There is nothing more dangerous than a writer with no edits.

I feel bad sometimes as I look at my blog and wonder where the posts have gone.  I feel a bit nostalgic as I wonder where my passion for writing a blog 2-3 times a week has gone.  Have I lost a love and passion for real food?  Have I lost a need for finding and tasting interesting things?  Have I lost a feeling of allowing writing to be so easy as my own thoughts on paper (or on a keyboard)?  No, I think the main reason that I don't do so much now is actually because of time.  I do not own a TARDIS.

I have never owned a time machine nor been able to travel and contain time.  So, the possibility of myself to be able to be a full time father, a full time sales and accounting person as well as do my new hobby and still have time to go out and about and write about some restaurant that St. Louis is told to follow like sheep, is just not on my mind right now.

Contrary to what some may think, I am not paid to eat out.  I am not under the salary force of any magazine, website or institution so no one is paying me to write about certain things.  In that same sense, no one is paying me to not write about certain things.  There has always been this loyalty to the truth, which I write by that very little other writers in the metropolitan area live by.  The truth being what a restaurant really is like.  I want every person who reads my reviews to be able to feel as though they had been there in my same circumstance.  I do not want to read about how someone was specially greeted by the manager and sat at the best table where they were given the best food and then everything was on the house because their arrival was predetermined and arranged.  I don't want to hear about how someone called and called and had whole conversations with a group of chefs about where their favorite places are and then make sure they have advertisements with my company before they have their reviews posted.  The fact remains, as it does in any city, that if you wish to be paid for writing about a restaurant or item, you cannot piss off the sponsors.  It seems like a very simple idea.  The sponsor pays the company, the company pays you to eat at the sponsor's location, and you need to write something good about the sponsor so they are happy and maybe pay more.  It makes complete sense and if I was a sell-out, I would ask for advertising and then write post after post about those sponsors and make them out to be the best in the world.  The problem with this concept is: I have too much integrity for the truth to sell-out.

I have read online reviews of restaurants which rave and rave about how perfect everything is only to go there and have a horrible dining experience.  Why did this restaurant get such good reviews?  Well first of all, in the online version of the magazine, they have links, banners and ads on the site.  In the tangible magazine, they have 1/2 to full page ads, which can be as much as $1,000 a run.  Like any good business, the site would not dare say anything about someone who just paid them $1,000 to promote their restaurant as that would be completely the opposite of the original intention.  Also, the online negative reviews were hidden and removed.  There are a lot of online reviewing sites but most of them give the reviewed location or company a chance to remove the negative ones, making them in the best possible light even though they are not.

In this case, as you read above, the restaurant I was thinking of is always listed as one of the best 'burger' places in town.  It is hailed as also being a great LGBT friendly location as well.  They have ads in almost ever St. Louis magazine and on their sites.  The problems is though, the food is so-so and the service is difficult.  In my mind, if the service is horrible but the food is good, then I'd be happy to come back.  If the food is bad and the service is amazing, I'd even come back to be pampered.  But if the service and food is bad and the only savings grace you have as a unique restaurant is the fact that your mascot is a cross dresser, then I don't count that as saving your ass.  This isn't an anti LGBT post or sexist or chauvinistic or anything having to do with people, but only food.  I have been in a local bar where the female staff wear costumes like Tinkerbell and even serve customers in bikinis. You could have the best looking staff wearing next to nothing but if it has nothing to do with your food and your food and service still suck, it will not save you from me.

It may save you from the droves of men that fit that demographic.  About a year ago I was picked up as the first ever food writer for a website which normally only did sports and sports news.  They wanted to try having a food writer and so I started writing about places that I go to.  I don't go to super fancy locations but the places I go to require you to wear a bit more than a T-shirt, shorts, flip-flops and a hat.  During the year which I had submitted articles for this site, it was becoming more and more clear to me, from the trolls as well, that the majority of readers of my articles were actually men looking for the best place in St. Louis that served the best food, for the cheapest price, the cheapest beer, and the best looking girls.  And you know what?  That doesn't fill what I write about.  I like beer, and I like to get great food for a low price, and having a wait staff that is clean-cut, nice-looking and in a uniform certainly helps, but usually the places that have great food don't have half-naked girls running around.  (Although the last time I did eat the food in the VIP section of the Penthouse Club in Sauget, the food was pretty decent and there were half-naked girls running around.)  The owner of the site told me that they were moving in a different direction after a year, which is code for "the readers don't want to spend more than $10 for a meal".  But as a food writer who actually has some restaurant experience, I don't want to stick to the $10 beer and hot wings every day for every meal.  I want to explore and taste new things and that often means that I need to go to new places and try the food, even if it is more than $10.


But food writing is also a large editorial and is entirely opinion based.  Traditionally it is, at least.  I like to add a bit more though.  I know that from my dark days working on that cook's line at Home Town Buffet, making cheap food for old people to push down their throats, I know that if you have a frier full of grease and set at 385 degrees, you can drop and cook 2 whole chickens in about 13 minutes.  I know that you can cook chicken strips in a frier for about 3 minutes.  I know that French fries take about as long and I know that you can cook a whole sheet tray of baked chicken in an oven at roughly the same temperature in less than an hour.  I have some basic education and know how long a steak should take.  I know how a sous vide machine works and how some basic molecular gastronomy techniques are used.  I can't be fooled easily because I still experiement and cook food at home.  So, me going to a bar or restaurant, that specializes in chicken wings, and having to wait for 50 minutes to get them delivered to my table, cold, is not an excuse.

