Posted March 06, 2024in Food Dude
Readers have alerted us about the avalanche of media interest in “the next new thing.” That is something that came with social media. Everyone with a smart phone is a restaurant critic, often posting while dining out. People camp overnight to be first to eat at a new Chick-fil-A or
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Posted January 31, 2024in Food Dude
Romance has been defined more ways than there are to ask for a date to the prom. Hollywood and the merchants of St. Valentine brand our young minds with very sentimental trappings — chocolates, flowers, linen table cloths, candlelight and violins. There is another more expansive definition, sometimes ascribed to
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Posted January 03, 2024in Food Dude
Going to college in Hyderabad in the 1960s, there were many magical names calling my inner traveler — Ceylon, Burma, Madras, Bombay, Calcutta, Kerala, Puri. The most enticing of all was Nepal. I visited twice and figured I would never again taste some of its marvelous foods again, unless I
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Posted December 06, 2023in Food Dude
Oak Park opened in October generating more buzz than any restaurant since 801 Steak & Chop House opened in 1991. Much about the recent debut was remarkable. The restaurant was the first hospitality industry venture for Kathy Fehrman, a retired investments manager. It arose quickly amid an Ingersoll Avenue reconstruction
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Posted November 01, 2023in Food Dude
Early last month, NASA released the first-ever photos of Pan, the innermost moon of Saturn. To great surprise, the moon looks like a potsticker (gyoza in Japan). Asian media have dubbed it “the dumpling moon.” Dumplings are a lifelong food. People learn to love them before they have teeth and
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Posted October 04, 2023in Food Dude
Officially the Wallace Center’s mission is to “bring together diverse people and ideas to co-create solutions that build healthy farms, equitable economies, and resilient food systems.” For most of us, that is realized through the farm’s stall at Downtown Farmers Market, Wednesday teas and Thursday farm-to-table dinners in the Des
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Posted September 06, 2023in Food Dude
When Jordan Creek Town Center was under construction the decade before its 2004 opening, developers told me they wanted to attract Ruth’s Chris Steak House so badly they offered incentives. At the time, the Dallas, Texas, company deemed West Des Moines too small. Earlier this summer, Ruth’s Chris opened the
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Posted August 02, 2023in Food Dude
The Chamberlain Pub is not like anything else in town. It occupies an historic building on Grand Avenue. The D.S. Chamberlain House at Wesley Acres is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was designed by renowned Boston architect William George Rantoul and is considered an excellent example of Jacobean Revival architecture. Jacobean architecture
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Posted July 05, 2023in Food Dude
Summer is sandwich time in Iowa. We consume more hot dogs, more burgers, more carryout and more sandwiches in the warm season, probably because we are looking for something to eat while also doing something else. Des Moines’ metro has some new options for meals on the go. Graziano’s set
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Posted May 31, 2023in Food Dude
Road trips are for all seasons but winter. But without a truly special destination, why would we bother? Two places, one less than 40 miles from downtown, the other less than 113, are drawing diners from near and far because they offer exceptionally good versions of two of Iowa’s favorite
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