Road Tips

The Cut Handcrafted Burgers - Irvine, CA

When I was out in Southern California earlier this year, I had finished up with a morning meeting and was heading back to the hotel to do some office work before heading over to help set up for a trade show I was attending.  I didn't have breakfast and was feeling a bit hungry, so I decided to find someplace for lunch.  I was looking for a good burger/beer place and one came up that I wasn't too far away from.  I ended up heading to The Cut Handcrafted Burgers for lunch.  

Orange County, California has long been a destination for Korean immigrants dating back to the early 70's.  Irvine has the third largest U.S. population of Korean nationals living within its limits and because of that there are a number of Korean food restaurants in the area.  But it turned out that Koreans also tried to blend into American culture and that's something Steve Kim did when he opened up his burger-centric food truck in 2014.  The Cut Handcrafted Burgers became a popular food truck parked in parking lots and at events around Orange County based on Kim's philosophy - Quality, Freshness and Tradition.  He used only the finest beef for his burgers, freshly ground in his food truck.  The freshness of the beef was key as it was never frozen and always made available to him before each day.  And the tradition of a good burger - hearty cheese, fresh toppings and unique condiments - were probably the most important aspect of his burgers.  

Kim's concepts paid off and in 2015 his food truck was named as the Best Food Truck by the food critics of the Orange County Register.  And in 2016, The Cut was a finalist for the Best Burger in Orange County.

Pictured right - Steve Kim.  Photo courtesy The Cut Handcrafted Burgers web site.

As it happens with many food trucks, The Cut became so popular that Kim's customers clamored for a brick and mortar restaurant.  He found a space in a strip mall in Irvine and opened The Cut Handcrafted Burgers full service restaurant in 2017.  The Cut first focused on burgers, craft beers, wine, and specialty cocktails, but in 2018 they added a weekend brunch as the little restaurant started to transform into something more than a burger and beer place.

In 2020 just before the COVID pandemic hit, Kim opened Cluck Kitchen, a chicken-centric restaurant located near John Wayne International Airport in Santa Ana.  Saddled with two restaurant locations during the height of a pandemic, Kim decided to shut down his food truck in 2021.  However in 2022, Kim brought in a chef partner - Ryan Yi - to oversee the menus at both The Cut Handcrafted Burgers and Cluck Kitchen.  In July of 2022, Kim and Yi opened a second Cluck Kitchen in Redlands about halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs.  And in October of 2023, the partners opened The Cut Modern American Eatery & Bar in Rancho Cucamonga at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains just west of San Bernardino.  The Rancho Cucamonga location featured a more diverse menu with shareable plates and entrée selections in addition to burgers, sandwiches and salads, as well as having a full bar.  

It was just after 1 p.m. when I pulled into the Westpark Plaza strip mall along Alton Blvd. in the heart of Irvine.  (see map)  There's a community patio in front of The Cut which it shares with a Chinese restaurant on one side and a Mexican restaurant on the other.  The small dining room at The Cut opens in the front to the patio when the weather is nice.  And it was certainly nice out that day.  The inside dining area at The Cut has a row of tables with banquette seating along the wall, a community table in the middle, and assorted tables throughout the space.  Music by Pears, Tofer Dolan, and Lady Gaga (who sang a soulful version of The Carpenters' hit Close to You that got my attention) played in the background while I was there.

I took a seat at the small bar that is part of the dining area.  Franco - he introduced himself as Frank - was the bartender that day.  They had a dozen beers on tap that included 3 hazy IPA selections - a Boat Shoes hazy IPA from the Karl Strauss Brewing Company; a hazy IPA from the Harland Brewing Company both of which are out of San Diego; and the hazy IPA from the Unsung Brewing Company out of nearby Anaheim.  Frank gave me a taste of the Karl Strauss hazy IPA and the Unsung hazy IPA (I'd had the Harland hazy IPA before, but wasn't familiar with the Unsung or Karl Strauss variety).  I chose the Unsung hazy IPA.  

Frank gave me a food menu to look over while he poured my beer.  The menu was definitely more than just burgers as they had a number of interesting appetizers including poutine with braised beef, smoked shishito peppers, and cheesy tots with spicy nduja sausage.  Sandwiches included a fried buttermilk chicken breast sandwich, a reuben sandwich, a Nashville-hot chicken sandwich, and a sliced-ribeye truffle cheesesteak sandwich.  For people looking for non-burgers or non-sandwiches, they had a grilled skirt steak with chimichurri, as well as salads.

The burger part of the menu was pretty interesting.  They had a $40 signature burger - The Cut - which was made from in-house ground 60-day dry aged ribeye steak, topped with 2-year aged white cheddar, and served on a black and white sesame seed potato bun.  More modestly priced burgers included the Savory burger with Swiss cheese and a bacon relish; the Blue Cut with blue cheese and bacon; the Sweet & Spicy with bacon, pepper jack cheese and a honey Sriracha; and the Truffle & Brie which was what was on the burger - brie cheese with a truffle aioli.  

But I went basic for my first visit to The Cut Handcrafted Burgers.  I got the OG burger - a single patty burger with American cheese, with pickles, lettuce, tomato and a choice of grilled or raw onions.  I asked Frank to have the chef put raw onions on the burger, but it came out with caramelized onions on it.  It wasn't a deal breaker for me, but I think I would have liked it better with raw chopped onions.  For my side, I had a choice of fries, sweet potato fries, onion rings, a black truffle mac & cheese side, or tots.  Well, of course, I got tots!  I asked Frank if he had Cholula, but all he had was Tabasco.  Once again, not a deal breaker, but I prefer Cholula over Tabasco with tots.  

The burger was cooked perfectly - just a shade under medium with a nice light pink color.  And the burger dripped with cheese with every bite.  It was a messy burger, to say the least, and they had linen napkins at The Cut.  I had to ask Frank if I could get another napkin about halfway through the meal because it was such a wonderfully messy burger.  And the tots were a great complement to the burger.  

For a gourmet burger joint, The Cut Handcrafted Burgers did not disappoint.  They had a pretty good selection of craft beers, the menu was more than just burgers, but the burgers they had on the menu all sounded delicious.  And my OG burger was fantastic - cooked perfectly, gushing with American cheese, and having a bun that stayed together very well for such a messy burger.  And Frank's wonderful and friendly service was just the icing on the cake during my visit.  The Cut more than exceeded my expectations going in.  

Matchbox - Rockville, MD

I was at a trade show in the northern Washington D.C. suburb of Rockville, MD recently and the first day was sort of tiring.  I was told by a friend that the bar at the hotel where the trade show was held really needed to have their tap lines cleaned out as all the craft beers they had on tap tasted funky.  But he said there was a pizza place across the street that had good pizza and a good selection of craft beers.  I got out of the trade show around 5 p.m. and instead of heading back to my hotel and figuring out what I was going to have for dinner that evening, I just decided to head across the street and have pizza and some beer at Matchbox.  

From the sleek architecture on the outside of the building along Rockville Pike in Rockville, I should have guessed that Matchbox was a chain.  That's because it was - it started over 20 years in Washington D.C.  But the partnerships involved in the opening of Matchbox started years prior.  

In 1990, Ty Neal owned a restaurant in Huntington, West Virginia called Mycroft's.  It was near the campus of Marshall University and situated between the basketball arena and the football stadium.  Mycroft's could be described as a kitschy cross between Cheers and Hooters.  One day, a young man by the name of Drew Kim came in to apply for a job as a waiter.  Neal waved his hand around the restaurant to point out all the female servers at the place and bluntly told Kim that they only hired women as servers - something you could get away with nearly 35 years ago.  

But Kim was a persistent kind of guy and on his fourth time meeting with Neal to get a job, Neal hired him.  It turned out to be fortuitous for both men - Kim turned out to be a great server, then Neal moved him behind the bar to be the lead bartender.  He did so good running the bar that Neal named Kim as the overall manager of the restaurant.  Before long, Neal had made Kim a partner in the business.  Soon after, the duo opened an entertainment/cafe venue where up-and-coming bands would play.  

Neal and Kim ended up selling both ventures and then headed west to Chicago where they partnered up with Neal's brother Mark, and Ty Neal's longtime friend Perry Smith to open the Windy City's outpost of Polly Esther's - a 70's and 80's-themed bar/dance club chain that was a popular destination for bachelorette parties in the late 90's.  The group ran the place for five years before selling their interest in 2001 and heading back toward Washington, D.C.   

For their next endeavor, the group envisioned an upscale wood-fired pizza and craft beer bistro where families and couples could enjoy a meal.  The group found an abandoned warehouse in Washington's Chinatown district and started to work on the restaurant.  Because it was just them with no investors, they did everything by themselves and on the cheap.  The tables that were going to be used in the restaurant were made in Mark's basement, and the group did the full build-out of the restaurant.  

When it came time to open in mid-2003, Drew Kim was the bartender, Ty Neal worked the front of house, Perry Smith wore a number of different hats, and Mark Neal was the pizza chef.  They originally called the restaurant "Matchbooks" after the thousands of matchbooks the Neal brothers had collected from various restaurants over the years.  But they eventually changed the name to Matchbox and opened in July of 2003.

Pictured right - Drew Kim, Ty Neal and Mark Neal. Photo courtesy Washington Post.  (This photo was taken after Peter Green left the group in 2012.)  

At the time, Chinatown was not the trendy area of Washington D.C. as it is today and having a restaurant in an area that was years away from gentrification was a major risk.  But a positive review in the Washington Post not long after they opened caused the floodgates of people to open.  Within days, lines were stretched out the door and down the street.

The group formed the Matchbox Restaurant Group soon thereafter and planned to expand around Washington D.C. and beyond.  Approached by another restaurant from the West Coast, the group opened a second Matchbox location in Palm Springs, CA as a joint-venture.  It didn't end well and that Matchbox location closed less than two years later.  

Focusing on the Washington D.C. area, a second Matchbox opened in Washington D.C. in 2008 and their third location - the one I went to in Rockville - opened in 2010.  By this time, a number of investors including family, friends, banks and capital investment firms put money into the Matchbox Restaurant Group.  By 2015, there were six Matchbox restaurants around the Beltway, along with five Ted's Bulletin Bistro locations the group started in 2011.  Ted's Bulletin was more of an upscale diner focusing on farm-fresh American-style foods.  

As the group was gearing up for expansion, they hired Peter D'Amelio and industry veteran who oversaw the explosive growth of the Cheesecake Factory years before.  Hoping to branch out to put more Matchbox locations starting in Florida and expanding around the east coast with both company-owned and franchisee-owned restaurants, D'Amelio was brought in to forge a path of expansion for the group.  

But soon after D'Amelio was brought on board, a number of investors tried to oust the Neals and Kim citing a lack of direction in the expansion plans.  The group then sued a number of the investors to try to keep their positions within Matchbox Restaurant Group.  However, in 2017 the court ruled against the group finding that the lawsuit had no merit and threw out the suit.  

The Matchbox Restaurant Group was forced to raise money to pay off the investors and they sold controlling interest of Matchbox to Thompson Hospitality, a Washington D.C.-based restaurant holding group, and they sold off all assets of Ted's Bulletin to the Salis Holdings, another investment group whose Catalogue Co. arm oversaw the stewardship of restaurants such as Federalist Pig barbecue, Sidekick bakery, and Honeymoon, a upscale Southern-style fried chicken restaurant.  

