Back in June I took a road trip up to Arnolds Park to visit the Stenslands at the Lake House. As an added bonus Sabas, Elainie, and Elawyn were up there. While Jason and Sabas were off playing gross golf, the rest of us went to a restaurant on the lake to knock down some tasty vittles. A little known fact about me is that any chance I get to have good meal while sitting next to water, I jump at the chance. Living in pretty much landlocked Boone, Iowa, the chance doesn’t come very often. So while visiting the Lake House, I had to make it a reality.
After much discussion, we ended up at Bracco.
Here are the pictures:
The only thing that would have been better than driving here would have been taking a boat.
I went with the Jambalaya.
They sat us at a table with a broken umbrella. I can say only good things about the food, but only bad things about the service.
They did move us, but after being seated, we waited over 20 minutes for a server to even come to our table, and by that I mean we waited 20 minutes before I went up and talked to the hostess about the fact that nobody had even come and asked us about drinks. Like an epic restaurant fail.
Coconut Chicken Petals. These were delicious! Almost worth the nearly hour wait!
If this is your last meal because you were clubbed to death by a flying table umbrella, you could do a lot worse.
Jambalaya!
Grilled Chicken, Andouille Sausage, Shrimp, Fish, Creole Cream Sauce, Coconut Lime Rice.
$34. That Lake Life ain’t cheap!
But that Lake Life is delicious!
The yellowish hue from these pictures come from the yellowish cast of the deathbrella that was overhead.
After the meal, Carla and I went to the Arnolds Park Amusement Park to check it out. The crazy thing is that admission to the park is free! The rides aren’t, but you can get in for free!
Then I had to stop and get a Nutty Bar!
And it was one of the best decisions I made all day. Maybe even better than ghosting the kids on the dock, but that is a story you had to be there to know. I will never tell it at least.
I’m not going to do a detailed breakdown of my Bracco experience. It has been too long since eating there to really do it justice. Yes, the service was just awful. Yes, the food was pretty good. Yes, the food was crazy expensive, but that is #LakeLife. The ultimate question is, would I go back? I would! The food was good enough and my belief (based on nothing other than my crumbling faith in humanity) is that the terrible service was something of an anomaly. However, there are so many other interesting things to try and do in the Iowa Great Lakes Area, that next time I join the Stenslands (hopefully for the Winter Games), I’m sure we will try something completely new. I hear rumors of a restaurant that delivers your food via robot!
Next Sunday’s food adventure will involve pizza and probably the most unique food adventure I went on this year.
Unfortunately, the restraunt with the robots has been closed down. Something about the owner being arrested and sent to prison. We will find another interesting place to go eat. It won’t be Tweeters. I mean, the food is good there. Expensive? Yes. But the walls bleed black and gold which doesn’t leave a good taste in your mouth when you’re there.