No need to visit, Mom

I don't know how many people watch "The West Wing" anymore (I haven't tuned in for a couple of years), but I found out last week that an Iowa City landmark was going to be on tonight's episode. Two of the new presidential candidates (played by Alan Alda and Jimmy Smits), campaigning before the Iowa caucuses (First in the nation!), stopped in to the Hamburg Inn No. 2. A slice of Iowa City, right there on the tee-vee. Unfortunately, the restaurant on the show looked nothing like the real Hamburg Inn. But they got the interior pretty close. And the popular "coffee bean caucus," in which people leave a bean in their favored candidate's jar, was also included.

Pretty cool. But how about "CSI: Iowa City" next?

Here's more from the Daily Iowan (which Alan Alda was reading in the episode).