Fifth Trip -- July 2011 -- Kimmswick, MS and Indianapolis, IN

I don't remember why the show was on, but when I arrived at Jon's parents house a series called 'Road Tasted' was on.  It was showcasing American favorites like Hamburgers, Mac & Cheese, and Apple Pie from around all states.  The pie part of the show came on which featured a massive apple pie called Mile High Levy Pie.  They go on to describe the careful preparation of the pie and how it came to have that name.  The restaurant was called the Blue Owl and is in a town 20 minutes south of St. Louis called Kimmswick.  Population for the town of Kimmswick....92. 

The pie was named "mile high levy pie" since the town sits on the Mississippi River and was almost swept away in a huge flood that hit the area.  The townspeople built a huge levy to keep the water out and saved the town.  In honor of that event, the Blue Owl made this apple pie.  They carefully hand place each slice of apple inside the homemade crust and put a large pat of butter on top of the pile before putting the top crust on.  Once baked, the apples shrink down, but the outside crust stays the height it was.  They cover the crust in caramel and nuts to mimic the levy.

Jon instantly turns to me and says we have to go get that pie. 

Restaurants pictures of pie

We get on the computer less than 10 minutes after seeing the show, and plan out a weekend trip to St. Louis, Kimmswick, and Indianapolis since it was on the way home.

We left after work on a Friday, and drove straight down to St. Louis (9.5 hours ish).  We arrived around 2:00 a.m. (lost an hour with the time change), and slept until 7:00 a.m.  We had planned to do the touristy St. Louis things first before heading to get breakfast and pie at the Blue Owl.  We visited the Arch on Saturday morning and drove around the city before heading to the restaurant. 

I laid down on the ground to take this picture!

Don't push it over!!!

Peeking down from atop the Arch.

We are high up!!!

We headed out of the city and drove to Kimmswick.  As we were driving through 'town' (.5 mile road), we saw a year round Christmas store...I was excited! 

And there was a SALE!! Jon agreed we were super lucky to be down there on that day. haha ;)

Then we came to the Blue Owl.  Very pretty building, delicious food, amazing pie.  That about sums it up! 

Jon and I had breakfast, which included blueberry pancakes, sausage gravy and biscuits, cheesy scrambled eggs, and chicken friend steak with sawmill sausage gravy.  SOOO good.

Then we decided to split a piece of the apple pie.

This was half of a piece of pie and it still still huge and we both took half of this piece home!

We decided that we wanted to share our adventure with people back home, so we ordered a full pie to take home with us.  This was the first trip where we brought food back home to share with Jon's parents and friends who would come over when we got home.  The restaurant actually ships the pies all the time and already had a pie made and boxed up for us to take home (cooler and ice were used)!

First cut of the pie at Jon's parents house!

We leave Kimmswick and head on our way home, stopping in Indianapolis, IN to visit more Food Network places!  Triple D's Guy Fieri had gone to a place called Jersey's cafe (in Carmel, IN), which specialized in huge sandwiches made by a couple who had moved there from Jersey.  The food was fantastic, and we'd love to go back with friends...anyone interested?!  :)

 These were our appetizer, homemade chips with sweet BBQ sauce, three type of shredded cheese, crumbled bacon, and homemade ranch dressing for dipping.  OMGoodness...so bad but so good!  These were featured on the Triple D episode we had watched.

 Jon got a chicken 'philly' sub with cheese, ranch, bacon, and lettuce on a sub bun.  Side of deliciouso potato salad.

 I got the Famous Wildwood Cheese Steak "Fieri Approved", with handmade meatballs, red sauce, crumbled bleu cheese, provolone, and spices.  SOO good.

We had enough food for 10 people it seemed!

We stayed overnight in Indianapolis, with high hopes of having an adventurous Saturday night in the city.  However, I was exhausted and ended up falling asleep early!  We drove home the next day and presented the pie to Jon's parents and had some friends over to try it!

