Cocktail Wars Des Moines

I hope you made it out to Cocktail Wars, hosted by Dishcrawl Des Moines at Iowa Distilling Company in Cumming on Tuesday!

What a fun event!  Four local Mixologists whipped up some yummy cocktails using Iowa Distilling Company's Iowa Shine Whiskey, Steel Drum Rum and Prairie fire Whiskey.  So fun!

There were two ticket options, The VIP which included early admission as well as a behind the scenes tour and goodie bag and General Admission.  Both were under $40 (with $10 coupon floating around) and both included 4 nice sized servings of the 4 cocktails.

Mixologists included Nick Eldrige form Americana, Dave Murrin-Von Ebers from Hessen Haus, Angel Cotten from Cattoors on Grand and Hailey Workman from the Lime Lounge.

Party-goers had the same idea as me when it came to judging!  I thought Angel Cotten's Burnin' Pink Lady was the most creative, Dave Murrin-Von Eber's Bumpin' Granny was the tastiest and the all-around favorite was the Hot Toby.

Emcee Ben Gran provided some comedy, Rogue Sweet provided some kick-butt cupcakes made with the Iowa Distilling Co.'s whiskey and other local vendors provided snacks, candles, jam and even jewelery for the gift bags.  Great event Dischcrawl Des Moines!

To the left are the recipes for the 4 cocktails sampled at the event!  Pick up some Iowa Shine or Prairie Fire at your local grocery store, or stop into The Iowa Distilling Company for some samples and a free tour!  The totally nice owners would love to show you around!  Then you can try some of these recipes out at home!  Read more info about The Iowa Distilling Company here.

Shhhhh...It's a secret!

Dishcrawl Des Moines' first Secret Supper did not disappoint.  Tickets were $49 and guests were told of the meeting location and menu the week of the event.

The first Secret Supper was prepared by Chef Mike Holman in the private room at Dos Rios Cantina and Lounge on Court Ave.  I had the pleasure of interviewing him before October's Battledish competition and you can read about it here.

The venue was cozy and nicely decorated for the intimate group of 15 for the event.

This was seriously one of the best meals I've had in a while.  Chef Holman outdid himself on this one.  Drink pairings were also offered and got rave reviews from the diners.   I was smitten with the blood orange cocktail I had.

The Amuse course was a cold smoked seared foie gras with black mole, duck chicharron and black mint & apricot compote.  The flavors surprisingly blended so well together.  It was excellent.

The first course was an ancho infused tamale with slow braised goat shoulder, charred tomatillo salsa and jalapeno pickled onions that added just a little kick. It was superb and the goat was tender and delicious.  I loved it.

The second course was a sweet corn bisque with fried octopus, crispy chorizo, cilantro and garlic jalepeno crema.  These flavors
together worked so well.  This was a favorite among a lot of the diners.

The third course was a seared sea bass with Spanish cannelloni ragout, braised swiss chard and lemon ginger espuma.  They must have had this bass flown in today because it was incredibly fresh and and perfectly flakey.  It was my favorite dish of the evening.

The fourth course was picadillo stuffed rotisserie quail with crispy tacu tacu dressing and romesco cream sauce.  Chef Mike called it his version of Thanksgiving.  It was fantastic.  Almost too cute to eat, but the flavors meshed so well.

The fifth course (yes, another course!) was a chile crusted rack of lamb with fried smashed plantain, spiced black bean sauce and mint jalapeno jam.  The black bean sauce made the dish.  I didn't care for the texture of the plantain as I'm used to it a bit softer, but the flavors of this dish were great.

The sixth and final course was a dessert of leche fritz, goats milk caramel, vanilla apple chutney, powdered hazelnut espresso brittle and white chocolate cinnamon tuile.  Can you imagine fried cream?! It was stellar.  Heavy and sweet and heavenly.

This was an overall great event.  I feel like Dishcrawl's events get better with each one and I'm looking forward to Cocktail Wars next month.  Great job Chef Holman and the staff at Dos Rios and kudos to Dishcrawl on a great first Secret Supper event.

Battledish

Ramen Noodles by
Tacopocalypse

Argentinian Beef Tenderloin
by Dos Rios

It's safe to say that one of the most successful Dishcrawl events in Des Moines so far has been the latest competition....Battledish.  Seven local Chefs represented their restaurants by entering one dish and one drink into competition.

Smoked Chicken Tostada
by Liberty's

Participants got to be the judges after eating and drinking merrily at every restaurant and then voting for their favorites.  