Here is a fun fact for you:  While working 8 and 1/2 years for Buffets, Inc.  I developed some basic understanding of the Spanish language.  I did take Spanish for two years in high school but didn't really full grasp it until I worked at the restaurants, where most of the staff was illegal Mexicans.  Am I calling them out, will I cause a scandal?  I doubt it.  Were they really illegal?  Well, let's say this:  one instance had the general manager asking two employees who were related about their SS card because they had the exact same number.  Secondly, about once a year, we would get tipped off that there was an INS agent coming in and on those days, half of our staff called in sick. So, when you speak Mexican Spanish, drive a car with a temporary license plate for 2 years, live in an apartment with 10 other people in St. Louis, can't recite the Pledge of Allegiance in English and call in sick when the manager has a meeting with a representative from Immigration,  I would call you an illegal immigrant. But I digress...  I learned Spanish from them.  So, while I was dating my now wife and even after we married, anytime I would go to a Mexican restaurant, and my family asked for a table, I would listen to the banter, I would hear what they were saying about us.  I would also make suggestions.  For instance at one restaurant they claimed that they could not seat my group of 6, and we had to wait 20-30 minutes.  Well, in Spanish, I suggested that we could take those two tables if they turned them and pushed them together.  I will never forget the look on the face of the hostess, because right there she realized that I A: knew what I was talking about and B: knew what she was saying.  It would be like if you want to the local nail salon and could understand the language that the Vietnamese women use.  You could understand all of their banter and you could find out if they were saying anything about you.  Imagine how honest they would become, all of a sudden, if you said something in their language.

So, back to my point, going to a place that says they have great burgers and getting an okay burger is not a good thing.  The best part of my hobby, is that I can write about it as it is.  The restaurant I went to was called Hamburger Mary's.  Sorry, I don't have pictures.  In fact, the place was so dimly lit that I bet it helped the food look better than it actually was.  My wife and I entered, and were sat upstairs, surrounded by tables full of women.  The bar which was about 6 feet away from us, had one bartender who came over and was also our server.  After greeting us, we told him that we were actually stopping in for a quick bite and had a show in an hour at the FOX.  Ordering a coke, a burger and fries and a grilled piece of chicken, didn't seem like it would take forever or should take forever, but it did.  The restaurant had two levels.  The top level, by us, was where the bathrooms, bar, and 4 televisions on the wall were located.  There was 4 different movies playing at the same time.  There was music and talking and it was a very loud place.  My wife and I waited for almost 45 minutes before our food arrived.  It was the most boring burger I have ever had.  The burger tasted like you took regular ground 85/15 beef from the supermarket and cooked it.  It didn't even have salt or pepper.  My poor wife, ordered some grilled chicken sandwich and the chicken had nothing on it as well.  I know people, even health nuts, like their grilled chicken to have some flavor so it doesn't taste like you are eating a piece of cardboard.  This had no salt, no sauce of any kind, and no pepper.  Here is the thing, my wife and I were starving, attempting to fill our bellies before a two show at the FOX.  So, we wanted to eat the food, but it was so bad that we didn't.  We didn't even take it to go!  It was just bad.  How does that rate?  Well, in my book that is a 0 out of 5 stars.

What does that mean for you?  Well, if I was paid to write by any of the St. Louis magazines, websites or organizations, you would not know how bad the food is there, until after you got ripped off as well.  This also means, that I can help relate the truths that the restaurants who DO NOT pay out for ads are like.  One of my favorite restaurants in St. Louis is called Basso and they are by the Cheshire.  They have all of the makings of a restaurant that is highly praised by the news and media outlets, yet they are not.  Instead, the magazines, websites and news shows seek instead to draw attention to Niche and Sydney Street.  Now those two restaurants are good, I'm not saying they are not, but what everyone else fails to understand is that Basso is here as well.  There has been a lot of press recently because the head chefs of Niche and Sydney Street are nominated for a James Beard Award, which is like the Emmy of the food world.  Every news outlet, every magazine and website are talking about how great this is to have these two chefs represent St. Louis and bring home a James Beard Award for this city.  They say things like "this is awesome", "we deserve this", and people saying they have a life-long dream of eating at a James Beard Award recipient's restaurant.  But, we have a James Beard Award winning Chef at a restaurant in St. Louis already.  I have just honestly mentioned this to all of these posts and my mention gets ignored.  What does the chefs of these other two restaurants have over these magazines and website?  I bet you that if these two chefs didn't win this award, the above sources would be depressed suggesting that St. Louis will never be recognized for their food.  Yet we have an award winning chef here already!  I don't understand, but maybe it has to do with politics.  Maybe Basso is so good of a restaurant that they don't feel that they need to give food away to the owners of those magazines and site to get good reviews.  It is amazing how the mediocre restaurants, like Hamburger Mary's or Brazikat, get pushed and represented as the best in the area because they paid the most for the biggest ad. 

I know that the restaurant scene in St. Louis is highly political.  I was reassured of that truth upon my first conversation with Chef John Johnson, but at the same time, that political correct view of which restaurants are allowed to be on top and which ones stay on the bottom does not work well with the same concept turned to reflect actual quality.

(And this is why I am dangerous.) 

Overall though, as work and time permits, I do wish to write about more things, like new food ideas and new restaurants.  I feel that you can always come to me for the real story of some of these restaurants and not the controlled suggestions that these outlets claim to be the truth.  Although, maybe you can't handle the truth.

Random writings and thoughts and ideas....

