Basso always amazes

Late last month, I took my wife to Basso, on her birthday, for lunch.  I know, lunch sounds so taboo considering that most restaurants only open around 4 or 4:30 and even so, only open for dinner and after-hours.  But, as I said, I went there for lunch.  They do serve a lunch and on a weekend when it is cold outside and you want to go someplace nice and warm and have great food...then go to Basso.

I want to warn you though, Basso may just be my favorite restaurant in St. Louis.  The prices are very reasonable, the service is excellent, the atmosphere is warm and comforting while still young and hip, the chef is amazing and everything is going for this place.  So, this review and write-up may seem a little biased.

First off, we ordered a Basso salad, the Mafalda (which doesn't look like it is available on the lunch menu anymore), a cauliflower soup and pizza, that they had split in half where one side had shrimp and the other side had poblano peppers and sausage.

Everything was delicious.  Period.

Why are you still reading this?  Basso is awesome.  They get my best of Tasty Magazine for 2013, for Best Restaurant.  Go there, eat there and you will love it.  Tell them I sent you, why not!  It is so cool, they even have valet parking.  Come'on, take the wife there before you finish your Christmas shopping.  Stop there, then go to the Galleria.  It is a win-win situation.  

http://www.basso-stl.com/

Address: 7036 Clayton Ave, St Louis, MO 63117

Phone:(314) 932-7820

Murphy's on 21, on 21

While I was in the area a few days ago, I grabbed my youngest child and went into this pub and sandwich shop for a quick dinner.  Notice that this place is not a bar.  Bars by nature do not allow children or anyone under 21 after a certain time and since this time that I went in was around 6pm, this shop and pub was allowing children in.  Anyways, I went in and while noticing several women working the tables and taking orders, after sitting down, for 15 minutes, I took it upon myself to walk up to the bar and make an order.  I know you may be thinking that this is what I was supposed to have been doing the whole time, but after seeing these servers walk up to tables and people with their menus on ipads or a similar tablet, I thought they would do the same to me.  While I at first thought that this was a clear discrimination against me because I had a 5 year old with me, seeing a selection of food items separated on their menu as a "kid's menu" would indicate that children are in fact welcome.

After placing my order for food items that should not have taken more than 10 minutes, and since when I looked around the room and everyone else had food plates on their tables, I figured that our food would come out fast.  I didn't think that 20 minutes was fast though.

My son ordered the hot dog and it was described as a hot dog on a bun with mini pretzel knots.  What is a pretzel knot, you may ask?  Pretzel knots are typically described as the actual tied knot parts of pretzels. This can be a physical tied knot or part of a braid in a pretzel.  Unfortunately, what Murphy's on 21 means, is that you get a regular store bought hot dog, on a bun, bare, with a handful of Rold Gold pretzels.

So, what did I order?  I ordered a specialty called Smackers.  The Smackers are described as "baked Italian sausage bites tossed in our sweet buffalo or BBQ sauce and served "wing style".  This is what had been delivered:

Now, besides being disgusting, a miserable 1 out of 5 stars, this is what they were.  The description sounds better than what they were.  Baked sausage bites, makes me think of something more like a sausage with other things and flavors mixed into it.  These were clumps of store-bought sausage, heated up and then a mixture of BBQ sauce and hot sauce poured over them.  They were spicy, hot and way too tart to even consider eating more than one.  I guess that one someone says that something is served "wing style", that means that a single stalk of celery is chopped into three pieces and offered as a side.  Where is the ranch sauce?  Where are the napkins?  Not here.  None of them even offered.  These had a horrible pepper and vinegar aftertaste that made me eat some of the crappy pretzel knots on my child's dish.  Would I eat at this place again? No, it just wasn't for me.  If you are into bars that serve food by nice girls with ipads and a large tv playing sports games, then this is for you.  

Dressels' pub

About a week ago, my wife and I went with another couple to Dressel's Public House.  The other husband we went with, has been there many, many times.  His main thought about the location, was that half of the items are good and the other half are bad.  I thought he was just being a pessimist but, his thoughts and ideas were correct as about half of the items we ordered were good and the other half could have been skipped.

