I can remember the first time I went to the Pit. I was with my brother and brother-in-law and we had just drunkenly walked from Kinnick stadium all they way to downtown Iowa City. My brother-in-law talked us into going to this BBQ joint to grab some food. Upon entering the smell of various meats being smoked (not a sexual reference) made your mouth water. Since I was in a certain stage of inebriation I don’t remember exactly what I had to eat but I do remember my brother-in-law ordering deep-fried jalapenos and sweating profusely on a 45 degree day in Iowa.
Onto the current day; my wife and I take our kids to the Pit quite often. My son loves their cheese balls and also the vintage style arcade game they have there. I have fallen into a routine of ordering the “Slawich”. The slawich consists of warmed hoagie roll with tons of pulled pork topped with a nice refreshing coleslaw and pickles. I usually dump a bunch of their spicy bbq sauce on it. This is a meal for champions; filling, tasty, and unbelievably satisfying. The pork is smokey but not overally and coleslaw is just the right consistency; not too dry and not too creamy. For a side I usually go with their fries. They are the crinkle cut and are fried perfectly; nice and crisp on the outside and soft in the middle. Awesome!
We also sometimes order the brisket, fried pickles, and bbq baked beans. Everything I’ve had I’ve really enjoyed.
On tap they have Boulevard Pale Ale, Great River brewing’s red ale, PBR, and John’s White Ale from Millstream along with some sodas. My pick for BBQ in the IC area; check it out. (www.thepitsmokehouse.com)

Usually when Asian restaurants pop up in small towns you don’t expect too much in the quality of the food that is going to be served. So when my 5-year-old said he was hungry for “Kung-Fu Noodles” and I didn’t feel like driving to Iowa City or Cedar Rapids to get Chinese our only other option was Kyi Kyi restaurant in Lisbon, IA. Lisbon has your typical small town eateries, a pizza place, bars, and of course a Caseys. Getting to know that this is a family run restaurant specializes in dishes from their culture made me feel a little better about picking this place and our first experience was very pleasant. While waiting in line at Kyi Kyi I noticed 15-20 college students from local Cornell College in Mount Vernon lined up asking if they had Pho still available. Looking closer into this I saw that Pho was a type of soup with super thin slices of beef cooked in a scalding hot broth topped with bean spouts, cilantro, rice noodles, fresh jalapeno, and a lime wedge. I took note to order this the next time and today was the day to do so.
My wife and son shared an order of Lo Mein, which was good. We always get crab rangoons at any asian restaurant we go to and sometimes they can be very disappointing, too mushy, too little cream cheese, something like that; these were perfect, fried perfectly with the correct amount of filling; excellent!! Onto the Pho, we got it to go and my broth mixture had the beef already in it, you could tell it was freshly made as the beef had a gray look to it; not necessarily appetizing to look at but it gets better. I added the rice noodles first and then the sprouts, cilantro, fresh jalapeno, and a squeeze of lime wedge. Mixed it around and was blown away by how fresh and satisfying this dish was. This is the dish that I needed, that I had been missing after watching so many Anthony Bourdain “No Reservation” episodes where he goes off on how fantastic the cuisine in Asia is or Andrew Zimmern scarfing down bowl after bowl of this stuff on “Bizzare Foods”. This was it!! You think sometimes these guys over react with some of the foods they eat but I was absolutely blown away by this soup. Knowing I am supporting a local family, within a bike ride distance of a fantastic Asian restaurant in an otherwise lackluster culinary local (Lincoln Cafe not included in that of course). If you happen to find yourself in Lisbon, Iowa and need a meal option, please make it Kyi Kyi, get the Pho, and eat and slurp every bite.

I know, I know, I’ve already review Lincoln Cafe a couple of times but each time it has been a different meal and also my wife and I will not be having any romantic evenings out at nice restaurants anytime soon because Baron Baby #2 has arrived. 
Throwing ideas around for lunch today and in Mount Vernon, we are pretty limited unless we wanted to travel to CR or IC; which we occasionally do. Today however, we wanted to stay close and get some take out food which usually limits us to Hardees, Casey’s Pizza, Subway (I despise Subway and think it is evil), or a local bar. We often forget we have a gem of a restaurant in town that is Lincoln Cafe.
Today I ordered their special: Homemade bratwurst with their house made mustard and homemade potato salad. All of this was great. The brats were not too greasy and had the right amount of fat to give you the juicy wonderfulness that brats give you. The potato salad was very good and refreshing. Their soup special was a watermelon gazpacho. I’ve never ordered a gazpacho before just because cold soup really doesn’t appeal to me. This soup today will always make me rethink my choices. This soups was great! The best way to put it is a cold watermelon broth, with cucumbers, onions, spices, and herbs. Amazing! Refreshing, light, and the perfect thing (besides beer) to cool you off on a hot, muggy Iowa summer day. If you ever get to Mount Vernon, and you love food, make sure to check out Lincoln Cafe. (www.foodisimportant.com)