At home with the pie!  It made it in one piece all the way home!

Jon - "it's as big as my head"

Overall, awesome trip!  Food, company, and mini weekend vacation were perfect.  Never thought I'd be in the St. Louis Arch!  Now how do we top this ;)



Fourth Trip - June 2011

We were watching the show Outrageous Foods and saw something so amazingly delicious, we decided we had to drive 6 1/2 hours across the state of Michigan to eat this food at a family owned restaurant called Papa Bears! 

I goog'd the distance between Canton, Ohio and Muskegon, MI.....6.5 hours of drive time.  It was clear across the state of Michigan.  We decided to do the entire trip, there/eat/back, in one day.  Jon wanted to be home to hang out with friends that evening, so that was our plan :)

We rented a car the night before, and went to bed that night earlier than normal.  Jon set his alarm for 3:45 a.m. on Saturday, and basically had to drag me out of bed by 4:00 a.m.  We hopped in the car, and headed towards Michigan.  Around 7:00 a.m. I called Papa Bear's to see how late they were open, and if they served the Grizzly all day long. *We were not able to make contact with the restaurant prior to our trip, so fingers were crossed it would work out.*  The lady said they were open until 2:00 p.m. on Saturdays and cook the Grizzly the entire day.  She asked if we were coming from out of town (probably based on all my questions at 7:00 a.m.!).  I told her we were on our way already driving from Canton, Ohio and she squealed with delight that we were driving all that way for their food.  We discussed our arrival time so she could get things ready for us.

I slept for most of the trip...thank goodness Jon was able to wake up and drive :) 

We arrived at Papa Bear's around 11:00 a.m.  Here is what we pulled up to....

...that's right.....A HOUSE!

We pulled into the parking lot to find the husband of the family sitting on his Harley waiting to go for a ride.  When we got out of the car he said "long way to drive for some food, but glad to have you here", then rode off.  I guess he had been waiting to see if the caller from that morning would actually show up!

We walk into the back of the house and are instantly greeted like we are celebrities!  They led us to a table that had 6 chairs and a sign that said "reserved" on it.  They weren't sure how many of us were coming, and wanted to make sure we had a table :)  How thoughtful!

We sat down, ordered drinks, then ordered the Grizzly, which was marked on the menu to feed a family of 6 - 8 people.  Meet "The Grizzly", a 10 - 12 pound hash brown stuffed with ham, bacon, sausage, and cheese.  We opted out of the veggies and the sour cream.  Due to ours being all meat and cheese, it weighed closer to the 12 pound mark.

The quaint house had been decorated with "grizzly" decor.  The person who greeted us on the Harley was the influence behind the name, the painting, and the restaurant...he was Papa Grizzly.

Painted on the "family room" wall

We were brought out this huge plate of food, and let me just say.....it was the most flavorful, delicious breakfast food we have ever eaten.  Jon could not get over how tasty the bacon was.  Turns out they get their meat from a farm in the same area and have a local butcher process things for them.  To sum up the trip...below are pictures of the food, and the happiness and fullness it brought :) 

Getting ready to dig in!

First bite....oh sooo good!!!

Jon seeing how much it weighs

First peek into the meaty goodness :)

I went for the go diagonal approach....Jon went for eating from one end to the other...

Taking a break mid eating to take a picture!

Contemplating if it's even possible to finish....

picture taken after the last bite was eaten

WUSSSSS!!!!

SOOO full....but man those leftovers were delicious.

This has now become known as trip we will take yearly so we can share this deliciousness with our friends and family.  Let us know if you 'd ever want to join us on our yearly trip :)

Third Trip - April 2011

I feel like this next restaurant was the turning point where we actually started searching for food places and planned trips to go there.

