"(small town wowzw family restaurant between DSM and KC, right from I-35) Wow. WOW! This is the basic gold mine of the small town, midwestern comfort food. I asked on a Des Moines “where to go” Food page, what was a good place to eat between DSM and KC. The answer was the Toot-Toot Family Restaurant Lounge. So Toot-Toot it was! On arrival about 8:00 the restaurant had about half a dozen tables. We sat in a cozy little corner cabin right next to the buffet. I ordered the buffet, generally against my food religion, but 1) this was highly recommended both on the food page in the comments as well as from our server and 2) there was a chance to try a ton of food at once. My dining room partner ordered the two-piece boiled chicken, whole white meat, potatoes and white gravitation (not chicken sword, but more like breakfast sword), and homemade Koleslaw. It's a son of a **** for a dinner with two pieces. Both chicken breasts were massive, a piece would have been a lot for dinner. And the most important detail, the chicken breast was extremely moist and tasty. It was not fluffy, not dried, or other things that usually go with chicken breast. I almost never ordered chicken breast in a restaurant because it is more times than not, it is extremely dry. That's not the case with her boiled chicken. I got a piece of dark meat from the buffet to try and the same, very tasty, juicy and not even dried out, even after sitting on the buffet. The buffet was great for me to try several different items. As you can see from my plate, I was able to taste her bone-in, freshly cut ham, which was delicious, her pork pliers, which was fantastic, I liked the simplicity of her salad bar, which was fresh with many different topping options, The chickenfajita was a small Bland jazz, The beautified onions and paprika had no taste and the chicken was extremely mild, but they have much facej. I didn't get a loaded baked potato or make a beef taco, but I have all the beats sample, only so I could have a feeling for what this article would have cost if I had made the whole duck from the buffet. I have to say everyone was fantastic, less the spaghetti sauce. The potatoes are definitely fresh, the brown gravy tastes delicious and not from the package, but if it is, could have deceived me. I didn't care about her spaghetti sauce, I thought it was way too sugar. We were stuffed to the pebbles when a very friendly granddaughter of the owner came to check us out, and told us that it was not right to leave without at least tasting their desserts. She even offered to get us a sample plate from the buffet, and we only stressed to get tiny portions. As you can see from the picture, they were anything but small portions! We were able to take every tiny bite from all desserts, everyone made home and fantastic, but wanted to crawl out. This is a place to take and enjoy a great food! If you like spicy, make sure to ask her favorlinger hot sauce, it tastes very like a smokey, burned jalapeño, similar to Lola’s, when you are out of the Moines area. Not much heat, but a beautiful taste that added a little kick to my chicken Fajita. And who could go without a toot-toot-T-shirt I bought, along with a black raspberry gel. I didn't know how big the restaurant was until I used the toilet room after our meal. There is a whole big room in the back! During the meal a big party came too late and took up a large part of the back space. The service was friendly. Everyone was very friendly, Iowa friendly. Okay, I know this is in Missouri, but it's close enough to the Iowa border and everyone was just very “Iowa sweet”. One of these weekends, I would like to go to different circles in Iowa and try to bite this list of small towns. Places like these are amazing and makes you very home with excellent comfort food. Next time I go to Kansas City, I'll stop again and again and again and again and again. This place is a fun ride only to eat on a boring day when driving the road to nowhere sounds fun. We contemplated briefly stopping at the casino because we were so pending, but with the overwhelming number of suggestions to go eating at toot-toot, we decided to go on. We're so glad we made it!"