The thing is, whether you are a huge fun of Jack in the Box or a huge fan of places like Taste, St. Louis has a large number of restaurants.  The problem of course being, is that it is impossible for me to get to all of them.  I understand that there are people asking me about various restaurants and bars and clubs, but until someone actually pays me enough that I can go to these places each night, I'm stuck getting to them one weekend at a time. 

As with any form of information being related and passed on, I know that there is a mix of readers: from the college freshman with Bluto's (John Belushi's character in Animal House) personality to the business owner who is one of those 1%.  I refuse to play to either group.  I know that there are complaints of my articles on the other site, most importantly how my articles seem to be boring, written with the level of a grade-school child or be rich with horrible syntax and grammar mistakes. To those who may say that, I respond with this: "It is better than the rest."  I always find it funny and ironic that people choose to pick on me, when I at least write in English and as a rule, do not use strange characters like "%$@##^&^%" as a general rule of thumb that needs to be imported into my writing.  I also spell correctly, so for those people who refer to things like "fiesty" as "feisty" or "sux" instead of "sucks", the joke is on you.  If you think you are so great, then write a blog, twitter or whatever and let the world see what you have done or what you are up to. I also wish to not curse in my writing.  Unless you are famous for doing so, I think cursing is not a needed vehicle to show importance or prove a point.

I would dare say that every week, a new bar, club, lounge or restaurant opens up somewhere in the whole of the St. Louis metro area.  Now, considering that there are places that have existed in St. Louis well before I was born, I have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to eating there.  There are places I have tried, that have become famous: such as Roadhouse 61, which was featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives last night.  There are places that I never did get a chance to try, like Salt, which has the owner stuck in a financial battle over his lack of paying taxes to the government and may close any minute if not already.

You have to understand that I have not given up on St. Louis.  I do not wish it to become the Gotham City of America, but instead wish it to at least come back a little to the food heritage which it had sprang and grown from.  As a French fur trading post, it was the only civilization West of the Mississippi River for many years and decades, and that French influence is what mainly drives the city today.  Signs and symbols of this heritage are seen all over and most secretly on old buildings where the old iron Fleur De Leis, can be seen against the brick walls.  The 1904 World Fair or World Exposition brought so many inventors, so many chefs and so many people from around the world to see what was so special about St. Louis and America.  St. Louis started with a boom and had large companies use this city as a head quarters, mostly because of the perfect transportation it had and still has, in a lesser extent.  Whether it is a train blocking the tracks at a crossing, trucks driving 120mph on 44, planes flying loudly overhead or barges making their way slowly down the river, St. Louis still is a great hub for transportation and distribution.

Although, all of us, whether we want to admit it or not, has seen a slow decline of restaurants and areas for such.  How many of us remember going to St. Louis Union Station and eating at the many fine restaurants there?  Now, I thin the Hard Rock Cafe is it; and it is not even inside!  What about going to Crestwood Mall or the St. Louis Mall and eating inside?  Both places are closed.  Have you even driven down Washington Avenue, West past 20th Street?  You look on both sides of the street and see boarded up old buildings, some restaurants or bars and some of them industrial.  While this may not be the fault of the city, you have the allowance of people to buy these old properties under the promise of changing them into something good within a year and then leaving them to rot and make St. Louis look bad.

There are a lot of people, who are bringing food back into St. Louis and for them, I salute them.  But I worry that these restaurants and bars cannot save the city.  When you hear stories of Gaslight Square, for instance, and see how it was a center of culture in the city and then try to compare it to something now, it is impossible.   I think a fair question is:  is there anywhere in St. Louis that tourists from around the world, would travel to, exclusively to see it in person?  (Besides the Arch.) Do we have any world famous chefs?  I know that we have some great restaurants, but do we have enough?

With everyone trying to revitalize St. Louis with a restaurant, do they all succeed or need to succeed in order to make St. Louis a better place?  You know, I don't think so.  I think that as long as there are some really good places, it may help bring people to them.  The places that are lower level or even mediocre, need to improve and fight to even get close and that is good for business.  I know that people love BBQ and there is as many variations to St. Louis style BBQ pork steak as there are grains of sand on all of the beaches.  But, I find it very difficult to believe that there is one place and one place alone which is the absolute best, for everyone.  You may think Pappy's is the best and I don't.  So, I tell you and anyone else who want to know.

I'm not being paid by restaurants to write about them.  I don't get paid by insidestl.com and even have to deal with Trolls and angry people for my writing. I certainly don't get paid to write on here.  I write for fun, because I like to share my stories, photos and adventures.  I do try to get to every location, be it a place 50 years old or a new bar trying to clean up and liven up the dance scene.  I don't even have a sponsor, so I can write freely about anyone and anything.  I feel that the writers in print, who have to write articles for the likes of Feast, Sauce or even the River Front Times, can't truly express what they want because they may have had a bad experience at an advertiser's restaurant and then not allowed to comment or lose the advertiser.  I guess I'm lucky that I don't have sponsors because I can freely write the truth about anyone.  Now, if you have a restaurant or bar where I had a great time, I'd be more apt to write nicely about you.

Sure, the writers for Feast magazine get to travel to Italy and write about how wonderful the wines are there.  But, does that really concern the average person looking for where to spend their lunch money in St. Louis?  Or what about that guy looking to impress his date at a nice restaurant?  I feel some writers are out of touch with what people want.

