He Said / She Said: Kristin and Tim’s t-rav taste-tour
One reason it’s good to be a St. Louisan: an abundance of homemade toasted ravioli. Following generations-old recipes, cooks at the city’s Italian restaurants handcraft every morsel of the appetizer, from the noodle dough, breading and multi-seasoned meat filling (with a vegetarian style also emerging) to the tomato-based dipping sauce. All four of the restaurants…
Starters That Don’t Stop: Diners are making entire meals out of multiple appetizers
The lady calls every few months to make a reservation at The Crossing in Clayton. She comes in promptly at 6:30 p.m. and always sits at a choice table in the back corner of the restaurant. Once there, she’ll usually stay for three hours or more, and while she might nibble at the beet salad…
Seasoned with Secrets: Sausagemakers leave the guesswork to your tastebuds
Snoop around a sausage shop, ask a few questions and you’ll soon fall suspect. Suspect to stealing secrets – spicing secrets, the foundation of the sausagemaker’s art. “I can’t tell you exactly what goes into the sausages we make, especially the spices – that’s a secret,” said Gerhard Wanninger, co-owner of G & W Sausage…
Review: B.B.’s Jazz, Blues and Soups
Concierges are know-it-alls. Smart yet ignorant business travelers and tourists rely on a concierge’s advice on various local matters: “Can I get a historical walking tour of downtown?” “Where can I buy Umbro shorts and barbed wire?” “Is it going to be sunny next March?” “Where can I catch some great live blues?” In answering…
Review: Oceano Bistro in Clayton
Those of you with little ones know every week is littered with firsts that make you gleam with pride. In addition to the big ones (first steps, first words), there are also other, less universal milestones that mean just as much to individual parents. For me, one of these moments recently occurred when my son…
Veggie Pancakes
• Place the grated squash in a colander and salt it lightly to pull the water from the squash. • Pat the squash dry between two paper towels. • Combine it with the red onion, green pepper, garlic and corn and mix well. • Lightly beat the egg and add it to the vegetable mixture,…
Cinnamon-Banana Tempura Ice Cream Split
6 banana splits
Wasabi-Shrimp Tempura
2 4-ounce servings
Stuffed Summer Squash
• Halve oblong squash lengthwise or cut the top off of round squash to create a bowl shape. (If the round squash doesn’t stay upright, sliver a bit off the bottom to make it rest flat.) • Scoop the seeds and flesh out of each squash, leaving a shell about ³?8- to œ-inch thick. (A…
Step into René Cruz’s world of mustard caviar and mint clouds
Red is a high-concept new restaurant downtown that’s bringing diners a taste of eastern Europe spiced liberally with the flavor of modern America. Flat-screen TVs dot the interior, giving diners views of not only the kitchen but of each other, thanks to closed-circuit cameras placed throughout the long, narrow space. Patrons sit in concrete booths…
For the crunchiest, lightest tempura, the batter matters
Take no offense, but I consider toasted ravioli, our omnipresent appetizer, a dubious claim to culinary fame. Sadly, most renditions I’ve ever tasted have been dense and chewy, or worse yet, oozing with grease. My philosophy: If you’re going to submit to the calories of deep-frying, then why not delude yourself by eating something that…
Riotously colorful summer squash are versatile in the kitchen
Iam a fool for summer squash. Forget objectivity; I have none. When I tell you St. Louis is summer squash heaven, take what I say with a dash of sea salt and check out these beauties yourself. For unmatched variety, seek out Ron Jones of On the Wind Farms, deep in the woods of Howell…
Mix things up and sip on the wines of summer
Move over pomegranate, pear and açai, there’s a new mixer on the block. Trend-setting mixologists on the East and West Coasts have set their sights on wine, adding the stuff – both straight from the bottle and boiled down to a syrup – to all manner of cocktails. But, like most trends, wine cocktails aren’t…
A trifecta of winemakers may signal a new era in Missouri
These days, Missouri’s prestigious wine industry attracts winemakers the world over. But when I first visited the state’s wineries in the summer of 1973, I found a fledgling group of passionate families determined to return our state to the level of notoriety that it enjoyed prior to Prohibition. Nearly all of the people actually making…
Summer Snow: Icy snow cones refresh sultry St. Louis summers
As June becomes July and July gives way to August, the heat of the day lengthens and lingers. And on expansive, breezeless evenings, people crave things cold and sweet. Ice cream and frozen custard hit the spot in their own creamy way, of course, but somehow snow cones refresh so fully they’re a near-synonym of…
Indulge your civilized side with specialty teas and superlative pastries
One glance at The London Tea Room’s cheeky menu lets you know this isn’t some stuffy place for a spot of tea. Instead, this mod new establishment on Washington Avenue (located just off the lobby of the Ely Walker Loft building) is just the place for both tea connoisseurs and amateurs. Stepping through the doors…
