Rita and I headed to my family’s estate in Illinois for the holiday. It was a great time, and it was very nice to see all my family. It seems that my sisters are doing very well, and I saw many of my aunts and uncles that I haven’t seen for a long time.

I got a little time to speak with my grandparents, and that was nice. They tend to keep to themselves, and I hate to say that I barely know them. Sadly, my mother’s father had a mild heart attack (his third) Thanksgiving night, and he’s recuperating in the hospital after some emergency surgery. Rita was very supportive, and she helped me out a lot.

I’m thankfull that he came through ok, I’m thankful that Rita was there to help me out, and I’m thankful that I’ve got a job and an apartment.

I’m also thankful that Rita now shares my love for gas station pizza. Casey’s General Store makes some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. Nice and cheesy with just a little splash of sauce. Wade Money was a Casey’s Pizza Engineer during college, and that’s when I fell in love with that oh so seductive flavor. It’s a good thing that there isn’t one of these stores in my neighborhood. Maybe Sleepygirl and I can go on a national gas station tour.

Popped over to the Mihalis Chophouse on McCausland to check the place out. They’ve done a great design job, and it’s laid out very well. Menu seems to be ok, but I didn’t have the time to try anything. The restaurant is the newest spot from the cat that owns Michael’s. I’ll post a bit more info when I get a chance to eat there. (I’d link you, but their website 404’s)

Also, I’d like to give a shout out to the Orphans Party 2005. The chef from Bar Italia Ristorante-Cafe throws a little annual party for all the local neighborhood restaurant kids (it started off as a party for those who won’t be going home for Thanksgiving). There were easily ~200 people crammed into Matt Kamnick and Buffalo’s apartment, and the cocktails just kept coming. Jeff Gerth prepared over a hundred pounds of turkey with all the fixins. It was definitly a who’s-who of the neighborhood restaurant scene.

Also, I ran into Nhat Nguyen tonight. Looks like his new project Urban is only a few weeks away from open on South Grand. Only three weeks behind schedule is better than most. Good job, bro. (Now get your website up, man)

Just came back from my bi-annual trip to Cincy, and it was a great weekend. Twice a year I kick around with all my internet nerd friends, and just like the internet it’s a rollicking good time. I saw fuzz, and Squiggs, and Kamidake, and Zapgun, and Psyber, and AmishJosh, and EVERYBODY. It was great. There is almost nothing so cool as walking into a bar full of thirty of your closest friends and the room just erupts with shouts and cheers and clapping and whistling and welcome. That was truly a rock and roll moment, and I loved it (thanks guys).

The Wade Money drove up from Carterville, Syro came down from the north side, and we rocked out the Merc to Cincy. St Louis down 64 to Louisville up 71 through NKY to the Natty. That route is five hours at five miles over the limit. Seems to be a lot faster than the Indy path we normally take.

Of all the places we saw, the most impressive was The Anchor. St Louis has a plethora of greasy spoons in the metro area, but none compares to the one around the corner from fuzz’s house. Their motto is “We might doze, but we never close.” Opened in 1946 it looks like it hasn’t been touched since it opened. It’s a small time operation that might seat 50 at max capacity. Service is slow, the food is bad, and it’s a dingy hole. I loved it, but wouldn’t eat there more than once a year.

On Saturday we went to “The Farm” to bust some caps, and hang out around the campfire. I have to say, my buddy Dave Loken is a mean shot with a pistol. As soon as he stepped up every target fell down out of fright. I hope that he’s on my side when the revolution comes.

Wade Money and I popped out to Niccola’s on Saturday night. While it was a very nice restaurant and the food was very nice; it didn’t really jive with the Money and I. A hundred bucks for a couple of cocktails, some decent pasta dishes, and two cups of coffee. Honestly, I liked the place, but it felt a bit pretentious. In their defense I feel that way in any place that’s more of a restaurant than a bar. We had a great waiter named Yuri, and his service was top notch. One complaint that I have is that they do the white tablecloth annoyance of placing the napkin in the lap. C’mon people, only a select few are invited within striking distance of my genitals.

We then drove to Mt Adams to check out the restaurant scene there. In a word: Dissapointing. Longsworth, The Wine Cellar, and The Pavilion were all equally uninspiring. I did appreciate the multilevel design, mosaic bar top, and sweeping murals at The Pavilion, though.

One high point was finding the Mount Adams Bar & Grill. Just like Dressel’s, but a wholly Republican place. The pictures on the wall were of GWB, Ronald Reagan and Richard Milhouse Nixon. It was originally a speakeasy during prohibition, and that character shines through in a way that made me feel at home as soon as we walked in. It was one of the nicest small houses that I’ve seen in a long time.

All in all, a great trip and I can’t wait until the next one.

