I'll concur with three of MariaTheresa's recommendations. We were in STL a little over a year ago and dined at Kitchen K and Schafly's Tap Room. Kitchen K was a very pleasant surprise. I can't remember the specifics, but all four of us enjoyed our food and the service was good too. Liked the loft building it's in as well.

Schlafly's is an old stand-by. Good bar food and a nice, friendly atmosphere,

Haven't been to Sidney St. in a few years, but it keeps receiving good reviews. The food was excellent when we were there.

You may want to check out Sauce magazine's web site for more ideas...

http://www.saucemagazine.com/

This thread is freaking me out. I started in in August of 2004, when I was taking my son to school for his freshman year. Now I'm reading it for any tips on meals we can have during his graduation week in May. Wow.

Jonah

Jonah wrote:This thread is freaking me out. I started in in August of 2004, when I was taking my son to school for his freshman year. Now I'm reading it for any tips on meals we can have during his graduation week in May. Wow.

Jonah

Funny thing, but there was a recent interview with the head chef at The Crossing in Clayton, and he said that he has some regular customers who come back every time they bring their kids to college. From chef Fiala (who also owns Liluma and Acero):

FIALA: "I mean, I make incredible friends with L.A. people, New York, Boston. They drop off their kids freshman year at the school, they come to The Crossing for dinner. And I get ’em parents’ weekend, graduation – bam bam bam bam bam for the rest of the time. And I get to know them."

jlawrence01 wrote:St. Louis is a divided city. All you here constantly is "East Side (IL) vs. West Side (MO)", "City vs. County" etc.

don't forget to ask what high school they went to

dddane wrote:

jlawrence01 wrote:St. Louis is a divided city. All you here constantly is "East Side (IL) vs. West Side (MO)", "City vs. County" etc.

don't forget to ask what high school they went to

There is a LOT of truth to that, more than you could ever imagine. Answer that question the wrong way and you MIGHT find yourself spending the evening alone in the crowd. REALLY.

I just moved (in August) from St. Louis. I ate evereywhere. The two best restaurants are:

An American Place (terrific, very expensive, but really terrific)

Niche (this is my favorite St. Louis restaurant)

Totally laughing about the big St. Louis question. I remember being warned by a native before we moved down there (the first time) that if someone asks you "Where did you go to school?" they do not mean college. Not too long after I received that warning, DH and I were down there on a house hunting trip. As we waited for a table in a restaurant, I looked over and noticed a 30ish man wearing a hand-embroidered belt with the name of his high school stitched into it. Welcome to St. Louis!

That being said, St. Louis was a great place to live and I do miss it.

Note: 17th Street Bar & Grill (of Murphysboro IL) has opened a branch in the Metro East town of O'Fallon, I am informed. Give 17th Street's apparent ability to make 'Q travel to Vegas, it seems St. Lois should be a snap.

Yep, we're headed to St Louis at the end of the month (Beth has a conference, I'm tagging along and exploring the city for a few days), and the O'Fallon branch is on the top of my list.

I'm going to have a car, a GPS, no fear of bad neighborhoods, and a ton of free time on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, along with dinners to plan each of those nights.

Any suggestions?

gleam,

Do give a Jay's international supermarket a shot if you get a chance--it's unique:

http://www.insiderpages.com/b/3716939059

Across the street and down the block a bit is Phô Grand, which I've always enjoyed. (Although it's been 3 yrs since I've been there, YMMV.)

Geo

http://www.phogrand.com/flash.html

The ONLY problem I have had at Pho Grand was getting there when there was not a 1+ hour wait. Seriously, I have been to most of the other Vietnamese places on Grand Ave. (my old neighborhood) and PG is consistently the best.

Another recommendation on Grand Ave is further south at Meramec in the Feasting Fox, a restored historical restaurant originally opened by Anheiser Busch to encourage families to come into a tavern. Good German food at a very reasonable price.

I am supposed to be in St. Louis this weekend BUT ... when is the issue. I have Southwest tickets to St. Louis on BOTH Friday and Sunday AM. The ONLY non-negotiable will be Sweetie Pie's on Manchester (and maybe on W.Florissant if I leave my meeting on time on Wednesday).

Jay's is pretty cool ... but is pretty weak compared to some of the Chicago Asian megamarkets. However, it is one of the more spectacular shops on Grand Ave.

Hi jl01! Enjoy your trip Back Home to Saint Looie!

One of the things I enjoy about Jay's is that they have some serious Latino goods, and one of the best Mitteleuropa stock I've seen. Lots and lots of Polish jams, German coffees, and then, in the coolers, some way cool cheeses from Bulgaria, Albania, etc.

