Lemon Grass Lao and Thai Cuisine

Lemon Grass is my absolute Number 1 favorite restaurant in Des Moines.  We eat there at least once a week!  The entrees feature lots of stir-fried veggies, and sensible portions of lean meat.

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
The dining area is small but very tastefully decorated.  There is also outside seating, which we take advantage of when the weather cooperates.
 
 
 
 
 
 


The appetizers are so good, sometimes that's all we order!  They are always out of the kitchen in a flash.  My favorite is the pork eggrolls.  They're so crunchy-crispy, yet still just about melt in your mouth.
 







Non-soggy potstickers, YAY!

pork eggrolls

Jeffrey and I both like these!
 
 







 

 

 

 

 

Other favorites are pictured here: 

 



panang curry

volcano noodles

 
 
 
 



pad thai

tom ka, a wonderful coconut milk soup
 



Lemon Grass is located at 1221 8th Street, West Des Moines, Iowa.  They are closed on Mondays.  I also should note that portions are very generous, and reasonably priced.




Restaurant and Grocery Review: Namaste India Groceries and Kitchen

This is something of an unusual post for us, in that we don't have any original pictures.   This is what happens when you forget to bring your camera.  

Anyhow, about Namaste.

Namaste India Groceries and Kitchen is, as the name would suggest, both an Indian grocery store and an Indian restaurant.  While it isn't our favorite local choice in either category - we prefer India Star as Indian restaurants go, and Maria Grocery as Indian groceries go - it is nonetheless pretty good on both counts.  As the restaurant side of the business goes, they serve pretty typical Indian fare, most of it pretty good.  They have a lunch buffet, but we've never eaten there for lunch and thus can't comment on the quality of the buffet.  As a grocery, they are quite good, with a nice range of produce - including some things  I've rarely seen at Maria Grocery - and they also happen to be a good source for some unusual ingredients.   Goat, for instance, is not easy to find in Des Moines, but they are well-stocked at Namaste.  They also have a pretty good selection of frozen Indian dishes.  Maria has an overall better selection of stuff we use most often, though, and some of the produce - the mangos, for example - are far superior to what we've seen at Namaste.

On this occasion, we ate at the restaurant.  We had vegetable samosas, matar paneer (peas and cheese in a curry gravy) and lamb vindaloo, plus a double order of naan.  All were quite good, with the matar paneer being the stand-out of the bunch. 

While the food was quite good, the service on this occasion left something to be desired.  I dont' recall it being quite this bad at past visits, but Juli says she recalls the service being pretty poor on other visits as well.  Either way, I was less than pleased with tonight's service.  While the waiter was in a hurry to get our order, he didn't bother filling our drinks until after the appetizers arrived, and he never refilled them, or even asked if we'd like a refill.  It also took a ridiculously long time to get our check once we finished our meal.  I'm pretty sure we sat at least 15 minutes past our finishing before he even came by.  This poor service is part of why I don't think Namaste will be replacing India Star as our favorite local Indian restaurant any time soon.

In sum, Namaste India Groceries and Kitchen is a pretty good Indian grocery, and the Kitchen part of the business serves up pretty darn good food, but the service leaves a lot to be desired.  If you're in a hurry to get in and out, I would definitely not recommend Namaste, but if you don't mind waiting and aren't too bothered by iffy service, the food is maybe worth the wait.

Namaste is located at 7500 University Ave., Suite A, Clive, IA 50325.  Hours are:  Grocery, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. daily; Lunch buffet: 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Dinner is 5-9 p.m. Sunday and Tuesday through Thursday; 5-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The restaurant is closed on Mondays.

For some of what others have thought about Namaste, check out these links:
http://desmoines.metromix.com/restaurants/indian/namaste-india-groceries-and-windsor-heights/607258/content
http://desmoines.metromix.com/restaurants/restaurant_review/datebook-diner-indian-cuisine/1585473/content .

Restaurant Review: Taste of Thai

We're big fans of Thai food.  I have cooked a fair number of Thai dishes, and we're always happy to find a good Thai restaurant.   That being the case, we were pleased by our recent visit to Taste of Thai.  It was our first time there, but it won't be the last.

Taste of Thai is located in the East Village, in the same building that previously housed a restaurant called A Taste of Thailand.  That restaurant was a Des Moines mainstay for more than two decades, but it closed a few years ago.  My hope is that Taste of Thai will have at least as long a tenure as did its predecessor.

