After dinner one night, we were walking along the streets of the French Quarter of Charleston enjoying the evening vibe the historic district had to offer. We came upon a place where people were lined up out the door to get into. It turned out it was a cafe/dessert bar that was very popular with the locals and tourists alike. A quick look at the menu convinced us that we had to get in line to have some dessert at Carmella's Cafe and Dessert Bar.
Brian Solari was born into an Italian family of chefs and food purveyors. The matriarch of the family was his Italian-immigrant grandmother Carmella who cooked recipes that had been passed down generations from the old country in Italy in her kitchen in South Philadelphia. Solari's family business was as distributors of Italian meats and delicacies in New Jersey and his uncle Dennis was a chef at an Italian restaurant. He had other relatives who owned dessert cafes around Philadelphia and they were all very well known. In 1993, grandma Carmella moved to Charleston to retire and two years later Brian moved to Charleston to go to college there.
Solari always felt that Charleston had a bit of European charm down to the cobblestone streets in the French Quarter and how people walked with ease about the neighborhood. One thing that Solari felt Charleston needed was an Italian-style dessert cafe - similar to the ones that were on Italian piazzas, and like the ones his relatives ran in and around Philadelphia.
Pictured right - Brian Solari. Photo courtesy Carmella's Cafe and Dessert Bar website.
Solari partnered with the Blandford family who owned a commercial construction company that did the build out on an old building in Charleston's French Quarter. In October of 2014, Carmella's Cafe & Dessert Bar opened. In December of 2023, a second location opened in Greenville, SC and plans are in the making for a third location in Columbia, SC sometime in 2025.
The line moved pretty quickly and we were inside within a couple minutes. Carmella's was packed that evening with people lined up at the marble-topped bar. The menu for the cafe was posted on flatscreen televisions behind the bar. Carmella's also has sandwiches, breakfast items, pizza-by-the-slice, and gourmet cookies including a lemon ricotta cookie that definitely caught my eye.
Carmella's isn't a large place with a few tables along the original inner brick wall of the building. With the door open on a warm and humid evening, the air conditioning was doing the best it could to keep up with the crush of people in the place. Fans mounted high on the wall helped keep the air moving to try and keep everyone comfortable.
While waiting in line we encountered the cake and pastry counter. They had tiramisu in a dessert cup, cannoli, key lime pie, and a lemon/blueberry cheesecake that made my legs buckle when I saw that. There was a honey orange cake that was a vanilla cake filled with a light orange curd and topped with a Swiss honey buttercream. Yum!!! Some of the pastries available at Carmella's come from recipes by way of Brian Solari's chef uncle Dennis who was mentored in pastry baking by world-renowned pastry chef Biagio Settepani of Bruno's Italian Bakery in New York City.
Carmella's is known for their "boozy" milk shakes and they have a full bar if you're looking for a cocktail or craft beer. Wine was also available along with specialty cocktails including hot and frozen drinks, and milk shakes such as a lemon vodka, lemonade, limoncello and vanilla gelato shake; and one with espresso liqueur, creme de cacao, and mascarpone gelato - basically a tiramisu drunken shake. Now, both of those also made my knees buckle when I was looking at them on the menu!
Of course, Carmella's has coffee, cappuccino, espresso and lattes, as well as gelato and sorbetto. My wife saw something at she had to try - The Resurrection. It featured espresso vodka (didn't know there was such a thing as espresso vodka or espresso liqueur until I went to Carmella's), espresso and espresso gelato. I told my wife that she was going to be drunk and awake all night!
I had to go with an affogato made with espresso and vanilla gelato. And for good measure, I had them put a shot of amaretto in with it. A spot had opened at the bar by the time our dessert drinks were served to us.
Oh my GOD!!! I love affogato, but I love it more with some sort of liqueur poured in with the gelato and espresso. It was so good to enjoy some gelato and get a buzz from the espresso and the amaretto.
From the first sip my wife took, she went, "My god", as well. "This is lethal," she laughingly exclaimed. I had a drink of it and - boy - did it taste good. We were just blown away at how good these dessert drinks were. But I was also blown away at the price. It was $24.50 before tax and tip. I suppose that's what happens when you add alcohol to already decadent dessert drinks.
We never made it back to Carmella's Cafe and Dessert Bar during our time in Charleston. And it's probably a good thing. The dessert pastries, cakes and cookies were enticing enough, but the boozy shakes and the chance to add liqueur to affogato was just plain sinful. It was so wickedly good and that it is probably outlawed in some areas of the U.S. What a great find Carmella's was! It makes me want to go back to Charleston tomorrow.
We were doing some training at our account in Fort Wayne recently and my colleague suggested that we go get some donuts for the staff. One of our former colleagues used to bring donuts in for the staff when he called on them years ago. I texted him and said, "What's the name of that place that had the good donuts here in Fort Wayne?" Seconds later, he texted back, "Rise 'n Roll." I had just driven by Rise 'n Roll earlier that day and I noticed the sign on the front of their building. The next morning, we went over to Rise 'n Roll to pick up a bunch of donuts.
Orvin and Viola Bontrager ran a cedar cabinet shop in Shipshewana. a small Amish community in far northern Indiana about 20 miles from Elkhart. Viola had a family recipe for donuts that had been passed down through generations which included a cinnamon/sugar donut and a caramel-frosted donut. Orvin asked Viola, "Why don't we combine the two?" The cinnamon/sugar-caramel donut was born and Viola began to sell them and other baked goods from her front porch in Shipshewana in 2001.
It wasn't long before word of Viola's amazing donuts and baked goods got out and people flocked to her house to buy up all the donuts and pastries she had to offer. They moved their baking operation to the basement of the cabinet shop which didn't have electricity or refrigeration. Everything was made by hand including mixing the ingredients - made with no preservatives, cutting the donuts and storing them on racks that would be sold later in the day.
Business got so good that the Bontragers were forced to move to a baking/retail facility about 7 miles away in Middlebury, IN in 2004. That facility also did not have electricity, gas or any modern technology and no preservatives were included in the recipes that expanded to candy crunch, apple fritters and peanut butter-filled danish. Busloads of tourists would converge on the Rise 'n Roll location in Middlebury on any given day.
In 2009, a non-Amish family made the Bontragers an offer they couldn't refuse and purchased Rise 'n Roll with an eye on expanding the business via franchising. The new owners kept Orvin Bontrager on the payroll as the company's quality control director.
The first thing the new owners did was to build a bigger bakery outside of Middlebury along US Highway 20. This facility brought Rise 'n Roll into the modern world with industrial mixers, large refrigeration units, and a donut maker that pushed the donut rolls out rather than having them hand cut. The consistency of the donuts changed, but Bontrager made sure that the recipes were tweaked to carry on the traditional Amish flavors that made the Rise 'n Roll donuts so famous - still without using preservatives!
To get the word out, Rise 'n Roll and started to do pop-up shops in South Bend, Chicago and Indianapolis. The cinnamon/sugar-caramel donuts were by far the favorites of people in the urban areas and they quickly gained the nickname of "Amish Crack" donuts. Of course, the people involved with Rise 'n Roll didn't like the term for their delicious donuts, but decided that they couldn't really do anything about it.
In the spring of 2016, Orvin Bontrager left Rise 'n Roll and along with his wife and another lady they opened an Amish gift shop - Rise 'n Shine - located about a mile-and-a-half north of Rise 'n Roll. The ownership group for Rise 'n Roll used a corporate headhunter to find their next director of the bakery and found him in Russ Crawford, a graduate of the baking sciences program at Kansas State University and the American Institute of Baking.
After a stint working for Donut (Doughnut) Corporation of America - the company who made the mixes for chains such as Krispy Kreme, Donutland, and Dunkin' Donuts - Crawford was overseeing the operations of the bakery and deli locations for a chain of grocery stores in North Carolina. When the opportunity to come to Indiana to work for a real bakery came about, Crawford didn't hesitate. Rise 'n Roll had grown to a 20,000 square foot bakery with over 60 Amish or Mennonite workers cranking out donuts, pastries and candy crunch pouches starting at 12:30 a.m. six days a week. Crawford was instrumental in coming up with new mixtures and toppings for the donuts and pastries.
Rise 'n Roll franchises began to pop up around the state of Indiana with Phil Reiman opening the first Fort Wayne Rise 'n Roll location in the late summer of 2014. The Rise 'n Roll bakery would bake the donuts and pastries in the early morning hours and trucks would deliver them to the franchises in places as far away as Indianapolis, nearly 3 hours from Middlebury. Most of the franchises offered baked goods and Amish-made gifts and crafts, while others offered deli sandwiches for breakfast and lunch. Today, there are 15 Rise 'n Roll locations mainly around northern Indiana.
We pulled up to the Rise 'n Roll location on West Illinois Road west of downtown Fort Wayne around 8:00 a.m. (see map) (There is a second Fort Wayne Rise 'n Roll on the city's far north side.) I didn't really know the drill about getting donuts and I tried to see if I could order in advance on their web site, but it didn't give me the option. It turned out that I didn't have to worry about that as there was no line to get donuts.
There were three ladies - all cheery and effervescent in their demeanor - behind the counter that day. My colleague had eaten the "Amish Crack" donuts before and said that our former colleague would just get nothing but the cinnamon sugar/caramel donuts. But looking through the case, I saw a lot more donuts that I wanted to try.
They had a lemon cake donut, a blueberry cake donut, powered sugar donuts, caramel frosted donuts, maple bars, caramel frosted creme-filled danish, and other assorted donuts and pastries that looked delicious. My mouth was watering just looking at all the fresh baked goods they had to offer.
I figured we were going to get about 75 to 80 guys to come to our training sessions and I knew that not all would be walking in early in the day. Still, it's tough to say "no" to a good donut at any part of the day. I ended up asking the ladies to give us an assortment of 5 dozen donuts. We took a dozen and a half of the cinnamon sugar/caramel donuts, but had the ladies pick out three-and-a-half more dozen donuts including the caramel frosted donuts, the lemon cake donuts and some of the frosted bars. My colleague fancied the powered sugar donuts and we got three of those. All in all, we walked out with about $85 bucks worth of donuts, pastries and other baked goods.
We had a couple folding tables in our training room and I used one to put the donuts on. I had to have one of the caramel frosted donuts to start out. Oh, my GOD - it was one of the best donuts I ever had! The caramel frosting was sweet and smooth, and the donut was light, airy and almost melted in my mouth.
I knew that if I had another donut, I might have gone into a sugar coma. As people started to come in for the training sessions, more and more of the donuts started to disappear. Then, some genius came in with a plastic knife and cut one of the caramel frosted donuts in half. What a great idea! I didn't have to eat a full donut - I could cut off portions and try them that way!
I did that with the lemon cake donut and the blueberry cake donut. Both were very good with a bit of a crunchy outer shell. I wondered why Rise 'n Roll didn't combine the lemon and blueberry cake donut together.
Of course, I had to try some of the cinnamon sugar/caramel "crack donuts". Now, a couple bites of that almost sent me over the edge. I swear that I started to get hives on my arms because I was having a reaction to the sugar overload I was experiencing. The donuts were very delicious and almost sinful to eat.
As the day wore on, I noticed something - nearly all the other types of donuts other than the cinnamon/sugar and caramel donuts were gone. At one point, all we had left were 10 of the "crack donuts" (out of 18 that we originally got) and two of the three powered sugar donuts that my colleague had requested. He looked at the box with the remaining donuts, sort of laughed and said, "I guess I was the only one who likes the white donuts!" We surmised that these guys probably have access to the cinnamon/sugar and caramel donuts all the time from other people bringing them in for trainings that they wanted to try other flavors.
At the end of the day, we had 3 of the "Amish Crack" donuts left. My colleague offered them to the crew that was sent in to help us tear down and pack up our equipment. The two young ladies and the young guy on the crew were more than eager to finish off the remaining donuts - even at 4 p.m. in the afternoon. My colleague said, "Wow, man! When you ordered five dozen donuts, I was like, 'Really? Five dozen?' But you were almost spot on!"
The Urban Dictionary has an entry for Rise 'n Roll's cinnamon/sugar and caramel donuts - "Amish Crack". It's a name that Rise 'n Roll's ownership/management group has embraced as a loving tribute by their fans and customers. While the cinnamon/sugar and caramel donuts could be called addicting, it turns out that Rise 'n Roll has so much more in terms of donuts, pastries and other baked goods that I think surpass and possibly eclipse the "Amish Crack" donuts. Now that I know about the allure of Rise 'n Roll, I'm sure I'll be stopping by again and again on trips out to Fort Wayne.
When you're on vacation, you have to pamper yourself a little bit. You don't want to feel bad about having a guilty pleasure or two along the way. During our trip to Asheville, NC earlier this year, we had passed a place that seemed to be very popular while we were there. After a very good dinner one evening, we were walking back to our hotel and we decided to stop into the French Broad Chocolate Lounge and see why people were standing dozens deep outside the front door.
By happenstance, Jael Skeffington and Dan Rattigan met at her brother's wedding in the Twin Cities in 2003 - she was in the wedding party, while he was the bartender at the reception. The two got to know each other as the smitten Jael hung around the bar. It turned out that they were both grad students at the University of Minnesota - she was in business school and he was in law school. Jael told Dan that she was getting ready to go to Costa Rica for an environmental business conference in a couple of days. It turned out that Dan was also an environmentalist. Jael got on the plane to go to Costa Rica and Dan decided not long after that he wanted to follow her down there. He followed her to Central America, the two soon fell in love and ended up in a small village by the name of Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean coast.
Dan and Jael returned to Minnesota, but soon decided to drop out of graduate school. They procured a vegetable oil-powered school bus and drove it over 3600 miles all the way back down to Puerto Viejo. The couple soon bought a small - 5 acre - cacao farm and started a small cafe and dessert shop by the name of Bread and Chocolate. The couple soon married and learned the craft of chocolatiering from locals and from books, making chocolates from their cacao trees on their little farm in the kitchen of their little cafe.
Pictured right - Dan and Jael Rattigan. Photo courtesy Mountain Xpress.
Within a couple of years they had a young son and were thinking that it was time to go back to the States. Upon the recommendation of customers who came to their little cafe, the family decided to load up the bus and head up to Asheville to start a new life. The Rattigans started out making chocolate desserts in their kitchen and began to sell them at local farmers markets. They quickly garnered a reputation for having some of the best chocolate treats around.
They moved the newly named French Broad Chocolates out of their house and into a small store front on Asheville's Lexington Ave. in 2008. There, they sold chocolate desserts, truffles, cakes, cookies and hot chocolate drinks. And tapping into the burgeoning craft beer movement in the area, the couple also sold locally brewed beers and wine. But it wasn't long before the couple found that they were quickly outgrowing the Lexington Ave. location.
