St. Louis Eats and Drinks

This Week's Wine, September 1, 2010

 

We're into September (my, how time flies when you're having fun), and that means the bubbles are getting ready to pop. The final months of the year, as we build to holiday toasts and year-end greetings, is the time when Champagne and other sparkling wines make the preponderance of their sales. There have been heavy crops in recent years, and the poor economy has kept prices down as well.

Champagne, by French law and a tradition honored by most of the world, comes from a single AOC (controlled area) in northeastern France, covering 34,000 hectares, or about 84,000 acres (a hectare is about 2.47 acres). It is further split into five sub-groups, the Cote des Bars, Cote des Blancs, Cote de Sezanne, Montagne des Reims and Vallee de la Marne.

Reims, Ay, Epernay and the well-named Bouzy are among many villages with plantings both large and small. The underlying soil is largely cretaceous chalk, which provides the unique terroir and the delicious flavor of first-rate Champagne. Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier (sometimes Pinot Meunier) grapes are the primary crop and the sparkling wine is made from a single grape or any blend of two or three. "Blanc de Blancs" is made solely from Chardonnay grapes and rose usually comes from Pinot Noir grapes with minimal skin contact to keep the wine from taking on too much red color. Much of the sparkler is made in small batches, with racking and riddling by hand.

A recent tasting offered a delightful experience to anyone who considers Champagne the best of all aperitifs. I tasted six non-vintage Brut offerings, all properly dry, and found small, tight bubbles and excellent, dry flavor. Four will retail for about $60, the others a sawbuck higher, and they will be on many local retail store shelves by mid-October. Of course, with the holidays in sight, there will be a lot of sparkling wine out there--both imported and domestic--at price ranges from single digits to many hundreds of dollars.

It's worth a search for a trustworthy wine-seller; upper-class Englishmen always have claimed that a gentleman needed three people with that character trait, a wine-seller, a tailor and a bookmaker.

My favorite was a Brut Rose from Henri Billiot in the village of Ambonnay (Montagne des Reims). I'm very fond of rose wines, both still and sparkling; the still offerings from the Cotes de Provence, mostly from Grenache or Syrah grapes, sing of a seat overlooking the Mediterranean Sea with a light breeze and a lunch to match. This offering had a lovely bubble and a crisp flavor with a delightful tingle. It was on the expensive side, as was another Montagne des Reims offering from Vilmart and Co., whose vineyards are in Rilly-la-Montagne, and dubbed Cuvee Grand Cellier. Good fruit, with the Chardonnay flavors under good control.

I was taken by two wines from the Vallee de la Marne, a Carte Verte from Gaston Chiquet of Vizy, and a Cuvee Prestige from Henri Goutorbe of Ay. Both were delicious, with slight earth tones to balance the citrus values in the grapes. Wines from that area always cause me to pause for a moment. The World War I battles at the Marne were so fierce, so deadly, and so many young soldiers are buried where they fell, that it's wine to grieve for, not to honor, a war. The battlefield park, more than 90 years old, remains one of the most poignant sights I've ever seen.

The last two are from the Cotes des Blancs, a 2005 Cuvee Gastronome (the only vintage-dated wine in the tasting) from Pierre Gimonnet of Cuis, and a Cuvee de Reserve from Pierre Peters of Le-Mesnil-sur-Oger. The latter displayed a fascinating tingle on the tongue, probably from high carbonation), and the former showed a hint of peach behind its citrus, tart notes.

None of these are real bargains, but they are excellent values in comparison with many French imports.

* * * *

A Couple of California Winners: J. Lohr, a veteran winemaker in the Monterey area, has a delightful Napa Valley entry in this '09 Sauvignon Blanc, from Carol's Vineyard, north of St. Helena. Good citrus flavors, primarily grapefruit, a little passion fruit, no oak, $24. Equally impressive is a 2008 Syrah from Paso Robles that involves two clones, one American and one Australian. The winemaker triumphed in the blend, with a full nose, a strong flavor of dark cherries, tannins that already are softening and which should be delightfully smooth after cellaring until spring and a long, brisk finish. $28.

* * * *

And Winners at Home: It was Stone Hill against the world in the recent Missouri wine competition, and Stone Hill won by a landslide. I don't serve as a judge any more, and I don't know how many entries there were, but things seem a little out of balance when a single winery--Stone Hill--wins eight of 12 Best of Class medals and 13 of 41 Gold Medals, plus the Governor's Cup for the best overall wine. There were too many silver and bronze medals to even count the winners.

Time was when the judges tasted and scored the wines. The top wine in its class earned gold, the next two got silver and bronze, respectively. But when the competition became a marketing arm for winery sales, things changed. Each wine is judged on a point scale, and wines earning a set number of points got medals. I don't know what the various goals were, but looking at the number of winners, the bar isn't set very high.

There now are close to 100 wineries in the state, and the politically oriented Wine and Grape Board seems more interested in improving cash flow than wine quality. I'm certain that a number of winery people will be offended, but I think awarding so many medals just cheapens their value. It's like social promotion in schools, fine for the family, not worth much in terms of real learning.

Stone Hill's 2009 Sweet Vignoles won the Governor's Cup and best in the Sweet White class, and the Hermann winery won the other two white wine categories with dry and semi-dry also earning best-in-class honors for two other versions of the 2009 Vignoles (Dry and Semi-Dry Vignoles. Other best-in-class winners for Stone Hill were dry red, 2008 Cross J Vineyard Norton; semi-dry red, 2009 Steinberg red; late harvest/ice, 2008 late harvest Vignoles; dessert/fortified, 2006 Port.

Other best-in-class champions were: fruit wine, Pirtle Winery, blackberry mead; sweet red, Mellow Red; sparkling wine, Les Bourgeois Brut; blush, Chaumette Vineyards & Winery, 2009 Spring Rose. Runners-up as gold-medal winners were: Montelle, 4; Les Bourgeois, Chaumette, Adam Puchta, Pirtle, 3 each; Mount Pleasant, 2; Inland Sea, Jowler Creek, Native Home, Peaceful Bend, St. James, Stonehaus, Twin Oaks, 1 each.

-Joe

Crumbs From the Table of Joy

One of the problems with being a young playwright is a determination to gather everything you want to say into the play you're writing. The result may be entertaining, but it also brings extra length, too many words (thank you, Peter Shaffer), some artificiality in setting up straw men and knocking them down and the use of familiar devices.

And so it is with "Crumbs From the Table of Joy," by Lynn Nottage, which opened last night at Fontbonne as a production of the Mustard Seed Theatre, to run through Sept. 12.

Alexis White charms as Ernestine Crump, a high school senior, but seeing her blighted Brooklyn life through a series of scenes from Joan Crawford movies is too old a tactic and one which runs out of gas too quickly. Ernestine is new to Brooklyn in 1950, moving from Florida with her father, Godfrey (Chauncy Thomas) and two-years younger sister, Ermina (Tyler White), after the death of their wife and mother. Godfrey works nights as a baker, has become a controlling, heavy-handed father who spends a lot of time writing notes to himself.

He recently has fallen under the sway of Father Devine, a right-wing, rabble-rousing, haranguing preacher whose radio shows carried a lot of influence in the days before and during World War II, rather like Rush Limbaugh in a clerical collar. He insisted that his followers live pure and clean lives, but his failure to practice as he preached caused his downfall.

Things are slightly dysfunctional, but then Lily (Patrese McClain) shows up and all bets are immediately off. Hugged by clothes a size or two too small which emphasize her curves and her sexuality, she arrives carrying four suitcases, predicting just how much baggage she is bringing. She's the sister of Godfrey's late wife, but she's also a bad bump on the road to understanding. She drinks and smokes, goes to Harlem in search of men, speaks out as an independent woman and, at the same time, claims to be a Communist revolutionary ready to take to the barricades. McClain is excellent in the difficult and not very well written part, because in addition to all the other conflicts, there's underlying tension between Lily and Godfrey that obviously goes back a long time.

Nottage, who won a Pulitzer Prize a year ago for "Ruined," and whose "Intimate Apparel" was performed here a few years ago, has grown a lot since "Crumbs," first produced in 1995 and written before she was 30, like dragging poor Gerte into the action like a dog drenched in a rainstorm. Too much coincidence, and a poor sound design made what was supposed to be a subway sound more like a freight elevator. Jill Ritter Lindbergh works diligently, but the character demands too large a leap over a chasm of unbelievability.

"Crumbs" shows sparks, and Linda Kennedy directs intelligently. The acting is good, and Tyler White is delightful as an adolescent, all elbows and knees. Tyler and Alexis are real sisters and they are always a joy. Thomas works hard to give Godfrey some reality, and often succeeds.

Crumbs From the Table of Joy, by Lynn Nottage, produced by the Mustard Seed Theatre Company at Fontbonne University through Sept. 12

--Joe

Crumbs From the Table of Joy

One of the problems with being a young playwright is a determination to gather everything you want to say into the play you're writing. The result may be entertaining, but it also brings extra length, too many words (thank you, Peter Shaffer), some artificiality in setting up straw men and knocking them down and the use of familiar devices.

And so it is with "Crumbs From the Table of Joy," by Lynn Nottage, which opened last night at Fontbonne as a production of the Mustard Seed Theatre, to run through Sept. 12.

Alexis White charms as Ernestine Crump, a high school senior, but seeing her blighted Brooklyn life through a series of scenes from Joan Crawford movies is too old a tactic and one which runs out of gas too quickly. Ernestine is new to Brooklyn in 1950, moving from Florida with her father, Godfrey (Chauncy Thomas) and two-years younger sister, Ermina (Tyler White), after the death of their wife and mother. Godfrey works nights as a baker, has become a controlling, heavy-handed father who spends a lot of time writing notes to himself.

He recently has fallen under the sway of Father Devine, a right-wing, rabble-rousing, haranguing preacher whose radio shows carried a lot of influence in the days before and during World War II, rather like Rush Limbaugh in a clerical collar. He insisted that his followers live pure and clean lives, but his failure to practice as he preached caused his downfall.

