great.  The Caesar salad for starters was good, and the tiramisu for dessert was a great ending to the meal.  Nora and the other bartender were both very helpful and accommodating throughout my visit.  I learned that you don't go to Chazz Palminteri Italian Restaurant because it's co-owned by a celebrity, you go there because the food is outstanding.  And that's all Chazz Palminteri was looking for in having his own restaurant in New York City.  

Tapas Barcelona - Evanston, IL

As my wife and I are wont to do around her birthday, we ended up in Chicago.  Last year, I took my wife to a casual French restaurant (which I never wrote up on Road Tips because it was sort of during my between-gig hiatus) and she was keen to go back again this year.  But I also remembered the tab for the dinner (upwards to 3 large bills) and sort of coughed a bit when she mentioned going back.  I thought it may be nice to try something completely different and out of our element when it came to her birthday dinner.  I looked for ideas on-line, especially in the northern lake shore suburbs of Chicago.  And one place sort of jumped out at me - Tapas Barcelona in Evanston.  We had never really been to a true tapas restaurant in our travels together (although my wife had been to a handful of tapas places when she was visiting her daughter in Spain a number of years ago).  

Actually, I had been to a tapas restaurant in Chicago a number of years ago.  A friend of mine took me to Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba, a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant developed by Rich Melman.  It's said that Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba was the first tapas restaurant in Chicago when it opened in 1985.  

(A side note - after going to Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba, I was telling my late father that I had gone to a tapas bar with a friend.  Knowing that my friend was a woman, he said, "Why in the hell would she take you to a topless bar?"  Dad, no - a TAPAS bar, not a topless bar...)  

Tapas bars caught on quickly in the greater Chicagoland area after the success of Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba and today there are over two dozen places that specialize in Mediterranean small plates in the region.  But Tapas Barcelona may be the most authentic.

Giovanni "Gio" Garelli grew up in his parent's tapas restaurant in Seville, Spain.  His parents were both of Italian ancestry, but moved to Spain and ran a tapas bar for nearly 50 years.  Garelli wanted to see the world, so he struck out to America and ended up in Chicago in the 1980's.  Garelli worked in some of the finest restaurants in Chicago in the 80's and 90's before becoming involved as the managing partner in Grappo, an upscale Italian restaurant, in the early 90's.  

At the same time he was working at Grappo, he came up with a concept for an authentic tapas bar of which small plate restaurants were still sort of a novelty in Chicago.   Using recipes from his family's tapas restaurant in Spain, all he needed was a spot in which to put his restaurant.  He found a space in downtown Evanston not far from Northwestern University that had seating for 100 inside, and seating for another 80 people on the wide sidewalk patio in front of the restaurant in warmer months, similar to many tapas restaurants found in Spain.  Garelli opened Tapas Barcelona in 1995.  

Garelli continues to travel to Spain two or three times a year to come up with more ideas and recipes for Tapas Barcelona.  But his staples on the menu haven't changed in years.  Garelli's goal is to transport his patrons back to Spain and to have a true tapas experience without leaving Evanston.    

We had reservations for 7:00 p.m. and we pulled up in front of Tapas Barcelona just before that.  (see map) We found some parking just down the street on Chicago Ave. and went inside.  

They had our table ready for us and the hostess put us next to one of the windows at the front of the restaurant and she dropped off a couple menus.  It was a pretty cold evening and the windows on the front side of Tapas Barcelona are designed to open in warmer weather.  And the metal panes weren't sealed all that well, especially at the bottom.  We ended up putting our coats on the ledge under the window to keep the cold air from seeping in.  But it was still chilly in there.  

The restaurant was quite cozy with the tables in close proximity.  Banquette seating with tables were along one wall.  The floor was a series of checkered tiles with a lot of wood accents for half-walls and trim around the room.  

The bar area faced the front as you walk into Tapas Barcelona.  We didn't notice a lot of people hanging at the bar while we were there.  But there was a steady crowd that was coming in and out of the restaurant.  We took that as a good sign considering it was a mid-week night when we went.     

Our waitress came over to greet us and to take our drink order.  She had a heavy accent and I thought that she said her name was Claudia, but when I got the bill later on that evening it said her name was Clara.  She rolled her "r" so effectively that I thought she said "Claudia".  She looked like a young Salma Hayek and she was definitely Spanish.  I got a glass of their house-made sangria while my wife ordered the "Trip to Spain" - vodka and Grand Marnier mixed with cranberry juice.  

There were so many interesting sounding items on the menu at Tapas Barcelona that I really didn't know which way to go.  We just decided to jump in and start ordering things until we got full.  After we finished our drinks, we ordered up a bottle of the Bodegas Faustino VII Tempranillo, a hearty red from the Rioja wine region in Spain.   

The first thing we got was the Hojaldre Catalan - a Catalonian puffed pastry with sautéed salmon, scallops and chopped tomatoes in a garlic butter sauce.  This was absolutely scrumptious.  The puffed pastry was light and a nice complement with the sautéed seafood with the chopped tomatoes garnishing the dish.  

The other item we ordered right off the bat was the Pulpito a la Plancha - grilled baby octopus with charred endive (escarole).  This wasn't exactly what I thought it would be, but it was still very tasty.  The octopus had a forward charred taste to it and it cut apart very easily.  

Our 2nd round consisted of the Salpicon de Mariscos - basically a Spanish ceviche with chunks of lobster, shrimp, calamari and octopus marinated with lime and served with some olive oil and lemon wedges.  Chopped green, orange and red bell peppers came with the ceviche.  That, too, was excellent.  