It was a rocky two year period from 2018 to 2020 to begin with for the Matchbox Restaurant Group after selling off the majority of their assets.  But they were doubly smacked when the pandemic broke in early 2020.  Never able to recover from the downturn in business, Matchbox Restaurant Group was forced into bankruptcy in August of 2020.  Thompson Hospitality came in and purchased the remaining assets of Matchbox Restaurant Group for $11.6 million.  Thompson Hospitality continues to run the 12 Washington D.C. locations along with a single Florida location near Fort Lauderdale that was actually the first of what were to be many more Matchbox locations started by the Matchbox Restaurant Group just before the investor upheaval began nearly 10 years ago.  

The Matchbox is part of the Congressional Plaza shopping complex on the west side of Rockville Pike.  (see map)  It's located in a stand-alone building near the street with plenty of parking on all four sides.  The brick facade building had a nice patio out front - one of two patios at Matchbox.  It was a somewhat cool late afternoon and they had the overhead heaters cranking out the heat for the sparse crowd dining on the patio.

Inside the restaurant was a great room for the main dining area with brick walls, a fire place, and a number of booths and tables throughout the room.  There was an upstairs dining space that was used for parties or overflow dining.  

In the corner of the dining room were two wood-fired ovens for cooking thin-crust Neapolitan-style pizza.  The main kitchen area was sort of back behind the large brick ovens.  Even though it was just past 5 p.m., the pizzaiolos were busy making up a number of pies.

The bar area was just past the wall separating the pizza ovens and a row of booths in the bar.  The bar was busy - happy hour is 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. during the week.  I didn't really want to sit by myself in a nearly deserted dining room, but I didn't really want to be seated by myself at a table or a booth in the busy bar.  I ended up taking a seat at the nearly full bar, sandwiched in between a large guy who was obviously drunk already, and another guy who was too busy talking on his phone to acknowledge me when I asked if the seat was taken.  

There were two bartenders who seemed to be overworked and not very friendly.  Their customer service skills were not the best and one was almost contemptuous behind the bar.  I overheard him complaining to another Matchbox employee that he hadn't had a break since he came in to work at 9:30 a.m.  Both bartenders were not on top of their games in terms of taking care of people at the bar.  It took them quite some time to even acknowledge I was sitting there.  

Once I did get the attention of one of the two guys, I asked for a food menu and a beer list.  He said they didn't really have a beer list, but asked what kind of beer I was looking for a hazy IPA.  He said they had the New Belgium Voodoo Ranger hazy IPA, but I'm not a big fan of New Belgium beers.  I asked about an IPA they had on tap - a house brew called Matchbox Pro IPA.  I decided to get one of those.  And it wasn't bad.  I asked him later on who made it for them and he said it was by a local brewery called DC Brau.  I had a DC Brau hazy IPA later that weekend and I ended up buying a six pack at a local liquor store to take back to Iowa.  

Even though I was thinking pizza, they had a number of other items to choose from at Matchbox.  Pasta dishes such as a chicken fettuccine alfredo, a fennel sausage rigatoni, and a crab & shrimp fettuccine alfredo were highlighted on the menu.  They also had pan-seared scallops, a jumbo crab cake, and baby back ribs.  They also had sandwiches, burgers and a number of salads on the menu.  Appetizers included calamari, crab dip with chips, chicken wings, and a tuna tartare with guacamole and spicy aioli.  

My friend told me that he thought the pizza was good, so I decided to go that direction.  While they have a number of specialty pizzas on the menu, I wanted to make my own.  I got the fennel sausage and pepperoni.  Somewhat surprisingly, they didn't have mushrooms available at Matchbox.  They have two sizes - a 10 inch and a 14 inch pizza.  I got the smaller of the two and when I ordered, the bartender cautioned me that the pepperoni was spicy.  I sort of waved him off knowing that it couldn't have been that spicy to me.

Since it's cooked in a wood-fired oven, the pizza didn't take long to get out to me.  It was loaded with pepperoni slices on top and an ample amount of ground fennel sausage under the cheese with a puffy crust.  I will say the pizza was good, and the spicy and salty pepperoni made it go well with the IPA.  It wasn't a fabulous pizza, but it was far from inedible.  Let's just say that it worked for me at that moment.   

The pizza I had at Matchbox was fine for what it was - a good wood-fired Neapolitan-style pizza with loads of pepperoni slices and a some savory fennel sausage.  I do have to say that the happy hour crowd at Matchbox was a bit overwhelming, and the bartenders were not on top of their game.  It seemed like a nice place overall, but there was just an overall negative vibe from the bartenders that didn't make it such a welcoming place.  Everyone has bad days and while the food was good, the service was a bit less than desirable. 

Mascot Brewery - Etobicoke, ON

I got into Toronto late in the afternoon during a recent trip up there.  I was on my own that evening as my colleague from Montreal was driving in later, and my colleague from France - who was on a France-Australia-Los Angeles-Toronto-France around-the-world trip - wasn't due from in L.A. until around 10:30 that evening.  I had it in my mind to find a brewpub for dinner that evening.  I ended up Uber-ing to one place near my hotel for dinner and some beers (more on that later on), but it turned out that only it had food at its downtown Toronto location.  However, the people at that microbrewery steered me to another place that they knew had craft beer and food - Mascot Brewery.  After getting another Uber to pick me up, I took off to head over to Mascot Brewery.  

Aaron Prothro is a native of Nova Scotia who moved to Toronto as a young man full of ambition, but really no clue as to what he really wanted to do.  Prothro was an athlete and worked out at a local fitness center.  He eventually got a job at the fitness center as a personal trainer and competed in local body-building championships.  

But he also had an interest in the hospitality industry and had some conceptual ideas of the kind of place that he'd like to run - a chic little restaurant with seasonal menu items and an extensive wine list.  Oh!  And a second-story bar above the restaurant that would feature artisanal drinks and a D.J. with a thumping sound system.  That dream of Prothro's came true when he opened Nyood Restaurant and Bar in February of 2008.  

While owning and running Nyood, Prothro and a friend came up with another concept - F-Stop - an EDM (electronic dance music) and hip-hop dance club.  But there was something brewing - literally - in his mind.  He became immersed in the craft beer community and as a black man he noticed the inclusivity and the laid-back vibe the growing craft beer scene was in Toronto.

Pictured right -  Aaron Prothro.  Photo courtesy Mascot Brewery Facebook page. 

Prothro especially liked the fact that craft beer seemed to bring people together and not try to divide them.  He didn't like the technical jargon that some microbreweries used to describe their beers and wanted a place where plain-speak in his beer's descriptions was the norm.   And he wanted a brewpub where people could gather and just chill out.  

Aaron Prothro sold his interests in Nyood and F-Stop to work on getting his concept of a brewery and taproom up and running.  He found a space in downtown Toronto and in May of 2015 he opened Mascot Brewery - the first black-owned brewery in Canada.  The original location for Mascot Brewery was on Mercer Street in downtown Toronto, but they moved to their present location on King Street West in 2019.  

Also in 2019, Prothro announced they would open up a second location in suburban Etobicoke complete with a brewing facility, tap room, patio and event space, along with a restaurant in collaboration with Matt Basile who owned the popular Fidel Gastro food truck.  The pandemic slowed down the progress of the buildout and the new Mastro Brewery location finally opened in June of 2021.  

As I said earlier, I set out to go to a brewpub that I thought had food.  The Uber driver dropped me off in front of Great Lakes Brewery (see map) and when I walked in, I sort of suspected that they didn't have a kitchen there.  After sitting down at the bar and ordering a beer, I asked the bartender if they had food.  "No, sorry," she said.  "Our downtown location does, but we don't.  This is our tap room and retail location."   They had a number of beers on tap, and cans of beers for sale in a refrigerator near a wall of wearables that were also for sale.  

But I ended up hanging out there for a couple beers talking with the two bartenders who turned out to be wonderful people.  Canada "Nice" people.  They had a couple hazy IPA's on tap and I tried them both.  I ended up getting the HazeMama New England-style IPA that is one of their year-round beers.  The place wasn't all that busy and I visited with the bartenders who were intrigued that a guy from Iowa had found their tap room.  They were also very helpful in their suggestion of a nearby brewpub that had food - which turned out to be Mascot Brewery.  

Getting an Uber from Great Lakes Brewery turned out to be a bit of a challenge as there was a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey match starting just down the nearby Gardiner Expressway in downtown Toronto.  It turned out that I had time for one more beer waiting for my Uber ride to show up.  As I said, it was a slow evening and the bartenders were happy for the company.  And they had great music playing in the background from artists such as Onra, The Herbaliser, and Ólafur Arnalds with Bonobo.  

Once the Uber driver showed up, it turned out to be less than a 10 minute ride through residential streets of suburban Toronto to the Mascot Brewery.  (see map)   I found an industrial building which housed some other businesses including a little coffee shop.  Mascot Brewery was toward the back of the building with a very nice wood-facade corner beer garden in front of the building.

Opening the door to Mascot Brewery, I found a small bar area with a concrete-faced bar and room for five or six chairs.  There were some tables in the bar area where some people were seated.  Music from the likes of Bob Marley, Jack Johnson and Red Hot Chili Peppers played on the sound system.  I immediately liked the laid-back vibe of the place. 

 
The on-tap brew menu was on the wall just to the left of the bar and very prominent when you walk into the small bar area.  There was no one behind the bar and I wondered if there was a dining area in the place.  

Just past the bar was a larger room with a larger bar.  There were a few people seated in this spacious room, but the bar was also unmanned.  A large garage door that opened onto the beer patio was the prominent feature of the beer hall.  

A guy came out of nowhere and asked if I needed any help.  I told him that I was looking for some beer and some food.  He said, "You came to the right place!"  I asked him if I could just sit at the bar and he said, "Yeah, I'm in the other room tonight.  We don't have this bar up and running tonight."  

Back in the smaller bar room, I took a seat at the bar.  The bartender's name was Ben and he turned out to be a great guy.  He gave me a food menu to look through and I wanted to know what they had for a hazy IPA that evening.  They had 16 beers on tap when I was there and Ben told me that that their hazy IPA was called the Juicy J.  I tried a sample and immediately signed up for a pint of that after a quick tasting.  

The menu at Mascot Brewery wasn't long, but it was certainly interesting.  They had grilled octopus on the menu that certainly caught my eye.  There was a fennel sausage and rapini dish, as well as a braised short rib served with fresh horseradish.  All three of those sounded great.  Appetizers included wings, charred Brussels sprouts, and "Bang-Bang" cauliflower bites.  And they had other items such as jerk chicken tacos, a chicken Katsu sandwich, and a beer-braised bratwurst plate.  

I really considered getting the grilled octopus - I just love grilled octopus.  But I ended up getting the Oklahoma-style (cooked with onions on a flat grill) smash burger with mild cheddar cheese and bacon.  A side of fries came with the burger.  The burger, itself, was very good.  It had the very crispy edge that you get with good smash burgers.  The cheese oozed out of the burger with each bite, and the grilled onions offered a great flavor complement to the crispy bacon on the burger.  I had absolutely no complaints with the burger.

The fries were also very good - while they weren't all that crisp on the outside, they had a wonderful flavor like they had been cooked in beef tallow.  The fries were delicious on their own.  

