Posted July 03, 2013in Food Dude
To stay current, food writers pay considerable attention to what’s new. Sometimes a place of significant excellence can slip into the deeper levels of our consciousness. After writing about a disappointing visit to a Chinese restaurant recently, three different readers reminded me of such a place. Great China has occupied
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Posted June 26, 2013in Food Dude
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 jazz singer. Their guests relish the feast, but the celebrity never shows. A modification of “Big Night” played in Windsor
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Posted June 19, 2013in Food Dude
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 Wellman’s Pub took up that challenge and has remained a strong presence for 31 years. The trick is to fit
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Posted June 12, 2013in Food Dude
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 gorgeous weather sandwiched amongst the otherwise dark rye skies of this most dismal of Iowa springs? Those glorious days of
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Posted June 05, 2013in Food Dude
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 weren’t, though their websites, front doors and Facebook pages all indicated they were. It must be really difficult to post
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Posted May 29, 2013in Food Dude
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 everyone could benefit from a moratorium — no new chain restaurants in suburbs and no more independents downtown. Things have
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Posted May 22, 2013in Food Dude
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 young to remember that era just wonder how much time was wasted grocery shopping. Food nostalgia wears racehorse blinders —
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Posted May 15, 2013in Food Dude
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 baked foods. The world’s most popular travel publisher, praised the dish last year in its guide to “The World’s Best
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Posted May 08, 2013in Featured Story, Food Dude
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 for vending homemade chicken dinners in parking lots of Hispanic businesses. From the beginning, visits to La Rosa were more
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Posted May 01, 2013in Featured Story, Food Dude
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 editors agreed. At that time, this paper was named Skywalker, showing pride in the ambitious system that was dramatically transforming
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