Pizza Fusion in Downtown DM

Fong's Pizza
Des Moines

Thai chicken pizza with peanut sauce, carrot, celery, onion, and cilantro

cheese egg rolls with mozzarella

Fong's is a downtown institution of sorts for the young, hip and boozy.  Housed in an old chinese restaurant, traditional and fusion pizzas (think thai chicken and crab rangoon) are the specialty with an array of exotic drinks in novelty glasses.

The taco truck that grew roots

La Michoacana
Iowa City

tripe (left)  and tongue (right)... with cilantro and lime

My favorite (ok, the only) taco truck in Iowa City recently put down roots.  I ventured over to see if the food was just as good and it was!  The restaurant is attached to a meat market and serves a wider variety of dishes since they have more than 10 sq. ft of kitchen to work with.  I approve

Savory Croissants- as euro as eating dinner at 10

La Mie Bakery
Des Moines

It was a tough choice between ham/cheese and spinach/feta but you see ham won out.  Excellent croissant with a crispy, buttery crunch to the outside.  I should've waited and heated it up at home but my self-control wasn't equal to the task . . .

Sweet Time Travel

Wilton Candy Kitchen
Wilton, IA

lime soda with sprinkles and a cherry

backroom stuffed with cool memorabilia

old-fashioned wi-fi

Recently unearthed these pics and remembered we hit this place on the way back from Flav's Fried Chicken.  Wilton Candy Kitchen is an awesome flashback to the era where the soda fountain was the place to be (that's how it seems in the movies but it's a bit before my time so I couldn't actually say).  Painstakingly preserved, it's been around since 1860 and run by the same family since 1910.  Go while you can... the current owners told me none of their children want to take over running the place.

You cannot buy a vowel

Strudlhaus pastry stand
Des Moines Farmers´ Market
South side of Court Ave. west of 4th st.

my sweet bounty

Pastries on the right

 I posted last week about the Strudlhaus sausage stand at the market.  Today I had the chance to try some of the goodies at the adjoining pastry counter.  Despite growing up in Iowa I hadn´t been exposed to dutch letters until moving to Des Moines (maybe because Des Moines is closer to Pella, the main dutch colony in these parts). They´re quite tasty: flaky, S-shaped, and stuffed with almond paste.  I wasn´t up for a whole one today so I got a piece (calle it a Dutch punctuation mark) and this other pastry which they couldn´t name but I know I love from experience.

Not your average pops

Fresh Market Stand, Farmers´ Market
3rd St at Court Ave. (NW corner), Des Moines

All of my savory treats got me thirsty.  I was thinking I´d get a wheat grass shot from Fresh but thought better of that when I saw they were selling wheat grass popsicles!  It´s actually wheatgrass mixed with agave-sweetened lemonade.  And only $1.  Awesome and refreshing!

Papillon Bosnian Food Stand

Des Moines Farmers' Market, across from Java Joe's

L to R: zeljanica (spinach pita) and sarma (stuffed cabbage rolls)

My technique for eating zeljanica to go (patent pending).  It lasted me about a block

I got out of the house bright and early to beat the crowds/heat to the market and hit up a longtime favorite of mine: Papillon, run by the folks who cook at Euro Café in Urbandale and a soon-to-open outpost in the 700 Locust Food Court (!!).  On tap for today, two of my Saturday breakfast favorites: sarma (cabbage stuffed with ground beef and rice; served with bread and ajvar (red pepper sauce) in a pepper/tomato broth) and zeljanica (spinach pita with cottage and mozzarella cheese).  Delicious and filling!