Things are slightly dysfunctional, but then Lily (Patrese McClain) shows up and all bets are immediately off. Hugged by clothes a size or two too small which emphasize her curves and her sexuality, she arrives carrying four suitcases, predicting just how much baggage she is bringing. She's the sister of Godfrey's late wife, but she's also a bad bump on the road to understanding. She drinks and smokes, goes to Harlem in search of men, speaks out as an independent woman and, at the same time, claims to be a Communist revolutionary ready to take to the barricades. McClain is excellent in the difficult and not very well written part, because in addition to all the other conflicts, there's underlying tension between Lily and Godfrey that obviously goes back a long time.

Nottage, who won a Pulitzer Prize a year ago for "Ruined," and whose "Intimate Apparel" was performed here a few years ago, has grown a lot since "Crumbs," first produced in 1995 and written before she was 30, like dragging poor Gerte into the action like a dog drenched in a rainstorm. Too much coincidence, and a poor sound design made what was supposed to be a subway sound more like a freight elevator. Jill Ritter Lindbergh works diligently, but the character demands too large a leap over a chasm of unbelievability.

"Crumbs" shows sparks, and Linda Kennedy directs intelligently. The acting is good, and Tyler White is delightful as an adolescent, all elbows and knees. Tyler and Alexis are real sisters and they are always a joy. Thomas works hard to give Godfrey some reality, and often succeeds.

Crumbs From the Table of Joy, by Lynn Nottage, produced by the Mustard Seed Theatre Company at Fontbonne University through Sept. 12

--Joe

Life During Wartime

"Life During Wartime," writer-director Todd Solondz's fascinating new movie, opens today and expands the James Thurber-E. B. White fables about the Everlasting War Between the Sexes to the War Between, Among, About and Throughout the Sexes. In some respects, it is a loose sequel to his 1998 film, "Happiness," but it certainly works as a character-driven story of its own. Part comedy, part tragedy, part history, part satire, part deeply questioning, it leaves one mulling over a brilliant curtain line.

The cast of solid performers is led by Joy (Shirley Henderson, who was Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter movies), a mousy young woman who seems antithetical to her name, and her two elder sisters, Helen (Ally Sheedy) and Trish (Allison Janney, who seems to be in everything this year).

Helen has left the family behind to become a successful Hollywood screenwriter. Trish, whose former husband is a jailed pedophile, moved from New Jersey to a Florida that is painfully bright. Her older son, Billy (Chris Marquette) is in college; the younger, Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder, his face holding a Guinness-sized crop of freckles), is preparing for his Bar Mitzvah; and the daughter, Chloe (Emma Hinz), takes karaoke lessons and shows her skill to visitors. Joy was married to a man with sexual problems, but she's so lost she will never find her way home, no matter how many crumbs she leaves along the way.

There are men, too, with problems that make the women appear to epitomize normalcy. Several, like Paul Reubens and Michael Kenneth Williams, appear as ghosts. Michael Lerner is Harvey, who is courting Trish. He's a Jewish Republican who supports Bush and McCain because they support Israel, and has a son (Rich Pecci) who redefines the word "dork". Ciarin Hinds, as Trish's former husband, is released on parole and wanders into a one-night stand with Charlotte Rampling, a perfect example of a cougar.

Solondz has created a large number of unhappy people who are familiar to all of us. Only occasionally do they slide into caricature. Sometimes they are very funny as they seek some sort of happiness, but it breaks when they touch it.

Timmy, caught in that oh-so-painful area between childhood and adulthood (or is it adultery?), tries to get some answers, but neither Janney nor Lerner are able to provide ones that they can understand, so there is no way that a 12-year-old boy can, which leaves him saying to Lerner, "I don't care about freedom and democracy. I just want my father."

Love During Wartime opens today at the Tivoli

-Joe

Cairo Time

People who like to drive in heavy traffic, or walk in busy cities as cars swarm by, will have some fun at "Cairo Time," which opens here today. So will viewers who feel a tingle of romance or desire when they think of Cairo, or the Pyramids, or the Nile.

Toronto-based Ruba Nedda wrote and directed this love poem to a city and a feeling, and the views of Cairo and the surrounding countryside are spectacular. But the story of an American woman (Patricia Clarkson) who flies to Egypt to meet her husband, on assignment in Gaza for his employer, the United Nations, is so slow as to be practically non-existent.

Juliette (Clarkson), on her first visit to Cairo, is met at the airport by Tareq (Alexander Siddig), her husband's assistant. Hubby has been delayed and no one knows how long he will be remaining in Gaza. Women don't go wandering on their own in this teeming city of 18 million people, and Tareq offers to be a guide. He does an excellent job, aided by Luc Montpellier, the director of photography, whose camera work, suffused in golden tones, makes the beautiful, mysterious city look even more beautiful and mysterious.

Clarkson, a fine actress, shows the frustration of being alone without pandering to a feeling like loneliness; after all, she's a diplomat"s wife (maybe a spy's wife) and accustomed to changing plans on a moment's notice. In a nice touch that shows exactly what Juliette is like, she won't accompany Tareq to the Pyramids because she has promised to make her first visit to them with her husband. Nedda directs with a lovely touch, obviously enjoying Cairo as much as her audience will, and she lets pedestrians provide some humor in a film that desperately needs more dramatic tension than can be provided by someone jaywalking.

"Cairo Time" opens today at the Plaza Frontenac

-Joe

Cleanflix

 

It's tough to battle the Establishment, whether your cause is good, bad or somewhere in the middle, and Hollywood sure showed those Mormons in "Cleanflix," a documentary about movie content in Utah which headlines the Webster University Film Series today through Sunday. There are gray philosophical, political, moral and legal areas everywhere in the film, written and directed by Andrew James and Joshua Ligari, and while it seems that the filmmakers have law on their side, one can argue a lot.

Everything began when Ray Lines, a Mormon from Utah, learned to edit DVDs and began sanitizing the movies he was renting and selling from his shop. Since R-rated films are anathema to Mormons, Lines saw himself with a chance to do good and do well at the same time. He began re-editing completed films, deleting all the sex and extreme violence and bad language that had brought the rating. Some of the films may have been only 20 minutes long when he finished, but they were properly cleansed for Mormon eyes and ears. Business boomed at his little shop.

Of course he was violating copyright laws but that didn't matter--not to him, anyway. But it did matter to writers and directors and producers and HOLLYWOOD, as the giant sign in L.A. says, and the Establishment went after Lines and the Cleanfix president, Allan Erb. Daniel Thompson, a shop owner who loved being in the center of the controversy, spoke early, often and loudly to television cameras, and Robert Perry, a burly biker who owned a store (or a franchise, the movie never is clear on that point), also became a media favorite.

Neil LaBute, better known as a writer, and director Steven Soderbergh spoke for the writers and filmmakers, who secured an injunction that the censors ignored. A majority of Utahns agreed with them.

As a writer, I was immediately on the side of the writers, but the Cleanflix supporters suggested a compromise. They would accept the slightly bowdlerized versions of movies that are shown on airlines. Hollywood refused. Why, I wondered. Of course, the number of films shown on flights is minuscule compared to the overall production, which would have opened the argument about censorship once again. But I like arguments.

I liked "Cleanflix," too.

Cleanflix opens today at the Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster University campus and will be repeated tomorrow and Sunday, starting at 7:30 p.m.

-Joe

Mojo Tapas Restaurant and Bar

It's not the same old/same old for South Grand. Mojo Tapas Restaurant and Bar offers some serious contemporary cooking delivered mostly tapas-style in the midst of the neighborhood's ethnic restaurants. The space that formerly held Erato has been re-thought and re-painted, and chef-owner Eric Erhard brings the new to the kitchen, too. And wonder of wonders, the kitchen is open until 11 p.m. What a good neighborhood in which to do that. On a quiet weeknight, we saw folks arriving for food at almost 10 o'clock. Certainly a sign of civilization!

The menu ambles through soup and salads, spends a great deal of time on tapas, and, for those determined to eat 'Murrican Style, offers three sandwiches and two entrees. We skipped the latter items; if a menu is that focused on something, the house must believe in its ability, and our general philosophy is to allow a restaurant to give us its best shot.

And so a cup of cool, coarsely ground yellow-tomato gazpacho arrived, nicely tart, a little spicy, perfect for this weather. It was followed closely by more; the night was quiet and the kitchen was working quickly. Since we'd ordered several things, they all arrived more or less at once. That's not a complaint. In traditional restaurants, we like courses to arrive in order, but we're fine with small-plates restaurants sending things out as they're ready. Mussels seasoned with cider, fennel and bacon, were excellent, the fennel and bacon working together for a new and very pleasant combination. Pork empanadas, deep-fried rather than baked, were filled with succulent roast pork, and a little note of cumin, surrounded by an orange sauce with notes of oregano and garlic, a good contrast.

Brandade, or fish cakes made of salt cod and mashed potatoes, always are much milder than they sound, and were pretty much an excuse to eat lots of the orange-chive tartar sauce. They were smooth and not unpleasant, but not as emphatically seasoned as much of what came across the table. On the other hand, the lamb sliders were stunning. Hot and fresh and juicy, they arrived wearing a little pepper jack cheese and some apricot mustard, the sweet-hot contrasting beautifully with the meat. The lamb-reluctant might be persuaded by one of these babes.

The menu features what it calls Mojo on a Stick (and “mojo,” by the way, is pronounced moe-joe); from that list, a shrimp skewer proved to be another remarkable dish. Two skewers, a half-dozen shrimp, tail on, had been perfectly grilled with a note of char, the flesh just cooked through and not a second longer. The sauce dribbled over them and the rice below was coconut and lime, with a faint aura of Thai curry, a killer sauce worth eating with a spoon. A plate of delicious sausage offered Italian, strongly laced with fennel; andouille, red and spicy; and chorizo. This was the Spanish-style chorizo, not the coarse-ground Mexican style, and it was especially excellent. We seldom find that one on a local menu, and we particularly appreciate it. That small dish over on the side? A house-made pineapple chutney, a great contrast to all that spicy pork.

Andouille reappeared in what's termed a side dish, a hash of andouille and sweet potatoes, a nice contrast of taste and textures, all tied together with plenty of onion. (We can see this on a brunch plate with a couple of eggs.)