My wife thought she needed some grilled vegetables, so we ordered up the Vegetables del Tiempo.  They consisted of sliced tomatoes, asparagus spears, zucchini and egg plant and were served with a balsamic vinegar and olive oil.   I let my wife concentrate on that plate as I was trying to eat most of the ceviche.  

We thought we'd better go with some meat items for our next round and I ordered up the Chuletitas de Cordero - baby lamb chops in a red wine sauce served with couscous on the side.  The lamb chops were tender and easy to cut.  They were cooked to a perfect medium and the sauce just enhanced the taste of the lamb.  My wife likes couscous and she concentrated more on that than the lamb - which left more for me!  

The other meat plate we ordered was the Pincho de Solomillo - grilled beef tenderloin skewers served caramelized onions.  A whipped horseradish sauce came on the side with the beef skewers.  The beef skewers were cooked to a medium rare temperature and very tender to the bite.  It was tough to say which I liked better between the baby lamb chops and the beef tenderloin skewers.  

There were a couple other things that we were thinking of getting - the Chipirones a la Plancha which were grilled squid with lemon, garlic and olive oil; the Albondigas con Tomate - beef meatballs with potatoes in a tomato sauce; and the Queso de Cabra Con Tomate - baked goat cheese in a tomato sauce.  My wife thought about the Pollo al Whisky - grilled chicken with roasted potatoes in a roasted garlic sauce.  But we decided that we'd had enough and wanted to get some dessert.

They had a vanilla flan with a light sugar syrup on the dessert menu that we selected.  A mint leaf came as a garnish on the flan.  Spongy, soft and creamy with a thin layer of caramelized caramel on the top, it was a great compliment to the meal. 

But they also had a Bizcocho Borracho in the menu - basically a tiramisu with a cream sauce.  Since we couldn't make up our mind which one to get, we got both.  I will say that the flan was much better than the tiramisu.  

Going to a tapas bar had been something my wife and I had wanted to do together for a long time.  And Tapas Barcelona turned out to be the perfect time for us to enjoy tapas together.  The food options were all interesting and what we had didn't disappoint us - maybe other than the Spanish tiramisu.  But the seafood selections, the lamb and beef dishes, even the grilled vegetable dish that my wife had was very good.  Clara was certainly patient with us as we navigated the menu trying to figure out what we wanted to get during our time there.  Tapas Barcelona was a great diversion from our usual restaurants and one that was a very good choice for a birthday dinner for my wife.  

Midwood Smokehouse - Charlotte, NC

I took a recent trip to the Carolinas and flew into Charlotte.  I got in around 10:30 a.m. and before I got my bag and rental car, I needed to do some office work.  After about 20 minutes of computer time, I thought that I'd get something to eat before I left Charlotte and headed up to Winston-Salem.  I quickly looked up barbecue places near the Charlotte airport and found a place that looked pretty promising - Midwood Smokehouse.  Once I got my bag and got situated in my rental car, I poked in the address for Midwood Smokehouse and took off toward the place.  

When my wife and I were in Charlotte about six years ago, we ended up going to an Italian restaurant Mama Ricotta's.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Mama Ricotta's.)   It turned out that Mama Ricotta's was under the umbrella of the FS Food Group and its owner and founder Frank Scibelli.  Scibelli had worked as a consultant in Charlotte after getting his degree in business from Wake Forest, but armed with old family recipes he opened Mama Ricotta's in 1992.  

The success of Mama Ricotta's propelled Scibelli to work on other restaurant concepts including Paco's Tacos, Calle Sol, and Little Mama's classic Italian restaurant.  But the one thing that Frank Scibelli felt was missing from the Charlotte food scene was good old-school barbecue.  

15 years ago, Charlotte was known more as a soul food/southern diner type of town.  Fast food restaurants and a fried chicken place that closed at 6 p.m. were the most popular places to eat in Charlotte.  To find good barbecue, you had to look pretty hard to find it.  The barbecue shacks that served great - and cheap - barbecue that you could find in the rural areas of North and South Carolina, you just couldn't find in Charlotte.  Real estate was - and is - at a premium in Charlotte and you needed some space to have a barbecue joint.  

That didn't deter Frank Scibelli in his quest to bring good barbecue to Charlotte.  After he found success with Mama Ricotta's, he decided there wasn't a good Mexican restaurant in the area.  So, he opened a Mexican cantina.  Then he found that there weren't any good burger places in Charlotte.  So, he opened a great burger joint.  When he thought the city lacked a good Tex-Mex restaurant, he went out and opened one up.  It was a foregone conclusion in his mind that he would open a barbecue joint since Charlotte didn't really have great barbecue at the time.   

Before he started Mama Ricotta's, Scibelli was a business consultant and some of his trips would take him deep in the heart of Texas.  He frequented Otto's, a barbecue/burger joint in Houston that had been open since 1951.  He visited a number of barbecue joints across the state talking with some of the pit masters about their techniques.  Scibelli decided that he would do Texas barbecue with a Carolina twist.  

The Carolina twist had to do with the sauces he would offer.  One region of North Carolina was famous for their sweet and spicy vinegar-style sauce.  Another region has a sweet tomato-based sauce, while other regions go for a mustard-based sauce.  Scibelli found a pit master and all he needed was a building.  

He found a building in the Plaza Midwood neighborhood just south and east of downtown that was perfect for is barbecue joint.  Taking the name of the neighborhood, Scibelli opened Midwood Smokehouse in 2011.  

Of course, it was a hit right off the back.  Two more Charlotte locations came some time down the road and another was opened in Huntersville just north of Charlotte.  Scibelli opened Midwood Smokehouse locations in Raleigh, NC and Charleston, SC.  And just last year, a Midwood Smokehouse opened at Charlotte International Airport.  