So, yup, their Asian can be beat; but there's other neat stuff there, too. It really does merit its 'international' moniker.

Geo

Geo wrote:One of the things I enjoy about Jay's is that they have some serious Latino goods, and one of the best Mitteleuropa stock I've seen. Lots and lots of Polish jams, German coffees, and then, in the coolers, some way cool cheeses from Bulgaria, Albania, etc.

Back when I was walking through there daily, there was a German market (and a German bakery on Grand Ave.) The former had the usual flaw - "we want your business as long as it is between 10-5 pm. Jay's was nearly all Asian ... and wholly unusual.

Of course, back then, there was National (Loblaws) and my favorite, the OLD Sappington market, a surplus grocery.

I didn't find Pho Grand worth a trip last year, coming from Chicago. A lot of interest in that area, though, and I did enjoy the Soulard market quite a bit (posted about earlier in this thread, I think).

(Yep.)

A brief trip report:

Wednesday Dinner: Hooters in Bloomington, IL. It was near the highway. That said, I tried the "cajun" wings, breaded, drumettes only, and they were a little salty but amazingly tasty. Between those and the fried pickles, it was actually an excellent and very inexpensive meal. Just don't think of them as buffalo wings, and you'll be fine.

Thursday Lunch: Fitz's in St. Louis. My parents happened to be driving through town so we grabbed a bite. The place would be awesome for kids, with lots of bright colors, friendly foods, and an operational soda bottling operation behind glass on the main floor. We started with fried pickles (you see a theme developing?) and I had the "black and blue" burger, described as a blackened patty with blue cheese and fried onions. It's not Kuma's, but the burger was close to medium rare, hand formed, and really pretty good. I can't speak for what my parents had, but I was pleasantly surprised by the operation. The root beer, by the way, was very good. Light on the vanilla, heavy on the wintergreen, served in a chilled mug with no ice and very refreshing. $2 for unlimited refills.

Thursday Dinner: 17th Street Bar and Grill in O'Fallon, IL. This is a branch of Mike Mills' original in Murphysboro. We've also been to one of the "Memphis Championship Barbecue" locations in Vegas. We started with an enormous basket of fried pickles, which were the best of the trip: thick-cut, ridged pickles with a nicely spiced batter. Strong crunch on the outside, with a meaty, briny interior. Just awesome.

I had a three meat platter - sausage, beef ribs, pork ribs. The winner of the bunch was the beef rib, but the pork ribs weren't bad -- decent bark and some tug required to get them off the bone, but they were baby backs, and I just can't get incredibly enthused about baby backs. The sausage was fine, but forgettable. Great vinegary baked beans, too.

Overall, I thought it wasn't as good as the MCB in Vegas, which I thought wasn't as good (at the same meats) as Salt Lick in Vegas, which Beth says isn't half as good as the original Salt Lick. So take that for what it's worth. I still dream about those pickles, though.


Friday Dinner: Riddle's Penultimate, St Louis. An endearing restaurant, with reasonable prices. The best way to get an idea for the restaurant is to look at the menu, which reads kind of like Applebee's combinations at times. The atmosphere inside is anything but, and the execution of the dishes we tried was uniformly very good.

Saturday Lunch: Plush Pig Barbecue in St Louis, Mo. I looked this place up online, found little information, and cruised past it. From the outside, it looks terrible, like the Quizno's next door. But I persevered, went inside, and was immediately heartened by the mounds of logs and strong smell of wood smoke. I had a half slab of spare ribs, tips still attached, which were unbelievably meaty. The texture was a bit off -- the meat fell away from the bones far too easily -- but the bark and the dry rub were great. After I was about 80% done, I thought to try the spicier barbecue sauce, served on the side, which was vinegary and really wonderful. The fried pickles on the side were just OK - too-thin, flat-cut, and a bit greasy. The mac and cheese was kraft shells, or something like it.

Saturday Dinner: Atlas in St Louis, Mo. All of the reviews of this place tout it as heavy on the seasonal ingredients, but I didn't really see any of that. The food was fine, but had a lot of missed potential. Appetizers were crispy duck confit with arugula and piccolo fritto with a lemon aioli. These were both quite good, especially the duck. Beth's entree was a pork chop with a parsley pesto and a celeriac gratin. The pork chop was a bit dry, due to (speculation) not being brined and being a little overcooked. The gratin, though, was great. I had a braised short rib, which would have benefited greatly from a longer braise and a richer braising liquid. We split a butterscotch pudding with creme fraiche and pecans for dessert, and it was fantastic.