You know what I'm looking for?  I want to read and hear from people and chefs who chose St. Louis, out of all of the other cities, and find out why.  I want to hear from renowned chefs and ask them if they have any great food memories about St. Louis.  I want to know if anyone has said anything great and fantastic about the food in St. Louis.  I know I have found some hits and misses and as much as I think people, like you, like reading my dribble and thoughts and seeing pictures of great food or drinks, I can't help but think that someone out there wouldn't mind hearing from an expert. So, with the idea of that, I will send some emails and see if I can't find some experts in St. Louis and see what they think.

Am I a prissy foodie?  No.  Or, I don't think I am.  I still enjoy a good beer (Guinness) and my favorite local fast food burger (Top Shooters), but I don't see myself nor wish to see myself as the guy in the suit, sitting at a table of $500 food, swirling my wine around in a glass. (I would have a beer instead.)  I admit that because of the Food Network, I started to watch mainstream shows and enjoy them.  That got me into watching and reading and following Alton Brown.  That then got me into not only playing with cooking, but playing with Molecular Gastronomy.  This then got me interested with how food works, not just adding baking soda to a recipe, but why do you add the baking soda and what does it do.  It is science, applied to food. Does this make me an "Anton ego"?  No.  But it does mean that if I walk into a restaurant and order some baked chicken, it should not be raw or too salty or tough as leather.  Also, working at a restaurant has taught me a lot of things that most people don't think about when they go out to eat.  People do still make fun of me by suggesting that Old Country Buffet/Home Town Buffet is not a real restaurant and they would only be partially correct.  You don't come in, sit down, get a menu, order, eat and pay.  It is an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant and while there isn't 5 guys in the back working on your order, they are also working on the likes of 349 other people.  What did this teach me?  I may not know how many times a cow was massaged to produce the perfect amount of tenderness in a steak.  But I do know how that stake should be cooked.  I also know that an order as simple as french fries, if from a bag deep in the freezer, should not take more than 3 minutes in the fryer.  I also know that there is no reason that an order for a 10 minute item take longer than 20 minutes, if everything is run correctly.  This also means that I am a bitch when it comes to going into a restaurant and being told that there is no seating available when I see 3-4 tables open. 

I hate waiting.  I think I have plenty of patience, when it comes to waiting in general as even my wife jokes that she can't say things like "I have a secret" and then have me going crazy in anticipation as to what it may be.  I can wait and do wait for many things.  I have waited a long time for really good food and a short time for really good food as well.  What I don't like though, is the waiting for service.  I never understood and will never understand why servers and wait staff say that they want more money but then do a horrible job with the customer.  I was at the California Pizza Kitchen at West County Mall this weekend when I thought we had a good server, to start.  She asked us what our drinks were quickly and then we gave her the orders for the kids, so that their food may get cooking.  We waited for 20 minutes before our drinks came out.  Then 5 minutes later for the food for the kids.  Then another 30 minutes for our food to come out, after we had ordered.  This is a place where pizzas take almost no time to cook in their fire oven.  So, why should my order take so long?  One answer: cell phone.  While really getting hungry and angry as to why my food was no where to be found, I look over at our server on the computer.  I'm thinking that she is working and then as pointed out by my wife, she was texting on her cell phone.  She thought that her tip was less important than her text and so she spent a good 5 minutes, standing there and texting until the manager looked at her and she pretended to be working and walked away.  Guess what?  My pizza was cold, or luke warm to be more precise.  Likely meaning that it was cooked and sitting out for 5-10 minutes while she texted away.  There is absolutely no reason why any customer should be given bad service. 

I think I am finished with my ranting.  As mentioned, when I finish the work at my actual money-making job, I'll send some emails and see if I can get some words from some chefs.

 

Finally, a trip to Niche'

I'm sorry but I can't find it.  While it must have been so technical issue, I really cannot explain how I had so much article here and then it disappeared.  Oh well, here it goes again.

After about a year, my wife and I finally got into Niche.  I say it has been a year because it has probably been that long.  I try to get to new restaurants as soon as I can but babysitting is one obstacle, as well as reservations. I'm old-school as I was raised to make reservations at a restaurant.  So, as long as I've been contacting Niche' for reservations, they have been telling me the same thing.  They have no reservations between 6 and 9pm.  I find this difficult to believe in a restaurant and even wrote a blog post about it last year.  I complained saying that there should be no reason that I can't make a 7pm reservation, unless they had 10 tables and they reserve each table, twice each night.  Well, they do not have 10 tables.  They have 21.

The restaurant is fancy, white table cloths, nice chairs and high ceilings.  It looks nice on the inside.  We arrived for our 6:00 reservation at 5:45 and as we went in, there was just that many people there, 4 tables were sat, out of 21 total and we were the 5th table.  We could not figure out why the 7pm reservations were not available because as we dined, the table on either side of us, stayed open, all the way until almost 8pm.  Why were we not allowed to make reservations at that time when they had available tables?  No clue.

Anyways, I really wanted to give this restaurant a try, since it is constantly voted and spoken of as the best in St. Louis.  Another problem is, even as complained by Robert Irvine, is that there are too many people standing around and talking.  My wife and I counted at least 8 servers, 1 hostess, one manager, who never left the kitchen window, 5 chefs and one more who was expediting everything.  The thing is, that when you have 5 tables, there is no reason to have 8 staff. Now, our guy, and I'm sorry that I forgot his name, was fast and friendly and I didn't see him chat with all the female servers who were already chatting away.

As we started our official meal, our waiter asked if we wanted anything to drink to start and I asked for a Rob Roy.  What was delivered to me very quickly soon after was nothing less than a perfectly made Rob Roy. The thing is, that most of the time that I order one, it never comes out correct.  My wife jokes that the only people who order Rob Roys are old men over 90, so I stump the bartenders when I order them. What certainly helped was the fact that the wife of Ted Kilgore, of Taste, was the bartender this night.  