I had told Ben of my odyssey that brought me to Mascot Brewery that evening.  I told him that I like to find brewpubs during my travels.  "There's a lot of excellent brewpubs in the area," Ben told me.  And he proceeded to give me a handwritten list of some of his favorites that he suggested I try.  He had listed Rainhard and Shacklands breweries at the top of his list.  "They're next door to one another, probably about a 15 minute drive from here," Ben told me.  "Great beers, great people."  

He also mentioned and listed Blood Brothers Brewing which was northwest of downtown Toronto; along with Henderson Brewing Company that collaborated with the Toronto-based rockers Rush for a series of Rush-themed beers.  (I've had the Rush golden lager and it's a very good beer.)  Closing out his list, he had written down Halo Brewing which was just west of downtown Toronto; and finally he listed Nickle Brook Brewing Company, a brewery in Burlington, ON near Hamilton.  "Nickle Brook has a taproom just down the street from Great Lakes," Ben told me.  "I really like their beers.  They have a stout that I really like."  

I told Ben that I was in town for a trade show and I really didn't know if I would have time to get around to any of the breweries he had listed.  He said, "Well, hang on to this and when you come back you can check 'em out on your next visit."  I didn't know if I would be back in Toronto anytime soon, but it's a guess I'll be back next fall for the trade show.

It was past 9 p.m. and I figured I'd had enough and it was time to get an Uber to get back to my hotel.  However, I was having trouble getting a signal from Bell Canada on my phone outside Mascot to use the Uber app.  I had to go back in and get the wi-fi password from Ben to be able to get the Uber app to work.  He was more than helpful and commiserated with me on the pitfalls of having Bell Canada as a service provider.  

I was actually sort of sad when the Uber showed up at Mascot Brewing to take me back to the hotel.  The me of 20 years ago would have been taking the Uber to the next craft brewery on the list instead of heading back to the hotel.  But I knew we had a long day coming up and it was time to get back to the hotel to rest up.  But what a fun night this was!  I was able to go to two craft breweries in the Toronto area and have some good beers at both places served by typically friendly Canadians.  And the smash burger and fries I had at Mascot Brewing was a spot-hitter, to say the least.  I put the list of breweries that Ben gave me on my Google Maps of "Restaurants to Visit" listing for when I do eventually make it back to Toronto at some point.  But until then, I'll have great memories of visiting both Great Lakes Brewing and Mascot Brewing on this trip to Toronto.  

Oliver's Trattoria - Irvine, CA

Out in Southern California for a trade show this past fall, I had been sitting with a former colleague and his wife catching up on things at the bar at the hotel where the trade show was being held.  I offered to take them out to dinner, but they said they needed to head back to their home just north and east of Los Angeles.  I got back to my hotel and I was looking up some of the restaurants in the immediate area.  I was sort of in the mood for Italian (when aren't I?) and I found a place that looked sort of interesting - Oliver's Trattoria.  Getting the address plugged into my GPS, I took off to go have dinner at Oliver's Trattoria.  

Erik De Marchi was born and raised in Imola, Italy, about halfway in between Bologna and the coastal town of Ravenna on the Adriatic Sea situated in the Emilia-Romagna region of the country.  Emilia-Romagna consists of nine provinces and is very well known for their culinary and wine-making traditions.  Bologna's signature dish is pasta, while Ravenna is known for their seafood and rice meals.  De Marchi was exposed to the region's diverse gastronomy selections at a young age, especially loving his grandmother's lasagna.    

De Marchi eventually enrolled in the culinary sciences program that was part of IAL Emilia-Romagna, a service training academy located in Bologna.  After graduating from IAL in 2002, De Marchi made his way to Los Angeles to work under chef Gino Angeleini at his prestigious Italian eatery Angelini Osteria.  

From there, De Marchi made the rounds of some the better Italian restaurants in the greater Los Angeles area.  After 15 years working in various Italian restaurants in Southern California, De Marchi decided he wanted to do his own restaurant.

Pictured right - Erik De Marchi.  Photo courtesy Orange Coast Magazine.  

Making his way down to the Orange County coast, De Marchi found a spot in Laguna Beach.  He modeled his new restaurant after the osterias - simple cafes - that served locally-sourced foods and wine that were found near his home in Italy.  And while he was getting ready to open his restaurant, his wife was expecting a child - a baby boy that they had already picked out a name for.  In September of 2018 - the same day that his son Oliver was born - De Marchi opened Oliver's Osteria, named after his son.  

De Marchi's little Italian restaurant became an instant hit with residents in and near Laguna Beach.  Food critics praised the restaurant for its authentic Emilia-Romanga-style cuisine, along with its eclectic list of Italian wines.  In 2021, Michelin gave Oliver's Osteria a Bib Gourmand rating - sort of an honorable mention short of getting a star - in its Michelin Guide of Los Angeles restaurants that year.  

Before he got his Michelin mention, Erik De Marchi noticed that a lot of his customers were coming from the Irvine/Newport Beach area making the drive down to Laguna Beach.  In the back of his mind, De Marchi wanted to have a more modern restaurant that offered patio dining, wood-fired pizza, private event space, and sleek furnishings.  Already living in Irvine, De Marchi found an open spot in the Quail Hill shopping and entertainment center and in the fall of 2023, he opened Oliver's Trattoria.  He immediately found that the opening of the new restaurant in Irvine didn't fully take business away from his original restaurant in Laguna Beach.  So it was definitely a win-win situation for De Marchi by opening a second location!

It was about 8 p.m. when I pulled into the Quail Hill complex at the corner of Sand Canyon Ave. and Quail Hill Parkway near the 405 Freeway.  (see map)   The restaurant opened to a bar area and a well-lit dining area off to the left side.  This dining area was a mishmash of square booths, as well as 2-seat, 4-seat, 6-seat and 8-seat tables.  An outdoor patio was located just beyond this dining room.  But it was a cool evening and no one was seated on the patio.

There was a second and somewhat more cozy and subdued dining area past the bar.  It seemed to be a bit "Christmas-y" in the room with dangling white lights around the perimeter and a frosted white tree illuminated by spot lights in the middle, even though it was in the early fall.  A third dining area was in the back and it could be closed off for private dining or receptions.  

I ended up asking the hostess if I could sit at the bar.  There was one seat open on the curved corner of the two-sided bar.  The bar was sort of unique in that two or three of the seats were table-top height, while 7 or 8 chairs were high-top height.  I took one of the high-top chairs with a faux lighted candle in front of me.  The marble-topped bar had lighting underneath to illuminate the brick facade below.  Along the wall next to the bar and behind the hostess stand were a series of high-top tables where people were standing enjoying drinks.  

Once I sat down and was given a menu, one of the bartenders - Lorenzo - came over to greet me.  I had just finished up having a couple three beers at the hotel and I was looking to get a glass of wine to start.  After looking through the by-the-glass wine list Lorenzo gave me, I ordered a house Malbec wine they had.   

The dinner menu started out with a handful of salads and antipasti choices including beef carpaccio, roasted octopus, and fried calamari.  There was wood-fired pizzas on the menu, as well as a Mediterranean sea bass entree, lamb chops in a mint salmoriglio sauce (think Indian mint chutney), and an 8 ounce beef tenderloin served on a bed of arugula and baby artichoke hearts.  Pasta dishes included Oliver's Trattoria's house-made thick pasta noodles with roasted red cherry peppers, linguine and clams in a garlic-white wine sauce, and Tonnarelli ai Crostacei - house-made thick spaghetti noodles, with lobster meat and prawns, mixed in a slightly spicy cherry tomato sauce.  

One of the nice touches Oliver's Trattoria provides after you place your order is a plate of fresh house-made bread cubes with an olive and caper tapenade on the side.  The bread was a spongy focaccia with herbed toppings.  The tapenade was tangy and had great flavor.   

I was torn between a couple items on the menu.  The house lasagna - from the recipe Erik De Marchi's grandmother had made for him as a little boy - was tempting; as was the house-made pappardelle pasta with the wild boar ragu.  But in the end, I went with the tagliatelle pasta with the bolognese sauce.  I've been on such a bolognese kick - both at home and one the road - lately that it just sounded good to me. 

And it was great.  The robust flavor of the meaty bolognese sauce was complemented by the wonderful house-made pasta they served at Oliver's Trattoria.  Parsley flakes and parmesan cheese were sprinkled on the pasta and bolognese to give the dish a rustic appeal.   This was - in simple terms - a killer meal.   

And I've also been on a dessert kick at Italian restaurants on my last few visits and I've been especially keen on the affogato - vanilla gelato with espresso.  And I asked Lorenzo if I could get a shot of amaretto to go along with the affogato.  The affogato had chunks of chocolate on the top of the vanilla gelato and I needed to eat some of the dessert down before I could add the amaretto Lorenzo supplied to me in a small metal pitcher.  The affogato was rich, decadent and very delicious.  It was a great ending to what was a very memorable meal at a very memorable Italian restaurant.  

 

I can't say enough about the experience I had at Oliver's Trattoria.  First of all, Lorenzo was a great bartender - friendly and efficient.  He did a great job taking care of me on my visit.  The focaccia bread cubes with the tapenade spread was a nice touch the restaurant provided as a pre-meal appetizer.  And the tagliatelle pasta with the rich and hearty bolognese sauce was simply outstanding.   I like to find good Italian restaurants if I'm staying in an area for more than a couple days and Oliver's Trattoria surpassed my expectations of what I thought the restaurant would be before I entered the building.  This was a great Italian meal.  

Lane's OAK'D BBQ - Addison, TX

I got into Dallas-Fort Worth International late one afternoon and by the time I got my rental car and traversed to my hotel over in north suburban Addison.  I was in the mood for barbecue during my first night back in Texas for a number of years and it turned out that there was a barbecue joint just down the street that sounded pretty good from the on-line descriptions and reviews.  I walked into Lane's OAK'D BBQ just around 6:30 that evening.  

Clint Norton had a connection to good Texas barbecue - his brother Ed Norton was the owner of the famed County Line barbecue joint in Austin, TX.  Clint Norton wanted to eventually open his own barbecue joint and he learned from his brother that top cuts of beef and pork were key to great barbecue places.  It was a meeting in 2016 with chef/consultant Michael Lane that got the wheels put in motion toward the barbecue joint of Norton's dream.  

Lane was a Culinary Institute of America-trained chef who worked in upscale restaurants in Houston, most notably The Annie Cafe and Pappas Bros. Steakhouse.  Lane eventually became a restaurant consultant and it was at that meeting with Clint Norton in 2016 where the initial "big bang" on a new barbecue restaurant began.  Lane was intrigued with Clint Norton's concept of an upscale Central Texas-style barbecue and came on board as the managing partner.  Lane's vision of "upscale" Texas barbecue centered on using the best meat, but also focusing on stellar sides and desserts to enhance the experience.  

Getting investors to buy into the concept was another thing.  Clint Norton and Lane were able to get a small investment group together which included local radio celebrities Allen Evans and his wife Kellie Rasberry from the nationally-syndicated Kidd Kraddick Morning Show.   The pandemic pushed the opening date of their endeavor OAK'D BBQ back to November of 2020 when it opened on Greenville Avenue in Dallas.  Texas post oak wood was used in the smoking process and two large post oak trees were on the property of the restaurant.  Lane locally-sourced the Wagyu beef that was used in the post oak wood pits.