In 2014, French Broad Chocolate Lounge opened in their present location on Pack Square in downtown Asheville. (see map) There is also a chocolate factory and a tasting room for French Broad Chocolates on Buxton Street just south of downtown Asheville. (see map) Today, the Rattigans employ 70 people and even though they still harvest over 500 pounds of cacao beans annually from their Costa Rican property, they also get cacao from Peru and Nicaragua. The couple also provides a living wage and a cost-sharing insurance plan for their employees, and the French Broad Chocolate Lounge is one of the top "green" restaurants in the nation honored by the Green Restaurant Association for their solar hot water system and the energy efficient appliances they use. (French Broad Chocolates will also ship anywhere in the U.S. Click here to go to their ordering page.)
The first night we were in Asheville, it was the Sunday night of a holiday weekend. The line to get into French Broad Chocolate Lounge was stretching out the door and down the street. A couple nights later when we went by, the line was still out the door, but a much less amount of people were standing in line. Actually, by the time we got to the counter, the line was probably 25 to 30 people standing in line out the door and onto the sidewalk. We thought our timing was impeccable.
We only had to wait a few moments to get up to the front counter where you place your order. The menu was on a chalk board and featured a number of desserts, chocolate confections, cookies, brownies, different types of cakes, truffles and caramels. By the time we got to the counter to see what they offered, our heads were already spinning with the choices we had.
It only got worse when we made it up to order our desserts. They make all of their ice cream in-house at French Broad Chocolates. The swirling, creamy texture of the ice cream was almost too good to pass up.
The case holding the cheesecakes, brownies, cookies and other delectable items was also calling my name. I saw a cheesecake that literally jumped out and grabbed me by the collar and said, "You HAVE to get a piece of me, man!"
We lingered long and hard at the truffle and caramel case. There were over a dozen varieties of truffles and a like number of coated caramels available. We made a decision to try a little bit of everything. My wife wanted ice cream. I wanted cheesecake. We both saw truffles that we wanted. By the time we were finished ordering at the register, it was well over a $20 bill for what we got.
I ended up getting the key lime cheesecake - the one that was screaming at me to order it - that was made with a ginger cracker crust. Drizzles of chocolates lined the sides of the cheesecake slice. And it was heavenly and sinful at the same time. The creaminess of the key lime cheesecake literally melted in my mouth. It was so rich and full of flavor. It was simply killer.
My wife went with a scoop of the Costa Rican chocolate ice cream. She offered me a bite, but I declined - I usually don't eat much chocolate, but she insisted that I take a bite. It was unlike any chocolate ice cream that I've ever had. The chocolate flavor burst open in my mouth. It was creamy and literally melted across my tongue. Wow! It was certainly something else.
Of course, we had to get truffles. The guy at the front counter who we ordered from said that his favorite was the horchata truffle - it featured white chocolate mixed with cinnamon and vanilla, then drizzled with milk chocolate and sprinkled with toasted rice. We had to have one each of those. My wife also got hazelnut crunch truffle - it featured milk chocolate with ground hazelnut butter and caramelized hazelnut bits, then covered with dark chocolate. For my other choice, I got maple and smoked salt truffle. It featured local farm maple syrup mixed with organic butter and dipped in a blend of milk and dark chocolate, then sprinkled with smoked salt.
The truffles were some of the best that we've ever had. The taste sensations that went on with each truffle we tried were mind-blowing. We've had the truffles from Christopher Elbow Chocolates in Kansas City (our late neighbor lady was a great aunt to Christopher Elbow) and we thought those may have been the best we've ever tried. But the ones we had at French Broad were easily on par - if not better - than the Christopher Elbow truffles. They were just that good.
So, we figured out why the lines snaked out the door and down the street in front of French Broad Chocolate Lounge. The desserts are world class, pure and simple. The key lime cheesecake with the ginger crust was scrumptious, I had never experienced the taste explosion that I had with the Costa Rican chocolate ice cream, and the truffles were sinfully wonderful. I don't know how anyone could show any restraint at French Broad Chocolate Lounge with all the tasty and delectable desserts they have to offer. We were scared to go back in the mornings for coffee and espresso because we knew we'd go overboard on the desserts. Our visit there was truly one of the highlights of our trip to Asheville.
A number of years ago, my wife and I were somewhat smitten by the pastries a young lady would make and her parents would sell at one of the farmers markets in Davenport. She branched out to sell some of her pastries at local establishments through the week. Suddenly, she was gone - much to our dismay, but also somewhat thankful because the decadent pastries she made were adding pounds to our bodies. We had been hearing for awhile that she had been looking for a spot to sell her pastries, but nothing ever came about. For a long while, her business was dormant - she was working as a bartender (more on that in a moment) - until I heard about three months ago that she had secured a spot in downtown Davenport to reopen her business - the French Rose Bakery & Cafe.
The proprietor of the French Rose Bakery is a young lady by the name of Jennifer Ewert (pictured right). She grew up on the west side of Davenport and studied as a pastry chef at The French Pastry School in Chicago. Her baking facility was in an addition to her parents house on the west side of town. Her baking prowess became so popular that she would run out of pastries from time to time, much to my disappointment on certain days. She really wanted to get a place where she could bake and sell her pastries. I had heard that she was looking at a former bank along Kimberly Road to put her bakery in, but that fell through - as did a spot in the East Village of Davenport that I heard she was looking at at one point. Suddenly, she was gone. While I was unhappy that she was no longer baking, I was sort of relieved that I wasn't going to balloon to 400 pounds from eating her great eclairs and cinnamon rolls.
Let's go forward to 2014. I'd met Jennifer a couple of times, but it had been a long time since I had last seen her - probably 2009 or so. I had a buddy who owned the former Creekside Bar and Grill (now called the Bike Rack Bar & Grill) and I used to go in there on a somewhat regular basis. One evening, I was in there with my wife and she looked over at one of the female bartenders. She said, "You know who that is, don't you?" I told her I didn't. She said, "It's Jennifer from the French Rose Bakery." Sure enough, it was! Jennifer had been bartending for nearly a year at Creekside and I never made the connection. (My wife always says I'm not very observant.)
I called my buddy Randy over and said, "Do you know that you have a world class pastry chef working as a bartender?" He never knew of Jennifer's hidden talent. He just knew that she was a good bartender and was great with the patrons.
In fact, it was Randy who told me earlier this summer that Jennifer was getting back into baking and that she had found a spot in downtown Davenport to sell her goods. I was wondering where it would be - there was an old Quizno's sandwich shop that had stood empty for awhile, along with a couple of other spots that were open spaces. But then I found out that she would be setting up in what used to be a small sandwich shop inside the former Wells Fargo building in downtown Davenport. (In April, Wells Fargo moved to their new location a couple blocks away in the City Square building after 90 years in their iconic downtown building.) She now does her baking a floor below her shop in a basement room that was one used to count money at the bank.
Jennifer had a soft opening on July 28, the same weekend as the Downtown Davenport Street Fest and the Bix 7 road race. I was working the stage area for the street fest just behind the former Wells Fargo building and I went in to talk to her. She was handing out free samples with a friend of hers who was helping out and she seemed to be getting a steady stream of traffic. I asked her if she had any of her delicious maple eclairs that I loved so much and she told me, "No, not today. Sorry. But I will have them next week!"
Next week couldn't get here fast enough for me. I couldn't get down there on Monday or Tuesday, but I did make the time to get down there on Wednesday. The entrance to her cafe is just inside the door of 220 N. Main toward the back side of the building. (see map) She has a little chalkboard sign on the sidewalk pointing the way into her little bakery/cafe. Jennifer wasn't there - she and her mother, Mary, were delivering sandwiches to a law firm in the building while I was there. But she had a co-worker who waited on me.
The French Rose Bakery & Cafe is not big. There's no seating and it's carry out only. In addition to her baked goods, she also has a couple panini sandwiches on a lunch menu. The girl working behind the counter said they're probably going to expand the baked goods and sandwich offerings as time goes on, but they're just trying to get their feet wet for the time being.
Jennifer did have maple eclairs that day, in addition to her wonderful cinnamon rolls with a buttercream frosting. I picked up some maple eclairs for me and I knew that my wife would kill me if I didn't bring home a couple chocolate eclairs for her.
The eclairs are sinfully decadent with a large amount of cream filling packed inside. The maple flavored frosting was exactly what I remembered for over five years ago, giving the eclair its signature sweet taste. One is not enough, but two are almost too rich for me. They are just unbelievably great in their taste.
Just this week, Jennifer received the first ever "Know Your Worth" grant from the Royal Neighbors Foundation. She was presented with a check for $10,000 that will help with her start-up costs at the bakery. Jennifer is hoping at some point to be able to expand her business including having her own pastry truck with her face on the side of it. (Click here to see the full story with a video from WQAD.)
I promised Jennifer that I would do an update after she opened up - she didn't know it was me who did the original entry on the French Rose Bakery in 2009. (Click here to see that entry.) While I'm glad she's back in the baking business, my waistline is screaming, "Noooo!!!" And my bathroom scales are girding for added pounds in the coming weeks. I'm going to have to use a lot of discipline to not keep going back on a regular basis to have a couple of the maple eclairs or a cinnamon roll. Do yourself a favor if you live in or if you're visiting the Quad Cities and go check out the great pastries or have a sandwich at the French Rose Bakery and Cafe.
(French Rose Bakery & Cafe is open Monday's 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday thru Thursday from 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Friday from 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Closed on Saturday and Sunday.)
There is one main highway around the perimeter of Kauai - north of Lihue, it is known as the Kuhio Highway; west of Lihue, it becomes the Kaumualii Highway. Our first day on Kauai, we had taken a right out of our hotel to head up to the North shore of Kauai. Our second day, we went left toward Lihue and the south shore and the west side of the island.
There's not much to Lihue. It's a nondescript small Hawaiian town that has a handful of resorts, vacation condos, with a few shops and places to eat. We spent little time in Lihue, opting to go further west along the Kaumualii Highway to visit the small villages and head up toward the Waimea Canyon.
Kauai is the oldest of the Hawaiian Islands, first formed over 5 million years ago from a volcano rising from the floor of the Pacific Ocean. The volcano erupted continuously for over a million years before part of the island collapsed forming the core of the Waimea Canyon from the lava flows. After the volcano quit erupting, erosion from rain falling on the upward slopes of Kauai carved out more of the features on the west side of the canyon with the east side of the canyon a deep red color from the basalt rock that has weathered over the centuries. Much of Kauai is covered with the deep red dirt - it's sort of the official color of Kauai.
The lookout over the canyon is an 11 mile drive up the side of the mountain from the small village of Kekaha. (see map) While it is called the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, the view of the ocean on the drive back down toward Kekaha is nearly equally as breathtaking as the colorful scenery of the canyon. There is an expansive view of the ocean looking out toward the small island of Niihau, also known as the Forbidden Island. Privately owned, Niihau is one of only three places on earth where most modern technology is eschewed in favor of natural living. Solar power is the only power available on the island, there is no running water as rain catchment systems provide fresh water, there are no paved roads, and there are no stores, restaurants or hotels on the island. Nearly all of the 130 residents on the island speak the native Hawaiian language and rely upon boats to bring products from nearby Kauai. And by seeing Niihau off Kauai's coast, this was the last of the main Hawaiian Islands that we've either visited or have seen in the distance.
We tried to go to the western part of the island - we had read that Polihale State Park had the longest beach on all of the Hawaiian Islands, but it turned out that the road that took you to the beach was pock-marked and bumpy. We had also read at the Hertz rental place that rental cars were forbidden to use the road to Polihale. Well, we had to go see for ourselves. Sure enough, the old sugar cane hauling road was bumpy and slow going. We decided to bag the trip to the beach - a four-wheel drive vehicle would have been the preferred way to travel the road.
Along the west side of roads of Kauai were military installations and some mysterious farms. It turns out that the farms are owned by large bio-tech firms such as Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto, BASF and DuPont - all of which are engaging in the experimentation of growing Genetically Modified crops on the island. "No GMO's" signs were all over the island and we didn't really understand what was going on until we found the farms along backroads on the west side. Many residents of the island - especially on the west side - have been resisting the GMO farms, primarily due to the excessive amount of pesticides they use in the process of growing the genetically modified organisms. However, there are other island residents who recognize the economic benefits the big bio-tech companies bring to the party. The GMO farms are a polarizing topic for the residents of Kauai.
Just past the small town of Kekaha is the village of Waimea. Waimea literally means "red dirt" in the Hawaiian language and there was a lot of red dirt on Kauai, especially on the west side of the island. The orange/copper color was sort of the unofficial color of Kauai - lots of shirts, hats and other articles of clothing were available in the deep red color. There was a black sand beach at Waimea and we found it as we were driving around the area.
There's a nice pier at the beach at Waimea. We walked out to the end of the pier and hung out for awhile taking pictures and taking in the beautiful scenery. The weather along the South shore of Kauai was sunny and hot. The winds coming off the ocean made it tolerable, however.
Waimea can best be described as a lazy little town. NO ONE was in a hurry on what was a beautiful mid-week day. This town was the personification of a laid back lifestyle.
There were a number of shops along the main highway through town. Most of them were touristy-type places, but there were small markets that featured island grown fruits and vegetables. It was kind of fun to look through the different types of food they had to offer.
Also along the main road was what appeared to be a farmers market going on. It was on the grounds of an abandoned sugar mill and it featured primarily arts and crafts. A man was singing Hawaiian songs accompanying himself on a guitar.
We hung around for a bit looking at things before we got back in the car to head down the road. Our next stop was to the beach at Salt Pond Beach Park near the small town of Hanapepe. (see map) There are a handful of salt ponds where sea salt is harvested in ancient traditional Hawaiian ways that date back centuries. Of all the islands in the Hawaiian Archipelago, Kauai is the only one that has ponds where sea salt is harvested by hand - much of it very labor intensive. (Read more on the harvesting of Kauai sea salt by clicking here.)
The beach at Salt Pond Beach Park was of a crescent shape with some rock reefs just off shore. This beach is also a haven for monk seals, an endangered mammal that makes Hawaii their home. Signs along the beach warned people not to go further toward the water as not to disturb the monk seals. A solitary monk seal was lying on the rocks near the shore and we wondered if this was the monk seal that was viciously attacked by a young Hawaiian man days earlier. Fortunately, the attack was caught on camera and the young man was arrested. We were told that some islanders have a hatred of the monk seals because authorities have closed off long-time fishing and surfing areas for secure places for the seals.
We drove through Hanapepe, a small art community that were told had a great Friday night artist's night with displays, music and food (we didn't go). And then we drove to the south and east of the small town to the home of the largest coffee plantation in Hawaii - the Kauai Coffee Estate.