There's a fruit crisp du jour on the dessert menu, and we hit on mango-strawberry night. Don't expect fruit with a brown sugar-butter-maybe-oatmeal-or-nuts topping. The closest approximation is what some kitchens call a cobbler, a sort of cake batter with lots and lots of fruit, served hot, with some of the brown sugar mixture on top. Having said all that, it was very tasty, a lot more mango than strawberry (did you know this was mango season? It is, and pineapple, too).

Great service, as well, from a guy who knew the menu well and explained it with style and grace while juggling lots of tables, both inside and out. In addition, this is a bar that makes cocktails with oomph; we tried a margarita and a caipirinha and both arrived in properly serious mode.

Mojo Tapas Restaurant and Bar

3117 S. Grand Blvd.

314-865-0500

http://www.mojorestaurantstl.com

Lunch Mon.-Fri, Dinner Mon.-Sat

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Tapas, etc.:$4-$10

New York Week 2010, Part 2

  A bargain in midtown Manhattan? Astonishing but true, and pretty darn tasty as well. (Cheap is easy; cheap and good is hard.) Le Relais de Venise is one of six restaurants, the original in Paris, two in London, one each in Barcelona, Bahrain and now on Lexington Avenue at 52nd Street. The premise and the menu are very simple. One meal is served for a fixed price. Drinks, dessert and cheese are extra. But for $24, a diner receives a green salad, slices of an entrecote steak with sauce, and fries.

Yes, $24. For the same price, vegetarians miss the steak but receive dessert and a choice of cheeses. And for the steak and fries, or, more properly, frites, there are seconds if desired. Yes, seconds. In Manhattan. Perhaps we should have warned you to read this sitting down.

The room itself is more open than the usual French restaurant in New York, brasserie rather than bistro, with waitresses in black who know their business and move like they're shot out of a circus cannon. Sam Sifton in the New York Times advised that if you're interested in a leisurely meal, order a drink or wine before you order your food, and that's what we inadvertently did with our New Yorker pal who'd been there before and put her stamp of approval on the evening. The crowd was almost entirely locals, including a table of big guys who clearly knew the drill and politely didn't clean out the kitchen before leaving.

The salad is more than pleasant, a creamy vinaigrette on good greens, tossed before arrival, but not much before, leaving the salad glowing and unwilted. The walnuts add a little crunch and their own mild flavor.

But what about the beef? That's what everyone wants to know. First of all, it's American beef; those who have been exposed to French beef will smile. The meat arrives sliced and with a mysterious sauce whose ingredients have been the subject of much conjecture. Mustard, for sure, almost certainly some butter and shallots; probably some tarragon. Beyond that we will not go. It's not prime beef, not at these prices, but it's a far cry from the old Tad's Steaks in Times Square where inexpensive beef was definitely beef, but full of gristle and fat. Lots of excellent flavor, and as tender as can reasonably be expected. An entrecote, technically speaking, is usually a boneless, trimmed version of a rib steak. And the frites? Oh, my. Killer frites, crisp and hot and really excellent, hard to resist an overdose.

For those who have inspected the dessert cart while waited to be seated, self-control will be easier. Some classic French choices, like crème brulee, Mont-Blanc and vacherin, plus several ice cream choices and a couple of cakes. Also profiteroles, which we cannot resist, and these were classic, fresh and crisp outside, with a good chocolate sauce drizzled over the pastry and its ice cream filling.

For a New Yorker used to walking in the city, this is walking distance to the Theater District. For the rest of us, if a curtain is looming, hail a cab. Eating early may be an advantage; the restaurant doesn't take reservations, but on a summer Saturday night, we walked directly to a table.

No romantic walks along the Seine afterward, but you can't have everything.

Le Relais de Venise

590 Lexington Avenue, New York

212-758-3989

www.relaisdevenise.com

Lunch & Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Entrees: $24

 

New York Week, 2010, Part 1

Great N.Y. Noodle Town is practically a dive. When we say it's steamy, we're talking about what happens when the kitchen door opens, not as a seduction site. It's on the famed New York Bowery, in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, brightly lit, jammed with tables one shares with goodness knows who (but it could be a James Beard award winner on a night off) and generally the sort of place that hasn't changed much since, oh, the Truman administration. That includes the lack of a credit card machine, so take cash.

Not that you'll need much. Even with the high-ticket items, this is an inexpensive restaurant, especially for New York, even for St. Louis, more so when prices include tax. Service is appropriately frantic when things are busy, and English is the second language for every employee we came across, but many of them are pretty proficient at dealing with customers. Or else they call someone more proficient than they. More experienced diners sometimes chip in with advice.

It's a huge menu, too, plus specials on a chalk board, and enough variety for the most conservative or most experimental visitor. Shrimp, fish, vegetable and pork dumplings, Singapore noodles, Cantonese noodles, salt-baked frog, dozens of vegetarian dishes and, for those seeking a familiar name, General Tso dropped by and left a message on the chicken.

Not surprisingly, this is a place with roast ducks and strips of barbecued pork hanging in the window, a clue about what to order. And sure enough, our plate of roast pork over rice was excellent, with what looks like soy sauce but actually is laced with ginger, available to kick things up a little. We had hoped for the suckling pig, a dish that's much lauded, but the last plate of it was snatched up a few minutes before we ordered. That had been preceded by an order of duck rolls, crisp and greaseless, with a filling that was most remarkable for what wasn't inside. Practically no cabbage and celery but greens, shredded and cooked with dabs of more duck, an excellent version.

And then there were the soft-shelled crabs. The exemplary soft-shelled crabs. An order of three, deep-fried in a batter that was so light as to hardly be there, moist enough that they had to be eaten leaning over the table, was so good we flagged down our speeding waiter to order another round. A few green onions sprinkled over as garnish but other than that, the dish was utterly pristine in its simplicity.

Great people-watching while you eat, a cross-section of eager eaters, many of whom are willing to share their knowledge of the menu, and lots of them do swear by the noodles here. But until we can drop by every couple of weeks, we'll go for the crabs and pork, and maybe the duck. Open until 4 a.m., and we can imagine what the crowd is like at that hour.

Great N.Y. Noodletown

28 1/2 Bowery, New York

212-349-0923

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner daily (open until 4 a.m.)

Credit cards: No

Wheelchair access: No

Smoking: No

Entrees: $6-$16

The Village Bar

We reviewed The Village Bar for St. Louis Magazine online. You can read it here.

Southern Connecticut Week, Part 4

Friday night dinner at a lobster spot in New England, we thought, would be good for food and for people-watching. And we were right on both counts, once we found Captain Scott's Lobster Dock. At the end of a dead-end street on an arm of land with a marina on one side and the Amtrak line on the other (with wistful passengers probably watching us eat), it's a place no one finds by accident. Large family groups, a few celebrations, the occasional BYO bottle of wine, even one table with its own BYO tablecloth, and even at 5:30 p.m., a line waiting to order, all made us happily patient.

We couldn't resist the chance for more clam bellies, those fried clams that are so much more tender and full of clammy flavor than the strips. And here was a chance to try clam fritters, too. The bellies were great, hot and perfectly greaseless. The fritters? Well, New England just loves fried dough. There's a reason why this part of the country is so serious about doughnuts. And while the fritters were competently done, they just don't have the clam oomph that the bellies do. We're sure they're great with some cold beer and a Red Sox game, but as an appetizer, not for us.

Lobster dinners, please. That's what it's all about. Crack your own, suck the meat out of the little legs, dip into the melted butter, try to get the succulent, tender claw meat out in one piece, attack the knuckles to get every last bit, don't forget the tomalley, get messy because its worth the trouble. Corn on the cob? Steamer potatoes? Just a polite gesture in the direction of a balanced diet.

Little packets of hand wipes are a nice gesture, but plastic bibs are a necessity. Ocean breezes can drive dribbles of butter off-course, no matter how far a diner leans over the plate. After washing up and depositing trash in its bin, trays and lobster crackers in the right spot, we dropped by Captain Scott's fish market in the same building. Both of them are only open in season. And that's another reason places like this are so popular. A year's worth of building an appetite has to be satiated in only six months.

We're glad we were there at the right time.

 

Captain Scott's Lobster Dock

80 Hamilton Street, New London, CT

860-439-1741

www.captscotts.com

Lunch and dinner daily in season (roughly May-Oct.)

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Fair

Smoking: No

Entrees and sandwiches: $5-"market price”

 

Southern Connecticut Week, Part 3

Lobster in the rough—or as it's pronounced in situ lobsta—is an old New England habit. The phrase might evoke some cobbled-together approach to the crustacean, but actually it refers to eating outdoors. Lobster shacks, which frequently aren't (quite) shacks, can be found along the Atlantic Coast from Connecticut all the way up into Maine. Maybe it's the result of those legendary New England winters, but they've remained a staple of local dining for decades. Shore dinners, shellfish with the traditional sides, are the focus, with lobster rolls and chowder--or chowda--for lighter appetites.

And a lighter, lunchtime appetite was what we were carrying when we visited Abbott's Lobster in the Rough, one of the best-known of Connecticut's crop. Check their website for driving directions; unlike Maine, where it's easy to get to the shore, this part of New England is so built up, it's much trickier to find such destinations. But they are indeed right on the water, with picnic tables both open and covered, a dock and a view. The standard drill is to order at the window, take your drinks, find a table and wait to be called, sometimes by name, usually by number.

Big kudos to the clam chowder. For those who think it comes only in red (Manhattan) or white (New England) styles, it would be a surprise to see Abbott's, which is neither. Sometimes referred to as Rhode Island style, it's clear, and studded with potatoes and clams, the broth deeply flavorful, with the essence of ocean in every sip. Oyster crackers come alongside, but save them to feed the fish from the dock. (See Abbott's sign.) Some lovely, juicy clams on the half-shell were succulent.

