The Buttery Revisited

Sooooo…. The Buttery.  I “discovered” (like I am  Columbus or something) the Buttery well over 20 years ago.  It is on the part of South Grand no one goes to anymore and everyone is hoping is just about to come back and in my life is has been a trash heap with pockets of brilliance.  It is the area between Gravois and Carondelet Park.  My dad’s “people” used to live around here.  The formidable castle that is Cleveland High School is a dominating part of the area along with the iconic Ted Drewes (the other one) and Giuseppe's which is sometimes still open.  On the North side of Gravois their is the bustling Tower Grove South/So-Gra hipster/ethnic collective where people sometimes get murdered but is otherwise a bastion of decent food, cocktails and music and the original, hated, hipster City Diner.  When I head south on Grand I have to pass it and their big banner “VOTED #1 DINER!” banner but I pass it and I curse the RFT under my breath….But I digress.

The Buttery, (I love that name) is the iconic, shotgun diner.  Exposed kitchen and counter with stools overlooking the action and then a scattering of booths flanking the counter.  It has a jukebox.  The bad kind with CD’s you can flip through.  It has a no smoking sign but it looks (and feels) like you should be smoking when you are in there.  The booths are the original faux wood veneer and always look as if the veneer is just about to peel off but is not quite peeling off.  

While doing the extensive research that you have come to expect from this fine, fine, journalistic, intellectual endeavor I found this on line.  Dont watch it with small children.  I only tend to visit these fine establishments at around 6:00 A.M. when things are pretty quiet but any Diner worthy of the name is open all night long and personally I thank the lord that they are because people like this don’t come to my house.  They have a place to go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G1bBdA79dw

In the hopes of being a more diligent reviewer I visited the Buttery twice in the last month.  On my first visit I pulled up about 6:30.  there are a few parking spots in back and there is street parking on Grand but in any kind of off light it feels sketchy.  You can also park in the rent A Center lot next door which warns you it is for Rent A Center customers only.  The door advises you of a lot of things:

1. CASH ONLY

2. NO SMOKING

3. NO PUBLIC RESTROOMS.

I think these are all excellent disclosures.

1. DONT TRY AND USE YOUR CREDIT CARD HERE!  WE DONT LIKE IT TO

CUT INTO OUR MARGINS And WE DON'T REPORT ALL OF OUR INCOME!

2. YOU CAN NO LONGER LIGHT UP IN HERE!  OSTENSIBLY GOOD NEWS

FOR THE SENSITIVE BUT PEOPLE SMOKED IN HERE FOR 40 YEARS

AND OUR CEILING TILES ARE STAINED WITH IT. ALSO, THERE IS NO

VENTILATION AND BECAUSE WE USE OIL AND BUTTER WHEN WE

COOK THERE IS ALWAYS A “SMOKY’ SMELL….GET OVER IT.

3. IF YOU ARE NOT EATING HERE YOU CANNOT POOP HERE.

On the first visit there was one gentleman eating at the counter but when I walked in the employee who appears briefly in the video above came in.  We exchanged pleasantries and he brought me an iced tea.  A pitcher of it was sitting on top of the ice machine and it was fresh brewed.  He offered me water as well which I declined.  On my second visit there at about 7:30 on a Saturday the place was hopping with about 7 patrons and two woman working the place.  In each case their ended up being a diverse group of people in the place which I added to.  You have the feeling when eating there that you are eating with “the people” rather than hated City Diner feeling that you are eating with the hipster/privileged.  

The waitress came quickly and took care of my iced tea and was very pleasant when taking my order.  In my celiac phace I can no longer partake of the chicken fried steak and such I ordered what is sadly becoming my standard of two eggs over medium, suasage and hash browns.  No toast (for religious reasons).

On the first trip it came it came quickly and looked like this:

The second time it looked like this.  Pretty nice consistency with different cooks.  The hash browns properly shredded (as God intended) and cooked as you can see to a light golden brown.  While not being certain I believe their staff could crisp them up for you very easily.  On both trips they had similar consistency.  The sausage was standard grade and nothing special but had a nice flavor and the eggs were cooked nicely for over medium.  If you can no longer enjoy the pleasures of toast, over easy is just too sloppy so...over medium it is.

The Bathroom

The Menu at the Buttery is simple, no frills laminated.  Breakfast on the front, and lunch on the back.  Everything is numbered which I assume would assist me when ordering drunk at 2:00 A.M. (Maybe on the next visit).  The menu items are “unremarkable” yet solid providing everything that a true connoisseur would demand.

The next time I am in I am ordering a steak and a pork chop and as always...I will report on my findings.  

