Review: Fork & Knife feast returns with new twists and turns for Cedar Rapids Restaurant Week 2025

The Fork & Knife Feast is back for the second year in a row since its pandemic break, and the momentum isn’t slowing down any time soon.

This year’s participating restaurants showcased bar food, haute cuisine and everything between to give a jump-start to local restaurants during one of the slowest months of the year.

Find the full menus of specials for 19 participating restaurants online at crrestaurantweek.com. Cedar Rapids Restaurant Week runs through Sunday, March 2, giving diners two full weekends to try everything.

For your chance to win goodies, gift cards and swag, get your 2025 Cedar Rapids Restaurant Week punch card and collect five or more stamps. Punch cards can be found at any participating Restaurant Week location.

To get you started, here’s what caught my eye this year.

1. Crunchberry Cheesecake by Big Grove Cedar Rapids

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Look, I know Crunchberry creations are a bit of a cliche in Cedar Rapids. But unlike many creations involving Captain Crunch’s fun cereal, this one completes a profile the Crunchberry was made for.

At first bite, the cereal milk you left in your bowl at breakfast activates on your tongue, recreating the urge to drink the purplish rainbow milk in the bowl every child yields to.

This may be purely psychological on my part, but I felt like I could taste the rainbow — not just see it.

The essence of this dessert is not something sensible an adult might indulge in when they feel like “being bad.” It’s the kind of dessert that excites our inner child looking for reckless abandon.

Creamy and soft, you’ll sail through various dimensions of vanilla until you arrive at a profile bordering on sweetened, condensed milk.

This was the only thing that made me go back for seconds.

2. Achiote Pork Ribs by Lacayo

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Lacayo proves once again their command of presentation. It’s impressive how they were able to elegantly plate ribs and grits on such a miniature scale for Fork & Knife Feast attendees.

Rich pork fat infiltrates the grits with a kind of warmth and aura you might expect from breakfast, not dinner. It triggered in me the kind of salivation I might expect for bacon rather than ribs.

The meat falls off the bone with a fat on the edge that’s so good, you won’t care about the nutritional facts. The grits are sweet with a classic corn profile punched up by agave, reminding me of a good casserole.

3. Moroccan Meatball by Pickle Palace

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A varied meatball of sweet and sour comes to life with a hint of cinnamon and a sauce that, while maybe not completely Moroccan, would probably get a passing grade from someone in northern Africa.

Greens, pickled radish and cucumbers tip the scales back into balance with a fresh palate as smooth, peppery notes accent throughout.

A hint of mint finishes the dish, completing a lively profile that starts to heat up toward the end.

4. Roasted Pork Tostada by Black Sheep Social Club

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There was a lot of pork at the Fork & Knife Feast this year. And this pork wants to party.

Tender, mild meat meets a world of black lime crema, avocado mousse and mole sauce that work in tandem.

Meanwhile, the watermelon pico de gallo is that loud girl competing for everyone’s attention. Everyone loves her and she makes every party interesting, but she definitely doesn’t blend in with the crowd.

5. Citrus Stuffed Pork Ravioli by CityWalk Eatery

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Chef Ryan Baker, who particularly enjoys making ravioli and pasta from scratch, offers a bit of a preview here before things ramp up at the newly-opened Fireside Tavern, as well as sister restaurant CityWalk Eatery in downtown Cedar Rapids.

This is an unusually floral presentation for a dish more known for sticking to your ribs, matching the sauce it’s presented with.

Greeted by citrus sauce, a thick and supple dough of black and white yields to tender ground pork inside. All of it is slowly enveloped in a creamy sauce infused with pear and amaretto, which gently complement notes of citrus.

This pork has a sunny disposition — an unusual but decent contrast. I guess pigs do fly — to Florida for the winter.

6. Lamb Meatball by The Hip-stir

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Neatly seasoned in equal parts red pepper harissa, yogurt, arugula sauce and cashew dukkah, it’s a decent meatball.

Cashew dukkah, an Egyptian blend traditionally made with coriander, cumin, sesame seeds and black pepper, was an unique choice to liven up what might otherwise be a pretty nondescript dish.

There’s good lamb content without being overly fatty and greasy — a pitfall of one of the Mediterranean’s favorite meats. The meatball was just a tad dry, but that was likely a consequence of transporting the food and serving it in large quantities at an event center.

Overall, this is a new spin of a casual favorite done casually — which is very on brand for The Hip-stir.

7. Thai Pork Sliders by Cedar Ridge Winery and Distillery

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An explosion of color is jam packed into a dainty King’s Hawaiian roll.

The pork is demure and enlivened by a crunch of various veggies, who slowly roll in a sweet and tangy sauce bound by thin slivers of green pepper, pineapple and onion.

I don’t know if it’s Thai, per se, but its amalgamation of ingredients is definitely a show of diversity among fruits and vegetables.

Unfortunately, the moisture content of it all was just a bit too much for the Hawaiian rolls, which started to get soggy by the time I got my sample.

8. Dishes I was hoping to see

Each year, the samples available at the Fork & Knife Feast don’t always match what I was hoping to see from the full menu of specials among participating restaurants.

Here are a few standouts I am still hoping to try:

Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.

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