Diner Review: Southwest Diner

 Sooooo... As i have have often stated I have a relentless, voracious appetite to bring new and exciting culinary delights to my several loyal readers.   No one is historically more impressed with my dedication than...well...me.  No one that is other than my loyal mates in the FFL (Fantasy Football League).  The league is made of ner do well plaintiff lawyers, a investment guy, a guy who does unspeakable things at a Catholic boys school and a deeply mentally and spiritually impaired private investigator.  It is a good group.  But they are not really people.  Certainly not people with "regular jobs" so the discussion of lunch, breakfast, dinner, drinks and food tend to take up a great deal of time on the email thread.  Recently the PI guy told me about this place and I was intrigued.  It was formerly a small, dark bar in  a "neighborhood" that nothing to offer but the 7-11 on the corner of Southwest and Mc Causland.

I have been there three times now.  Once for breakfast and twice for lunch.  The verdict is still out on it as  breakfast spot but for lunch it was... unstoppable.  They have a limited menu that is a southwest themed menu but they have all the standards of eggs, sausage, biscuits and what looked like some awesome pancakes which i will need to try on my next trip based on their look on the next table.
The lunch has been a killer.  The first time I got a green chili cheeseburger with onion rings, iced tea and a chocolate malt. My companions got an enchilada and some thing with beans and chicken and everyone was very pleased with their food.  The second time I changed it up by getting a green chili cheeseburger, fries and a tea.  My guests got that but one of them ordered a burrito which he said was awesome.  It looked "toasted a little brown on the top and was slightly bigger than a babies head.  All of the food was fresh and hot.  The service was more than adequate and the third time in one of the waiters recognized me and remembered me for breakfast.  The green chili has a great flavor and is not too hot.  With the cheddar it is outstanding and the burger itself is really fresh and juicy and the next time I go back.... I will get it again.  I first had one of these out in Sante Fe at a place called "Bob Cat Bites" that Road Food and Diners, Drive Ins and Dives had reviewed and spoke glowingly of.  It was good.  But not this good. The onion rings were way above average and the fires fresh, hot and crisp.  they like their malts, milk shakes and pies for desert but I will try those another time


I have only been once for breakfast.  I got the biscuits and gravy with chorizo pictured below.  The biscuits seemed really excellent but the gravy tasted more like chile to me and I thought it would make a great slinger for the slinger lovers among us (you know who you are).  I will report more on breakfast another time but I want to tell you there will be another time.  Go there.  it is off the beaten path.  It is unreviewed to the best of my knowledge in the RFT or Post Dispatch.  They serve all menu items all the time but are only open for breakfast and lunch.  Go there now.  Eat there now.Order that green chili cheeseburger, NOW!

Paterno State

Soooo.... The Freeh report.  Penn State.  Joe Paterno.  Sandusky.  This is truly a heinous tragedy. It is shocking. Upsetting and cuts to core byut what does it cut to the core of?  Somehow we are missing that altogether. Stupidly one of the things that cannot leave my mind is a beautiful Uncle Tupelo instrumental called "Sandusky" which they recorded back in 1992 when Joe Pa only had a 9-5 record and lost the Blockbuster Bowl to Stanford. Anyway, listen to the song on YouTube while you read this...make it a multi-media experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_wBf5zkxB8

Is this the fault of:
Penn State’s Board?
Sandusky himself?
The grad assistant who didn’t go to the cops?
The NCAA collegiate athloetic system?
The Sainted Jo Pa himself?

Wake up?  This is not about sports.  The damage that Sandusky did to all of these children and their families is so grotesque, so wrong and so villanous that it only has to do with one thing which is sin and brokenness.  This was a totally broken and fucked up man and he was able to do tremendouse, dramatic harm but all this is about is sin and brokenness.  Since we have now sent the bad guy to jail (which is hardly enough but all we can do) now we are in a hurry to find other people to blame.  Paterno did the lynch mob the disservice of dying (likely of shame more than anything else) and now we can site the University Board.

WTF?  What is all this about.  I keepo hearing these annoying, sanctimonious sports talk idiots talk about tearing down the paterno statue and shutting down the whole Penn State program.  Shiut, why not close the college?  Inseed why not close ALL NCAA affiliated colleges?  Why do we have this dramatic (overly dramatic) and self righteous response from all the talking heads?  That is a more interesting question.

