Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Square One Brewery Macaroni Monday

I just learned about Square One Brewery's Macaroni Monday from the J + J Twins blog:

Macaroni Monday

According to the blog, "...every Monday from 5pm to 9pm, you can build your own Mac N' Cheese!"

Here is info listed on the Square One page: http://www.squareonebrewery.com/events/


When Cheese Smiles...


Deep Thoughts...Thanks John Pirkey!

Friday, June 21, 2013

Crow's Nest

Now that I’m working in Brentwood again, I am close to one of my favorite areas of town: Downtown Maplewood. I have already been to Schlafly’s Bottleworks and Home Wine Kitchen for lunch, but I had never been to The Crow’s Nest! Luckily, I got an invitation to meet up there for a reasonably-priced meal, and a lot of food for the money!

Since I had never been, I fell victim to wanting to try one of everything as usual, and got a recommendation to try the Meat Loaf Sliders - house meatloaf, hawaiian sweet rolls, garnished with green beans and tomato jam.

Since this was on the starters list, I also added a House Salad. These two items would have been plenty by themselves, especially since the Meat Loaf Sliders (four of them!) were well sized. If you miss your Mother’s meat loaf as much as I do, you’ll really enjoy these “easy to eat” meat loaf. The only weird thing was the lone green bean at the bottom of each one.

Anyway, my salad was delicious and it really stood out from your typical side salad since it was well covered in gorgonzola and toasted almonds, as well as a light vinaigrette. The salad was medium in size and much more than what I thought of a side salad, so the vegetarian chili bowl pretty much tipped me over the edge.

The vegetarian chili bowl came in a small bread bowl and was filled to the brim with different types of peppers as well as beans. This could have been a meal all unto itself since it was so thick and heavy. I highly recommend this as a hearty meal for vegetarians…something that will really warm you up in the winter time.

So I have to admit I was really impressed with the atypical bar food at a “dive bar” lookin’ kind of place. I actually hope to go back and try a few more items on the menu…

Quite a few specialty items for veg-heads as well!

Resources:

The Crow’s Nest: http://crowsnestbarstl.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Charted Cheese Wheel

A good buddy, Chris Hayes, sent this to me on Facebook...needless to say I need this in wallpaper size...

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672767/infographic-how-to-tell-the-difference-between-66-varieties-of-cheese

Chart of Cheese

Prasino

I was ecstatic when I heard that the old Noah’s Ark space was finally being put to good use, especially since 5th street is one of my favorite areas in the St. Louis area, and because it’s so close to where I live. Although it is actually a chain, I kept hearing about Prasino from friends who attended the soft opening as well as from those who tried out their happy hour. When I mentioned that I had wanted to go, quite a few quickly volunteered to go with me again! Definitely a good sign…

The cool thing about Prasino is that they are an eco-friendly restaurant and believe in a sustainable environment along with using organic produce and eggs. And by the way, really amazing food and drinks!

I started with the drink menu and that’s probably the best way to go because it’s a MUCH shorter list than the dinner menu. (I highly recommend studying in advance.) Well, I take that back…their beer list is quite lengthy and takes up one side of the page, but I had my heart set on one of their seasonal cocktails since I heard they were so delicious. It might be best to attend a happy hour as well since all the drinks are on the pricy side, but luckily my friend confirmed my choice of the “green” drink, a basil-infused vodka with a couple flavors of fruit. I also tried the “summer thyme” and the “prasino fizz”, and both were just as refreshing for the summer heat.

As I said, the menu is quite lengthy due to the fact that they have some of everything and therefore it makes it hard to classify the restaurant over all. There are quite a few small plates, but a lot of large dinners as well, so it’s not necessary tapas. There are tacos…and I had my heart set on fish tacos initially, but then there are flat breads and sushi rolls too! But all my friends kept saying what an awesome burger they had…I was extremely torn…

Taking more advice, I started with the “lobster avocado”, which is just as rich as it sounds. I also got to try the p.e.i. mussels, which had a hearty, smoky flavor to them, as well as the kefte, or lamb meatballs. It really is just one giant meatball that comes in a marinara sauce surrounded by pita bread to help you lap up the sweet sauce when you finish. The meatball was so dense that I really should have split this one. I was too scared to try the shisito peppers because every so often, there’d be a real spicy one and my friends would frantically grab their drink.

Moving on to the other sections of the menu, I had really wanted the fish tacos and you get four cute little baby tacos that are a good “small plate” size. I definitely have to get them next time.

Instead, I absolutely could not resist the sushi rolls and I ordered the “unagi” which is avocado, unagi, and yuzu marinated tuna. It was a huge roll…about eight pieces and quite filling as well. I really had gone past the appropriate limit of food at this point!

Last but not least, three of my friends ended up with the “Prasino burger”. I was skeptical, but luckily a couple of friends helped me to see the light…oh my goodness…it really is one of the best burgers I have ever had. It comes with smoked gouda, tomato jam, arugula, and pickled onion. I am not sure what they have done with the meat, but it had the most wonderful juicy flavors. Yes, it really did live up to the hype.

Really…the whole restaurant lived up to the hype and the new developments are a very promising sign of more good things to come on 5th Street south of 70.

Resources:

Prasino = http://www.prasino.com