Kauai was the first island to product coffee beginning back in 1836. As sugar plantations closed down, coffee trees were planted in many of the plantations including the Mcbryde plot which had over 3000 acres of land. Today, the Kauai Coffee Estates produce more than half of the coffee beans grown in Hawaii. They had a little visitors center where you could buy coffee and sample some of the coffee they had, and they had both guided and self-guided tours of areas of the plantation to show how coffee beans were harvested before the advent of modern harvesting methods. We took the self-guided tour - it lasted about 15 to 20 minutes - and then got some coffee in the visitor's center before we decided to get the hell out of there since two tour buses pulled up while we were there.
We ended up heading over toward Poipu and a natural geyser that we'd read about - the Spouting Horn at Spouting Horn Beach Park. (see map) When waves crash underneath the lava rock, a spout of water is forced up through a blowhole and creates a geyser. Depending upon how big the waves are and how high the tide is, the spray can reach up to 50 feet in height. It was actually pretty cool to see. With the crashing waves under the rock, it made an interesting "whooshing" sound before the spray geyser came up out of the hole.
I did a video of the Spouting Horn geyser. Click on "play" below if you'd like to see the short video of what it was like -
On the opposite side of the viewing area was an area of black lava rock where the waves were crashing hard. Here's a short video of that -
From there, we drove over to Popui Beach, the main part of a number of upscale resorts and condos in the area. We didn't get out to walk along the beach mainly because of the number of people that were there and lack of parking in the immediate area. That was fine with us - you see one beach, you've seen them all. Well, not really...
North of Koloa going back toward the Kaumualii Highway is a stretch of eucalyptus trees that forms a natural tunnel - the Kauai Tree Tunnel. We tried to get a good picture of the trees, but it was sort of difficult when you're traveling 40 miles an hour down the road in a line of cars. I got this picture from National Geographic. But I have to tell you, this picture wasn't quite indicative of the stretch of eucalyptus trees that we saw. When Hurricane Iniki hit Kauai 26 years ago, it stripped most of the branches from the trees - at least the ones that weren't blown down. There were some sparse looking areas along the road. Local guide books oversold the Kauai Tree Tunnel.
We stopped in Lihue at the Kalapaki Beach which was the main beach for the Kauai Beach Marriott Resort and the Nawiliwili Harbor. The Harbor is home to a number of small boats and can handle large cargo ships and cruise ships. To the west of the harbor is Niumalu Beach Park, a small beach primarily used by kayakers and made famous as the backdrop for opening scenes from the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark.
We were told by a friend of mine that when we were in Lihue we needed to stop into a place by the name of Hamura Saimin and get a piece of their lilikoi chiffon pie. It turns out that their lilikoi (passion fruit) chiffon pie is pretty famous. It was a little difficult to find the place - it was off the main street going into the heart of Lihue and I'm not certain I would have found it if it weren't for our GPS. (see map)
The place isn't all that big - it featured three low counters with a big window looking into the kitchen. Their specialty is saimin, a Japanese/Hawaiian noodle soup that is served in a broth. Shrimp, won tons, and barbecued beef or chicken can be added to the saimin. Even late in the afternoon they had a good crowd of people in there eating saimin.
But the pie was, well, out of this world. Cindy and I shared a piece ($3.25 per piece - $3.50 if you go it to go). The meringue on top of the pie was light and fluffy, but the heart of the lilikoi chiffon was heavenly. I love the taste of lilikoi in just about anything - it's especially good in margaritas, I've found. But this pie was simply wonderful. And it was very rich. We contemplated getting a second piece of pie, but it was getting late in the day and we didn't want to spoil our dinner plans we had a couple hours later.
Finally, just north of Lihue was another somewhat famous landmark - Wailua Falls. Off the main highway and a three mile drive up into the hills above Lihue, the overlook to the falls is easily accessible. (see map)
The falls drop 80 feet into a pool of water that feeds the last three miles of the Wailua River. The falls are also famous as the backdrop for part of the the opening segment of the late 70's/early 80's television program Fantasy Island. ("Da plane! Da Plane!") I never really watched that show, so I had to go back to YouTube to find the opening segment to see the falls. (Click here to see the original show introduction.)
Here's a short video of the falls that I took -
We were told that normally three flows come over the falls, but with the drought they've been having on the island the water levels in the streams from the mountains feeding the falls have been abnormally low. Had I not known that, I still would have thought the falls were spectacular.
The Western part of Maui was interesting to visit. We liked our time in Waimea and enjoyed the vistas of the Waimea Canyon and the beautiful view down to the ocean. The sunny south side of the island had a different feel than the north shore, but it was still laid back and welcoming. Over toward Poipu and Lihue, it got to be a little more commercial and touristy, but it was still nice. We think we saw everything we wanted to see on the south shore and the west side of the island, but I'm sure we'll read about something that we missed and want to go back to Kauai. And that won't be that bad of a thing...
On our first full day on Kauai, we set out to discover the north shore area of the island. We really didn't know what to expect other than just to follow the Kohui Highway until you couldn't go any further. It turns out that the north shore of Kauai was probably the highlight of our visit to Hawaii.
We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn near Kapaa and just up the way from the hotel off of Kohui Highway were the Opaekaa Falls. (see map) Opaekaa literally means "rolling shrimp" in Hawaiian and the waterfalls were named after the thousands of shrimp that were found in the stream that feeds the falls. The 150 foot waterfall feeds a hidden pool below and the small stream eventually flows into the Wailea River. On the other side of the road from the observation point for the falls was the green and lush Wailua River Valley.
Continuing up the Kohui Highway past Kapaa, we drove about 20 minutes to the small village of Kilauea. Just north of Kilauea is the Kilauea Lighthouse and Wildlife Refuge area. (see map) The lighthouse area was closed that day, as it had been since early January. There was a turnaround point that allowed people to get pictures of the lighthouse in the distance and to watch the Red-footed Booby birds (that's their name - click on the link to look it up) that were nesting in the rocky crevices above the small bay. The park ranger stationed at the fence line was telling us that the lighthouse area was closed to shore up walking trails and for general maintenance. Of course, it was going to open the following Sunday just after we left Kauai.
Speaking of Kilauea, we stopped in the small village to get a coffee. We found a small place in the historic Kong Lung market area called Kilauea Bakery and Pau Hana Pizza. (see map) Nestled back in the courtyard of the open air market, this little bakery had an amazing array of baked goods including some off-the-hook lemon bars and lilikoi-filled pastries. The espresso they made was some of the best I've ever had. We had to come back one more time to get coffee and pastries at this great little place.
The market place - which was the original plantation market for the Kilauea Sugar Plantation dating back 100 years - had an art gallery, a women's boutique, a soap and candle store, and a bistro-style restaurant in addition to the bakery/coffee shop. Cindy bought a couple things in the art studio and took a brief look through the boutique. I wanted to come back and have a meal at The Lighthouse Bistro at some point, but we never had the chance. Next time...
We drove to the very end of the road past Hanalei to the Ke'e Beach. It is just to the east of the famous Na Pali Coast line on the north side of Kauai. (see map) Scenes from the movie Jurassic Park were filmed in the somewhat forbidding landscape of the Na Pali Coast. (Na Pali in Hawaiian means "high cliffs". Some of the cliffs go straight up 4000 feet from the ocean.) Cindy wanted to either take a helicopter ride to see the full Na Pali Coast (too expensive - $300 per person), or take a boat ride along the coast (it was a minimum 3 hour trip and included snorkeling, of which I wasn't interested in at all). So this was the closest we got to the coast.
Just up from Ke'e Beach was the Limahuli National Botanical Garden. It is one of a handful of botanical gardens found on Kauai. It's nestled between the ocean and Makana Mountain, an important landmark to the ancient Hawaiians and the inspiration for a number of local legends. We decided to stop in to walk around the place for awhile. It cost $20 bucks per person to get in - a bargain compared to others we found on the island that wanted as much as $50 per person to walk around their botanical gardens.
The garden featured a number of tropical plants and flowers, fruit trees and exotic bushes. There was a walkway with markings on the trail to point out different species of plants they had on display in the garden. Before we set out on the trail, we were given a guide book to use along the way.
A stream coming down out of the mountains trickled by on the one side of the garden. We were told by the lady at the welcome station that they were in the midst of a drought - although we couldn't tell by the green grass and colorful flowers on display. It was slightly raining - more of a mist - when we were on our little hike through the botanical garden. The lady told us, "We'll take all we can get at this point." It certainly wasn't like our last trip to Hawaii six years ago when streams and ponds were literally dried up.
Makana Mountain towered over the Limahuli valley. This mountain played a key role in what were called 'ōahi ceremonies in ancient Hawaiian culture. When a celebration was called for, men known as fire throwers would climb the mountain, set logs on fire and hurl them out toward the Pacific Ocean after the sun would set, sort of like ancient fireworks. The embers of these logs would drift in the winds coming off the ocean and would sail up to a mile off shore. To make this seem even more crazy - it was considered a badge of honor for ancient Hawaiians to CATCH the embers in their canoes. Sharp ridges that rise out of the mountain are said to depict people who climbed the mountain but didn't come back down.
Makana Mountain is famous as the mountain that is called Bali Hai in the 1958 movie adaptation of South Pacific. Much of the movie was filmed at nearby beaches with Makana Mountain as the backdrop for the mystical island of Bali Hai. The mountain is referred to by its movie name by many to this day. You'll also find a number of businesses on Kauai with Bali Hai incorporated in the name.
The view down to the ocean from the back of the botanical center was a beautiful sight. The clouds literally ended at the ocean front with a beautiful deep blue sea contrasting with the light blue sky. It took us a little over an hour to traverse through the botanical garden.
From the botanical garden, we made it back to Hanalei to do a little looking around. The small village features a number of small shops, restaurants and bars, all with a laid back feeling. This was one of the most chill places I've ever been to. I immediately loved the place.
In Hanalei along the main road in the town was the Wai'oli Hui'ia Church, a place of worship for the outgrowth of Christian ministries that started with missionaries William and Mary Alexander coming to Kauai in a double canoe in the early 1830's. The church was built in 1912 in an American Gothic style by three brothers, Sam, George and Albert Wilcox, sons of former missionary Abner Wilcox. Just after World War II ended, three churches in the area combined to make what is now the present day Wai'oli Hui'ia congregation.
Inside the church was a quaint country-style interior with a number of beautiful stained glass windows. It had withstood two hurricanes before it was extensively damaged during Hurricane Iniki in 1992. The church and the nearby mission hall were both rebuilt and today both structures are on the National Register of Historic Places.
Walking around the little village, we came upon a little tiki bar/restaurant by the name of Tahiti Nui. This little place has been in business since 1963 when Bruce and Louise Marston opened a little cafe in Hanalei. They had met when Bruce was stationed in the United States Air Force in Tahiti in the late 50's. After Bruce retired as a Lt. Colonel, the two were married (Louise had Tahitian royalty in her family lineage) and they moved to Kauai to open the small eatery. Over the years, the Marston family added on to the little place and today it is run by their son, Christian. While tourists were mainly the only ones in the place, it didn't seem to be a tourist trap at all.
Tahiti Nui iasn't all that large and they had a couple guys entertaining the small late afternoon crowd. One man played a slack key guitar (he told the crowd how a slack key guitar worked and I knowingly nodded toward him when he said Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones had made millions of dollars playing open-tuned guitars on their songs) and the other guy was playing a Hawaiian lap-steel guitar. The music was fabulous.
Mai Tai's are their signature drink - naturally - at Tahiti Nui. They had something that was called the "Man Tai" that was served in a pint glass. These were especially yummy - I had two and they were going down pretty smoothly. That's the problem with mai tai's - they taste great, but they really sneak up on you.
Tahiti Nui is also somewhat famous for a scene from the movie The Descendants that was filmed in the place. It featured George Clooney's character running into his cousin, played by Beau Bridges, in the Tahiti Nui. (Photo below left courtesy Orange County Register.)
We sat just across from where Clooney and Bridges sat when they filmed the scene. On the wall behind the other side of the bar was the picture above left of the two conversing during the movie.
But the shops and laid back style in Hanalei pale in comparison to the magnificent bay and beach on the north side of the village. We loved the bay, beach and the pier so much that we went back for a second day at Hanalei Bay before we left Kauai to come home. The panoramic photo at the top of this blog entry is Hanalei Bay with the pier on the right.
Here is a video of the beach and bay that I took if you'd like to see how beautiful the place is -
This place was just gorgeous. There were a number of homes that were on the beach and we found a couple that we really liked - such as this one. But this was also - quite probably - a $5 million dollar home. Or more...
Once again, The Descendants had scenes filmed on Hanalei Bay, as did South Pacific in the late 50's. It's no wonder they used this as a back drop, the scenery is simply breathtaking.
Depending upon what you read on numerous web sites or publications, Hanalei Bay was the inspiration for the magical place "Honalee" where Puff, the Magic Dragon lived. Or it wasn't. We read some tourist rags on Kauai that said the crescent-shaped bay was the inspiration for the Peter, Paul and Mary hit song from the early 60's, while other things we read said that lyricist Lenny Lipton (the co-writer of the song along with Peter Yarrow) maintained it just happened to be a "serendipitous coincidence" that Hana-LAY Bay was similar in name to Honalee. All I know is that the place had a magical hold on me.
Before we left the north shore of Kauai, we had to stop into the planned community of Princeville. Princeville is home to the St. Regis Resort, one of the most exclusive places to stay in Hawaii (and also featured on The Descendants). Formerly a sugar plantation that was turned into a ranch, the area was sold in 1968 to developers who installed the resort and golf courses. We drove around Princeville for a bit one afternoon to take a look at what we would call modest middle-to-upper middle class homes in the town.
One of the things that we had to try while we were on Kauai was some ice cream from Lappert's. There was a Lappert's in a small market area in Princeville and we stopped in to try some of their ice cream before heading back to the hotel. (see map) The Lappert's in Hawaii - we were told - are not part of the Lappert's ice cream shops that are found on the Mainland. The Lappert's that are found on the Hawaiian Islands were founded in the early 80's by the worldly Walter Lappert. Lappert - an Austrian by birth - grew up in Czechoslovakia. He joined the French Army at the start of World War II at the age of 17 and eventually became a lieutenant. He was wounded in battle and recovered to move to South America to become a liquor distiller. After several years in Ecuador and Venezuela, he moved to Northern California to run two successful restaurants in the Bay Area. It was said that Lappert was fluent in eight different languages.
At the age of 61, Lappert turned the restaurants over to his son and he and his second wife, Mary Pratt, moved to the small Kauai town of Hanapepe, a small art community on the south shore of the island. It was there that Lappert decided to invest the family's life savings - over $150,000 dollars - into making ice cream, mainly because he couldn't find any good ice cream on the island. The ice cream was an immediate hit with islanders and tourists. Within years, Lappert's was available in dozens of stores across Hawaii and in six Western mainland states.