Jukeboxes should be mandatory for all diners.  There is a romance to them and once again there is the drunk at 2:00 A.M. factor when you just need to hear some Bad Company.... and not feel particularly embarrassed about it (you should be embarrassed by it, by the way). I like it because it has CD’s in it still.  Not quite as cool as the really awesome ones with 45’s but still… and although I love “Touchtunes” and being able to pull down a lot of songs from “the cloud” there is something about flipping through that limited selection of CD’s to find “the good one”.  When I came in Hank Williams was playing…”Your Cheating Heart”.  Perfect.

There is a bathroom and you can use it if you are a patron.  You go through an unmarked door in the rear and there is a door to the ladies room, a door to the mens room and an open door to the back part of the kitchen.  It also is warm and unventilated.  But it was clean and very serviceable.  A little graffiti on the hand drier but other than that probably cleaner than my bathroom at home.  The door had a serviceable lock and if nature was making its ever more incessant demands, I believe I could find solace there for a few minutes and not feel like I was at risk for Ebola.  Good bathroom.  Please wash your hands.

Additionally I always enjoy the deep history of a place like this and indeed, although we do not know if St. Louis greats like Lou Brock or Stan the Man ever used this bathroom, we are certain that BJ did!

The Staff really is what makes the place.  Seriously.  On both visits, totally different staff.  They probably alternate Saturdays.  You do not get the feeling that they just drove in from Wildwood.  Nor do you get the feeling that they are “artists” living in the SoGrand “walk up” (pretending they live in Brooklyn) that their parents are helping to pay for.  This is their job.  They do it competently, politely and professionally.  There is a reasonable amount of age and tattoos on the staff and they might look gruff, but they are not.  Polite and professional they have a demeanor which says I am here to get whatever you want but please do not give me a lot of shit because I work hard.  At least that is what I got.  I like this place.  The Buttery is St. Louis South Side at its best.  Unpretentious.  Not a lot of money.  Trying to make it day after day.  Not ashamed of anything.  Not asking anyone for a handout.  Trying to get along and not spread any grief in the world and certainly not trying to pretend for the benefit of anyone to be anything other than what it is.  A place to eat.  Maybe to talk.  read the paper.  Gather your thoughts, and get some food that is quick, and hot, and good.  Long live the Buttery!  

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: The Hearth Room

Soooo.... In my exhausting, never ending march to cover EVERY breakfast place in St. Louis I am constantly roving the city, eyes peeled in strip malls, shopping centers, basements filled with the undead as I cruise through some time desolate streets at all hours of the day or night, occasionally I come upon something new or at least new to me. Such was the case last week when I ventured out to west county to visit my parents. West County as you all know is a bastion of people who have all centered their lives around “getting a lot more house for their money” and betting that the public schools are better out there. If nothing else I believe they better quality drugs. But I digress. the point is that west county is a soul less bastion of shopping, and national chain food. I know Kirkwood and indeed parts of the City were once pasture but ALL of west county is paved over farmland and the way we have done it for the last 30 years...depresses me. Wow, I digressed again.

The Hearth Room Cafe is in the “Lamp n Lantern Plaza”. The name was quaint when it first was built in the 70s. It was on the corner of Woodsmill and Clayton and sat a little awkwardly behind a building with a 7-11 (now a Pasta House) and a car wash and a bank. There once was a supermarket there, a Kroger I think. When my parents had a spot of financial trouble we moved to Village Green Apartments which are just west of the center and I would tromp through it frequently on my way to buy comic books and 32 oz bottles of Sprite and Nacho cheese Doritos. Good days. My parents moved several times since then but now live in Chesterfield and so I was driving by the shopping center when I saw a sign over the steps of tiered Lamp n Lantern for “The Hearth Room”. I drove around the center and could not find it because you cannot park in front of it. Instead it lies in a “charming” court of shops, 30 yards from any parking. What a great idea. That morning I had already eaten so I did not make the trek.

Still, I vowed to come back and I did so this morning, braving the cold in order to walk the long way from a parking space to the “cafe”. As I walked in I saw a small darkened room of tables on the right. To the left there was a a large, charmless, kind of formal and dimly lit room. Their was indeed a large hearth and hearty gas fired blaze was going, throwing off no heat and even less light on a room that lacked any charm. I stood there for a minute till a waitress finally came out of the kitchen and advised I could “sit anywhere I want”. There were perhaps a dozen people eating there which I found encouraging but the average age was about 65 and at least two patrons had walkers parked around their tables. Still, old people know their breakfasts and I am never one to snub food that is easily chewed.

