Fresh Mediterranean Express
When Fresh Café & Market opened last decade in West Des Moines, they splashed their logo, store and T-shirts with an odd shade of green. Wikipedia lists 21 natural shades [...]
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Posted August 20, 2014in Food Dude
Posted August 13, 2014in Food Dude
Escaping the fair
Some of the folks who love the Iowa State Fair refuse to eat there. Each year I hear from readers who find the fair’s concessions disgusting, unhealthy or overpriced. So [...]
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Posted August 06, 2014in Food Dude
Cool Basil finds new garden
Liam Anivat is a visionary. When he opened Cool Basil in Clive in 2007, Thai cuisine was still pretty much an inner city thing. His place also expanded the genre’s [...]
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Posted July 30, 2014in Food Dude
Dungeons and dragons
Is the Downtown Farmers Market even a market anymore? Are farmers still its main feature? Are its administrators a clan of overpaid bullies? These questions are being asked since Lee [...]
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Posted July 23, 2014in Food Dude
Something new, something old at Cosi Cucina
When David and Bonnie Bartels opened Cosi Cucina 20 years ago, it was an instant sensation. Super farmer Larry Cleverley recalls it being the best restaurant in Iowa when he [...]
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Posted July 16, 2014in Food Dude
Taj Mahal moves Indian cuisine west
Prodigal sons and daughters are returning to the Des Moines restaurant scene this year. Thu Phan and her family came back from a long trip to the desert and reopened [...]
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Posted July 09, 2014in Food Dude
Food trucks hit the spot
Food trucks inspire as much passionate debate as politics. Supporters say they provide an entry-level opportunity to the American entrepreneurial dream. Opponents claim they poach customers from other businesses by [...]
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Posted July 02, 2014in Food Dude
Keepers of the fire — Opa’s Deli
Civilization happened when societies determined to keep a public fire burning, so that each home fire could be started without rubbing sticks together. The Hestian devotees of ancient Greece and [...]
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Posted June 25, 2014in Food Dude
El Cameron, Taqueria Jalisco — indoors, outdoors
Food trucks are more American than apple pie. Actually invented here, the trucks evolved out of the Great Plains cattle drives’ chuck wagons. Those were invented by the legendary Charles [...]
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Posted June 18, 2014in Food Dude
Tamales Industry trending up
As surely as the first strawberries follow asparagus and morels, every spring the food media declares the latest trends. If several such recent stories are correct, then kale and bacon [...]
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