The restaurant isn't much to look at from the outside, but the interior decor is quite nice.   "Classy without pretense, with plenty of Thai accents" is a pretty apt summary.

Taste of Thai doesn't serve a great number of dishes, but the ones they do serve represent a pretty good sample of Thai cuisine.   The curries feature the thin gravy that is typical of Thai curries, rather than a thick one as one finds in Indian curries.  Vegetable and seafood dishes are well-represented.  Everything is served attractively. 

We had two appetizers, crab rangoon and chicken satay.  The first was served with a sweet sauce, the second with a peanut sauce and a relish.  Both appetizers were quite good, but I can't say they were a good deal given the price. 

Juli ordered pineapple fried rice with chicken for her entree, while I ordered a red curry with beef and squash.  The entrees were even better than the appetizers, and unlike the appetizers, they were more than worth the price.  The servings were quite generous.  I thought the red curry was particularly good, as the various flavors - hot peppers, lemongrass, galangal - were distinct enough to be noticed while still providing a balanced flavor to the dish.

For dessert, we shared an order of mango sticky rice.  As with the entrees, the dessert was delicious and the portion more than generous.  This was perhaps the best version of this standard Thai delicacy we've ever had.

Really, the only thing we didn't like about our visit to Taste of Thai was the beverage we ordered.  We both ordered ice tea, and what we got wasn't what we expected.   We were served a fragrant tea that probably would have been quite good hot, but as an ice tea it was just wrong. 

Taste of Thai was doing good business when we were there, both restaurant dining and take-out. We hope they continue to do good business, and we plan to do our part to make sure Taste of Thai is a success.

Taste of Thai is located at 215 E. Walnut St.Des Moines, IA 50309.  Their hours are 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for lunch and 5 to 9 p.m. for dinner Mondays through Saturdays.

Disappointing Dining in Omaha

In yesterday's post, I mentioned that our recent trip to Omaha featured a visit to an old favorite restaurant of ours, Indian Oven.  The next day, we took a break from a day of shopping to eat lunch at a restaurant we hadn't tried before, then went to Omaha's historic Old Market District for dinner.   I'd like to report that we had excellent meals that day and evening, but that is unfortunately not the case.

For lunch we stopped at another Indian restaurant, Tanduri Fusion.  It had gotten good reviews at a trip advisor website, so we decided to give it a try, not really expecting to find an Indian restaurant in Omaha that would top Indian Oven, but hoping for something that would still be both good and perhaps a bit different than what we could get at Indian Oven. 

Things started out pretty promising.  We ordered an appetizer sampler, which included two samosas (one meat, one vegetarian), vegetable pakora (battered and fried pieces of potato, eggplant and other veggies), chicken tikka (grilled bits of chicken) and papadam (crispy, flat wafers made from flour, ground lentils and seasonings), along with a delightfully tasty cilantro and mint dipping sauce.   All of the appetizers were quite good, and the papadam was an especially nice surprise.  Neither Juli nor I is usually a big fan of papadam, as most of the time it tends to be rather bland, but this example was full of flavor, in part due to lots of fragrant seeds (sesame, mustard and cumin, we think) being cooked into the papadam. 

If we'd just eaten the appetizers, we'd really have nothing bad to say about Tanduri Fusion.  Unfortunately, we were hungry, so we also ordered some main courses.   Juli had the gobi masala (a vegetable curry featuring chunks of potato and cauliflower), while I selected a lamb curry.   Both dishes were flawed in pretty much the same way.   Namely, they were way too hot.

Now, keep in mind, Juli and I are both fond of spicy food.  I cook a fair bit of spicy stuff, and we both like a lot of dishes from cuisines that feature hot peppers.   We can both handle a fair bit of heat, so long as the heat is an element of the seasonings, as opposed to be the sole or most prominent aspect of a dish. The latter, unfortunately, was very much the case with both of the dishes we purchased.   In both cases, the food was hot in a manner that completely overwhelmed the flavors of the vegetables, meat and other seasonings, and rendered the two dishes almost inedible.   The lamb was really moist and tender, so much that I'd say it was perfectly prepared if I'd actually been able to taste it, but in reality, all I really noticed was the heat.