The menu was unremarkable and seemed to feature omlettes and pancakes and breakfast sandwiches. The waitress was pleasant and attentive. The iced tea....BREWED! And it was good tea, fresh in a place where clearly I was the only one drinking it. I ordered my standard meal of ½ order of biscuits and gravy, side of sausage and...(gasp) the dreaded “breakfast potato”. Frequent readers (all three of you) seem sometimes amused and almost always saddened by my obsession with the humble potato but nothing sends shivers down my spine like the menu item called the “breakfast potato”. WTF is a “breakfast potato”? Is it a particular cut of a potato? I guess I should be grateful because they are giving me a heads up that they do not have real “hash browns” which as we have discussed should always be shredded and skillet fried to perfection. But your reviewer bravely ordered them anyway and considered the venerable St. Louis Post Dispatch and read about Newt Gingich’s bold attempt at an open marriage with his current (totally uncreepy, not crazy eyed or plastic haired) wife Calista and his former wife...after she was diagnosed with MS, who of course replaced the first wife (diagnosed with cancer). What a hoot. Also, Romney appears to not have his tax returns ready for release. I did look around at the Hearth Room patrons, several of whom were speaking loudly to their hearing impaired companions. There was classical music playing and despite my enjoyment of the iced tea and my paper I was annoyed by the decor, the pretensions and I think just by breakfasting in west county.

My meal was pleasantly surprising. the gravy was a little thin but full of sausage pieces although it was topped with some green seasoning which might or might not have been parsley and while suitable for dinner, was inappropriate for breakfast food, especially biscuits and gravy. Similarly on my plate was an orange twist as garnish. Garnish is wrong at breakfast. there...I said it. It is (and if this gets too technical for you I apologize but I am of course a professional need to use the proper vernacular) stupid. The sausage was really good though. properly cooked. A little savory, no spice. I like big flat patties that are more like thin hamburgers. The potatoes were a disappointment but were very edible. the biscuits similarly were appropriately baked and added nice texture with the gravy and when i mixed it all up together it was more than adequate. I think it cost $9.00 with the tip.

Bottom line. Nothing special. Take your mom there, or your dad. Nothing homey, nothing charming and food did not wow. Ambiance sucked and you have to walk a long way from your car. I predict they are out of business by summer (the location is just a bad idea, especially for old people who need to walk in their walkers) and so if you want to give it a try i would get out there now.

6 ½ Slingers On The Ten Scale

Diner Review: Luvy Duvy's

Soooo....there is always some stress and embarrassed when you have to read about something in the Post Dispatch in order to realize that you should have been there. It is even more embarrassing when Larry reads the Post and calls you on it. I mean, when you ARE the St. Louis Diner Review you do have some things that are just your job and beating the under staffed, haphazard Post Dispatch to the punch is one of those duties. So the Post ran something last week in the GET OUT or LIVING section... or whatever they call it now covering Luvy Duvy’s.

I have seen Luvy Duvy’s before. On my way to get tacos on Cherokee at La Vallasina Luvy Duvy’s sat there, brooding on the corner of of Jefferson and Arsenal. I always assumed it was just a bad lunch and dinner place, doomed to go out of business. Garish pain on the sides and the windows. I had no idea that they had breakfast, There was no signage. Someone should speak to them regarding modern advertising. The building was garishly painted and I assumed extremely incorrectly that it was another “soul food” place like “Sweetie Pies”. I mean Sweetie Pie, Luvy Duvy... you cant blame me.

So the Post gave the place a nice review and said it opened at 7 and like a fool, I believed them. So I drove around south St. Louis. It was Cinco De Mayo (March 7th according to the posters) and they were setting up Cherokee for a party. Cherokee Street west of Jefferson is becoming a cool treasure with the excellent food and the print shop and that incredibly pretentious independent record store that I never know the name of. Anyway, I killed an hour and then went back at 8:05 and there already several cars on Jefferson in front of the place which is a really good sign.

I went in and the place is basically set up like a corner bar. I immediately knew I was in the new cool breakfast place in town. We have not had a cool place in a while. Really the last one was “After” which was on Manchester down in the Grove. It was a “cool” place and this place has a great vibe. Arguably even better than that because it was older and a little darker which... is good in the morning. It was also cool because of the servers. It reminded me of my recent trip to the “Waveland” in Des Moines where I entered and was instantly aware that I was not cool enough to be there. Since this was in the Lou and it was not a directly post college crowd... it was cool but not too cool. I am not sure I used the word cool enough in this paragraph. Are we cool on that?

So I walk in and get a seat next to the wall and start to read my Saturday Post. I found out a while ago that unless you get home delivery, there is no Saturday Post. Not in the machines. not in new stands...nothing. Who knew? It is hard bearing the St. Louis Dining world on my tiny little back but we all have a cross to bear. So, since I do not eat eggs I ordered biscuits and gravy with sausage, hash browns and an order of bacon. The iced tea.... wait for it... FRESH BREWED!

