proof restaurant
1301 Locust St
Des Moines, IA 50309
Open Monday - Friday for lunch and Fridays for Dinner.

Wow...just wow.

From the simple menu listing of:

first/5
nacho chips/dip
second/10
duck pizza
third/15
hot dogs/apple fries
fourth/7
snickers/ice cream

Comes one of the best dinners of my life.

Nacho Chips and Dip was really these fried wheat chips and a goat cheese sauce. With these thinly sliced slightly salted tiny red potatoes (I think). The sauce was spicy, but not so much so that it turned away...but still spicy enough to keep me happy. It was smooth, slightly salty and wonderful.

The duck pizza had a small, slightly oiled salad that was good, and the pizza itself was fantastic. Duck, lots of cheese on and a white sauce that just topped everything off. How could it get anything better?

And then it does.

The hot dogs/apple fries...how could something that I normally avoid like the plague (hot dogs, most are awful) be good? You take a freshly baked roll, make your own catchup, mustard, and put those around a pureed scallop formed into a hot dog. It was astoundingly good. I don't say that lightly either. That was the only course I was really worried. That combined with the granny smith apple fries (which were just small perfectly cut apples) just came out as probably one of the favorite food items. I was thinking of food shows that I've seen and how this would be something they would do on a show like that, and then Shannon mentioned the same thing.

The snickers/ice cream was a peanut butter ice cream, beside nougat enrobed in chocolate. Combined together it tasted like a snickers bar. It was a great finish to a fantastic dinner.

Service was quick and attentive but not over bearing.

I'm quite impressed. My boss knows the owner/chef in a round about sense (I think he said her mother and his mother were friends), but they're both from the same hometown.

Anyways... I'm looking forward to eating lunch there (hopefully soon) and I'm gonna have to keep an eye on their site to find out what their themed Friday night dinner is.

So dinner for both of us, with a glass of wine and some port with dessert for me came out to be just over $90, excluding tip.

The only drawback I had, was the music...but that just me...boring and bland smooth jazz never seems to be ok for me...