Farmhaus - Breakfast For Dinner

Who doesn't love breakfast for dinner?!  Well, last time I went to Farmhaus, I tried their "Breakfast" item on the dinner menu.  It consists of High and low roasted Berkshire pork belly, house maple link, corn flour blinis, whipped maple pig butter, clarified butter-poached local egg .

It was the perfect mix of sweet and salty that I love.  Plus, it was entertaining to eat because each item looked like it was run through a shrink ray - I felt like a giant!  It was fun to try and I definitely enjoyed eating it.

Sauce on the Side

I tried Clayton's new calzone place today and I was pleasantly surprised.  I had heard good things, but I was skeptical.  The restaurant is in a pretty ugly building next to Quiznos, but the interior was actually pretty sharp (and clean!). 

Like the name suggests, their menu is full of different calzone options, and instead of filling the calzones with sauce that runs all over the place as you try to eat it, they give you the sauce in a cup on the side for you to pour/dip at your leisure.  Delicious and neat!

 I had planned to get the "Meat me in St. Louis" calzone (you can guess the main ingredients of that one) but I quickly changed my mind when I read the monthly special - The "Cock A Doodle Noodle"... Mozzarella, Provel, chicken, green onions, pancetta and Macaroni and cheese, with a side sauce of buffalo butter sauce.

It was amazing!  I ate the whole thing!  And if you are curious, the buffalo butter sauce was just a creamier/buttery version of buffalo sauce (it reminded me of the buffalo sauce at CBW, but a little thicker).

Hurry to Sauce on the Side to try the special before September ends!  Trust me...there is always next month to try the regular menu items.

Ted Drewes #forthewin

Always fun to see Ted Drewes make a national list for best ice cream in the US, well technically "custard", we'll take the win!  I've sadly only been to two places on the list, Ted Drewes and Amy's down in Austin.  I think I need to book some trips for the sole purpose of ice cream tasting!  Here is the link to the top 20: http://www.brit.co/ice-cream-shops/

Have you been to any others on the list?!

A friendly reminder that Ted Drewes is already serving their famous PUMPKIN CONCRETE!  Joe brought me one on Friday and it was delicious!  I will be returning soon!

Pic from a recent Ted Drewes visit, yum!

Pastaria - Brunch

Jessie, Joe and I decided to try brunch at our favorite lunch/dinner spot in Clayton, Pastaria.  We went at around 11:00 am and walked right in. 

The brunch menu looked pretty good, they had a nice range of food.  I heard their donuts were good, so I had to try one.  When I ordered a donut, they actually have 4 different flavors that day.  I chose the classic glazed donut, and it was really good.  Nice and flakey.

Donut

Since I had never gotten pizza at Pastaria (how can I when there is pasta?!), I decided to try their breakfast pizza.  It comes with tomato, bacon, fontina cheese, egg, garlic, chili flakes and parsley.  It was delicious.  They put on the perfect amount of tomato sauce, and the runny egg on top was amazing.  My only complaint is that there was only one cracked egg on top, because the egg only touched 2 of the 4 pieces.  I liked dipping my leftover crust in the egg yolk, so I could've used more egg.  The bacon was actually thick chunks of pancetta and were a nice touch

Breakfast Pizza

Joe got the Huevos Rancheros.  It was good, but just a warning, it came out looking more like Eggs Benedict, not the typical Huevos Rancheros you are used to.  The poached eggs on top looked delicious though.  Joe said it was not what he was expecting, but that it was good.

Huevos Rancheros

NOTE: Jessie and Joe went back to Pastaria for brunch recently and Jessie ordered something the waiter said contained procuitto - it came out and was basically slices of ham.  I think she's over Pastaria's brunch, but will gladly join you for lunch or dinner there - Cacio de Pepe!!!

5 Star Burgers

I went to 5 Star Burgers the other day for lunch in Clayton.  I've been missing a good burger place ever since Fatted Calf left and 5 Star does not disappoint.  Their burger selections are unique and it's hard to find a burger that's been done before, besides their original burger.  I decided to try their green chile burger and it was great.  It had great texture and great chile flavor and had just enough kick without being overly spicy.

As a side my coworker suggested their cheese curds.  What are those?!?! They are kind of like mini mozzarella sticks but instead of being breaded, they have a flakey shell of fried batter around them.  AMAZING!  I'd probably get a large order for the table next time and would skip the fries.

For dessert they have the perfectly sized ice cream shooters.  We all got the salted caramel and it was a great end to a great meal!