Jon and I were watching Outrageous Foods with Tom Pizzica and saw a challenge that Jon couldn’t resist.  “The Terminator” was a 2 foot pancake (about 2 inches thick), topped with 1 pound of bacon, 1.5 pounds of red potato hash browns, 6 pieces of toast, 6 sausage patties, and 6 eggs cooked to order.  435 people had tried this challenge, and all had failed.  There was no time limit for this challenge, but you couldn’t go to the bathroom while still trying to complete it.

Jon dramatically announced that he was going to do this challenge and figured most people doubted he would try.  I think he made it his goal in life to participate in this eating contest.  He wanted to prove everyone wrong that he would go down to FL to eat this monstrosity and finish it.  I can’t tell you how many times I heard about this challenge and how easy it would be to finish, prior to making the plans for the trip.

The show featured Shelby’s Kitchen & Deli in Deerfield Beach, FL. 

Since Linds had just moved down to Miami in January, Jon was eager to Google the distance between Miami and Deerfield Beach.  He decided prior to us looking up the distance, that if Shelby’s was within 5 hours of Miami, we would go.  To our surprise, Deerfield Beach is 40 minutes away from Miami!  We set out to plan a vacation to visit Linds in April and planned a meal at Shelby’s.

We ended up bringing along Mrs. B, Peej, and Rufus (their dog) on this trip.  And yes, we drove…22 hours straight down to Miami…with a dog between Jon and I in the backseat for most of the trip.

We got down to Linds’s house on Friday April 15^th.  Lindsay’s place had an outdoor pool, and was walking distance to the ocean.  She lives on Key Biscayne, which is like a little island paradise near the hustle and bustle of Miami.  We swam in the ocean and her pool, played tennis on her island where the Sony Ericsson tennis tournament is held, went to Nasa Space Center with a group of teens enrolled in a Saturday Museum camp that Linds was in charge of, and went to a lot of neat places to eat.



Tennis

 

our feet in the pool :)



waiting for the girls to finish shopping...



I don’t remember the exact day, but we waited for Linds to get off work and piled in the car (with Rufus) and headed to Deerfield Beach for dinner.  We got there about an hour and a half prior to closing time.  We were told that it takes a while to make the pancake, and based on the time we arrived, they wouldn’t let Jon try it that evening.  We were all bummed and had to leave and find another place to eat dinner.  We ended up down the street from Shelby’s at a BBQ joint that was fantastic.  We sat outside on picnic tables and Rufus stayed close by near Peej’s feet…waiting for the guaranteed scraps to be handed to him.

The next day we decided to try Shelby’s again, with the stipulation that we left the second Linds got home from work to make it there with time to eat.  We had told them the night before that we were from Ohio and we would be back the next night around a certain time.  When we arrived, they had already started working on getting the items ready and the pancake was cooking on the griddle.




Outside of Shelby's

  Once people heard Jon was going to do the challenge, people started to peer in the window near our table, and the diners inside were anxious to see the beastly pancake.

They brought out the following:



Jon waiving to the people outside watching



It was HUGE!!!  It was enough breakfast food for 20 people…and Jon was going to eat it all by himself.

He gave it a valiant effort, eating all of the bacon, sausage, eggs, toast, and nibbled on the pancake.  I kept the friends at home updated with picture texts and status updates.  He was in the middle of eating the bacon when he told us that he would finish the bacon, but would then have to stop.

ready to dominate

slow chewing

scooping in the eggs

looking pretty defeated...

During this eating event, we found out that people had come close to finishing. We asked who had come the closest to finishing.  To our surprise it was a woman in her early 60’s who was a retired fire fighter.  She had eaten all the toppings, and cut the huge pancake into 8 slices like a pizza.  She stopped with 1 slice left.  How amazing to think of that when you see what Jon accomplished.

He ended up waiving a white flag napkin, they boxed up his leftovers, which are still being eaten today ;)

Pancake wins...Jon was number 436.

We ended up eating his meal over the next few days, and there was even some left for Linds when we headed back to Ohio days later.

This trip was great, and was the start to a fantastic year of food travels J