Tony's 2-14-2022

I made reservations in December for us to go to Tony's near Valentine's Day.  I knew it would be that busy.  It wasn't when we arrived (the only time I could get was 5:30).  Fancy diners eat later than we do.

Just a crazy side note.  When we had arrived and were seated with drinks and bread, a guy comes over and starts messing with our table.  It was Mike's friend Antoine.  He was just messing with us.  He is a "fix it" man in North County by day and a water guy/table busser by night.  He is probably our age and still isn't any higher than a bus-boy at a place like this.  That shows who our friends are.  We aren't friends with the high society people...we are friends with the bus-boy type of people!

I don't have photos from this dinner because it is just such a fancy place that there isn't a phone visible in the dining room.  It would look rather crass to haul a phone out and be taking photos of the food.  I KNOW that there are people who have done it, as there a photos you can see online.  

This restaurant is just in a different class from the other fancy restaurants in St. Louis.  It is VERY "old school."  First, they don't have any female waiters. (There were only 2 female employees in the whole place.  One was at the registration desk and one was an African American lady in the coat closet...pretty stereotypical!).  And, they don't just have "waiters."  They introduce the "steward" and the "captain" and then there is the "maitre d." There is also a general manager type person who walks around and talks to each table and personally thanks you for coming and shakes your hand before you leave.  It is A LOT of personal attention.  

I get all the people confused.  I think we were seated by the "captain" or the "maitre d."   We were then greeted by our "steward" who is like the food waiter.  He greeted us the menus and told us the bread basket and waters would be out in a minute.   The bread basket is not like many other places.  It has probably 6 or 7 different kinds of bread...all the way from sweet bread with raisins and pistachios in it to Italian bread, to a crunchy bread that was nearly a cracker.  Nice...if you like bread.  I do. 

We said we'd like to begin with a cocktail.  Then the "steward" who is in charge of bar drinks came over.  We saw him for anything that had to do with bar drinks...but not wine...that was different.  I ordered my typical vodka Collins and Mike ordered a gin and tonic.  When he brought the drinks, Mike's tonic water was in a little single serving fancy bottle, which the steward cracked open and told Mike to tell him how much to pour in, so that Mike could control the exact potency of his drink and be assured that his tonic water was fresh.  Very fancy. 

Then our food waiter came over and described the specials for the night.  Mike and I looked at the menu for awhile while enjoying our drinks.  We asked the waiter questions about items 2 or 3 times and he was super helpful.  Mike saw a veal dish he was interested in, but he'd rather had Veal Saltimbocca. The waiter said that all you had to do was ask.  

The wine list...OMG.  We didn't want to feel like crazy poor people, but the lowest wines on the whole list were the only ones in our price range.  We chose a red blend for a price over our price range, but we didn't do anything crazy.  There were wines in the $1500-$2000 range!!  The whole time we had wine...only certain people came and refilled our wine...kind of like only certain people were "trained" in handling wine.

To begin...Mike started with a Tony's salad.  It was a typical Italian salad with salami, heart of palm, vinaigrette.   He said it was good, but he ended up only eating 1/2 of it because it was too big and he wanted to be able to eat his dinner.

Mike's 2nd course was a manicotti.  It was filled with beef and mushrooms (Mike doesn't typically like mushrooms but these were diced so small and mixed with the beef and the cheese that really they just made the mixture more moist).  It was covered in a white sauce that Mike thought was really good...not too heavy.  He really enjoyed this manicotti.

I began with some shrimp risotto.  It was very good.  It was super creamy and rich and went well with the red wine.  It could have been my whole dinner.

For the main entree, Mike had a trio of veal.  These pieces of veal had been pounded thin and cooked in a brown gravy sauce with pancetta, sage, and fontina cheese.  He said it was very good, but he wished there had been a little more cheese (that was what he told the general manager when he came and talked to us later and shook our hands and thanked us for coming).  With the veal Mike had a side of pasta in a brown sort of gravy sauce and an arancini rice ball.

I had the lobster and shrimp pasta.  It was all about the sauce.  So many people put seafood pasta in a sauce that covers the taste of the seafood.  The sauce can't be bold, or cheesy, or super spicy.  It needs to be light and made with seafood broth and some wine.  It can have some spice, just not too much.  Tony's got it right.  It was a wonderful dish.  