Initially, Lane stayed in the background continuing to run his consulting business, but it came about in early 2021 that he needed to spend more time at the restaurant.  Finding help and the backside of a pandemic became increasingly troublesome, so he turned to family members - as in his children - to help out in the restaurant by bussing tables, washing dishes and sweeping floors.  

Pictured right - Michael Lane.  Photo courtesy Lane's OAK'D BBQ Instagram page.   

Things were going so good at the Greenville Avenue location that Norton, Lane and the investment team looked to the north Dallas suburb of Addison to add a second restaurant.  A popular seafood restaurant - Chamberlain's Seafood - didn't survive the fallout from the pandemic and its space became available in late 2021.  But it wasn't until the spring of 2023 before OAK'D second location would open.  And by that time, Lane had bought out nearly all the other investors and became the primary owner.  When Lane opened the Addison location in May of 2023, he had changed the name of his barbecue joints to Lane's OAK'd BBQ.  

It was less than a five minute drive from my hotel to Lane's OAK'D BBQ located along Belt Line Road in Addison.  (see map)  There was a hotel next door to the restaurant and upon entering it appeared that there were a number of people seated at the bar and in the bar area just to the right as you walk in the door.  There were televisions hung above the bar that were tuned to sporting events.  

The dining area consisted of a number of high-top community-style tables.  Cords of post oak logs bordered the area between the bar and the dining space.  

I ended up seated at the bar and took a quick look at the beer menu.  I saw that they had Kona Big Wave on tap and I took one of those.  However, later on I took a quick look at the beer menu once again and saw that they had a hazy IPA - the Half-Life hazy IPA from the Manhattan Project Beer Co. in Dallas.  (I really wanted to go to the Manhattan Project brewery when I was in Dallas, but it was south and west of downtown Dallas and I didn't have the time to get there.)  

I didn't really know the drill at Lane's OAK'D BBQ, but I soon found out that you had to go into a separate room and place your order and get served cafeteria style.  The menu was on the wall featuring Wagyu and USDA prime beef, Duroc pork, and house-made sides.  They also had a few sandwiches and a smashed ground brisket burger on the menu.  

The smokers and heating drawers were behind the counter and it was an assembly line of workers who put together the meals served on wax paper on metal trays.  The line actually moved along pretty briskly.  

At the end of the line before you paid for your food order, there were a number of desserts available.  This was a tenet when Lane helped put together the original order at OAK'D BBQ.  He felt having desserts that were made in house was an important part of an upscale barbecue restaurant.  Desserts such as cookies, cakes, apple pie and bread pudding were available, tempting patrons just before they paid for their meal.    

I ordered up some brisket as part of a three-meat combo and one of the guys pulled out a full brisket to slice for my order.  The outer shell was charred and slathered with spices.  When I saw the condition of the meat - as in, the lack of any juices coming out of the brisket when he sliced the brisket - I thought this might have been a mistake.

I ended up getting the 3-meat combo - the sliced brisket, brisket burnt ends and pulled pork.  They had steak fries, apple cider coleslaw, 3-cheese mac, red-skin potato salad and balsamic roasted Brussels sprouts among the house-made sides.  I seriously considered getting the roasted sprouts to go along with the baked beans, but the guy working the sides station on the line convinced me to get the braised collard greens.  They also had dill pickle slices, pickled onions, and banana peppers that they added to the tray.  They had two different types of sauces, but they weren't available on the tables or bars.  (I know that pure Texas barbecue joints don't believe in adding sauce to their smoked meats, but I'm a sauce guy and I like to have some bites with the sauce on them.)  They had a container that pumped out a couple small tubs of a sweet sauce that they had.

I went back to my seat at the bar and there were a couple guys with British accents sitting next to me who asked me what I got.  After pointing out what I got, one of them asked about the collard greens.  I explained that collard greens were more of a Southern U.S. food and that I was sort of surprised to see them at a Texas barbecue place.  It wasn't much later after that when they both got up to go get food from the line.   

My fears of the brisket being dry and overcooked came to light when I tried to cut into the meat.  It was woefully overcooked, lacking of any juiciness and flavor, and almost like chewing leather.  I got a handful of burnt ends and the majority of the burnt ends were also charred and overcooked.  Only three or four had any juiciness to the meat and were easy to chew.  The brisket and the burnt ends were highly disappointing.  

The Duroc pork pulled pork was very good, however.  It was juicy, full of great smoked pork flavor, and very delicious.  The Central Texas-style baked beans were fine, as were the collard greens which had a nice vinegary flavor with each bite.  But the sides were large and there was no way that I was going to be able to finish what they had dished out for me.  

For as promising that Lane's OAK'D BBQ was when I first found the place on line, it turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment - mainly because of the nature of the brisket and burnt ends that I ordered.  They were overcooked, dull and lifeless.  But the pulled pork was very good, and the sides - the baked beans and collard greens - were all good.  Lane's OAK'D BBQ was a very nice place, the service I got from the bartenders was good, it's just that the brisket was so underwhelming that it put a damper on my visit.  It was just a dissatisfying experience.  

Barn Town Brewing - West Des Moines, IA

I had a dealer in the Des Moines area who had been on me since earlier in the summer to get over and see him as he was interested in talking to me about my line of consumer audio products.  I had been traveling so much since August that I hadn't been able to get over and to see him, even though it's a 2 hour 30 minute drive over from the Quad Cities. I finally made it over to have a meeting with him on a Friday morning, so I spent the night before on the west side of Des Moines.  I was looking for a brewpub to go hang out at and found a place that I had heard about before, but never been to - Barn Town Brewing in West Des Moines.  I took off around 7 p.m. to  go to Barn Town Brewing.  

Pete Faber grew up in Des Moines and graduated from the University of Iowa circa 2000.  Heading to Chicago to catch on in the restaurant industry, Faber opened his first sports bar/restaurant - Merkle's - in 2004.  The place was close to Wrigley Field and was a hang-out for Chicagoland Iowa fans who would congregate there to watch Iowa games on TV.  

Within 10 years, Faber owned or was a part owner in 4 Chicago area restaurants or sports bars.  But his wife Beth was thinking that she wanted to move back toward the Des Moines area to be closer to family who could help her raise their son and daughter.  In 2015, Faber sold his shares in his restaurants and moved the family back to suburban Des Moines.  With all the growth going on out on the west and north suburbs of Des Moines, Faber found an opportunity to open a brewpub in a new strip mall along W. University Ave. just west of the Des Moines Golf and Country Club.  

Faber's late father was a longtime employee of the John Deere plant in Ankeny and he wanted to pay homage to his dad by going with a farm theme to the restaurant.  He brought in Nebraska native Grant Brower to run the brewery and the brewpub opened in February of 2017.  Initially, Faber and Brower decided to experiment with a bunch of different styles of beers and would only have six of their own beers on tap at a time while rotating 14 other Iowa-made brews and ciders until they could figure out what their core beers would be.  (They currently have six core beers on tap and another nine seasonal beers, sours or ciders in addition to some guest taps.)   

The transformation of the space for his brewpub was an endeavor that Faber was deeply involved in.  The large open space features a well-lit room with lights hanging from wagon wheels.  Reclaimed barn boards accented the space with a number of booths along the wall and tables in the middle.  

The bar was pretty interesting in that the reclaimed barn board back wall featured a cutout of a 1955 Ford F-100 pick-up truck along with wood-carved American and state of Iowa flags.  Jug lamp shades hung over the bar and there were a number of flatscreen televisions hanging on the barn board wall.  

Along the south wall was a unique collection of beer cans that were inlayed into the barb boards with more reclaimed wood acting as a border.  It was the outline of the state of Iowa with "BTB" all in black beer cans.  This is something that Faber did himself and I have to say this is one of more clever and interesting things I've seen in any brewpub.  Antique metal farm signs hung around the border of the beer can mural.

It was a nice evening and a number of people were milling about near the front door of Barn Town Brewing waiting for a table to open up.  I asked the hostess if I could sit at the bar and she turned and said, "Well, it looks like the bar is full."  Just then, someone from the end of the bar got up and left.  I said that I would take that seat.

There was a guy and a young lady who were tag-teaming on the bar that evening.  The young lady was my primary contact for service most of the evening, but the guy was quick on the spot when I needed more napkins or another beer.  The young lady told me that Barn Town's menus are on a QR code that I had to look up with my phone.  I don't care for QR code menus all that much, but I didn't have much of a choice that evening.  

They have six core beers at Barn Town that are available year round.  They have a number of seasonal or brewer's choice beers from time to time.  They had sours and gluten free selections on tap that evening, as well as ciders from the Jefferson County Ciderworks in Fairfield, IA.  Although I thought hard about getting the Banter West Coast IPA a seasonal beer that they had on tap that evening.  I ended up ordering a Neon Hazy, a wonderful hazy IPA that is one of their core beers.

The food menu at Barn Town could be described as upscale bar food.  They had a number of gourmet-style burgers including a Beef Wellington burger that featured two beef smashed patties topped with mushroom duxelles with prosciutto ham, and finished with dijon mustard and a red wine sauce.  All of that was on a puff pastry bun.  Now, THAT sounded great.  As did the French onion melt that was served on sourdough bread.  

Other items on the menu included sandwiches such as the bulgogi cheesesteak sandwich, birria brisket crunchwrap that was served between two tostadas, and they had grilled or fried chicken sandwich with a crab rangoon sauce.  Appetizers such as a brisket quesadilla tacos, deep-fried fresh Wisconsin cheese curds served with a chipotle aioli, nachos, fried pickle slices, and an onion straw "haystack".  I was hoping they had the onion straws as a side, but they didn't.  

It was tenderloin night at Barn Town and I was told that's why it was so busy in there that evening.  I saw a few tenderloins come out, but I wasn't interested in that.  In fact, I really didn't know what I wanted.  I had a burger the previous evening and even though some of their burgers sounded pretty good, I wasn't certain that I wanted to eat burgers on consecutive nights.  They had a burger called the '55 - named after the old Ford truck hanging on the wall behind the tappers - that was just a basic cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato and red onion that I considered.  But then I thought that was stupid given some of the other tantalizing burgers they had on the menu.  

I homed in on the sandwich selections looking hard at the pastrami and Swiss cheese sandwich, the pollo diablo wrap with grilled chicken with black beans, giardiniera peppers and a chipotle aioli sauce, and the birria brisket sandwich topped with chihuahua cheese, cilantro, onion, and a cilantro/lime crema.  There were certainly a lot of food options at Barn Town.

There was a guy seated next to me and it turned out he was also from the Quad Cities.  He had ordered the braised brisket sandwich - house-braised beef brisket topped with Swiss cheese, sautéed onions, and fried banana pepper rings, and finished with a creamy horseradish aioli.  All that was served on grilled sour dough bread.  Between bites, he said, "This is the best sandwich.  I'm in Des Moines a couple times a week and I always come here and get this sandwich.  I really wish one of the brewpubs in the Quad Cities had a sandwich like this."  

That was enough of an endorsement for me.  I ordered same braised brisket he had just finished.  When the young lady bartender put this in front of me, I was salivating.  I had a choice of chips or fries to come with the sandwich - I also could have chosen from sides such as cole slaw, mac & cheese, and sweet potato fries for an upcharge.  I went with the fries.   