 
 

On the other hand, the lobster roll was a disappointment. Served on a hamburger bun, it did have a carefully measured-out mound of lobster meat, but it lacked butter or mayonnaise, the key to two common variations. We ditched the top half of the roll and used a fork; it wasn't until we got toward the actual bottom that we found the savory lobster juices had migrated there, soaking the bun to the point of disintegration had we tried to pick it up. A crab roll, done in the same style, had far more flavor.

Pleasant setting, great chowder, but not so much on the rolls. Abbott's only serves steamed seafood. For those who go for the fried, a sibling restaurant is just down the road. It's called Costello's.

Abbott's Lobster in the Rough

117 Pearl St., Noank CT

860-536-7719

Lunch & Dinner but only in the warmer months (call first)

www.abbotts-lobster.com

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Fair

Smoking: No

Entrees and sandwiches: $6-”market price”

 

Get Low

Robert Duvall has been making movies--a solid majority of good ones, a large handful of great ones--since the dawn of history, or so it seems. He won an Oscar in 1983 for "Tender Mercies," and may have a good shot at another for "Get Low," his latest, which opens today and again displays him as an outsider in a closed society, like Boo Radley or Mac Sledge, or even Tom Hagen.

This time he's Felix Bush, and in a year with the arrival of "back-country chic" as defined by "Winter's Bone," we're in Tennessee and Bush is a bearded recluse who barely speaks, greets visitors with a loaded gun and travels to town in a wagon. Of course there's a great tragedy in his background.

The screenplay, by Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell, is based on a kernel of truth, a Tennessee man who held a funeral party for himself while he was still alive. First-time director Aaron Schneider does excellent work with the material and has surrounded Duvall with a fine supporting cast including Bill Murray as a sleazy funeral director; Sissy Spacek, 30 years since playing Loretta Lynn but properly mature and aging gracefully; Lucas Black as Murray's assistant and salesman; and Bill Cobbs as a pastor and apparently the only man Duvall trusts.

All are excellent.

Duvall, as stubborn as he is ornery, knows that he has no friends in town, also knows that parents use him as a terrible threat to frighten their children. But he is so tightly wrapped in the bonds of his own past he can do nothing until he is shocked into the present with a report that he is ill and has only a limited time to live. Tempted by something he read, he decides on a party while he is alive and tells the local undertaker (Murray) to arrange it. Felix insists on inviting the whole town and taking newspaper ads to bring others. The admission price will be to stand up and tell a story about Felix Bush.

And then Mattie shows up, back from California after being widowed. This shocks Felix even more, because he loved Mattie's sister, maybe a half-century earlier. Watching the splendid performances of Duvall, Spacek and Murray wraps the viewer into the story, and it is a fascinating tale.

Opens today at the Plaza Frontenac

-Joe

Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel

When we discuss people who made a difference -- technical, scientific, social -- in the fabric of America in the 20th century, it's hard to avoid Hugh Hefner, and a new documentary, "Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel," opening today, is an interesting, if totally favorable, look at the man who put sex front and center on every newsstand in the nation.

Brigitte Berman directs a lengthy compilation of film clips, from Russell Simmons to Ruth Westheimer to William Buckley to Mike Wallace to Susan Brownmiller to Joan Baez to Jim Brown to Pete Seeger to Sammy Davis, Jr. There are many others, too, most lauding Hefner for his defense of liberty, liberal spirit, democratic attitude and leadership in the fight for racial equality.

There are a lot of Playboy bunnies in various stages of dress and undress, too, though Hefner never takes his clothes off, and some fine interior shots of the Chicago mansion and its pool. Is it pool-dropping to note that I attended a splendid post-football game party there one night?

Hefner, now 84, gained fame and fortune by convincing, or hiring, women to take their clothes off in front of a camera, but very few of them are interviewed at any length, and no one discusses what Hefner does--or how well he does it--in bed. There is, however, one marvelous tale involving a young author who was unable to sell a science-fiction novel to a publisher and finally accepted $400 from Hefner, who ran it in issues two, three and four back in the 1950s. The writer? Ray Bradbury. The story, "Farenheit 451," a classic in the field, a tale of book burning with a brilliantly ironic title, the temperature at which paper burns.

Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel, opens today at the Tivoli

--Joe

O! Wings Plus

Wing shops are practically a dime a dozen these days, and the large majority of them are chains. We do have a taste for good wings, however, so when we found a new, small, family-owned spot, it beckoned.

Located in a strip of shops on Page Boulevard between Woodson and Ashby Roads, O! Wing Plus is sparkling inside, and offers a menu that goes quite a ways beyond the expected, another thing that sparked our curiosity.

Not only are the wings large, fresh and crunchy, there are eight flavors of sauce from which to choose. In descending order of heat, they are Beast Mode, Hot Mama!, Thai Chili-Lime, O's Original, Buffalo, Honey Mustard, Garlic Parmesan, O's Teriyaki and Bee-Bee Q. All that we tasted carried a hit of sweetness, sometimes gentle, sometimes strong.

Despite the fact that we generally prefer them un-battered, these crispy critters are winners in our book. The batter is light, crisp, totally un-greasy and a perfect complement for the juicy, meaty chicken. The beast mode is indeed fiercely hot, and the Thai chili-lime the classic Thai trio of hot-sweet-salty, but far less inflammatory unless you nibble from the fresh jalapeno rings that serve as a garnish. Teriyaki is pleasant and familiar.

Beyond the wings and some pot-stickers that were pleasantly light but without great flavor, we dabbled in fried chicken and wraps. Because the Song family is Korean, we had hoped for Korean fried chicken, the double-fried variety that's creating such a commotion on both coasts. Nope. But it's good fried chicken, with a light, crisp batter and cooked to order so that it is moist and flavorful, and well-worth the wait. We preferred the potato salad, a mayo-sauced version with potatoes that hadn't cooked to mush, to the coleslaw, which was nice but unremarkable. What we really loved was the macaroni and cheese. Yes, the macaroni is vastly overcooked by contemporary standards, but the sauce is creamy and extremely cheesy, comfort food that stood up to what Mom dished out from her cast-iron skillet on winter nights. And, oh, yes, the fried rice, far less greasy and lighter than what's usually dished out in storefronts.

The wraps are large and surprisingly tidy, the romaine shredded nicely and the wrap tight rather than sloppy. Of the beef options, we preferred the short ribs to the bulgoki. While the bulgoki was tender, its characteristic seasoning got lost in the trimmings. The short ribs, on the other hand, were a little beefier, the meat pieces a little thicker and displaying more flavor. We also ended up with a chicken wrap, strips of fried boneless white meat with some teriyaki sauce. It was good, but not as good as the short ribs.

Our sole negative on O! Wings Plus is that our orders have been incorrect on each visit. The staff has been extremely gracious about correcting things, but we'd advise checking carryout before you leave. Otherwise, it's a neat little spot with some delicious things to munch on.

O! Wings Plus

10094 Page Blvd., Overland

314-395-0180

www.owingsplus.com  

Lunch & Dinner Mon.-Sat.

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Yes

Smoking: No

Entrees: $6-$9

Southern Connecticut Week, Part 2

Years ago, when the completed Zagat questionnaires came in to us, those who wrote about Zinnia always included plenty of comments like “PURPLE!” because of the color of the fine little Webster Groves restaurant. Kitchen Little, in the seaside town of Mystic, CT, might not warrant the exclamation mark or even the capital letters, but it's definitely blue. You can't miss it as you drive into town on Highway 27 from I-95, on the side toward the water, the bright blue with white trim just the thing to begin to exhibit its cheerfulness.

Very popular and very tiny, meaning that during tourist season, you may be met at the door with a description of what tables are available and how long the wait may be. There's a covered area overlooking the water behind the building, with picnic tables and waitress service, to complement the interior, which may hold all of 30 people. Definitely a cozy spot.

While it doesn't take a large kitchen to produce a good hollandaise, we were still pretty blown away by what comes out of a room the size of a walk-in closet. On the Portuguese Benedict, an assertively seasoned hollandaise was ladled over two poached eggs that rode on slices of chourico, the Portuguese sausage that's so popular in this part of New England, and toasted English muffins. An excellent dish for those able to handle heat in the morning; we'd love to be able to get it locally.

Another signature dish for Kitchen Little is The Mystic Melt. Lump crabmeat is scrambled with cream cheese and served with raisin toast, the flavor gentle and charming, The scramble wasn't overcooked, a shortcoming one finds too often at diner-type spots. But here it was just another plus from this thoughtfully enthusiastic kitchen.

Good coffee, plenty of regulars, zippy servers. Technically, they don't serve lunch on Saturday or Sunday, but breakfast is available through the usual lunch hours.

Go, Blue!

Kitchen Little

135 Greenmanville Rd.. (Rt. 27), Mystic, CT

860-536-2122

www.kitchenlittle.org

Breakfast & Lunch daily, but see above

Entrees: $4-$14

Credit cards: No

Wheelchair access: Poor

Smoking: No

 

This Week's Wine, August 17, 2010

 Many millennia ago, as the Great Glacier receded through what is now upstate New York, its passage left a number of long, narrow lakes pointing north and south in the area between the cities today called Albany and Buffalo.

Named by Indians or by 17th- and 18th-century frontiersmen mimicking them, we have Canandaigua, Cayuga, Conesus, Heneoye, Keuka, Otisco, Owasco, Seneca and Skaneateles, plus a few smaller ones. Their general shape gives the region the name of the Finger Lakes. It encompasses 14 counties, the remains of the Erie Canal, beaches on Lake Ontario, more than 100 wineries, a handful of breweries and distilleries, 115 museums, 160 golf courses and 14 professional theater companies.

While the Finger Lakes region has been a popular vacation spot for New Yorkers and other Easterners for many years, it often seems that non-New Yorkers don't know it and, as the opening scene in "The Music Man" points out, "You gotta know the territory!"

It isn't all rural, either, with cities like Syracuse, Rochester, Ithaca and others offering their own attractions. Cooperstown, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, also is in the region.

I hadn't been in the area for many years, and on the way home from a drive through Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachussetts, we decided to come home via the New York Thruway, the Mohawk River Valley and the Finger Lakes. And the New York wine country.

