New World Cafe--223 E. Walnut St. Des Moines, Ia. 50309

  I must admit, when I agreed to visit New World Cafe I wasn't sure if I would regret it or not. I agreed to go and to be open-minded. New World Cafe is a vegetarian and vegan restaurant and coffee shop, though at the time I decided to visit I was under the impression that it was strictly a vegan restaurant. Even though I have been a vegetarian for a while in the past, my experience with vegan dishes has not been very memorable and I feel the same way about a few of the vegans I've met too. It reminds me of a joke "How do you know you're having dinner with vegans? Oh...don't worry. They'll tell you." I realize that's a stereotype but it's still funny because it's definitely true about a few people I've known. In all fairness, those people probably annoy the rest of the vegans as much as they annoy non-vegans. If somebody was going on and on about how awesome their meat loaf and potato chip diet was I probably wish they would shut up too. But I agreed to go and be open-minded and I was happy to give it a try. After all, who can say "Oh...I don't eat vegan food?" Yes....you probably do but don't think much about it. It just occurred to me that most of what I ate today would be fine for vegans and/or vegetarians to eat.

  When you walk into New World Cafe you will place your order at the counter and then take a seat to wait for your food. The menu for the week is written out in chalk on a black board. The restaurant orders food in small quantities designed to last about a week as to minimize waste and the menu changes based on availability of items. Everything is organic and I believe local sources are used as much as possible. The prices are reasonable and there is even one dish with a "suggested donation" of $6. Pay what you can for that one. I'm under the impression that if someone has less than $6 they will still be able to eat. I think that is pretty damn cool and kind of them to do. But let's not get too carried away with rainbows and unicorns just yet. We don't even know what passes for life sustaining nourishment in this place at this point. So let's get to that part.

  The menu on the day I visited had items like the Walnut St. Burger which had a patty made of walnuts, veggies and quinoa. There's the A.L.T...just like a BLT but with avocado. There is the Curried Chickpea Melt and a number of other items. I decided to have the Mexican Bowl. The menu describes it as "grains, beans, roasted potatoes and yams, veggies, avocado, green herb salsa, smoky cashew "cheese" and pumpkin seed crumble." I also ordered a cup of the carrot dill soup and a ginger lemonade. I took my number and found a spot near the front window to wait for my order while crossing my fingers.

  I had been sitting for just a couple of minutes when the food arrived. The first thing I noticed was that the food looked great. It looked like something that should taste really good. I was not to be disappointed. The soup was kind of intriguing to me. I had never had that kind of soup and I liked it but I couldn't put my finger on exactly what I liked about it. I chalked it up to the dill. I could be wrong but it was worth ordering. The Mexican Bowl was great. There were different but complimenting flavors and textures. The prevailing taste can change from one bite to the next because of how the dish is made. The items are put together, not forced together. The ginger lemonade was quite good as well. 

  There are a number of eco-friendly practices taking place at New World Cafe but one practice that everyone will notice is how waste is disposed of. When you finish your meal you will find three bins to discard your waste. One is for recyclable items, one is for compost and the last is for garbage. When I first noticed this I kind of thought "Shocking! Of course this could happen here." But the food is not served in disposable bowls, cups, etc. The only thing I threw into the garbage bin was a single straw. That was it. I thought that, along with their other initiatives, was impressive.

  I have to say that I was very happy with everything about New World Cafe. I even looked for ways to play the devils advocate and lower my rating. The only thing I could think of was the lemonade was $4.00. Then I asked myself.....what do you think is a fair price? Maybe $2.50? For a place willing to give their food away? Would saving $1.50 have made the experience any better? The answer is no. It would not have made a difference at all and nothing I could throw at them would stick. That lemonade might be the best lemonade you will ever drink for any price. There was simply nothing about the experience that wasn't great.

  So my rating for New World Cafe is a perfect 5 pints (out of a possible 5). No...that is not a typo. The vegetarian/vegan joint gets a well-earned perfect rating and I think anyone should be able to find something they enjoy there. I absolutely will be back and my expectations will be high. Well done, New World Cafe!

  

The Mucky Duck Pub--3100 S. Duff, Ames, Ia. 50010

  As I've previously stated, I wish I would have started this blog a long time ago so I would have already posted plenty of other reviews before pulling one of my favorites out of my back pocket. Instead, we are going to mercilessly judge The Mucky Duck Pub much earlier than I planned.

  I've been to The Mucky Duck enough times to know exactly what to expect. If you're looking for a British themed establishment, this is the place for you. I don't think I know of another place quite like it in the 515 area code. Everything from the decor to the food is mostly British. You may even see a MINI Cooper or two in the parking lot. The Mucky Duck is also the place to find all of that hard to find British memorabilia you've always wanted. Behind the bar, there are shelves stocked with food brands that remind me of home and my melancholy, rainy and overcast youth back in London. The food that mum used to make! Ok, I've never even been there but I've heard it rains a lot and Pink Floyd is my leading source of childhood recollections of the U.K. but if you want imported British foods that you can't find at your local grocery store, this is a great place to look. Let's move on to the dining.

