In Omaha, Zan and I first tried to go to Big Mama’s Kitchen for dinner, but by 8 o’clock, almost everything was closed; therefore, we ended up at Mark’s Bistro. Normally we would have considered this to be beyond our budget, but we were desperately hungry and felt that we deserved a good meal after many days on the road. The restaurant was having a half-off on all bottles under $50 special, so we split a bottle of white wine.
Zan had a small house salad, which includes field greens, tomato, pickled carrot, shaved red onion, croutons and marinated apricots, tossed with apricot and balsamic vinaigrette.
Zan and I also shared the warm spinach salad: gently sautéed spinach topped with a fried egg, asiago cheese, garlic confit, cherry tomato and toasted pine nuts, with sherry and black pepper vinaigrette
We split the bistro’s signature dish, macaroni and cheese. It is Cavatappi pasta tossed in Marks’ special four-cheese sauce (with cheddar, havarti, asiago and blue cheeses), topped with a toasted panko crust (I later found out that panko is a type of flaky Japanese bread crumb).
After being slightly desperate on the road for a few days (adding aronia berry jelly to our diet the day before had been quite exciting, which goes to show how boring rice cakes can be) this dinner was extremely satisfying!
Marks Bistro
Open: Monday-Saturday 11a.m. – late evening
Location: 4916 Underwood Avenue Upper Omaha NE 68132 Phone: (402) 502-2203