The sandwich was outstanding.  The shredded braised brisket was piled high in between the thick slices of sourdough bread and it was very moist and tender.  The fried pepper rings gave the sandwich a bit of a zippy flavor, and the Swiss cheese oozed out of the sandwich with nearly every bite.  The fries - served in a small tin cup - were also pretty good.  But the sandwich was so rich and filling that I didn't pay much attention to the fries.  

I have to say that Barn Town Brewing was a great find and one of the more memorable brewpubs I've found in all of my travels.  The decor was interesting, the beer I had was outstanding, and the braised brisket sandwich was top-notch.  I can't say enough about the service I received from the bartender tandem that evening and there wasn't anything that I could find at fault during my visit.  Oh, I'm going back to Barn Town Brewing on my next visit to Des Moines.  It was just a great experience all the way around.

 

 

Tandoori Masala - Etobicoke, ON

In Toronto for a trade show earlier this fall, my colleague from France and I were on our own for dinner one evening.  There are so many Indian restaurants in the Toronto area that you can't swing a cat by the tail without hitting one.  And because of that, they're all pretty good.  I convinced my European colleague to join me for dinner at one that was about a 10 minute Uber ride from our hotel, a restaurant by the name of Tandoori Masala.  

Tandoori Masala is actually found in two locations in the greater Toronto area.  The Brampton location opened in 2018 and the Etobicoke location opened in 2023.  Both locations are combination restaurant/nightclubs and open until 5 a.m.  But that seems to be the norm with the Indian restaurants around the Toronto area.  

The trade show got over about 6 p.m. and by 6:30 we were on our way to Tandoori Masala which is located in a strip mall along Queens Plate Drive near where Ontario Highway 27 and Rexdale Boulevard meet up.  (see map)  Before we walked inside, my colleague looked at the restaurant's closing times on the door and he said in a hesitant manner, "What kind of restaurant closes at 5 a.m.?"  I told him, "I've found that a lot of Indian restaurants in the Toronto area stay open that late!" (or that early)  In fact, the original Tandoori Masala used to stay open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!

To the left as you walk into Tandoori Masala, there was a small den/lounge area for people to gather.  There was a spot for people to take off their shoes and literally climb over the short backrest into the rectangular den.  It was very South Asian in the feel of the space.  There wasn't a lot of people in the place when we got there - I think there were two other tables that were occupied in the restaurant.  And they only had one young man working as a server, so things were a bit slow while we were there.  

The "Funky Desi" decor continued into the main dining area with a number of decorative light diffusers over lighting on the ceiling.  A small bar toward the front of the had rows of LED light ropes that changed colors about every ten seconds or so.  And while other Indian restaurants I've been to that have flatscreen televisions on the wall that will play Indian movies, cricket matches, or Funky Desi music videos, the four television monitors at Tandoori Masala had rotating pictures of specialty drinks and cocktails on them.  


The LED lights on the front of the bar changed from red, to green, to blue.  And they were bright.  I sat on a banquette seat bench looking toward the bar for dinner and I have to say that it was kind of disconcerting after a while.  But it had a night club feeling to the place and there was Desi and Punjabi music from artists such as Satinder Sartaaj, Tegi Pannu, Manni Sandhu, and Amrit Maan playing in the background.  Not loud, but noticeable enough.   

We were brought out an offering of a couple crisp papadum wafers with a dual container of plum sauce (which had a spicy kick) and mint chutney (which did not).  I was parched and needed a cold beer and I asked our young server if they had Kingfisher.  "Kingfisher," he asked back.  "Kingfisher, yes sir."  Knowing how long it took him to get to our table in the first place, I immediately ordered two knowing that the first one was probably going to be gone in under five minutes.  

My colleague from France doesn't drink alcohol - not even French wine!  He's not religious, but more of a health nut who gave up drinking a number of years ago.  He stuck with water throughout our stay.  But because of the "nightclub" vibe Tandoori Masala gave off, they did feature a full bar with liquor, wine, beer, boozy shakes and "shooters" available to order. 

To say that Tandoori Masala has an extensive menu is an understatement.  It was like reading a large print novel from front to back as they had authentic Indian "street food" such as lamb-stuffed naan and a Bombay grilled sandwich made with spicy potatoes to start out.  Vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes proliferated the menu, along with noodle and pasta dishes (the pasta dishes turned out to be somewhat interesting to me), along with soups, appetizers, and a number of curry dishes.  True to their name, Tandoori Masala also had a wide selection of items with chicken, lamb and seafood made in a tandoori oven.  

The one dish that caught my eye was a mash-up of Indian and Italian cuisine - the butter chicken pasta.  I was intrigued by the meshing of the two cuisines - penne pasta tossed with a creamy butter chicken sauce.  I mean, it works with rice and noodles, why wouldn't Indian food work with pasta?  Everything else that I saw on the menu that I thought I would like to have, well, I could get that at basically any Indian restaurant that I've been to or going to be at in the future.  Indian food and pasta are two of my favorite types of food.  To complement the pasta and butter chicken dish, I got some garlic naan to go along with it.

I ordered mine as medium in spiciness, but the first couple bites I had told me that the chef's idea of medium and my idea of medium was a tad off.  I mean, it was spicy!  At least for the first three or four bites until my taste buds calmed down or warmed up or whatever they did to make the subsequent bites more palatable.  I killed two more Kingfisher beers during the meal to stave off the spiciness of the meal.  

And not that the spiciness detracted from the overall flavor of the butter chicken pasta - quite the opposite.  It was like the flavor of the butter chicken popped with each bite.  I was sitting there shaking my head and thinking, "Pasta with butter chicken.  Pasta with butter lamb."  Why didn't I think of it before this?  I wanted to go to our favorite little Indian place when I got back home and get some butter lamb or lamb saag to bring home and pair it with angel hair or tagliatelle pasta.  But what I had that evening, it was way too much food.  I had a bunch of pasta leftover by the time I threw in the towel.  

My friend doesn't like spicy food.  (We joke that he is the most boring Frenchman on the planet, but in all reality he's a great guy.)  He got the chicken tikka masala along with rice and some regular naan bread.  And he ordered the tikka masala as mild as the chef could make it.  It looked really good with a drizzle of cream mixed in along with some chopped parsley flakes.  But from his first bite, he was in trouble.  He started to sweat and said, "Wow!  This is spicy!"  I apologized for dragging him to the Indian restaurant and having his food turn out to be too spicy.  But he trudged through the meal continuing to mix the chicken tikka masala in with the rice, taking a bite, taking a drink of water, and then going, "Whoa!"

After a bit, I asked him if I could dip some of my garlic naan into the tikka masala sauce.  "Please do," he replied as he gestured toward the bowel.  I tore off a chunk of garlic naan and dipped it.  After I tasted it, well, I have to say that I didn't think it was spicy at all.  Then again, I had just tried about 10 to 12 bites of my butter chicken pasta that was going to be noticeably more spicy than the spiciness level of his tikka masala.  I guess I should have tried it earlier on as my taste buds had already wrapped themselves around the heat level of what I was eating.  But just like me, after a few bites my colleague had gotten use to the spicy nature of his tikka masala sauce and was happy with what he got.  

Other than my colleague thinking his chicken tikka marsala was too spicy for his liking, I have to say the meal I had at Tandoori Masala was excellent.  And in retrospect the next day, my friend said that he thought what he had was very good, too.  "Ooof..." he said in an exasperated manner.  "It was really spicy, though."  But his level of tolerance for spicy food is significantly lower than mine.  Tandoori Masala was a delightfully funky place, the butter chicken pasta dish that I had was surprisingly great, and the most important thing - they had Kingfisher beer !  But the service was pretty slow.  It didn't matter after we got our food, we had more than enough to keep us captivated for at least 20 minutes.  I'm just still amazed - pasta with Indian food!  It was just a great combination that I was so stupid to figure out until my visit to Tandoori Masala.   

Casa! Ristorante - Fort Wayne, IN

Out in Fort Wayne for a day-long seminar with our biggest account, we had invited a recording studio mastering engineer from Nashville to help out with the presentation.  After finishing the seminar, packing up and getting everything ready to ship back to our warehouse, I said it was time for a beer and some food.  Both my colleague from Montreal and our friend from Nashville were up for that.  Since my colleague is a vegetarian, he's always up for pasta and I remembered a place that we had passed a couple nights previously that I wanted to try out.  That evening we went to Casa! Ristorante.  

Tom Casaburo grew up in Highland, NY, located just across the Hudson River from Poughkeepsie, about halfway between New York City and Albany.  After high school, Casaburo joined the Marines and had a 3-year stint in the armed forces.  After getting out of the Marines, Casaburo enrolled at Saint Peters College (now Saint Peters University) in Jersey City, NJ on the GI Bill and got his English degree.  Soon after he got out of college, Casaburo joined the FBI and was sent to Fort Wayne in 1968.  In 1972, Casaburo was hired as Fort Wayne's first Director of Public Safety, a post he held until 1976.

It was a chance meeting at a local bar with St. Louis-native Jimmy D'Angelo where Casaburo started to get an idea about opening an Italian restaurant in Fort Wayne.  It turned out that D'Angelo's cousins Vince and Joe Cunetto ran an Italian restaurant in St. Louis - Cunetto House of Pasta - using recipes handed down by their maternal grandmother who was also Jimmy D'Angelo's grandmother.  

After Casaburo resigned as the public safety director, Casaburo and Jimmy D (as he was known) went to St. Louis to learn the recipes from D'Angelo's cousins.  After immersing themselves in the kitchen and learning the made-from-scratch recipes from Grandma D'Angelo, the two went back to Fort Wayne to open their restaurant.  Casa Ristorante Italiano opened on Coldwater Road in 1977 and it was an immediate hit with the local populace.  

Pictured right - Tom Casaburo, Sr.  Photo courtesy Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.

A second Casa location opened on Fairfield Road in 1980.  It was considered the flagship location for the Casa Restaurant Group in the early 80's.  The original Coldwater Road location closed and moved to a new spot on Parnell Ave. in the late 80's just across from Memorial Coliseum.  The Fairfield Road location closed in the early 90's, but was replaced by the restaurant on W. Jefferson in 1993.    

In 1993, Jimmy D decided to retire and Casaburo bought his shares.  Casaburo's sons - Tom, Jr. (known as T) and Jim started working at the restaurants as pre-teens, both busing tables and helping with kitchen prep.  In 1996, the Casaburo family opened their third restaurant on Fort Wayne's north side in 1996, and a fourth location opened on the northeast side of the city in 2002.  When Tom Casaburo, Sr. and his wife, Sharon, decided to retire to Florida, the two sons took over the business with Jim designated as the managing partner. 

It was the W. Jefferson location that we went to that evening.  Located on the main road into the heart of Fort Wayne from the southwest side of the city, it was about a five minute drive from our hotel.  (see map).  Going into the restaurant, we were greeted by someone at the host counter near the front door.  The man asked if we wanted to sit in the lounge.  It was a pretty big lounge with a three-sided bar.  Had I been dining by myself, I would have probably sat at the bar.  But the lounge was pretty busy and we decided to take a table in the dining room. 