I tried to enjoy the Post as the place filled up and it did fill up. There were posers like myself but they clearly had a neighborhood crowd and a crowd of regulars, just like a diner should. The waitresses were young (under 40, maybe under 30, I can’t tell anymore) and they seemed polite and friendly and not overly chatty (huge advantage). The whole thing is run off of a very small griddle which I think is cool but I also have some concerns when they get a crowd. But mainly my concerns were overblown and for naught. I have become a diner “worrier”. An old woman among men, worrying that they are not doing things right.

Breakfast came on two plates.

The GREAT thing is the biscuits and gravy. As advertised their were two large biscuits (do not ask for half orders, it provides a mumbled “we don’t usually do that”). They were crispy on the bottom and not heavy and hockey puckish at all. A yellow or corn flower might be involved based on their color or they might have just been perfectly browned. They were also covered with sausage that also had a light char (as God intended). The gravy was classic, not too thinck and clearly made with love. Buy this.

The Good. the bacon was top notch. Also cooked with love. But not cooked with LUST as bacon should be cooked. It was crisp (averting the cardinal sin of floppiness) and had a slight smoke. really good. Not great like the biscuits but really good.

The ugly. The hash browns “looked” great. A thin browned patty of shredded potatos. They looked perfect in fact. like Spencers but thinner. Maybe only a ¼ inch of thickness. I was really excited... till I tasted them. I could not define what was off. I will try them again because they looked perfectly cooked but whether it was because the oil or because they were prepared ahead (remember the small grill) they did not match up to the first two.

The eggs I saw on other peoples plates looked cook to order and delicious. There is no chili so no slinger, but on the brighter side, there are grits. Here is the menu:

http://www.luvyduvys.com/Menu.html

You know how I feel about the potato. But still, everything else was perfect and I found in myself a forgiveness for bad hash browns that I had not known prior to this time. perhaps there is still room for me to grow? They also serve beer and following my usual Derby Day tradition, daddy had a Busch.

Who knows, but the bottom line is that Luvy Duvy’s is a keeper. 8 ½ Slingers on the 1o scale.

Diner Review: Strattons Cafe/Clayton

Soooooo.... your intrepid diner has been busy again. Due to the frequent vicous and critical complaints of my voracious readership (thanks mom) I keep getting told, “we need more diner reviews”. Well this is not an easy thing my friend. Despite my frequent travels and my relentless stalking of the city there are very few quality breakfast establishments that I have not made a visit to, and given the cursory review. For that matter there are not that many crappy places I have not been to. I realized recently that I had not been to Strattons in Clayton having gone to their Webster location years ago and panned it for having nothing but the dreaded “fruity” tea. But, though I normally avoid chains (there are two Strattons in town) I have to admit that I was relatively pleased with my recent trip.

I drove there by the way with my folio from work and iPhone on the roof of my car which is an act of stupidity I was embarrassed about badly until I opened the paper and began reading about “assclown” Charlie Sheen. He really has never been on my radar screen and always seemed rather talentless, even in “Wall Street” but he had good breeding and seemed not to take himself too seriously as an actor. I do not think i have ever watched “2 ½ Men” but clearly it is, or was an institution. His work in "Major League" was inspired as was his apparent cameo in "Ferris Buellers Day Off". As I said, I was feeling bad about my own stupidity when I was able to read some of this guys quotes. This one made my stupidity seem...just fine.

"Guys, it's right there in the thing, duh! We work for the Pope, we murder people. We're Vatican assassins. How complicated can it be? What they're not ready for is guys like you and I and Nails and all the other gnarly gnarlingtons in my life, that we are high priests, Vatican assassin warlocks. Boom. Print that, people. See where that goes."

Tell it Charlie...tell it. But I digress.

Strattons has an little impersonal feeling. You order at counter but not a cool counter with a lot of formica and stools and a grill behind it but a fairly bright, bland little counter and you have to pass by their yogurt or gelato or whatever the hell it is to order. Seeing the bright un-natural colors of these ice creamy treats in the morning is slightly offputting. The staff was friendly enough and it was a broad menu offering everything the hungry breakfaster could want from pancakes to omelettes to biscuits and gravy. It looked to me like a place that might have the dreaded “egg white” omelette” which is painful to even see on the menu but I understand...I guess how some people might consider them...breakfast.