Canandaigua, Cayuga, Keuka and Seneca are the main wine lakes, and a drive along the latter (the deepest and largest, about 38 miles from end to end) showed vineyard-heavy land rolling down to bright blue water, and many wineries, all with tasting rooms. The area obviously is heavily trafficked on weekends, and tasting rooms displayed welcoming signs. On a whim and a thirst, we dropped in on Anthony Road, on the west side of the lake about a third of the way from Geneva (where the Geneva Double Curtain trellis system was devised), at the north end of the lake to Watkins Glen (where they do a lot of car racing) at the south.

The wines?

Well, there were a lot of them, with the same vinifera and hybrid grapes grown throughout the region, and throughout the world for that matter. A climate that is more temperate in the winter, without the abrupt fluctuation we find in Missouri, allows for more production of vinifera grapes, like Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc and Gewurztraminer, and some of the more popular hybrids, like Vignoles, also popular.

We sampled a large handful, with our favorite a 2008 Gewurztraminer, which had nice lychee notes and a pleasing tingle on the tongue. A Cabernet Franc rose, pale in color, dry and with attractive fruit, also earned favor. A Pinot Gris was crisp, and a Vignoles, slightly on the sweet side, would have been nice with fruit for dessert and the pinot noir displayed cherry overtones that were excellent. A proprietary red, called Devonian, was rich and tasty, blended from Cabernet Franc (60 percent), Pinot Noir (36) and Lemberger (4), and a Lemberger (55)-Cabernet Franc (45) blend from 2007 showed promise, but needs more time in the bottle to soften the tannins.

All in all, nicely made wines with clean, orderly manners and nice flavor, helped by a gorgeous view down to the lake.

-Joe

Southern Connecticut Week, Part 1

New London, CT, is the home of the Coast Guard Academy. It's an old city, relatively quiet, where we recently spent some time at the annual meeting of the American Theatre Critics Association. New London was the home of Eugene O'Neill, and the O'Neill Theatre Center was the host. The city, while not a major tourist center, is near some interesting places, and holds its own set of targets for chowhounds.

All over New England, breakfast and lunch are considered important meals with real focus by restaurants. The result is some interesting little spots, some of which are well-known in the community while others perking along very quietly, just turning out good food that's not mass-produced.

And that's Kamp Dog, whose slogan explains that it's “A Fine New England Weinery”. Open only for breakfast and lunch, with breakfast served all day, it's deeply casual with one big sunny table in the window and a long counter in the middle of the room. Four husky policemen from the adjoining town of Waterford were eating happily, and provided all the protection we needed.

Breakfast is protein on a roll, in a wrap, or on an English muffin, or monster omelets with as many fillings as you like. But we were there for lunch, aiming at the weinery.

Hot dogs are split and grilled, adding some extra texture. The house specialty is, natch, the Kamp Dog, which utilizes something called dynamite sauce, along with cheese and onions. Dynamite sauce turned out to be a red meat sauce, sweet and spicy-hot, an absolute winner. It's available on other dishes, as well, like a chicken sandwich. But the dog is the perfect vehicle for the sauce, turning it into a don't-miss item. And so are the french fries, hand cut and worthy of a much fancier restaurant, crisp and cooked to order by owner Ken Hochstetler. We also tried a fine chili dog, and were wistful that we couldn't come back for breakfast.

Notice in the photo the bun, which is also sometimes used for clam rolls. The cut sides allow it to be grilled, a nice toasty touch.

About a mile off I-95, and far better than any drive-through.

Kamp Dog

15 Broad St., New London, CT

860-443-3000

www.kampdog.com 

Breakfast & Lunch Mon.-Sat.

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Yes

Smoking: No

Sandwiches: $1 (yes!)-$7

Gumbo Shop

We reviewed The Gumbo Shop in Rock Hill for St. Louis Magazine's online edition. You can read it here. 

Martha's Vineyard, Part 3

Built in 1891, the Harbor View Hotel sits, of course, above Edgartown's harbor. From the broad covered porch, tall, cool drink in hand, a visitor can see yachts arriving, the blinking of the lighthouse, and a surprisingly short distance across the water, the woods of Chappaquiddick Island. On a summer evening just before dusk, many were taking advantage of the chairs and the view, conversations bubbled, and as we climbed the steps, we faced a golden Lab enjoying the view, a ball in his mouth. Suddenly a much smaller dog raced up, grabbed the ball from the Lab and zipped away. The Lab scarcely batted an eye, and almost seemed to shrug. That's how calm things are at the Harbor View.

The hotel's Water Street restaurant, one of Martha's Vineyard's finest places to dine, boasts large windows on both sides of its corner location. It's calm, lovely and roomy, with tables well-spaced and chairs properly comfortable. The noise level is just right, another requisite for a good vacation meal. One of the marks of both sides of our family is conversation as a recreational activity, and that's what we had in mind for this dinner, a long, relaxed conversation.

And that's exactly what we got, good conversation and story-telling, and a glorious meal with some of the best service we've ever had, from a chap who hit the sweet spot between too familiar and too formal and clearly kept a seagull-sharp eye on the pacing.

The menu is tilted toward small plates, with the note that certain items are also available as larger servings. Mostly we stayed with the small bites, with a single excursion into a main. Seared sea scallops sat on small chanterelles, a little fresh corn, and a drizzle of a vinaigrette that had some foie gras pureed into it, the vinaigrette a charming contrast to the sweet flesh of the scallops. A tumble of vegetables, summer squash, lime-green cauliflower, carrot, and a few rings of red onion, all marinated in a different vinaigrette just long enough to give savor but not turn them to rocks or mush, surrounded a dollop of shallot-laced crème fraiche. A startlingly good combination.

Roasted marrow drew us immediately. Two good-sized bone pieces came with crisp bread, some pieces of Italian parsley, a traditional accompaniment, and crystals of smoked sea salt. The marrow, scooped out and spread on the bread, was just as it should be, unctuously rich. And a square of pork belly, very meaty and carefully browned, was sauced with its pan juices and served with some sweet corn. Both simple, both dazzling.

Delicious lamb chops,grilled to the perfect moment of medium-rare, arrived with a tangle of grilled onions and a lush wine sauce. And some roasted peaches, which we thought would be dessert-ish, went toward the savory, with thick slices of fruit wrapped in speck bacon and sauced with saba, a cooked grape juice.

The dining room has a long, elegant and expensive wine list, and on a festive evening, we semi-splurged with a bottle of 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon from Rombauer, California-based descendants of St. Louisan Erma Rombauer, the cookbook author. Some might call the wine a tad heavy for lamb chops, but we found it just right.

Dessert was a circle of a beautifully delicate lemon pudding cake, and strawberry shortcake made with a thin but tender biscuit, fine, sweet berries, and a small pillow of whipped cream. Yes, coffee, and a plate of mignardises, small cookies and chocolates, to finish off the evening.

Lovely evening. Lovely food and service and setting.

Water Street Restaurant

Harbor View Hotel

131 N. Water Street, Edgartown MA

508-627-7000

www.harbor-view.com 

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Entrees: $25-$34

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Entrees: $25-$34

 

Patrik 1.5

 We all know about typographical errors. Newspapers are full of them. People who rely on spell-check make many. They can undoubtedly be found on this blog. But when an adoption agency secretary's inadvertent period turns "Patrik 15" into "Patrik 1.5" we have the material for a comedy.

Unfortunately, "Patrik 1.5," which opens today, tries to be funny and to moralize at the same time, and the result is such that sitting in St. Louis heat for a couple of hours may be more pleasant than sitting through a maudlin, predictable tale, though the idea of a Swedish film with lots of American country music is an interesting curiosity.

Sven (Torkel Petterson) and Goran (Gustav Skarsgard) are a married gay couple (Goran wears a wedding ring and introduces Sven as "my husband") who are new to a suburban neighborhood as bright as Seaside, Florida. They have been approved as adoptive parents and eagerly await the 18-month old son they have been promised, fantasizing about decorations for his room, discussing their garden, ignoring groups of small children who stand outside and yell, "Homo!"

Goran, a doctor, is kind and sweet and tender. Sven, who has an ex-wife and a teenage daughter who visit, is more moody, and the former wife (Annika Hallin) is used to point out that he has smoking and drinking problems. The daughter (Amanda Davin in a fine performance) is just totally angry with her father, her mother, her world.

And then Patrik (Thomas Ljungman) arrives--and of course he's 15, with a petty criminal background and homophobic tendencies. It's easy to figure out the rest.

Petterson and Skarsgard are one-dimensional, director Ella Lemhager lacks pacing and imagination. It's hard to tell who picked the music, but while everyone speaks Swedish, they sing in English, as if they were in Nashville, with songs apparently chosen to match the cliches. Tanya Tucker sings "Love Me Like You Used To," and Jessica Andersson, sounding a lot like Dolly Parton, sings, "Here You Come Again."

"Patrik 1.5" opens today at the Tivoli

-Joe

Copia Urban Winery

 When Copia opened a few years ago, it billed itself as a combination winery and restaurant. Its laudable goal was to help an incipient revival of downtown St. Louis as a place to go for an evening out. That's been a problem here since Chouteau and Laclede and their friends swam ashore in the 18th century.

Good place for business, pleasant place to live (after the swamps were drained and the mosquitoes moved out), poor place for fun, was the decision, but that was fine with the mercantile class that settled the city. Over the centuries, folks looking for fun settled elsewhere, giving the Mound City (as we once were named) a wide berth as they rolled westward.

The minor revival of the late 20th century has been limping. People who moved into expensive apartments with clubs and restaurants just downstairs and across the alley soon realized they came with noise. Artists and artisans who happily found low rents soon were faced with, and forced out by, higher rents as the neighborhood became popular and richer people thought they'd try living there, too.

But cities, even those as fragmented as ours, need a downtown which is more than a place to drive through on the way to or from a sporting event or a casino. We admire and encourage the entrepreneurs who are trying to make a go of it--for themselves and others--as they battle a huge array of obstacles.

Enough digressions. . . .

When Copia first opened, we stopped in for dinner one night. The results were shockingly bad, so bad in every respect that we didn't write, figuring it would not be open very long. Well, it wasn't, but because of a fire, which turned out to be arson, it closed and stayed closed for some 2 1/2 years, a long time for rehab, remodeling or anything else.