Lappert and Mary Pratt divorced in 1991, but remained business partners up to Walter's death in 2003. Mary Pratt took over the Hawaiian operations of the Lappert's while the Mainland Lappert's were willed to Walter Lappert's son, Michael. Mary Pratt continues to run the Hawaiian operations of Lappert's Gourmet Ice Cream and Coffee.
It was late in the day when we stopped in Lappert's in Princeville to try their ice cream. We both decided to get one scoop cups of their ice cream - I got the mint chip and Cindy tried the Kona coffee flavored ice cream. While we thought it was good, we felt that the ice cream we get at Whitey's back home in the Quad Cities was on par, if even better, than the Lappert's gourmet ice cream. But that's just us.
We had one last stop on one of the days we were coming back from the north shore. We stopped at Kealia Beach just north of Kapaa to watch the surfers at dusk. (see map) The winds from the easterly trade winds gave surfers three to five foot high waves to ride. We walked along the beach and watched the surfers until they started to come out of the water just before it got too dark for them to see. I'm mesmerized by surfers. I'm mesmerized by the ocean. I could watch both for hours.
The north shore of Kauai was truly magnificent. We spent most of our time on Kauai on the north shore - Hanalei to be more precise. It was everything that I look for in Hawaii - a laid-back paradise with beautiful vistas, pristine beaches, and rum-packed mai tai's. Look for an upcoming entry on our visits to the south shore and western interiors of Kauai. But in the meantime, enjoy one last video from the beach on Hanalei Bay with a quick view of the home we fell in love with on the beach, as well as an editorial comment by yours truly at the end.
Late last summer when we were in Cincinnati, we had taken in a Reds baseball game at Great American Ballpark and afterward we had some time to travel around the city. Something jarred my memory - possibly because it was 90 degrees in Cincinnati that September day - about a place that was famous for ice cream in the greater Cincinnati area. I asked my wife if she wanted some ice cream. She's never turned me down for ice cream. Looking up an address on the GPS and finding that we weren't far away, we took off to go to Graeter's Ice Cream.
As it says on the logo, Graeter's has been around for 145 years - an amazing feat for any business, let alone an ice cream company. It all started in 1868 when the Graeter family moved to Madison, IN, an Ohio River town about halfway between Cincinnati and Louisville. Two years later, young Louis Graeter went to Cincinnati and started making ice cream consisting of - among many things - fresh cream and egg custard in two gallon French Pots that he had. The slow French Pot process - and in small batches - yielded a rich and creamy texture to the ice cream after it was frozen. This slow and small process with fresh cream and egg custard as the base for the ice cream is the same way that Graeter's makes their product today.
Louis Graeter started out selling milk shakes from a small stand in downtown Cincinnati before moving to a store front in the mid-1870's where he made candy in addition to his ice cream. Louis Greater was soon joined in business by his brother Fred and Fred's wife, Anna. They moved their operation to a larger shop in Cincinnati in 1880.
In 1888, Louis Graeter took off for California leaving Fred and Anna Graeter with the ice cream and candy shop that he started. Finding that life wasn't for him in California, Louis Graeter - now in his mid-50's - moved back to Cincinnati and took a young wife. Regina Berger was 26 years old when she married Louis in 1900.
Pictured right - Regina and Louis Graeter. Photo courtesy Graeter family.
Louis and Regina started their own ice cream company after they got married. They soon had two sons - Wilmer and Paul - who also became involved in the business. The family eventually moved to a larger shop where they had a shop upfront and made candy and ice cream in the back while the family's living quarters were above the business.
In 1919, Louis Graeter was struck and killed by a street car on a Cincinnati street. Regina - now with two teenaged sons - took over the business and continued to run it with the help of her boys. Regina turned out to be a very astute businesswoman overseeing an expansion of Graeter locations around Cincinnati. In 1934, they had outgrown their building and moved to a new building on Reading Road in Cincinnati. This continues to be their main manufacturing facility to this day.
Regina lived in a small apartment above the small retail shop and ice cream manufacturing facility. She was involved in the business nearly up to the day of her death in 1955 at the age of 80. Her sons Wilmer and Paul took over the business after her death.
Wilmer and Paul Graeter incorporated Graeter's and took on different roles within the company. Wilmer was in charge of manufacturing the ice cream, while Paul was in charge of the then 17 Greater stores in Cincinnati. But like many siblings who are in business together, Wilmer and Paul didn't see eye to eye. In 1957, Wilmer bought out Paul and brought in his three sons - Lou, Dick and Jon - to help out in the company. (Their sister, Kathy, joined the company in the mid-60's.)
The Graeter family started to see that they were expanding too fast and needed to weed out a number of underperforming locations. By the end of 1970, they were down to just 10 locations in the greater Cincinnati area. Procedures were put in place for the manufacturing process and new flavors were added (much to the consternation of Dick Graeter who liked the good ol' vanilla ice cream). By the mid-1980's, Graeter's began to franchise locations in Louisville and in Columbus, OH.
In 2003, Jon's sons - Chip and Bob - and Dick's son - Richard - bought the family business from the third generation Graeter brothers. Today, there are over 50 Graeter's Ice Cream locations - both company and franchisee owned - with 20 store fronts in Cincinnati, alone. You'll also find Graeter's Ice Cream shops in Columbus, Louisville, Dayton, OH, as well as in suburban Chicago (Northbrook) and even one in Las Vegas. You can also find Graeter's Ice Cream in grocery stores in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.
We ended up going to the Graeter's Ice Cream on Kenwood Road in the Deer Park neighborhood of Cincinnati. (see map) We found a parking spot in the back and went in the rear door of the ice cream shop. Actually, Graeter's is more than just ice cream. We found baked good, ice cream cakes and candy on the shelves and in the cases toward the back of this location. They also serve pastries and coffee for morning customers.
The front of this Graeter's location featured a number of the old style ice cream parlor chairs and tables. It was sort of cramped in that area, but it was a nice nod to the history of Graeter's and its importance to the people of Cincinnati for nearly a century and a half. People of all ages were at Graeter's that day enjoying their ice cream treats.
The ice cream counter was a busy place and we sort of hung back to take a long look at the menu to determine what we wanted to try. The look of the counter was similar to an old time ice cream fountain only without stools in front for people to sit down. At Graeter's, they do ice cream cones, shakes and malts, classic sundaes, and smoothie drinks. The toppings that can go on the top of ice cream - from hot fudge to chocolate sprinkles to butterscotch to whipped cream - are all made in house. They also featured gelato and fruit sorbets at Graeter's.
I thought about just getting the plain ol' vanilla just to see what the basic taste of Graeter's ice cream was all about until I saw a couple things on the menu that day that tripped my trigger - lemon ice cream and blueberry ice cream. When I went up to order, I asked the guy behind the counter if I could have a scoop of both in a cup. He enthusiastically said, "Absolutely!" He said that it was good that I got the blueberry because this was the last container they had and it wouldn't be available until next summer.
Cindy got a one-scoop dish of chocolate walnut that was also a seasonal item on the menu. There were large chunks of walnut folded into with the rich and creamy Graeter's chocolate ice cream.
Now, Whitey's Ice Cream in the Iowa and Illinois Quad Cities is our gold standard of ice cream, but I have to say that it doesn't even come close to the taste, texture and consistency of the Graeter's Ice Cream. The richness of the ice cream was almost overwhelming. The forward fruity and tart flavor of the lemon ice cream was some of the best I've ever had. And the blueberries were definitely real and fresh.
Cindy was equally happy and impressed with her chocolate walnut ice cream. Graeter's uses real chocolate chunks during the flavoring process giving it a heightened chocolate taste. She said the walnut chunks tasted fresh and still had a crunchy consistency. Cindy was happy that she only got a one scoop cup - like mine, the ice cream was very rich and filling.
Graeter's Ice Cream has garnered a national following from people who have either visited Cincinnati, or who have traveled from Cincinnati extolling the virtues of the great ice cream. Everyone who has ever told me about how great the ice cream is at Graeter's was certainly correct. The French Pot small batch process has been a success for the company for 145 years and it's absolutely no wonder they've stayed around for so long with such great ice cream. If you ever get to Cincinnati - or any of the other cities that you may find a Graeter's location - I strongly recommend you go try some of their ice cream as it could be the best ice cream you've ever tasted.
The Racine area in Southeastern Wisconsin is home to one of the largest population of Danish descendants in the United States. Both Racine and Chicago claim the largest number of Danish-Americans in the United States, but Racine is probably known more for its Danish heritage. One of the trademarks of the Danish community is the pastry known as "kringles". There are a handful of places that bake and sell kringles around Racine - Larsen's Bakery claims to be the first to sell kringles in the city. But the most famous of all places - and the favorite of many locals and visitors - is the O&H Danish Bakery.
A kringle in America is a hand-rolled pastry that features layers of flaky dough filled inside with a fruit, nut or other flavored ingredients. After they're baked, kringles are usually topped with icing and sometimes with nuts. They're light and flaky and damned good. They're so good that earlier this year kringles were named the "state pastry" of Wisconsin.
My first experience with a kringle came from a co-worker of my wife's who brought back an O&H kringle from Racine for us to try. I remember it was a blueberry kringle and it was absolutely fabulous. In fact, we polished it off in less than an hour. And we felt so remorseful afterward. I've had kringles from other places, but the one I always remembered was my first one from O&H.
On a recent trip between Milwaukee and Chicago, I stopped off at the original O&H location in Racine (see map). In addition to the Douglas Ave. location, they have a larger O&H on Durand Ave. in Racine, as well as a satellite location as part of the The Dish Cafe in the Milwaukee suburb of Oak Creek, and another "kringle only" location at the Petro Travel Plaza along Interstate 94 near the town of Sturtevant, WI near Racine.
O&H Danish Bakery has been in business since 1949 when Danish immigrant Christian Olesen and his bookkeeper, Harvey Holtz, opened the doors to their little bakery. Christian Olesen's son, Raymond, was there with his father from the beginning, learning the baking techniques that would eventually make O&H famous. In 1963, Ray Olesen bought Holtz's percentage in the business, eventually taking over the business from his father. Joined by his wife, Myrna, and their sons, Dale, Michael and Eric, Ray Olesen expanded the business over the years but continued to focus on making O&H Bakery the most authentic Danish bakery in America. Today, Ray and Myrna's grandchildren are involved in the Olesen's Family Bakery company making four generations of Olesen's who have made kringles.
In addition to kringles at O&H, they have a wide selection of donuts, Danish breads and other pastries to choose from. They are also famous for their cakes at O&H, with a wide variety of specialty cakes for weddings, birthdays and special occasions. With milk, juices and other drinks in a cooler near the front door, O&H is truly a full service bakery.
But I was there for the kringles. They have nearly 30 different types of fillings for kringles at O&H, both year-round and seasonal offerings. O&H had about 25 different kringles to choose from the day I was there. They make the kringles fresh each day, making the kringle dough the night before then setting it to rest until the next day. After the filling is put in to the dough, they're formed into an oval, baked, and then topped with a vanilla sugar frosting. They actually have a kringle where they don't put salt or sugar into the mix. Now, what kind of fun is that?
My wife has been on a diet and I knew that she'd kill me if I brought one home to her. But what the hell. I knew she liked apricot, so I got an apricot kringle for her and I got a blueberry one for me. And I was thankful because it was the last blueberry kringle they had that day. I came about *that* close in getting a third one - pumpkin caramel, a seasonal flavor. But I resisted. Each kringle was $8.50 and there was no tax on the sale.
When I got them home the next day, my wife just about killed me. "Darn it," she sort of half-seriously said in disgust. "You know I'm on this six week plan!" And then she looked at the tag on the bag. "Ooooo... Apricot. I love apricot." Then she sort of stopped and said, "But what I REALLY would have liked is pecan!"
The kringles are packed with a cardboard ring in the middle so that you can stack them on top of one another for shipping. A plastic sheet goes over the kringle to help keep the frosting from running. Even 24 hours after I picked them up, they were still a fresh as if they were made earlier in the day.
Now, doesn't that just look unbelievably sinful? The layers of the flaky dough with the blueberry filling and the sugar frosting were just heavenly with each bite. The texture of a kringle reminds me somewhat of Greek baklava. Only better. And I love baklava.
You can order kringles on-line from O&H Danish Bakery, but it's expensive to do so. It's more than double the price per kringle to get them sent to you rather than picking them up at one of the O&H bakeries or outlets. Kringles can be addictive - it's almost like heroin-laced pastry. But they're light, astonishingly flavorful, and shamefully delicious. This time I was able to keep my kringle around for four days before I unhappily had the last piece of it. (It was getting a little soggy after three days - better to eat them more quickly.) My wife had a few bites of hers, but doled the majority of it out to the neighbors. The only thing I can say is that I'm glad I don't live anywhere near Racine because a kringle from O&H Danish Bakery is that good. I'd be there all the time.
When you're on vacation, you need to cut loose and pamper yourself from time to time. One morning after we did a "his and hers" pedicure session at a salon in Milford called "Just Teaz'n", we decided to head back into Arnolds Park and look up a little coffee shop which, we were told by our friend Kathy Evert, has gourmet cupcakes to die for. The name of the place - Arnolds Perk - is a cute play on the nearby Arnolds Park amusement park name. It was about 11:45 when we walked into Arnolds Perk to get a gourmet cupcake.
Established in 2000, Arnolds Perk is owned by Shannon Dunham, who, along with Darcy Rossow, also owns Dukes Burgers - a hamburger stand right next to Arnolds Perk on West Broadway Street in Arnolds Park (see map). Arnolds Perk is a seasonal business - as are many other businesses in the Lake Okoboji region. They open on Memorial Day weekend and close after Labor Day. Hours are 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday thru Thursday, and 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
After looking through a couple art galleries close by on Broadway, we went into Arnolds Perk. The smell of the fresh coffee was almost intoxicating. I love the smell of a rich, robust coffee, but I don't like what it does to me. It makes me jittery and anxious. Oh, I'll occasionally have a cappuccino or an espresso after a nice meal - as long as its earlier in the evening. Too many times I've enjoyed an espresso with my colleagues after a nice meal that finished at 10:30 at night and I had trouble getting to sleep. I said, "That smells great!" I turned to Cindy and I said, "If I get a cappuccino, will you help me drink it?"
She looked at me like, "Who is this man standing next to me and what have you done to my husband?"
Arnolds Perk is a small, narrow establishment with a tin roof ceiling. There is a long front counter full of cupcake and pastries with a small kitchen toward the back corner. Because they offer free wi-fi at Arnolds Perk, there were three people in the place - all working on their computers while enjoying a coffee. '
In addition to coffee, espresso and cappuccino, Arnolds Perk also features cold coffee frappes, fruit smoothie drinks, tea and Italian soda drinks. They have a light breakfast menu that features their famous cinnamon rolls (you get your choice of caramel or cream cheese frosting - can I have both?), muffins and pastries, scones and croissants, a granola parfait, and something called the "Power Breakfast Sandwich" - two eggs with bacon or ham, with your choice of cheese and bread. Something told me that we should have tried Arnolds Perk for breakfast. Well, we can the next time we come up for vacation.
