The first thing I noticed when I walked into the Encounter Café was the feeling of calm. Coffee shops are typically bustling, noisy places where orders are being called out and people are squeezing past each other to get to tables, the counter, the bathroom. The Encounter is as lively and full of customers as […]
The Takeaway
Posted inFood & Drink
The Takeaway: IC’s new Salvadorian restaurant proves Mesa can do more than pizza
If the name Mesa 503 rings a bell, it might be because it’s the sister business of Mesa Pizza, an Iowa City institution for over a decade. Owners Yolanda Amaya and Luis Hernandez immigrated to the U.S. from El Salvador in 1993 and have made visits back home every year, always looking forward to revisiting […]
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The Takeaway: New IC food truck South Side Street Foods serves Southwestern-style fry bread with style
When you approach the South Side Street Foods food truck, you’re likely to hear Motown pouring out of the windows. The inviting warmth of old school soul music could be a metaphor for the appeal of both South Side’s food and the man who makes it. Daniel Velasquez wears a classic black fedora and has […]
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The Takeaway: Ramen Belly leaves you full and nourished
Prior to ordering from Ramen Belly this week, I had eaten restaurant-quality ramen exactly once — in 2018 while visiting my sister in Portland, Oregon. At the time, it was a novelty, and I didn’t really know what it was, my only previous ramen experience being with the kind that comes in a brick along […]
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The Takeaway: Basta is a carb-lovers paradise, but don’t sleep on their salad
Restaurant food is a great way to get your recommended daily intake of cheese, bread, deep-fried things and cured meat. And after weeks of moving, late hours and takeout meals, many of them chosen exclusively because the restaurant in question delivered after 9 p.m., my body had not seen a vegetable in sometime. It was […]
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The Takeaway: CRANDIC award winner Tee’s Liberian Dish engages all the senses
Best of the CRANDIC 2021 winner: Best African Cuisine The first time I tried to order from Tee’s Liberian Dish, I couldn’t. The restaurant had had such a busy day that they’d sold out of everything and had to close up shop early. That alone hints at what you can expect from Tee’s. The first […]
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The Takeaway: Deluxe welcomed me to the neighborhood with luxurious sweet and savory snacks
It’s a truth (nearly) universally acknowledged that buying a house you love is the cornerstone of the American dream. Often left out of that narrative is the fact that packing and moving all your belongings can be a nightmare. Rather than move all in one cortisol-drenched go, my boyfriend and I decided to spread our […]
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The Takeaway: Valérie’s French Cooking is très délicieux
I have been a Francophile for so long that I don’t quite remember when it started. At some point in my tweens, I grew fascinated with French culture. I took French through all four years of high school, listened to French pop music, watched French films and tried gamely to read French Vogue. I associated […]
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The Takeaway: I came for the enchiladas from Sobremesa and stayed for the mole sauce
Mexican food was always one of my first favorite cuisines, because my family ordered it all the time. It was a weekend staple and I remember loving to go to our family’s favorite place and gorge myself on the bowls of salsa and trays of chips because it was one of the few times I […]
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The Takeaway: Marquee Pizzeria’s sweet and spicy pie is my new vice
I have heard it said that pizza is like sex: even when it’s bad, it’s good and when it’s good, it’s amazing. I tend to agree. I’ve had slices from school cafeterias, gas stations, bars, food trucks, mall food courts and upscale pizzerias — and I’d eat every one of them again. Pizza is never […]
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The Takeaway: Sumo Sushi and Ramen, Osaka’s successor, boasts excellent maki and ‘the good kind’ of crab rangoon
The first time I tried sushi I was, ironically, a vegetarian. Even as a non-vegetarian, the idea of eating raw fish was difficult for me to wrap my head around. At the time, sushi was still a rare specialty food that I associated with bigger cities and West Coast states. Sometime in the ’90s, sushi […]
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The Takeaway: Mosley’s is for barbecue lovers, from the ribs to the sides
I was raised by a father whose love of barbecue was such that he’d bring home ribs from a different restaurant almost every Friday as part of a long-running project to determine which ones were the best. I only vaguely remember the criteria: tenderness, something about the quantity and flavor of the sauce — I […]