We went back the other night, and it was terrific in every respect. Dave Rook, a member of a prime family of St. Louis-based chefs, is in the kitchen, and everything worked. Dave, brother to Annie Gunn's Lou and son of Lou Sr., has been one of the city's more peripatetic chefs, with a lengthy resume. And when he's right, as he was during our visit, he's right on.

The Copia operation, which includes a wine shop next door and still plans to eventually make its own wine, benefits from an extensive wine list and generally good pricing. Just remember that all wines have an $8 corkage fee that is added to the dinner check. That announcement is on the first page of the wine list, but many people seem to roar past it. When we ordered a bottle, and then said, in a questioning tone, "and there's a corkage fee on top of that, right?" the server sighed with relief, obviously a victim of non-readers who questioned the extra charge when the check arrived. We think that when the Copia folks re-do their wine list, they should add the corkage fee to the wine price and explain what it's about up front. By the way, it's a good list at fair prices, with many modestly priced selections.

However, with chicken lasagna and spare ribs as our dinner choices, we found a French rose on the list at a bargain price ($22, including the corkage) and then, to our joy, discovered it was an import by Kermit Lynch, one of our favorites. A 2009 Chateau St. Martin de la Garrigue, from Languedoc, a blend of Cinsault and Grenache, with nice fruit, a crisp dryness and a very pleasant flavor. "Garrigue" means a piece of land with scrubby brush and trees, which may be a description of the property.

The menu is American, with steaks, fish, roast chicken, pasta and other familiar dishes, some with some interesting sides. Appetizer choices include gravlax, or salmon that is cured rather than smoked, pate, gumbo, ox tail soup and shrimp with a bacon wrap (Rook used to work with Bill Cardwell, who brought the dish to St. Louis). The shrimp, fat and tasty, showed a tangy mango-and-chili sauce and, as we all have learned, bacon improves everything. An interesting touch to the gravlax was some lemon grass, adding an Asian hit. The dish also contained some dynamite (obviously fresh) tomatoes, hard-cooked eggs with whites and yolks separated (yes, after cooking) and in neat piles, sweet red onions and a creme fraiche sauce that was unnecessary because there was plenty of flavor in the fish.

Main dishes were outstanding, with a platter of spare ribs the best we've had in a long time. Well-rubbed with good spices and a hit of cinnamon, they were huge, served dry, tender and delicious. The sauce was good, a nice combination of sweet and hot, but a little too sweet for my taste. Beans were excellent, and this time the balance of sweet and hot was on target. A corn tamale, studded with juicy kernels, was a delightful addition, as was a handful of crisp tobacco onions. There also was some outstanding cole slaw, its herb-heightened flavor showing something we did not recognize. When we asked the server to ask the chef, he returned and said, "pineapple."

 

A strange response, until we later learned that Rook also prepares a fruit-accented slaw, which had pineapple, and we had the herb-helped slaw that Ann finally decided was bolstered by fresh tarragon.

The chicken lasagna was gloriously cheesy, with diced chicken, spinach, mushrooms and, of course, the pasta, under the a large amount of outstanding cheese. A wonderful, comforting dish.

Desserts are basic--a good-looking, dark-chocolate brownie, creme brulee, bread pudding and a berry crisp, just right for a summer when berries are abundant and delicious. We tried it, and it was glorious, the oatmeal crisp pleasantly crunchy and the fruit handled so well that it was easy to tell the blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries apart, something that happens too rarely.

Copia still plans to make wine, but that won't happen for a month or two, after the grapes ripen crushed, with the juice coming to visit downtown for a while. But right now, before the fermentation starts, the new Copia, redecorated and re-opened about a month, is a bright star in the St. Louis summer sky.

 

Copia Urban Winery

1122 Washington Ave.

314-621-7275

www.copiawine.com

Lunch Mon.-Fri., Dinner Mon.-Sat.

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: Yes

Entrees: $16-$35

The Man of La Mancha

 It is a play that celebrates the human condition, and all its triumphs and tragedies, just as its original author did, and the collaboration, with score by Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion, and book by Dale Wasserman, created a magical musical. Joneal Joplin, a month shy of 38 years on St. Louis stages, brings complete understanding to the role and scores triumphantly in "Man of LaMancha," which opened last night as an excellent production by the Insight Theatre Company, playing through Aug. 22 at the Heagney Theatre at Nerinx Hall High School.

Joplin inhabits the character perfectly, and while his singing ranges from good to adequate, his acting is well-nigh perfect. A wince here, a shudder there, a twist of his shoulders or a tilt to his chin demonstrate excellently the mood of the moment of Miguel Cervantes or his alter egos, Don Quiana, an elderly country squire, and Don Quixote de la Mancha, a knight-errant and later the Knight of the Woeful Countenance. Cervantes is in prison, about to be "cleansed" by the forces of the Spanish Inquisition, probably the worst-ever abusers of human beings until Adolf Hitler came along more than four centuries later.

But before he faces the Inquisitors, his fellow prisoners have their own kangaroo court and charge Quixote with a number of crimes, including being a bad poet.

He asks for a trial, which allows him to tell his story. He also is playing for time, creating an entertainment and turning the prisoners into actors. Is he crazy? Well, he's an idealist, an honest man, a courteous one, but a stubborn one who sees the world through his own particular focus, just as we all do.

Are we all crazy, too? Undoubtedly, at least sometimes, but Cervantes' single-minded zeal and dramatic approach causes a few prisoners, including Aldonza, a scullery maid and prostitute, to see a different point of view and follow it--and him--blindly down another path.

Just as Sarah Palin does. Just as Jesus did.

Director Edward Coffield, choreographer Michael Baxter and musical director Ross Bell

have done splendid work with a young, semi-professional group, developing a cohesiveness and an attitude that makes the drama almost seamless. Baxter's work on the fight scene is exemplary, and it's only a shame we can't have instant reply to single out some of the wonderful moments and see them again. I'm sure I missed a lot, but I caught Billy Bommarito in a handful of marvelous moves. Troy Turnipseed and Nate McClure, as mules hitched to a wagon, also were very impressive.

Christopher Hickey, as Sancho Panza, who is Tonto to Joplin's Lone Ranger, was a wonder. He had the voice and the attitude to perfection, and the comedy worked because Hickey played it perfectly, with total seriousness. A rich, multi-layered performance, and his two songs, the playful "A Little Gossip" and the plaintive "I Really Like Him," were spot-on. Julie O'Neill got off to a slow start as Aldonza/Dulcinea but picked up nicely as the play rolled on. When she sings her bitter autobiography, she was solid.

Others who stood out were Doug Irwin, leader of the prisoners and the Innkeeper, unstrung by the strange and fearless man and splendid in the song that accompanies the dubbing; Laura Ernst as the niece; Paul Balfe, as the baffled barber who cannot understand why someone wants his shaving basin; and Christina Ramirez as a little girl, a ghostly presence as she moves around the set, watching, never speaking (but singing) and often acting almost as an exclamation point to the action.

Caitlyn Ayer designed the set, Kaitlyn Breen the highly effective lighting and Laura Hanson the costumes. And because no one sees them, a nod to Bell's pit orchestra, Duane Bridges, Grace Fitter, Abby Halley, Jason Harris, Adam Kopff, Mary McKinis, Andrew Miramonti, Kurt Silver and John Thomas.

A good production for a classic musical.

"Man of La Mancha," by the Insight Theatre Company at the Heagney Theatre at Nerinx Hall High School through Aug. 22

-Joe

Martha's Vineyard, Part2

 Not surprisingly, Martha's Vineyard has plenty of interesting places to quaff and nibble. Few, if any, chains, either food or retail, are a blessing. Herewith, a few words on some quick bites around the island

The Wharf Restaurant and Pub sits on Edgartown's main drag. It's very popular, but much better than it appears from the street, with a bar, adjoining dining room and a larger room in the rear for music, food and drink.

This is a good place for a fast lesson on clams for those who know only chowder and perhaps fried clam strips like those Howard Johnson used to make. If you like them, and especially if you like them despite the rubber band-y texture, try clam bellies. (That's the picture next to the restaurant information below.) Meltingly tender and juicy inside their deep-fried crust, they're swell. Our batch at the Wharf was practically inhaled. And then there were the steamed clams, which start with soft-shells, unlike Little Necks or Cherrystones. They demand fingers, so that the dark skin on the neck (actually a foot) can be removed. (It slides right off.) The neck then becomes a handle for dipping the clam into the broth, to remove the last bits of sand, and then into butter, which we find superfluous.

The Wharf's steamers are unusual in their liquid, which has some cream, lime and tarragon, along with the more-common white wine, garlic and tomato. We've never seen it before. It's probably unique. It's definitely divine. Thank goodness it's polite to use a spoon on the broth or we would have made quite a scene guzzling the citrusy, tangy liquid.

We also knocked back what the menu calls and “angus and linguica burger on a bulky.” Linguica (pronounced with a soft "c" as in "certain") is a Portuguese sausage popular in Rhode Island and thereabouts, made in various diameters and degrees of spiciness. It worked well with the hamburger. A bulky? It's a sandwich roll with a little more heft than a standard hamburger bun.

Family-owned, mostly very good service, and, yes, they have lobster.

 

The Wharf Restaurant and Pub

3 Main St., Edgartown, MA

508-627-9966

www.wharfpub.com

Lunch & Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Sandwiches & Entrees: $8-$34

We can all agree that most all pastries and baked goods are great when they're still warm from their original cooking. Oh, sure, some things do grow in flavor the next day, but there's a slightly forbidden magic about them when the oven door is still open. And in Oak Bluffs, there's Back Door Donuts. The pastry shop, known as Gourmet Cafe & Bakery, is open in the mornings, using the front door, but we're not sure who goes there. The action's at the back door, where folks line up from 9 p.m. until 12:30 a.m. to fork over cash for hot, freshly cooked donuts and giant apple fritters, the latter apparently rationed to one per customer. While the young, both residents and guests, adore this place, they're not the only ones in line. Wonderful while hot, and the leftovers are still tasty the next morning.