They also have a lunch menu that features a couple of salad items, and a number of sandwiches including pressed paninis. They have five different types of bread to choose from, along with four different types of cheese to go with either ham or turkey. They also have a Caprese Melt - sliced fresh tomatoes, mozzarella and basil pesto and olive oil toasted on sourdough bread. That all sounded good, but we were there for the cupcakes.
The cupcakes come in three sizes - Babycakes, Mamacakes, and Papacakes (cute, huh?) priced respectively at $1.00, $2.00, and $3.00 each. They had 10 different types of cupcakes to choose from - The White Out was a vanilla cake cupcake topped with a vanilla butter cream frosting and glitter; The Black Out was a chocolate cake cupcake topped with chocolate butter cream frosting and mini chocolate chips. They had the Red Velvet that consisted of a mild chocolate red cupcake with cream cheese frosting and mini white chocolate chips. Oooo.... That one just about got me.
That is until I saw the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough cupcake - a vanilla cake cupcake topped with cream cheese frosting which is mixed with chocolate chip cookie dough and Chocolate chip cookie chunks, and drizzled with chocolate frosting. Oh man! That was too much! Then the Cookie 'n Cream cupcake jumped out at me - a chocolate cake cupcake topped with Oreo cookie cream cheese frosting, then topped with Oreo chunks drizzled with white frosting. My head was spinning.
The one I ended up getting was the Lemon cupcake - vanilla cake cupcake topped with lemon cream cheese frosting and powdered sugar. It didn't quite sound as exciting as the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough or Cookie 'n Cream cupcakes, but I'm a sucker when it comes to anything lemon. Cindy, too, was having a difficult time figuring out what she wanted until she finally decided on the Coconut cupcake - a vanilla cake cupcake topped with vanilla cream cheese frosting, white chocolate mini chips and shredded coconut. I don't care for coconut at all, so I'm sure she got that so I wouldn't hound her for a bite. She got the Babycakes size, while I got the Papacakes size. I also ordered a large cappuccino. The lady behind the counter said, "I think he's just finishing up working on the espresso machine." She pointed to a guy down the way who was servicing the machine. He said he would make my cappuccino to make sure the machine was working properly.
My lemon cupcake was everything Kathy told us it would be. It was fabulous. The cake was light, moist and had a great vanilla flavor. But the lemon cream cheese frosting was to die for. It had a great citrus taste and didn't taste like it was made with a lemon juice substitute. Yeah, this was the ultimate in guilty pleasures for me.
Cindy said her coconut cupcake was "wonderful", but she was upset that she didn't get the $2.00 Mamacake size. "That went kind of fast," she said. I'll say. I didn't even get a chance to take a picture of it.
The cappuccino was also very good. It took about three or four minutes for him to get it to me - our cupcakes were long gone by the time I walked up to the counter to get the cappuccino. I took a couple sips and I thought it was pretty darn good. Cindy took a sip and she said, "Oh, yeah." She's somewhat of a coffee snob and she knows what's good and what isn't. "This is very good. They use very good coffee beans."
The guy who serviced the machine said, "Does it taste good?" I told him it tasted great. He said, "Great! I did my job!"
I didn't expect to write this much about Arnolds Perk, but it was one of those fun experiences that sort of snowballed as it went on. We really would like to get back to Lake Okoboji for another week next year and I can see us having a couple visits to Arnolds Perk possibly for breakfast and for another cupcake. (I also need to get back and try a Dukes burger, too!)
Our household was in turmoil last evening after watching a gut-wrenching story on the 10 p.m. news - the Tastee Freez on Rockingham Road on the southwest side of Davenport was closing (see map). No reason was given for the demise of the little shop that was first opened in 1954 and served soft-serve ice cream, burgers, hot dogs and sandwiches, as well as milkshakes and malts. It was a wonderful summertime treat for us to take the 20 minute drive over to the other side of town and get an ice cream cone on a warm evening. (Photo courtesy Quad City Times)
The Tastee Freez on the west side of Davenport was a little slice of nostalgia from a time when people would routinely go out for ice cream after dinner. The building hadn't changed since the 50's and it was like going back through a little time warp when you walked up to the one of the two outside windows to place your order. Service was generally fast and efficient and you'd have your ice cream cone within moments after ordering.
In a city where Whitey's Ice Cream rules, the Davenport Tastee Freez had some of the best vanilla soft-serve ice cream I've ever had. For soft-serve ice cream, I liked it better than Dairy Queen and much better than the vastly over-rated Country Style ice cream that has a number of fans in the Quad City area. Cindy liked the chocolate/vanilla swirl, but when they would have their special Walnut flavor ice cream, she would go wild over that.
The highlight, however, was the people watching as you enjoyed your ice cream cone on one of the picnic tables around the building. People from all walks of life went to the west end Tastee Freez, some dressed in some interesting summertime clothes.
The current owner, Tara Kirschenmann from Moline, had owned the Tastee Freez since 1993. She was only the third owner of the franchise in its nearly 58 year history. No word as to why Kirschenmann shut down the Tastee Freez, nor if she was planning on selling the building and its contents. But the signage was taken off the building and the inside appeared to be bare from the picture shown above.
The Davenport Tastee Freez was the last of what was once dozens of Tastee Freez locations across the state of Iowa. There was a pretty good Tastee Freez in Newton, IA where I grew up. It was run by Paul Rose and not only had pretty good ice cream, but they had some of the best hot dogs I've ever had. Many a lunch was spent at the Tastee Freez in Newton until I moved to the Quad Cities over 20 years ago. (Westside Davenport Tastee Freez picture courtesy of Captain Ernie's Showboat.com)
Tastee Freez, as a company, began in 1950 in Newport Beach, CA. The original owners, Harry Axene and Leo Moranz, invented a pump-style soft-serve ice cream machine and the concept was an immediate hit. They began to rent out the machines and franchise the Tastee Freez name. The one on Rockingham Road was one of the first ones in the state of Iowa. As a little kid, I remember getting milkshakes from the Tastee Freez in Newton in cups that had the little Tastee Freez mascots on them - Tee and Eff (below left). Tee, I believe, was supposed to be male, Eff, was female. Or maybe it was vice-versa. It was hard to distinguish the difference between the two other than the "Tee" and "Eff" on their front.
Since 2003, Tastee Freez has been owned by the Garlardi Group, the owners of the Weinerschnitzel chain of fast food restaurants, found primarily west of the Rocky Mountains. In fact, you can find Tastee Freez soft-serve ice cream in over 350 Weinerschnitzel locations across the nation. But the bulk of Tastee Freez locations have closed over the past decade. Today, there are only 42 Tastee Freez stand-alone locations in 17 states including a dozen in Illinois, most of which are in the greater Chicago area.
So it's a sad morning around our house knowing that after a great meal of Cajun barbecued chicken that we won't be able to take the crosstown drive to help cool us off with a great Tastee Freez ice cream cone. Another part of life that we took for granted is now gone.
Since this blog is named Road Tips, the purpose should really be to point out some of the more obscure and secret places that I've found in my travels around the Midwest and beyond. One place that I've stopped at for years and years is the Colony Point Deli located in the BP gas station at the Williamsburg (IA) exit on Interstate 80. (see map) They have a great little sandwich place in there and I thought I'd share it with you today.
I have no idea of the history of the Colony Point Deli, but it's just a part of the Colony Point travel stop located right next to the Tanger Outlet Malloff Interstate 80 at exit 220. But it's not unlike many travel plazas that you find on any interstate across the nation. First of all, it caters to automobiles and not trucks, so it's definitely not a truck stop. Secondly, Colony Point is sort of like an upscale convenience store with knick-knack gifts, Amana foods and, of course, a pretty good little deli in the place.
The nearby Amana Colonies feature a handful of very good German-American restaurants (we've been talking about going there to one of the restaurants and doing an entry for Road Tips), a good little bakery called the Amana Bakery that makes breads, rolls and bagels, and the Amana Meat Shop and Smokehousethat is famous for their hams, bologna, sausages and smoked pork chops, as well as their cheese. The Colony Point sells a number of these items for people who aren't willing to venture the 10 or so miles to the north and east to go to the Amana Colonies.
One thing that Colony Point sells is the Amana pickled ham. This stuff is like heroin. In fact, I contemplated making a separate entry for the Amana pickled ham under the "Guilty Pleasures" column of this blog. They take an Amana smoked ham, cut it into square chunks and then put it pickled vinegar water with onion slices and let it cure. Oh, man! It is so addictive. I've found myself just sitting with a fork, watching TV and eating the pickled ham until I looked down and realized that I'd eaten half the bottle. Then, of course, I'm wrought with guilt afterwards.
The first time I'd had the pickled ham was at one of the Amana Colony restaurants that I went to with my old college roommate, Billy Wilson. Billy grew up near the Amana Colonies and every once in a while his parents would invite us to come over from Iowa City to have dinner with them on a Friday night. The first time I went there nearly 30 years ago, they brought out a bowl of the pickled ham with the family style meal, I had one and I was hooked. It got to a point where when we sat down we'd order our drinks AND a bowl of pickled ham. And Billy and I would constantly fight over the last few morsels of this delectable offering from the God of Pigs. If you would tell me the secret of the taste of the Amana pickled ham is pig urine, I'd still eat it.
Since I was on my way home, of course, I had to pick up a jar to take with me. I can't tell you how many times I've resisted picking up a plastic fork and taking it with me so I could eat some on the way home. I'll admit, I've done that a couple of times. It's amazing how your dignity vanishes when it comes to the Amana pickled ham.
The deli area isn't much. It's a small counter with a menu behind it on the wall, and a small station where the sandwiches are made. The menu isn't big - they just have the basic ham, roast beef, turkey, etc. They also have capocolla and hard salami sandwiches. I really like a good spicy capocolla and Colony Point Deli's capocolla is very good.
I ordered up a roast beef with provolone cheese on the Amana German rye bread. They also have a great Amana dark rye, as well as wheat and regular white breads from the Amana bakery. You get your choice of veggies - tomato, lettuce, onion - as well as either German mustard or yellow mustard, and a vinegar and oil topping. I ordered mine with all the veggies, oil and vinegar (with Italian spices mixed in) and yellow mustard. Since they're made to order, you have time to walk around and check out what else Colony Point has to offer. (They also have pre-made sandwiches in a case if you don't want to wait.)
Another guilty pleasure in life is Sterzing's Potato Chips. This is another taste sensation that I acquired while going to the University of Iowa in the early to mid-80's. I have to tell you, Sterzing's Potato Chips are another horrifyingly addictive guilty pleasure of mine. Once again, I could dedicate a whole entry for my Guilty Pleasures category on Sterzing's. But I decided to make it just another part of this entry.
They make the potato chips in Burlington, IA and have been in existence since 1933 when it started out as a candy factory. Founder Barney Sterzing began to play around with the notion of making potato chips about the time World War II ended. The taste and texture of a Sterzing's potato chip is very unique and it's the same recipe they've used since Day 1. They claim they only use salt and oil in cooking their potato chips, but I have to guess there are small amounts of opium mixed in, as well. They are just that addictive. They were a great late night, munchy snack after the bars closed for a guy like me when I was going to college. But I would always eat too many of those grease-sponged chips that it would make my stomach hurt.
Barney Sterzing's daughter, Billie, and her husband, Dutch Duttweiler, took over the family business in 1959. Dutch Duttweiler oversaw an expansion of business that included moving to their present day production facility in Burlington along with an expansion of distribution. For years, Sterzing's Potato Chips were only available within a 50 mile radius of Burlington, but in the 90's they expanded their distribution and the prominent yellow and red bags can now be found at convenience stores such as Casey's and Kum and Go, as well as many Hy-Vee grocery stores.
In 1994, the Duttweiler's retired and their daughters, Jill Blackwood (with her husband, Tom) and Judy Arledge took over. Earlier this year, the third generation family sold their interest in Sterzing's to long time employees Craig Smith and Gary Schmeiser. Smith started with Sterzing's in 1980 as a route driver and worked his way up to production manager for the plant. Schmeiser also started as a route driver in 1989, but became the sales manager for the company in 1997. Smith and Schmeiser aren't planning on any wholesale changes for Sterzing's, saying "Why tamper with success?"
Of course, I had to get a small bag of Sterzing's Potato Chips to go along with my sandwich. It had been such a long time since I'd had some that I decided to treat myself to some.
One other thing that makes a trip to the Colony Point Deli a treat are their wonderful home-baked cookies. Of course, they put them right up in front by where you order and pay for your sandwich. They have all types of cookies including chocolate chip, M&M's cookies, chocolate chips WITH M&M's, white chocolate chip - the list goes on and on. They also have baked goods including pastries in the case. I decided to treat myself to a white chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookie for a dessert. Hey, I was on vacation at the time and I thought I deserved it.
On the other side of the counter where they have the pre-made sandwiches, they also have homemade pies that you can buy whole or by the slice. A slice of their lemon pie has been calling my name for years, but I've successfully have dodged all attempts by the ladies behind the counter to take a piece with me.
The lady called out my name when my sandwich was ready and I took all my goodies including the jar of pickled ham, the Sterzing's and a bottle of water to the counter and ordered up the cookie when she asked if there would be anything else. The sandwich also comes with a pickle spear and each sandwich also gets a peppermint candy placed underneath the sandwich.
You can get half sandwiches at Colony Point, but I got a full one this time. And it's pretty big. They really lay on the vegetables and the Italian spice-infused oil and vinegar tastes great on the lettuce, tomatoes and onions. I normally don't get onions on my sandwiches from the Colony Point Deli, but this time I did. And they were fresh and strong!
The sandwich had three thick slices of roast beef and a thick slice of provolone cheese on top. The bread was a little dried out - I knew I should have gotten the dark rye bread. But it was still good. I like a lot of yellow mustard on my roast beef sandwiches and they slathered it on. This is not a sandwich that you can easily eat while you're driving down the road. Even though there is a small dining area in Colony Point, I sat out in the parking lot and ate a good portion of the sandwich before heading back home.
The sandwiches at the Colony Point Deli aren't going to be as good as what you'd find at a big city deli such as Manny's Deli in Chicago (look for an upcoming entry on that place on Road Tips), but for out in the middle of the cornfields of Iowa and just off Interstate 80 it's a good place to stop, grab a sandwich and other Amana food stuffs, then head on down the road. While my sandwich was a little dry with the bread and almost had too many veggies (lettuce, especially), it's still a pretty good value. The Colony Point Deli a great alternative to Arby's, McDonald's or Subway - all of which are also in the immediate vicinity at that exit. It's all the extras that you can get at Colony Point that makes this place one of my guilty pleasures in life.
