I can feel it. I can smell it. The white & blue, bitter, unrelenting evil of another Iowa winter fast approaching. If you listen closely you can hear it's howl in the distance when the moon is full and the night is otherwise silent. This is no ordinary howl. This is the death howl, when death has been released upon humankind in the form of cold, snow, ice, power disconnect notices and the reemergence of people who have forgotten how to drive. If winter itself doesn't kill you, one of these asshats will. You hear it right before the creature comes for you, crawling through your window, leaving behind a trail of broken dreams, unrealized orgasm's, empty vials of what once contained the souls of your heroes and half ingested lines of 1970's era booger sugar.
Then it grabs you, with it's Trumplike tiny, cold dead hands. Not by the pussy mind you, but by the taint as death knows neither male or female. You gasp from the fear and sudden cold, opening your mouth wide. It is then that winter breaths into you and infects you with the dreaded hairy black tongue.
I'd rather be dead then be forced to endure this horror for another season, but even on the verge of death by sheer disgust of my geographical location and frozen wedding tackle, my natural instincts kick in and shoving something with some level of nutritional value becomes a real need.
Charcuterie and cheese. Cheese warms my soul. Cured meats satisfies beast within.
The Cheese Bar
Nova has never there. "Take me there"
How is this possible. The woman lives for charcuterie, cheese, wine, all of which the Cheese Bar has, and small circular frozen fruit. She could fund NASA with the shear amount of cash she spends on grapes. You think we should colonize Mars? Take grapes away from her and you have your funding. You know what screw Mars. She needs those grapes. Deep in the recesses of my mind, hidden in the few cells that remain unmolested from a once knee buckling addiction to working girls and blow, they whisper to me that her having grapes in her life might be the only thing that keeps her from killing me in my sleep. God how I love this woman.
The Cheese Bar sits on Ingersoll, a foodies Paradise where the choices are lined up like string warts running east to west or west to east depending on where you are coming from. Plenty of parking in the back if you can't find a spot on the street.
We entered through the backdoor and the first thing I noticed was that the bar was full. This is a good sign unless you like to sit at the bar like we do for reasons I'll explain a little later. The next thing I noticed was communal seating. I am not a fan of people in general. I'll tolerate sitting next to someone on a plane but I will also make sure that they are the pocket New testament I pull out of my pocket. A New testament or any "sacred scripture" is an almost sure fire small talk detterant. Your welcome. The third trying I noticed was that it was loud as shit in there. My hearing 90% gone in my right ear and slowly disappearing in my left. I blame it on way to many front row and on stage seats to Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Rush and AC/DC concerts. I was in the music business a long long time ago and never embraced the concept of ear plugs like I was told to time and time again.
Communal seating means sitting across from Nova instead of her to my left so I can hear her. It also means I will be forced to try to read her lips which I pretty much suck at.
Nova ordered the house wine and I stuck with water. Kinda a self imposed detox. I'm not a wine drinker but the smell alone was not good. Nova asked for a different wine which they gladly did without question. We kept eyeing our fellow table companions food and were trying to match it up with the menu. Our waitress, I wish I could remember her name because she was amazing, walked us through the menu and we decided on the Raclette Smorg, the Smoked Salmon Smorg, the Olive Tapenade Smorg, a meat and cheese tray and the mac and cheese with bacon which just looked to good to pass up.
The meat and cheese tray arrived first. It was brought to us by the sous chef who took the time to describe, in detail to us what was on the board. By detail I mean its name and where it was sourced from. This level of personalized service is unheard of, especially considering how busy they were.
The rest of our order arrived within minutes.
I really wanted to be blown away by the food but the truth is I wasn't. It was good but it was just that. There wasn't anything that really set it apart. Again, the service was exceptional and the value for the amount of food we got was definitely skewed in our favor.
I don't know what the x-factor is for the Cheese Bar and I know that my rating is not in line with the vast majority of others who have visited here, but in my mind, other then the exceptional service that they provide the food was average. read more