After such a disappointing lunch, we decided to go somewhere really nice for dinner.  Omaha Prime is a very highly-rated restaurant in the Old Market, renowned for excellent steak.  We knew the dinner would be fairly expensive, but we wanted to really enjoy the meal, and expected that would be the case at Omaha Prime.  We each ordered a 14-ounce New York strip steak with sauteed mushrooms.  Juli got hers with a peppercorn sauce, while I selected a roasted garlic demiglaze.   The sauces were both fine, though Juli ended up liking my sauce more than the one she'd selected, and the mushrooms were incredibly good.  Sadly, USDA prime or not, the steak was nothing special.  It was quite flavorful, but it was also more than a little bit tough at the ends.   Honestly, I cook up much more satisfying steaks on a pretty regular basis, and at $38 a steak, we expected a lot better than we got.  While I can't say the meal was bad, it wasn't even close to being worth what we paid, and that made it among the most disappointing restaurant meals we've ever had. 

Juli here:  I want to add that the service and waitstaff at Omaha prime are wonderful.  Maybe we just got bad cuts of beef at this particular meal, but it really was painful to pay so much for meat we had trouble chewing!  I kept cutting mine thinner and thinner to make it chewable. 

After the disappointing dinner, we went walking around the Old Market District.  Mostly we just looked around, but we decided to have some ice cream for dessert.  We went to Ted & Wally's, which is a long-time fixture of the Old Market.   They make their own ice cream and feature an ever-changing range of unusual flavors in addition to more traditional choices like vanilla and strawberry.  Juli got a single scoop of black cherry ice cream, while I went with a double scoop of strawberry, both in waffle cones.   The ice cream was a fine example of a homemade ice cream, and I found mine quite refreshing, but it wasn't really anything special. 

Given our experience, we can't really recommend either Tanduri Fusion or Omaha Prime, and while the ice cream at Ted and Wally's was fine, it wasn't special enough to warrant a special trip.  We still managed to enjoy our weekend vacation to Omaha, but we couldn't help but be disappointed with most of the culinary part of our vacation. 

Juli again.  I think if a person had never tasted home-made ice cream, they would have loved Ted and Wally's...but we do make our own ice cream on occasion, so we weren't quite as impressed.  I liked Jeffrey's strawberry ice cream a lot more than my black cherry scoop.  That might have been because there were only 2 tiny bits of black cherry in my ice cream.  I like more fruit bits (and flavor) in my ice cream.

Indian Oven - Omaha, Nebraska

As Juli mentioned in a post a couple days ago, we took a trip to Omaha last weekend.   Our first night there, we checked out our favorite Omaha restaurant, Indian Oven.  We found that things had changed since we'd last been there, but the food was still excellent.

The look of the restaurant has changed its look since we were last there, with a new sign and different decor.  The tablecloths are gone, resulting in the restaurant having a more casual look, and there are lots of paintings of elephants hanging on the walls, all done by the same artist.  We were informed by the manager that the restaurant was featuring the works of a rotating selection of local area artists, and was also doing events during which diners could meet and speak with the featured artist.

The menu has also changed.   The number of selections has gotten smaller, and features fewer of the typical Indian restaurant choices.  It also features a new selection of dishes, reflecting the heritage of the family that founded the restaurant.  These dishes are distinctly Indian, but likely less familiar to American patrons than those typically served in Indian restaurants.  The goal, we were told, was to make Indian Oven's menu distinct from that featured by other Omaha Indian restaurants.

We started with appetizers, first vegetable samosas, then meat samosas.  The vegetable samosas were excellent.  The meat samosas were very flavorful, perhaps too flavorful for what is usually a fairly mild appetizer, and we found them a bit salty for our taste.

For our main courses, we both selected from the new heritage section of the menu.  Juli choose the coconut chicken, while I picked a lamb dhansak.   Both were wonderfully flavorful and beautifully presented, with rich gravy.   Juli's dish (pictured at the top of this post) was a chicken curry made with coconut milk.  The lamb in my dish was tender and flavorful, while the tomato-based gravy had a delightfully smoky flavor to it, which the chef explained was due to roast carom seeds.  That is an ingredient I don't recall ever having tried before, and it was a really great touch.  We had naan with our main course, and it was exceptional, as always.

Juli also had a fruit drink, a sort of Indian lemonade.  It was refreshingly tart, featuring lime along with the lemon juice.   The manager told us the restaurant was making its own syrups now, including the one featured in that drink. 

For dessert we had a rice pudding.  It was pretty traditional, but still wonderful, and the roasted almond slices sprinkled atop provided an extra boost of wonderful flavor.