It seems like every place we visit, we come across an ice cream shop that is *the* local place to get ice cream. It's generally a step above Baskin-Robbins or Dairy Queen in quality and taste. And on our trip to Savannah, we found one such place in Leopold's Ice Cream.
The history of Leopold's begins in 1919 when Greek immigrant brothers - Peter, George and Basil Leopold - founded their first ice cream parlor in Savannah. Peter had been taught the art of making high quality ice cream in Europe and brought with him a recipe for Tutti-Fruitti, an Italian specialty that was made with different fruits and cream. The original Tutti-Fruitti recipe that the Leopold's started with 90 years ago is the same way it's made today.
Peter's son, Stratton, took over the business after his father and uncles passed away. Before he took over the business, Stratton was already gone from the Savannah area as he had gone out to Hollywood to work in the film industry. Stratton Leopold has risen from a production manager to a producer to now being the Executive Vice-President of Production at Paramount Pictures. He's truly a Hollywood heavyweight. Stratton Leopold's producing credits include The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Mission Impossible III and The Sum of All Fears. Stratton Leopold was also the producer of the critically acclaimed movie, The General's Daughter. Here's a picture of Stratton Leopold behind the counter at his ice cream parlor.
Because of Stratton Leopold's connection to the film industry, Leopold's Ice Cream parlor is decorated with film making equipment, along with a number of pictures of famous people and movie posters. In the back of the place is a Panavision camera, some editing equipment and film reels. The tables and chairs were authentic old style ice cream parlor furniture. The place had a very "retro" feel to it and was a rather cool place to look around.
Leopold's Ice Cream offers nearly 50 different varieties of ice cream- about 30 available all the time and an additional 20 "seasonal" ice creams. But their claim to fame is their Tutti-Fruitti ice cream which people literally crawl back to Leopold's to taste. Leopold's ships their Tutti-Fruitti all over the nation to people who have visited the place, become hooked on the ice cream and then want it sent to them. In addition to ice cream, Leopold's also has a short menu of sandwiches, soups and salads.
There was a good sized after-lunch crowd in Leopold's when we stopped in. Leopold's featured a large counter with an old fashioned soda fountain. The teenaged girls working behind the counter called out who they could help next while customers looked through the glass window down into the tubs of ice cream. Leopold's even offered free small spoon samples to customers. Cindy asked for a sample of the Tutti-Fruitti, as did a lot of other people while we were there. From her first bite, Cindy was hooked. She got a cup of the Tutti-Fruitti.
I'm a big Lemon Custard kind of guy and Leopold's had Lemon Custard, but with a small twist - they add bits of lemon candy in with the ice cream custard. I had to have a cup of that. And, oh my God, was it good. I'm a big Whitey's Ice Cream fan back in the Quad Cities and I think Whitey's Lemon Custard is hard to beat. But Leopold's may have surpassed it. The chunks of lemon candy gave it more of a forward lemon taste. It was absolutely fabulous.
We tried to get back to Leopold's at least one more time while we were in Savannah. But we got there just after 9 p.m. and they were closing up for the night. Really, it took all the will-power NOT to muster another trip to Leopold's while we were there. I'm still trying to watch my weight, but we also had a number of great desserts for dinner while in Savannah, so going to Leopold's usually never popped up after dinner. But if we ever get back to Savannah - and we will - Leopold's will be a "must stop" on our itinerary.
(Update - Jennifer at the French Rose Bakery has now opened a bakery/sandwich shop in downtown Davenport. Click here to read about it.)
One of my worst guilty pleasures in my world is a bakery called the French Rose Bakery. They don't really have a retail location as they sell their goods at one of the Farmer's Markets we go to nearly every Saturday here in Davenport. And while they don't have a retail location, they are looking to move into one. And the bad thing about it, it's not very far from our house.
Cindy found out about the French Rose Bakery a couple years ago and she had an assortment of cinnamon rolls, eclairs, beignets and croissants delivered to our house for my birthday. From the first bite of the maple eclair, I was in ecstasy. By the end of the day, Cindy, her kids and I were fighting over the remaining maple eclairs.
Then when I tried one of the French Rose Bakery cinnamon rolls, I went straight to heaven. It was one of the best cinnamon rolls I've ever had in my life. And just like finding a good burger, finding a good cinnamon roll is one of my life goals. The French Rose Bakery uses nutmeg in the cream cheese frosting on the cinnamon rolls. They're big and chewy, and there's ample amounts of cinnamon in the roll. There's three or four restaurants and/or bakeries around the Quad Cities all well known for their cinnamon rolls. But the French Rose Bakery is head and shoulders above 'em all.
And their croissants are so light, flaky and flavorful that I would have thought they were made in France. The first time I tried one of her croissants, I told Cindy, "This is unbelievable! This is EXACTLY how the croissants in France taste!" I have never come close to experiencing a croissant in the U.S or Canada as good as the one from the French Rose Bakery.
The proprietor of the French Rose Bakery is a 20-something young lady by the name of Jennifer Ewert (right). I've met her a couple times and she's a great kid. Jennifer studied as a pastry chef at The French Pastry School in Chicago. She grew up on the west side of Davenport and she uses an addition onto her parents home as her bakery. Her mother, Mary, and father, Gary, help her out at the Farmer's Market in the parking lot at NorthPark Mall. They're really great people.
Jennifer tried selling some of her pastries at a local gift store, but that experiment ended after a few weeks. She would invariably run out of pastries, disappointing dozens of people - like me - who would stop in to pick something up. Her mother told me earlier this spring that they really needed to have a place where she could bake and sell her good tasting stuff. The last I heard, she was looking at a store front in a strip mall about a mile from our house. That's not good, especially for my diet.
Actually, the French Rose Bakery was probably responsible for a 10 to 15 pound increase in my weight over the past couple of years. At least, that's what I accuse them of doing to me. But now that I'm on a diet, I have to show restraint when I walk past their booth at the Farmer's Market at NorthPark Mall. But those maple eclairs keep calling me and calling me!
A couple three weeks ago, Cindy was out of town for the day. But she told me to go up and get a half-dozen maple eclairs at the Farmer's Market from the French Rose Bakery. She wanted to take some to work with her to show some people how good they were. When I got up there, a lady I didn't recognize was running the stand. I asked if they had any maple eclairs and she said, "No, I'm sorry. She ran out of them at 3 a.m."
I was kind of perplexed - she ran out of them at 3 a.m.? Now, I know her eclairs are great, but running out of them at 3 a.m.? What did she do? Go hang out outside of the bars in the District of Rock Island and sell eclairs to the drunks walking by on their way home? (Actually, that doesn't sound like a bad marketing idea.)
Instead, I got a cinnamon roll (and showing restraint, I cut the roll into thirds and ate those portions three mornings in a row). I walked away and as I was nearing my car, I heard Mary Ewert calling for me. She said, "I'm sorry, I can't remember your name, but you come here all the time."
And then she began to PROFUSELY apologize for not having maple eclairs this morning. It turned out that Jennifer had a big order of eclairs for another function and she ran out of maple flavoring for the frosting at 3 a.m. Oh, OK.
Mary said, "But come back next week and we'll have more!"
Now, that illustrates how nice of people the Ewert's are. She didn't have to come running after me to tell me WHY they'd run out of maple eclairs. They were out of them, end of story. But Mary went out of her way to track me down to apologize and explain herself. Good people.
Cindy and I went back the next week to pick up some assorted things for her dad's lady-friend's birthday the next day. The weather was cold and blustery. There were about 50% less vendors at The Farmer's Market at NorthPark that day. And the French Rose Bakery was one of the no-shows. I didn't blame 'em.
In addition to her great croissants, cinnamon rolls, eclairs and beignets, Jennifer also has a full menu of cookies, cakes, brownies, dessert trays and cream puffs. Her mother told us that she hoped to be able to expand her offerings when she moves into the retail space. Boy, I think she has a lot to offer now!
But for now, Jennifer only sells selected items at The Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings, or they'll deliver to your home or business (in the Quad Cities only) for a $50 minimum order. I know once she opens her retail bakery location, her business is just going to take off. She's a little higher priced than some of the other bakeries around. But the difference in taste and quality versus those other places is why The French Rose Bakery is a little more expensive.
Man, I have GOT to quit writing these blog entries on an empty stomach!
(Update - Unfortunately, Jennifer has not only quit selling on Saturday's at the Farmer's Market, but never realized her dream to open her own bakery. While part of me is sad for her, another part of me completely misses those cinnamon rolls and maple eclairs. I don't know if she's still doing any baking as her web site is down, as well. Oh, well. I'd probably be over 400 lbs. if she was still baking.)
(Update May 2016 - We had heard that Jennifer was going to be opening a small shop in downtown Davenport sometime soon. I got a message from her in the comments section that said she would be open sometime in June. We'll let you know.)
While one is in Door County, there's all types of temptations that tourists can fall into, food wise. We ran into three different places that we found to be just unbelievable and also very fattening to the waistline.
The first place we found was the Door County Bakery (see map). Actually, Curt Campbell from the Oilerie told us about this place. He said, "It's the best bakery in Door County, by far." The owners, Don and Jean Thompson, make breads, pastries and a locally famous chocolate cake called "Ports des Morts" (door of death), named after the small strait between the Door County peninsula and Washington Island.
The Door County Bakery is also famous for their Corsica loaf, a large French loaf made with olive oil and sesame seeds. They make it in about six to seven pound loafs and then will cut off how much bread you want. The girl offered us a taste and it was outstanding. We ended up taking a couple pounds of the loaf. Since we were traveling, she wrapped it up in foil and plastic wrap. We kept it in the refrigerator back at the hotel and in the cooler when we were traveling. But by the time we'd gotten back home to try some, it was pretty much done. The girl said that it freezes well and if we get back there, we'll have to get it the day we're leaving to go home. Unfortunately, we moved around for about a week with it unfrozen. Oh, well. Live and learn.
The Door County Bakery also has a large selection of pastries to choose from. We'd had breakfast earlier in the morning and weren't hungry for anything like that, but the stuff they had in the counter definitely got me drooling.
The Door County Bakery also has a deli and a small gourmet store on the other side of the building. Cindy and I said we were going to come back and get a sandwich made with the Corsica bread at some point, but we never did. Next time.
Behind the Door County Bakery was a building that housed a museum/art studio run by WGN Radio personality Spike O'Dell known as The Back Door Studio. O'Dell, who grew up in the Quad Cities, collected coffee cups of famous celebrities or politicians he's had on his show over the years and had each person sign the cup. He put them on display in this building.
Here's a shot of some of the coffee cups - both porcelain and Styrofoam - that O'Dell has collected from his guests over the years. It was kind of neat and sort of hokey at the same time. But there was sure of lot of 'em to see.
One thing that I didn't know about Spike O'Dell is that he's a pretty accomplished artist. Cindy sort of knew that he was an artist, but I was just incredulous. "Spike O'Dell did THIS?!" I exclaimed more than once looking at the artwork he had for sale in the building. I was amazed at how good he was with a paint brush. I've listened to O'Dell on WGN for quite some time and I never knew that he was an artist.
The second place we found that became an instant guilty pleasure for us was Jorns' Sugar Bush outside of Egg Harbor (see map). Jorns' is a family operation that collects and processes it's own pure maple syrup. We'd seen a billboard while we were out driving around regarding Jorns' and Cindy wanted to go see the place. We went down a county road and literally drove right by the place. It was nestled back in behind a farm house surround by a lot of maple trees. We doubled back and drove into the driveway.
Roland and Donna Jorns are well into their 80's and Roland continues to process maple syrup like his grandfather and father used since the mid-1800's. Jorns has over 1200 trees that he can tap each spring for maple flow. During the height of the flow, he can process about 600 gallons of maple syrup a day.
We made it into the shop and and the Jorns' daughter came out of the processing area and said, "My mother will be out here in a minute. Feel free to look around." We found a number of different sizes of maple syrup in bottles and containers, as well as homemade jellies and jams from Door County.
Donna Jorns gingerly made it out to the small shop and greeted us as she walked in. She was actually a pretty interesting woman to talk with. She said her husband has been gathering and processing maple each year for 80 years, since he was a small child in grade school. She said, "This was his grandfather's land, then it was passed along to his father, who passed it along to us when he passed away." It's been in the family for about 150 years, she said.
Donna Jorns told us that they have a lot of seasonal workers in the spring that come out and gather the sap buckets for processing. She said, however, that finding help has been sort of tough lately. "Kids are different now a days, " she told us. "We used to have kids lining up to come out here to work years ago. Today, it's so bad that we can only tap about a third to half the trees we have because we don't have enough seasonal help to gather the sap."
We ended up getting some of their syrup (a quart), as well as some jam. Mrs. Jorns told us that she sends maple syrup all over the country. She said, "When you run out of this, just call us and we'll send you some more!"
Cindy makes the greatest pancakes in the world and I have to tell you, with the Jorns' maple syrup on top, it makes them even better. Jorns' maple syrup may be the best pure maple syrup I've ever had. We will be calling them for more at some point.
And last, but certainly not least, of the holy trinity of guilty pleasures of Door County, was Wilson's Ice Cream Parlor in Ephraim (see map). This old fashioned restaurant and soda fountain has been serving tourists and residents in Door County since 1906. We were told by our friends, Scott and Marcia Schroeder, that we had to stop at Wilson's during our trip to Door County.
Wilson's is open seasonally from late May thru late October. They're famous for their ice cream which they serve large amounts of each summer. And when they dish it up, they dish up large amounts for each customer. Here's a picture of Cindy eating her ice cream cone - a one scoop cone - that was so large, she had them put it in a small bowl so she wouldn't lose any of it.
Wilson's has a long and rich history, which began when Oscar Wilson moved his family from Milwaukee to Door County in the early 20th century. The Wilson family ran the place for 55 years before selling out in 1961. The ice cream parlor/restaurant has gone through a series of owners and changes over the past 40+ years with current owners Roy and Diane Elquist updating the inside by adding air conditioning and screening off part of the outside seating areas. Wilson's is a plum job for a number of high school and college students each summer.
I actually didn't order any because I was still full from lunch a couple three hours earlier. But Cindy had eaten light in anticipation of ice cream later in the afternoon at Wilson's. I had some of Cindy's and their ice cream was good. Not the best I've had, but good. We went back one other time after dinner at a nearby restaurant, but the line was so long and there were so many people hanging out that we decided to pass on stopping for ice cream at Wilson's.
In addition to ice cream, sundaes and specialty drinks, Wilson's also has a food menu consisting of burgers, sandwiches, appetizers and salads. I heard while we were in Door County their char-grilled hamburgers were pretty damn good, as well. We may have to go back sometime to try those out.