They're open until 10 for dinner, and then from 10-11 for appetizers and desserts. Based on our experience, I think we'd probably do that, so as to skip the underwhelming entrees. Our waitress is also their webmaster, and she was wonderful. If she reads this: you were wonderful.

Sunday Lunch: Crown Candy Kitchen, St Louis, Mo. Wonderful. I think it's an absolute must-visit, at least once. I can quibble slightly with Beth's BLT, with its too-small bread and miracle whip, but the half pound of great bacon makes up for those flaws. Great malts, great ice cream, and a fantastic space. Go.

We had a great visit, and really enjoyed St. Louis.

Fitz's Soda Bar & Grill
14810 Clayton Rd
Chesterfield, MO 63017
(636) 230-2900
http://www.fitzsrootbeer.com/

17th Street Bar & Grill
1711 W Highway 50
O Fallon, IL 62269
(618) 622-1717
http://www.17thstreetbarbecue.com/

Riddle's Penultimate Cafe
6307 Delmar Blvd
St Louis, MO 63130
(314) 725-6985
http://www.riddlescafe.com/

Plush Pig Barbecue
7814 Forsyth Blvd
St Louis, MO 63105
(314) 725-4411
http://www.plushpigbbq.com/

Atlas Restaurant
5513 Pershing Ave
St Louis, MO 63112
(314) 367-6800
http://www.atlasrestaurantstl.com/

Crown Candy Kitchen
1401 Saint Louis Ave
St Louis, MO 63106
(314) 621-9650
http://www.crowncandykitchen.net/

The best bbq in St. Louis is at the Clayton Farmers market Saturday mornings starting late in May.
Bill Arnold of Blues Hog fame is there serving ribs, pork butt and brisket along with his great array of sauces and rub.
The market is just west of Straubs at 8282 Forsyth Blvd in Clayton, and is open from 8:30am to 12:30pm

gleam wrote: I can't speak for what my parents had, but I was pleasantly surprised by the operation. The root beer, by the way, was very good. Light on the vanilla, heavy on the wintergreen, served in a chilled mug with no ice and very refreshing. $2 for unlimited refills.

Your mother had the chili and thought it excellent. She also loved the atmosphere and the root beer. And her first fried pickles.

I spent five days in St. Louis but unfortunately, three were in my hotel room as I was sick as a dog.

I did have two good meals. The first was at Bristol's in Creve Couer. The salmon in a butter wine sauce was quite excellent and served with a rich creamy risotto and asparagus. It is a really nice place and the food is very reliable.

The others was at Chevy's which was surprisingly good. Good salsa, fresh seafood, and a pleasant atmosphere.

The others was at Chevy's which was surprisingly good. Good salsa, fresh seafood, and a pleasant atmosphere.

Funny that you should mention Chevy's since we were just talking about how much we missed that place. The food was good and it was just a nice low-key place.

Not one mention of Kemolls one the best places to dine in St. Louis.

http://www.kemolls.com/

Number One Metropolitan Square
211 N. Broadway
St. Louis, MO.63102

I will be in St. Louis this week on business Thursday night. I am staying downtown at the Westin across from Busch Stadium. In the past i have had several miserable meals at Dierdorf & Hart's so i am looking to avoid another bad meal.

I will have a car so driving is no problem, Should i stick with Tony's or is a trip to The Hill a better choice? This is an expense account/take clients out type of situation so please keep that in mind with suggestions. Thanks in advance.

I've got a slow drive to St. Louis via Springfield planned. I was once very familiar with the lay of the land, food-wise. Since the better places tend to be about 100 years old, I assume I'm not missing much, but any updates on casual spots are appreciated.

PS, can my experience and the reflected experience of the collective board possibly be correct that St. Louis has so very few dining options to get excited about? I will try to get to Da Beef's beloved Carl's.

JeffB wrote:I've got a slow drive to St. Louis via Springfield planned. I was once very familiar with the lay of the land, food-wise. Since the better places tend to be about 100 years old, I assume I'm not missing much, but any updates on casual spots are appreciated.

PS, can my experience and the reflected experience of the collective board possibly be correct that St. Louis has so very few dining options to get excited about? I will try to get to Da Beef's beloved Carl's.

Jeff,

I'm leaving Monday for the same slow trek. I'm also curious to hear what anyone may have to recommend!

P.S. I'm tentatively driving back through Bloomington just for a change in chow options.

P.P.S. If you're going on Monday, we could meet up in Springfield for a mini-thon.

I can now recommend one place in St Louis worth getting excited about. It's called the Shaved Duck and is located in the Tower Grove area.