Back Door Donuts

5 Post Office Square, Oak Bluffs, MA

508-627-5880

www.mvbakery.com

 

The Net Result is a seafood market with a carryout-food counter plus picnic tables outside a newish upscale strip of shops. In the daze of lobster intoxication, we can't recall exactly what else we ate beyond a delicious chunk of smoked bluefish and a mess of superb smoked scallops from a case, and some first-rate clam chowda, as it's pronounced locally. The spot is busy, high-quality, and well-thought-of by locals. Don't be put off by its modern facade; this is The Real Thing.

The Net Result

79 Beach Road, Vineyard Haven, MA

508-693-6071

 www.mvseafood.com

Open daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

 

And let us not forget the Orange Peel Bakery. In the middle of the woods, turning off into a parking lot reveals a house, a couple of out-buildings and a huge oven. Julie Vanderhoop, a self-taught baker and stone mason, and her associates are putting out fabulous bread, homey pastries and one night a week, there's pizza on outdoor tables. She also shows up at farmers' markets around the Vineyard. Watch out for the giant orange shovel-shaped sign. It's actually a peel, a giant spatula used to insert, arrange and remove things--like pies, pizza and otherwise--from an oven.

Orange Peel Bakery

22 State Rd., Aquinnah, MA

508-645-2025

Cash only

Daily. ("We're open as late as there's a light on.")

 

Martha's Vineyard Week, Part 1: The Black Dog

Visiting The Black Dog on Martha's Vineyard has become something of a cliché now that it's changed hands, and its logo is seen on t-shirts and tote bags from coast to coast. You can't go more than a couple of blocks in any town on the island without running into one of the outlets for their non-food products. And the restaurant itself is the subject of some vituperative fights on various eaters' websites. But on the last morning of our recent visit, Joe's cousin, who's lived on the Vineyard for most of the last 25 years, brought us for breakfast before we caught the ferry.

Now Joan, like most of Joe's kin, understands the art of the meal. She steered us right the entire visit, so when she pulled up next to the Dog, we just nodded. And it is in a lovely place, right on the water, a couple of tall ships, also part of the Dog empire, at anchor at the dock. It's been a quiet summer on the island, so at 8:15, we could walk right in.

A rustic interior not much changed from the early days, nothing fancy, just feels right. And the breakfast menu is just stunning. Decisions were harder than we've had for morning food in a long time.

Probably the star of the table was Martha's Thank George's Bank, two poached eggs on a fish cake, all topped with hollandaise. A good hollandaise, properly cooked eggs, and an assertively seasoned patty of white-fleshed fish with a good dose of pepper absolutely sang.

 
We had some caramel apple pancakes, immense, plate-sized discs, very light, topped with chopped fresh apple and a drizzle of caramel sauce. We'd have been happier with more caramel sauce, to be sure, but made do with the maple syrup on the table. We saw plenty of pancakes topped with fresh berries and chocolate chips flying by, too.

And an El Paso omelet was basically a Denver or a Western or a St. Paul, ham, cheese, peppers and onions, topped with salsa, nicely spicy and carefully made. We also knocked back a side order of the housemade corned beef hash, moist and slightly peppery, both from the chopped peppers in it and a dose of black pepper as well.

Zippy service, good coffee, and we were even fortunate enough to score a table by the window to enjoy the water view. Apparently your mileage may vary, but it's a quiet summer on the Vineyard, and we certainly had a good breakfast.

The Black Dog Tavern

21 Beach Street Extension, Vineyard Haven, MA

508-693-9223

www.theblackdog.com

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Entrees (breakfast): $6-$11

Philadelphia Week, Part 3: Zahav

  Despite its location in the very oldest part of Philadelphia, or perhaps because of it, Zahav isn't easy to locate on many maps. Persevere. It's worth it. Atop Society Hill, on the first floor of an apartment building, the Israeli restaurant is like nothing we've seen before.

Elegant and cool-feeling, one large room and a smaller one with a fountain, it's a hike up a couple of flights of stairs from the street, although we're told there's an entrance at the top of the hill at the back. But the welcome is warm, despite this being one of those places that the national food magazines coo over. No attitude at all, not even the traditional Israeli one. And we think we know why. Toward the end of the evening, a chap in a suit but no tie ambled over and began to chat. When he found out we were from St. Louis, he beamed. “Isn't that where Danny Meyer is from? I've read his book. He's absolutely got the right idea about how to run a restaurant. I've really tried to follow what he says.”

He certainly has. Zahav is in many ways very Israeli/Middle Eastern, providing dinners that offer many small dishes for long, leisurely evenings. Tapas may be the Spanish name for this, but meze, the Eastern Mediterranean name for the same sort of thing, has been around for centuries as well. Zahav (the name is Hebrew for “gold”) has modernized things to varying degrees, and offers not only today's takes, but some ethnic ideas that are seemingly authentic and quite uncommon in this country.

The best way to sample many things, it seemed to us, was to try the ta'yim, a prix fixe for $36, including dessert. Individual dishes are priced from $5 to $10; the ta'yim offers a choice of any three, preceded by--well, just let us tell you some of what we ate.

The feast began with hummus and salatim,or Israeli salads, accompanied by laffa, a flatbread rather like a softer, more irregular pita. The bread, served hot, with some za'atar sprinkled on top, is delicious, the hummus (the menu offers four kinds) sensationally silky, and the salatim, eight of them, are fascinating. Carried to table on a rack that holds the eight small dishes, they're irresistible to the gastronomically curious. All are vegetarian; we tried a tabooli that was more parsley than grain, a Moroccan-style carrot salad fragrant with cumin, some pickled turnips that charmed, a fennel relish, an Israeli-style chickpea salad, a smoky eggplant spread, a wonderful beet puree with tahini and mint, and okra in a cool, tart vinaigrette. There was also some harissa and a serrano pepper relish on the side.

Halloumi is a sheep's milk cheese we've never seen in St. Louis. We'd read about its characteristic of remaining firm when cooked, meaning it can be used in some interesting ways. Zahav fries cubes of it and serves it with dates and pine nuts, sweet and crunchy to contrast with the savory and crisp. Sable fish, smoked in-house, is served on a slice of challah, accompanied by a gently fried egg and a green garlic sauce. Sable is a fish in controversy; some say it's black cod, others say its a species of its own. No matter; it was delicious, a hint of smokiness in the rich, oily flavor.

From the meat section of the menu, our choices were equally off the beaten path, although there were things available like moussaka and kibbee. We went for veal tongue, one of Joe's favorites, tender slices over a buckwheat pilaf that was particularly flavorful with the rich, tangy grain, and tart, dried barberries.  And then there were the sweetbreads, shown in the photo. Arriving in a cone, small, crisply fried pieces had been dipped in lemon before the breading and sprinkled with a fine dust of green chile afterwards. Popcorn sweetbreads? Sort of, and wonderful. 

In the category called al ha'esh, or grilled over coals, there were a couple of vegetarian choices, plus chicken, branzino, beefsteak and mixed ground meat options. We went for the Farsi, slices of delicate duck breast, plus a confit-style dish, all served with chelo, the Persian rice, and some pistachios. Excellent duck, in every respect. The night's only serious miss was a surprise. Merguez, the North African sausage, is one of our favorites. Coarse and spicy, it's the sort of big-flavor thing we jump on. This one was coarse and spicy, to be sure. But it was tough and dry from overcooking, relying on some red pepper relish called matbucha to moisten it and the couscous it rode in on.

From the dessert menu, a mousse made with halvah was a charmer, with its delicate sesame flavor a real hit. It was layered with chickpeas in a praline mixture and helped by a few berries. Pistachio cake was like a slightly dry pound cake, with a little poached rhubarb alongside, though the pistachio flavor was interesting. It was also sided with  ice cream flavored with salep, made from orchid roots; its exotic flavor was a little startling at first but as we nibbled, we got used to it, it became acceptable and then good.

Some interesting cocktails, a fair wine-by-the-glass list, and a very tasty sour cherry iced tea. Our server was eager to explain what we didn't understand, and the kitchen, obviously used to rolling out meals like this all the time, paced it very well, rather than the sort of “it's ready when it's ready” we've seen elsewhere, including Israel.

A good experience and a good value. Next time we'll think about getting the group meal, which includes a roasted lamb shoulder.

Zahav

237 St. James Pl. at Dock St., Philadelphia

215-625-8800

www.zahavrestaurant.com

Dinner nightly

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Yes, but call for directions

Smoking: No

Meze: $5-$10

 

Wild Grass

 Alain Resnais directed his first film in 1936. His 49th, "Wild Grass," opens here today, and at the age of 88, he still shows his command of the medium, the sort of cinematic command that dramatically marked a pair of classics, "Hiroshima, Mon Amour," (1959) and "Last Year at Marienbad" (1961). He also shows his delight in moving back and forth from reality to unreality, from acting to dreaming.

"Wild Grass," from a novel, "L'Incident," by Christian Gailly, deals with a 70-ish Parisian, Georges Palet (Andre Dussollier), who meets a younger woman and gets into a relationship that reeks of the unworldly and peculiar and which indicates that the title of the book has a lot more meaning than that of the movie. Georges meets Marguerite (Sabine Azema) after the woman with dazzlingly frizzy red hair has a purse seized from her hand by a bike-riding thief. Georges finds her wallet--with credit cards but without cash--alongside his car in a garage where someone tossed it. Her wallet includes not only a driver's license but a pilot's license

He takes it to a police station, where the discussion with a young policeman (Mathieu Amalric) has Woody Allen or Bob Newhart overtones as they talk in side-by-side, rarely meeting sentences.

Marguerite is a dentist who owns a World War II English fighter plane, a Spitfire, that seems to solve many of her problems and create many others. It's just another odd piece in a story where Resnais takes pleasure in inserting odd pieces here and there. Anyway, Georges pursues Marguerite so avidly that she goes to the police, who are the same bumbling amateurs to whom he took the wallet in the first place.

They convince him to stop stalking, at which point the story flips upside down and she begins pursuing him.