On the way back to the dining room, we passed a large brick oven they've used since the early 90's to make their wood-fired pizzas.  The tile work and cowling on the brick oven was similar to the front of the fireplace in the lounge.   

We were led back to a table in the dining room.  The dining area was brightly lit with colorful paintings of old Italy on the walls.  A large flower decoration was the centerpiece of the room.  

After we were seated, we were given menus to look through.  And after a bit our server for the evening - Adreyn  - came by to greet us.  He asked if we had been to Casa! before and we told him that we were from out of town.  He asked where and I pointed at my colleague and said, "Montreal."  Then pointed at our friend and said, "Nashville."  And then I said, "And I'm from Iowa."

Adreyn perked up.  "Where in Iowa?"  I told him that I was from Davenport.  He said, "I grew up in Clear Lake!"  When I told him that I grew up in Newton, he was even more surprised.  Adreyn turned out to be a great guy and was really attentive and helpful during our visit.  

It was a pretty full menu in terms of pasta, sandwiches, appetizers, salads, and entrees such as rotisserie grilled pork chops, a grilled salmon filet, chicken parm, and filet tips kabobs.  But in terms of beer and wine offerings, it was a pretty short list.  There wasn't a lot of craft beers on the menu, but they did have Peroni on tap.  Each of us signed up for one each.  Later in the evening, I got a glass of the Catena Malbec they had available.  

None of us had eaten lunch, so we were pretty hungry.  I let my colleague and our friend pick what they wanted to start out with for appetizers.  My colleague got the bruschetta - it turned out to be a "construct-your-own" style of bruschetta.  A plate of toasted baguette slices was brought to the table with a cup of chopped tomatoes and basil leaves mixed with olive oil.  I thought it was a bit strange, but went along with it.  I thought the bread with the tomatoes and basil were very good, but my colleague - who I've found during our time together is a bit of a bread snob - didn't care for the bread.  (He makes his own bread at home.)

But after having what our friend ordered, I didn't worry about the bruschetta.  He ordered the garlic knots - bread dough tied into small knots, then deep-fried and served in a bowl of garlic butter topped with Parmesan cheese and chopped parsley.  These were outstanding and very decadent in terms of being a healthy choice.  I had 3 of the garlic knots and completely forgot about the bruschetta to my left.  

They had a lot of choices for pasta dishes including baked pasta dishes such as eggplant Parmagiano, lasagna, and large pasta shells stuffed with a combination of three different types of cheese.  Regular pasta dishes included a fettuccine alfredo, meat-filled tortellini in an herb-butter sauce, penne pasta with sausage and pepperoni slices, and a seafood linguine.  One of the specials that evening was a spinach fettuccine in a cream sauce.  I could add chicken or shrimp to the dish.  I seriously considered that.

Our friend went with the penne bianco - it featured Italian sausage, mushrooms and spinach mixed with penne pasta in a Parmesan cream cheese sauce, then topped with provolone and mozzarella cheeses and baked.  When Adreyn put the dish in front of our friend, he exclaimed, "Oh, man!  That's a lot of food!  How am I going to finish all this?"  

He certainly made a dent in the dish, though.  He said it was extremely rich with the creamy Parmesan sauce and the provolone and mozzarella cheese on top of the penne pasta mixture.  But he also said that it was very delicious.  When he threw in the towel, Adreyn asked if he wanted a to-go box.  Our friend said that he didn't think it would travel very well back to Nashville.    

My colleague was happy to see that Casa! Ristorante had a significant vegetarian part of the menu including spinach lasagna, cheese-stuffed ravioli, pasta and marinara sauce, and cavatelli pasta with mushrooms and a choice of another vegetable. He thought about getting the pasta primavera, but he ended up ordering the risotto Alberto, sans the grilled chicken breast that came with the dish.  It featured wild mushrooms, zucchini, yellow onions and asparagus simmered in a rich stock, then mixed with arborio rice in a creamy white wine sauce and Parmesan cheese.  He thought it was good - not great - but he was happy that he got it.    

I was in somewhat of a quandary.  I really thought about the spinach fettuccine special they had that night.  The fettuccine carbonara was also interesting to me, as was the meat-stuffed ravioli.  And the meat-filled tortellini was another thing that I was thinking hard about.

When Adreyn came to me to give him my order, I was stuck.  "All good choices," he said after I told him what I was looking at.  "Let me suggest something that's one of our more popular dishes."  He then told me about the Lasagna Carne Amante.  "It's sort of like a 'meat-lovers' lasagna," he told me.  It was a large block of their lasagna only with Italian sausage, pepperoni, prosciutto and sliced meatballs.  It's topped with their house meat sauce and a cheese blend before it's baked in the oven.  I thought, "OK - that sounds like a challenge!"  

The meat-overload lasagna was just that - thick chunks of Italian sausage and sliced meatballs, spicy pepperoni slices, and thin-sliced imported prosciutto mixed in with lasagna noodles, a thick layer of cheese and a thick and hearty meat sauce.  It was just a lot of food.  I was able to finish just over half of the chunk of lasagna in the dish before I declared I was done.  Adreyn also asked me if I wanted to take what was left with me.  Had I lived locally, I probably would have.  But A) I wasn't certain a to-go box would fit in my hotel refrigerator; and B) I had a 5 hour drive back to Iowa the next day and I didn't have anything that I could keep it cool in.  

My colleague from Montreal was sort of neutral about Casa! Ristorante.  We had gone to another Italian restaurant in Fort Wayne - Salvatori's - last year and he seemed to favor that place over the other ones we had been to on subsequent visits to Fort Wayne.  But I thought what I had at Casa! Ristorante was very good, and our friend from Memphis thought what he was also way above par.  I can't say enough about our service from Adreyn that evening - friendly, efficient, just a great guy all around.  While my colleague might not want to go back to Casa! Ristorante any time soon, I'd have no problem heading back there on a future visit to Fort Wayne.  

Field Day Brewing Company - North Liberty, IA

A few months ago, I drove into North Liberty to see some family members and as I was coming into town off I-380, I looked over to my right and saw a huge building that I wasn't familiar with.  I went around the block and came back by the building which turned out to be a new brewpub - Field Day Brewing Company.  Since then, I had been back a couple times to have their beers, but on a recent trip to the North Liberty area on a Sunday, I decided to stop in and get something to eat at Field Day Brewing.  

Joe Selix was going to the University of Iowa about 15 years ago for his business degree and he ended up working as a bartender at BlackStone, an upscale comfort food restaurant on Iowa City's east side owned by Matt Swift and Brian Flynn.  After getting his degree, Selix stuck around Iowa City working at BlackStone as the front of house manager for a couple years before heading out to the Denver area to work various jobs including as a pet pharmacy sales rep.  But when Shewmaker, Flynn and Brandon Pratt wanted to start a new restaurant in the burgeoning small city of North Liberty, they turned to Selix to see if he would be a managing partner in the new business.  Selix came back to the Iowa City area and helped open Tin Roost in August of 2017.  

While Selix was at BlackStone, Flynn, Swift and Eric Shewmaker had formed the Craft Concepts Restaurant Group that either fully owned or co-partnered with other restaurants such as 30hop, Big Grove Brewery, Vesta, Iowa Athletic Club, and the venerable Joe's Place, a longtime favorite drinking establishment in Iowa City.  In addition to Iowa City/Cedar Rapids restaurants under the Craft Concepts Restaurant Group umbrella, the corporation also owned Lua Brewing in Des Moines, and had put a Big Grove Brewery in Des Moines, and 30hop locations in the Des Moines area, as well as in Omaha.  The group is slated to open two more 30hop locations in the Kansas City area early next year, and a Big Grove Brewery in Omaha is scheduled to open also in early 2025.   

After getting Tin Roost up and running, Joe Selix set his sights on a new endeavor - another brewpub for the greater Iowa City area, this time one in North Liberty - the growing city's first.  The problem was that he didn't know the first thing about brewing beer.   But his brother Scott - who is the co-owner of the Lua Brewery in Des Moines - was the president of the Iowa Brewers Guild and knew a number of people who were brewers across the state.  

Scott Selix got his brother in contact with Alec Travis, an award-winning brewmaster who had first worked at SingleSpeed Brewing Company in Waterloo, then at Lion Bridge Brewing Company in Cedar Rapids.   Travis agreed to come on as a partner in the venture and helped oversee the installation of a 15-barrel system into what turned out to be a 20,000 square foot facility in North Liberty.  With everything in place, Field Day Brewing Company opened on August 1, 2023.  

It was just after noon on a windy Sunday afternoon when I pulled into Field Day's expansive parking lot off W. Liberty Way, just south of W. Penn Ave, the main east-west road into North Liberty.  (see map)  Walking into Field Day, there's an expansive main hall with booths and community tables underneath industrial Edison light chandeliers.  

For just afternoon, the place was actually pretty full.  There were people waiting for booths or large tables when I came into the place.  NFL games were playing on the large screen televisions that were interspersed throughout the main beer hall.  

Just past the beer hall was an outdoor patio area that had strands of hanging Edison lights over a number of all-weather tables and chairs.  A few people were seated closer to the building as it was sort of out of the wind with the north and east sides of the patio open.  The outdoor patio area was almost the size of the beer hall inside.  Garage doors that open during more pleasant weather were on the wall that faced the beer hall.  

Just past the outdoor patio was a beer garden with picnic tables, Adirondack chairs and some fire pits.  It was definitely too windy to be sitting out on the crushed rock beer garden that afternoon, but it would have been a nice place to hang on a beautiful day.

Field Day promotes the fact that they cater to families.  Just beyond the outdoor patio and beer garden was a playground with curved jungle gyms, tractor tires cut in half to climb on, and a mesh catwalk.  The playground fixtures were on rubber pellets to soften the fall.  They weren't all that high off the ground, but I could see some dumbshit drunk out there trying to walk across the top of the jungle gym and falling to the ground.   

Back inside Field Day, there was another room off to the side with more community seating along with duckpin bowling lanes.  All four lanes were occupied pretty much the whole time I was in the place.  The game room had its own bar, a row of stools with a narrow bar behind the duckpin lanes, and flat-screen televisions on the wall.  The room could be shut off for private events and parties.   

As people were waiting to get tables when I walked in, I noticed a number of seats were opened around the three-sided bar.  Each side had 3 flat-screen televisions on the back bar wall and they also had NFL games on them with the exception of two of the televisions around the bar that had the current beer menu on them.  There were a couple ladies who were obviously big Green Bay Packers fans seated on one of the corners of the bar watching the game.  

There were two bartenders working that day.  Both of them were very friendly, attentive and great guys.  One of the bartenders came over and dropped off a food menu for me to look through.  I saw a brew on the beer menu that I had before on my previous visits to Field Day - the Juicy Belly hazy IPA.  I remembered it being very good and I ordered one of those.  

The food offerings were pretty basic - appetizers and small plates, street tacos and pretzels, sandwiches and salads.  The ladies a couple seats over from me were working on a plate of the Iowan fries - pulled pork on top of fries, topped with cheese and a ranch sauce.  A couple other interesting appetizers included the popcorn that was popped in duck fat, and the Nashville hot cheese curds.  

Although there wasn't a lot of foods to choose from on the menu, a couple three things stood out for me.  The seared mahi mahi tacos with topped with a cilantro-lime slaw and an avocado crema sounded really good, as did the green chile-braised chicken tacos.  The pastrami sandwich with Havarti cheese, sauerkraut and 1000 Island dressing also got my attention.  