My wife and I looked at the menu and immediately she was drawn to the Tasting Menu.  With 2 out of 5 items on the Tasting Menu being seafood and me not being a huge fan of which, I decided not to go with it and order off of the regular menu instead.  We were disappointed however, because we were told that they cannot have only one person out of 2 order the Tasting Menu because it screws up with the timing of the dishes for both.  We both complained because we had eaten at RM Seafood and my wife had a 6 course Tasting Menu and I had ordered items off of the normal menu and they timed everything perfectly.  So, the manager, who was still too busy, standing by the kitchen talking to the chefs, couldn't think of a good way to time her 5 dishes with my 2, fine.

We both ordered starters and she ordered the toasted anchovies and I ordered the spiced nuts.

While the nuts were nothing special, the anchovies had something special about them: I ate them.  Some of the nuts were spicy and some of them tasted sweet and still, some of them tasted like bacon.  I give these a 3 out of 5 stars.

 This is how the anchovies were prepared and delivered to us.  I have to say that there was this tomato based sauce on the tops of the bread and then the anchovies were decapitated.  But each bite I took had this calming and soothing flavor, if those could be attributed to flavors.  I am guessing that when Andrew Zimmern says that things taste of the sea, this is what he means.  It had a very slight fishy flavor to it, so slight that it was almost not noticable.  They were good enough, that I ate two of them.  This was my first time trying anchovies and they were delicious.  I would give these a 4 out of 5 stars.

After those starters, they had brought out a piece of bread.  It was a red pepper and rosemary faccocia.  I thought instantly; "where is the butter?"  What they gave us though, was a piece of bread so moist that there was no need for buttery spread.  It was good.  Probably a 2 out of 5 stars.

Dinner soon came, or at least the first of our two dinner dishes.  My wife ordered the Lobster dish, which was  pullman, celery, tarragon, togarashi hollandaise.   Togarashi is the Japanese word for red chili pepper.  What was delivered was this:

This was a dish that had pieces of lobster in a sauce, then a salt and sugar cracker and then a bundle of squid ink pasta and then it repeats.  Here is the thing: I tried a bite of lobster but wasn't impressed.  It tasted a bit chewy for me, but I don't eat lobster on a regular basis.  The best part of my wife's dish, was the pasta.  The night before this outing, we had watched Andrew Zimmern eat some squid ink pasta, I think he was in Maine.  I think of squid ink as the ink in my pen, smelling awful and possibly tasting even worse.  Well, the pasta with squid ink, tasted nutty and delicious.  No pen ink anywhere and it was very tasty.  It was tasty enough that if I saw squid ink pasta somewhere else, I would order it.  I would give this dish a 4 out of 5.

I ordered the BBQ Trotter, which had foie gras, calvados, tabacco, grapefruit and mint.  Calvados is a type of apple brandy.  This is what my plate looked like:

The dot and the line on either side of the food, is a tabacco sauce that tastes to me like the smoke from a cigarette does.  I tasted it and then avoided it.  There are these sugar glass-like pieces which had large pieces of salt on them and were sweet and salty together.  The grapefruit was extremely tart and had tiny mint leaves on them.  There were these discs made of shredded pig trotter.  They tasted like the best Braunshweiger that you had ever had, with a hint of BBQ sauce. I don't want to be the evil one who says that something doesn't belong, but the foie gras doesn't belong.  You have this awesome tasting BBQ, porky flavor and then if you eat it together, you get this cold, creamy, fatty flavor.  The foie gras doesn't go well with the trotter; flavor wise.  I know that people put it on plates to make plates seem fancier, but it just doesn't go well together.  I even tried the whole deal: I put a small bite of the trotter, foie gras, grapefruit, mint leaf, sugar/salt cracker and dipped it in a run of the tabacco sauce and took a bite.  There was a complex mix of flavors in my mouth and many did not melt together.  I think this dish would have tasted better had you replace the foie gras with truffles, to be honest.  It was an interesting dish and I have had foie gras before, but it was warmed last time.  Overall, I would give this plate a 4 out of 5 stars.

My wife's main plate was the Roasted Local Chicken, with parsnip, picholine, foie, granola and sherry jus.

 My wife thought it was an okay dish.  She didn't see how the green sauce went with the other flavors and didn't like how the parsnips were still raw in the middle of the chips.  But besides that she said it was a good chicken dish.  I say a 3 out of 5 on this one.

I ordered the Pork Duo.  This was smoked shoulder, pulled belly, popcorn polenta, dill and hickory broth.  What you see here is the smoked shoulder on the right, which was tasty with a salty and peppery crust.  The left side had some vegetables and some dill and a polenta cake/biscuit.  The waiter came by with a very small sauce pot with the pulled belly still in the hot hickory broth and he spooned it over the vegetables on the left side of the dish and then poured the rest of the broth on top.  Everything was delicious.  The pulled pork had a sweetness from the broth and the broth had a slight dill hint, which I loved.  This was my dish, there was only one thing wrong with it and that was the polenta.  The polenta was delivered on this plate as a one inch thick biscuit and was not hard, but heavy.  It was even heavier after soaking up most of that broth.  It still was very good and I give this a 4 out of 5 stars.