I put the address for the Midwood Smokehouse location off Park Road at Brandywine Road in the Park Road Shopping Center.  (see map)  When I pulled into the shopping complex, my GPS showed that I had taken a right turn too early and I had to maneuver around the parking lot to get back onto Park Road and take what was nothing more than an alleyway behind the main building.  In a small strip of businesses behind the hardware store in the complex, I found the Midwood Smokehouse at that location.  It was coming up to the noon hour and the place was filling up fast.  

Inside the door, I was greeted by a man with a thick southern accent who was at the stand by the door.  He asked if I was there for some gathering that they were hosting over the noon hour, but I said that I was just there for lunch.  The bar was next to the host stand and I settled in over there.  There were booths and tables behind me in the upper part of the dining area with a the kitchen open through a serving window to my right.

Toward the back of the restaurant on a lower level was another room that was a bit larger than the upper section of Midwood Smokehouse.  This is where the lunchtime gathering was taking place.  The decor of the restaurant was sort of "Americana-Rib Shack", but it wasn't a dump.  Still, it was down-home enough to have rolls of paper towels instead of napkins on the tables.  

I had to use the restroom before I got started and when I walked into the men's room I was somewhat taken aback by the cheesecake posters of 1970's pin-up icons that included Farrah Fawcett, Loni Anderson and Carrie Fisher.  Not that I was offended, far from it.  But I certainly didn't expect to see photos of late-70's teenage boy fantasies in ANY men's bathroom.  I chuckled thinking that there may have been times that a teenaged boy went to use the restroom at Midwood Smokehouse only to linger a bit longer than usual.  

At the bar, I was greeted by a lady who was working behind the counter during lunch.  She gave me a menu and I took a look at what they had for beer selections.  I do love a good beer with barbecue.  I ended up getting a the Juicy Jay hazy IPA from the Legion Brewing Company with 4 locations in the Charlotte area.  

For a barbecue joint, Midwood Smokehouse had an expansive menu featuring a number of appetizers, salads, sandwiches and barbecue plates.  And some of their appetizers were pretty interesting - smoked meatballs made with USDA prime brisket, Pimento cheese fries, corn bread baked in a black iron skillet, and guacamole that is made table side.  Sandwiches included a brisket sandwich, a pulled pork sandwich, and a Pimento cheese burger.  They also had Tex-Mex tacos including brisket tacos with a pineapple pico de gallo and a marinated pulled pork al pastor tacos.  

But I was there for barbecue and they had the main types of meat you'd find at a barbecue joint - pork, beef and chicken.  They also had a seared salmon filet seasoned with an achiote spice, and Yucatan pork ribs all with the achiote spice rub.

And they also had combo plates, the thing I like most about visiting a barbecue place for the first time.  The problem was that they were big.  Well, they had a "Well-Fed" combo and a "Pig-Out" combo that included your choice of 4 different types of meat and two sides which included baked beans, cole slaw, bacon-wrapped jalapeños, mac & cheese, and crinkle-cut fries.  That was going to be too much for me.  

I did see, however, that I could get any one of the barbecue plates and add on ribs, burnt ends or jalapeño cheese-smoked sausage.  I ended up getting the pulled pork plate - the small size - with the burnt end add-on.  I got a choice of a side with the plate (the large plate gives you a choice of two sides) and I got the baked beans.  Along with the pork, burnt ends and baked beans, a side of hushpuppies came with the meal along with a house-made dill pickle slaw with pickled red onions.  

For sauces, they had Midwood's original vinegar/sweet sauce, but they also had a somewhat spicy Eastern Carolina vinegar sauce that went very well with the pulled pork.  In addition to those two sauces, they had a Carolina mustard sauce (I don't like mustard-based barbecue sauce) and a spicy habanero sauce (that I was reluctant to try).

The pulled pork was very good - tender, juicy, full of flavor even without the barbecue sauce.  And the burnt ends were equally as good - the USDA prime beef was succulent and could easily be cut with a fork.  And I really liked the dill pickle slaw they had on the side.  The baked beans were fine - I zipped them up with a combination of the spicy vinegar-based sauce and the vinegar/sweet sauce - but the hushpuppies were just sort of "meh!"  I'm not a big hushpuppy fan and these didn't do anything to make me think differently.   

It could be said that Frank Scibelli started a barbecue renaissance in Charlotte when he opened the first Midwood Smokehouse about 13 years ago.  And my experience at this Midwood Smokehouse was very good.  The barbecue was tasty, they had a great selection of craft beers to choose from (and a full bar of mixed cocktails) and the service was very good.  The restaurant was clean and comfortable, and the it was sort of a funny surprise to see the posters of 1970's sex-kittens in the men's restroom.  I like going to barbecue places in North Carolina and Midwood Smokehouse was a good find on this trip.  

 

El Compita - Davenport, IA

With dozens of good to great places to have Mexican food in and around the Quad Cities, there's three or four that have become our favorites that we put into a rotation when we have a hankering.  However, one that opened near our home in early 2023 has risen to the top of our No.1 go-to for Mexican food - El Compita.  We had been to El Compita a handful of times before I decided to do a Road Tips entry on the place. 

In early 2021, my wife had been hearing from friends who lived out in the Blue Grass/Buffalo area just west of Davenport that a Mexican restaurant had opened in September of 2020 in a spot on a frontage road along Highway 61 near West Lake Park.  (see map)  My wife had suggested going out there a couple three times, but we just never did.  When El Compita (loosely, a Mexican phrase for "buddy") opened along E. Kimberly Road in early 2023, it took us a while before we figured out that it was the second location of the same restaurant we had discussed driving out west to try at some point.  Driving three minutes to get Mexican food was much better than driving 20 minutes.  