But in the end, I decided to go the burger route and I ordered the Field Day burger - two flat-grilled smash burgers with thick slices of American cheese on top of each patty sitting on a bed of shredded lettuce, dill pickle slices, and finished with a house-made sauce.    Sides consisted of fries or chips & salsa, or for an upcharge you could get a side salad, pasta salad or a cup of soup.  I went with the fries since tots weren't available and nothing else sounded like it would go good with a flat-grilled burger.

I have to say the burger was very good - a "spot-hitter", in my book. The smashed patties still had some juiciness to them, the cheese oozed with each bite, and the bun was fluffy and light, but held together very well with all the stuff on the burger.  I immediately knew I was going to need more napkins after the first couple bites and when one of the bartenders came back to check on me I asked for some more.  "A lot going on with that burger," he said as he sat more napkins down in front of me.  The fries were also very good as they had a crunchy outer shell from the batter they used on them, and had a nice pillowy inlay.  

About the only quibble I have with Field Day Brewing Company is that their menu is a little short to my liking.  But what they have seems to be interesting enough.  I can't say enough about the flat-grilled smash burger I had along with the great battered fries.  I've never been disappointed in the beers I've tried on previous visits, and the tag-bartender-team who waited on me that day were great guys - friendly, efficient and very helpful.  For North Liberty's first brew pub, I think the guys at Craft Concepts Restaurant Group have hit it out of the park.  The next time I get over there, I'm trying the seared mahi mahi tacos.  

 

Burien Pizzeria (and 909 Coffee & Wine) - Burien, WA

As my trip to the Seattle area continued, I got to know the small suburban town of Burien pretty well.  Walking the streets in Olde Burien, I found a number of great little restaurants, bars and shops in the area.  The bartender at my hotel was telling me of a couple places that she thought had good pizza in Burien and one of the two she mentioned was a place I had scoped out after dinner a couple nights previously called Burien Pizzeria.  I decided to head there for dinner that evening.

Frank Ricci literally grew up in the restaurant business.  His father, Angelo, was a longtime engineer at Boeing who in 1957 opened a small deli in the blue collar village of Burien, about 13 miles south of downtown Seattle.  Along with Angelo's wife Armella, the couple expanded the deli in 1961 putting in seating.  Throughout the 60's, more expansion happened at the little restaurant including a new kitchen where Angelo and Armella would make Italian specialties passed down from their families in the old country.  

Angelo and Armella would eventually have eight children with Frank being the youngest.  Each of the Ricci children would work at the family's Italian restaurant with the two oldest brothers eventually taking over and expanding to a second location in the 1970's.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Angelo's of Burien.)

Frank Ricci started to work at Angelo's when he was 12 years old.  He did whatever he needed to do to fit - bus tables, sweep floors, wash dishes.  But what he liked to do the most was to work in the kitchen with his two oldest brothers who were the main chefs of the restaurant.  When his brothers Ron and Richard ran the family's second Angelo's location in Bellevue, WA, Frank would help out at both locations doing what he loved to do - cooking food.  

After 20 years of working in the family business - and it was truly a family business with his nieces and nephews also now working in the two Angelo's locations - he decided to do something on his own.

In May of 2007, Frank Ricci opened a little trattoria - Bistro 909 - in Olde Burien just a couple blocks away from his father's eponymous restaurant.  The restaurant evolved and it eventually became 909 Wine & Coffee that featured a short menu that featured some pasta dishes, steaks and seafood specialties.  

Danny House owned and operated the Tin Room Bar, Restaurant & Theater just a few doors down from 909 Wine & Coffee.  House was also locally famous for being Dan the Sausageman who originally sold summer sausage out of the trunk of his car starting in 1988 before opening a storefront a few years later.  Frank Ricci and House were good friends and they decided they wanted to do something together in a restaurant endeavor.

Pictured right - Danny House and Frank Ricci.  Photo courtesy Westside Seattle.  

(In 2013, Ricci opened 913 Spirits - The Place Next Door, a wine bar/short menu bistro located between 909 Wine & Coffee and Tin Room Bar.)  

In 2017, a space opened up next to 909 Coffee & Wine and the two partnered up to open a wood-fired gourmet pizza place.  The restaurant was designed to be family friendly, yet have a grown-up vibe with pasta dishes, signature cocktails, and craft beer.  In the fall of 2018, House and Ricci opened Burien Pizzeria at 907 SW 152nd Street.  (see map)  

It was a Saturday night when I headed to downtown Burien to eat at Burien Pizzeria.  There was an arts event going with a number of people walking the sidewalks of Olde Burien checking out some of the murals and artwork with lights on display.  I had to park in a small lot about two blocks away from Burien Pizzeria and walk over to the restaurant.  

The colorful facade of the restaurant came into view as I walked up SW 152nd Street.  There's a small patio out front with stools and a counter for people to eat on and watch the world go by.  It was a beautiful evening and there were a few people having pizza on the sidewalk patio.  

Inside Burrien Pizzeria, there was a bar off to one side, a handful of hightop tables with stool seats, and a few four-seater tables along the front window to the restaurant.  A display case of the wines they have at Burrien Pizzeria was along the brick wall opposite the bar.  Exposed ducts and crossbeams were found on the ceiling with industrial lighting hanging down.  It was a cozy place, but well-lit.  Classic 60's/70's rock and soul music from the likes of Dusty Springfield, the Rolling Stones, and Marvin Gaye played in the background.  

Out a back door to the restaurant, I found a canvas-covered patio with Edison lighting strung over the tables below.  There was a smoker out back, but I didn't see anything on their menu that had smoked meats.  That's where they stored the wood for their wood-fired oven.  


Back inside, behind a counter in the corner was the brick oven.  A copper plate facade with a brick trim around the opening.  The prep table was just beyond the small wall that separated the dining area.  They were certainly busy making pizzas while I was there as a seemingly never-ending line-up of people were coming in to pick up pizzas to-go.  

When I first came in, I was greeted by a lady by the name of Heather.  She said that I could sit anywhere, but at the time the bar was full.  I asked if I could sit at the table in the corner near the bar and front window.   Heather dropped off a menu and asked what I wanted to drink.  I got the Into the Haze hazy IPA from the Kulshan Brewing Company out of Bellingham, WA, the last city on the American side of the border between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia.  (I have a former co-worker who lives in Bellingham and while I would have loved to have gone there to see him, it was just too far of a trip for me that weekend.)  

While I was there for the pizza, I took a look through the menu to see what else they offered at Burien Pizzeria.  They had a nine-layer lasagna, as well as a bucatini carbonara.  Small plates included beef and pork meatballs in a marinara sauce, and oven-roasted cauliflower.  They had a handful of salads on the short menu, as well.  

While they had a few specialty pizzas such as a margarita pizza and a butternut squash/prosciutto pizza, I went with the pepperoni pizza and asked Heather to add Italian sausage and fresh mushrooms to the pizza.   

The pizza had a fluffy crust and a bit of a saggy crust, but that was due to the big chunks of Italian sausage, the plentiful amount of fresh mushrooms, and the large number of salty and spicy pepperoni slices on the pizza.  The outer edges of the crust was blistered, but the cheese and sauce coagulated together for a wonderful combination in flavor.  It was a great pizza. 

And it should have been.  When I got the bill, I got a bit of sticker shock.  It was $19 for just the pepperoni pizza (about a 12" size), but it was an additional $8 bucks for the sausage and $7 for the mushrooms making it $34 dollar pizza!  Ouch!  I'm not certain it was worth $34 bucks, but it was still pretty damned good.  

The thin crust pizza didn't fully fill me up and I was wondering if Burien Pizzeria had any desserts.  Heather said, "We don't, but you can go next door to our sister restaurant 909 and they have desserts."  After paying up with Heather, I took the short walk next door to 909 Wine & Coffee to see what they had. 

It was getting close to closing time when I walked into 909 Wine & Coffee.  The restaurant featured a nice sleek decor with wood paneled walls and ceilings with recessed lighting.  A bar was toward the center back of the restaurant.  There were maybe two or three couples at tables finishing up dinner and Frank Ricci was talking with one of the couple at a table near the bar.  I took a seat at the bar and the bartender - a young lady by the name of Marina greeted me.  I said, "I understand that you have desserts."  She said that they did.  

"I know exactly what I want," I replied without looking at a menu.  Knowing they had coffee, they had to have espresso, and I guessed that they had vanilla gelato or ice cream.   "Can you make me an affogato," I asked Marina.  She said that it would be no problem.  And I asked for a shot of amaretto to go along with it.  

The serving size of the affogato was, well, it was huge!  It was a large coffee cup filled to the brim with espresso and a large scoop (or scoops) of vanilla ice cream.  I had to eat some of the ice cream and sip some of the espresso out just to add the amaretto.  Once the amaretto was added, the affogato was complete.  I promised Marina that I wouldn't be long, but she said to sit back and enjoy my affogato and amaretto.  It was a great end to the evening.  

While I thought the pizza I had at Burien Pizzeria was excellent, I also thought that it was pretty expensive.  $34 bucks for a 12" pizza was a bit steep in my book.  The toppings were fresh and plentiful, and the taste was outstanding.  It definitely went well with a beer.  And I can't say enough about Heather's service.  She was fun, helpful and made a single diner on a Saturday night feel at ease.  And the affogato with a shot of amaretto at their sister restaurant 909 Wine & Coffee next door was a nice finish to a fun night.  It's places like Burien Pizzeria and 909 Wine & Coffee that make for a memorable evening when I'm on the road.   

Royal Tandoor - Gaithersburg, MD

I was staying out in the Rockville/Gaithersburg, MD area on a recent visit to Washington D.C. for a trade show.  I was in the mood for Indian food one cool fall evening and I found a couple that were sort of near the hotel I was staying at.  The first one I went to was about a 10 minute drive south from the hotel.  However, it didn't have a bar or any alcohol to enjoy with the meal.  (I found that Montgomery County's liquor laws for restaurants and stores were rather, well, strange with different levels of licensing.)  OK, since I couldn't get a beer with my Indian food there, I went to my second choice that was about a 10 minute drive the other way from the hotel.  I punched in the address in the GPS and about 20 minutes later I found myself in front of Royal Tandoor Fine Indian Cuisine & Whiskey Bar.   

Royal Tandoor managing partner Sanjeev Gupta actually started out as a travel agent.  In 2012, he helped start an international executive travel agency that catered to business people, corporations, and people looking for unique destinations for weddings, honeymoons and sporting events basically in the Western Hemisphere (North, Central and South America along with the Caribbean).  But after the pandemic curtailed much of the travel business, Gupta wanted to do something a bit different - like run his own restaurant.  In May of 2021, along with a handful of partners and family members, Gupta opened Royal Tandoor, an upscale Indian restaurant complete with a whiskey bar.  That's something you don't see at a lot of Indian restaurants.  

Royal Tandoor is located in the Muddy Branch shopping complex - basically a series of businesses in a strip mall with a Giant Food grocery store anchoring the overall location.  It's located just off Muddy Branch Road near where I-270 and I-370/State Highway 200 meet up in Gaithersburg.  (see map)  There was plenty of parking near the front entrance to Royal Tandoor as it was approaching 8 p.m. on a week night.  