Chef Joe Tripp from Alba took home the Gold with his pork belly dish.  It really was spectacular.  You can see the full list of results including runners-up here.

Surf & Turf by BOS

If you missed Battledish, you can still get in on one of the next Dishcrawl events in Des Moines by checking out their website here.  While every event is not a competition, they are hosting a Beaverdale Dishcrawl this month as well as a mixology competition coming up soon!  Keep your eye on the website for more info on that event coming soon.

Pizza by Gusto

Pork with Sweet Corn Cake
by Proof

You can read more about all of the judges in the Battledish Competition here.  A big thanks to Alba, Proof, Liberty's, BOS, Gusto, Tacopocalypse and Dos Rios for entering some fantastic dishes and drinks, what an awesome event DIshcrawl Des Moines.

Pork Belly by Alba

Interview with Chef Mike from Dos Rios

We got a sneak peak at what Chef Mike Holman, Executive Chef at Dos Rios is going to be serving up for competition during BattleDish on October 5th!  We are already fans of their regular menu, lunch specials and happy hour appetizer and drink specials, but Chef Mike is cooking up something new for the Battle.  Read our review of the lunch menu here.

Chef Holman has been cooking professionally for over 17 years.  After figuring out early on that he wouldn't be using his degree in Finance, he went back to school at The Iowa Culinary Institute to pursue his real passion.  After working at a cafe in Ames for 7 years, he's had much success in his culinary endeavors such as being the Executive Chef at Americana at it's opening and also at Tartine.  He's now had the opportunity to be the Executive Chef for Dos Rios and Big City Burger and Greens.  Look out for some big news coming soon this fall too!

For the competition he's featuring an Argentinian beef tenderloin with fire roasted peppers, pickled onions, boiled eggs, mango vinaigrette and arugula served on homemade French rolls.  YUM!  It will be paired with a South American sangria cocktail with cachaca, absinthe, orange liquor, Mexican brandy, fresh fruit and topped with pino, wow!  This is going to be some fierce competition.

We are totally impressed with the lineup in this competition.  They are featuring the Executive Chefs from BOS, Liberty's, Alba, Tacopocalypse, Proof and Gusto!  Here is more info about Battledish and how to purchase tickets.

Chef Mike enjoys his job because it is never the same two days in a row.  He's excited about Battledish because he loves a good competition. He knows his food can stand up to the best, and on October 5th we'll see where he stands!

If you can't make it on October 5th or just can't get enough awesome food, check out Chef Mike's Tequila dinner on October 17th! A 5 course meal paired with hand-crafted tequila cocktails.  There will be giveaways, guest speakers from Silvercoin Tequila and more.  Don't miss it!

Eat, Play, Love Des Moines Night @ 515 Brewery

We were SO excited to host our first free public event on Friday, July 26th at 515 Brewery in Clive.  Thanks to all of you who came and made it awesome!

It was a beautiful night and we had a fantastic turnout with upwards of 200 people that came out!  It was so busy we lost track!


We gave away lots of mail openers =)  We raffled off (in our free raffle) tons of t-shirts, food items from local restaurants, Tastefully Simple products, ICubs tickets and more.  Over 50 prizes!!

Local Yocals was there serving up his fantastic farm burgers made with all local ingredients along with Iowa sweet corn and Iowa fries.  After keeping him busy cooking for 3 hours, he sold out!

Tamales Industry was also there selling their famous delicious tamales, they too sold out after a few hours!  If you want more, you can visit their restaurant on 2nd Ave in Des Moines!

Rogue Sweets made chocolate chai cupcakes with 515's own Numb Nuts beer and caramel apple cupcakes from Sutliff Cider (also available at 515).  They were awesome!  Everyone enjoyed them!

Dishcrawl Des Moines brought their bacon photo booth to get everyone excited for the Bacon Battle event that was to he held the following Sunday. Fun!

We deemed the event a success and we hope you did too!  We hope you had a great time and are looking forward to the next event as much as we are!  Next time I will totally find a microphone so we don't have to find you individually in a crowd of 200!

We are open to suggestions to make our events even better! And if you own a local business and you'd like us to host an event (big or small), just shoot us an email @ EatplayloveDSM@aol.com and we'll see if we can set something up!

Our next event will be August 9th, 2013 at Sully's Irish Pub in West Des Moines.  Look for details to follow and hope to see you there!