We were pleasantly surprised with the variety of food - and how good it is - in Door County. But the three temptations - Door County Bakery, Jorns' Sugar Bush and Wilson's Ice Cream Parlor - all contributed to the guilty pleasures we found on our trip to Door County.
Ted Drewesis a St. Louis institution. They sell custard ice cream out of two locations on the south-side of St. Louis and have been doing so for over 75 years. They've been featured on a number of travel and food shows on cable television over the years. It's a must-stop when we're in St. Louis for Cardinal games.
Ted Drewes, Sr. was a tennis star who came from the St. Louis area. He opened his first ice cream stand in Florida in 1930 and then came back to open two locations in St. Louis the following year. Only one of the two original stores, the one on South Grand (see map) is in business today. In 1941, Drewes put in a second location on Chippewa Ave. (see map), which was also Route 66 that went from Chicago to L.A. Over the years, the Chippewa location expanded and became the defacto flagship store for Ted Drewes.
Ted Drewes, Jr. took over the family business in the 50's. He had been approached many times to franchise the Ted Drewes custard, but each time he has declined. He said that franchising "cheapens" the product and you lose control of the quality of the custard. Good for him.
In the winter time when the custard stands were closed, Ted Drewes, Jr. would sell Christmas trees in the lots of the two locations. Each fall, Drewes would go to Nova Scotia to hand pick fir trees to be cut down and shipped to St. Louis to sell in his two lots. The Chippewa location now stays open up through Christmas to sell custard along with the Christmas trees.
Ted Drewes is famous for their custard ice cream, which is only available in vanilla. They add flavorings to the vanilla custard to make the different varieties of flavors. One of the famous offerings from Ted Drewes are their "concretes" - a combination of the vanilla custard, flavors and other ingredients that are then thick-blended and served in a cup. The cup is turned upside down before being served to the customer to show that the custard is thick and rich.
When we were in St. Louis earlier this year, we stopped at the Ted Drewes on S. Grand. I felt kind of bad as our friends, Scott and Marcia, spent a good portion of the late morning and early afternoon running us around to get the old ROKNROL Impala to a place to get it worked on and then to take us out to the airport so I could rent a car. I asked them if they wanted to join us for a Ted Drewes, like we always do out of habit, but they begged off saying they needed to get back to Iowa.
Cindy and I then went and had lunch at Arcelia'sand we were getting ready to leave and go back to Iowa. Cindy said, "Aren't we going to Ted Drewes?" I wasn't all that hungry after a nice lunch at Arcelia's, but Ted Drewes did sound kinda good.
There was already a steady stream of customers coming into the Ted Drewes stand on S. Grand around 2 p.m. The stand and parking lot at the S. Grand location is about 50% smaller than the one on Chippewa. And this one doesn't do the business the one on Chippewa does, that's for sure.
Here's the menu board for Ted Drewes. I get the same thing each time I go - the Lime Concrete. Cindy is partial to the Hawaiian - pineapple, coconut, bananas and macadamia nuts. I don't care for coconut or bananas so I'd probably starve to death if I was on a deserted island. But she seems to really like it. I've always wanted to try the Terra Mizzou - which is a take-off on the Italian tiramisu and inserting the nickname for the University of Missouri into the title. It's an addition of some sort of secret coffee flavored chocolate and pistachios. I'm going to try it someday, but I just love the Lime Concretes.
We both got smalls and our orders were up in less than three minutes. It took us about 10 minutes to eat them, they're that good. I almost ordered a second one, but decided against it. We contemplated grabbing a couple for Scott and Marcia and putting them on ice to take back home to them, but it would have meant running to find a cooler somewhere and then packing them in ice to bring back. And that wouldn't have been any guarantee they would have stayed fully hard by the time we got back home four hours later. But we also determined that a Ted Drewes had to be eating in the parking lot at the stand where you got it.
Ted Drewes is tough to beat. We have Whitey'shere in the Quad Cities, but they only offer a couple of custard items. The rich taste, the thick texture, the head-ache from eating it too fast makes Ted Drewes what it is. It is a slice of heaven in the Midwest.
In Omaha recently, I stopped in to have a burger at Don and Millie's in Southwest Omaha (see map). There are five Don and Millie's locations in Omaha, one in Lincoln and one in Fremont, Nebraska. They're very similar to the old King's Food Host that used to be around the Midwest in the 60's and 70's.
Before Don and Millie's there was King's Food Host, and then there was Grandmother's. King's was started in 1955 in Lincoln by Jim King and Larry Price. They were famous for this thing called the Cheese Frenchee - a grilled cheese sandwich dipped in eggs and covered with corn flakes. I never cared for them growing up, but some people still crave those things. I have the recipe for them here that was given to me by my buddy, Dave Haack, whose grandmother involved in a couple of King's Food Hosts.
I did like the burgers at King's, though. They had kind of a peppery taste to them. It was very unique to me considering most of the burgers I'd had in my life to that point were pretty bland.
Another interesting touch at King's Food Host was that each table had a phone that you'd order from. The wait staff would only bring out the food and drinks. You had a menu on the wall above the phone and you called your orders into the switchboard back in the kitchen. Now, that was really cool back in the mid-60's.
In the 60's, Dean Rasmussen started Grandmother's in Omaha, which was sort of an upscale King's Food Host. In 1973, along with his brother-in-law Bob Kerrey (yes, THAT Bob Kerrey), they opened their first Don and Millie's. The menu was similar to King's with typical burgers and shakes.
As King's began to fade on the landscape across the Midwest, Don and Millie's eventually added new restaurants in eastern Nebraska. The last King's Food Host was on Cornhusker Highway in Lincoln. I don't know if it's still there or not. I'll have to check one of these days.
Kerrey eventually left the day-to-day operation of Don and Millie's to run for governor of Nebraska. He won and eventually became an influential senator from Nebraska for 12 years before retiring in 2001. Kerrey is now the president of The New School, a long time progressive college in New York City.
I stopped in for a quick burger and a drink at Millie's before I was heading out of town to go to Lincoln. It was about 1:30 in the afternoon and the lunch crowd was dwindling down. I placed my order at the counter and waited for my burger to come up. About five to seven minutes later, they call my number and I grabbed my order and grabbed a booth.
It had been a while since I'd been in a Don and Millie's and I sort of wondered why with the first bite of the burger. Oh, it was fresh, cooked perfectly, and had a great taste to it. It reminded me of the old King's burgers with the peppery aftertaste to it. (Runza burgers are very similar.) It didn't take me long to devour the burger and head out the door to my next appointment.
Don and Millie's are also famous for their tenderloins. But I like the burgers more. I don't get out to Omaha as much as I used to, but Don and Millie's was always a favorite stop to get a quick and good burger. I still won't get a Cheese Frenchee, however.
Had it not been for Marcia Schroeder introducing me to Garrett CaramelCrisp, I would have never found my weakness in life.
Garrett Popcorn is - as it says in their logo - a Chicago institution. Since 1949, Garrett Popcorn has been making their outstanding popcorn, cheese popcorn and caramel corn for hundreds of thousands of people. To show how popular they are, they have five locations within 1.5 square miles in downtown Chicago. Their sixth location is in the heart of Manhattan near Madison Square Garden.
I was first exposed to Garrett Popcorn when we were in Chicago last year with Scott and Marcia Schroeder. While Scott and I were watching Iowa basketball at the ESPN Zone, Cindy and Marcia were out wandering around. They were walking past a Garrett Popcorn store and Marcia said they really needed to stop in. Cindy got a bag of the CaramelCrisp and brought it back with her.
After my first bite, my world stopped. All relationship to time ended. The taste of the CaramelCrisp popcorn was nothing like I had before. I ate it in a frenzy. I had absolutely no shame as I was gulping down handfuls as fast as I could get it out of the bag. It was amazing stuff.
Damn you, Marcia Schroeder.
Cindy and I were out walking around downtown Chicago last Saturday and I thought, "Hey! We need to stop at Garrett's and get some CaramelCrisp." We found the Garrett Popcorn on E. Madison St. and went in. Well, we tried to get in, but the place was so packed the line snaked around that you couldn't tell where it started and where it ended.
We finally got in and had a chance to take a look at all the different types of popcorn they sell while waiting in line. They also had a number of decorative tins to store the popcorn, such as the Chicago Bears tin on the right. Cindy wanted to know if I was going to get a tin and I said, "I don't think I want THAT much popcorn."
One of the more popular items they have at Garrett's is the Chicago Mix - half of their cheese flavored popcorn and half CaramelCrisp. In fact, Oprah Winfrey called Garrett's Chicago Mix (above) one of her favorite things in life on her show one time last year and she created an explosion in business for the family owned company during the Christmas season.
Scott Schroeder, the executive vice-president and chief financial officer for Garrett Popcorn (and who, ironically, has the same name as the husband of the evil Marcia Schroeder) said that Winfrey's free testimonial was a double edged sword. Business went up 100% in December of last year, but they had to adjust their production schedule from 8 hours a day to a 24 hour schedule.
We ended up getting some CaramelCrisp and Cindy wanted a small bag of CaramelCrisp with Macadamia nuts. We took it back to the room with us and throughout the later part of the afternoon I just sort of snacked on the CaramelCrisp. But I ate so much of it that I think that was what upset my stomach before we had dinner that night.
It was all Marcia Schroeder's fault. Damn you, Marcia Schroeder.
Had it not been for Marcia Schroeder, I would have peace in my life. I'd never have a constant yearning for Garrett CaramelCrisp. I would still have my dignity without the temptation of Garrett CaramelCrisp. I curse her name with each handful of that powerful and mind-numbing concoction.
I knew I had to do something to get back at her for exposing my greatest weakness in life. She had to be stopped. No longer could she use her powers to coerce people into enjoying Garrett Popcorn.
So I bought a large bag of the CaramelCrisp to take home to her...
"I'll take an Italian beef, both kinds of peppers, mozzarella and dipped; and I'll take a hot dog, everything."
That's my order, word for word each time I stop at Portillo's with tons of locations all over the Chicagoland region. Each time I go into Chicago I have to make one stop at Portillo's. There's a lot of great hot dog places and Italian beef restaurants, but - in my opinion - none of them do both as good as Portillo's.
Portillo's started in 1963 when 30 year old Dick Portillo (left) set up his "Dog House" - a trailer that didn't have heat, a bathroom or running water. Portillo set up his trailer on a street corner in Villa Park and worked there part time while holding down a full time job.
Four years later, the success of the Dog House (right) was so good that he abandoned the trailer (and his full time job) and opened a free standing restaurant at the same corner (see map) and renamed it "Portillo's". There are now 31 Portillo's in the Chicago area, with two more coming in early 2007. And there's one in the Los Angeles area in suburban Buena Park (see map).
Portillo's are famous for their hot dogs first and their Italian beef sandwiches second. But they also sell charbroiled burgers (of which I've yet to try, but want to at some point), grilled chicken sandwiches and sausage sandwiches. Click here to see their full menu.
The Italian beef is sliced thin, then placed in the "gravy" - which is basically au jus sauce seasoned with Italian spices. Keeping the beef in the warm au jus helps make it even more tender. They place the Italian beef on a six inch cut piece of Italian bread and then you go from there.
I have mine topped with a slice of mozzarella cheese; and both cooked sweet peppers and giardiniera - the concoction of hot peppers and vegetables that make Chicago style Italian sandwiches what they are. And for good measure, I have the sandwich dipped in the au jus which makes it messy, but adds great flavor to the sandwich.
The hot dogs are all beef Vienna brand weiners. They are typical Chicago style dogs - hot dogs on a poppy seed bun, topped with chopped onions, yellow mustard, sweet pickle relish, tomato wedges, sport peppers and a pickle spear. I don't know if they're better than any other Chicago style hot dog I've ever had, but they certainly don't suck.
And combined - the Portillo's Italian beef sandwich and the Portillo's hot dog are a good way to sample two staples of the culinary history of Chicago.
The Portillo restaurants each have a theme that depicts the early to mid 20th century history of Chicago. They have a 20's "Prohibition" theme, a 30's theme, a 50's theme (right) and a 60's theme. The original location in Villa Park has a "nostalgia" theme to it. There's authentic memorabilia from those time periods throughout the restaurants and each restaurant will play music of that specific period. Some of the collections are actually pretty interesting.
Portillo's also offers party-packs of food. Their "beef pack meal" consists of 2 1/2 pounds of Portillo's beef, along with cole slaw, potato salad, bread and both hot and sweet peppers. It's actually a pretty good deal at a shade under $45 bucks.
Within 9 of the Portillos locations is a separate restaurant - Barnelli's Pasta Bowl. Barnelli's menu is wide ranging, serving pasta, salads, sandwiches and even ribs. It's kind of a neat concept, actually. If one person in the family wants pasta and the others want burgers or beef sandwiches, you can satisfy the tastes of everyone in the family.
But I've never ventured over to the Barnelli's side of the place because it's really nothing more than fast food Italian style. And I stay away from food like that like the plague.
Portillo's Restaurant Group also has two other restaurants - Key Wester, a seafood, Cuban/Caribbean, Italian themed restaurant in suburban Naperville (see map); and Luigi's House, an Italian restaurant down the road from the Key Wester in Aurora (see map). I haven't tried either one. Actually, they look like the kind of place that would bring in tourists. And with a number of malls and shopping areas nearby, I'm sure tourists and shoppers are exactly what they cater to.
I've been asked by a few people over the year the best place to try a Chicago style hot dog and Chicago style Italian beef. I tell people to go to Portillo's and kill two birds with one stone. It's one of my all-time guilty pleasures.
(Note - The Urbanspoonlink below is for the Downers Grove Portillo's location. However, I've eaten at the majority of Chicagoland Portillo's locations and they are all consistently outstanding with both their Italian Beef sandwiches and their hot dogs.)
One night, Cindy and I were talking with our backyard neighbor, Barb Fensterbusch, and she was telling us about a relative of hers by the name of Christopher Elbow who makes exotic, high-end chocolates in Kansas City. Since we'd just been in Kansas City earlier in the summer, Cindy remarked that she would have loved to have gone there to check his place out.
Christopher Elbow (left) graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1996 with a degree is Restaurant and Business Administration. He went home to Kansas City and ran Shiraz restaurant for three years. In 1999, he went to Las Vegas to work for Emeril Lagasse in the new Delmonico Steakhouse in the Venetian. Not long after that, he ended up helping acclaimed chef Jean Joho open the posh Eiffel Tower restaurant in the Paris Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
Elbow eventually moved back to Kansas City and found himself at the American Restaurant, a world class restaurant in the Crown Center shopping plaza. Elbow was the pastry chef and he soon found that he had a flair for making "artisanal chocolates", small chocolate treats filled with fruits or liqueurs. In fact, he got so good at it, he struck out on his own and opened Christopher Elbow Artisanal Chocolates a couple years ago.
