Fried ravioli at Pelican
Club. |
Pelican Club
Nothing about the local food
scene has changed more the last
50 years than bar food. In the
1960s and ’70s, Des Moines’ bars
and restaurants could never be
confused for one another.
After liquor by the drink became
legal in 1963, several restaurants
added bars but mainly for people
waiting for a table in their food
service area. At that time, bars
served little more than potato
chips, Fritos and Saturday-only
“specials” like chili dogs. The
Rusty Scupper (reborn now as Maverick
Grill), Colorado Feed & Grain
and Jimmy’s American Café
broke through the lines of demarcation
in the ’70s by building stand-alone
bars within restaurants. In the
1980s, Wellman’s, Flanagan’s and
Francie’s brought the pub concept
to the bar scene by adding serious
scratch kitchens to full-time
bars. Around the turn of the millennium,
Hessen Haus, Royal Mile and High
Life Lounge shattered the separation
of bar and café with unique,
themed joints that defied type
casting either way. Now a days,
patrons in Des Moines expect bars
to have good kitchens.
Pelican Club knows itself. Neon
signs, a VIP club level, high-definition
televisions with sports subscriptions
and table games all declare the
place a player in the Court Avenue
district bar scene. A sliding
storefront window shows a rare
ken of how street-oriented that
scene has become, especially during
summer. Pelican Club also has
a full kitchen that knows its
capabilities. The entire menu
fit on one page. That’s almost
always a good sign anymore; the
larger the menu in a bar, the
more likely that everything is
a pre-processed product rather
than home made. I confirmed Pelican
Club’s food credibility halfway
through its appetizer menu. Fried
raviolis, breaded mozzarella,
meatballs with garlic bread and
nachos with roasted peppers, Italian
sausage and melted mozzarella
all revealed signs of real home
made cooking. The ravioli particularly
impressed — crisp as good potstickers
and stuffed fat with sausage (or
cheese). A waitress advised us
that pepper poppers, fried pickles,
chicken tenders and mushrooms
were not homemade, showing food
awareness and candor that goes
missing in most bars with kitchens.
A tomato basil soup delivered
homemade marinara in a bowl. A
house salad was pre-season and
compensated for long distance
greens with copious quantities
of shredded provolone. Pizza were
appropriately “tavern style,”
meaning thin crusted yet too crisp
to fold in two. That style is
hard to find anywhere and a real
alternative to most of downtown’s
offerings.
Penne were served deep-dish style
with a soup-thick bath of marinara
and crumpled “meatballs.” Chicken
pesto sandwiches brought grilled
breast with a homemade pesto,
plus a redundant pesto mayo and
cheese. Its soft Italian bread
had been top-toasted, a nice,
vanishing touch. A Graziano’s
Italian sausage sandwich held
its own in this Italian sausage
sandwich town. Burgers showed
a decent sear. Tenderloins were
thick and irregularly shaped,
suggesting hand cut, homemade
status. They uncharacteristically
included melted mozzarella. Italian
beef sandwiches included fresh
fried peppers but lacked the bite
and the flavor of those from nearby
Fourth Street Italian Beef, the
new measuring stick for that sandwich
in Iowa. Daily specials offered
entrees with soup or salad and
soft drinks for just $6.
Side Dishes
Youth dominated the local culinary
scene, at least in the discriminating
eyes of The Des Moines Register,
which recently declared George
Formaro (Centro/Django), Tag Grandgeorge
(Le Jardin), Lisa LaValle (DM
Art Center), Andrew Meek (Sbrocco)
and Enosh Kelley (Bistro Montage)
the top five chefs in town. Three
of those chefs learned their trade
working for Mike LaValle (Embassy
Club), who did not make the list.
Nor did fellow old masters Jerry
Talerico (Sam & Gabe’s), Peter
Harman (Graze), Miyabi Yamamoto
(Miyabi 9), Troy Trostel (Greenbriar)
or Paul Trostel (Dish). CV
Pelican Club
208 3rd St., 243-4456
Kitchen hours, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
and 5 to 10 p.m., daily.
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