My final thought is that this is a good restaurant and has some good food.  If they had better customer service, it would have been better.  (The manager or the front of the house guy, in his collared shirt, tie and slacks, talked to a number of people, just not us.  I don't know why that was.  I was wearing a suit coat, nice slacks and a collared shirt, no tie though.  My outfit was valued at a couple hundred dollars and my wife's was as well.  So, I don't think we didn't look "fancy" enough to talk to.)  It was odd because even at other restaurants, every member of the front staff would say hi, from the manager at RM in Las Vegas to even the owner of Chez Leon.  This manager, just glared at us once and then didn't even come by.  Also, as I said, some of the dishes just didn't seem to work together.  Maybe because I don't own a restaurant or write for a magazine, but I have plenty of books about flavors and study and eat and experiment enough to know that some things just don't go well together.  Food should be cooked thoroughly, unless otherwise noted.  Hot food should not be on the same plate as almost ice cold food, unless you are trying something along the lines of some molecular gastronomy or molecular cuisine.  I don't know, as long and as hard as my wife and I have tried to get into this restaurant certainly didn't leave us with this idea that this is the best that St. Louis has to offer.  I don't care who pushes them or where they advertise, if it was best in the city, then everything would have been perfect.

My advise, is if you can get in, and you have a couple hundred dollars to spare, then go and try it yourself.  If you have half of that amount and want a nice night out for two, ask me and I'll tell you someplace else to go.

Last issue of Feast magazine...

Alright, I was flipping through the pages of the latest FEAST magazine when I noticed a long feature article.  This article involved a discussion with what FEAST considers to be the "region's most innovative entrepreneurs" and while 7 out of the 8 guests were considered experts in the field of culinary, only one was in architecture and design.  (So, it barely sounded like a professionally gathered group of individuals, unless all they were going to talk about was food.)

So, at this discussion was:
Stanley Browne, owner of Robust Wine Bar and certified sommelier
Maddie Earnest, co-owner of Local Harvest Grocery, Cafe' and Catering
Gerard Craft, owner of Craft Restaurants Ltd.
Tom Niemeier, owner of Space Architecture and Design
David Wolfe, co-founder of Urban Chestnut Brewing Co.
Josh Ferguson, co-owner of Kaldi's Coffee Roasting Co.
Brian Pelletier, owner and chef chocolatier of Kakao Chocolate
John Perkins, chef and owner of entre

Now, the first thing that grabs my attention, is that this group met to discuss the current state of the culinary industry and its future, in Saint Louis.  So, why were these people selected?  I'm not saying that these people are not highly respected or professionals, but it is only my thought that if you wanted to get a discussion going about the current state of the culinary industry, then perhaps you should get people that have more to do with it.  So, who would I get?

A member of the Barroni family, current owners of Al's Restaurant, one of the oldest and continuously run restaurant in St. Louis, for over 85 years
Bob Dierberg, owner of Dierburg stores, which is a St. Louis based store and chain

David Ringle, sommelier at The Market Place with over 20 years of wine experience
Larry Forgione, owner of An American Place, and the first internationally recognized chef to open a restaurant in St. Louis

Catherine Neville, owner and leader of FEAST magazine

A member of the Stuckmeyer family, a family owned and operated all natural, non GMO farm, selling food to the St. Louis area

Chef Borchardt, Director of L'Ecole Academy

Kevin Willmann, owner and founder of Farmhaus, St. Louis's best farm to table restaurant

Maddie Earnest,  co-owner of Local Harvest Grocery, Cafe' and Catering

Here are my thoughts: For you or I to make something delicious or buy something, Dierburgs probably has it. A wine expert with plenty of experience is better than anyone else. Larry Forgione is not only the father of an Iron Chef but also knows the St. Louis fine dining scene better than anyone else; he probably invented it. The Stuckmeyer's have produce that can be bought at many grocers in the St. Louis area and they do not use any GMO or anything engineered.  Catherine is in charge of FEAST magazine so we need her.  Chef Borchardt is the Director of L'Ecole and as it is the only cooking school in St. Louis now, then it would be a good idea to talk to him.  Kevin Willmann is the owner of Farmhaus which is an excellent farm to table restaurant for not a lot of dough.  As for Maddie, I have never been to Harvest, but think the idea of a green cafe and catering company is very nice.

So, besides my selection, how would I answer or look at some of the questions and topics they discussed?

Well, one thing discussed was how most of the customers who go to these restaurants are looking for that connection between the food and the location.  Most foodies in this area are localvores and like the idea of eating a piece of meat that was from an animal grazing in Southern Illinois or Western Missouri.  Even more so, I have made apple butter, wonderful, sweet, sugar free, apple butter, from apples at Eckert's farm.  I have also made wonderful corn relish from corn grown by the Stuckmeyer's farm, a mere 1/2 mile from where I live.  The idea of eating something local or just knowing where it came from is a big thing now and many more people are interested in this.  I remember a tasting I had at Noodles & Company at South County Mall where my family and I learned that they don't use any ingredients that they cannot find locally.  Essentially, they are a farm to table restaurant as well.

Gerard Craft said it best when he stated that "the need for a 3 pound steak is ridiculous", when talking about how people are wanting more and more food at restaurants.  That is exactly what Larry Forgione was complaining about with his restaurant.  He would serve a 12 ounce steak and people wanted more.  A 12 ounce steak is a perfectly good size for a great quality and well prepared piece of meat.  If you had anything more it would overdo it.

