St. Louis: The Cuisine I

I’m not a real gourmand. I might be a foodie, but I doubt it. I like food, a lot. I know a lot of food facts and food history. And I like to cook. But really I just like eating. Not necessarily in a loutish stuff-my-face way but also that. That’s all preface for the fact that I only have four things to comment on in regard to food on this trip and all four took place in the St. Louis portion.

Miss Saigon:

There is a little restaurant just off the University of Washington campus called Miss Saigon. The decor is Easter-chic (kitcheny stencils in pale pink, yellow, green and blue–a description that makes it sound less Pier One than it was). The staff was friendly and the noodle bowl I ordered was good. But what made my visit to Miss Saigon commentworthy was the Vietnamese-style coffee.

Now, I’ve never had this tasty bevarine before and other, more urbane, readers may be underwhelmed by this description but this is my blog and if you want to write about the best Vietnamese coffee you’ve ever had be my guest, either in the comments here or start your own darn blog.

Basically they have this tiny metal cup in which they place the coffee grounds (Cafe du Monde Chickory) and hot water. The coffee drips down onto condensed sweet milk (sweet condensed milk) which sits like white gelatin underneath the black coffee. People confused by what beverage connoisseurs mean when they call various black or brown drinks “red” will stop being confused after the next step.

It would be logical for the black (or dark, dark, dark brown) coffee to turn a decent shade of mocha or beige once it was combined with the milk, but it doesn’t. Rather it turns an earthy orange–a warm burnt umber perhaps–but I’m not good with colors. And I should also add that this mixing of milk and coffee is a labored ordeal. The condensed milk is reluctant at first to accept the coffee at all and must be coaxed to do so with effort, including scraping the sides of the glass with a knife or fork. The waitress explained to me that it was important to get all the milk to balance the coffee properly.

Once mixed the coffee is poured over ice. Ouila! Delicious. Slap your hands and let’s move on.

Toasted Ravioli:

We were told before departing to the Lou that we had to have the toasted ravioli–some sort of genius regional delicacy that was not to be missed. It was fine but exactly what you would expect of deep-fried pasta filled with stuff. I’m from Indiana–home of of the Indiana State Fair and I am no stranger to the effects of deep-frying on various foodstuffs. I mean, deep-frying turns Twinkies into eclairs–that’s amazing. Deep-frying ravioli turns it into…deep-fried ravioli.

I may be biased because the waitress didn’t understand that when we asked that the sausage be taken off our order, we meant that it be taken from everything. Even when I ate meat I didn’t really like sausage all that much, so I was disappointed to find it in my cheese ravioli’s. On the other hand, the sausage ravioli was probably a more authentic experience than the cheese variety (unless that cheese was going to be Provel). So I say: Eh. Try it when you’re in St. Louis because it’s from there and it will help make your experience in the city unique to that city which is important in traveling, I think.

Ted Dewes:

Ted Dewes is a custard joint and it’s practically world famous. It’s Concretes were the inspiration to what ya’ll know as The Blizzard from Dairy Queen. The biggest difference between the two is that The Blizzard is made from ice cream and The Concrete is made from ice cream with eggs in it (a.k.a. custard). There is nothing in the world that people rave about more than custard and I’ve never gotten it. I like custard; I like it a lot. But I also like ice cream and the difference between the two is not worlds, it’s a few uncooked eggs. I suppose that adds something to the flavor, I do like custard more than ice cream. I suppose it adds to the texture–that’s what I’m told and, to be honest, I didn’t know that ice cream and custard were so closely related until just a few years ago because custard is so darned smooth and cream–and I assume that’s because of the eggs.

But how far is Ted Dewes from, say Ritters? Not far–maybe as far as ice cream is from custard. It’s probably a little better but I think Ritters has a wider selection of flavors. Oh! here’s something neat. Ted Dewes only makes vanilla. All the flavors they offer are blended in when you order. So, there’s that. With that said, I may not have sampled enough to make a solid estimate of its value. Nevertheless, it is excellent custard and if that’s your thing, then you have to go to Ted Dewes when you’re in St. Louis. If you are not in St. Louis and you’re thinking of a reason to go, Ted Dewes might be that reason. However, if you’ve been feeling down because you can’t get to St. Louis and the thought of not trying the inspiration for the Blizzard is causing you to drag you feet, well, don’t worry, it’s not that big of a deal.

St. Louis-style Pizza:

The girlfriend and I drove around a lot and wherever we went we saw Imo’s Pizza and so we knew that before we left we would have to try some. You see, we eat pizza sometimes as many as four times a week, sometimes twice in one day. It’s a problem. The opportunity to try a new (and apparently popular) pizza could not be passed up.

