Laka Lono Rum Club - Omaha, NE

When I’m out of town, I’m always going to find the local tiki bar in town. I’ve been to Omaha before and have been to some cool locations (that closed) and one location that exists, but it straight garbage. I knew there was a new tiki bar in town, since the last time I was here, so I figured I’d better check it out after my buddy FFIII’s birthday party. I wasn’t sure what to expect here, but I also figured since I was riding solo, I’d better take a Lyft and not have to limit my enjoyment of rums and juices. (Turns out, I’m glad I did…)

It took me a minute to find, since I didn’t know it was downstairs below street level. I followed a loud crew of college-aged folks downstairs and walked into an absolute madhouse of people. Shoulder to shoulder and everyone was having a great time. If I was with three or four other folks, I wouldn’t have been able to convince them to stay, but since I was solo and flexible, I made it happen. I grabbed a menu while I waited in line and finally made it up to the bar to order. The bartender was surprisingly chipper and conversational for how busy it was and I appreciated it immensely (and tipped accordingly). 

Since I didn’t want to wait in line again, I just ordered two drinks. Veteran move, if you ask me. Puka Punch and a Zombie. You really don’t care what various rums are in these drinks, so I’m not going to bore you with details. However, I will tell you that these drinks were really surprisingly delicious. The Zombie, is of course super-boozy, but not in a way that burns every time you drink it. There’s enough other flavors to make it delightful and it’s sort of a barometer for how others drinks are going to be. 

The Puka Punch had some other flavors besides booze, including passionfruit, pineapple, and lime, and it was also really well-made. I was really pleased with my order and loved to watch people look at me as I walked around the dining room, two-fisting fruit-lade cocktails, while looking for a place to lean or sit. I was really into this place. Lots of people watching and lots of decorations to look at. 

I eventually found a spot at the bar that had opened up, so I plopped down and got comfortable and listened to people order coronas and coors lights and laughed as the bartenders made faces at them. Hilarious. 

Since I had just found a spot, I figured I’d better order one more, since I now had easy access to bartenders’ attention. I went out of my normal lane and got a drink called “It’s The Wind That Gets Ya” – chai-infused bourbon, apricot, coconut, and lemon. Actually one of the better drinks I’ve had at a tiki bar. Really good flavors that worked together. Super happy with this order. 

At this point, I’ve had a lot of rum and am really glad I was taking a Lyft back home like a responsible grown up. However, unlike a responsible grown up, I figured I’d turn a two-drink night into a four-drink night. It was raining out above ground, apparently, and I was still having fun watching everything and drinking tasty beverages. I decided against the Holy Diver that I Was eyeballing and went with the tried and true Mai Tai. I forgot to take a photo of this one, but again, it was really delicious. 

Don’t let anyone scare you away from tiki bars in the middle of the Midwest – they CAN be awesome. I’m glad I stopped in here for a quick visit (it wasn’t quick at all, I assure you). And I’m also glad I didn’t have anything to do until about 2pm the following day…

 

I’ll be back!!

 

https://www.lakalono.bar

Round Man Brewing Company - Spooner, WI

We were up in the Shell Lake area of Wisconsin and we’re always on the lookout for breweries we haven’t tried – totally kidding, since it’s always ME that’s looking for new breweries. This place has a really nice looking interior with lots of space and both a great-looking food menu and tap list. 

Ordering beers is always easy for me, since I usually go for a flight, since I don’t want to have to make decisions. Here’s what I got and how I ranked them:

• Log Chain Lager - B+
• Mud Duck (Milkshake Stout) - B+
• Red Headed Stepchild (Red Hazy IPA) - A-
• Omaha X (Imperial IPA) - B
• Ha-Spoonah Colada (Tropical Hazy IPA) - A

I was sampling these beers while I was perusing the menu, which is exactly how I prefer to do things. I had my eyes on a few things, but kept coming back to the Friday Fish Fry (which is basically fish and chips in Wisconsin). I decided to go for that, but I also had a hankering for a weird appetizer. I’m a sucker for Medjool Dates, and they had a dish with them in it on the appetizer menu – I’m not sure who talked who into getting this one, but it happened. D.Rough went with a strong choice of the Prime Dip – which is basically a fancy French Dip.

 

The appetizer was four dates sliced like a taco and stuffed with cheese and walnuts, and then drizzled with a sweet chili sauce and ancho aioli. These were good, but not mind-blowing, which definitely means we’ll need to go back and try one or two f the other appetizers. They had good flavor, but they were just fine.