Change can be a good thing, and we were pleased by the changes at our favorite Omaha restaurant.  The food at Indian Oven is still excellent.  We'll definitely be dining there again.  When we do, we'll probably skip the meat samosas in favor of the exceptional vegetable ones, and we'll look forward to continuing to explore the new additions to the menu, in addition to trying out some old favorites again.  I'll also be experimenting with adding roast carom seeds to some of my own Indian cooking.

Indian Oven is located at 1010 Howard Street in Omaha's Old Market District.  Hours are Mon-Sat 11:30am-2pm and 5:30pm-10pm.

Paradise Italian Grill

During a recent review of another restaurant, I mentioned the Des Moines' Ultimate Pizza survey Cityview was doing.  Last week we got around to checking out another of the contestants in that survey, and we found it quite to our liking.  That restaurant is Paradise Italian Grill.

In the interest of fairness, and to avoid any perception of conflict of interest, I should note that my immediate supervisor at work is the wife of one of the co-proprietors of Paradise Italian Grill.  That didn't influence our decision to eat there - we were visiting with my son and looking for a place to eat, and Paradise happened to be nearby - nor has it influenced the review, but facts are facts.

Paradise Italian Grill used to be known as Paradise Pizza, and had been open in West Des Moines for several years before switching owners this summer.  It was closed for renovation for awhile and had its grand reopening this past weekend.  We ate there a couple days before that event.  I wasn't familiar with Paradise Pizza, but when we visited Paradise Italian Grill, we were told that the renovation greatly changed - and improved - the appearance.  Apparently Paradise Pizza was painted in colors that remind one of the flash and emptiness of the 1980s ala Miami Vice, plus for some strange reason its decor included a huge mural of cats.  The turquoise blue and neon pink and cat mural are (thankfully) gone now.  The new decor is more neutral, with some classic bistro-style touches.   The overall feel was comfy.

The transformation from Paradise Pizza to Paradise Italian Grill has expanded the menu to include pasta dishes, sandwiches, salads and a range of appetizers, but since we came because of the Ultimate Pizza challenge, we decided to sample three of the restaurant's signature pizzas.  We'll probably try some of the other menu items some other time. 

The pizzas we got were the Spicy Thai Chicken pizza, a simple, rustic pizza with tomato chunks, fresh basil and Buffalo mozzarella and one of Paradise's crock pizzas.  The crock pizza is an individual pizza, with sauce and toppings layered atop ample amounts of mozzarella, the entire thing covered with dough and cooked in a crock.  The server brings it to the table and turns it over to serve, removing the crock.  The result is something of a bread bowl pizza.  Our own pictures, unfortunately, didn't do it justice so I chose to run the picture below, which was taken from the Paradise Italian Grill website.  My son got the crock pizza with mushrooms and black olives, and he said it was delicious.  It certainly looked wonderful. 

The simple, rustic pizza was also quite nice.  The fresh basil and mozzarella tasted great, and the crust was really nice...crunchy yet still having a bit of chew to it.  The Thai pizza was, quite frankly, wonderful, and it truly was spicy (though not overly so).  The peanuts on top, accenting the Thai peanut sauce used in place of a red pizza sauce, was a great touch.

Overall, we were quite pleased with the pizzas we got at Paradise.  While not our favorite pizza (that would be Fong's), it was good enough to rate more or less a tie with our second-favorite local pizza, Bordenaro's.  We'll probably eat at Bordanero's more often than either Paradise or Fong's, but that's mostly a matter of location and convenience.   Bordy's has the others beat in that regard simply because it's on the route we take home after work.   We don't eat out in West Des Moines that often, and when we do, it's usually somewhare further west, but when we're in the Valley Junction area and in a mood for pizza, Paradise will be our go-to choice.  Even if we don't have anything else going on in the Valley Junction area, I'm pretty sure we'll go out of our way to eat at Paradise Itailan Grill again sooner rather than later.   The pizza was really good, and we're looking forward to trying out some of their other offerings.

Paradise Itallian Grill is located at 2025 Grand Avenue in West Des Moines, Iowa.  They're open weekdays 11 an to 10 pm and weekends 10 am until ... well, I'm not sure, as the hours listed at the website are "weekends 10 am to close."  2 AM, perhaps, since they have a bar?

In any case,  Paradise Italian Grill is on Facebook.