The El Compita location at Eastern and Kimberly (see map) has been a number of different things since I first moved to the area in 1991.  There were four businesses in the complex including a Kwik Shop, an audio/video store, an optometrist, and Dudley's Pizza Works.  Full disclosure - I moved to the Quad Cities to be the general manager of the audio/video store and most Monday nights after we would close at 9 p.m., I ended up at the bar at Dudley's conversing with the owner Dudley Burback on a number of occasions about a number of different topics.  Dudley was this bombastic guy, kind of a braggart, but still a likable guy.  He told me that he used to play basketball with legendary college basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian at California State - Fresno (now Fresno State) back in the 50's.  And the first few times he'd drop Tarkanian's name when talking about sports, I figured he was full of shit.  

But it turned out that Dudley DID play with Tarkanian for a couple years in college and they WERE still friends who would converse during Tarkanian's years at Nevada-Las Vegas.  Once I found out that Dudley was telling the truth the whole time, the grain of salt that I had to take when talking to him went away.  Well, plus the fact that his deep-dish pizza - $1.00 slices at the bar on Monday nights - was pretty damned good.

Dudley sold his share in the restaurant sometime in the mid-1990's - after I had moved on from working at the audio store - and it was still a pizza place called Davenport Pizza Works.  But that didn't last long and the owner turned it into Montana Jack's Steakhouse.  After putting in a second location over in Moline near the airport, the Davenport Montana Jack's closed down around the turn of the 21st century.  

Since then, the spot has been a number of restaurants or bars.  An Italian place had opened up in there, but it didn't last long.  It's also been a chicken place, another Mexican restaurant, a couple bars, and a couple other concept restaurants.  A buddy of mine from Iowa City had purchased the building a few years prior and there were two or three times when he would call me up and ask me to go down and check on the property to see if the restaurant or bar was open or looked to still be in business.  It was just a bad location for a restaurant.  

So, when we saw that El Compita was going into the space in late 2022, we were weary that another restaurant would work in that building.  But we also didn't know that it was the same El Compita on the far west side of Davenport that was getting rave reviews.  A buddy of mine who lived out west of Buffalo, IA told me one day last year that the El Compita out on the far west side of Davenport and the one that opened up at Kimberly and Eastern in Davenport were the same people.  And with that information, we decided to give the place a try last summer.  We liked it and went back again.  Suddenly El Compita rose to the top of our list - not only because it was close to our house, but because the food was good and the service was fast and friendly.  

It was about 7:30 p.m. on a Saturday night when we walked into El Compita.  We've been in there enough times over a period of time that we instantly get recognized as returning guests.  This time we were seated in the larger of the two dining areas at El Compita.  This room has a number of high-backed booth with thick pleather backs and seats.  The dining areas at El Compita are well-lit - almost TOO well-lit as it always seems to be overly bright in there from the light fixtures with LED bulbs.  

The smaller of the two dining area features about six booths and a number of tables.  The high-backed chairs at the tables have the El Compita logo on the back.  We had normally sat in the smaller of the two dining rooms on our previous visits.  

The bar area is up front just as you come in.  It was similar, yet very different to the bar that I used to belly up to on Monday nights after work so many years ago.  Three flat-screen televisions hung on the wall behind the bar with accent lighting under the stone-top bar.    

After we sat down, a basket of their complimentary chips and salsa were dropped off.   They have excellent chips and salsa at El Compita, but they also have a killer tomatillo green salsa there.  I always ask for a bowl of that.  It's not too spicy and give the food a different dimension of taste when I use it.  

Our server that night was someone new who we had not seen in there, a lovely lady by the name of Sarahy.  She told us that she was relatively new and was still trying to pick up on the system they had.  She got me a Sol beer in the bottle while my wife just went with water as she'd had a couple drinks at our neighborhood bar previously.  It was our guess that even though Sarahy was a rookie at El Compita, it was evident that she'd had experience as a server before.  

Since we had eaten there a handful of times, we were pretty well-versed in what El Compita had to offer.  I will say that their carnitas platter is outstanding.  I've also gotten al pastor tacos in the past and they are also very good.  The green chile enchiladas with a choice of ground beef, chicken or cheese (I get the ground beef) have also proved to be very delicious.   And the braised pork chili verde is - I think - the best of its kind in the Quad Cities.  

This visit to El Compita, I tried something that I had seen on the menu, but had never tried before - the fish tacos.  I had been kind of eating on the light side trying to lose more weight and these turned out to be the perfect choice.  The tacos featured grilled tilapia topped with fresh cilantro, chopped onions and a house-made pico de gallo.  They were served in street-style small corn tacos with limes, a side of the tomatillo sauce and a spicy pepper salsa that has a bit more of a bite than I usually like, but is still pretty good.  

The grilled tilapia tacos were fresh and not fishy in taste with that wonderful grilled butter taste you get from good Mexican restaurants.  It was just as good as any meal I've had at El Compita in the past.  They were truly delicious and a very nice light meal.

My wife also went with something that she had never had before - the chile relleno.  They had a choice of one or two on the menu and knowing the size of the chile rellenos at other restaurants in the Quad Cities (not big), I figured that my wife would want two.  I tried to talk her into getting two and that's what she ended up ordering.  However, Sarahy came back after we had ordered and said that they only had one chile relleno left.  Since it came with refried beans and rice, my wife thought it would be fine for her.