I would put it out there that this brings up so much bile for several reasons:
1. The awfulness of the crime which is a 10.
2. The idiotic pedestal we place sports in our country which is only an embarrassment about once a month and each time we act dumbfounded that this could happen in athletics.
3. The sick fear that if we had been close to the situation we might not have done the obvious and only right thing which was to scream loudly that there was something wrong in Happy Valley.
4. Failure to have a Christian understanding and personal sense that Sandusky is just another broken person, in a broken world that needs God’s Grace.

I don’t even need to speak about number one above.  911 bombings... Jeffry Dahmer... this ranks as one of the most disgusting, saddening incidents in our country.  I am NOT overstating it.  The second point above is the galling one.  Why do we need to place these people on pedestals and revel in others vicories as our own with sporting teams?  Are our lives so meaningless?  Is it really any different than the Roman Coliseums?  I doubt it.  It is not just America either, it is worldwide.  Mankind likes the spectacle of others competing and makes literal gods out of the participants.  It is shameful.  There really is nothing glorious aboyut a 19 year old, 6’9” kid with a sweet jump shot and awesome work ethic.  If there is it certainly pales when compared to the gloriousness of a 57 year old mother of four who has been a school teacher for 35 years while raising a family and staying married.  On the other hand she is not going to be able to sell you a lot of beers but seriously, we gotta look at the place we put sports in our society and we need to examine the sports industrial complex and how it fits into our value system as a Christian nation.  There was only one race the Bible ever talks about winning.

The next thing is all these poeple making their living off of vilifying the people around him who did not do the right thing.  I absolutely agree that if they broke laws in their failure to report , they need to be prosecuted but I don’ know the laws there and I certainly do not know the circumstances of their “knowledge”.  But every talking head and idiot on the radio knows all about it and these people all need to be killed, fired, shamed, stoned and villified but I would like to see any of these sanctimnious pricks stand in their shoes.  Lets say you are the head of the Penn State athletic program and you get wind that Sandusky has a problem.  You don’t have first hand knowledge.  The police are not doing anything.  Paterno is not taking any action.  The guy is key to the program and is an absolute LION in the community doing all kinds of good things with his charity.  Are YOU going to be the guy who makes the phone call about an allegation?  We all like to think we would be but if you know people at all, if you have ANY self knowledge... at least admit that you are going to pause before very likely:
1. Damaging what has become a sacred institution (sadly)
2. Damaging your career and likely harming your own family because now you are tainted.
3. Impugning grotesquely the character of a local hero.
4. By doing so taking on god (Joe paterno) and the entire University.
5. Putting your own children in a poosition to be villified and beaten up and abused because of your actions doing the right thing.
The list goes on and on.  Sure, I like to think if I saw a man sodomizing a child in the shower, I would go straight to the police.  But if someone told me THEY had seen it, or had been told by someone who said they saw it?  Then I pause.  Then perhaps I do not do the right thing or do not do it right away.

All I am saying is that we are askibng the wrong questions.  Thje questions should not be “who is to blame?”  The question should be why we as a country make these broken, sad people we call human beings into gods in the first place?  When you make people gods they can do nothing but dissappoint.  Sandusky’s actions were unforgivable by anyone but God.  he will die in jail.  The rest of the people associated with that school will have to live the consequences (perhaps criminal and certainly reputational) but they, along with us should all have stains on our conscience regarding a society that allows monsters to go unreported so that our sports heros can continue to walk as gods and allow us to cheer for “OUR” team.

This a portrait of all of us and we should all feel shame at what happened to these children.  I know I do.

P.S. I wrote this over the weekend and in the interim Mr Gay at the Wall Street Journal Said it much better in the July 16th Journal but I cannot find a good link.

P.S.S. Buzz Bissinger might have had right in May. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/09/friday-night-lights-ban-college-football_n_1502787.html

Diner Review: The Egg & I

Soooo.... I get giddy like a little school girl when a new breakfast place opens in my general area.  This was the case on Sunday when dining at Annie Gunns I ran into a good friend who told me that I should try “Th Egg & I” (like The King and I but with eggs).  He knows my proclivities in dining at such paces and my enjoyment of same.  The place is in one of the new strip malls jammed into the Des Peres/Kirkwood portion of Manchester which in a few years will be, “the new Crestwood”.  The new monster upscale Dierbergs and the establish monster upscale Schnucks should make Manchester road an avoidable nightmare for everything but residents of the year.  Alas...goodbye Chic Fil Et!
But I digress.  The place opens at 6 which appears to be a good start.  I pulled into the empty lot on a Monday to find a waitress unlocking their out door furniture (slightly disquieting thinking of patio furniture thieves in Des Peres and went in to see that I was the only one there.  The place itself is fairyl large but unfortunately is also pretty non descript.  My first impression was that of a more family friendly “First Watch”.... don’t get me started again on First Watch.  The friendly waitress who had been liberating the patio furniture seated me at a nice window seat and I ordered a tea and reviewed the menu.  As one might expect from the name it is an eggcentric menu:
http://www.theeggandirestaurants.com/egg_menu.html