FEAST also pointed out a good point, most people watch TV and see all of this food and buy food but have no idea how to prepare the food.  I think this has to do with the "cooking" and "food" channels having more reality shows about who is the best of this, than a one on one show with a chef showing you how to cook something.  I don't mean to sound mean, but one of the best shows they had for a while was "How to Boil Water."  You had a chef teaching people how to pan cook chicken.  A lot of people don't know how to do this!  Also, for those that can cook chicken or boil water, Alton Brown's show "Good Eats" is a staple as unlike anyone else, I've ever seen on TV or elsewhere, instead of just showing you how to cook chicken in a pan, he tells you how it works, using science, puppets, and some acting.

Brian Pelletier pointed out that some people don't cook.  I recently took some sunchokes and threw them in a rice cooker with some chicken stock and quinoa and make a delicious meal.  I am one of 4 brothers in my family.  I know that for a fact, if you took away any cooking knowledge I had gained while doing my various degrees, I'd probably be on par with my older brother.  But my younger two, don't feel the need to cook food for themselves and seem to be content eating their cans of tuna, pound of fried bacon or Jack in the Box fried tacos, which tend to eat through the bags. I don't know how you would get people interested in cooking, besides doing home cooking parties or something like that.

Gerard also suggests that chefs are basically educators, teaching people about foods.  I think that is only 85% true.  I can tell you about some strawberry caviar which I have made.  I can tell you the process of what I did, just like most waiters do.  But, until I come to your table and show you what I am doing, you may not get it still.  I know of worldly and well known chefs who still don't get molecular gastronomy.  The thing is though, there is a secret in cooking.  The secret is the recipe.  Most chefs don't want to divulge anything about their dishes for fear that someone may take it and undercut them.  But, I would take that risk.  I would do a restaurant that while people could come in and try things on the menu, for an added price, I would take people to the kitchen and show them what the recipe is and how to prepare it.  I would not be afraid to teach people or even just a single customer, what I did and why it works.

Well, then they talk about taxes, license fees and costs that make opening restaurants in St. Louis a hurdle.

Finally, towards the middle of the article, we get to the heart of the problem at St. Louis: transportation. I think I have stressed or voiced concerns of this issue before and always see an issue.  St. Louis has a Metro Link and while it is a great idea, not having a cop on every tram is a bad idea.  They went from being nice and safe to being a spot where crooks and criminals could now access every neighborhood. They discussed how St. Louis doesn't take care of their tourist areas and doesn't have any tourist destinations.  I wrote about Union Station recently because the owners view it as a destination and the rest of St. Louis views it as a hole in the ground where nothing is anymore.  It is now a shopping mall with probably one less retailer than Crestwood Mall (which is a hard thing to accomplish).

Josh Ferguson said it best "there's all these restaurants promoting local Missouri stuff, but when you look at the wine list and no Missouri wines..." this is the core.  A few years back, my wife and I went to Hubert Keller's Sleek in the newly opened Lumiere.  While claiming that so much food was local, the most local ingredient came from Eureka.  The meat wasn't even from the Midwest.  When you go to the West coast or Las Vegas and they have Missouri beef on the menu at $30 for a 12 ounce steak and then you go to a local butcher and get the same cut for $8 or $9, it makes you wonder.  If our meat is so good that it is being served in other places, then why can't St. Louis restaurants use St. Louis or at least Missouri items?

Gerard also pointed out that some restaurants, like his while being in competition with other restaurants, are also friends with them.  This is something that I don't see much, even in St. Louis, but reminds me of Top Chef Masters.  On that Bravo Network show, chefs who are already famous, have nothing to lose as they compete for charity.  So, what you have is chefs not creating drama, fighting or even being mean to other chefs.  If during a competition a chef forgets an ingredient, he may ask the other chefs and someone may come up with extras for that chef to use.  No evil strategy, no game playing, just fun.  If a St. Louis chef also tells his clients that the bar down the street is a great place to go, of course he will gain business as well.  It is like the early days of the Internet with link trading.  It was also said that word of mouth is the real seller of a restaurant and as a blogger, I can relate to this.  I know that if I tell my friends about and write about a restaurant with a good review, people flock to that restaurant.  I know that I have personally brought in at least 4 adults to the Noodles & Company at the South County Mall, just based on what I wrote about when I won a tasting meal.  I may have brought in more, but no one told me.  People read my blog and it may not be for the reasons I intended but they do and they learn to trust me and what I say.  For this reason, people like me are important to the restaurants.  Basically, if I suggest that all 200+ fans of my site on Facebook, go to a restaurant, I'm pretty sure that a good amount will show up, just based on word of mouth.  Does that make me powerful?  Nah....  I think of it as still just a guy recommending things to his friends.

If you want to read more, please check out the article here at Feast:
http://www.feaststl.com/this-months-feast/feature-articles/article_5fe16f3e-30cb-11e1-9322-0019bb30f31a.html

Happy Birthday to Catherine Neville

Catherine Neville is the editor of Feast magazine, which is that cool new foodie magazine in Saint Louis.  It is also her birthday today.  So, let's see what I have that looks birthday worthy...

 What about a meal starting with some oven roasted chicken.  It was marinated in some Lebanese extra virgin olive oil, garlic, salt, rosemary and lemon juice.

Your vegetable comes in a different texture and form that you may be used to:

Here we have some arugula spaghetti.  This was made with some agar-agar, some plastic tubing and a giant syringe.

Finally for dessert, we have a home made chocolate chip cookie and some ice creams.

I admit that it isn't a perfect picture, but that is a milk chocolate chip cookie in the center with a scoop of bubble gum ice cream on the left and a scoop of coffee ice cream on the right.

Happy birthday Catherine!

How much was I paid to say that?