I ordered and was given a number and I received my large, waxy, Pepsi cup (32 oz.) which is always a bad sign and then went to get my own beverage and found that they still had fruity strawberry tea from “The Republic of Tea” but they also had “The Peoples Black tea”. SHouldnt the folks in The Republic of Tea be having some kind of revolt or uprising against these embarrassing tea names? Anyway, the black tea was passable and I started to read the Post Dispatch...oops here comes another digression...

The Post Dispatch appears to be in a death spiral. I honestly feel like every day when i read it, it is getting worse and worse. I look forward to the editorial page just to get some decent writing. It is like reading the A.P. wire and although i cannot believe it is true it feels like they have made the actual paper stock even cheaper (after downsizing the actual size) so that it is hard to read and cannot hold its shape as it is being read. Also, with all this trouble in the middle east, they oftern get to it by page 12... but the paper...it feels cheap...end of digression.

So I was reading about Charlie Sheen with a big number 28 on a little stand and they quickly brought me my food. I had the biscuits and gravy half order with some sausage and some hash browns and it looked like this:

The gravy had a nice spice and the biscuits had a home made taste. They were pretty heavy and dense and one of them could have made a nice fatty breakfast. The sausage was well cooked and had a little flavor but nothing remarkable, also nothing really offputting. The whole thing was not quite hot enough but it all had a lot of flavor and a little spice. The hash brown casserole is a suspicious menu item but these were good (excellent really) and had a lot of moisture and mixed excellently with the gravy and biscuit for a nice hash. I would recommend them highly even though not traditional shredded and also also their was no crispness. Still, they were good. they also had an offering of “Potato Pancakes” which I will need to sample on a return trip. This is what it looked like when I was finished:

I checked out other people’s plats and all the food looked pretty good. They had a number of booths and lots of people working there (it looked like too many) delivering food and cleaning tables. The food was not cooked right behind the counter but the kitchen was visible and looked crowded as well. As least there were no worries about food being trucked in from a commisary or anything like that. It sits right by the Ritz and also by that upscale condo development and the street in front was full of Lexus crossovers for the well to do soccer moms. There were a lot of kids there for 8 o clock in the morning and I will need to figure out what that is all about because I am a grumpy old man and kids+morning=grumpier and grumpier. It was a little pricey coming in at over 9 bucks which rules it out as a regular stop but check their website as their breakfast specials looked reasonable. Here is a link to their breakfast menu:

http://www.strattonscafe.com/cafe_clayton_breakfast.html

I liked it. I will come back. It is good to have the place as an option. 8 Slingers on the 10 scale. I will hit Webster next time and report.

Cafe' Osage: A Diner Review Sort Of....

Soooo.... it is always a pleasure to find a new place to have breakfast. Even if it is (with all respect to Johnny Chico) a little gay. It was with some trepidation that my dining companion Sal requested that we go to a place called Bowood Farms http://www.bowoodfarms.com/ which is more specifically when dining, Cafe Osage. he gave me the address of the place and I had no ability to picture it. 4605 Olive in the city...where the hell was that. But on a recent Saturday morning I made the sojourn and finally pulled up in front of the place which is about two blocks east of Euclid. It is also about 5 blocks west of the Old Gaslight Square http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_Square,_St._Louis . If you do not know about Gaslight Square it was kind of the equivalent of perhaps the Loop area, but probably a lot cooler. But anyway, I digress.

It is a very interesting part of town and the Bowood Farms people have located their, nursery, landscaping business, their plant data base and all of their knowledge and urban hipness in what was an abandoned manufacturing business.

A locavore dream. It is a cool place but at 7:30 on a Saturday morning it is a little disorienting. You walk into their indoor nursery through a big wooden door and then on your left is their little gem of a restaurant, the Cafe’ Osage. It is a big, open (and in February in the Lou) cold room. High ceilings and big windows give you great light . It is a really nice room with some big booths and nice table seating and a little bar area.

The menu is a little to frou frou but what I sampled was good. In fact very good. http://www.bowoodfarms.com/_ccLib/attachments/pages/Osage+Breakfast+Menu10-21-09.pdf . Unfortunately they were out of their biscuits and gravy but I did sample some of their Nueske Bacon and a very fresh English muffin while Sal had their Osage Corned Beef Hash with poached egg that looked pretty awesome and awfully fresh. The iced tea was top notch. The absence of hash browns was obviously concerning but is made up for with black beans and rice and cheese grits.... but those are for another time. The service was attentive without being annoying and over all I would say this is a great place for breakfast with your wife, girlfriend, daughter or mom and without knowing more I would guess that they do an awesome mimosa and bloody mary. It stinks to me of a mother day location for a great brunch where everyone, including me can be very happy. This is definitely a destination location to tuck away and save for the right moment.