Not being an egg person I am always annoyed by menus that offer 50 different ways to serve eggs.  I think if I ate eggs I would prefer them scrambled or if feeling fussy...over easy.  Still I was able to order biscuits and gravy with some sausage and ranch style potatoes.  I asked after the existence of hash browns and was sadly told no but was assured that the ranch style potatos were “fantrastic”.  To their additional credit they brew their own iced tea and brought me a glass and a carafe allowing me to refill at my liesure.  An excellent start..  The place was clean and well lit having only opened on July 2nd but once again the lack of patrons was a little disquieting and evidently there had been another patron there because when he checked out he had to wait for the manager/owner to come out of the back where he was doing paperwork and I was quiet enough that I could hear any other conversation in the place.

The food came and it was very nicely presented with the biscuits and gravy in their own boat and the ptoatos on one side and the sausage on the other.  The presentation was the best part.  The suasage was unremarkable and passable.  The biscuits were actually the leaden biscuits that I prefer and we moist and very filling.  The gravy was a little sweet rather than savory but was also passable.  The ranch potatos were of course the hated “breakfast potatos” but they were very well prepared and although cubed, rather than shreaded were crisp and satisfying.  The waitress was very attentive (but what else did she have to do) and was earnestly refilling my tea carafe as I finished the meal.  In the end it was unfortunately unremarkable.  It is another unmemorable place to go break your fast in the morning and from my research of the website I can see that it too is a national chain although there are only two open in the area.  My guess is that unless they can find some way to differentiate themselves from First Watch that they will not be long for the area.  Enjoy your eggs while you can.

Diner Review: Original Fried Pie Company

Sooooo....according to the Rolling Stones “You can’t always get what you want”... but if you want a fried pie, I got the place.  As you are aware your intrepid diner is always on the lookout for high quality, out of the ordinary dining experiences.  These take me far and wide in the service of the fine dining public, but I cannot complain... I do it out of love.

Recently I had the occasion to dine with afine Lutheran Pastor on a run to Springfield Missouri and we ate ate Super Smokers in Eureka Missouri.  That of course is a well established location and needs no props from The Diner Review.  More importantly I spied while in Eureka The Original Fried Pie Company.  I have a fairly deep passion for fried pies.  Normally served as “pastys” and done poorly like most Irish food (they really know how to boil their meat) but when done properly, there is nothing more tasty than a pasty.  

It is hard to find a quality reason to travel out to Eureka.  Something about proximity to 6 Flags, Times Beach, the Legends and other disasters.  Before I go too far this is a chain.  Not a very good chain or a very expensive chain (you can get a franchise for 25k).  There are pieces that are missing.  They have the dreaded Lipton Iced tea System which like the hated North peak System claims to be fresh brewed when actually it is a mix run through tubes behind the bins.  This is insidious because they make it look like it is a reular urn which they fill with fresh product, but it is actually a fountain system that when you open the top of the urn reveals a lot of plastic tubes mixing undrinkable product.  Also, the decor is not much and you eat out of wax paper lined basket (but I like that).

http://www.theoriginalfriedpieshop.com/Locations.html

it is at best a non-pretentious place with a cement floor.  The counter has the pie making area and deep friers directly behind the counter and in plain site (“In Sight It Must be Right”... could Steak n’ Shake be wrong?)  The menu contains a number of different meat pies and then they also have a number of cheese, cream and fruit desert pies.  A combo can be purchased for about 7 bucks with one of each and a drink.

We arrived at about 7 on a Saturday and there was one table there.  We were able to take it in and placed our order with a very pleasant, solicitous young lady who explained the menu and how all the pies were made and also that they were all fried in peanut oil in case we had any allergies or “what not”.  I ordered a “comfort pie” which was a light cheese sauce and polish sausage and a blackberry desert pie with some icing on it.  Sandy got a chicken and vegetable pie (which was similar to the traditional “pot pie”.  She got a cherry pie for desert.  

