It’s time for Budget Crunch, wherein intrepid reporter Byron Kerman offers 10 tips on delicious menu items and sweet deals happening now. Got $10 and some change? Grab a friend and sample, split and stuff yourselves with these steals.
1. The Restaurant at The Cheshire is a classy joint, and the new Five-Under-$10 Lunch Specials make it classy and Budget Crunch-friendly. Previous dishes have included andouille and smoked chicken risotto ($10), a duck confit frittata with pickled red onion ($9), smoked chicken with sweet-potato coconut curry and sticky rice ($10), a Reuben made with the Cheshire’s own Medart’s Sauce ($8.50), and rigatoni with roasted squash and winter greens ($9). Keep an eye on the Facebook page; the special changes daily.
2. Why is there a portable pancake griddle next to the register at Nadoz Bakery + Café in the Boulevard shopping area? Why, so they can serve warm cookies, of course. You can order a Mountain Cookie, made with oatmeal, raisins, chocolate chips, coconut and shaved almond, or that old standby chocolate-chip, warm and ready to be devoured. Cookies are $1.75 each.
3. All the menu items at both locations of Steve’s Hot Dogs have fun names, and that includes the new mac-n-cheese bowl lineup. A layer of that childhood staple is covered with pepperjack cheese, grilled bell peppers, bacon and honey-chipotle sauce in the Kevin Bacon Jamaican Bowl. The Mind Trick Bowl includes jalapeno slices, chipotle-flavored onions and roasted-habanero sauce, and the MacGyver Bowl swaps elbows for rotini and douses them with Alfredo sauce, Parmesan, cheddar, bacon and fried onions ($5.25 to $7.25).
4. We know this much to be true: Things go better with bacon. To wit, we present the ingenious $9 Championship Rings at Alumni Saint Louis. Onions slices are wrapped in bacon, beer battered and fried into onion-bacon goodness. Dip them into Alumni’s spicy house-made 314 Ketchup and eat like a champ.
5. Attention, paczki fans: the Polish jelly doughnuts traditionally served just before Lent are available now through Fat Tuesday at both locations of Old Town Donuts. (That would be Cottleville and the 24/7 Florissant locations.) They’re filled with a choice of apple, raspberry, lemon, custard or cream and run around $1.50 each.
6. This week’s special Mardi Gras menu at The Dam includes chicken gumbo, Cajun-seasoned fries with spicy remoulade or Cajun aioli, Cajun sausage with grilled peppers and onions, and an andouille sausage burger, all for less than $10 each and available Feb. 10 to 17. On Saturday, Feb. 14 The Dam has a one-day Mardi Gras menu that calls for an antacid or two. Consider the Louisiana meat pie ($8), the andouille breakfast burrito ($7) or the King Cake Burger, a double cheeseburger served between two slices of King Cake ($8).
7. What can you add to your bottomless chili bowl on Chilly Tuesdays at the Boathouse in Forest Park? Smoked Gouda, cheddar, Cheetos, Bugles, shoestring potato chips, pickled jalapenos, chives, tomatoes, red onions, Corn Nuts, salsa, various hot sauces, sour cream, oyster crackers, tortilla strips… The list goes on. Help yourself to the $10 buffet on Tuesdays, when you can also order $1 to $2 extras like sliders, hot dogs, macaroni, fries, baked potatoes or grilled cheese sandwiches. Finish it all off with $2 s’mores around the fire pit for dessert.
8. The new Sunday brunch at HotPot Smoothie Shop is geared toward two types of people: those who eat Paleo and gluten-free and those who admire their dietary pursuits but eat more conventionally. HotPot serves gluten-free biscuits and gravy made with Todd Geisert Farms pork sausage. Other items include sweet and spicy beef hash, Paleo pancakes, the Famous Three-Egg Fold-in, traditional French toast, and bacon, eggs and potatoes with onions. Each brunch menu item is $10.
9. Good grief! The February BOTM (Burger Of The Month) at 5 Star Burgers is not for the faint of heart. The $11 Hangtown Fry Burger, a riff on the infamous Hangtown fry omelet, is a Black Angus burger topped with fried oysters, scrambled egg, bacon and a Sriracha-based sauce.
10. At Piccione Pastry, happy hour means discounted coffee drinks. Weekdays from 2 to 4 p.m., drip coffee, espresso, cappuccinos, lattes, mochas, tea and more are all half-off, dropping to $1 to $2. We heartily endorse the $3.25 rum baba pastry for dipping.
This article appears in February 2015.