The Imo’s was delivered and we quickly flipped open the lid. My girlfriend made the “Wah-wah” noise that I don’t know how to spellout…it’s that noise that says “Suprise, you just won a … a pile of crap! Wah-wah.” With me? Good. Nothing stared back at us from the box. What…lay?…melted?…offended? there before us was a round cracker smothered in tomato paste with a glaze of toxic waste rolling around on top. But I was not to be deterred. It was “pizza” after all and I was raised on Tombstones. I come from the land of Pizza King. I once enjoyed a pizza buffet at CiCi’s. So I had a bite. It was…odd?…good?…crap?

The crust was so thin it cracked at the slightest move toward bending the slice. And by “slice” I mean the tiny squares (think “party cut” but smaller) into which the pizza was divided. The sauce was thick and sweet, a deep deep red that I presumed could only be artificially created. The cheese felt synthetic in the mouth. It caused me to salivate like it was salted. The texture was super creamy. It gave a certain smoothing, moist, nearly-tart sensation that has only been matched in my experience with American cheese. The Americany-quality of the cheese combined with that sweet sauce tasted vaguely (or more than vaguely) like Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee. But, as Wikipedia will tell you Hector Boiardi never made it any further west than The Cleve. The pizza was so deliberately wrong it presented itself as a regional favorite despite the fact that I did not know there was such a thing as “St. Louis-style pizza.”

But surely Imo’s got it wrong (Wikipedia says that Imo’s is thought to be the originator of the style–if true I can only assume that this is a case more analogous to music where the first person to do something does so crudely–perhaps more authentically but less palatable). So I wanted to find the Bob Marley to Imo’s Desmond Dekker (if you will…although that particular comparison is either to congratulatory to Imo’s or insulting to Mr. Dekker)

So when the girlfriend and I traveled to The Hill a few days later we did so in pursuit of two things: Toasted Ravioli and true St. Louis-style pizza. Of the dozens of Italian restaurants along Southwest and the surrounding streets that make up this historic Italian neighborhood we decided on Rigazzi’s for no other reason than one of the many guidebooks we stumbled upon recommended it. The fact that it was the oldest Italian restaurant in the area didn’t hurt either. So we hunted and found Rigazzi’s at the bottom of St. Louis Hill and around the corner a bit, hunkered down near the end of Daggett Avenue by the Kingshighway overpass to the east and warehouses to the south and west.

I should also mention, although we did not learn about this until later, that Al Capone was once arrested here. Awesome. I don’t know if Al Capone’s presence speaks to the authentic Italian experience but it does speak to the quintessential Italian-American experience.

Their beer selection is awful. I had the Bud Select. I could have had Bass, like the girlfriend, but I like to drink local and although Anheuser distributes Bass, I don’t think that counts.

The pizza was….

….

….good.

My eating partner is a touch more cautious with her comment. She will say, if asked, that it was “better than Imo’s.” It might only be that the presenation was infinitely better. It actually looked like a pizza and not a burnt and half-melted Frisbee about to be tested for heavy-metal contamination. I sneakily asked the waitress what the “third cheese” in their Provel mixture was, “Provolone, Mozzarella, and…” she said “cheddar” but real Provel doesn’t have Mozzarella, it has Swiss. This could have been a slip up on the part of the waitress, or it could have been an unwitting admission that Rigazzi’s makes their St. Louis-style pizza more palatable by making it less St. Louisy. You’ll have to follow up with them to know for sure, but I have my guess.

The sauce still had that overly sweet, almost Chef Boy-Ar-Dee taste but the canned-paste quality was noticeably less severe than in Imo’s version. And the crust still cracked under very slight pressure (which I learned is because it is an unleavened crust and not because of its thinness).

All-in-all a decent food roundup: Toasted Ravioli, St. Louis-style pizza, and Ted Dewes, all a part of a distinctly St. Louis experience…and Vietnamese coffee…which is not part of the “St. Louis Experience”…but was for me. Also the goat cheese and curry flat bread at Schlafly that I mentioned yesterday that was probably the best food of the whole trip. I could have eaten that and drank Vietnamese coffee the entire time and wouldn’t have felt deprived.