We ordered and got our drinks.  I think it is a Pepsi/Dr. Pepper place and engaged some small talk with the night manager.  I asked if they were doing well and he said very well.  They had opened last fall and did box car business during the Six Flags season but survived the winter and they were now “killing it” again.  That was good to hear.  The place was clean and non descript and we were anxious to taste the product which came up after about 5 minutes.  Since there was no one else there we asked to have the desert pies put in later.  Our pies were fresh, hot and delicious.  Arguably they could have had a little more meat but it was plenty to eat all by itself.  The desert pies were filled with fruit filling rather than fresh fruit which was a little bit of a bummer and they gave you a little cup of icing to pour over the hot pie.  Though i was hesitant the result was decadent and excellent.  We gobbled them up with our plastic knives and forks.

This place is not a destination for great food.  It is really good and it is off beat and worth a trip just to do something a little different.  And that is what summer is all about.

Kitchen Konfidential

Soooo... I would like to make apologies for my long absence but I really would not mean it.  Much has been going on in the world, Europe verging on collapse, Roberts making a poorly reasoned ruling and avoiding type, Syria... but who really cares?

I am in Michigan on the first real vacation of the year and it is pretty cool.  Weather has been in the low 80’s at the heat of the day and I just thrilled to not be in the Lou.  I know i will return to a dead lawn, garden and (more importantly) blackberry bush and a badly torn up kitchen.  I have for Polish men working in my kitchen under the guidance of a woman who is the charicature of EVERY kitchen designer, supervisor you could ever imagine.  She is like the principal’s secretary in Ferris Bueller with this big smile and bright sing song voice.  

I don’t know how the kitchen thing got started.   In the end I likely have to blame my daughter.  She was home for Christmas break and we were getting ready to go out for our Christmas Eve Day lunch with the family to Blueberry Hill and she set her massive 103 pounds on the kitchen table to put on her shoes (because of course why would you sit on a chair) and the nice kitchen table snapped and buckled.  We cobbled the table back together but in retrospect it was that event which planted the germ of change into my wifes eye. I had held it off for several years with our families abject poverty combined with mentioning anytime it would come up that “my marriage is not strong enough to survive a kitchen remodel.”  I was and I remain pretty certain that it is true but my wife this time basically said that it was a chance she was willing to take.  So much for true love and 29ish years of marriage.

I don’t have any real opinions (or options) in regard to this.  I liked the old kitchen.  I am a Lutheran at heart.  We do not like change.  That too has likely  kept me married for 29ish years and you would think my wife would be more appreciative, respectful,  but... not this time.  It started with her asking me to go “look at” someone else’s kitchen that had just been remodeled.  When we went over the husband was naturally absent (likely having already been banished from the house with the restraining order in the post remodel divorce) and all I could say was, “this is nice”.  They gushed about caninets and sinks and stoves and floors and I said “It just seems like 15 or 20 thousand is a lot to spend on a kitchen.”

The room went silent.  Our host smiled and my wife looked at me like I had just taken a shit in the corner.  Then they both looked at each other and laughed and went on talking like I was not there.  As a great fictional character once said, “so it goes.”
There was about a month of stressed out selections for my wife.  She is...decision impaired.  She would call for my opinion and then be frustrated by my lack of one.  What type of marble, what type of wood floors, what type of counter, what type of oven/range?  Frankly my dear, I did not and do not give a damn.  So we have Aamish cabinets being made in rural Illinois.  Granite from who knows where and wooden floors made of....wood... but what type of wood and what color should they be stained? I did not know and did not care but I had no idea what I was being led into.  I understood it intellectually but did not, could not understand the amount of decisions that were required and the money required and as I stated, we now live with 4 Polish men.  During their brief tenure at our house our kitchen has been de-nuded of it’s former glory and everything else.  New floors have been laid, and stained.  Sconces (I did not know what a sconce was) have been ripped out to expand cabinet area, only to find that they were shielding plumbing, electricity stuff (wires and what not) and other surprises which would have to be relocated.  Ib the process we have lost plumbing, air conditioning and everything is covered with a fine sheen of drywall dust and sawdust.  Awesome.

They had been at it three weeks as of the time we left again for Michigan.  It was originally supposed to only take 3 weeks but do to difficulties which were evidently unforseeable it appears it will continue another 3 weeks.  We will be going home with our two sadly mentally retarded dogs and hopefully the Polish men will be kind to them.  In light of the recent developments and their tenure in my home I am reasonably concerned that I might need to provide them with health care.  Please pray for me. My kitchen will eventually not look like...this.