When Sarahy brought the plates out, my wife's eyes almost jumped out of her head.  "Oh, my GOD," she exclaimed when the were put down in front of her.  "I wouldn't have been able to eat TWO!"  The Poblano pepper they used was very large and filled with cheese.  It was covered with a red sauce and a blend of Mexican cheese was melted on top.  There was more than enough food for two people to eat.  Since I ate light, I did have a couple bites of her chile relleno.  The cheese-stuffed relleno was very good and their red enchilada/relleno sauce was a great complimentary flavor.  

There's little to nothing not to like about the Davenport location for El Compita.  We've not been to the one just west of Davenport, but it's a good guess that it's just as good as the one not far from our house.  Every time we've been there the food has been excellent, as has the service we've had from the friendly and efficient staff there.  Sarahy - who was a newby for the business, but was probably a seasoned restaurant server - was fun and on top of things.  We love the fact that El Compita is so close to our house and given the track record of restaurants/bars that have gone in and out of that location over the years, we can only hope that El Compita sticks around for a long, long time.  

Turtle Jack's - Etobicoke, ON

When I was up in Toronto for a trade show last fall, my Canadian colleague got a late start coming in from Montreal for our set up and instead of showing up around noon as he initially planned, it was going to be closer to 4 p.m. when he was going to get in.  I thought, OK, well, I guess I can go get something to eat.  I was at a hotel near Toronto Pearson airport and their restaurant didn't open until 5 p.m.  I took a look on line for restaurants around the immediate area where I may be able to go get something for lunch and I found a restaurant just across Dixon Road that had craft beer.  That's all I needed to know and I set out for a quick walk to Turtle Jack's.   

Officially, the restaurant's name is Turtle Jack's Muskoka Grill.  Muskoka is a popular vacation destination about an hour's drive north of Toronto.  And, I had an idea before I went to Turtle Jack's that it was a chain restaurant.  Turns out I was correct.  

Jim Lishman and his family used to vacation in lakeside cabins in Muskoka in the summer time.  The Lishman's had an idea about a cottage-style lakeside restaurant that served great food in a relaxed atmosphere that catered to the vacationers in the area.  In 1992, they opened the first Turtle Jack's Muskoka Grill in Lake Carling, ON.  The summer-only restaurant was an instant hit with the vacationers coming up from Toronto, especially those who had boats and could hook up to the dock on the lake and enjoy food and drinks on the patio overlooking Muskoka Lakes.  

The concept was so much of a hit that the Lishmans decided to expand into the urban areas where their summertime guests lived year round.  Their latest location opened in Niagara Falls, ON in May of 2019.   Turtle Jack's Muskoka Grill now has 19 locations primarily in the Toronto and Hamilton areas in southern Ontario.

The Turtle Jack's I went to was just across busy Dixon Road from my hotel.  It's located in the Doubletree Hotel at the corner of Dixon Road and Carlinview Dr. in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke (pronounced uh-toe-BE-coe).  (see map)  I considered staying at the Doubletree since I'm a Hilton Lifetime Diamond member, but the Embassy Suites I stayed in was on the same side of Dixon Road as the hotel the trade show was in and less than a 5 minute walk between the two.  

It was well after the lunch rush when I got into Turtle Jack's.  Stepping into the restaurant, I found a nice space with a lot of wood accents throughout the restaurant.  A line of tables with banquette seats were along one wall with a smattering of tables in the bar area.  A number of televisions were mounted for viewing from different areas in the restaurant.  Cross-cut reclaimed wood flooring gave the restaurant a touch of classiness.  

The bar was the most prominent feature of the restaurant.  The horseshoe-shaped bar featured high-top chairs and sat approximately 20 to 22 people when filled up.  While much of the ceiling had finished wooden 2 x 8's, the bar had a floating ceiling with recessed lighting giving more of an intimate feeling when seated at the bar.   

Toward the back of the restaurant was smaller dining area that featured six booths and a handful of tables for overflow dining.  A small glass-enclosed patio area was off to the side of the smaller dining room.  Based on aesthetics alone, the restaurant was very slick and spiffy.  I was just hoping the food would follow suit.

I ended up seated at the bar.  The lady bartender had a heavy northern Minnesotan accent when she greeted me and handed me a menu.  I asked her later on if she was from Minnesota and she said that, no, she was born and raised in Toronto.  When I told her that she had a heavy northern Minnesotan accent, she said, "Well, I have relatives in northern Minnesota and we have gone to visit them a few times.  I do have trouble understanding them, 'ey?"  I got a kick out of her.  

After ordering up a Hop Valley IPA from the Tenth and Blake Brewery - a craft beer subsidiary of Molson Coors - I looked through the menu to see what Turtle Jack's was all about.  Most of the food they offered was your usual upscale family restaurant types - appetizers that included chicken or beef nachos, fried calamari, and chicken wings; soups and salads, sandwiches and burgers, as well as steaks, a bison meatloaf that I highly considered, a chicken parmesan entree, and a blackened Basa fish served with mashed potatoes and a vegetable medley.  Turtle Jack's also has what they called "award winning" pork ribs available in either half or full racks.  

I wasn't all that hungry, but I didn't know when I would be having dinner.  I ended up thinking something light would be good and I found that they had ahi tuna tacos on the menu.  That was a no-brainer.  The ahi tuna was seared and chopped and placed into soft flour taco shells and topped with a cucumber mango salsa, a cilantro slaw and finished with green onions, a sriracha mayo and Japanese furikake seasoning.  I had a choice of a side with the tacos and I got the garlic Caesar's salad with the tacos.  

The tacos were very good.  There were a lot of flavors going on with each bite.  There was a bite of a spicy flavor, a sweet flavor, a fruity taste, and the combination of cilantro and green onions.  The ahi tuna was fresh and had great texture.  With the sriracha mayo, it also made for a somewhat messy meal.  