Neither of us finished our entrees, so that we could try some dessert.  I ordered a chocolate torte.  It was OK.  It tasted like they had a 100 of them in the back and they just plated them and put whipped cream on them.  The whipped cream was super homemade.  Mike got a toffee torte with whipped cream.  He really liked his.  Mike ordered his standard cappuccino after dinner.  I tried an after dinner liquor.  I ordered an Italian port.  It was sweet and good.  It comes in a tiny little wine style glass and you sip it.  It totally goes with dessert.  

We were probably there 2.5-3 hours.  This is pretty typical of a restaurant of this level. 

The overall rating for this restaurant...probably not worth the cost.  Its food and drink are over double the other fancy restaurants in St. Louis.  Since they moved from the Tony's downtown to Clayton the restaurant is considerably smaller and all the wait staff seems a bit more "hovering."  The food is good, but it isn't over 2x as good.  You can go other places and have a fancy evening and not pay this kind of money. 

Chuck's Hot Chicken in O'Fallon 2-8-2022

 I'd heard of Nashville style "hot chicken."  I'd seen things about it on TV.  I knew it was different than buffalo style chicken because it isn't a sauce.  The chicken is cooked and dipped in a "hot, spicy" oil.  

On a random Tuesday night that found Mike and I eating alone, we went to Chuck's Hot Chicken on Highway K in O'Fallon.  It is right by the MK Library.  

It is part of a chain.  There is another store or two in St. Louis county.  

Most people carry out their chicken dinners.  Mike and I ate at one of the TWO tables in the restaurant.  Calling this a restaurant is a bit of a stretch.  Literally a counter and TWO small tables.  

But...the chicken was good.  Mike got the chicken tenders.  I got the chicken sandwich.  You order your level of spice.  Mike ordered the lowest (a 1).  I went up to a 2.  I tasted both of them and couldn't tell the difference.

They were really good chicken.  It was nice, white breast meat.  They were not dry and they had really good flavor.  Everything comes with pickles.  The pickles are a really nice foil for the spicy chicken flavor.  As I was eating my sandwich, I decided that I liked the bites that had a bit of pickle in them better than the bites that didn't.

We also shared a "basket" of fries.  They were average.

I'd recommend the chicken.  

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.  

Truffles Restaurant in Ladue--1-15-2022

 I've heard about this restaurant for quite awhile, and I don't know why we've never tried it.  

When I was doing my research on this restaurant, I found out they were one of the premier wine restaurants in the USA.  That is a little intimidating.  Many of their wines are WAY out of our league.  They have wines that are like $7000 a bottle!  We don't drink wines that are $70 a bottle, let alone $7000.  

It actually turned out very well.  The servers are very well schooled in the wines.  I'm sure they have at least one sommelier on staff (maybe more than one) who we could have asked questions of, but we didn't need to.  Our server was more than competent.  After reading the menu, we told him what we were planning on eating and he asked us a few more questions (what kinds of wines we liked and didn't like, how much we wanted to spend on a glass/bottle, etc.) and we ended up NOT getting a bottle of wine.  We got a couple of glasses of a wine from Italy that was really good and under our price range.  It is called Il Bruciato.  It is made in Italy with Cabernet, Merlot and Syrah grapes (mostly Cab, which we like).  Because I don't know what it might taste like (sometimes good, sometimes not) I am always hesitant to pick wines that are a mixture.  This one was really quite nice.

For an appetizer Mike had French onion soup.  He said it was very good. Sorry, my photo is sad because he had already begun eating...

For my appetizer I got the mussels.  They were good, but the broth was a butter garlic sauce and it was really quite salty.  It was fine on the mussels, but unlike usual when you get this dish at other restaurants (and it has a tomato broth) you couldn't really sop it up with the bread...it was just too salty.  

Ok, so VERY much like Annie Gunn's, this restaurant has a specialty store next door that sells fine cuts of meat, wines, cheeses, and everything that could go on a appetizer tray.  It is called The Butchery. So, they are known for their steaks.  

Mike got a filet, some haricot verts (small French green beans) and fancy parmesan French fries.  He said it was all very good.  

