Peppe's Apt. #2 in Kirkwood 3-1-25

 It has been a few years since we have been to Peppe's Apt. #2.  It is quite a unique place.  It is in an old house off of Geyer in Kirkwood.  It has a small parking lot in the back and there is some street parking.  We were going to the Fox, so we had very early (5 pm) reservations, so we parked in the lot in the back.  It probably only has a dozen or so tables on the main floor.  There is a 2nd floor that has some bigger tables and I think it might have a meeting room.  It's a class place with nice china, chandeliers on the ceiling, experienced wait staff.  

I read online that this restaurant was started by a guy named Peppe and he is still the guy that greets you at the door.  The food is mostly old world Italian.  

Mike and started with a cocktail and then ordered the shrimp scampi appetizer.  It is something we got the first time we came and it is really good and we have ordered it every time since then.  

We ordered a bottle of Italian Valpolicella.  It was good, but not as good as a California cabernet.  

I ordered the linguini putanesca.  It had black olives and capers.  It was good, but the twangy sauce was just OK.  I'd hoped for more spice and less twang.  

Mike had chicken parm.  It was good.  

For dessert we split a piece of some kind of chocolate torte.  It was a nice bite of sweet at the end of the meal.  Mike had coffee.  

This place is never the BEST food in the world, but it is consistently good and it is a nice place to eat in quiet elegance.  

Cobalt Smoke and Sea in Creve Coeur 9-28-24

This place is a solid 3.5-4 stars.  

We have been to this place several times before, so I almost didn't write one of these.  We came here before the Fox.  They always have interesting drinks and pretty good food. 

I started with some kind of fizzy, numb your mouth drink.  I find that sooo weird. It is made with the buzz button plant that literally is like novocain for the inside of your mouth.  

We started with an appetizer that was the special.  It was proscuitto with oranges and thick cut candied bacon.  It was interesting

Mike had fettuccine bolognese.  You could tell the pasta had been hand made.  He liked it. 

I had some steamed halibut on baby bok choy with other vegetables with a vegetable soy broth.  It was good...not great.  

Mad Dog and Cats 10-25-24

 On a random Friday night we decided to try this place.  It always seems to have decent reviews.  It is over on Hwy 94 and Wolfrum, so it isn't far. 

The inside is just a bar with a few tables and booths.  We were lucky to get a booth.  

Mike started with the French Onion soup.  It supposedly one of their specialties.  Mike said it was OK.

Then Mike had their reuben sandwich.  He said it was good, but nothing spectacular.

I got the fried cod sandwich.  It was fine.  The cod was like Fish Fry cod and it really didn't fit on the bun well, but it tasted fine.  

This place was fine.  We didn't find anything that will make us come running back. 

Truffles in Clayton 2-13-25

 We were driving to Nebraska on Valentine's Day, so we went out for Valentine's Day supper one day early.  

We got a bottle of Iconoclast cabernet.  It was big and bold.  I knew Mike would like it.  

We also decided we were going to have several appetizers.  Their special was fried pecarino romano cheese with pistachios, herbs and hot honey over the top.  They were super yummy.

Then I decided to have the ceviche.  I love ceviche.  This one was just weird.  The presentation was a crazy fail.  The fish was in a sauce on the right side of the rectangular plate.  The sauce waned to run over the right side and get under the bowl.  The bowl was weird.  It held a huge scoop of crushed ice and then had a lettuce leaf, 2 pieces of cucumber (cut super thick) and 2 halves of some kind of radish.  I didn't know what to do with any of that.  The fish and sauce were super yummy.  The sauce was made with lime and orange.  The orange was a nice twist.  They also placed tamarind chips on top of the fish.  That was a fun thing.  The chips would have been too strong to eat alone, but with the fish they added a nice salt and crunch.  I enjoyed the fish.  The presentation was just weird. 

Mike got a bowl of their French Onion Soup.  It is always good.  

For dinner Mike got a petit filet.  It was the smallest steak I've ever seen in my life!!  I think it was still something like $40.  That is crazy.  It was cooked perfectly, but super small and the 1/2 of a twice baked potato was super small, too.  The broccoli rob was what filled up the plate.  

One of their specials that night was an Asian dish with shrimp and rice noodles.  I got that.  It was good but too big for me to even come close to finishing.  I did take it for left overs to school and the rice noodles really didn't last very well, they were super mushy

We split a piece of chocolate torte for dessert.  Again it was much smaller than I expected.  I got a glass of tawny port to go with it, which has almost a raisin taste.  They were very good together.

This place is high end and expensive, but I am surprised how small some of the dishes were.  I kind of feel ripped off after paying over $300 for supper and tip.  The food is always good and the ambiance is also something you are paying for, and I know prices have really gone up on some things, but we definitely can't make this a regular place.  

Sushi Boat in St. Charles 12-31-24

I would give this place 4.5 stars.  

Jake and I tried this sushi place for lunch on New Year's Eve day.  It was small and crowded but we were lucky enough to get a booth without waiting.  

They menu is huge.  The sushi rolls are huge.  We ordered way too much food and had to take a bunch home.  

First we ordered green tea...it was the real stuff.  It came in a little pot with the green tea leaves steeping in the hot water.  You put it on top of your cup and it flows down into your cup.  Super yummy.  They come back and fill it with more hot water.

We ordered 5 rolls.  They were all good and I'd order them again. The rolls tend to come out one at a time.  Probably 30 minutes between the first and last one.  So, we ate one at a time.  Which was a bummer, as we were super full by the time the last one came out.