D.Rough’s Prime Dip was sliced prime rib served with au jus and a side of pickled hot pepper relish (we skipped the horseradish). It was actually really flavorful and even with the dip it never really got soggy. It just added even more flavor. It was quite delicious, actually. 

I’ll apologize in advance for not having a photo of this impressive dish – I dug into this thing as soon as I saw it and completely spaced it out. The walleye (although it was Canadian walleye, not from Shell Lake) was fried to golden perfection and you actually tasted the fish and not just the batter. A generous portion, as well. The fries were really crispy and large and weren’t just filler like at some places. And the best part is that it’s all you can eat. When you get near the end of your dish, the server comes back and asks if you need a couple more pieces, which I did. And again, forgot to take any photos of the evidence. I suppose you’ll just have to trust me that the thing looks really delicious so I don’t have to steal someone else’s photo from the internet anywhere. Just get this thing. 

 

I actually liked the Ha-Spoonah Colada so much, I bought four crowlers of it to take home with me. I don’t do that very often, if that tells you how good these beers were. Top notch, especially for drinking at the lake.

http://www.roundmanbrewing.com

Sawmill Pizza and Brew Shed - Clear Lake, WI

I know there are a handful of pizza farm and pizza pop-ups around the upper Midwest, and it’s because IT’S A GREAT IDEA. Opening your farm or business up for one day a week and making pizza for folks is probably a lot of work, but it’s also great to get people in your doors and into someplace new. This space in Clear Lake, Wisconsin is really a charming place and the amazing pizza and beer were the icing on the cake. 

 

Some details: Only open on Sundays,  usually noon to 7. Tons of seating options and you can bring your own chairs and sit on the grass if you want. No outside alcohol and no pets. They have an occasional music festival, but most Sundays, they have live music of some sort.

 

The Sawmill has a large parking area and good signage so you can figure out where you’re going. There’s one building where you order your pizza from and then another building houses the beers. There’s also another non-attached building that I think houses a sort of events center, but we didn’t really check it out very much – priorities were pizza and beer.

 

The pizza menu is concise, but not in a bad way – every single one of the 6-8 pizzas sounds great. It isn’t your normal pepperoni or sausage (though you can get cheese if you really need to). With adventurous combinations, you’re going to have to narrow it down to one or two you’d like, which is really helpful since you can do half-and-half, as long as the base sauces are the same. Meaning, red sauce flavors can go with red sauce, but not with white sauce. Thankfully, the folks running the counter at the pizza place are super helpful and will help you get through it all. We got one half Spicy Jameese (tomato sauce, strawberry jam, sriracha, cheddar & pepper cheeses); and one half Wisconsin Luau (tomato sauce, mozz, pepper cheese, Canadian bacon, bacon, and pineapple).

 

We headed to the beer building and the folks in there were also super happy. When you’re at a place like this, you need to try a couple of beers to make sure you really get it dialed in, and since they don’t do flights, you need to just get full pours to try them out. I started with a Rubus Reamer - a sort of shandy/radler style beer. It was a solid beer, but not exactly what I was looking for, especially after that lime beer. It was a solid B performer. I liked it just fine.

I also thought I’d get a Blimey, which is a lime IPA, and this was a big surprised how awesome it was. Definitely an A beer. Even D.Rough liked this one enough to keep stealing drinks from mine. 

Our pizza bell rang and we picked up a really awesome looking pie from the counter. It’s always a good thing when you can’t tell which flavor was your favorite – they were both awesome. And we both kept changing our mind which one we liked the best. The Spicy Jameese wasn’t too spicy, but had some really complementary flavors. The Wisconsin Luau was great, as well, with pork and pineapple. I think we really nailed it with this order and the brewery really came through with the execution on this one. Really pleased with this whole scenario.

I went back to the beer building for a Tipsy Bees, a nice brown ale and I’d give it a solid B (pun intended).  Again, I didn't need another one of these, thankfully, since I had already had three. 

We had a great visit to the Sawmill and both the pizza and the beer overperformed our expectations. We’d recommend it to everyone and we basically talked about pizza and beer for the remainder of the ride back to the Twin Cities (just over an hour, so not a bad Sunday drive at all!). Glad we checked this place out, finally. 

 

Sawmill Pizza and Brew Shed

Clyde's Drive-In - Manistique, MI

D.Rough found this cute little drive-in on our spontaneous trip to the UP, and we figured it was worth checking out. It does have a small dining room, but the beauty of this place is they have servers come out to your car, take your order, and then bring you your food in a basket that hangs on the driver’s or passenger’s window. 

