Midnight Snack DBQ

La Venta is the most welcoming coffee shop in Dubuque. Almost to a jarring degree. This Colombian specialty coffee shop is located right by Sweet Memories, the ice cream shop that I've only recently stopped calling " The Ice Cream Shop Filled with Plushies ". It's right by one of the first things I showed my transplant boyfriend, the 4th Street Elevator, so it's in a very prime location. Can't imagine what they pay in rent. Side note, but that area is so lovely. None of it ever feels touristy, maybe because my family always took me down there as a kid. My dad would always take us down to the irish store, Calico Bean, and Sweet Memories. I remember when Center of I Am was still down there, until they moved and then had to shut down. ALLEGEDLY , what I heard from a few sources, the manager ALLEGEDLY ran off with all the money. ALLEGEDLY . Don't sue the messenger, that's just what I heard. Miss that store. Anyways, I had no idea that there was even a sto...

There's a many places in Dubuque that it'd describe as beautiful. After trying Roux & Lucia for the first time, it has now joined that list. Roux & Lucia is a quaint bakery on Bryant St, across from the school that shares the same name as the street. It's been on my watchlist for a while, but I haven't had a chance to stop by. I saw they had recently added ice cream to their menu and were working on opening an eatery so I thought I'd try it out. I did not know their parking lot had 9 parking spots. My car eats curbs for breakfast and so the Roux & Lucia employees may have watched me struggle a bit. Turns out I entered on the wrong side. I need to mention that this is out of Roux's control and moreso on the odd patch of property. It's on the "corner" of South Grandview and Bryant. Corner is a generous word for this acute angle they were given to put a shop on. The inside was equally as compact. A large  metal shelf and a very nice employ...

I'm a big fan of food trucks. Is it inconvenient to shout over the motor? Sure. Have I gotten a nasty sunburn waiting for my food before? Yes, but that's on me for having Irish heritage and not wearing sunscreen. Overpriced sometimes? No regular quesadilla should be anywhere near 15 dollars. Have I gotten violently ill from one truck in town that I will not name? You bet! (I genuinely started drafting my will, it got so bad.) If you ignore all that, the food is pretty good. There's a good amount of food trucks running around Dubuque. Tracking them is pretty simple if you have a Facebook account. Tons of groups out there to track them down. Usually, trucks post their schedule in the groups on Mondays, which is very convenient. There are two staples in town, Hangry Hobo and Hibachi Time. Today we'll be tackling Hibachi Time, purely because for some reason they're always in very convenient proximity to me. Kinda suspicious if you ask me. It could also be because they...

Living up to the history of a old restaurant as a new tenant seems like a momentous task.  Especially for a cafe like The Daily Grind. Residing in what used to be the Donut Boy, it's near Beechers and my least favorite intersection in all of DBQ. Seriously, I've been saying for years that they need to put a light or a roundabout there. Keeping it an all-way stop when it's the intersection of two very important and heavily driven streets is foolish. If anyone on the city council is reading this, the money that will be used on that ugly overpass planned for 14th Street could be used on literally any other road construction project. I mean any road. Next meeting, take a dartboard, tape a map of Dubuque on it, and fix the road the dart lands closest to. Who is asking for another overpass? Anyways, qualms with roads aside, I had a lot of memories with the Donut Boy in DBQ. As a kid, me and my father would always go there to get donuts for my grandparents. Bear claws for my grand...

Oolong might be one of my new favorite spots downtown. It's right by Jubeck Brewery and only a few blocks from the library. I'd passed by it a few times and seen it's sign while walking around at the farmers market, but for some reason, I'd failed to go to this hidden gem of a eatery. I decided to investigate their menu one day and found out they sold pho. My brother lives in Ames, studying hard and getting on the deans list (learned it all from me), and he was very cruelly raving to me about an awesome pho place downtown. He said it was one of the best things he ever had. I knew I had to try this dish out one day but never was able to. I had no idea there was any place in DBQ that sold pho. It was time to investigate further. Went there with my buddy and it might just be the best place to catch up with friends. It's a smaller establishment, but they make up for it with amble seating. A good amount of booths and tables, with a fun little bar table in the middle of t...

I want to apologize to @papi's. I didn't know that the Toddy was a hot chocolate-like drink. When I googled it, I saw a tea thing and assumed that's what it was. In hindsight, I should have just asked. I will be continuing to go there to make up for my unforgivable error. After my review was posted, @papi's reached out to me, letting me know that they do in fact have a fun chocolatey drink. They were extremely kind and offered to give me an arepita on the house. Absolutely lovely people and you can tell they care about what they do. I returned to the scene of the crime with my partner and ordered a Toddy. Let me tell you, dear readers, that Toddy was gone before I made it back to my car. If you took a real good hot coco and whipped it up a bit, that's what it felt like. It was so light and fluffy. The chocolate wasn't overpowering, it sung with the rest of the drink to make a lovely experience. I adored it. Everytime I visit, I find myself falling more and more ...