Posted February 06, 2013in Featured Story, Food Dude
The 20th-century Italian restaurant culture in Des Moines was sustained by a mythic cult of personalities. Many cafes went by first names only — Babe’s, Vic’s, Rocky’s, Noah’s, Chuck’s, Gino’s, [...]
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Posted January 30, 2013in Featured Story, Food Dude
Bacon Week is Des Moines’ Lupercalia, or more literally, our Fastnacht — a series of pig-outs preceding the fasts of Lent. Iowa celebrants are more apt to wear hog costumes [...]
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Posted January 23, 2013in Featured Story, Food Dude
Andrew Meek makes a short list of people responsible for turning the local culinary scene into a source of civic pride. At the turn of millennium, Meek and John Ross’ [...]
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Posted January 16, 2013in Featured Story, Food Dude
For Latino restaurants in Des Moines, the last 20 years brought the best of times and the worst of times. On the latter part of that Dickensian paradox, three different [...]
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Posted January 09, 2013in Featured Story, Food Dude
In greater Des Moines, new national chain restaurants debut amidst a barrage of hype. Openings last year of Twin Peaks, Whole Foods and Chick-fil-A became publicity circuses attracting campers and [...]
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Posted January 02, 2013in Featured Story, Food Dude
In this post-New Year’s season of diets, resolutions and purges, even a meat-eating sinner such as I figured it was time to try out New World Café, Des Moines’ first [...]
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Posted December 26, 2012in Featured Story, Food Dude
The three great cuisines of classical history — Chinese, Roman and Ottoman — all developed as spoils of empire. From Zheng He and Marco Polo to Ibn Battuta and Columbus, [...]
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Posted December 19, 2012in Featured Story, Food Dude
The local restaurant scene seemed oblivious to any economic slump this year. The number of openings tripled the number of closings in 2012. New additions ranged from the spectacular (Exile) [...]
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Posted December 12, 2012in Featured Story, Food Dude
The year 2012 brought the water dragon. For Iowa that meant far more dragon breath than water. The hottest, driest summer in decades resulted in a 4 percent drop in [...]
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Posted December 05, 2012in Featured Story, Food Dude
HoQ is East Village’s latest fine dining hot spot. Its moniker is a shortened version of owner/chef Suman Hoque’s last name. Spelled, as it is on its logo, with only [...]
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