I was reading a fun story on cracked.net about some of the hardest but silliest sounding jobs.  One of these was the restaurant reviewer or food critic. http://www.cracked.com/article_19308_6-silly-sounding-jobs-that-are-way-harder-than-you-think_p2.html

I love the Anthony Bourdain picture at the top of this article...

"Your bad review can ruin some family's business -- and they know where to find you. At least one critic has been threatened with a gun over a bad review. Another has been beaten bloody by the owner's associates (i.e., mob goons) over several bad reviews; to be fair though, he probably shouldn't have posted on his paper's website where he would be dining that night.
You can't think of this as Michael Bay threatening Roger Ebert with a shotgun over a bad review -- they're both famous, that's not going to happen. But as a food critic, you are literally going into enemy territory -- a business owned by some regular guy who you don't know -- assessing the fruits of his labor, and telling everyone in your readership whether or not to give that business their money. That restaurant owner's ability to pay his mortgage can lay on what you write, and you don't know how he's going to react.   
Not wanting to become the next bloody statistic, many a critic will go to work in disguise and assume a false name -- whatever is deemed necessary to stay anonymous."

Now I was thinking about this all weekend.  Everywhere I ate, any foods I looked at and any interesting people and items I saw, I wondered about how valid those above statements are to me and I came up with an interesting revelation about the food world, as a whole:  they don't want the truth.  I've said it before in my defense, but I like to give an exact account of my experience from the moment I walk into the front door to the moment I leave the building.  Everything gets taken into account from the decorations to the bathrooms.  Now the truth is that many magazines, from the RFT to the New Yorker, pay their reviewers to go to a restaurant, eat and then write about the experience.  So, their views may already be tainted because they are getting paid for those restaurants.  Secondly, in some cases, they are comped for their meal, by the restaurant or given other perks.  Would I have liked to have my meal completely paid for when I went to eat at RM: Seafood in Las Vegas?  Yes, but it wouldn't have changed my mind or view of the meal.  For some reviewers and critics, you have to ask them some questions:

Do you get paid to eat at the restaurant?
Who picks the restaurant?
Did the restaurant pay for your meal?
Dis the restaurant pay you for your nice review?
Did the restaurant buy a large ad in your magazine or paper?

The cost of ads in some papers like the RFT or Ladue Times is enough to consider a trade for a nice review.  (I am not suggesting that every restaurant that has a nice review in the RFT, Sauce, Feast or any other magazine or paper in the St. Louis area has paid for their nice review by ad space.)  But it could happen.

I was thinking about this article also when I ran into the local grocery store Saturday Morning.  While in there I noticed the owner of a local restaurant buying his ingredients.  The owner looked tired and still half-sleepy as he had a load of buns, lettuce and a few other small things in his cart.  I did start to feel bad for giving them a bad review, but then cut myself short.  It was bad.  It wasn't me being paid by someone else to say those things and I wasn't being comped for my meal so I was giving an honest experience just as the average person would enjoy or have as well.  The average person cannot afford to eat at Alinea every night, so I pick places I just happen to go to. Also, if you are a restaraunt owner and you had any bad marks in my reviews, there was a reason.  It could have been that your food was saltier than a salt lick, or that it took over an hour to bring out a hamburger or maybe you charged me $12 for something that I could have bought at the local store and made at home in less time and for less than $4.  That is why you are in my blog.  I explain it like this:

If I have someone I know from Texas come to St. Louis and ask me, "where is a good place to go for dinner?" I want to take them or suggest a favorite spot of mine.  This is human nature.  As humans, when we like something, we tend to want to enjoy it again and that suggests that we also like to let our friends enjoy it as well.  So, a good dinner spot in St. Louis?  Well, I have to know how much they want to spent.  You can find great food spots for about $20 a couple for great food and also for not great food.  So, where should I send them?  For less than $20 for some great 5 star food and service I would suggest the Thai House in Columbia, IL, about 10 minutes East of the JB Bridge.  Why?  did I get paid by them?  Did they pay for my kids to go to school?  NO.  They are real people who have a real passion for Thai food of their heritage.  Many times a year their head chef flies back to Thailand to get new recipes and ideas, which is something that some of the "best rated" Thai restaurants in St. Louis do NOT do.  That shows a real passion in the food.

Do you want a meal for about $80 a couple?  Well, what about the Farmhaus in St. Louis City?  Have I been paid to say this? No.  I went there and loved the food and atmosphere. It was a bit expensive for St. Louis but it was great from the start to the end.  If I was like the other reviewers in STL, I would suggest Niche.  But I haven't eaten there yet as I have not been able to make a reservation before 9:30pm.  It doesn't matter what time I call or what I say, but I can't get in.  (I know I could get any time I wanted if I identified myself as a restaurant reviewer and told them that, but that defeats the purpose.)  Its true: if I called and told them that I was a restaurant reviewer, I would have the best seat at the best time and no questions.  But, everyone else will not have that experience, so I will not do it.

A lot of people see this blog and then think to themselves that my ideas, ramblings and thoughts could not be that important.  Many think that if you are not writing for the New Yorker, the RFT or the Post Dispatch that you are not important.  Well, my answer back is simple:  My blog is important because I am NOT in those periodicals. I have not sold out, I was not bought out and my thoughts are my own.  I am allowed to say whatever I want about whoever I want.  I don't care who donated or who bought ad space.  I don't care if you think that just because your grandfather ran a lemonade stand that it qualifies you to run a restaurant.  If you don't have your whole heart and soul into the food then it shows and I will know it.  Maybe you shouldn't be running a restaurant.  I know that there is a huge amount of investment, but if you are doing it just to make money and really not care, then it may not be for you.