Linn St. Cafe

Linn St. Cafe is considered by many to be Iowa City's nicest restaurant. We go there several times a year (only when they have a Groupon). While I think that the food is really good, I think that it is overpriced. The Linn St. Cafe presents itself as an upscale restaurant but every time that we go, both Leigha and I think that the ambiance is truly lacking. They have mismatched chairs and plastic covered tables. The kicker is that every single time that we are there, the manager paces back and forth while answering the phone and talking loudly.

While we were waiting for our food, they started taking pictures of some blue mussels. I am not sure what they were taking pictures for, but they offered them to us for free. They were excellent. I ordered some breaded catfish. It came with fried parsnips strips and an orzo with an incredible broth.

Leigha got a Peloponnese pasta salad that immediately became her regular dish. It consists of pasta with pesto, peas, kalamata olives and feta cheese. I tend to cringe at recipes that throw in peas as a token vegetable. I honestly don't know how much the peas add to this recipe, but they don't stand out as an unusual addition in this case. Since having this, we have duplicated this recipe several times at home.






Their house mixed greens salad was simple but I really liked it. The blue cheese pieces were large and  not scarce. It probably helps that we only live an hour away from the Maytag farm, home of some of the world's best blue cheese.