Get Thee to the QC

The Quad Cities are home to a mosaic of Mexican restaurants, eclectic cafe/venues and vegan playgrounds.

BY SARAH ELGATIAN

Restaurante El Mariachi

1317 15th St, Moline, 309-797-3178, restauranteelmariachi.com

The Floreciente neighborhood in Moline, Illinois, is home to a mosaic of excellent Mexican restaurants, food trucks and grocers, El Mariachi among them. The owner, Virginia Castro, left a career at the University of Illinois to open this restaurant, which has a daily lunch buffet, full bar and huge menu. Recommendation: Nopales gorditas. Good cactus is hard to come by, so get it where you can.

Coya’s Cafe

4320 4th Ave, Moline 309-749-7626, facebook.com/COYASCAFE

Self-referred to as “uniquely authentic,” Coya’s has menu items that are hard to find elsewhere and done really well. It’s hard to have a bad meal at any of these places, but Coya’s Cafe has food you won’t get elsewhere. Recommendation: Chilaquiles.

Taqueria La Rosa de Michoacán

1821 19th St, East Moline, 309-755-4462

La Rosa is another family-owned spot serving food from the Michoacán region. Their serving sizes are generous, and they boast an XL burrito that is too big to finish. One patron said, “The food tastes like my Mama Ana made it.” Recommendation: Sopa de fideo.

Los Primos

1143 E Locust St, Davenport 563-424-1111, losprimosqc.com

A Davenport spot that started as a taco truck and worked its way to a brick-and-mortar restaurant, Los Primos have a drive-through window and still employ the truck for special events. Recommendation: Carnitas.

Rozz-Tox Cafe, Bar & Venue 2108 3rd Ave, Rock Island, 309-200-0978 rozz-tox.com

“Opening a cafe/venue/bar made the most sense since that’s what I was doing for the last four years. The other reason was that the Quad Cities needed a space like this, and I wanted to give something back to my hometown,” Rozz-Tox owner and manager Benjamin Fawks said upon opening the venue and cafe on April Fool’s Day of 2011. He had been running a similar space in Guangzhou, China, when he was motivated to return home. Now a fixture of the Quad Cities art scenes and alternative groups, Rozz-Tox is known for its wide variety of events and a unique menu.

Inspired by Fawks’ time living in China, Vietnam and Japan, the staple menu includes banh mi, Japanese curry, midnight noodles, dumplings and rice bowls, in addition to regular bar fare including Mama Bosso pizza, instant noodles and popcorn. There are several Japanese beers, whiskeys and spirits on the drink menu, as well as fusion cocktails, spirits from six continents and nonalcoholic options. Traditional coffee shop specialty coffee options are available, but Rozz-Tox also offers a global variety of caffeinated cafe drinks such as Yorkshire black tea, milk tea, turmeric tea, Vietnamese coffee, ramune, Topo Chico, Bacchus D and CBD-infused drinks.

Healthy Harvest

Vegan Restaurant & Local, Organic Grocer

1616 2nd Ave, Rock Island

Healthy Harvest, a neighborhood grocer and lunch counter, opened in 2017 selling fully vegan eat-in or takeout meals and local, organic, GMOand additive-free products, including items that cater to specialized diets like gluten-free, grainfree or sugar-free. Owners Chad, Nieko and Angelo Summers, a father and his sons, started with a small farm in 2014 and a mission to make good food more accessible and “to get people to eat more plants.”

The restaurant part of Healthy Harvest serves mostly comfort food: pizzas, burgers, tacos and salads, plus smoothies and coffee (ordered either drip or “fancy”). Chad said he thinks the beauty of the comfort food menu is that “it scratches that itch” for animal products, without animal products.

Each item they serve goes through a long vetting process. Usually a menu item is developed by Nieko and sampled repeatedly by the family, tinkered with and then shared with friends. “If it doesn’t get an ‘mmm,’ we’re not done working on it,” Chad said.

All the produce used in the kitchen and sold in-store is grown within 50 miles of the Quad Cities, and packaged products are vetted closely. Off-season, they use a co-op network of farms to which they belong. Every single item is organic. “Lots of places are green-washing, so we go back to that philosophy [do no harm]. We are what we eat.”