Southwest Diner

Jessie, Joe and I decided to try Southwest Diner a few months ago for a Sunday brunch.  It is located in Ellendale, which is a teeny tiny municipality around the Dogtown/Maplewood area.  We were excited to try it out because we heard it had authentic New Mexican cuisine.  The restaurant itself is very small with diner style tables and chairs crammed in every possible space.  They don't take reservations, so once we got there, we had to awkwardly stand in the doorway with a crowd of people and fight to give our name to a somewhat absentee host.  We then had to wait out on the sidewalk for about 40 minutes until we finally got a table (during our wait time we were able have a lengthy discussion/debate over the great city of "Ellendale").

Bloody Mary Time!

So what exactly is New Mexican cuisine like?  SPOILER ALERT - It is spicy as hell!  Jessie and I got the New Mexican Breakfast Burrito.  We got a choice of what type of chile sauce we wanted with it, and we chose the green chile sauce over the red, thinking it was less spicy.  Big mistake!  Apparently color codes are backwards in New Mexico, because green means HOT HOT HOT!  I love spicy, so I absolutely loved it, but there is a certain limit to spiciness.  It got to the point where my mouth was too numb to taste the actual food.  Maybe less is more for this burrito.

Spicy Breakfast Burrito

Joe got Carne Adovado - red chile braised local pork shoulder, 2 eggs, home fries and tortillas.  Sounds good, right?  Well, another aspect to the New Mexican spiciness (besides the heat) is the unique spices they use.  Joe let us try some of the pork shoulder and I almost spit it out.  It was heavily seasoned with some sort of earthy (i.e. tasted like dirt) spices that completely threw me off guard.  It was almost inedible to me.  I was shocked.

Carne Adovado

The saving graces of this brunch were the Bloody Marys and the Sopapillas.  They were awesome!  The person at the table behind us even tapped me on the shoulder when the waiter brought out the Sopapillas and asked what they were so he could order them.  I would go back just for a plateful of them.

Sopapillas - Amazing!

Quincy Street Bistro - Three Strikes and You're Out

Saturday night Joe and I went to Quincy Street Bistro with two friends, Ben & Megan.  The head chef, Rick Lewis, was labeled 2013 Chef of the Year by the St. Louis Post Dispatch so we were really looking forward to trying the restaurant.  We pulled up a little before 6:30pm and had a difficult time finding parking.  The restaurant is located directly off of Gravois Road at the Quincy Street (hence the name) cross street.  We again got excited that we were about to have a great experience due to how difficult it was to park.

Source

Once we got inside we put our name in for a table of 4 and were told that we would have about a 20 minute wait.  No problem since we all wanted a drink.  Joe bellied up to the bar with a $20 bill in his hand and waited at least 10-15 minutes to place his order for two beers (Strike One).  Ben then waited his turn to order two cocktails and had a similar wait.  They did have a few local beers on draft like Perennial, Civil Life, Urban Chestnut, AB (ha!), and an out of towner with an Abita on draft that Joe tried and liked.

After waiting nearly 30 minutes we were seated in the upstairs dining room.  There is a downstairs dining room that includes the bar and then an upstairs dining room.  We were sat next to a window that was letting in quite the draft on a cold January night....close to a strike two but it was an old building so I cut it some slack.

The menu is mainly filled with comfort food that all sounded very appetizing.  We all ordered a main dish and no appetizers or desserts.

Jessie - Buttonwood Farms Roasted Chicken Leg Quarter with Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, I choose a side of Mac and Cheese to accompany the dish.  I WISH I would have taken a photo of the dish when it came it. It had to be the smallest chicken leg quarter I had ever seen.  I think I only got about six bites of chicken from my serving.  To top it off the mac n cheese lacked any flavor and definitely lacked salt.  Whereas the mashed potatoes were overly salty due to the salt infused gravy.  (Strike Two)

Joe - Stuffed Pork Loin with Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, he choose Apple Sauce as his side.  Joe was the winner of the evening as his dish was a huge portion and actually tasted delicious. Lucky Joe.

Megan - Glazed Meatloaf with Chips and Mac and Cheese.  Megan is a bit of a meatloaf connoisseur and she seemed rather disappointed in her meatloaf that evening.  She also was very unhappy with the mac n cheese and even said "I don't even taste the cheese"....not a good sign.

Ben - Buttonwood Farms Fried Chicken with mashed Potatoes and Gravy and  Mac and Cheese.  Ben's dish looked substantial but he was not overly pleased with the taste of any of the components of his dish.

Dinner service was overall average with the bar service being very poor.  The bathrooms were clean but were also freezing, not fun.  

To top everything off, one member of our dining party became ill during the middle of the night and thinks the cause was the dinner (Strike Three).  Needless to say we will not be returning to Quincy Street Bistro and we hope this post will save you from experiencing this place as well.