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Home - Dish
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Visit DishOmaha.com! - |
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Look for future dining reviews and features on The Reader's comprehensive dining site DishOmaha.com. |
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Pop the Cork - |
Couple brings taste of the Pacific Northwest to
the Midwest
by Camille Kelly
The brick and wrought iron exterior of the Twisted Cork hints at its interior. A small, gated patio leads to a dining room with about 30 seats. Decorated and furnished in dark wood, deep mustard and burgundy tones, simple iron bistro signs and wood glass-topped tables, this little eatery is kind of formal, yet relaxing, intimate and restful. Low lighting and the warm tones enhance the ambiance.
Looking at the bistro’s website made me think the joint might be a little hoity-toity. And frankly, making a reservation kind of scared me, but after a failed attempt to make a reservation online, I called and spoke to a friendly gentleman who turned out to be Darrell Auld, co-owner of the Twisted Cork along with wife Laura.
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* The economy has done a number on restaurant business this year, with closings piling up. But gutsy James Song has opened Bogie’s Sports Bar and Grill, 108th and Maple. Separating it from the throngs of burger-and-fries joints in town, Bogie’s offers an Oriental twist with teriyaki-flavored items served with Japanese Udon noodles. Bogie’s opened Aug. 24, and is open daily from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m.
* Lucky Bucket Brewery, with its newly installed stills and tanks, has bumped up distribution of its first Lucky Bucket Pre-Prohibition style Lager. Omahans can nab six-packs at a number of HyVee grocers, Wohlner’s and Whole Foods in addition to numerous liquor stores and on tap at bars around town. Expect an IPA from the brewers out this fall and tours of the brewery to follow. Visit luckybucketbrewing.com.
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College Bites - |
A guide to Omaha’s cheap and late night eats
During my college years I subsisted on grocery store samples, pasta with various creative homemade “sauces,” bulk bags of frozen broccoli, Potato Buds (made only with water, no milk or butter which I use to fancy them up these days) and, of course, the ubiquitous Ramen noodles. Money was tight and choices slim, as were my size 8 jeans (perhaps there was something to that diet). We know you’re headed back to campus with a hunger — not just for higher learning, but also for, like, y’know, some really good pizza or something, too. Subway spawned the $5 phenomenon by offering foot-longs at that price, which has Pizza Hut, Quizno’s and other chains aping it. Sure, that’s a great deal, but so corporate, so on the beaten path. Check out some of The Reader’s favorite Omaha spots for cheap eats, plus a few more places with hours equipped to cure the hunger pangs that come with all of those late nights you’ll be up past bedtime “studying.”
— Sarah Wengert
Lisa’s Radial Café
817 N. 40th St., 551.2176
Mon.-Fri. 6 a.m.-2 p.m., Sat.-Sun. 7 a.m.-2 p.m., Fri. nights 4:30-8:30 p.m.
Omaha’s oldest café serves old-school eats at pretty old-school prices. For around eight bucks you can stuff your face and leave feeling fat and happy. Friday nights Lisa’s serves dinners just like grandma used to make. Homemade Fettuccine Alfredo, Prime Rib, Stuffed Pork Chops and Cajun style Blackened Chicken are just a few of the over 35 menu items available for dinner. A cheeseburger with fries is a mere $5.50 and most of the big dinners are $8.99 (with sides). The Radial also serves breakfast and lunch daily with dishes that’ll cure your hangover, fill your tummy and not drain your wallet.
— Camille Kelly
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* Not sure what PETA would think about this, but Arena Sports Bar and Grill, near 90th and Maple, has a game customers can play similar in scope to those vending machines with a claw that grabs stuffed animal prizes — except the prize at Arena is a live lobster. Playing the game costs $2, but if you bag the crustacean, Arena’s chefs will boil and serve the lobster to you for free — quite the deal. Wednesday, August 19, the machine’s opening night, Brian Wragge said about 40 people played and three people got lobsters. Wragge said the game has been extremely popular thus far. The lobsters are kept in a chilled water tank inside the machine, which looks like the traditional claw game. Roger Stricklett of Catch-A-Lobster LLC owns the machine and tank. It’s the first in Omaha and the first from Wisconsin to Denver. Stricklett plans on purchasing more machines for local restaurants and bars in the coming months.