  If you want a burger, you can get a burger but why waste the visit on something you can get anywhere? Fish and Chips, Bangers and Mash and a few other dishes come to mind. On this visit I went with the Chicken Curry since I hadn't had that before and the menu called Curry the national food of Britain. It seemed like a fair and fitting dish for my first review of The Mucky Duck. 

  As I do more reviews, you may notice that I put quite a bit of value on timing and promptness during the dining experience. I do not like having birthdays pass me by while waiting for service and I don't like being rushed. Luckily for all of us, that doesn't happen at The Mucky Duck. We were seated right away. Our server was attentive enough from a distance to be able to tell when we had decided on our order and she was prompt enough to be with us shortly thereafter. The order took approximately 17 minutes to get to the table. Very acceptable. I must admit that I was keeping track because I wanted to see just how much faster they were than a different place that I've dined at recently.

  The menu describes the Chicken Curry as "Juicy meat and potatoes in a rich sauce, served over Basmati rice with a poppadom on the side." The only somewhat negative thing I can say about this dish was that instead of it being served over rice, it was served next to rice and that rice was a little dry and clumpy. Once I mixed the rice in with the sauce, it was perfect. I think had the dish been served as described, I never would have noticed. It was absolutely delicious. It had a bit of a spicy zing to it and in the center of the dish was an unexpected half of a hard boiled egg which fit right in. I'm disappointed that I waited until now to try it. I'll be ordering it again in the future. Others in our party had the Fish and Chips which I also recommend but don't feel the need to describe. 

  The Mucky Duck has a very respectable selection of beer on tap and by the bottle but the only other thing that was not superb about this experience was.....they brought the wrong beer to the table. Oh no, Mucky Duck!! On this day, of all days, the dark day of reckoning? That has never happened to me there. It was just a mistake though. An unforced error. The good news was that they fixed the problem in no time but I'm pretty sure there is a commandment that says "Thou shalt not serve thy wrong ale or wine to thy parched patron." Maybe that isn't a real commandment but it should be. For this offense, Mucky Duck, I must dock a half a pint from your rating and issue a stern finger wagging. I still love you but I have to rate the experience on just that day. 

So The Mucky Duck Pub gets a solid 4.5 pints (out of 5). I don't expect to give a lot of 4.5 or 5 ratings so well done, as usual. I highly recommend this establishment. You may want to follow them online to keep up with events that they hold throughout the year such as the British Motorbike Festival and their outdoor celebration of and participation in the annual Maximum Ames Music Festival.

  

  

Boone Depot---Boone

  I wish I would have started this blog several months ago as I would have had much to say about many places I've been to recently. I've been meaning to do so but this dining experience finally convinced me. I've heard mixed reviews of the Boone Depot so it was time to check it out for myself.

  I'm just going to have to lay this out there and hope it wasn't the normal dining experience at this place. It was fairly busy when we got there but there were tables available right away. Get comfortable because you might be there for a long time. Maybe it was just our particular server but everything took forever. We probably sat for 15 minutes before we were even asked what we'd like to order for drinks. Once we finally got our drinks we had plenty of time to read over the menu. In fact, I probably could have wrote an entire menu in that time. Your drinks should not be almost gone by the time someone gets around to taking your order.

  There are a number of things on the menu that I wish I would have ordered instead of the Union Station Philly but the sandwich sounded good. I also ordered the Beer Cheese Soup. I love cheese soup so Beer Cheese Soup can not be a bad idea. I specifically asked for the soup to be brought out first since I was starving and I highly doubt that there is a chef in the kitchen hand preparing each delicate little bowl of soup. It's in some sort of crock, already warm. Put some in a bowl and serve it. Not very hard to do. But it was. In fact, the soup never came at all and neither did anyone to explain what was taking so long on the rest of our food. To be fair, they realized they forgot the soup when they brought our order to the table and by that time I told them to just forget it. The Philly was served with fries. Other sides are available. The fries were about room temperature and fairly hard. The sandwich was warm and I'd say it was just about what you would expect a Philly to be at any number of other places. Decent but pretty average. Others in our party enjoyed their food so I don't think the food is the issue with the Boone Depot. The food alone, I would rate at 2.5 pints out of a possible 5 pints. The prices were fair. The real problem was the service. I do plan to go back and hopefully this was just an off night for the server but I think the service was poor enough that another experience like that will most likely make me not return again. Get it together people!

  I'd give this overall experience 2 pints out of 5. There is a lot of room for improvement.