The Egg: A Diner Review

It is a beautiful, limited menu.  I sampled the Carnitas Taco with the Covered Sweet Corn Bread with Fennel Pork Sausage Gravy.  As you know your diner reviewer does not normally favor the “fancy” breakfast but with The Yolkerie and now The Egg I might have to start speaking respectfully of these “chefs” and their “take” on breakfast.  I went on a Saturday morning and they don’t open until 9.  I went early and so took the time to head down to Soulard Market and do a little shopping and then swung back a little before 9 and they were open.

Here is the website: 

http://breakfastcamefirst.com

The place is located in the former location of...I cannot even remember the name and it might be the same owners but it was a taco and bbq place that didn’t particularly impress me.  It is one block southwest of Hodaks on Gravois so for most of us it needs to be a destination breakfast but I want to emphasize...strongly that it is worth it.

It was not too crowded and although it is small it is also wide open and there is a lot of table seating.  The Yolkerie kind of suffers in my mind for it’s lack of comfortable seating.  I took a table and they poured me water and got me some brewed tea and i ordered.  One of the minuses to places like this is that they attract a “foodie” crowd and, well, we hate those people.  It is fine to like good food but I had a guy at the bar and another guy (who apparently has weekend custody of his son) at a table and they conversed loudly for 30 minutes regarding the best this and that all over town.  Exhausting, but still not meal ruining.

My food came up after an amount of time I would call respectful and it was clear that this was extremely high quality at every level.  My taco had succulent carnitas as well as a perfect egg.  I also got some white toast and it was thick cut and fancy but did appear and taste fresh baked (kudos) and they served with real butter (double kudos). It was delicious, juicy and manageable either as a taco or you could knife and fork it and not miss anything.

So that was awesome but… the cornbread covered in sausage gravy was more like a metaphysical experience.  This gravy was stuffed with sausage and flavored by fennel and was dumped in a bowl over a square of some of the sweetest and best cornbread I have ever put in my mouth.  The savory sausage and gravy over that perfect corn bread was vaguely sexual.  Perhaps not even vaguely.  It was...awesome.  More than awesome.  I will go back tomorrow to start my year off right.

 I have sent other people there and have heard very good things about the Corn Bread Benedict and the breakfast Sopes.  I will get to those myself sooner or later but in the meantime I am calling this early as the best breakfast for 2017 and I am calling it on January 2, 2017.  Go yourself, and tell me that I am wrong.  I dare you.

Whiskey In The WInter Review

Sooooo.... I have friends.  Not many friends and not good friends but friends never the less.  These friends are sometimes very nice people.  Sometimes they like to drink... perhaps that is why they are my friends...who knows.  The main thing is that I sometimes like to do things with friends.  So a couple of months ago I am reading that fabulously shabby and only occasionally marginally useful Riverfront Times.  But I read it all the time.  I read it every week.  There are sometimes good reviews and it is a nice place to get concert listings but mainly it is a place to look at adds and see if there are no restaurants opening or advertising that you have not heard of.  Sometimes their are events being publicised and thus it was that i saw an add for “Whiskey In The Winter”.

It led me to the website http://www.whiskeyinthewinter.com/

I forwarded it to my wife expecting her to shoot it down and instead it was met with hearty approval.  I forwarded to my friend and he immediately was in with his lovely wife as well.  So tickets were purchased and on December 1, 2012 we were picked up by our friends and headed to down to The Hyatt (the Old Adams Mark Downtown.

Surprisingly the even was sold out.  There were people all over the place and it was an eclectic mix of folks from middle aged men with their girlfriends and second wives to old couples (like us) to a lot of pretty single people, and some people who are just serious bourbon drinkers.  You walk into the main ballroom on the 2nd or 3rd floor (whatever) and you just see tables set out in rows and at each one is a different distiller or producer and each one has 3,4 or 5 different products which you can sample.  Some serve a swallow, some pour a slug and they will give you as much or as little ice as you require.

So we went to the first table and started.  And then we went to another and sampled, just a little.  Then we went out to the buffet which was ample and somewhat opulent with gumbo, carved meat and potatoes and various sides and a lot a choice to drink some girly fruity bourbon drinks in case you have brought someone with a less serious addiction than you might have.  It was a nice spread and there were a few tables to sit down at if you waited and poached.  They did have some bag pipers which people love... and I hate.

Then we went back.  I could wax poetic about all the bourbons but when you have a few the tatses go pretty numb pretty quick.  There was scotch too (though not as much) and some locally distilled spirits as well (Four Square) but more than anything else there was bourbon.  Rows and rows of bourbon.  Kentucky sour mash and rye and canadian and small batch and big producer.  I got to taste several that I had never heard of and my big discovery of the night was Willet out of Bardstown.

We had a designated driver but we had over served ourselves.  Next year we stay at the hotel and we hope to see you there.