When I had researched this restaurant, I had totally planned out what I would eat.  I was going to get the gumbo for my appetizer and then the mussels appetizer for my dinner.  Well, tonight the gumbo was made "extra special" with pork belly in it.  I don't like "pork belly.   I know it is all the rage in the food world right now. There is something about a cut of pork that is mostly fat that doesn't appeal to me.  So, I had to switch gears.  When our server told me about on of the specials I was super intrigued.  You see, when you aren't a steak eater and you go with your husband to tons of steak style restaurants, you are always looking for something different.  I appreciate when a restaurant has a true "chef" who has an imagination and can cook some new and different things.  So, the chef had ordered branzino (sea bass).  He expected it to come whole.  It came in filets.  So, he fried it in a tempura batter and decided to play on the Asian flavors.  He made sushi sticky rice with a little extra vinegar and black sesame seeds in it.  He took some green onions (the whole stalk) and pickled them in a kimchi style.  Then he made a soy and spicy sauce that went around it all.  So, that's what I had: tempura battered and fried branzino on sticky sushi rice with kimchi green onions.  The flavors together were super yummy and something you'd never expect to find at a steak place!  

We never finish our dinner, so that we can try the restaurants desserts.  Mike always has cappuccino with his dessert.  I was just finishing my wine.  Mike had creme brulee.  He said it was very good, but I like it better with berries of some kind.  His came with almond biscotti.  

I thought about a chocolate torte, but ended up getting a churro dessert that was fried and covered in cinnamon and sugar.  Then they put warm apple compote on it and cinnamon ice cream.  The crunchy and warm in contrast with the soft and the cold were really good.  It was a BIG dessert.  I couldn't finish it all (almost).  

This is an expensive, super nice place set in the heart of Ladue.  We were surprised...there were people of all ages there.  There were people who were dressed up and people in jeans.  The tables are spaced enough apart that I didn't feel like I was infringing on anyone else's dinner or listening to anyone else's conversation.  It wasn't full, but when we left a couple hours after we started, I'd say it was 70% full.  

I would go back here.  It was expensive but worth it. 

 

Taco's 4 Life--O'Fallon, MO 1-14-2022

 This restaurant is in the old Steak n Shake at the corner of Hwy K and Hwy N.  It is chain with restaurants in 4 or 5 states in the South.  For each taco meal you buy, their corporation sends 1 protein rice pack to someone in a 3rd world country.  

It is an "order at the counter and someone brings you your food" style of restaurant.  We went on a Friday night.  It was busy, but not overly crowded.  I was surprised.  I thought it would be terribly crowded because it only opened up a couple of months ago.  

As a table we ordered a "table sized" order of chips and queso.  We saw other tables getting theirs before the rest of their food.  We did not.  There was some sort of screw up and ours didn't come out at all.  When our food got delivered, I said we were waiting for our chips and queso and they brought some right out.  So, we ate them with our meal.  They were average.  The queso was a little thin.  

So, they don't serve alcohol (margaritas, etc.) So, their signature drink has some of the flavors of a margarita it is a "honey limeade."  It tried one and really liked it.  It is made from honey, lime, sugar and water.  Anna thought it was way too sour.  

Anna ordered a chicken quesadilla.  She said the chicken was good, but it was just an "average" quesadilla.  There was a aeoli to put on it.  It wasn't spicy at all.  Anna liked that, because Anna doesn't like much spice in her food.  She got a side of beans.  She said they, too, were good but nothing great. 

Mike ordered 2 regular crunchy beef tacos and a side of "queso rice with salsa."  He said the tacos were good and the rice was fine.  

I ordered one fried shrimp taco and one tofu taco.  My side was chicken tortilla soup.  I tried the soup first.  The temperature was a little on the luke warm side.  The flavor was good.  The broth was seasoned well but it didn't have very much chicken in it.  My first taco was the tofu.  The tofu had been marinated but it still lacked flavor.  It had a poblano salsa, but I still didn't feel/taste any heat.  It had cabbage instead of lettuce.  That was OK.  It had a couple chunks of avocado that were cut too big and fell off immediately.  This one just didn't have much flavor.  My second taco was the shrimp taco.  It was very different.  It had a pineapple sauce AND chunks of pineapple, lettuce, green onion and coconut.  It was VERY sweet, almost too sweet.  I liked that I could taste the shrimp but the sweetness threw off the balance of the taco.