While I concentrated on the tacos, I did have about half of my salad.  The garlic added to the traditional Caesar's dressing was an interesting - and delicious combination.

I didn't have any problem after the fact finding out that Turtle Jack's Muskoka Grill was a chain centered around Toronto and for over 30 years they've served upscale family-fare-food that keeps people coming back.  The ahi tuna tacos I had were delicious and because it was just me and another couple seated at the bar, our bartender did a great job of making sure my beer glass was filled when it should have been.  She was a friendly person and when I settled up with her before I left to go back to my hotel, she said, "Have a nice day, 'ey"!  Turtle Jack's is definitely a step-up from the sit-down chain restaurants and one that I'd go to over one of those restaurants.  

 

Countryside Saloon - Des Plaines, IL

Sometime last year, I was stuck in traffic on Dempster Ave. in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines.  There was a wreck and traffic was backing up before the Tri-State Tollway.  I decided to take a bit of a cross-country trip through some back streets where I ended up on Ballard Road.  As I was driving along just before the Tri-State Tollway bridge on Ballard Road, I passed a roadhouse restaurant that I was unfamiliar with.  I was like, "Huh!  I've been coming here for years and never knew this place existed!"  When I got around the traffic jam and back to the hotel a little later on, I looked the place up on the internet.  Turns out the Countryside Saloon had been around since the days of Prohibition and they were a local favorite.  Well, I like finding places the locals like to go to during my travels and I put the Countryside Saloon on my places to visit.  On a recent visit back to Chicago I made it my goal to get back to the Countryside Saloon and check the place out.  

It's rather ironic that a drinking establishment is owned by a guy named Bar.  Cornell Bar had his own construction business in the northwest suburbs of Chicago and was helped in his business by his wife Janet.  His sister Weslie was married to Joe Bellini whose family ran an Italian restaurant/pizzeria on N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago.  In the mid-1980's, an old tavern along Ballard Road came up for sale.  The place needed a lot of work, but with Cornell Bar's background in construction, they already had that taken care of.  The Bars and Bellinis took possession of the place in 1986 and set about to give it a needed update.  

The remodeling took some time as the group put in new floors, raised the ceiling inside the building, built an outdoor deck, removed paint that was on the original pine wood walls inside the tavern.  New gables over the entrances, a new paint job on the outside and vines were planted that - word has it - were plucked from the outfield walls at Wrigley Field finished the exterior work.  With Joe Bellini in charge of the kitchen, Countryside Saloon opened in 1987.  

It was just after 5 p.m. when I pulled into the parking lot at Countryside Saloon.  (see map)  Going into the bar I found an array of festive holiday lights strung around the bar.  I was hoping to belly up to the bar, but all the seats around the square bar were filled with the after work crowd.

The bar had a number of televisions hung around the area.  I figured this would have been a great place to watch sporting events given the number of large flatscreen televisions throughout the bar.  The only problem is that they were a proud and unabashed Wisconsin bar and would showcase University of Wisconsin sports when they were on TV.  For an Iowa Hawkeyes fan, that would have been a bit difficult to stomach.  

Off to the side of the bar area was one of the two dining rooms in Countryside Saloon.  This was a cozy little room with more flatscreens hung along the four walls offering diners a chance to watch a game from different angles. 

I ended up sitting in the great room off the other side of the bar.  This room looked like it had been added onto the original restaurant building with a nice patio area outside.  There was a smaller room in the back of the great room that they were setting up for a group that evening.  

I was handed a menu and started to look through it.  I figured that I was going to get a pizza, but I wanted to check out what else they had to offer.  Of course, they had a wide array of appetizers including wings, fried pickles and a house-made stuffed artichoke with garlic, cheese and breadcrumbs.  There was a Italian restaurant in suburban Kansas City that I used to go to years ago that had a great stuffed artichoke and it brought back some good memories.  

They also had salads, soups and wraps on the menu along with a number of sandwiches including a grilled tuna sandwich, a classic Italian beef sandwich, and a pulled pork sandwich.  They had a full selection of burgers including turkey burgers, veggie burgers and Impossible burgers.  Main entrees included baby back ribs, a fried chicken dinner, and a grilled tuna steak.  

As the waitstaff's flurried activity of getting the back room ready, it was fully evident that they had forgotten about me.  That's one of the bad things about dining alone - you can get looked over pretty easily if you're seated in a dining area.  Finally, I caught the attention of one of the managers - who had passed me a number of times - to let her know that I would like to order up something to drink.  She apologized profusely and directed a young lady to come over to take my order.  

That young lady - Alexa - came over with a menu and saw that I already had one.  She asked if I wanted something to drink and I ordered a Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing IPA.  I also told her that I was ready to order something to eat - I figured it was best to get that out of the way sooner than later given how disjointed the staff was trying to get the room in the back set up.  She realized she didn't have her order pad with her.  She scooted away for a moment to grab something to write on.  

When she came back, well, of course, I ordered my usual sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  I got a small 10-inch size (they also have 12", 14", 16" and 18" pizzas) and all their pizzas are thin crust pizzas.  It was cut in the classic Chicago tavern-style way.  The pizza was burnt on the edges - a trademark the Bellini family has had for over 30 years. And they had the holy trinity of oregano flakes, red pepper flakes and grated parmesan cheese on the table to go along with the pizza.  

The pizza itself was just OK, however.  The sauce was pretty bland, the Italian sausage was bland, as well.  I got a bit of a fennel flavor from time to time, but it wasn't that robust Chicago-style fennel Italian sausage taste that I crave.  The oregano flakes and the red pepper flakes helped the overall flavor of the pizza, but I was pretty disappointed in both the sauce and the Italian sausage.  