Dishcrawl Des Moines - Neighborfood

Dishcrawl Des Moines' latest event was a little different than previous events.  Instead of the normal 4 restaurants, this event included 8 stops (plus a few bonus stops for drink specials and a neat store called InnaZONwerld for dip and wine tasting).  There was a groupon and living social deal for this event that made tickets around $20.

While I was accustomed to huge portions at the previous crawls, this crawl boasted smaller potions at each of the 8 stops.  A sampling if you will.

The setup was pretty neat.  You checked-in and got your map of participating restaurants and you were free to hit them in any order you like to start sampling.  A fun thing thing to do with friends since this design makes it a little harder to meet other diners.

Tanya from Capital Pub & Hot Dog did a great job greeting Dishcrawlers and checking in to see if you were enjoying.

Rogue Sweets has some of the best gluten-free cupcakes I've ever had and I always enjoy their sweets. Look for them to grow quickly here in Des Moines.

I was excited to find a premium Italian Ice stand here is Des Moines with Little Jimmy's and I liked the portion size, but was a little disappointed in the flavor choices of bubble gum and blue raspberry.  This is a product that is unfamiliar in this market, but very popular on the coasts and this was a big chance to introduce it here and I don't think the flavors went over well.  Watermelon would have been a huge hit.

I was excited to try Mad Meatball again after trying their tasty meatballs at the grand opening, but they were serving their pizza.  It was good, but the portion size was on the small side.  Go back for meatballs when you get a chance!

I was pleasantly surprised by Plain Talk Books and Coffee.  Their panini's were tasty and they had a wonderful selection of hard to find books.  I'll be coming back for lunch and to browse more at this spot.

I love New World Cafe, but wished the owners would have discussed their concept with us a little because it's such a neat place.  I tried to ask Sugar Blasted Sweets some questions about her products, but she wasn't really interested in chatting.

All-in-all, this was a fun event and Mandi, the Dishcrawl Ambassador really works hard to coordinate a fun event.  Since some aspects of the crawl, like the friendly-ness of the of the vendors and the portion-sizes of the samples are out of her control, I can't blame Dishcrawl for that, but I can say that I have been impressed with Mandi and Dishcrawl Des Moines and look forward to the next crawl!

These events are great opportunities for smaller/local businesses to showcase their products as well as try some of the larger restaurants in town when they are willing to participate.  A portion of ticket sales go toward charity and the more we support local events like this, the better they get!  This was the first big event they've hosted, so look for these events to keep improving in the future.  =)

A Dong

Ok, so the name is a little funny, but it's the name for Vietnamese currency so chuckle a little and then think of it that way.  And the food is so good, it doesn't matter.

Anyway, I just love A Dong that is located right near Methodist Hospital at 1511 High Street in Des Moines.  It's very easily accessible not far from the MLK exit off of 235.

The best adjective I have for the food at A Dong is "fresh".  Fresh vegetables and herbs are incorporated in every dish from Pho to Bun to rice dishes and stir fry's.  My favorite thing to order is #29.  It's the Bun (vermicelli rice noodle salad) with lemongrass chicken.  Lots of fresh lettuce, bean sprouts and cucumber with rice noodles and lightly sauteed lemongrass chicken.  So simple and healthier than most Chinese or Thai dishes that are sauce and calorie laden.  Not that I don't like those, it's just refreshing to have such a fresh, tasty meal sometimes.  #29 is pictured to your right.

They also have great Pho, which if you aren't familiar with the very traditional Vietnamese meal, it is rice noodles with your choice of meat in a broth also served with lots of fresh sprouts and herbs.  

I've incorporated some menu photos for you because the menu is hard to find online and they have over 100 menu items!  

They also have some Chinese rice dishes on their menu, but we go for the amazing Vietnamese items.  They use white meat chicken in all of their dishes and the beef has also been of good quality when we order it.  There is nothing worse than mystery meat.  You won't find that here unless of course you are looking for it...You can have most meals made with Vietnamese meatballs, duck, pork or fish meatballs.  I haven't ventured there, but if you have, let me know how you enjoyed it.  Most meals can be made vegetarian as well.

Prices are most reasonable and service is usually pretty quick.  The restaurant isn't much in the ambiance area, but it is clean and the food more than makes up for it.

They don't have a separate kids menu, but meals are big enough for sharing and the atmosphere is definitely family-friendly.  Perfect for the whole family but nice enough for a date-night or friends night-out.  A great place to try something new!