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Mucho Gusto! - |
Gusto Cuban Café offers great food and fun
by Melissa Aden
Before visiting Gusto Cuban Café on 79th and Harrison, my only exposure to Cuban food and culture was what I’d gleaned from watching the movie Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. While I wasn’t expecting to find a hot underground salsa club, I was looking for an escape from reality for a few hours. Thankfully, my visit to Gusto provided the respite I desired.
Spotting straw umbrellas on the outdoor patio, I knew I was in for a far-from-the-ordinary treat. I couldn’t help but be happy surrounded by the tropical décor of particle-board-lined walls, palm trees, wooden furniture, and fake fruits and parakeets. |
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* Crane Coffee is adding another coffeehouse and café to its list of seven locations across the metro. The new, eighth shop will be in the Paxton building, 14th and Farnam, and is said to complement the building’s Art Deco architecture (swoon). The shop will have two parts: one side will serve turtle lattes and vanilla silks just like the other locations; the other side will be a full-service café, with breakfast, lunch and dinner items which the company bills as tapas.
* Tickets to Omaha’s First Annual Riverfront Wine Festival are available. Held Sept. 19 and 20, it will feature Riedel wine tastings and wine-related seminars. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at ticketomaha.com or by calling 345.0606.
* Toyota is touring through Omaha, sponsoring a free event Saturday, Aug. 22, at the downtown Farmer’s Market to promote fresh produce (and their vehicles). Attendees will have an opportunity to win prizes and drive the new Prius. Toyota recruited 12 area chefs to partner with 12 local farmers to make up free samples using the farmers’ produce and meat or poultry.
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* If you’re a fan of HBO’s series True Blood, named after the synthetic blood substitute many of the characters drink on-screen, surf over to trubeverage.com to pick up the home version. No, it doesn’t taste like blood. The carbonated blood orange drink will set you back $16 for a four pack, and a case is close to a hundred bucks, so while it’s doubtful you’ll buy a case for a viewing party, it’s a neat tie-in. There are all sorts of other items like pint glasses and t-shirts.
* It just wouldn’t be summer with out a ground beef recall, so let’s give it up for Beef Packers, Inc., of Fresno! They recently recalled ground beef products produced between June 5, and June 23, 2009. Affected meat contains the code “EST. 31913” on its labels and was distributed to 11 states. Once again, it’s recommended that ground beef be cooked to an internal temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit to kill any bacteria. It’s also a good idea to know where your beef came from. Get to know your butcher.Anyone with questions about the recall can contact BP’s consumer line at 877.872.3635.
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What's Your 10-20? - |
1020 serves up tasty
Italian in historical Dundee
by Melissa Aden
Snuggled near the corner of 50th and Underwood, The 1020 is named for a trolley line that once ran through the Dundee neighborhood.
“During renovations, we found a broken picture of the 1020 Trolley Car behind the bar,” said co-owner Sally Kawa. ”We didn’t have a name [for the restaurant], so we went to The Durham Museum’s Photo Archives, and as we looked through old photos of trolleys from the Dundee area, the name ‘1020’ kept popping up. As well, 1020 is shorthand for ‘What’s your location?’ so the name really clicked.”
Dundee’s rich history is reflected in the restaurant’s décor, a fusion of old and new, where modern metal art pieces hang beside black-and-white photographs from Dundee’s early years. Mellow yellow walls and wrought iron accents add old-world charm to the deliberately relaxed ambience.
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* Food Inc. just closed at Film Streams. But foodies, fear not, Julie and Julia is here to fill the void. Open Aug. 7, the film, starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Amy Adams as food blogger Julie Powell, follows the amateur blogger as she cooks through Child’s famous cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Perhaps movie-attendees should skip dinner and feast their eyes on the on-screen culinary wonders.
* Espana Tapas Bar is now hosting a reverse happy hour every Friday starting at 10:30 p.m. The bar offers sangria (the national cocktail of Spain) starting at $4 a glass, and a limited menu of tapas starting at $3.
* Boiler Room wine waiter and certified Master Sommelier Jesse Becker has launched WineToMatch to help amateurs and aficionados make wine pairings. The application, meant also as an iPhone app, asks users to describe meals then gives a number of wines to match. For example, if you are eating raw potatoes Korean-style, winetomatch.com suggests Pinot Gris, Riesling, Muscat and Albarino, among others.