Fong's Pizza

Des Moines' weekly alternative paper, Cityview, is doing a survey in an attempt to identify Des Moines' Ultimate Pizza.  They've selected 42 local pizza places, including some old standards and some relative newcomers, and representing a variety of different pizza styles, from among which readers can vote.  The first round of voting will narrow the field down to 16, while subsequent votes will narrow things further yet, until the Ultimate Pizza is crowned. 

In looking over the list, we noticed that there are a fair number of pizza places in Des Moines that we've never tried, and some others we've not eaten at in a long time.  We took that as a challenge, so over the next few weeks we plan to try out a bunch of pizza places and write about them.   I don't think we're going to get close to 42, but our plan is to try to hit a few places we've never eaten at during the first rounds of voting, and to try to hit all of the contenders still in the contest for the last few rounds of voting.  With this goal in mind, we started with one fairly new to the Des Moines pizza scene:  Fong's Pizza.

Fongs, which opened in 2009, is located in downtown Des Moines.  It's a bar as well as a pizzeria, and in the short time it's been around it has gotten a lot of notice, both in Des Moines and on the national level.  Fong's has been mentioned on blogs from Chicago and elsewhere, and was recently featured on a segment of one of the shows on the Cooking Channel, in addition to being mentioned in Food Network Magazine.  Locally, it has gotten great reviews in the local papers and rating websites, and it has won a bunch of Cityview reader's awards, including Best Pizza and Best New Bar.

Fong's decor is certainly unique.  The restaurant website summarizes it as follows:  "Our decor is a mix of Chinese, Oriental, Polynesian & Italian with a 40's & 50's feel. Think of a 'frozen in time' dive bar with delicious food, great service & tasty tiki drinks that pack a real punch."  We chose to eat in the back dining area, but there are also tables by the bar. 

Fong's serves up pizzas with all of the traditional ingredients, plus several not-so-traditional ones.   Various combos are available, some pretty traditional, some not.  Some of their combo pizzas , such as Thai Chicken, Moo Shu Pork and Crab Rangoon, are strongly Asian in flavor, but there are also more traditional choices such as the Meatarian (all-meat), Veggie Supreme and Taco Pizza.  Their appetizer selection is also unusual for a pizza place, in that it includes several Asian selections, including vegetable or pork and chicken egg rolls.   Fong's also serves a diverse batch of salads, sandwiches and desserts.

Fong's egg rolls come 4 to an order (5 if you order the
vegetarian ones), but I was so hungry and they looked
so good I started in on one before Juli had a chance
to snap a picture.

For appetizers, we purchased an order of the pork and chicken egg rolls.  They arrived piping hot and were exceptional, with wonderfully flaky wrapping and a lot more - and more flavorful - meat than one usually finds in egg rolls.   Ours were served up with sweet chili sauce and hot mustard, and they really hit the spot. 

We also purchased a large thin crust pizza with a fairly traditional mix of ingredients - pepperoni, Canadian bacon, fresh mushrooms and tomatoes - along with the house red sauce and the house blend of cheeses.  It was literally steaming hot - I doubt it had been out of the oven for more than three minutes by the time it came to the table - and it was just plain delicious, with choice ingredients and a subtly smoky flavor.  Fong's is generous with its toppings.  The thin-sliced meats were layered on the pizza, and there were ample amounts of mushrooms, tomatoes and a delicious blend of cheese.  The crust was thin and crispy, and there was just the right amount of the wonderfully seasoned sauce.

This was the first time we've eaten at Fong's, but it won't be the last.  We're looking forward to returning, to try some of the less traditional pizza choices and to sample more of the great appetizers.  I suspect Fong's will become our go-to pizza place, because after a single visit it has pushed Bordenaro's out of the top spot on our "favorite Des Moines pizza places" listing.

Fong's Pizza is located at 223 4th Street, Des Moines, Iowa 50309.  Their hours are 11 am to midnight for the kitchen, and 11 am to 2 am for the bar.  Their phone number is (515) 323-3333.  Fong's Pizza can also be found on Facebook.

The Class Act Restaurant



Breakfast time at the Class Act. 
Each meal features a different linen theme,
such as the sunny yellow breakfast linens.

 Yesterday we wrote about our stay at The Hotel at Kirkwood Center.   That post noted that among other features, the Hotel has a gourmet restaurant.   That restaurant is the Class Act, and it lives up to its name.

As with everything else at The Hotel, the Class Act is a real-world, real-time educational experience.  The servers, cooks and other staff are students, overseen by instructors.  The restaurant features seasonal menus, uses local and Iowa products whenever possible and features exquisite glass artworks - including a chandelier - made by Kirkwood students and faculty. 

