Pullman Bar and Diner, Iowa City, Iowa

Our five Midwestern state capital Volksmarches completed, Nancy and I made a few stops on our way to see former next door neighbors, Carrie and Jason Enzler and their terrific children. First, we detoured into Grinnell to see the eponymous college, which we were able to find despite GPS’s insistence that the college was in the middle of a downtown commercial block. Next we stopped at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, which GPS insisted we approach by a closed alley.

The Hoover Museum is well worth a visit, with the tiny two-room house in which he was born, and in which five people lived, cooked, ate and slept.

Just think of that for a minute. The museum, like all Presidential museums, is well worth the trip. Much like the George HW Bush museum, it shows a extraordinarily fine person, a truly admirable man, in contrast to say, to the LBJ Library, which highlights his breathtaking accomplishments as President. There was a special exhibit about the millions of lives he saved by feeding the Soviet Union during their first big round of starvation. (Walter Duranty of the NY Times famously won a Pulitzer for covering a subsequent (and perhaps calculated) mass starvation in the Ukraine which took perhaps 10 million lives, lest it reflect badly on Stalin.)

Before those, we stopped in Iowa City to look around to look around and buy some U of Iowa swag for the Enzlers. Their eldest starts college there this fall. The upper campus is lovely, and I’m confident that a great time will be had and much will be learned. We stopped for lunch at Pullman in Iowa City’s thriving business district abutting the University.

Pullman is a long narrow restaurant with a classic diner layout —

with a row of booths and stools at the counter overlooking the open kitchen.

Pullman is a diner, but diners these days are a far cry from those of my college days, and of more rural areas today. It’s an upscale place, boasting craft cocktails, local sourcing of ingredients, and a “chef-driven take on classic Midwestern diner fare.”

Nancy and I sat at the counter, I continued my sampling of Iowa craft beers, and we ordered food. Nancy chose a curried chicken salad sandwich with a side salad.

The salad was dressed with a dill vinaigrette that Nancy immediately pronounced “really good.” I checked, and she was absolutely correct: really good. We may add some dill to our Paul Newman’s oil and vinegar. She also liked the sandwich. The curry in the chicken salad did not overwhelm the sandwich, and the sandwich arrived on a delicious toasted multigrain. Her post meal comment: “That was really good. I enjoyed that a lot.”

I reflexively, thoughtlessly, foolishly ordered corned beef hash, eggs over very easy. Pullman’s take on corned beef hash included a Sauce Mornay.

It was a good Sauce Mornay, but I can’t say that the highest and best use of Sauce Mornay is on corned beef hash. The corned beef, onions, and potatoes all had been cooked separately and then reassembled. The large chunks of corned beef had been super-charred and the potatoes under-caramelized. The corned beef itself was good, and retained a good flavor, despite the excessive char. The overall dish was not awful. I ate it, but it was pretty far off corned beef’s beaten path. Corned beef hash should have smaller pieces of corned beef and potato that cook smashed together to create that delicious crust. I added Pullman’s house made hot sauce, a delicious green jalapeño blend that wasn’t excessively hot. You’d need to use a lot for it to have a big impact 

I enjoyed watching the head chef juggling orders, managing presentations, and, in the rare lulls, chatting with customers.  Pullman is a pleasant place with a lot of good food available, but think before your order. Some dishes are more amenable to a chef-driven take than others. I remember upscale Soul Food places in DC where the chef-driven take seemingly was to add raspberries to everything, which was barking madness. But chef-drive restaurants also create culinary triumphs. Do give Pullman a try when you’re in Iowa City. You can have a very fine meal there. Just avoid the corned beef hash.

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