I worry that eating in Vietnam may forever have spoiled me and that no Vietnamese restaurant in the U.S. will have anything near the great food we had. So far, that’s been true. I’ve visited two Vietnamese restaurants in Des Moines and both fell far short of Vietnam. But maybe that’s too high a standard.
Pho 515 is in a corner of a huge Asian supermarket on Des Moines’ near north side and I’ve meant to go there for ages. Finally made it and at lunch the place was packed, mostly with Asian diners. My crispy pork with turned out to be large moist chunks of pork with an almost burnt orange crispy rind that was very crunchy. The dish itself was bland but the quality was good. A friend had a pho with supposed crab cakes but we never figured out if/what they were. It did have some tasty tofu. I’ll definitely give the place another try — there was a great selection of banh mi sandwiches. (Pho 515, bills itself as the “ONLY Artisan Style Banh Mi bakery in Iowa.”) I also want to do some wandering around the supermarket which looked full of interesting things!
There’s a very cool new protruding ramp known as “the EMC overlook” at MacRae Park on Des Moines’s south side offering dazzling views of downtown. We also took in some new views from the new Chris Coleman bridge in Gray’s Lake Park. Looking good Des Moines.
Two years ago, when I wrote a cover story about the Raccoon River Valley Trail for Rails to Trails magazine, the trail was looking good. Now it’s even better, as promised two years ago. Where the trail intersects with gravel roads, the section you ride over is now paved – rather than gravel, which is a huge improvement. There is also new landscaping here and there – some with new amenities such as picnic tables — which is also greatly appreciated.
I wouldn’t normally go to the Iowa State Fair on a Saturday — too busy. But I wanted to catch Elizabeth Warren’s brief stint on the Des Moines Register’s famous political soapbox, so we went. It was hot, although not as hot as it could have been, and very very crowded but we did get to see Liz, who performed well and apparently had the largest crowd of all the 2019 Democratic political candidates, to date. (I couldn’t tell – -we were in the thick of the crowd, standing next to a young documentary filmmaker from L.A. who was shooting footage for a film about the Iowa State Fair’s role in presidential politics, or some such.)
We also happened to hear former Colorado Governor Hickenlooper, who seems like a good guy — and although we skipped the Cory Booker soapbox appearance, we passed him and a large entourage, reportedly in search of vegen-worthy fair food. Speaking of non-vegan-worthy food, I fell hard for the maple syrup cured-pork belly on a stick sold at the Iowa Pork Producers tent.
The fair always makes for exceptional people watching but even more so this year because of the political campaign workers/reporters (telltale signs: a Princeton T-shirt, the DC regulation gear – blue button down shirt and khaki combo, etc), the unnerving folks wearing NRA T-shirts, camouflage gear and/or Trump 2020 shirts (Dirck had to restrain me from shooting them dirty looks. Probably best to ignore them.) Also, the hard metal band Slipknot (internationally-known, Iowa-born) was playing its first ever state fair concert to a sell-out crowd so there were some 20,000 maggots (slipknot speak for “fans”) — many wearing menacing black Slipknot t-shirts or other weirdo Slipknot gear (bright orange jumpsuits, creepy face masks like the band members). Many waited in a long line outside a trailer dubbed the “Slipknot Museum” that was parked in the middle of the Grand Concourse (fair speak for the fair’s main drag). It all added a little je ne sais quoi to the fair…
Young and gorgeous Maggie Rogers also put on a high-spirited show, dancing exuberantly across the stage during almost every well-sung song. The folk rock group Dawes (a favorite of our son’s) and The War and The Treaty — a wife/husband soul group and one of the few Hinterland non-white groups — also threw everything they had into their show. Well done!
TakeBetsywithyou 