Lets give it 7 slingers on a 10 scale but there is nothing Diner like about it.

Diner Review: Cafe USA (Sauget)

LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION!

Soooooo.... sometimes it is the unhappy duty of your diner reviewer to mercilessly eviscerate an establishment. Recently i was taken to task for my heavy handed (sort of) review of the Plaza Cafe. I will have to go back and try again but it was uninspiring. Generally however I am well know as a joyous fan of breakfast. I am a shameless promoter of even the most humble and average establishment as long as it has something to offer, and they almost all have SOMETHING to offer. Good food, ambience, good service, location....my frame of mind... almost anything can lead to a good review.

Upon my return from over seas (you cannot get bacon or any quality pork products in Istanbul) I had a hankering for some good old American breakfast cuisine. I had been told by two of my partners that the much awaited Cafe USA had finally opened in Sauget. I must digress to clarify that when I say "partners" I refer to two men who I practice law with, not any "life partners" or anything like that. I do not think I could handle more then one, regardless of gender. I say "much awaited" because there is something fun about the idea of a good diner in Sauget. Sauget is a shitty, dirty awful little town, run by a backwards ass sometimes criminal and very possibly inbred family and a small police force legendary for corruption and abuse and dominated by the dollars of the strip clubs it services. In short Sauget is know for it's strip clubs, Pops (where you can drink all night) and Big River Zinc.

The thought of a diner in such a pristine location causes classic diner imaginations to go wild. You think of strippers, coming off shift, being picked up by their boyfriends (who they support) going out for breakfast and fighting as he takes her money and berates her for how she makes it. You picture men coming off all night benders, hopefully sobering up instead of driving the wrong way down the highway, and you picture a place redolent with loud, stupid drunks. So we went.

Let me summarize. The place sucks. On the way in from the parking lot (right across from "Liquor and Lottery" there were two very unattractive employees chain smoking by the back door of the kitchen. Upon coming in, it has an antiseptic atmosphere. Everything looks like it is put together cheaply and i do not think anything holds up past the first major fight. It does look like it was designed to be hosed out every morning but I saw no drains. I liked our waitress and she was very attentive and friendly and even helpful. She did not appear to be a stripper or an ex stripper. The place was over staffed as they were "training". Everyone had on ugly CAfe USA t-shirts once again indicating an over all cheapness and unendearing tackiness.

But maybe the food is good. The first thing is that their iced tea was not brewed. I asked and it appeared they had one of the hated iced tea systems (tea from a large plastic bag mixed with water in iced tea "system". It is an abomination and an anathema to this diner. I was also told that their coffee sucked which is another unforgivable sin. We sampled the menu including their version of the slinger. I had sausage, toast and potatoes. I was originally heartened in that they had tater-tots until i saw that it was the only potato choice. These were also used as the base of the slinger which seems wrong on a number of levels. The sausage had a good flavor and a little spice (this constitutes the only positive part of the review). The gravy for the biscuits and gravy appeared to be out of a bag and the cheese on the slinger was some grotesque and unnaturally colored cheese sauce. Who would allow that?!

The main vibe of the place was cheap, tacky, poorly managed (even with management sitting in a booth) and a poor dining experience. Although the ambience of Sauget at 6:45 A.M. is undeniably alluring I believe I will be staying on this side of the river and if i cross will head down Route 3 to the Korner Kafe or head out to the Collinsville Waffle House. But that is just me.

Diner Review (Sort of) Chris' Pancake & Dining and a harsh critique of 5 Guys, Burgers and Fries

Sooooo...one oif the good thing (among many) about being home with a fever is that even though you are too light headed and sick to work, you are in no way too light headed and sick to go get food that appeals to you and spew out whatever vile filth rolls into your head to criticize same in your inane little blog. This entire review will be written while watching the film "Rain Man". They have just come down the elevator at Ceasar's Palace wearing matching suits. I plan to be done before he announces that the girl is "sparkly".

Today we move to the murky gray edges of Diners that are not diners at all but instead are restaurants. That is Chris' Pancake and Dining, part of the "Bartolinos" family. Chris' Pancake and Dining used to be Chris' Pancake and Fine Dining. I don't know what happened to the "fine" part because it truly is fine. Chris' is on East Watson directly before it merges into Hampton and at the corner of Southwest. You can find out anything you want to know by their web site:

http://www.bartolinosrestaurants.com/chrispancakes.htm

The place is old school St. Louis Hills/The Hill and I love it. As I said, not a diner. They have a full bar and they have dinner. All menus are available all day and this is important. They have of course prime rib. Why is it that every restaurant south of 44 has to have prime rib on their menu like it was their job? Anyway... all we care about is breakfast and they do an excellent job. They have smoking and non smoking sections but the non smoking section tends to be against the outside wall and it can be rather chilly against the big window.