St. Louis: The Beer II

One of my favorite activities associated with these megabreweries is following up my visit to them with a visit to a local brewery. In St. Louis, this means Schlafly. A few years back in repayment for something or other a friend of mine brought me a six pack of Schlafly and it was decent beer, I thought, and definitely better than Bud. So I got the address off the internetz and off we went. Girlfriend and I wound up at the Schlafly brewpub which, as we found out, is not the facility that you can take a tour of. Nevertheless we chitchatted about this and that and knocked back a few.I had their IPA and the dry-hopped APA. Both excellent beers although my preference is for the crisper and more aromatic American Pale. Girlfriend had the Pilsner which, if I can judge from just my one sip, was a phenomenal recreation of they way Pilsner Urquell is supposed to taste. The atmosphere was laid back-chic and the beer was great so I was even more excited to get over to the Bottleworks to take the tour, sample the free beer, and see how they bottle it! (What is it with the bottling part that so damned fascinating?) Unfortunately we had timed our arrival at the Schlafly pub for the start of the last tour, so the chance of making it to the bottleworks was -1.

So the next day, I got the address for the brewery and looked at the map available on their website. I did not googlemap it. Woe and alack!

The odyssey from the hotel to the Schlafly Bottleworks was painful, humorous, frustrating, intriguing, but mostly it was just long–real long. The map said it was real easy to get to; the nice lady on the phone at the Bottleworks whom I called after our first 30 minutes not finding the joint told me it was very easy; the lady at the 7-11 we had to ask for directions 20 or 30 minutes after that told us it was very easy to find, and so did the two very nice ladies at the Schnucks grocery store we stopped in for directions (and a bathroom break) 20 minutes after that.

Each one accompanied their “very easy” comment with a series of directions that, when taken in toto, would have to be considered the urban equivalent of rural America-backroads directions. She said:

“It’s very easy. Let me just draw you map.”

She proceeded to start drawing lines on the back of a receipt. Then there are more lines, then more lines, then more linesShe ended up sketching a Jackson Pollack before wadding it up, saying:

“This is too confusing. Let me just tell you what to do. It’s very easy. Just go out here: this is Arsenal. Take a left on Arsenal and take a left at the light. The road kind of curves around and then you will come to the stop sign. I think it’s the first one, but it might be the second. You’ll know which one because the road kind of crosses a little creek and runs into the firehouse. Well, you want take a right and then a left real quick…because you’re really not turning left, you’re trying to go straight but the road it kind…it turns…y’know? Ok..well, you know what?… Now that I say it out loud, it’s probably easier to take Kingshighway.

“OK. Take a left here on Arsenal and take a left on Kingshighway. You’re going to go over the expensive bridge and take a left on (some road) and take that down into Edgewood. Do you know where that is? (I told her I didn’t.) Well it’s just down there. And you’re going to go past a fly by night car dealership and you’re going to see a really crappy delivery pizza joint on the left. The Bottleworks is behind the pizza joint. If you see the Sav-A-Lot, you’ve gone too far, but that might be a good thing because if you just turn around right there, you’ll see the Bottleworks.”

This is the short version. Meanwhile, in my head, I’m thinking about how ridiculous all this is, and I’m wondering why she whispered, “fly by night.” Is it code for something? It was an especially curious tonal shift in light of the fact that as we went down into Edgewood it was basically nothing but crappy car dealerships.

However, it turns out that the Bottleworks is “behind” a Pantera Pizza. What kind of “bottleworks” is so tiny that it’s behind a crappy little pizza joint? Well, it turns out that by “behind” she meant “on the road a block behind the pizza joint.” Neat, huh? It’s very easy.

What I didn’t know, and what I learned later, is the road that the Schlafly Bottleworks is on is a magic road in St. Louis called Southwest which starts off at Kingshighway and goes, fittingly, southwest from there. It cuts through an area famous as an Italian immigrant stronghold called The Hill then vanishes under an assumed name, goes directly west for about a block and then, contrary to all expectations shoots up toward the northwest. It is on this northwestern (or southeastern) portion of this Jonathan Livingston Seagull of roads where resides the Bottleworks.

Nevertheless, we made it. And I had many beers: I had both the ESB and the Scotch Ale while waiting for the tour to start. (I also had the goat cheese dip with curry-soaked flatbread which was freaking amazing). After the tour I sampled the No. 15, the Oatmeal Stout and the Extra Irish Stout. I also a sample a sample of my girlfriend’s Hefeweizen. All-in-all great beers, superb models of their styles but my vote for best beer on the list is the ESB which was shockingly complex, bright, effervescent. It was a real pleasure. Girlfriend like the hefe, proclaiming it the best one she’s ever had. In my mind it didn’t quite reach the level of the King Rudy brewed locally at Greenwood’s Oaken Barrel.