One of the featured tables, complete with
a custom chandelier made by one of
the Kirkwood art instructors.

We ate two meals at the Class Act, Friday dinner and Saturday breakfast.   On each occasion, the food was perfectly cooked, artfully presented and just plain delicious.   The service was excellent, and we were very pleased that our morning server was able to take us on a tour of the kitchen and arrange for a tour of the classrooms.

For dinner on Friday, we both had mushroom and potato soup.  The soup featured pureed Yukon gold potatoes, mushrooms, cream and bacon, plus sauteed mushrooms.   It had an exquisite flavor, due in part to the mix of various mushroom varieties, including shitake and oyster.   It was the best mushroom soup I've ever had.

For the main course, Juli had a half plate of gnocchi served with brown butter, snow peas, asparagus, arugula and shaved Parmesan.  I had scallops served atop a green bean and asparagus almondine and topped with a roasted tomato and cream sauce and heirloom tomato salsa.  We both sampled from each other's plate, and both of us found both dishes to be excellent in every way.   The gnocchi were tender, the vegetables perfectly tender-crisp and the scallops perfectly cooked.

Although the soup and main course was hearty enough a meal to be satisfying, we couldn't pass up dessert.  Juli got coconut mango frozen entremet made of a coconut-lime dacquoise, mango orange sorbet and chocolate rum cremeaux.   I got the triple berry crisp, served with a smalls serving of vanilla ice cream.   Juli's featured a more delicate mix of flavors, while my crisp was both more basic and more bold, and full of whole strawberries and blueberries and fresh raspberry sauce. 

For breakfast, Juli had an omelet with ham, tomato, mushrooms and cheddar, while I had buttermilk pancakes served with a blueberry and strawberry compote and maple syrup.  Once again, both breakfasts were perfectly cooked.  The pancakes were easily the best I've ever had at a restaurant.  Juli's omelet came with a serving of delightfully-seasoned fried potatoes and toasted bread made by the restaurant's baking students. 

Price wise, the Class Act is very reasonable, especially given the quality of the food.  If someone wants a mound of food for a low price, they're better off going to a buffet place, but if you would like to have a gourmet dinner or an excellent breakfast, you aren't going to find any better than the Class Act.  We've certainly paid as much or more for meals vastly less satisfying than what we got at the Class Act.  We recommend it without reservation, and will definitely be dining there again next time we're in Cedar Rapids.

You can see the Class Act's hours and other information here.  The link also includes links to the current menu.   As noted above, the restaurant features a seasonal menu.  Our visit came near the end of the summer menu; once classes start for the fall, the restaurant will feature a different menu, and most or all of the dinner selections will change.   We look forward to choosing from a new selection of dishes next time we visit.

Ox Yoke Inn

We were on the road Friday night and Saturday, visiting Juli's son in Cedar Rapids.   On the way back home, we stopped at the Amana Colonies and had dinner at our favorite Amana restaurant, the Ox Yoke Inn.  There are actually two Ox Yoke Inns, one in the Colonies itself and the other located on Interstate 80.   We always eat at the one in Amana.

As usual, the food was excellent, save for one small quibble this time around, but we found the service atypically poor.  Usually the service is quite good, but I wasn't quite so pleased on this occasion.

Juli started out with a cream soda brewed at Millstream Breweries, another Amana business.  Her soda was served up with a nicely frosted mug.  I had iced tea.  For our meal, Juli had a hot roast beef sandwich plate, plus some pickled beets.  Her plate included an open-faced sandwich piled high with delicious roast beef, a big serving of mashed potatoes and gravy, and a sliced fruit medley, which she chose in place of the coleslaw that otherwise comes with that meal.   I got a jager schnitzel plate.   The jager schnitzel - a thin-pounded pork loin cutlet fried in a coating of cracker and breadcrumbs - was served with spaetzle (a type of egg noodle) and green beans.  We finished our meal with a shared slice of really nice coconut cream pie.

As always, the food was excellent.   The roast beef was tender and delicious, and topped with plenty of the same gravy served with the potatoes.  Juli always loves the beets at Ox Yoke, and this time was no exception.   The fruit medley was both refreshing and quite generous in terms of portion.   My schnitzel was very juicy and tender on the inside, nicely browned on the outside and topped with a delicious mushroom gravy.  The green beans were farm-fresh and delicious, and the spaetzle was tender and buttery.   The coconut cream pie was excellent.  In fact, it looked so good we dived right into it, forgetting to take a picture first.  I would be quiet pleased if I could figure out how to make such a flaky and crisp pie crust.