They have a set of booths but you have to be lucky to get a seat there. The place has a nice small vibe and there are limited site lines and it feels like it is kind of private even when crowded. There is normally however a table against the back wall next to the kitchen which regulars (always men) sit at and one of them is what we and one of my partners like to call an "explainer" in that he is ALWAYS loudly explaining things to his breakfast company and everyone in the place gets to hear it. There are... characters and characters are cool.

They have good iced tea. They have all the eggs omelette's and fixins. Their cream gravy is of the slightly thinner variety with nice sausage chunks. But....wait for it...wait for it....great hash browns. Shredded and not in a patty but kind of a flattened clump with just the right amount of...brown-ness. A great smackerel of goodness served with a biscuit. Heaven. The Diner Review heartily recommends Chris' Pancake & Dining. Oh, and they have pancakes.

***

In my fantasy football league I play with one of my partners, a private investigator and a bunch of miserable, awful, terrible plaintiff's lawyers. They have no souls.... anyway... I digress. I made the mistake of criticizing 5 guys burgers and fries. It seemed absolutely unremarkable in every way to me. People had touted it so highly that one night, perhaps after drinking too much I went and tried it. There was nothing wrong with the burger. The hand cut fries were ample but I came away unsatisfied. Anyway, I stated this to the group and they jumped me en masse. Naturally I parried and defended myself but being a shallow creature, very insecure and full of self doubt. I decided today that I needed to go back.

I went for lunch. I was sober. I went alone with only a Wall Street Journal for company. The place has no charm. They stole the Fuddruckers idea of using bags of their own ingredients to create a que to line up and order. The menu is extrmely limited to burgers and fries but i find that positive. The staff is polite and attentive and busy. They sing. I like that too. This time I ordered a bacon cheeseburger and fries and a small drink. I want to say, the bacon cheeseburger was excellent. Lots of well cooked, crumbled bacon. It was without fault. I got it naked, as God intended. That was the end of my good experience. Let me tell you what i did not like:

1. The offered mayonnaise as a hamburger condiment. One word, unforgivable.

2. It is a national chain. I hate national chains.

3. They have an "iced tea system" which provides the illusion of fresh brewed tea with two urns for sweet and unsweet. These are actually just the cleverly designed founts for the dreaded fountain iced tea. Lying to tea drinkers like myself is again... unforgivable.

4. Hand cut fries. I love them. But theirs suck. There is nothing original about hand cut fries. My grandma did it for years before my parents had her killed for trying to poison us. Every steak and cheese company has had them for ten years. They are no big deal and when done correctly are delicious. These suck. Big, meaty and undercooked. Like eating a bunch of new potatos. Blech!

5. Bad atmoshpere, bright lighting and cheap tables that wobble. Why?

6. Perhaps it is because they serve everything in a brown paper bag. Is this supposed to be charming?

So, I don't care for it. When in Des Peres....Village Bar all the way. And to my fantasy football mates. Your idiots for liking this place. Lemmings captivated by a cute name and slightly different packaging.

Diner Review: The Boardwalk Cafe (Webster)

Sooooo... as it has been discussed the St. Louis Diner Review has lost it’s way. No diners have been reviewed. No hash browns have had their measure taken. Instead what have you been reading? Drivel... drivel at best when compared to the majesty that is breakfast, the pantheon that is the diner. We have lost to friends over the last year, specifically After down in the Grove (how sad is it that “the Grove has actually caught on as the name of that destitute area where Manchester dumps into Vandeventer which has been known primarily for it’s gay and lesbian bars) and The Buttery on South Grand. They will be missed.

In an effort to make amends The Diner Review is staying close to home. I have recently visited The Boardwalk Cafe at 600 East Lockwood right next to the Starbucks and across from the triangle park which separates it from Weber’s Front Row. It is a great little place. It is a great location and there is literally no other tolerable place to get a a breakfast in Webster (and don’t you dare mention “First Watch” to me. It is an anathema) There is very little atmosphere but is a comfortable place. Outside dining when weather cooperates. It is locally owned and run by a family of some ethnicity. They seem extremely pleasant and eager to please. They have several somewhat rickety booths trailing back shot gun style along the side of the kitchen/grill area. Languages are being spoken which I cannot decipher. This is somehow comforting. They do not open till 7 which is an hour too late but you get the feeling that the people who work there might have been partying until they came over to open the place up.