When I walked into Royal Tandoor, I was sort of taken aback.  I don't want to say the decor was garish, but it was, well...  It was pretty gaudy in there.  Lots of gold accents, pillowy high-backed booths along one wall, tapestries on the other wall above banquette seating along the wall.  There was a small bar at the end of the main dining area.

Off to the side of the main dining room was another dining area that featured another wall of banquette seating with decorative metal tiles along the wall.  A third room - the Royal Room - was in the back of the restaurant.  It's used for private gatherings or receptions.  I took a quick glance into the room as there were a few people in there having dinner.  It was quite as ostentatious as the two dining rooms, but there was still some items that jumped out such as the multi-trunked elephant painting on the wall.  

Sanjeev Gupta was behind the bar when I walked up to it.  There was already a guy seated at the bar eating a meal and I asked Sanjeev if I could sit at the bar.  "Please," he gestured to me to have seat.  Sanjeev was helped out by another guy Ameresh.  Ameresh looked Anglo but he had a heavy accent when he spoke English and was speaking Hindi with Sanjeev Gupta.  Both were very pleasant men and very helpful all night long.

Behind the bar on the wall were two televisions that were playing cheesy Bollywood movies from what appeared to be the 70's and 80's.  I immediately loved the place in that they had old South Asian movies playing in the restaurant.  There was a full bar with a number of whiskies, vodkas, rums and bourbons on the shelves.  I counted 17 different types of Scotch whiskies on the menu.  But to me, I was very happy to see that they had Kingfisher beer.  I ordered up one of those from Sanjeev as soon as I saw the bottle of Kingfisher lined up with other beers on the back bar. 

Ameresh brought out some complementary papadum lentil wafers for me, then moments later he brought out a mini Samosa with some mint chutney and some plum sauce.  It was a really nice touch and I appreciated the gesture. 

They had dropped off a menu for me to look through right after I sat down.  I have to tell you the menu was interesting and very authentic Indian.  They had a section that described "Delhi Street Food" including Pani Puri which were dough balls stuffed garbanzo beans, sweet chutney, and potatoes and deep fried.  Appetizers included a kabob platter, tandoori chicken wings, and Dahi ki Tikki - a potato patty simmered in yogurt.  

From there the menu went to a number of entrees including lamb, goat, chicken and seafood dishes.  They had ginger rosemary lamb chops on the menu, as well as Tandoori shrimp, chicken kabobs, and Afghani Trangri kabobs - chicken drumsticks marinated with cashew paste, yogurt, spices and grilled in their tandoor oven.  They had a number of biryani offerings as well as Indo-Chinese food such as chicken fried rice, Manchurian chicken or vegetables, and noodles with either chicken or veggies.   My vegetarian colleague would have been more than happy with the vegetarian part of the menu at Royal Tandoor as they offered more than a dozen different vegetarian dishes.

I was thinking about getting the butter chicken, and the goat curry was also interesting to me.  My former colleague loves goat - he married into a Jamaican family who makes goat quite a bit.  And he has ordered goat curry when we've eaten together at Indian restaurants in the past.  So many choices, but I ended up boiling it down to the lamb rogan josh with medium heat. I also got some garlic naan to go along with the lamb rogan josh.  A small caldron of basmati rice came with the meal.

From the first bite, I was ecstatic.  There was some spiciness to the rogan josh, but it was tolerable.  The chunks of lamb were tender and I could cut them with my fork.  The garlic naan had great flavor with the garlic and cilantro mixed in with the naan bread.  It was one of those meals where you have so much food and you think there's no way that you could eat everything in front of you.  But the next thing you know, you're using the last piece of garlic naan to sop up the last bits of rogan josh gravy in the serving bowl.  It was a fantastic meal.  

As I was sitting there savoring the meal I just had, Ameresh brought out a complementary gulab jamun - a deep fried dough ball dunked in a sweet syrup and sprinkled with powered sugar.  This reminded me of the Indian restaurant my former co-worker (who likes goat) and I went to in Toronto last year and they gave us complementary gulab jamuns to take back to our hotel with us.  Man, I was stuffed but the sweet and delectable dessert was too good to pass up.  

After I finished all that, I seriously considered getting a scotch for an after dinner drink.  But I had already had a couple Kingfishers and I needed to drive back to the hotel.  And since it was night and I wasn't familiar with the area, I thought it was best to pay up and head back to the hotel.  Besides, they were starting to close up for the night and I'm sure they didn't want me hanging out any longer than I needed to be there.  

Had the first Indian restaurant I had gone to had beer to go along with the meal, I would have never found Royal Tandoor.  I have to say, the food at Royal Tandoor was some of the best Indian food I've had in my travels.  It was also probably the most pimped-out Indian restaurant I've ever been in.  Well, that's probably harsh to some - let's just say that it was the most visually loud Indian restaurant I've ever been in.  I can't say enough about the hospitality shown to me by Sanjeev and Amaresh during my visit.  They did a great job of making a single diner feel comfortable and the little touches such as the complementary mini-samosa and the gulab jamun were deeply appreciated.  I tried to talk a couple friends I ran into at the trade show into go there with me a second night, but they declined.  It was their loss as Royal Tandoor was an outstanding - and somewhat lucky - choice.  

Zianos Italian Eatery - Fort Wayne, IN

During a trip back out to Fort Wayne to do a couple days of seminars for our largest account, my colleague from Montreal wanted to go out for some Italian food.  We had gone to Salvatori's, an Italian restaurant with six locations in and around Fort Wayne, on a previous visit.  (Click here to see the Road Tips review on Salvatori's.)  I suggested we take a look at some other Italian restaurants around the area.  I found a couple that weren't too far from our hotel and I did a mental coin-flip and settled on a place called Zianos Italian Eatery for dinner that evening.  

George Rongos grew up in the small village of Polykerasos, Greece and immigrated to the U.S. in 1954.  He ended up in Fort Wayne where relatives from Greece had moved to years before.  George was 18 when he got to the U.S. and couldn't speak English.  On top of that, George wasn't properly schooled in his home country and couldn't read or write in his native Greek language.  

Less than a year after George got to Fort Wayne, he got a job at a steel mill that was just west of the downtown area of the city.  George willed himself to learn how to speak, read and write the English language and turned out to be a quick learner.  In 1965, he married a Greek girl - Eleni - who had also immigrated to the U.S.

Just across from the steel plant was a small grocery store - Joe's Grocery.  George would go into Joe's Grocery on a regular basis and would half-jokingly say that he was going to own the place one day.  When Joe died in 1985, his widow wanted to sell the business.  By this time George Rongos had over 30 years in at the steel plant and was eligible for retirement.  George and Eleni bought the grocery store with an eye on changing a few things up.  

George and Eleni were frustrated that a grocery store in Fort Wayne didn't have some of the basics needed for traditional Greek cuisine.  They would go to Chicago to buy the foods and ingredients for the recipes Eleni had brought from Greece.  But they also realized that there wasn't a place that offered ingredients for Mexican food, for Middle Eastern food, for Eastern European food, and for Northern Africa cuisine - cultures that had settled in Fort Wayne in the 1950's, 60's, 70's and into the 80's.  

George would go to food purveyors in Chicago and buy all different types of international foods for his clientele.  If someone would come in and ask for something, George would do some investigating and would find a distributor who sold the item.  George's Grocery eventually turned into George's International Market.  

Pictured right - Eleni and George Rongos.  Photo courtesy Salsa Grille Facebook page.  

Eleni and George had five children - Judy, Mike, Jimmy, Chris and Jerry.  All five children worked in the grocery store growing up with the parents instilling an ethic of hard work and attention to detail into each of their kids.  When George and Eleni decided to retire from the business in 1997, Chris and Jerry Rongos took over the business from their parents.  That same year, George's International Market moved to its present day location just south of downtown Fort Wayne.  (Chris and Jerry Rongos eventually opened a fast casual Mexican restaurant - Salsa Grille - attached to the grocery store.  Using ingredients sourced from George's International Market and making their own line of various salsa, Salsa Grille became a popular destination.  There are now five Salsa Grille locations in the greater Fort Wayne area.)  

Jimmy Rongos got into the property investment business and became a partner in Liddell Investments, a Fort Wayne-based property management firm.  Some of the properties Liddell Investments owned were restaurants and night clubs.   In 2009, Jimmy took the plunge into the restaurant world opening Zianos Italian Eatery.  The restaurant became a local favorite for their family-friendly offerings at an affordable price.  Today there are three Zianos Italian Eateries around Fort Wayne.

The original one is on Covington Road on the city's southwest side.  This is the one that my colleague and I ended up when we went to Zianos for dinner.  (see map)  It's located on the corner of a strip mall just off Jefferson Ave, the main road into central Fort Wayne from that side of town.  It's not a big place on the inside and pretty generic looking in terms of the overall atmosphere.   We noticed a lot of people coming in to pick up "to-go" orders, including pizza.  The place seemed to be popular with families.  

We took a seat at a table on one side of the restaurant.  Our server that evening was a young lady by the name of Abbi.  After leaving us a couple menus, she came out a big later with a plate of complementary bruschetta for the table.  We both ordered a couple Peroni beers they had on tap to start out.  The bruschetta was very good and a nice start to our experience at Zianos.  

Looking through the menu, I was sort of taken aback by the pricing.  Not that it was outrageous, just the opposite.  It appeared to be a great value up and down the menu.  Appetizers such as baked ravioli, meatballs with mozzarella and marinara sauce, and garlic cheese bread were all under $7.00.  A small house salad was $2.99, pizzas started out at $10.49 for a 10" size, entrees such as chicken marsala, tilapia Florentine, and fettuccine alfredo with shrimp were all priced under $15.00, and pasta dishes such as spaghetti & meatballs, Fontanini sausage and peppers with penne pasta, and lasagna were all under $11.00.  And each night during the week there's a special meal offered that comes with a meal for $9.49.  No wonder it was a popular place for families!  

My colleague is vegetarian and Zianos had a handful of options on the menu including the pasta primavera shown below.  It was served to him piping hot as you can easily see the steam rising from the plate.  It featured a mixture of fresh broccoli, cauliflower and mushrooms with penne pasta in a white wine butter sauce.  My buddy said that the veggies were cooked perfectly with a bit of a crunch and weren't mushy at all.  He said his meal was a spot-hitter.  

I ended up getting the meat (ground pork/beef) filled ravioli topped with a marinara sauce.  Along with the meal, I got a glass of the Seaglass Pinot Noir.  Grated parmesan and fresh herbs were sprinkled on the top.  I didn't really expect much from the looks of the dish, but from the first bite all apprehension went out the window.  The marinara sauce was tangy and a bit sweet, the pillowy ravioli were easy to cut and the meat inside the ravioli had a great flavor.  I was more than impressed with what I ordered and how well it tasted.  

And on top of that, it was all a great value!  Two beers, a glass of wine and two pasta dinners set us back just under $60 bucks with taxes and a nice tip for Abbi who was on top of things for us during our visit.  It's no wonder families gravitate toward Zianos Italian Eatery because of the great value of the food they serve.  The place is a little generic in atmosphere, but the food more than makes up for the bland surroundings.  We were both more than happy with what we got and did I mention that Zianos was a great value?  That's something you don't exactly see in restaurants these days.