Big Night in Des Moines
In Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott’s 1996 film “Big Night,” two passionate Italian restaurant owners on the Jersey Shore bank their future on serving a grand dinner for a famous [...]
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Posted June 26, 2013in Food Dude
Posted June 19, 2013in Food Dude
Table 128 is an instant hit
There is no cursed address in the restaurant business. People suspected that about a spot on Ingersoll when three cafés came and went around the beginning of the 1980s. Then [...]
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Posted June 12, 2013in Food Dude
India Star’s clay oven magic
Spring served proof of the holiness of ethnic food fairs. How else can one explain how CelebrAsian, the Jewish Food Fair and the Greek Food Fair were all blessed by [...]
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Posted June 05, 2013in Food Dude
Tale of two holidays
Mother’s Day and Memorial Day left me scrambling for places to eat. On both occasions, I met friends at a pre-arranged spot after confirming that they would be open. They [...]
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Posted May 29, 2013in Food Dude
Independents in the western suburbs
Why do certain kinds of restaurants flock to different zip codes? In Des Moines, such restaurant profiling was so extreme a couple years ago that Orchestrate Management’s Paul Rottenberg suggested [...]
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Posted May 22, 2013in Food Dude
Hot dogs and nostalgia
Older folks pine for the days when butcher shops sold meat, green grocers retailed fruits and vegetables, milk trucks delivered dairy products and dry grocers sold canned goods. People too [...]
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Posted May 15, 2013in Food Dude
Burek’s 1,000-year journey to Merle Hay
Two new Balkan cafés sprouted last winter on a stretch of Merle Hay Road that already hosted Estrada and Tropik. Both new cafés specialize in burek, an historic category of [...]
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Posted May 08, 2013in Featured Story, Food Dude
La Rosa, an Iowa Classic
La Rosa opened 10 years ago. Rosa Martinez was a already a local legend then, first for selling tamales in the parking lot of the original La Tapatia Tienda, then [...]
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Posted May 01, 2013in Featured Story, Food Dude
Skywalker revisited
Twenty-five years ago, this publication began subjecting readers to the reflections of an alcoholic who had recently quit drinking. I thought that gave me an alternative point of view, and [...]
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Posted April 24, 2013in Featured Story, Food Dude
Greek tragedy with happy ending
The James Beard Awards, the Pulitzer’s of food, recently honored George Formaro of Orchestrate Management among the nation’s top 20 restaurateurs. Of all the many honors thrown at our city’s [...]
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