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I was just thinking of how there are a few menu items that I really like at every restaurant in the Central West End. I go to restaurants often, and I try several entrees, but I always find myself sticking with one dish at a given restaurant. These are some of my favorite dishes (and all within walking distance).

1. Zoe’s Pan Asian - The Lemongrass Beef, or the Curried Chicken.
2. Kopperman’s - French Toast, but without the powdered sugar.
3. Llewelyn’s - This place is a dump, but if you’re forced: get the miniburgers.
4. Cafe Balaban - The pepperoni and sausage pizza on the Intermezzo menu.
5. Duff’s - I recently saw some bugs, but they make a nice Chicken Nancy.
6. Culpepper’s - “Skin and Bones:” Potato skins and chicken wings
7. Liluma - The Burger. Nicely seasoned, white cheddar, and pancetta bacon. $10, and worth it.
8. Bar Italia - Miramare. Pasta, mussels, shrimp, and calamari with a sweet red sauce.
9. La Dolce Via - Though technically an Italian bakery, they’ve added on a coffeeshop and do the best brunch in the city on Saturday and Sundays. Though low on such niceties as decor; no other restaurant produces brunch food of this caliber. Try the biscuits and gravy.

I’m working for my buddy’s wholesale cigar business over at Durango Cigars. My days are spent assembling deliveries from my boss’s phone orders, printing invoices, and driving boxes of cigars around. I’m just Hoke drivin’ around little brown boxes of Ms. Daisy’s favorite tobacco. East side, West Side, I’m all up in this piece.

I’ll get the requiste french phrase out of the way right now. Le royale est très bon.

Popped down to The Royale last week, and it was great. I didn’t get a chance to check out the cocktail list that I’ve heard so much about, but I did see a Grade-A industrial sized juicer over in the corner.

With a killer neon sign out front and a picturesque fleur-de-lis mural (painted by my good friend Sarah Folkemer) on the side it’s a good looking space. The last bar in that space, The Real Bar, was kind of a dump. I’m really glad to say that the last space’s bad chi didn’t survive the transition.

The interior’s most noticable feature is the church pew booths that would look right at home in Dressel’s. A touch of dark wood never hurts to make a new room look old. Tangerine walls and a well placed map of St Louis make it feel inviting. It’s very St Louis hepcat cool.

The back patio is small, but it’s been done well. Green grass, a coolio metal dinosaur sculpture in the back, and lots of classy cafe seating under the lamp posts. There’s a nice fire pit surrounded by bales of hay. While we were sitting around the campfire mi amigo Gustav brought out some graham crackers and marshmallows for smores.

The way that it’s presented makes this one of the best new patios that I’ve seen. Tureen is a close second, but that patio was there when the space was The Southern Belle.

In a funny twist I saw cigar box lids being used as holders for credit card slips, which has been done at Brennan’s for a couple of years. Completly unrelated I’m sure, but the owner is a friend of Mark Brennan’s.

I need to get back down there to experience the food and the cocktail list.

I finally popped over to Restaurant Space to check it out a few weeks ago. They’d done a great job of decorating. It looks like a collection of cool stuff, and a lot of the smaller accents are unique pieces of art. It’s classic cool with midcentury futuristic flair. They have one of the best antique radio collections that I’ve ever seen, and it’s just a cool looking spot. I’d easily mark it as one of the best decorated restaurants in the city.

The restaurant had come highly reccomended. In the highest of accolades my hero Mr. Jeffrey Watkins praised the place. My friend Brian Marsden used to bartend there, and the Sunday night barkeep is a friend of mine named Tiffany. She’s also at Savor and Brennan’s, so she’s a busy rockstar these days.

A note on the service - Tiff was great at the bar, and I had a very pleasant server for dinner. Eager to please and willing to learn; she was a little sweetie. I’ll ask for her when I visit again (and I’m ashamed that I can’t remember her name).

The food was a bit disappointing. Rita’s “Light Chicken” pasta was simple, but the chicken tasted as if it had been frozen for a long period and then microwaved. The texture was rubbery, and honestly I’ve had better chicken out of a George Foreman.

From reading the menu I knew exactly what my 16 oz. steak at ~$16 was going to be: A mid grade cut of meat with decent texture but no flavor. I was completly right. The leading flavor was … burnt. I’m not saying that I know how to read between the lines on a menu - but I nailed that sucker.

Conversely, a grilled shrimp appetizer that we shared at the bar was great. Properly cooked and nicely seasoned I’d reccomend it and order again. Most people don’t know how easy it is to mess up grilled shrimp. The fact that they did it well shows that the kitchen has a clue - It just needs a bit of oversight.

I’m not beating on the guys over there. They’ve done a great job in a very difficult location, and I think that it’ll be one of those restaurants that survives past the 20 year mark. I liked the place a lot, but think that the owners might wish to pay a bit more attention to the food quality.

Edit: This was my 50th post. Yippee.