The spouse and I were there last night and had the duck confit on flatbread with horseradish cream, a house salad, and the chili sampler. The chili sampler consists of four mini-portions of the four different kinds of chili they serve. I particularly liked the white chili with smoked duck. On a previous occasion, my spouse ordered the baby-back ribs, made in their own smoker, and I had a perfectly simple, half roast duck.

The service last night was a little confused -- I think the bartender was supposed to be waiting on us, but couldn't quite keep up -- so we were also given an extra order of duck confit. Fortunately, I love duck, so we ate that, too.

They also serve wonderful French-press coffee, and I've had both their fruit cobbler and key lime pie and both were excellent.

The Shaved Duck
2900 Virginia Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63118
314.776.1407

Hours:
Tuesday thru Saturday, 5pm - 12:30am, Dinner served til 10pm
Sunday Brunch 10am - 2pm

Please also remember that St Louis has a wide variety of independently-owned donut shops (no Dunkin Donuts yet!). So, if you want to take advantage of

John Donut
1618 S. Broadway

or

World's Fair Donuts
1904 South Vandeventer Ave.

this is the time to do it. World's Fair Donuts makes an excellent fried pie!

My wife and I had a meal at Niche in December, and it was very pleasant. For appetizers we had a slow roasted pig's head with green apples and a sort of BBQ powder. The unctuousness of the pig's head, which was virtually all fat, was one of the better dishes I've had in while. We also had a sweetbreads appetizer which was a huge lobe fried perfectly crisp yet moist preserving all of it's rich organ meat flavor. It had a buttered popcorn foam and a caramel sauce, which while fun and delectable for one bite, was a little trying in the richness department over several more bites. The execution of the sweetbreads itself, though, was nearly perfect. For entrees, I had a special of slow-roasted goat with curried lentils which was tasty, but a little one-dimensional. My wife had a roasted beef ribeye with a braised oxtail cannoli which had a wonderfully deep beefiness. I don't remember specifics as this was nearly three months ago, but overall we were happy with the meal. I would think of it as something similar to the Bristol here in Chicago.

We also had a nice breakfast at a spot downtown called Rooster, which specializes in breakfast/brunch crepes with various fillings. Crepe purists may not approve, but if you think of it as a more refined, Americanized breakfast burrito, you might find something satisfying. The dessert crepes are decent to split among four people, but too sweet for one person, in my opinion. I had a crepe filled with a Missouri-made summer sausage, apples, and cheddar, which was served with a 1,000 Island-type sauce on the side. The breakfast potatoes were soggy and not worth ordering. Maybe not worth a special trip, but if you're downtown, you could do a lot worse (not to mention, I couldn't find many other options for weekday breakfast downtown).


Niche Restaurant
1831 Sidney St
St Louis, MO 63104
(314) 773-7755

Rooster
1104 Locust St
St Louis, MO 63101
(314) 241-8118

Thanks to all those who have travelled the mother road from Chicago to St. Louis before me. Here's what we had. I will leave commentary to a minimum, as these spots are all quite well documented. Most are stand-by's on Route 66. And most were quite good.

Springfield:

Cozy Dog -- well-documented high quality fries, burgers and corn dogs (points off for use of standard Oscar Meyer wieners, but the breading is great on the dipped-to-order sausage fritter). God awful frozen patty pork "tenderloin." It's real disservice to this place and Central Illinois to serve that.

Maid Rite -- I am not among the chosen who get this. One small child in our group really liked the loose meat paste schmeared on a straight-from-the-7-11 burger bun. Others did not. Frozen foodservice fries. Interesting as hell historical document of a spot, though, stuck between parking lots near downtown Springfield. Really very expensive, too.

Got in way too late for chili, unfortunately. For some reason I had envisioned the chili parlors of Springfield to be blue-collar bars open late, like ReneG's magnificent stew bar in Indy, "John's Hot Stew." No dice.

Between Springfield and St. Louis:

The Ariston Cafe, Litchfield IL -- Old-timey mining-town roadhouse with good fried chicken, homemade soup, and very nice (albeit not huge) pork tenderloin cut and breaded to order. The Mother Jones monument in nearby Mt. Olive is a nice diversion into a cornfield. This could be the oldest continuously-operating diner on Rt 66 (so says the menu), going back to '24. Didn't try dessert, but the pies and cakes looked spectacular.

St. Louis:

Carl's Drive In -- Yes, as good as Da Beef and many others claim. This place is nuts. A tiny, tiny shack of a spot where the cooking area is enclosed by counters. Scores of people waited inside and outside, quietly, for their burgers, fries and root beer. The people of St. Louis love Carl's. It reminded me of Johnnies in its out of the way, ordinary looking-ness, with the same crowd of fast food pilgrims passing through a place where mortals can glimpse fast food heaven.