— Lainey Seyler |
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Taste Test - |
Clean Plate begins its foodie journey at Empty Room space
by Lainey Seyler
Mention raw food to a corn-bred and steak-raised man like my dad and he’s likely to sneer and ask for more bacon. But the raw food movement that has gained relative popularity of late is more than just baby carrots and dill dip. Cooking with acids like lemon juice and vinegar (used on dishes such as ceviché), fermenting food and dehydrating it fall within the realm of “raw food.”
“You can’t cook over 118 degrees,” said Elle Lien, the mind behind raw food restaurant/grocery Clean Plate.
“When the food maintains all the enzymes, it’s easier to digest. You also maintain all the nutrients that you lose in cooking something,” she said.
Lien is the force behind the Empty Room’s fourth tenant in a series of artists, architects and cooks to take over a retail space at the Slowdown Complex at 13th and Webster. Developer Bluestone Group and graphic design firms What Cheer and Secret Penguin are sponsoring what they call a six-month experiment, giving a free month of rent in the space to people who want to share creative ideas with the citywide community. Currently in the space is a pair of architects exploring scaled-down dwellings. In June, artists Amy Morin and Rob Quinn set up a temporary studio. |
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* The documentary Food, Inc. shows at Film Streams, Friday, July 31 through Aug. 4 (see review, page 50). The film, directed by Robert Kenner, features interviews with authors Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (Omnivore’s Dilemma) in a movie that will use the guilt trip to get viewers to eat and buy organic food. Visit filmstreams.org or call 933.0859.
* Taste in Rockbrook Plaza introduced a few updates to its menu, now under the tutelage of Glen Wheeler. New to the menu are several small platings, including a Thai-influenced pizzette, shrimp havarti and artichoke and onion dip served with flour chips. Seared sea scallops with succotash, Jamaican jerk chicken with black beans and bistro steak frites (fries served with steak) round out a list of new entrees. The restaurant has introduced live music on its patio for select evenings during the summer. Call 884.3175 or visit tastedining.com.
— Lainey Seyler
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Flatiron Flair - |
Meet award-winning chef Jennifer Coco
by Steve Brewer
In a business known for turnover, Jennifer Coco remains close to home. She’s been in the kitchen of the Flatiron Café for 12 years, most of that time as executive chef.
Her efforts have helped the Flatiron survive the recession, and she was rewarded for that work this year by becoming the first local chef to be nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award.
Coco’s career began as a teenage busgirl at a local restaurant called The Baking Company. She left to study political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, then planned to enter law school, but after graduation decided to “goof around for the summer” in Lake Tahoe. She began cooking at a Tahoe restaurant, and her career path became clear. |
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* Micaela Hug-Nelsen is turning over the flour, sugar and butter at La Charlotte, a bakery and patisserie, to Jacqui Caniglia, who has worked at the business for three years. La Charlotte supplies pastries and desserts to restaurants around town including O Dining, Marks and Caffeine Dreams, as well as retail customers. Caniglia is buying the business from Hug-Nelson, who will be moving to San Francisco to “work for someone else, to know my hours and leave work at work.” The bakery celebrated its five-year anniversary last week.
* Mutual of Omaha’s Wild About Omaha event is being held this weekend at various venues. For the citywide festival, Urban Wine Company partners with Lauritzen Gardens to present a free wine tasting. Admission to the garden will be waived that evening, July 24. On the other end of 10th Street, Slowdown and Film Streams host a night of free live music. McKenna’s brings barbecue, Union Pizza will sell its specialty pies, and Empty Room’s August inhabitant, Clean Plate, will serve fresh, raw food (see our profile of Clean Plate in next week’s issue).
— Lainey Seyler |
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Ethiopian Exchange - |
Family style and spice make restaurants nice
by Lainey Seyler
We go into restaurants with expectations: of a certain ambience, of menu, of silverware, beverage choices, service and plating. We’re usually unhappy when our expectations are not fulfilled. But sometimes we can still be pleased even when they go unmet.
Take Mother India, for example. The restaurant has five indoor tables, barely a sign on the front door, mediocre service — but food that brings people in droves.
Just 20 blocks east of Mother India lies another of Omaha’s hidden gems that boldly defies expectation.