The only quibble I had with the food was that my serving of spaetzle was not very generous.  It was, in fact, tiny compared to the very generous schnitzel portion.  I ordered a side of mashed potatoes and gravy to make up for the scanty schnitzel portion, and also because I like the potatoes and gravy served at Ox Yoke.  Unfortunately, I never got the potatoes and gravy.  Our server never brought it, and as far as I know, she didn't even put the order up.  In any case, by the time she returned to our table to refill drinks, I'd already finished my plate, so I didn't mention I'd never gotten the potatoes and gravy.  However, when we got our check, I noticed we had been charged for the absentee spuds.  The server was apologetic when this error was pointed out, and she did correct our ticket.   I still considered that poor service, though the error thankfully was not enough to prevent me from enjoying the meal.

The only possible excuse one might make for the service was that the restaurant was very, very busy.  We arrived a bit after 5 pm, which is the time most of the stores at Amana close.  A lot of people had arrived ahead of us, and we ended up waiting about 20 minutes before we were seated, at which time the restaurant was packed.  I don't think being busy is an excuse for poor service - one would think, after all, that being full is a good thing for a restaurant - but it might still have been a factor.   Since we'd never gotten poor service when we'd been there other times of the day, and had also never seen the restaurant that packed, next time we decide to eat dinner at the Ox Yoke, we will plan to either arrive a bit before 5 pm to avoid the rush, or go do something else for awhile before we get dinner.  

As I noted above, most of the stores close at 5, but the Millstream Brewery is an exception.  They have an outdoor beer garden, it was quite busy when we drove by on our way to the Ox Yoke.  Maybe it was busy simply because it was a warm day - and thus a good day for a cold beer or two - but we couldn't help wondering if maybe it was busy in part because some of the patrons were waiting for the Ox Yoke to be a bit less crowded.   If you plan to stop at the Ox Yoke for dinner sometime, you may want to do the same.

Maxie's Restaurant and Lounge

Recently Jeffrey and I decided to to indulge a craving for steak.  It's WAY too hot to barbecue, and we were already in West Des Moines on an errand. I wanted to go to the excellent El Chisme, but Jeffrey reminded me that Thursday is Farmer's Market Day in Valley Junction, and that we'd have to fight crowds of people to get there.

So we went to another West Des Moines favorite, Maxie's Restaurant.  I've taken my son there plenty of times, but it was Jeffrey's first visit.  Usually I just have a hamburger steak meal, but this time we went a little more upscale.  I ordered the Steak De Burgo, and Jeffrey got a Surf/Turf plate.

We got salad to start.  Lettuce is just iceberg, but the ranch dressing is thick and very good. 

The bread was warm, but the butter was so cold as to be unspreadable.  Can't really fault them for that in this heat, and the pats melted quickly enough on the warm bread to make that just a very small inconvenience.



Most entrees come with a spaghetti side, which we thought was nothing special.

We both ordered our steaks medium rare.  Jeffrey though his was TOO rare.  Mine was likewise more rare than I would have preferred, but the meat quality was so high that I didn't even think about returning it to the kitchen.  I'm wondering if maybe restaurant's rareness scales have changed?  It seems like the current "medium rare" is more like what I would have called "rare" in years past.  This isn't the first restaurant that this has happened at, so probably I'll have to start asking for "medium" rather than "medium rare".



Jeffrey's meal



I enjoyed my Steak De Burgo, although I would have liked it much better had the chef used fresh herbs rather than dried.  The onion rings were excellent, as always.



My meal



In short, this was an okay meal, and I was glad not to have to help cook at home or wash dishes in our overheated kitchen.  I would much rather be eating Jeffrey's cooking, though.  I am so ready for cooler weather!

Note from Jeffrey:

Although my steak was more rare than I requested, one can't fault the quality of their meat, which is excellent.

Maxie's is located at 1311 Grand Avenue, West Des Moines, IA.  Their hours are 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 4:30-9 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 4:30-10 p.m. Friday; and 4:30-10 p.m. Saturday.  They are closed Sundays.  Their number is (515) 223-1463.  They get busy sometimes, so you might wish to call for a reservation.