The 30's style burgers are about as good as they can get. The grill man smacks down a fresh ball of meat, flattens and spreads it so thinly that the griddle peeks through all over the place. But the grill man knows what he's doing; the meat contracts into a lacy, crunchy disk. The root beer is top notch and super cold. Fries are frozen and just OK, which is almost incomprehensible at a place like this. Carl's staff, long, long-timers all, are real pros. If there's a burger guild, this is a place run by masters and staffed by journeymen. The grill man's like a millwright with his tools, sharpening his spatula on a whetstone every few minutes. That's how you get the crispy, caramelized patties off the well-seasoned griddle intact.

Ted Drewes -- about 4 miles from Carl's, making for a serious 1-2 punch. Nice custard with terrific flavor combos. The chocolate syrup is a treat. It tastes like Bosco to me, which is good. Most in my group gave the edge to Scooter's and WI places in the pure vanilla custard comparison. That said, I like the whole package at Ted Drewes more than any of the other custard places I've sampled.

We also had a few Italian-American meals in St. Louis, following the theory that Ital-Amero is an area of strength there. Trattoria Marcella on Watson Rd. (also close to Ted Drewes) was an unexpected highlight. Wonderful neighborhood place that isn't your typical giant bowl of red sauce and meatballs. Pizzas, liver and pancetta, and pork shank were all excellent. Also, the only "toasted ravioli" I've ever enjoyed. Our waiter was a career guy and one of the best I can remember.

We entered Charlie Gitto's downtown (sibling to an older place "on The Hill") with very, very low expectations. It was packed with Cardinal's fans in town for opening day and families in town for the Women's Final Four. It was not half bad for a bucket-of-pasta and move em' out tourist place. And I mean that in a good way. The room and vibe are like Miller's Pub. Old and cluttered with signed head shots, but all very authentic in its own way.

I really wanted to stop by Del Rhea's on the way back into town for closure, but was vetoed. The joint's 5 minutes from my in-laws, so I folded.

The places without food we visited in order:

Illinois capital (legislators were in session, so we saw sausage made)

Lincoln home (well worth the time)

Lincoln's Tomb (same)

Lincoln Museum (I'm not keen on modern museums with more robots and films than historical artifacts, but this is a good one)

Mother Jones monument

St. Louis Arch ride (minute 2001/Jetsons white pods that zip you to the top are way too cool)

Riverboat tour (gravel pits and Victorian power plants can be lovely,sort of)

Budweiser brewery tour (really very good architecture tour as much as anything else; stunning factory and grounds; plus, after the merger, Belgian beers on tap served in proper glasses at the tour's end -- or Bud Lite if you prefer).

I've been asked to book a business dinner for approximately 6-8 people in St Louis, and I would love some suggestions. Ideally, the restaurant would fit the following criteria:

1. Near the America's Place convention center, as we are staying at the Holiday Inn Select downtown
2. Reasonably priced ($15-$25 entree level) and somewhat casual atmosphere
3. Open on a Sunday night

Thanks!

mcg wrote:I've been asked to book a business dinner for approximately 6-8 people in St Louis, and I would love some suggestions. Ideally, the restaurant would fit the following criteria:

1. Near the America's Place convention center, as we are staying at the Holiday Inn Select downtown
2. Reasonably priced ($15-$25 entree level) and somewhat casual atmosphere
3. Open on a Sunday night

Thanks!

I've never been, but I have been intrigued by The Dubliner on Washington Ave., just a few blocks west of the America's Center. It is a casual Irish-inspired pub but serves a little more labor-of-love-type fare. An article I read in Sauce Magazine (the local STL food magazine) a while back touted their whole animal approach to meat (lamb and/or pig, I believe). It sounded good in theory, but I can't comment on how it translates into practice.

The Dubliner
1025 W. Washington Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63101
(314) 421-4300

Gus, the Dubliner actually looks like a perfect suggestion. Thanks very much!

gus wrote:I've never been, but I have been intrigued by The Dubliner on Washington Ave., just a few blocks west of the America's Center. It is a casual Irish-inspired pub but serves a little more labor-of-love-type fare. An article I read in Sauce Magazine (the local STL food magazine) a while back touted their whole animal approach to meat (lamb and/or pig, I believe). It sounded good in theory, but I can't comment on how it translates into practice.

The Dubliner
1025 W. Washington Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63101
(314) 421-4300

I have been to the Dubliner, mostly to watch a World Cup qualifier, but had some of the pub fare. The food was better than average, and it is a nice overall atmosphere.