They do all the standards (for me) and they do good bacon, toast, sausage, gravy. I would argue they try and do too much in that they offer 12 types of omelets and 9 “skillets”. “Skillets” are of course an abomination. They are an amalgamation of eggs, home fries and... whatever other crap anyone wants to throw in there. They state that they have the best pancakes and french toast in town and they do coyly offer the much ballyhooed “Pigs In A Blanket”. They also have full lunch menu but I will never be there then. All and all this diner says 7.5 Slingers on 10 scale. There, that wasn’t so hard. Was it?

Diner review: Kickers on South Broadway

Sooooooo.... the St. Louis Diner Review in it’s tireless effort to illuminate and educate continues to try and find new and useless ways to spend time and eat breakfast. The Diner Review has been lax and useless as far as getting you more diner news and reviews. First the news.

We have another casualty in the St. Louis diner community in that the dreaded Uncle Wimpys on south... way south Broadway (almost to Lemay) has bitten the dust. I am not sure when the dreaded closure took place but this is one that frankly I will not miss. the place was kitschy, Full of coke and highway 66 fake memorabilia and it had two front doors. That is bad luck and of course just wrong. The Riverside Diner (also on south Broadway) closed early last year and it was a much better place but alas...gone.

The question must rise as to why these diners are closing. There is a fine group of people living in the area and easy access and parking. Granted you do not get a lot of the west county traffic but that certainly cannot be considered a bad thing. No, there is another culprit involved and that appears to be a number of bars on the same strip that also serve breakfast and that brings us to Kickers.

Kickers is the old “Lighthouse” which was the old Dieckempers. There is a shit load of history in the place. I had visited the bar the afternoon before in an effort to find another place to hide and saw the dreaded sign “Breakfast every day from 7:00 A.M. Seemed to portend great things. I began quizzing the bartender regarding the breakfast menu and was informed his omelets were to die for with home made sausage and biscuits and gravy and breakfast potatoes. They are home cut.
The next morning I showed up with my most reliable dining companion at 7:15. I was greeted in a friendly manner upon entering the establishment by a 50 ish woman in a rakish hat who was the waitress and after some brief negotiations she brought me an iced tea. I read the paper in the dim lighting at a nice table for 6. No booths in the place which is a little sad but there is a full bar and a couple of high tables in the bar area with stools. The other room was where i was sitting and there are a number of large tables and appropriately poor light.

The tea was good. My dining companion arrived and immediately started chatting up the waitress. In the future i need to remember to maintain a portion of the paper to read after his arrival while he is chatting up the waitress. If I had done that I would not have had to hear about the fire which had burned house badly and left her this morning with watery eyes, a runny nose and slight smell of pulled pork. Not that there is anything wrong with pulled pork. She also explained that it was “Kickers” because the group of owners were all soccer players. I should have realized that they day before when they were playing the AC Milan v. AC International Club Match. Might be a good place to catch world cup games this summer.

He got coffee and then went into a rather long ordering process involving eggs, sausage and toast... but it still took a long time. I was able to quickly order a 1/2 order of biscuits and gravy, breakfast potatoes and home made sausage patties. I want to be very clear, there was nothing wrong with this breakfast. But there was nothing spectacular either. The breakfast potatoes were in deed fresh cut and crispy and were pretty good. The biscuits were slightly puffy but very good and the gravy was good old fashion cream gravy. The home made sausage was the biggest disappointment, not because there was anything wrong with it but because it was just adequate. I wanted some spice and some flavor and got fairly bland pork sausage. Still, nothing wrong with it, just nothing special. The cook is also one of the owners and I am pretty confidence that he would make me whatever I wanted.

A key element is of course that you could get a cold bottle of Busch with your breakfast if you need one and that just stinks of America and makes me proud.

Over all I give the place 7.5 on the 10 Slinger scale and that is mostly because it has tremendous ambience and excellent help.

A Thought About The Courtesy Diner

On a more important note I had breakfast at the Courtesy Diner on Hampton this morning. I will begin formal reviews of each Diner down the line but will give intermittent reports on my progress as I go.
One of the great things about the Courtesy on Hampton on a Saturday morning is that if you get there early enough you are likely to catch some professional girls coming off their shift in Sauget. The Courtesy is hard to drive by on your way from the river to west county and this morning we had two young ladies, giggling and slurring as they ate their breakfast loudly making demands on occasional trips to the juke box... But perhaps I judge too harshly and these young ladies were not strippers but you do not see that much in the way of mini skirts, fishnets and five inch heels outside of that....environment.
It all ended badly with one of the young ladies throwing up her breakfast in the parking lot as the regulars looked on over their papers and one well meaning young man offered to call a cab and was loudly told to go screw (slightly rephrased) himself. This never happens at Bob Evans.
God Bless the diner!