When I was in Kansas City recently, I had just finished meeting with a dealer account of mine in the downtown area. Remembering that Elbow Chocolates were not far from my dealer, I decided to go down and get a box to take back to Barb.
Except, I had trouble finding the place. The address showed that it was on Southwest Blvd. (see map), but where the business should have been was a Mitchell Gold contemporary furniture store. Finally, I saw a small sign for Christopher Elbow Chocolates above one of the doors of the furniture store.
I went into the store and looked around. It didn't look like a place that would sell chocolates, but then looking toward the back of the store, there was a confectionery case and what appeared to be a kitchen directly behind that. Sure enough, I'd found Christopher Elbow Chocolates.
A young girl came out and asked if she could help me. They had an assortment of pre-packed chocolates in the case - the smallest was a nine piece assortment in a nice box with a bow on it. I knew that if I brought a box home for Barb, Cindy would be complaining that I didn't bring any home for her.
I told the girl that I wanted two boxes and she said, "OK, those are $18.00 each." I about jumped, but thought better of it. They also had a number of single chocolates in the case and I asked, "How much are they individually?"
She said, "$2.75 each." I told her I'd just take the two boxes of nine.
As she was ringing me up, I asked her if one of the three workers I could see working in the back was Christopher Elbow. She said, "No, I'm sorry but Christopher's out of town for a couple days." Oh well. No biggie.
Now, I'm not big on chocolate and I'm not very big on filled chocolates, but the boxes I brought home were rather intriguing. The flavors ranged from a Strawberry Balsamic, to a Pear Cinnamon caramel, to a Venezuelan Spice, to a Passion Fruit. I told Cindy that I wanted to pick three and she could have the rest.
She looked at the box of chocolates (which come with a little "road map" to tell what they are) and she said, "Geez, they're almost too pretty to eat!"
The first one that I took was the Grand Marnier filled chocolate. I'm a sucker for Grand Marnier in chocolate. It was very flavorful - probably the best one of that type I'd ever had.
The second one I picked was the Rosemary Caramel. I fully expected it to be chewy, but my teeth went right through it to the filling and only after I got past the taste of the chocolate and the hint of rosemary did I get to the chewiness of the caramel.
And the last one I picked was the Vietnamese Cinnamon. Vietnam supposedly has some of the most strong and pungent cinnamon in the world and this was no exception. The cinnamon taste didn't overpower the chocolate, it complemented the chocolate. And the taste lingered for minutes in my mouth. Wow!
I took a box up to Barb and she was overly appreciative. It was the least I could do since she lets us swim in her pool each summer.
She said that Christopher Elbow's mother was just there to see her a couple weeks prior and she said that his business is growing so fast that he's moving to a bigger facility in Kansas City. She said, "His mother told me that he's on track to make 50,000 pieces of chocolate this year and he's outgrown that place he's in now."
Christopher Elbow chocolates are available on his web site, and they're all available at Hall's department store in Kansas City, as well as a growing list of high-end confectionery stores across the nation. They may be expensive, but they're worth it.
One of my largest guilty pleasures in life is the Missouri Baking Company located on The Hill in St. Louis (see map). Since 1923, the Missouri Baking Company has been making some of the finest Italian baked goods this side of Italy.
Missouri Baking Company was founded by three brothers, the Gambaro's - Stephano, Luigi and Giuseppe. Stephano's sons, Pasquale (Lino) and Ben, and a daughter, JoAnn, worked at the bakery while they were young and eventually took over the business.
Initially, the family only intended to sell to restaurants in the area. However, they found that the general public was interested in their delectible baked goods and they opened up a retail location at the corner of Edwards and Wilson on The Hill.
Today, Lino (pictured left) and Ben - ages 91 and 87 - still stick around the business and help. Ben's children, Chris and Mimi, run the day-to-day operations. Ben's wife, who is 85, works at the front counter with her daughter while Chris is the head baker.
(Update - Lino passed away on August 15, 2007. He had been working at the bakery during the morning, then left to go home and rest. When he never made it home, his nephew went looking for him. He was found dead in his car near the bakery. And I believe Ben is fully retired from the place.)
The Missouri Baking Company is like any little bakery that you'd find in any Midwestern city. The only exception is that you won't find a donut or any thing deep oil fried any where in the place. They have that great smell when you walk in. Situated in their display cases are cookies, rolls, desserts and pastries that look just scrumptious.
It's always busy at Missouri Baking Company so I took my number and looked over the offerings in the case. To my horror, they had no tiramisu. That was the main reason I was in there. Well, that and to get a loaf of their great Italian bread.
When the lady called my number, I went up to the counter and said, "Please don't tell me that you don't have any tiramisu."
She got this pained look on her face and said, "I just sold the last two pieces a little while ago."
I know I immediately got a pained look on MY face and I said, "Oh boy... And I wanted to take some back to Iowa."
She said, "Hang on a second. Let me go check in the back."
She left for a moment and then came back. She said, "I had to ask very nicely, but he just got some tiramisu out and he said that he'd cut you some pieces."
I thanked her profusely for doing that and she said, "Aw, I just know how to talk to him." It turned out that I was talking to Mimi Lordo, one of the co-owners; and she was cajoling her brother, Chris Gambaro, the other co-owner.
I told her that I stop at Missouri Baking Company nearly every time that I come to St. Louis for their outstanding tiramisu. She said, "How do you transport the tiramisu?"
I told her that I usually drive and I keep a cooler with ice in the trunk to make sure the tiramisu doesn't melt on the way home. She was mightily impressed. I said, "Your tiramisu is the best I've ever had. That includes other bakeries and great Italian restaurants that I've eaten in over the years. That's why I bring a cooler with me when I come to St. Louis."
Mimi gave me a quick little family history of the Missouri Baking Company. She pointed out her father and uncle standing in the back - wearing their pointed little baker hats and white aprons. She then introduced me to her mother who was working the front counter. Remember these people are all in their mid-80's to early 90's.
I've always loved the Missouri Baking Company, not only because their desserts, pastries and cookies are so sinfully good; but because the place is so old world in it's feel. And now meeting some of the family who run the place makes me feel like I'm a neighborhood guy from The Hill.
When I brought the tiramisu home that evening, I got cussed by my wife who is trying to lose the weight. But she still ate it.
Doesn't it look great? It's probably the best tiramisu that I've ever had...
I eat a lot of crap on the road. Not necessarily bad food, but "bad for you" food. I try to minimize the intake of bad food, but sometimes I find myself with a short amount of time between appointments and I have to get something in me, and quick. And one of the places I seem to find when I'm traveling in Missouri and Kansas is a Sonic Drive-In.
The first Sonic restaurant was opened in 1953 in Shawnee, Oklahoma by Troy Smith. Actually, it wasn't called Sonic until 1959 - it was first known as the Top Hat Drive-In. The Top Hat had a unique service where the people would stay in their cars and order their food off of a billboard menu via a car-side two way radio. Then car hops would bring the food to the car.
There are now over 3,000 Sonic Drive-In's today. And even though they tout themselves as being "America's Drive-In", they are only in 30 states, primarily in the south and western part of the U.S.
I was first introduced to Sonic when I was working for a company out of suburban St. Louis. One of the office guys, Steve Gollaher, who was a strapping and big 6'4", 225 lb. Missouri farm kid, went to Sonic for lunch one day and brought back his food. Man, it smelled good (but, of course, at that point in time of day, even a shit sandwich would have smelled good to me). But what he brought back about made me choke. It wasn't how bad the food was - it was HOW MUCH food he brought back. Just for himself.
A "Super Sonic" Cheeseburger
He had a Super Sonic cheeseburger, basically two quarter pound patties with lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion and mustard on it; a foot-long chili dog (Sonic calls 'em "coneys"); a large order of french fries, and a 44 oz Dr. Pepper (their 44 ounce drinks are called "Route 44's"). And I watched in absolute amazement as he sat there and ate the whole thing before polishing off the last of the Doctor Pepper.
I told him, "Jethro (that was my nickname for him because he could eat like Jethro Bodine on the Beverly Hillbillies), next time I come here and we do lunch, I'll buy the food if you go and get the same thing for both of us."
And the next time I came back about three months later, I walked in the door one morning and he said, "We doin' Sonic today, boss?" Abso-friggin'-lutely, Jethro.
And he went and got the same thing - except I took a Coke instead of a Dr. Pepper. Now, I can eat a lot but I was severely humbled that day.
I got the burger down. I got the chili dog down. There was no way that I was going to be able to even get CLOSE to begin on the fries. So Steve ended up eating his large order of fries and MINE, too - in addition to everything ELSE he ate! The guy was a true machine.
My normal guilty pleasure at Sonic is a Super Sonic Cheeseburger. I always tip the car hops an extra buck when they bring the food out. The burgers are very good for fast food. They do remind me of a Whataburger or an In-'N-Out Burger. The buns are toasted, the toppings are fresh. The burger is hot and juicy.
If I'm on the go and I need to eat, and there's a choice of Wendy's or Sonic, I'll always pull into a Sonic. They're tough to beat.
Here's another west coast burger chain that I get sucked into every time I go out west for business - In 'N Out Burger.
Started in 1948 by Harry and Esther Snyder, the original In 'N Out Burger location was nothing more than a small building in Baldwin Park, CA. Harry recognized the need for a drive in restaurant where instead of having car hops bringing the food to you, you drove to the food, so to speak. It was the first "drive-thru" hamburger stand in California.
Harry's sons, Rich and Guy, started in the business when they were young. When Harry died in 1976, Rich became the CEO of In 'N Out Burger. Rich took the chain from 18 stores to over 90 locations before he died in a plane accident in 1993. Guy took over and the chain grew to nearly 150 locations by the time he died in 1999.
Today, Esther Snyder is still the President of In 'N Out Burger, but a major lawsuit has erupted between an In 'N Out vice-president and board member, Richard Boyd, and Esther Snyder's only grandchild, Lynsi Martinez, and some others on the board at In 'N Out. The lawsuit alleges that Martinez and others are trying to force out Boyd so they can expand. Boyd wants to keep the number of In 'N Out Burger locations to a minimum to keep the quality high. It's a mess and it's not good press for In 'N Out Burger.
The staple of In 'N Out Burger is the famous "Double Double" - a double cheese burger with lettuce, tomato, their special spread and onions. Killer. Just killer. They're cooked on a flat grill and they're always juicy and tasty.
A colleague of mine told me to get one "Animal Style" - a burger cooked in mustard, with extra sauce, tomato, lettuce, pickles and onions. It was outstanding, as well.
There are over 200 In 'N Out locations in California, Arizona and Nevada. I'm glad there aren't any around here or I'd be eating at them all the time.
For over 50 years, Fatburger has been making some of the best burgers in Southern California. Starting out as a small stand in Los Angeles in 1952, Fatburger has now grown to over 80 restaurants on the west coast, and now on the east coast of the U.S., as well. They also have locations coming in Texas, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and a number of other places.
Fatburger is what it is - a fat burger. It's big and juicy, cooked to order. Never made in advance and stuck in a bin. I've got to get one everytime I go to L.A.
The other thing that is good about Fatburger are their onion rings. They cut the onions fresh at each restaurant. I usually don't go for onion rings at burger joints like this, but I do like their onion rings.
I see that Fatburger is planning on opening in Chicago sometime in 2006. I'll have to severely limit my visits or I'll be as fat as the burger is.
Whataburger is a chain of hamburger joints situated primarily through the southern tier of states from Arizona to Florida.
I first encountered Whataburger on my first visit to Phoenix in 1987. I thought, "Man, they don't have any thing THIS good in Iowa!"
So every time I go to Arizona, Texas or Florida, I have to find a Whataburger and get a double meat with cheese. The burgers at Whataburger are juicy, hot, and delicious. I just can't tell you how good they can really be.
I'm glad that Whataburger isn't any where close to Iowaor the Midwest because I know I'd balloon to over 300 lbs. if there were. I like 'em that much.
One of the biggest guilty pleasures I have is when I go to Nebraska. I have to stop and get a burger from Runza.
Actually, Runza is named after an old German recipe for a psuedo sandwich that is stuffed with beef and cabbage, and is then baked with the shell around it. The picture makes it look much better than it really is. It's not a pleasing taste to me, but with over 60 restaurants - primarily in Nebraska, but there are some in Iowa, South Dakota, Kansas and Colorado - more than a few people must like 'em.
But the best thing about Runza are their burgers. Big, thick and juicy, Runza burgers are about as close to the old King's Food Host burgers that used to be around the Midwest in the 60's thru 80's. There's kind of a black pepper taste to 'em and they taste great for a fast food burger. In fact, the picture at the left is a good representation of how their burgers look when they take them off the grill, unlike many other fast food places whose hamburgers come no where close in real life as to how they look in their ads.
Probably one of the reasons Runza and King's burgers taste so much alike is that both started in Lincoln, NE. Runza started in the late 40's as a little stand in SE Lincoln. As they grew, they branched out all over Nebraska, which has a large German heritage population. When I first moved to the Quad Cities in 1991, they had a Runza in Southpark Mall in Moline. But it didn't last long - I'm sure not a lot of people around here were brought up on the old German recipes and didn't like the Runza. But their burgers were sure good, but they couldn't survive on the burgers alone.
The Runza burger is one of the best fast food burgers out there, hands down. I don't get to Omaha as much as I used to, but it always means one stop at Runza when I'm there. I'm sorry, I'm guilty, but it's damn well worth it.
I really do try to limit the intake of crappy food when I'm on the road, but I have to tell you, sometimes the taste sensations are so good and so tempting that the steering wheel of my car just takes right turns when it should be going straight.
One of my guilty pleasures is none other than White Castle. I get the crave from time to time when I'm in Chicago, St. Louis or Indianapolis. They have these Jalapeno cheeseburgers and I just love 'em. They're spicy and just addictive.
Except - they don't love me. I get a somewhat upset stomach after eating them and I feel like crap for a couple hours after I eat there. But something keeps me going back from time to time - not as much as I used to - but I'll still pull in and order a couple just to satisfy the crave.
I'm glad we don't have one here in the Quad Cities.
Started in 1935, Whitey's Ice Cream is a guilty pleasure of many people here in the Quad Cities and over in Iowa City/Coralville for a number of years. They're just too damn convenient as they have locations all over the place here in the Quad's.
Whitey's is so popular that there isn't a Baskin-Robbins in the Quad Cities. About the only thing that rivals it's popularity is Dairy Queen and it's just not the same as Whitey's.
Whitey's has a Lemon Custard that they have only during the spring and summer months that is to die for. It is the most scrumptious ice cream in the world. And in the fall, they do a Pumpkin ice cream that is very, very good, too.
When anyone comes to visit from out of town, the big thing is to take 'em to Whitey's. But, seriously, I had to really limit my Whitey's intake this last summer. I was there way too much the year before.
But there's really nothing better on a hot summer's night than a cool treat from Whitey's...