We stood and waited for a table, after I had made contact with someone from the email on their website.  I sometimes call and sometimes use opentable to see how they respond to my reservation request.  This time, they did horrible with the email request.  I did get someone to respond and they confirmed the day and time and I thought I was ready, but then when we arrived, there was no reservation in my name at all and we had to wait 15 minutes for a table.  The inside was covered with signs and memorabilia about Scotland.  The pub was originally opened in 1980 and was opened to let people have a place to relax and feel comfortable in the art and literary area.  There are autographed magazines and playbills and all sorts of things from Jon Dressel, who is a respected poet dealing with subject matter from Wales, although he was born and raised here in St. Louis.  His son, Ben, runs the pub now and has moved it in the direction of the farm-to-table and seasonal food approach.  But, all of that doesn't mean anything if the food isn't that good.

We started off with some starters, so we could get a good feel of the food here.  We ordered the Homemade Potato Chips with the added Rarebit.  What we had received was burnt chips and a tiny portion of $2 cheese.  For $6 of chips that were supposed to be cooked to order, our luke warm burnt chips were not what we had expected.

Properly cooked chips are not supposed to be brown, but lightly browned.  I think of the chips they serve at John D. McGuirks or even the ones in this bag from Lays.  Chips are lightly colored as you only fry them long enough to cook them, not kill them.  You know, started off with burnt chips isn't a great way to impress me.  I give these a 2 out of 5.  I will not be ordering chips again from them.

We had also ordered the House Banger Plate, which in this case was a blue corn pancake with a breakfast pork sausage and fried egg.

It was good: the pork sausage was perfectly spiced and perfectly cooked.  The egg was right as well and that pancake was heavy and dense and very flavorful.  The whole thing was as much of a success as the first one was as much of a failure, which was a lot.  I would give this one alone a 4 out of 5.  In fact, if I came again, I'd order 3 of these just for myself.

Again, on this side of the spectrum, the two wives present, happily ate the Mussels.  They said that these mussels were perfectly cooked and perfectly flavored so that the broth was worth taking the time to soak up with the rock hard garlic bread.  Everyone loved them and a 4 out of 5 for mussels was given.

So then, it comes to my main plate and I get ballsy.  First of all, I'm not a cheese guy.  I don't sit around trying and tasting all sorts of cheeses.  I don't like the pungent scents and flavors that go with cheeses.  I ate some white and mild cheeses on pizza and will let go with some provel or mozarella but I will not eat cheeses on a sandwich or burger.  So, anyway, what made Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives so happy was the Porchetta "Louie".  So, this sandwich is supposed to some herb roasted pork, rapini and peppercini on it.  So, I start to eat and eat and it tastes good at first.  If I had only had two bites, like Andrew Zimmerman, and stopped there, this would have been a 4 out of 5 stars for me.  The problem, was that it was so heavily peppered, that by the 4th or 5th bite, I was sensing heat and by the 8th or 9th bite, I was using my Guinness to wash the sandwich taste down.  And it was salty, like salt-lick salty.  The sandwich was bad and it was getting worse with every bite.  I didn't even finish it and I was starving at this point.  I gave this sandwich a simple 2 out of 5 stars. 

So, then, I get a choice of a side and I am suggested that I take the baked beans and so I take them.  They arrive with my sandwich and I am happy.  The others at my table and I all take a fork-full of the beans and...we all had mixed reviews.  Half of us had beans which were over cooked, in that they were mushy.  The other half of us had undercooked beans which were almost crunchy.  There was no huge pieces of bacon fat or brown sugar syrup slathered in and instead was a simple tomato tasting sauce with undercooked and overcooked beans.  A 2 out of 5 for me.

Overall, there were some hits and some misses.  It seems that if this is a restaurant where great thing happen, the one who does them was off and his sub just didn't care.  The chips really started it all for me because I am one of those guys that if the chips are really really good, I'll find an excuse to come and sit, drink and eat chips.  But when you fail at making potato chips, I wonder how good you can do anything else.