1. Steamed buns head West
Everyone is putting a spin on Asia’s answer to the burger lately. East meets West in Peacemaker’s steamed bun roll stuffed with lobster and sour cabbage and in Kitchen Kulture’s everything-bagel steamed bun filled with house-made pastrami. In September, Blood & Sand will begin stuffing its house-made everything-bagel steamed bun with chopped chicken liver, but in the meantime its Peking bun holds Maryland-style crab cake.
2. The Wonder Years
Children of the ’70s can’t complain: Their parents let them run amuck outside, eat cheese from a spray can and buy candy cigarettes at the corner drugstore. Relive those glory days at Sidney Street Cafe, where house-made Wonder Bread is turned into panna cotta on a deconstructed tuna fish sandwich, or head to The Libertine for the aged white cheddar “Cheez Whiz” atop the burger. Finally, go to Social Gastropub in Edwardsville and get the lobster and shrimp pie topped with smashed Ritz crackers and reminisce about all the crushed crackers (or corn flakes) your mom sprinkled over every genius casserole.
3. Move over, Sriracha
Harissa, a red-hot North African condiment, has immigrated to the Midwest. Find the garlicky chile pepper paste accenting carrots at Basso, veggies and rice at Eclipse and the tomato salad at Cleveland-Heath. Harissa meted meatier fare at Element, where chicken wings were dunked in harissa hot sauce, and it added oomph to roasted cauliflower at Taste, too. It even served as inspiration for a dry-spice blend dusting the farro salad at Juniper.
4. Filipino food at the forefront
The flavors of the Phillippines are gaining traction across the country with big-name chefs like Leah Cohen of Pig & Khao in NYC, Christina Quackenbush of NOLA’s Milkfish and Paul Qui at Qui in Austin, Texas. It’s also finding footing in this town at places like Mandarin House in University City, where Sunday brunch turns into a Filipino fete. Its Kamayan buffet includes dozens of classic dishes with everything from tocino (Filipino-style sweet breakfast bacon) to lechon (roast suckling pig). Settle dinner pangs at Hiro Asian Kitchen Tuesdays and Wednesdays when chef Malou Perez-Nievera (know for her Filipino food blog Skip to Malou) prepares a menu of modern Filipino specials. And if you haven’t gotten on the bandwagon for Filipino fusion by mobile eatery Guerrilla Street Food, tuck in at its new brick-and-mortar restaurant near the corner of Arsenal Street and Grand Boulevard.
5. Jewish Deli Dance
Quit kvetching about a lack of Jewish flavors in St. Louis; there are signs that Jewish noshes are seeing some chef love. Now, you can find house-made pastrami at places like Dalie’s Smokehouse, Bogart’s and Death in the Afternoon (whose exec chef David Rosenfeld also digs into his Jewish roots for inspiration on multiple dishes at sister restaurant Blood & Sand). Then there’s restaurateur Ben Poremba (Elaia, Olio, Old Standard Fried Chicken): The news about his upcoming Jewish deli in Clayton has us salivating for lox and bagels, chopped liver sandwiches, knishes and matzo ball soup. While we’re waiting, if someone would make avant garde Jewish-inflected fare like the octopus “pastrami” at Bâtard in NYC, we’d dance the hora.
6. Dressed in Meat
It’s no secret that bacon fat gives unctuous oomph to salad dressings, but chefs are picking other proteins to beef up their vinaigrettes. Missed the scallops swimming in chorizo dressing at Cleveland-Heath or the chicken fat vin on the salade lyonnaise at Old Standard? Experience an alt-meat salad dressing with Sidney Street Cafe’s bone marrow vin on its smoked brisket dish, or order the beet salad dressed in a fiery-hot Italian ‘nduja vinaigrette at Reeds American Table in Maplewood when it opens later this month.
This article appears in August 2015.