Eleven Eleven Mississippi 1-29-22

 Mike and I have been trying to eat at Eleven Eleven Mississippi in the Lafayette Square neighborhood of St. Louis for a long time and something has always come up to make us change our plans.  It is a trip (40+ minutes from our house).  We recently went on a night we had tickets to the Fox.

In a neighborhood known for its old, tall buildings with interesting architecture, Eleven Eleven Mississippi (actually the address of the restaurant) is a rather boring one-story brick building.  The parking kind of stinks, as there are lofts in the area and all kinds of people park on the street.  We had 5 p.m. reservations and we had to park about a block away and walk.  

Right when you walk in the door there is a big drape (I don't know if it is to keep out the cold air, or what) but it is like walking into a sensory deprivation chamber.  I felt I couldn't see for about 4 seconds.  Then you see the split in the curtains and you walk through.  It was kind of scary for a split second.  

As we were going to the Fox after dinner, I knew we had to be organized, so I had researched the menu and wine list.  We ordered a meat and cheese plate to go with our cocktails.  It was rather skimpy for $16.  We got to choose one meat and one cheese.  Our choice got us 2 slices of cheese and 4 thin slices of meat, along with the other items on the tray.  The fig jam was super yummy, but I do have to complain about the "crackers."  They are house made and they were like someone had taken a foam and dried it.  They were super delicate.  You couldn't really eat cheese on them or spread jam on them.  They were crunchy but didn't really have much flavor.  The tiny bit of giardiniera (pickled vegetables) had the most taste.  The "cajun nuts" I thought would have been spicy and were tasteless.  The "sharp" cheese was not very sharp and rather bland.  Overall we were not impressed with the meat/cheese board.

So, I made a mistake with the wine.  It was my fault and I admit it.  I chose a Gundlach Bundschu Cabernet Blend.  It was a medium priced wine with good reviews.  I looked at it online and it was in a dark bottle with a black label.  I ordered the Gundlach Bundschu blend and the waiter made a mistake and brought us the Gunlach Bundschu Cabernet.  It is in a dark bottle with a cream label.  I wasn't paying attention and he poured it and we drank it.  It was actually just so-so.  BUT, when it came time to pay the bill...Mike and I are nerds and we each try to guess the price of the bill to the nearest dollar before tax and tip.  Well, we were both WAY off.  That's because we got a wine that was over double the price I had expected to pay.  We were served the very nice Gundlach  Bundschu Cabernet, not the medium priced Cabernet blend.  I know the waiter brought out the wrong wine...but he presented it to us and we OK'd his opening it.  From then on, it was our fault.  So, we drank some expensive wine that we didn't really think was that great.  So...goes to show you...sometimes expensive wine isn't any better than regular everyday wine!

For dinner Mike had a file on a pile of mashed potatoes.  The potatoes had some sort of caramelized onions and Swiss chard on them.  The big thing was the demi-glace sauce that was all over Mike's stuff.  It is what makes a dish like that, yummy.  

I ordered the seafood linguini.  I'll have to say that it was definitely more of a seafood dish than a  linguini dish.  There actually wasn't a whole lot of pasta to it.  The pasta was actually just a little undercooked, which gives it time to finished cooking while I ate it.  I would rather have that than overcooked and mushy.  The shrimp were good, but they hadn't been cooked in the sauce, which I found odd.  They had been cooked on a grill and had been seasoned with pepper and a little cayenne.  They were spicy.  The little bay scallops were just OK.  Overall I liked the dish and would eat it again.

After dinner I was going to be adventurous.  Online they listed as one of their after dinner drinks as Amontillado.  Each year I read Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Cask of Amontillado" and I've always wanted to try it, so I thought I'd order it.  Of course, they didn't have it.  That is one thing that bugs me, if you have a good online menu/wine list...keep it updated.  So, Mike had some pecan bread pudding with his cappuccino and I had a dish of citrus sorbet.  It was good and tart, it kind of tasted like grapefruit with some tangerines.  

Overall there was nothing inherently wrong with this restaurant, but they also didn't wow us enough to make us feel the need to come back.  It was good, but I think it was a one and done.