One 19 North Tapas and Wine Bar in downtown Kirkwood 8-28-2021

Mike isn't usually a "tapas" kind of guy, but tonight he went right along with me in the idea of eating tapas.

Let's just start with the fact that our waiter was a "flake" for lack of a better word.  He seemed like a 40 year old unemployed actor (grand gestures and over exaggerated facial expressions), but he just wasn't a very good waiter.

First we ordered 2 cocktails and asked for a bottle of wine to be opened.  He said "Both?" like he couldn't imagine we would drink that much.  Mike said, "We're going to be here awhile."

After about a good 15-20 minutes he arrived with the cocktails (that is a REALLY long time to wait) and my cocktail was wrong.  So, he left the one that was wrong and went back to the bar.  After about 10 more minutes he brought the correct one.

He asked for our dinner/tapas order.  He was helpful in telling us when we had enough but not too much food.  He did bring and open our wine.  I had read the wine list online and for the 2nd weekend in a row was disappointed that the one online was different than the actual list.  Several of the wines were the same, so we were able to order one of the ones I had researched.  It is called Requiem and it is from Walla Walla, Washington.  It was nice.  

As we sat and waited for the food, we heard the other waitress explaining to people how the tapas vs. the entrees work and what the specials for the evening were.  We never heard any of that.  It would have been nice.

After about 15 minutes our waiter came back and apologized because he hadn't written down our order and couldn't remember what we wanted.  So, we told him again.  

About 10-15 minutes later, the first of our 4 tapas arrived...fried artichoke hearts on a marinara sauce. I didn't do a good job taking photos of our food.  

Next came the carnitas fries.  These were just OK.  The french fries were good and hot and you could tell they just came out of the fryer.  The white cheese over them was yummy, but the little bit of carnitas meat and the tablespoon of pico de gallo did not make them have an overall "carnitas" flavor.  They were just cheese fries with a little meat on them.

Next we had some goat cheese one a puttanesca sauce with crostini.  It was good, but there was not much to it.  Mike said, it is just king of like ricotta cheese on some marinara with toast.  He wasn't wrong. 

Then Mike had some mac and cheese.  I am not much of a mac and cheese person and I had read that their mac and cheese was good.  So, I finished off the goat cheese while Mike ate some of the mac and cheese.  He did say that it was good homemade mac and cheese.

Back to the flakey waiter.  We go to the end of the evening and asked for a couple of "to go" boxes...and then the waiter said thank you and brought our check.  I guess he just decided for us that we didn't want any dessert of coffee, etc.  I knew from online they had a small, but OK dessert list. 

So, we left.  

I would say the food here was good, not amazing.  It is always fun to try a few things at once.  Their wine list is nice but not huge.  

I didn't like that to use the restroom you literally had to go through the kitchen to get there.  

So...we decided to go out for dessert (see next review).