I was a bit disappointed in Countryside Saloon.  I thought that it could be a new hangout for me when I'm in the Des Plaines area, but the service was choppy and the pizza wasn't one of the best I've had.  And, you know, it may be a good place to catch a game if I'm in the area as they did have a pretty good selection of craft beers to choose from.  It seemed to be a popular place and they seemed to be carrying out a lot of pizzas to other tables, so maybe I need to give their pizza another try at some point.  But I can think of three or four other Chicago tavern-style pizza places in the area that I would probably go to before I go back to Countryside Saloon.   

Hinterland Brewing - Green Bay, WI

It had been awhile since I was up in Green Bay and quite sometime since I'd spent the night there.  Most of my previous visits have been day trips up from Milwaukee and back again.  But this time I had a morning meeting set up with my account up there and I spent the night before near Lambeau Field.  Since it had been a while since I had been around Lambeau Field, I found that they had really built up an area just west of the stadium into a mixed use area for residential, commercial and a large entertainment area - especially for before and after football games.  The cornerstone of the complex was a restaurant with a brewery that I had been familiar with for quite sometime.  I went in to have dinner at Hinterland Brewing.  

Bill Tressler thought he was going to end up being a journalist.  He had graduated from Creighton with a degree in journalism, and along with his new wife Michelle they headed to San Francisco after Bill landed a job as an assistant editor on the city desk at the San Francisco Chronicle.  But Tressler also had a couple of other passions - music (he was a drummer in a band) and craft beer.  

Not long after he started at the Chronicle, the paper went on strike.  Needing a job pretty quickly, Tressler took a job as an editor at a magazine that focused on the burgeoning phenomena of craft brewing.  Although he was a home brewer, Tressler found that he didn't know much about the full process of commercially brewed beer.  Looking to learn more about brewing craft beer, he enrolled in the extension program on intensive brewing science for practical brewing at the University of Calfornia-Davis.

Tressler jumped feet first into the course work and immersed himself about all things brewing beers.  After he had completed the extension courses, Dr. Michael Lewis, a well-renown professor who started UC-Davis' brewing program in the early 60's, had started a new school called the American Brewers Guild.  Tressler enrolled in the brewing science and engineering program at the school and after he graduated he decided that he wanted to have his own brewery.

Pictured right - Michelle and Bill Tressler.  Photo courtesy Hinterland Brewing Facebook page.  

In 1995, Michelle and Bill moved back to their hometown of Green Bay and bought a small building outside of Denmark, WI that had been a cheese factory.  With limited funds, hard work and a drive to produce some of the best beer available, the Tresslers established Hinterland Brewing.  They named it Hinterland because of all the trips across country they made in their Volkswagen van while Bill was drumming in a band.  

1999 was a crucial year in the craft beer movement.  There had been a significant number of craft breweries that had popped up over the previous 8 years and there was a lot of price pressure on the small brewers to maintain low prices on six pack bottles.  Hinterland had outgrown their small 7 barrel facility outside of Green Bay and moved into a new facility with a tap room in downtown Green Bay in 2000.  Even though they had their own bottling facility, they could not compete with other craft breweries who were selling beer at $4.99 to $5.99 a six pack.  Tressler decided to go to draft beer only effectively shutting down his bottle line making Hinterland's beer available only in their tap room.  It turned out to be a good decision as a number of the small breweries trying to keep up with larger, more established breweries with low priced beers went out of business.  

Hinterland hung in there and when craft breweries started to go to $7.99 a six-pack, Tressler felt that he could compete with six-pack bottles of his own.  The only problem is that they had sold off their small bottling operation and had to contract with another brewer to bottle Hinterland beers.  That turned out to be a disaster, so Tressler went out and got a new bottling line for his brewery.  Not only did Hinterland grow their business in the early years of the 21st century, they also grew their distribution network.  By 2015, Hinterland was distributed in 10 states.  

Also in 2015, the Green Bay Packers announced they were developing a mixed-use entertainment, commercial and residential space across the street from Lambeau Field that would be named the Titletown District.  It would have a hotel, restaurants, bars, office space and a large park that would be both a combination walking mall/playground and a regulation size football field complete with artificial turf.  The goal was to have the first phase of the project finished by the start of the 2017 season.  

The Tresslers saw a great opportunity to grow the Hinterland brand even more by signing on to be a large component of the Titletown District.  The 24,000 square foot facility nearly quadrupled their brewing capacity from 5,500 barrels annually at their downtown brewery to 20,000 barrels of beer (at the new facility near Lambeau Field).  The new Hinterland brewery also had a taproom/beer hall and a restaurant, as well as two private dining/entertainment rooms, and a heated outdoor beer garden.  Ground was broke for the facility in the spring of 2016 and Hinterland moved into their new digs in April of 2017.  

A good friend of mine who died unexpectedly in 2016 was a huge Green Bay Packers fan and Hinterland beer was one of his favorites.   Green Bay was part of his territory for a handful of years and he loved coming to the city and hanging out at a bar drinking Hinterland beer.  It was only natural for me to head to Hinterland that evening as I think of him often when I get up to Green Bay and to drink a beer in his honor and memory.  

Hinterland is located just across the street from Lambeau Field and is located near the corner of S Ridge Road and Lombardi Avenue.  (see map)  Titletown has a large courtyard behind it that opens into a regulation size football field, a playground, an outdoor gaming area and - in the winter - a skating rink and a tubing hill.  The man-made hill and slope is a built on a three-story building that has a restaurant/bar - 46 Below - on the first level and an event center on the second level.   The Titletown commons area is packed before and after Packers games.  

