Posted September 04, 2019in Food Dude
The biggest Thai place in town is also my favorite. Forty years ago, Thai cuisine was a new thing in Des Moines. Prasong “Pak” Nurack and his wife, Beni, introduced us to their native food on weekends at the Italian cafeteria Little Joe’s on Court Avenue. Later they would move
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Posted July 31, 2019in Food Dude
For three years now, Harbinger is the only restaurant in Iowa whose chef has been recognized by the James Beard Awards as top 20 in the Midwest. It’s a 55-seater that has a distinct personality. It serves no pizza, no burgers, no French fries and no gargantuan plates. Most people
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Posted July 03, 2019in Food Dude
This place is on my list of top five restaurants in Iowa. July is America’s month of reckoning with all that is true and constant in our makeup. We celebrate traditions with a bombast of fireworks and pride, returning home to pay respect to roots, friendships and blood. The other
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Posted June 05, 2019in Food Dude
Probably just what suburban diners want. Pad Thai is much more than a restaurant named for a famous dish. One of the world’s most famous inventions, Pad Thai is also a government-created cause. In the 1940s, Thailand suffered a rice shortage due to war and floods. Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram
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Posted May 01, 2019in Food Dude
The most popular order is the Gaucho Experience. Al Punto is the first Argentine restaurant in central Iowa in a couple decades. It’s close to being the most thoroughly Argentine steakhouse experience one can find in North America. Housed in a venue that was most recently Saison but most famously
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Posted April 03, 2019in Food Dude
Des Moines’ food culture continues to diversify. Des Moines’ food culture has been diversifying and sophisticating for the last 15 years at a pace no one foresaw when it started. Two recent openings suggest that such things are still gaining momentum. The Des Moines Art Center Café reopened under the
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Posted March 06, 2019in Food Dude
Nikkei is the hottest kind of fusion cuisine in the world that has not yet visited Des Moines. Three of the most famous chefs in the world hang their hats in this pantry where Japanese and Peruvians share a love of fresh fish and the ancient foods of the Incans.
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Posted February 06, 2019in Food Dude
Ten and 15 years ago, restaurants were trying to reinvent the wheel. Fusion was so free spirited that terrible mistakes were made. Remember bulgogi cupcakes, savory ice cream or haggis pizza? Hopefully you don’t, but I do. Some terrible ideas became ridiculously popular, too, so there will always be more.
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Posted January 02, 2019in Food Dude
A simple lesson Godfather’s Pizza founder Willy Thiesen once told us that for a new restaurant to be successful, it first must be fun in its own special way. That seems like a simple lesson, yet it’s rarely at the top of the planning list for new restaurants not named
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Posted December 05, 2018in Food Dude
The ambiance is collegiate chic. Gazali’s is a secret trove. They have been around since the 1980s when they began in Valley West Mall and have been in their current locale on 25th Street in Dogtown since 2003, yet I am amazed how few people know about them. I think
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