St. Louis and Me

So at the last minute two weeks ago my wonderful girlfriend, stricken with a mortal case of wanderlust, began planning a trip for us to lovely Hot Springs, Arkansas. Together we decided that I could not take off enough time to drive down there and enjoy it. Also, it was going to be fairly expensive…at least considering that the destination was going to be Arkansas and not, say, Florida.

So we canceled the trip and opted instead for a five-day jaunt in St. Louis, Missouri. Well, this last, last minute trip to Missouri proved to be unfulfilling for the wanderlust prone and it required a last, last, last minute trip to Jacksonville, Florida (and a stop-over in Athens, Georgia). Which took the time we decided I didn’t have and used as much if not more money that we had anticipated for the Arkansas trip. Nevertheless, it was a good trip and, as it turned out, much needed.

I don’t really have time to blog and since I didn’t read the paper or watch the news while I was gone, I don’t have anything to really blog about…politics-wise. So for the next few days, while I get caught up at work and the world, here are some things I did/thought about/noticed/ate/drank over the last week:

St. Louis:

Despite living no more than 4 hours from St. Louis through most of my life, despite having an aunt and uncle who live there, despite having a good friend who went to graduate school there, despite considering that same graduate school for myself, I have never spent anytime in the city. I’ve passed through on my way to other destinations, I have songs on my iPod about it, I’ve even studied in it in various history courses, but I never really got out, stretched my legs, and said hello. And I have to say:

eh.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s a real neat town. For one, it’s history is wrapped up with

1) French fur-traders which means there’s a lot of gothic arches in the windows and door frames. There’s lots of oddly-named streets (at least odd to someone who’s used to all the streets being named after Anglos, Saxons, and German-Germans). There’s a ton of Catholic Churches, sometimes as many as five in one block.

2) Jazz and Blues. I didn’t hear any live versions of either but the very first song on the radio on the very first day was a Louis Jordan song and I wondered “How does NPR know that I’m here?”

3) The American Frontier/Merriweather Lewis and Whathisname Clark and there’s still an air of rough-and-tumble in pretty much everything from contemporary city planning and people’s handshakes.

But.

There’s also distinct lack of compassion for the citizens of the town. I stopped counting, or even noting, the amount of new subdivisions, parks, tourist attractions, etc that were clearly built on top of the ex-homes of poor people. I don’t mean like, “really near the homes of poor people;” I mean “on the land that used to be where poor people lived but is now a park they don’t have the time to enjoy.”

From what I can tell, if a factory goes defunct in St. Louis the last guy out the door smashes a window and it all goes downhill from there. Very prominently as you enter St. Louis from the east is a huge warehouse with all the windows and many of the walls completely gutted and gone. It is neither the last nor the most prominent, nor the most troublesome symptom of a horrible disease rotting the town.

Mansions are preserved everywhere in the town. They live on brick roads lined with majestic shade trees, gated on both ends, in the middle of otherwise poor neighborhoods–not just here and there, but dotted off all major thoroughfares. It’s positively third world. There is the ghost of linen-suited aristocrats clubbing golf balls off their rooftops everywhere you look.

With that said, when St. Louis is at its best, it is stunning. It’s sense of historic pride is profound. Every era of St. Louis’ history is preserved and honored somewhere. Across the river from St. Louis (in Illinois) in Cahokia is a UN World Heritage site marking the center of the Northern Western Hemisphere’s largest pre-Colombian civilization. On Missouri’s side of the great Mississip is, of course, the Gateway Arch (or the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial as it is officially known) honoring America’s growth over the Mississippi and beyond. Over on the Missouri River on the western edge of St. Louis is St. Charles, an entire pre-Manifest Destiny town nearly completely preserved and converted into one of the most charming historic shopping districts in the nation (that I’ve seen). Right in the middle of town is a working class neighborhood called The Hill, which is not only a living testament to both America’s immigrant past (The Hill is an Italian immigrant stronghold) but also to its power as a melting pot. Also, Al Capone was once arrested there, in a restaurant called Rigazzi’s. There is of course the Anheuser-Busch Brewery and also Schlafly’s. Both have historic exhibits with pictures, beer cans, posters, etc of the area’s numerous ex-brewers.

I loved the St. Louis leg of our tour. It was a unique experience in a great many ways (more tomorrow) unfortunately the weather and the fact that it’s hard to consider anywhere in the Midwest “exotic” meant that when our time was up, we still had vacationing to do. So, if you’re looking to really “get away” and “forget your troubles” I do not recommend St. Louis. The town is no stranger to bad times and it is unlikely you will forget yours while there. There isn’t enough beer in St. Louis to wash away the pain and agony stomped into the bricks and concrete of which the town is built.