Inside Hinterland Brewing, their brewing facility is visible behind a large glass window.  Tours of the brewery are available on Saturdays starting at noon.  Above the brewing facility was a party area that hosted parties and events.  There was something going on up there the night I was there and there were a lot of people heading up and down the steps while I was there.  

The large great room that houses the main beer hall features wood-burning fireplaces at each end.  Full-bodied deer mounts and moose head mounts were part of the decorations on or near the fireplaces.  Small tables and comfy chairs were near the hearths on either end of the dining room.  

The beer hall featured a combination of brick and glass walls with an angled ceiling.  It was large, yet the reduced lighting in the room gave it a cozy feel.  

I ended up seated at the bar planting myself in front of one of the two flatscreen televisions showing a basketball game that evening.  There were three bartenders working that evening although it wasn't all that busy in the brewpub area.  The kitchen for the restaurant was located directly behind the main floor bar.  

One of the bartenders, a young lady who went by the name of Koko, came over to greet me and drop off both a food menu and a beer menu.  There was a lady who was seated to my right and she immediately said, "You really need to try the maple bock beer!"  After I told her that I'm not into either dark or sweet beers, she said, "I don't either, but it's great!" 

Not taking her recommendation, I saw some interesting beers and I asked for a taste of the Jamaican Haze - a seasonal New England-style hazy IPA; as well as a taste of their year-round Saving Gracie hazy IPA, and another seasonal Citrus haze they had that evening.  After trying a taste of all three, I settled on the Jamaican Haze.  I gave Koko my credit card to hold as I started a tab for food and beer at that point.  

The menu at Hinterland Brewing features a number of sustainably and locally grown items that can cause the menu to change from day-to-day depending upon availability.  Seafood is flown in on a regular basis from both the Pacific Northwest and New England, as well as from Honolulu.  Hinterland supports local farmers and specialty artisans from across northeastern Wisconsin supplying the restaurant from everything from beef, pork and poultry, heirloom vegetables and hand-foraged mushrooms to artisan breads and cheese.  

The food menu at Hinterland wasn't all that big, but it did have some interesting items to choose from.  Wood-fired oyster mushrooms, garlic & lemon hummus with olives and garlic naan bread, and a smoked-salmon spread were all things off the appetizer part of the menu that caught my eye.  They had a tuna poké bowl as part of the salad offerings, and wood-fired pizzas were available as well.  The steakhouse burger featured Hook's white cheddar cheese and Nueske's bacon on it.  And they had a handful of main entrees including a wood-fired halibut, a wood-fired grill ribeye, and beef short ribs braised in the maple bock beer the lady seated next to me early on had raved about.  

But I saw something else on the menu that made my stomach do jumping jacks - the prime beef and foraged mushrooms stroganoff.  It came with wide egg noodles and a brown beef gravy.  I was ready to order, but Koko was nowhere in sight.  I noticed that she had been conversing with a guy three seats down from me, but when that guy paid his bill and left, Koko disappeared.  I had to get the attention of one of the other bartenders to take my order.  

The only problem was that he came back to me moments later and said, "We're out of the beef stroganoff.  Just sold out."  I groaned noticeably as he handed me a food menu to look over.  I didn't want the burger, and I wasn't going to get a pizza.  I sort of shrugged my shoulders and ordered up the braised beef.  

And I have to say that it wasn't a bad second choice.  It came on a bed of smashed garlic potatoes with a medley of braised carrot slices and green beans.  It was covered in a mushroom gravy - possibly the same gravy they had for the stroganoff.  The beef was tender and pulled apart very easily.  The mushroom gravy was rich in taste and went extremely well with the braised beef.  While it wasn't what I originally wanted, my appetite was sated with this dish.  

After I finished up dinner, one of the bartenders - Koko was still missing-in-action - came over to clear my plate.  He asked me if I wanted any dessert that evening.  I asked what they had to offer and he said that they had a pumpkin cheesecake.  Oooo... That sounded really good.  So I told the bartender that I'd take a slice of that.  He acknowledged my order when he took away my plate.  

The only problem was that he forgot to put the order in.  And it was a good 15 minutes before the other bartender came over and asked me if I wanted another beer.  I said, "Well, I had ordered a piece of the pumpkin cheesecake from your partner behind the bar and I haven't seen it."  

The other bartender was in earshot from our conversation and when he heard me say that, he said, "Oh, shoot!  I forgot to put that in!"  I told him that I no longer wanted it and to just give me my check.  

When he handed me the check, he sort of stood there waiting for me to throw the credit card on top of the receipt.  Only I didn't have my credit card.  I told him that my card was behind the bar somewhere, that I had given it to the girl to start my tab and she never gave it back.  "And she's been missing-in-action for the past hour or so," I said sort of in a snarky manner.  I didn't care, I was half-way pissed off at the service at this point.   

It became panic mode behind the bar as the two bartenders searched for my credit card.  Finally, one of them found it next to the cash register at the far end of the bar.  They ran my card and gave me my check and I got out of there.  

Other than the poor service I received from the 3 bartenders - well, really the two bartenders after the first one ran off - my experience at Hinterland Brewing was positive.  The food was excellent, I really liked the Jamaican Haze hazy IPA that I got (I even rebuffed efforts by a fellow diner on her recommendation of the maple bock), and the atmosphere - for a beer hall-type of establishment - was warm and cozy.  It wasn't all that busy that night so I can't figure why the service was so bad.  But everything else about my visit to Hinterland Brewing more than made up for the poor service.