It’s got a large hand-painted menu on the front of the building, so you can decide what you want, or you can walk up to the building and open a weather-proof box and grab a menu. We also found out they have a gluten-free menu, as well, if you need that. 

It’s tough to decide here, since everything sounds good and the menu is deep. I went out of the norm and got an olive burger (with ketchup) with garlic -parmesan fries. D.Rough got a mushroom and swiss burger with onion rings. The food came out pretty quick and was exactly what we needed. 

The olive burger was better than I expected, basically because it was a great way to add salt (olives) and salt (ketchup) so a salted meat patty. There’s just something about a burger cooked on a flat top grill basting in its own juices that I love. Really good diner burger, and not crazy expensive and elevated – just solid. 

The garlic-parmesan fries were weird, but still delicious. It tasted like fries with Caesar dressing on them, even though it was very clearly parmesan and a garlic sauce. I’d probably get these again, since they were pretty filing and again, salty. 

D's mushroom and swiss burger was even better than my olive burger. Even more flavors and juice in hers, so I was a little jealous afterwards. And the onion rings were solid performers, but not the best I’ve had. Just good. 

While we were there, we got to see a couple of old timey cars from a nearby auto show, which of course made the whole thing more old-school-drive-in, as well. The food was good and the sun was out and the cars/people-watching were on point – this was a great visit!

 

https://www.facebook.com/clydesdriveinmanistique

 

Northbound Smokehouse & Brewpub - Minneapolis, MN

I know this place has been open for years and I've just never found my way to it. I'm very glad I was in the neighborhood and D.Rough and TheArchangel and I figured we'd better check it out.

The restaurant has a really beautiful outside patio space for seating, including some cool foliage blocking it from the street/sidewalk noise. It was too hot to eat outside, but we found a table quickly and scanned the menu. Lots of delicious sounding “BBQ” items like ribs, brisket, pulled meats, wings, and the usual sides you’d expect at a place like this. They’ve also got bowls, salads, soups, sandwiches, and burgers – plenty of things for you to mull over. They also have their own craft brewery on-site with a great selection of things to try, as well. 

I started by ordering a flight of beers, so I could try lots of things. Here are my thoughts on those:

·       Castro’s Vintage – cigar-smoked Imperial Brown Ale aged in red wine barrels: 4 out of 5

·       Bridge Hanger – Dark Belgian Strong Ale: 3.75 out of 5

·       Meanwhile IPA – 3.25 out of 5

·       Doppelbock – Double gold medal award-winning: 4.25 out of 5

Really a good quality of the beers I had and much better than I even expected. I was glad I tried a few different ones. Makes me want to try all the other ones the next time I go in there. Looking forward to it, in fact. 

Making decisions about food is a bit harder since the menu is … robust. I ended up making a decision so I wouldn’t’ have to make decisions. Classic BBQ Platter – ribs, 18-hour porketta, Texas brisket, pulled BBQ chicken, and pickled veggies and white bread. D.Rough got the brisket philly sandwich with a side of fries. TheArchangel got the burnt ends. 

The BBQ Sampler was pretty awesome. I shouldn’t have eaten it all, but I could not stop myself. The pulled chicken was really moist and not overly sauced – plenty of flavor in the meat itself and good smoky flavor that didn’t taste like liquid smoke. The brisket was solid – not the best I’ve ever had, but it was really flavorful and tender. Would definitely order that separately in the future. The ribs were really good, with excellent bark, flavor, and tenderness (without being fall-off-the-bone sloppy). Really enjoyed these. The best part of the whole plate and the meal, in my opinion, was the 18-hour porketta. It absolutely slayed. Tons of fennel flavor and deliciously tender. It was surprising how good it was and I was thinking about it all day after that. Just order the porketta and you can thank me later. 

D.Rough really enjoyed her brisket philly. I had a bite or two and was really happy with it. The brisket stood up to the cheese and didn’t fall apart and the cheese and peppers didn’t take away from the brisket flavor. I didn’t get a picture of this one, but I can totally vouch that this sandwich is worth eating. Really happy with this one. 

I asked TheArchangel about his burnt ends and he seemed really pleased with them. He reported good flavor and not fatty nor gristly, which is pretty much a rave review. They didn’t come pre-sauced, but they came with a dipper of sauce that he said was delicious. I didn’t get a pic of the burnt ends – I’ll do better next time. 

Overall, I’m really pleasantly surprised at how amazing this place was. I wish I had been coming here all along, since I feel like I’ve been missing out on years of delicious BBQ so close to home. I would highly recommend going here for porketta, ribs, brisket, and especially the beer. These folks know what they’re doing. 

http://www.northboundbrewpub.com