Search this site

American Pieways reviews

YOUR GUIDES TO GREAT PIE




John Forsyth is a book author and world traveler with discriminating tastes and a storyteller's heart. He and his wife, Jennifer, are traipsing along America's backroads and "pieways" in search of good desserts by the slice and sweet stories. You can find all of their reviews linked from the home page.  Here's to good eating and good reading.
"There are lots of jokes involving pies; they’re funnier than other foods, somehow."
-- The New York Times, June 15, 2009


OUR RATINGS





One slice: You’re in danger of suffering pie withdrawal, and no alternatives in sight.



Two slices: You used to think this was good pie, before American Pieways set you straight.




Three slices: If pies came out of your oven this tasty, you’d start a bakery.




Four slices: Buy another slice to go, ’cause this’ll still be good in the morning.



Five slices: Whoa! Redraw that vacation itinerary to include this pie.





Six slices: Member of the Holy Church of the Flaky Crust.

CONTACTS

 

Iowa Cafe, Mesa, AZ

5606 East McKellips Road
Mesa, Arizona
(480) 985-2022

Breakfast, lunch, dinner

www.iowacafe.com

They call the cuisine at the Iowa Cafe hog sloppin, field plowin, hair on chest food. And we call the pies far more worth eatin than the meals.

     You won’t wonder for a second why this place is called the Iowa Cafe once you walk in. Everything in here is Iowa. It’s Des Moines, Keokuk, Ames, Iowa City and Davenport all rolled into one tidy little cafe in the Arizona desert. University of Iowa posters, pictures and calendars, and pennants from every school you’ve ever heard of, and then a few more, decorate the two small dining rooms. There's even a wall map of Iowa with pins indicating where diners have come from (picture below). It's kind of fun, for all that.
     For all you Iowans traveling or visiting out here in the sunny Southwest, this is the place to go to get your Midwest-style burgers, breakfasts and blue plates. For the rest of us, the meals are not an attraction. There was a certain lack of, um, flavor in our lunches here. To be honest, they were bland.
     As Bill Hanna, our buddy and dining partner whose
name is a familiar byline in the narrowing pages of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, recalled months later when we asked him about our meal together at the Iowa: “The only flavors I can remember are American cheese, mayonnaise and salt.”
     Bill liked the pie okay, though, and so did we. Flavors include apricot (flaky), a Best-in-Phoenix apple (according to New Times), sour cream raisin, banana, blueberry, butterscotch, cherry, chocolate-peanut butter (a bit too rich but really good), lemon chess, peach and seasonal pies. Available flavors are shown on the wall of hanging pie symbols (picture below). The price is right, at $2.59 per slice. 
     But we noticed that New Times gave the cafe two other awards, and neither of them was for its burgers or lunch specials: Best Doughnuts and Best Place to Find Iowa in Mesa. We’d guess that last category is a narrow one.
     So, unless you’ve got a strong yearning for Iowa, skip the meal and have the pie. Now, where’s that hog that needs sloppin?

Sign in|Report Abuse|Print Page|Remove Access|Powered By Google Sites