In fact, the first time I went to Ethiopian Restaurant, 25th and Leavenworth, at 6:45 p.m. on a Friday night, I expected it to be open, but they had stopped serving food at 6:30 p.m. I could see, from my vantage point in the adjacent African grocery store, a few diners finishing meals and watching the restaurant’s flat screen TV broadcasting news and sports from Ethiopia. I could smell spices throughout the store and was immediately intrigued. The restaurant’s owner Ahmed Mahmed informed my group that they didn’t have enough food remaining — some menu items take all day to roast, so when it’s gone, it’s gone until tomorrow. He apologized and gave my friend’s son a mango juice box from the grocery’s fridge.
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* Nebraska Brewing Company brought home three silver medals from the U.S. Beer Open Championships in Atlanta. The restaurant and brewing company’s Chardonnay Blonde Reserve received accolades in the barrel-aged/strong beer category, while the Flathead 140 earned second in the barley wine category, and the Nebraska Imperial Stout claimed silver in that grouping. Breweries and champion home-brewers submitted libations in more than 50 categories. Deschutes Brewery, of Bend, Ore., took best brewery in the U.S. and Canada. Aficionados can test the Nebraska Brewing Company’s concoctions at its restaurant in the Shadow Lake Towne Center, 72nd St. and Hwy. 370. Call 934.7100 or visit nebraskabrewingco.com for more information.
* Jim Trebbian, executive director of the Metropolitan Community College Institute for Culinary Arts, was recently inducted into the Honorable Order of the Golden Toque. Toque means chef’s hat in French. The order recognizes leaders who have worked in the culinary world more than 20 years. There are only 100 members at any time; new members are inducted after the death of a current member. Trebbian joins Paul Goebel, who also works at Metro, as the order’s only Omaha-area chefs.
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Cupcake Calling - |
Cupcake Island owners stir old and new memories
by Melissa Aden
Ten-year-old Shirley joyously rode her bike down the streets of Carroll, Iowa. Excitement surged through her as she anticipated the delicious flavors she’d soon enjoy. The tantalizing thought rallied her to peddle faster, and a light wind enveloped her, rushing through her hair and caressing her face and bare arms. Waving and smiling at many familiar faces along the way, she soon arrived at Jung’s Bakery.
Little did Shirley Thelen Neary know that these after-school cupcake runs would become fond memories and defining moments. Now co-owner of her own cupcake shop, Cupcake Island, the tables have turned and she and partner Ed LeFebvre are the memory makers for Omaha adults and children alike.
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* The University of Nebraska at Lincoln hosts a conference titled “Enhancing Local Food Production and Distribution in Nebraska” July 9, to promote local food. It costs $15 and features workshops with farmers, politicians, activists and academics, all who work to promote the regional and organic production of food. To register, contact cariregistration.unl.edu or 472.1772.
* Omaha’s on track to get its first Neapolitan pizzeria this fall when Dante Pizzeria Napoletana opens near 168th and Center. The restaurant will be certified by the Verace Pizza Napoletana Association, which certifies shops around the world as authentic to this tradition of pizza-making born in Naples, Italy. The traditional pies are fired in a wood-burning oven, lending a crisp, hearty crust. Traditional Neapolitan pizzas differ from New York- and Chicago-style pies in that there probably won’t be a pool of grease in the middle of the cheesy pizza — for better or worse. Check dantepizzeria.com for updates on the opening.
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Surf's Up - |
Local institution
features casual eats, great atmosphere
by Camille Kelly
“Man cannot live by bread alone,” but if he could live on corn fritters he’d live a long, fat, happy life at the Surfside Club. This good ol’ Omaha staple is alive and well on the riverbank, just north enough of the city that you can truly relax. Surfside Club has been open since 1970, serving fried catfish, chicken and corn fritters that have become as much a part of summer for locals as fireworks and swimming pools. The atmosphere is kind of campy/casual, with big band music in the background, picnic tables on the patio along the river, and dark paneling in the dining room.
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* Linda Meigs is the push behind a new farmer’s market at the historic Florence Mill ArtLoft on N. 30th Street. The Mill features vendors selling fresh produce and homemade goods Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Meigs said the patch of the land the Mill sits on provides a more rural feel for the market. She plans to make good use of this by inviting 4-H members for displays and possibly offering pony rides at some point this summer. For information call 551.1233.
* The farm stand on 84th and Grover opened last week. The stand brings in an impressive variety of produce from farmers in Missouri Valley. Sweet corn is their specialty and claim to fame. |
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