We have an esquire in the family!

 

Is there anything better than a free dinner? I think not. Why did yours truly get a free meal? I'll explain.

But first come on! It's a Celebration.

Okay. A free dinner courtesy of my wife's nephew graduating from The U Of Minnesota law school. The brother and sis in law took out the family for dinner to The Foundry at The Bettplex in Bettendorf Ia.

We all did indeed celebrate our nephews graduation in style(plus I drank whiskey for free too).

So our nephew has slogged through quite a few years of college to get to this point. The only thing left for him is to pass the bar. I have no doubt Jonah will breeze right through that,cause he is one smart individual.

So the wife and I had no input to the restaurant of choice,we had been by The Foundry a few times and it was always pretty busy.

https://foundryfoodtap.com/?fbclid=IwAR1v-0342aR9SFu-t_RC-3moCoKr4xXMW9NYurYZ4YFHCDrislkoNtV5jVg

The Foundry like I said is in the Bettplex complex in northern Bettendorf. We have done a blog post about the Van's Pizza there. And there quite a few other dining options in the whole complex too.

The Mrs and Chicken Strip Whisperer.

The Foundry has an obvious industrial vibe to it. Large open ceilings and duct work. I'm not a real fan of places to eat at  like this,cause when they fill up it gets real loud. Which it did.

As is my wont. I did frontload a bit. First order of business is a bathroom visit. This was around a Friday afternoon 530 ish. Pretty clean,but who knows later in the evening.

Life is never.

So to the menu. The Foundry has a pretty extensive menu. The usual apps to steak and everything in between.

We had a busy table and our server was top notch. I can't remember his name but we all tipped him well.

So how was the food? 

Moll got some type of Chicken Alfredo.

My lovely wife got the chicken fajitas.

As for me? When Someone is buying me a dinner and price is no object it's steak for me. So I got a 20 oz ribeye.

Started with a salad and then the steak and cheesy potatos.

Everyone at the table seemed to like what they got. I can't argue with a free steak dinner and at least three whiskey and 7's.

The scales.

I give The Foundry an 8. While I enjoyed myself. The food was good as was the service. I just tend to not like loud gatherings anymore. Hard to talk without seeming to YELL! My work over the years is all about loud.

That all said. Our nephew Jonah is going to be a top notch lawyer of that I have no doubt. 

Dave and Debbie? You raised a fine young gentleman.

Scott.

Meet the new boss!

 And it is not the same as the old boss.Will we get fooled again?

 Allrighty. We had some great pizza just awhile ago and I'm not(fooling) either. A few years ago along 53rd st in Bettendorf there was a pizza place called Crust Pizza. We had been there and you readers can find my blog post somewhere here. I'm too lazy right now to link it. 

Anyways Crust closed sometime last year and I don't know why because their pizza kicked ass. That said. A new owner started up a new pizza place in the old Crust location called Mio Russo's.

https://miorusso.com

Mio's has been open for a few months now and it was time for us to check it out. What is interesting about Mio's is that they serve New York style thin crust,but also Detroit style pizza too. That alone caught my eye because I don't think there is anywhere else in the QC doing that style of pizza.

Mio's was busy! Kentucky Derby day and while pretty busy we got a table right away.

We all got Cokes.

An upside down ketchup bottle for some reason caught my eye.

A few action pics. I'll just say Mio's was busy and the jockeys are small.

The menu.

As I usually frontload some booze I did have to use the restroom. Let me just say right now. Mio's mens bathroom was spotlessly clean. I've been in a lot of pizza joint bathrooms and this was the cleanest ever. Can't say how the womens room was,but probably just as clean.

Long time readers of this blog know that we have up until now have had a glut of Quad City Style(Frank's,Harris,Uncle Bill's et al) type pizza on this blog with a few exceptions like Pagalo's and Huckleberry's. And don't forget the tenderloins!

Last week we had a great New York style pizza at Lopiez's in Davenport. This week we finally had Mio's. New York and Detroit style.

Can't say I am familiar with Detroit style,but Mio's from what I tasted has a great Detroit pizza.

So here we go. It's Mothers Day weekend and well my faithful sidekick has been with me since we started this blog in 2016. Sher wanted pizza so why not? 

Sher and Moll(the chicken strip whisperer) wanted Taco pizza. I was down for that Detroit style. So we ordered a New York style Taco and I ordered a Detroit style triple pepperoni.

I'm not a big fan of taco pizza,but I love to hoover up lettuce and taco chips on the pan.

This Detroit style was the star of my show. Spicy pepperoni,cup and char pepperoni and regular pepperoni. So much sauce. The crust had that nice cheesy char on the rim. This pizza vaults right up there in my QC top 5 pizza joints. 

So good these pizza's are. 

We have been doing this blog since 2016 and every now and then we get a server that we bond with right away and takes a liking to us too. Tonite we had Leighanne. She was such a great host and gave us great service.

Such a great lady. I had to give her a song in our blog. This might be a first.

Final thoughts. It has been a long time since we have had two different type pizza's in one location. While I'm kinda on the fence about taco pizza. I can say Mio's Detroit style is the bomb! Saucy,awesome pepperoni and buttery charred crust. I'm not much of a deep dish kinda guy but Detroit style to me is not the same as Chicago Pizza Cake style pizza.

I give Mio's a 9.5

Moll gives it a solid 9 just for the taco.

Scotty

Aloha Mr Hand

 Today's post isn't really about going out to eat. We were needing a pizza peel for at home use. A Facebook post a week or so ago caught my eye. 

A brief interlude

So there is this store in Davenport that sells all kinds of grills and smokers and rubs and sauce and pellets and charcoal and pizza ovens and on and on and on! Tshirts too.

Like I said we needed a pizza peel and Midwest Grilling supplies was supposed to have this outdoor pizza oven going today as a demonstration. So why wouldn't we check it out? Rhetorical I know. It's located near the old Dunhams Sporting goods store and right behind Famouls Daves

https://www.midwestgrillingsupplies.com/

Well the pizza oven demo turned out to somewhat of a bust. The guy putting it on wasn't near ready when we were there. He had a pizza going but we had other things to do at that point.

But seriously. If you need grills or supplies you can't go wrong checking this place out. 

Full disclosure time. We have bought two grills here also and they have fantastic customer support.

Oh and we did get that pizza peel.

One more tune cause I'm talking about flames and such.

Spring I think has finally sprung and it felt good to get outside in just a t shirt.

Scotty