We started with the Cardinal Roll topped with rib eye.  Jake liked this one.  I didn't need the steak. 

Then we had the St. Charles roll.  It was OK.  The stuff piled on top was kind of too soft and made the bites too big. 

Next was the Gold Coast Roll.  The salmon on top was really good.  

Then we tried the Yummy Roll with 3 sauces.  It was good. 

Lastly, we tried the St. Louis roll.  It had sweet potato.  It was good and had crunchy stuff on top, which was (of course) not crunchy the next day...bummer.  

The rolls are more expensive because they are so big, but it is nice to have another sushi place to go to. 

Louie (on DeMun) 1-25-25

I would give this place a 4/5 stars. 

Just north of St. Elizabeth's hospital on DeMun nearWashington University looks like an area that would be restaurants and bars full of college kids.  But Louie is not frequented by college students.  It is full of upper class white people.  

The parking stinks in the area.  We drove around for a bit and happened to snag a spot on the street but had to park on 4" of ice left over from a storm 3 weeks ago.  

The restaurant is long and narrow.  It was overly warm in there, dark and difficult to read the menu, and quite loud and hard to hear. (Wow, don't I sound like an old person!)

One of the waiters (a big guy with a man bun) seems to be a favortie of many of the people who come here often.  He is greeted with big hugs.  He was our waiter.  He was fine but I didn't feel the need to hug him, LOL.  

We started with a cocktail and were given some foccia bread and olive oil.  It was OK.  The bread was cold and almost too tall.  The spices (a lot of pepper and oregano) on top of the bread were nice.  

Mike decided he wanted to try several things off of the menu, so he told the waiter, we were going to order more food than we could eat and take all the leftovers home.  Of course the waiter was happy.  We each had glass of their house cabernet which was Caburnio from Italy.  It was pretty good for $13 a glass. 

So, we each ordered an appetizer.  Mike ordered a margherita pizza and I ordered the grilled octopus.  I think Mike's order ended up being better.  The pizza was good.  The octopus was good, but it was only a couple of pieces of actual octopus and a lot of chick peas and fried potatoes.  Because it was so dark in there, I didn't discover the potatoes until I cut into them.  I thought they were octopus.  

For dinner Mike got the papardelle bolognese.  It was good, but I do think almost $30 is a bit steep for a rather small pasta dish.  

I got the chitarra with tomato basil sauce.  I'm not a huge basil fan, so it was good the basil was in large leaf form and I could just pick it out.  The pasta was like really fat buccatini or spaghetti.  It was just a little al dente and it was good.  

For dessert we split the carmelized honey ice cream sandwich.  I don't know what was in the actual cookie part but I tasted the honey and something fruity, like orange.  It was good and just the right amount for us to split. The cruchy bits sround the outside were some sort of homemade frosted cereal.  They were a yummy addition. 

Bistro La Floraison 1-11-2025

All in all I'd probably give this restaurant a 3.5 or a 4/5 

This actually used to be a French restaurant we liked.  It closed during Covid.  Then it sat empty for awhile and when it reopened...it was a French restaurant again!  

First the bad news...parking!  Parking actually is horrible.  When we went to this restaurant it was about a week after STL had 12" of snow.  So, the snow was piled up along side all the streets.  There are 3 acclaimed restaurants in the same block (AKAR, Wright's Tavern, and Bistro La Floraison).  They all share the same 15-20 street parking spots and if you don't get one of those...you are walking for a few blocks!!  Mike dropped me off at the door and then it took him a good 15ish minutes to find a spot and make his way back to the restaurant.  

Now, the better news.  This restaurant has a prix fixe menu that includes their good French onion soup AND an entree and a dessert.  That's what I got.  The entree choices were good...I had a hard time deciding between the mussels and the scallops.  

I had studied the wine menu.  We got a bottle of Crocus.  It was a Malbec.  That is close to a cabernet, so we knew we would like it.  

As I said, we both started with the French onion soup.  It was very good.  We had recently had French onion soup at Bread Co.  It is good, but this is totally in a different level!

I said earlier that I had the choice of mussels or scallops (among other choices).  I chose scallops.  I knew they were made with cauliflower (which I don't really like), but I LOVE scallops.  So, I was excited to see them when they arrived.  They were on a mixture (swirled prettily together) of 2 sauces (one was lemon and one was cream).  The cauliflower was roasted.  I tried to eat a couple florets, but I just don't really like it.  My biggest problem with the entire dish was that it wasn't warm.  I don't know if it was finished before Mike's entree, but it was nearly room temp by the time it was served to me and the cool sauces weren't great.  The fact that there were only 3.5 scallops was not great, but that is pretty norm.

Scallops entree

Chicken cordon bleu

Mike didn't go with the prix fixe menu.  He just ordered French onion soup and the chicken cordon bleu.  His entree was great.  It was served over some kind of greens, which he didn't eat and had a side of mushrooms (which I ate for him), but the chicken was awfully good.  It was hot and pretty juicy.  He liked the smokey addition of the ham and cheese.  

My prix fixe menu said that I would get a chocolate torte for dessert.  Mike and I decided we would split this.  Mike also got an espresso martini.  (Normally he would get a coffee or cappuccino, but they didn't have these choices).  He liked the martini.  

Mike's espresso martini.  

This chocolate torte was actually kind of laughable.  It was cut so thin we each only got 2 bites.  It was on a sauce of what tasted like chocolate milk and had a dolop of real whipped cream.  It was OK but was unbelievably small!