Georges' wife, Suzanne (Anne Consigny), doesn't understand her husband, or maybe she understands him far too well, but she's willing to answer the phone at 1 a.m. and talk to a strange woman about him.

Resnais obviously loves the strange things one can do with a movie, and he seems to delight in tossing clues here and there about what is going on. Some of the clues are real and others are false, of course. Some of the movie is charming and delightful, other parts are confusing and even tedious, but Eric Gautier's impressive cinematography keeps it all bright and colorful.

Opens today at the Plaza Frontenac

-Joe

That Championship Season

Jason Miller knew about locker rooms, about athletes and about coaches, and his 1972 play, "That Championship Season," is one of the best depictions of the all-male (at that time) environment which eventually destroys the ephemeral charms represented by a trophy or two and a lot of praise. A good production, but one not without flaws, opened last night under the auspices of Dramatic License Productions in its Chesterfield Mall space, to run through Aug.22.

With Alan Knoll making his local directorial debut in fine style, and a cast of five--Charlie Barron, Kevin Beyer, R. Travis Estes, Cameron Ulrich and B. Weller--contributing solid and nicely complementary performances, it's highly entertaining despite barbed, vulgar remarks about race and religion that bring a large number of winces.

But for reasons that I cannot fathom, the company used a script from a 1999 television movie, a fact that was a grave insult to the playwright's memory, instead of the original 1972 version which ran almost 1000 performances on Broadway and won both a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize. Updating the action brought almost-audible gasps from people like me, who saw only the original version, when we heard a reference to George Clooney, saw cell phones, screw-off beer-bottle caps and a number of other untimely references.

Almost ironically, director Alan Knoll, in a program note, pointed out that the 1974 production at the American (I saw it, too, and reviewed it) had "mesmerized" him and led him to a life in the theater.

On Courtney Sanazaro's delightful set, representing the Coach's home in a middle-sized Pennsylvania city, with pictures of Theodore Roosevelt, Sen. Joseph McCarthy and John F. Kennedy on the walls, references to Father Charles Coughlin and other right-wing, bigoted heroes, four players gather for a reunion. Sanazaro, credited with building the set from her own design, even escapes the wrath of the theater gods for violating the Chekhovian theorem that a gun on stage at the beginning of a play must be fired before the final curtain.

All the basketball players had father-identification problems and grew up under Jesuitical education, but their personalities were molded by Coach (Beyer in a powerful portrayal), a man in the Fascistic, might-makes-right, winning-is-the-only-thing tradition of Bobby Knight and Rick Pitino. The players are George Sikowski (Estes, who parlayed an insurance salesman's skills into a job as the mayor), brothers Tom (Barron) and James (Weller) Daley, the former a hard-drinking, unsuccessful novelist, the latter a principal of a junior high school who wants to be mayor, and Phil Romano (Ulrich), who uses campaign contributions to enrich himself and to create power, and who happens to be having an affair with the wife of a teammate.

The surnames show the geographical background. Coach doesn't have any other name, like a number of Coaches I have known whose lives were entwined with that five-letter word.

The cast is brilliantly balanced. Estes' depiction of an insecure man whose desire for popularity is reminiscent of Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman." He's terrific; you can practically feel his fear. Weller, who has accepted responsibility all his life and has become an errand boy, is moving, as is Barron, drowning in his Scotch bottle and, when he gets a chance to stand up on his own, discovers he's tied his shoelaces together. Ulrich, tan and smooth and demanding the material gifts that his father never found while he built the successful business, reeks of confidence, lathered on as if it were so much after-shave lotion.

"That Championship Season" is an excellent play, showing the shallowness of the world of athletics and athletes, given an absurd sense of entitlement by Coach and all his copies.

But I still wish Dramatic License Productions had not taken its name so literally.

"That Championship Season," by Dramatic License Productions at Chesterfield Mall through Aug. 22

-Joe

Bridge Tap House and Wine Bar

  Bridge Tap House and Wine Bar, to give it its full name, and which we will proceed to abbreviate to BTHWB, is a handsome hangout. In the daytime, a cozy cave of a getaway. At night, especially a rainy one, the careful lighting provides just enough wattage to make for (relatively) safe passage and/or flirting, with no need for the garish sun of overheads. There is, however, just enough to read the extensive menu of food, wine and beer, and that must have been a tricky balancing act. In short, it's a fine spot for a late-night snack, after a theater performance or a concert or a ball game or a movie. David Bailey's three places, which include the Chocolate Bar and Rooster, allow for fine-tuning of appetites at almost any hour of the day or night.

There are a few tables downstairs in the bar area, its chandelier resembling a large, bare bush, but most of the eating takes place upstairs, which adds to the lighting display with a row of vintage table lamps placed along a long, wide ledge that runs the length of the rear section. They're a charming touch in this minimalist décor, and their glow adds to the coziness.

The Cozy Quotient begins to fall back when the noise factor is introduced. The ceiling, high on the first floor, quite low on the second, seemingly has nothing to do with the decibels. It's just the roar of a fairly young crowd, drinking, talking, eating, having a good time. We began to reconsider that lip-reading class we'd once threatened to take.

There are really no honest-to-goodness entrees on the menu, although there are what it terms “entree salads” and sandwiches. It's designed for ongoing nibbling, with plenty of options with cheese, charcuterie, spreads and dips, nuts, popcorn, pickles--and more. We decided to pass on most of the snackier options and focus on food that is a little more formal.

Still, we couldn't resist roasted olives. Sitting in a square dish and mixed with pieces of sweet roasted red pepper, the (pitted) black olives had been seasoned with rosemary, hot red pepper flakes and just a bit of fennel seed, all alongside a generous square of focaccia. Tasty, but beware the gum-stabbing, needle-shaped rosemary.

Much has been said about the house macaroni and cheese, from the menu section labeled Pots. Squiggly campanelle, looking like a caricature of a pig's tail, sat under a shower of breadcrumbs. Mac and cheese is one of those dishes that everyone has different standards for; we want ours very moist and creamy and extremely cheesy. This one was barely satisfactorily cheesy, but lacked creaminess. We saw nothing of the promised tomato, and the thin strips of poblano pepper were visible but added zilch for zip. On the other hand, from the same section of the menu came roasted tomatoes over spatzel, the German dumpling usually spelled spaetzel. Roma tomatoes cooked just long enough to become very juicy sat atop mushrooms marinated in what the menu called Worcestershire sauce. A glorified version, certainly: sweet-tart-spicy-hot, the mushrooms sang four-part harmony all by themselves. The spatzel were creamy and tender, unlike the chewy morsels one often finds, and nicely seasoned, too. An excellent dish.

A sandwich named Cuba, Missouri has to make us smile. Yes, it's a Cuban sandwich, here presented on a roll that's shaped like a hamburger bun but made of serious yeast dough rather than cotton, and it's pressed in a grill, although not flattened completely. So there's crunch to add to the ham, cheese, dill pickles, mustard aioli and some really excellent roast pork we want more of in the future. A good rendition of the classic. However, the potato chips alongside were stale and soggy. The same bun, un-toasted, held an item from the list of specials, sliced duck with brie, arugula, and some first-rate cherry chutney, an excellent combination, shown below. The potato chips clearly came from the same batch.,  

Coffee-banana bread pudding? The bread pudding itself was pleasantly un-sweet, with a very mild coffee flavor, although it could have been a bit more moist. Two sections of banana had been sprinkled with sugar on their cut surface and run under the grill to brulee them to good advantage, and the Christmas tree of whipped cream alongside had been sprinkled with what seemed to be instant espresso granules, a nice touch that added more than just visual contrast.

BTHWB's list of beer is extensive, 36 on tap, and a whole, whole lot more in bottles. The beers on tap can be had in four different sizes, nice for sampling. The by-the-glass wine list has 24 options, and we differ on whether we like it or not. Joe says it's limited because, for example, there are only two chardonnays, and just one of most other wines. (He drank cabernet.) Ann, on the other hand, likes it because it leads folks into trying something beyond cabernets and chardonnays. (She had a peche lambic beer and a bubbly rose cava.)

Servers fly up and down the stairs, and ours was patient as we pored over the menu and debated options, bringing a kind touch on a busy night.

 

Bridge Tap House and Wine Bar

1004 Locust St.

314-241-8141

www.thebridgestl.com 

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Larger plates $8-$11

The Aristocats

If Ernie Banks were an actor, he'd love to be part of the Stages St. Louis company. The great Cubs shortstop would walk into the clubhouse and announce, "It's a beautiful day. Let's play two." Well, that's what a number of performers, both young and older, are doing at Stages--one play in the morning, another at night.

Six of the actors who opened yesterday in the amusing, light-as-cotton-candy "The Aristocats," Stages' annual production for the younger set, also are appearing in "Promises, Promises," where double-dipper Ben Nordstrom is one of the leads. Others appearing both day and night are Kari Ely, Edward Juvier, David Schmittou, Nic Thompson and Borris York. And winning the I'm-a-glutton-for-punishment titles are Ely, Nordstrom, Thompson and York, who play multiple roles in the feline follies with the Disney imprimatur, based on a 40-year-old film.

There's even a story line. Duchess (Pamela Reckamp) and her three kittens are spoiled Parisian house cats, kidnapped and exiled to the countryside by the butler, who hopes to inherit Duchess' money. The rationale for a cat having a checkbook was lost in movie lore many years ago. Some country cats, led by Schmittou as Thomas O'Malley ("O'Malley the Alley Cat"), come to their aid, rescuing them from some not-so-fierce dogs, though the true hero's mantle is shared by a couple of geese and a mouse named Roquefort, played charmingly by Juvier. The rescue allows a line like "The butler did it," to fit into the script

Stephen Bourneuf directed and choreographed, and John Inchiostro designed a series of attractive animal costumes. But today's little ones are quick to know that their disbelief is too much to be easily suspended. In a q-and-a session after the performance, a small one quickly piped up, "It sounds as though the actors were wearing microphones."

And they were, but nobody seemed to mind. They all were having too much fun.

"The Aristocats," presented by Stages St. Louis at the Robert Reim Theatre, Kirkwood, through Aug. 15

-Joe