7/4/25 Des Moines Food News: Fuck Your Fireworks Edition
Des Moines, I could not care less about this holiday anymore.
Des Moines Gems, Guides, and Goodies (G3) is the weekly food and restaurant resource for the Des Moines, Iowa metro.
Love: Openings, Closings, Updates, & Events
Spice Rasta Indian Grill and Bar opens on the 5th in Ankeny.
Smohked BBQ (that’s not a typo) is a new food trailer near Carlisle.
Saffron Authentic Indian Cuisine will likely open this week. It replaced Mandarin Noodle House in Johnston.
They’ll have a lunch buffet, by the way. Y’all love Indian lunch buffets.
Black Cat Ice Cream is closing its Cottage Grove location. They plan to re-open in another DSM location, though it’s not clear yet where.
From their FB post, it sounds like the building is structurally unsound.
The new Valley Junction location remains open.
As someone on Reddit pointed out, this cannot have been an easy decision given that this is the peak of ice cream season.
The Ingersoll Dinner Theater will now be The Ingersoll, and they’re slated to open in November (via dsm Dish).
Happened by Tipsy Crow Tavern, and out front was a sign that said, “kitchen now open.” So, there’s that. I guess?
This is no longer owned by Steve McFadden, by the way.
Chain News
Tous les Jours opens on the 5th. If you plan to go, expect them to be a) packed and b) out of almost everything. I’m not going for at least 90 days.
Donuts: Like Literal Donuts!
Programming note: From August 1st through August 28th, we will pause billing and will not have new content.
Bonus poll! I’m researching non-social media ways that eateries can market.
A new-ish business, Virginia’s Juice, is Black woman owned!
The World Food and Music Festival’s vendors list is now available.
I am SO INTO Opals and Onyx’s vibe! Kinky, spooky, goth. Hell yes.
WTF?
Soooo, Juniper Moon isn’t closing now? They passed on inspection on the 23rd of June. It’s signed by one of the same owners (the Gusto guys). The inspection states, “Firm will operate as a full-service bar with beer, wine and liquor. Firm also intends to offer a few snack items such as nuts, olives and popcorn. Operator intends to be open to the public by 06/23/25.” Did I miss news on this?
Did You Know Guesthouse Tavern + Oyster Exists?
Hubster wanted to try somewhere new for brunch, and we ended up at Guesthouse Tavern + Oyster in West Des Waukee, where they call it “blunch.” The interior is not my jam; it’s very Minnesotan fishing lodge. But it had three things going for it: 1) Easy parking, 2) comfy as fuck chairs, and 3) damn good food. Here’s a preview of their banana French toast casserole:
☕ Spilling the Chai: Wrecks and Recs ☕
Recs: Tous les Jours
I don’t recommend chains often, but I do recommend you try Tous les Jours once. But that’s because I want you to then go to Nadia’s French Bakery and test the difference yourself. Really, this is yet another rec for Nadia’s.
I planned to write a compare and contrast piece about Tous les Jours and Nadia’s, but Tous les Jours opened sooner than I expected. Instead, I’m sharing a recap of our April visit to a Tous les Jours in the northwest Chicago burbs.
It felt sanitized and very suburban. It’s clean and minimal to the point of lacking personality. Everything is just kinda there in big display cases that lead to the counter. It’s efficient in that you have everything immediately after the entrance, but if you have questions, you’ll have to remember what you’re asking about, go up to the counter, then come back. If another customer is at the counter, you’ll be waiting, so make sure you actually remember what you were going to ask about.
I mention this because there’s a shit ton of options. And what they call things on their website are not necessarily the same names as in store, unless I’m missing something, which is entirely a possibility because . . . there’s a shit ton of options.
Of those options, very little is gluten-free. This isn’t a bakery for everyone, sadly. I guess that’s the French for you. What you see is what you get, and they can’t be bothered otherwise. (I’ve never been to France. I’m operating on stereotypes. Wini, you’ll have to correct me on this one.) But I keep forgetting that it’s actually French-Asian fusion. I think that’s mostly because the Asian portion feels understated and unfortunately so. They sell bubble tea, so I guess they’re trying.
My biases about chains aside, the service was careful and paid a great deal of attention to detail to each item. I’m not sure I’ve seen chain service industry workers care this much about the food. The women who helped us worked together on our order, wrapping each purchase individually. I’d picked a slice of strawberry cloud cake, which received its own box, and the rest were carefully placed in a bag. Hardcore props to those workers. I hope they’re well paid!
We returned to our hotel and noshed right away, but held on to a few things for the morning. Everything mostly held up. You can probably see from our receipt that we ordered quite a few items including mango cream donuts, corn cheese donuts, a croissant, a custard and almond pastry, blueberry cream cheese bread, and strawberry cloud cake. The total was $30.42 before tip, which seems cheap.
The strawberry cloud cake was impossibly light and gorgeous. For realsies.
Hubster nodded happily at his mango donut. I think he was beyond thrilled to have donut plus mango AT THE SAME TIME.
The corn cream donuts were chewy balls of weird. I know corn in dessert isn’t unusual anymore, but I still feel odd finding actual kernels inside pastries.
The rest wasn’t mind-blowing or memorable, but they satisfied our curiosity.
The nice thing about the Tous les Jours we visited is that it was in a strip mall with a not-too-busy parking lot. With the West Des Moines, EP True spot, parking *should* be OK once the hype settles.
Then and only then would I recommend going. In the meantime, go to Nadia’s. And go to Nadia’s afterward as well. To me, there’s little reason to go to Tous les Jours more than once because Nadia’s exists.
(Potential) Wrecks: More about Triple B’s
If you aren’t a paid subscriber, you missed me discussing a soon-to-open place called Triple B’s. I’ll keep most of those thoughts behind that paywall for now. To summarize, my skepticism about the eatery is strong for a host of reasons.
Well, you can add them to places I won’t patronize.
After this discussion on Reddit (which I did not post), an anonymous source snagged me screenshots of the owner’s personal FB page. I didn’t include alt text here (apologies; there’s reasons), but one screenshot is a strange ramble about “illegals” taking our jerbs, as South Park put it. The other is a brief post from Election Day implying that Trump was the best option. The responses on the Election Day post echo the same, nonsensical, hateful sentiments. It’s so odd to me that people agree corporate greed is the problem, but they say the solution is to “close the borders.” What a hard turn into illogical thought.
Per always, the decision to not patronize Triple B’s is one I’m making for myself and my business. Personally, I won’t be eating there. Professionally, I won’t cover their food, as we are not values-aligned. I’m not telling you to skip Triple B’s. You’re an adult. Make your own decisions.
It might be a mocked saying, but we here at Professional Contrarian know no human is illegal. The pejorative “illegals” is to Latine folks as “thugs” is to Black Americans. We’re not here for it.
Until next week . . .
Thank you for the preview of what to expect at Tous les Jours! I agree it will be worth a look. I want to do some side by side comparisons of the croissants around town once they open!