Overall I missed any heat (spice) in anything.  There was very little salsa/spice on most things.  

I do have to say that they have trained the kids who work here to be helpful.  They come around and get your finished dishes.  One girl refilled my limeade.  They cleaned tables quickly.  

Anna was slightly offended by the entire concept of the restaurant.  She said she found it to be a bunch of "white saviors" trying to make themselves feel better while going out to eat.  The side our our queso container said "Dip Dip, Hooray!  You're Helping Someone Today!"  She didn't like that and she didn't like the idea of making suburban white people feel like they were really helping.  

I doubt we return.  

Espino's in Chesterfield 12-3-2021

 We haven't been to Espino's in a few years, but when it first opened we went there quite often. 

This time we had a weird ulterior motive.  The guy who was the live entertainment at Espino's was going to be the live entertainment at our country club at an upcoming event.  We wanted to listen to him and see if we liked his music before we signed up for the event at the country club.  So, we went out to eat at Espino's.  

The wait on a Friday night was quite long.  We probably waited 45 minutes.  We had a margarita.  I do have to say that I like their margaritas.  They are more citrusy than others and have a slight orange juice taste.  I also like that they make their own and they don't come from a bottle.  So many other places come from a bottle and they are room temperature (warm) and poured over ice.  I really hate that first warm drink through the straw.  

I got a chile relleno.  It was fine but I have had much better.  The one I typically get at our local El Tio Pepe is better and cheaper.  

Mike had a burrito.  He said it was OK but not great.

Anna had a spinach and mushroom quesadilla.  She said it was a little weird and she didn't know if she really liked it.  

Maybe now I remember why we stopped coming to Espino's.  The food isn't what we like in Mexican food.  

Here is our drinks and chips:

  

Here is my Chile Relleno:

Here is Mike's burrito (with sour cream on it):

Here are Anna's quesadillas:

By the way...the music guy was fine but not great. 

Irish Gypsy Bar in O'Fallon 12-18-2021

 I had heard from some friends who live in the area that this place was known for its good food.  I drive past it often and the parking lot is packed!!  So, on Saturday night Mike, Anna and I decided to give it a try.  

The interior is nothing exciting.  It looks like a typical bar: hightop tables, people sitting at the bar, a very few regular height tables and booths.  It was 6 p.m. and most of the tables were full.  There were two dirty tables near the door.  A waitress yelled at us as we walked in to sit wherever we wanted.  We walked around and discovered the two dirty tables were the only open ones.  So, we sat down.  In a few minutes she came over and apologized.  She cleaned the table and brought us menus.  She took our drink orders.  Mike ordered a "milk stout" beer and I ordered a Moscow Mule.  Anna got a sprite.  I didn't like the Moscow Mule.  The ginger beer was weird and threw off the entire drink.  Mike liked his 4Hands Milk Stout and eventually got one more.  

The menu really didn't have much to choose from.  Since this was an Irish bar, there was Irish stew and bangers and mash, but otherwise it was typical bar food: wings, fried pickles, fried onion rings.  We were surprised to see that it didn't have potato skins or fish and chips.  They had some things that aren't especially Irish: steak sandwich, french dip sandwich, and turkey sandwich.  They had a few wraps and chicken items, but none of the chicken was fried...it was all grilled with things like onions and peppers.  So, Anna and I both ended up getting burgers and fries.  I'll have to say, the fries were good.  They were very like McDonald's fries.  The burger was fine.  It was a nice size but they didn't ask how I liked it cooked.  It was a little overdone and dry for my tastes.  They also don't offer American cheese on their burger...just swiss, cheddar, Monterey Jack, or jalepeno/cayenne. Mike got a reuben sandwich and he said it was really quite good.  

I read online all about the good vibe of this bar. I just didn't see it.  It was a bunch of middle aged people sitting around eating supper and drinking buckets of beer.  There was nothing special or different.  The food was fine but not remarkable.  

Mike said he'd go back, but Anna and I said we'd give it a pass.  This was a one and done.

Here's my hamburger:

Here is Mike's Reuben with cheese fries: