Three Restaurants Worth Driving to Ames For
Note: This column first appeared on Wini Moranville’s Substack, Wini’s Food Stories.
Joe: Wini invited us to do a guest column with the title: Three Restaurants Worth Driving to Ames For. I told her that we’re not really food critics. And even though I am a fairly good home cook, I don’t consider myself a “foodie.”
Fern: Ah, you are too modest, my love. You are a wonderful home cook. And the author of Kitchen Arabic: a cookbook and memoir.
But it is true that you are not a foodie. Gourmand? Gourmet? Well, certainly you are not a food snob. Weren’t you actually sad when Long John Silver’s and KFC closed in Ames?
Joe: Yes. It’s true, okay? I like food. I prefer it delicious and sometimes I want it fast. But filling up on sweet ’n’ salty drive-thru isn’t what Wini was talking about. Going out to eat at a restaurant is a different kind of experience. Food is at the center of it, but there’s more. Going out means being cooked for and waited on. Often we go out to eat with others, so it’s also a social event.
Fern: You like to cook, and it’s fun to have people over. Sometimes dinner guests have suggested that you open a restaurant.
Joe: While I enjoy cooking and having people over to dinner, I’m not a chef. I have friends who are professional chefs, and running a restaurant is different from putting together a meal for six every once in a while. But it isn’t just dealing with the public. the overhead, employee issues. It’s hard work. If I wanted to work for a living, would I have become a college professor?
Ok. Let’s get back to the assignment at hand: three restaurants worth driving to Ames for.
Fern: Even in winter? (I’m always a nervous winter driver having totaled a car on an icy highway decades ago.)
Joe: Okay, then: three restaurants worth driving to Ames for in clement weather.
Fern: Clement? Is that I word? I mean, I’ve heard of inclement weather. . .
Joe: Clement is a word. It’s also a pope. Several popes, actually.
Fern: Should we agree on which three restaurants?
Joe: Of course—we agree on everything else.
Fern: OK. Me first. In no particular order but since I just had a terrific meal there the other night.
Provisions Lot F
2400 N Loop Dr., Ames.
Provisions Lot F in Ames.
Provisions, located in the Ames research park, is the newest of our suggested restaurants. I had their Ahi Tuna this week. It was done just right. And there was enough tuna left over to put on a salad for lunch the next day.
Ahi tuna at Provisions.
When I saw how much tuna was plated, I immediately asked for a box. (Ever notice how no one asks for a “doggie bag” anymore?)
With Provisions, you can always depend on creative. Fresh. Often local. The salads are lovely – and for those who are not fans of Brussels sprouts . . . well, you might change your mind when you try these little guys the way they’re done here. Brussels sprouts, fried with parmesan and candied almond in a creamy Caesar dressing.
Lots of food at Provisions is locally sourced. And it’s still summer in Iowa, so corn . . . yes, corn.
Corn … Provisions style.
Provisions is popular for its Pizza Night Mondays. Different choices of pizzas each week. And always creative. I’m a New York pizza snob. My idea of great pizza is a slice you buy on the street, folding it in half as grease runs down your hand – that’s what pizza is to me. But Provision’s special pizzas are pretty delicious.
The Cafe
North Ames at 2616 Northridge Parkway.
The Café in Ames. A long-time favorite for farm-to-table food.
Joe: One go-to choice has to be The Café in north Ames. To provide its guests with a true “farm to table” experience, the Café relies on local farmers and purveyors for most of its seasonal ingredients.
Fern: Which means, of course, that its choice of entrees varies with the seasons.
Joe: Which is why right now, during sweet corn season, they’re featuring dishes like Iowa sweet corn gnocchi and baby-back ribs served with local sweet corn gratin.
But there’s also a section of the menu that doesn’t change so often—items that have stuck around long enough to become old favorites. Like their fish tacos (Fern’s fav) or the Korean steak and egg with kimchi fried rice (mine).
Fern: Truth be told – with you it’s always about the Café’s carrot cake.
Joe: Yes. That alone is worth the drive to Ames.
Whenever we travel, the one thing I look forward to is trying new restaurants. Recently we were in Manchester, New Hampshire, to visit family, and the kids went to great lengths to get us a reservation at the best restaurant in town.
The place was packed. I guess the food was good, but I don’t actually remember it. Our tablemates were the very people we love and traveled to visit, but we couldn’t easily talk. Why? I couldn’t hear them because . . .
Fern: I have been after you to get your hearing tested.
Joe: No. The restaurant was ungodly noisy. Also I think you mumble.
Fern: That’s what all men say when women suggest that their husbands get their hearing tested. And I do not mumble.
Joe: But you agree that there was a lot of shouting back and forth across the table that night. Over the loud music. It was exhausting.
Fern: You’re right.
Joe: What is it about noise and hip restaurants? No curtains, no carpets. Just flat hard surfaces, tables too close together, people talking so loud. My ears hurt. It’s like Edvard Munch’s The Scream, only with food.
Which is why we both like the ambience at the Café. Cool music, but played low enough that we can talk. Cozy booths.
Fern: I’m a fan of cozy. Which is why I always prefer a booth rather than a table. Also I don’t want to eat in a restaurant where televisions are situated around the room. The Café has a cool bar. One where you can actually talk to the person sitting next to you.
Joe: And carrot Cake. Always carrot cake.
Stomping Grounds /Bar La Tosca
Fern: Our last “worth the drive to Ames” is kind of a two-fer. Many people know about Stomping Grounds which serves great coffee and light lunch on Welch Avenue in Campustown. I used to walk from campus when I was teaching at Iowa State. I think almost every time I had the curried chicken half-sandwich on whole grain bread and a cup of soup. Usually a tomato bisque. It never got old for me.
Joe: There are also delicious crêpes. Banana Nutella, anyone? Lemon?
Fern: But an addition to Stomping Grounds is in the back of the same building, a bar and a few tables and upscale menu. It’s called Bar la Tosca – same owner – of Stomping Grounds.
Joe: They used to be downtown on Main Street. I don’t know what happened. I think after the pandemic, they moved. No matter what location, the food continues to be great, with a small, eclectic menu.
Fern: The last two times we were there, it was nice enough to sit outside. There’s a tree shaded patio. And you don’t feel as if you’re smack in the middle of campustown. Which in fact, you are.
I love the small plates. I’m a big sharer. We started with drinks and an appetizer, the mushroom toast which was creamy and delicious: herbed goat cheese, local mushrooms, on toasted Italian bread.
Joe: We ordered the pan-roasted Amish chicken in spicy piri-piri sauce…
Fern: Which was outstanding, the skin a golden crisp and the meat underneath so moist …
Joe: …and the linguine nero, which is perfectly done white shrimp atop pasta blackened with squid ink and lightly sauced in saffron cream.
Fern: Again, we had to ask for take-home boxes.
Joe: And yet you managed to leave room for dessert, a berry and mascarpone crêpe.
Fern: I have a sweet tooth. Always room to share a great dessert.
Joe: No one I like better to share with.
That carrot cake alone looks worth the drive!
Totally agree with you, Joe, about noisy restaurants! I hate shouting back and forth, especially in this covid era.