St. Louis Eats and Drinks

Noosa Yogurt

I recently got back from a trip to Iceland. While there, I was keen to try the legendary Icelandic yogurt, called skyr. It was delicious, and at the farmhouse on Iceland's southwest coast, where we were staying, non-yogurt-fancying younger family members slurped it right up. Mother Hubbard's cupboard never looked so bare as my skyr stash did.

Back in St. Louis, I found myself standing in front of the yogurt at a grocery store and probably glaring. Then I remembered that I'd had a sample of something several months before. Oooh. Mango. And strawberry rhubarb? That sounded good. (There are other flavors as well.)

Noosa yogurt is out of Colorado and made by Australians in what they say is an Australian style. It's thick, smooth, not very tart and as rich as Bill Gates. It's more like eating English clotted cream than it is yogurt. It might even be better than skyr. Not particularly for dieters, but dinner-party good.

I see it at both Dierbergs and Schnucks; their website says they're at Whole Foods as well.

Michael's Bar and Grill

Quite a gaggle of folks to be fed, vegetarians, carnivores, omnivores and just plain picky eaters, the categories frequently overlapping - and these folks are related to me, so I felt a certain responsibility. We ended up heading for Michael's Bar and Grill on Manchester, just inside the St. Louis city limits. And it turned out to be the right choice. A group of seven didn't faze them, for instance, and the menu is the right balance between familiar and exotic.

Things kicked off with saganaki. Michael's saganaki. When I first met saganaki at the late Grecian Gardens on Euclid, it was kefalotyri cheese in a metal gratin pan popped under the broiler to melt, arriving at the table bubbling and with a squeeze of lemon over it courtesy of the wonderful Aris-the-waiter. No "Opa!", no flames, just gooey cheese and some bread. I digress; no one seems to do it that way any more, and Michael's offers theirs as triangles that have been breaded lightly and deep-fried. Even the most cautious eaters were thrilled. Fried mushrooms in honor of another restaurant in another decade for some at the table were fresh and moist and well-drained; the horseradish sauce was superfluous.

Entrees ranged from light to heavy. Michael's does a fine Greek salad, and putting gyro meat on it is nigh perfect, although this particular visit, the gyro was a tad dry. Still, they understand that such salads should be lightly dressed with vinegar, oil, and a little oregano and little if anything else. Our dedicated carnivore knocked back the half rack of lamb, two double chops cooked properly rare, above a pan sauce of a little red wine and some rosemary, and looked around for the other half. Spanokopita, the spinach pie made with filo dough, stayed crisp and tasted almost like fresh spinach. One of the group had heard of the soft cheddar that goes on their cheeseburgers, but didn't understand the waiter when he rattled off the cheese choices, and went for American, so the gooeyness went untried. A fairly good hamburger, but not yet approaching greatness; however, it was cooked to the requested medium. Another, more daring, youth went for dolmades, the beef-lamb-rice mixture wrapped in grape leaves. Wearing an egg-and-lemon sauce laced with dill and topped with a few bits of diced tomato, they tasted good, and disappeared immediately.

With all this and mounds of thick-cut fries, the mob fell back in satisfaction and were herded home. Service? A little slower than I expected, but we were talking a lot, and I suspect the server figured we were in no hurry.

 

Michael's Bar and Grill

7101 Manchester Ave.

314-644-2240

Lunch & Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Tight

Smoking: No

Entrees: $8-$23

A Rose Sangria

Back to hot weather. Hot, sticky, hanging-out instead of energetic weather. What to drink? Something less alcoholic than my favorite gin and tonic, perhaps? A recipe in this week's New York Times Food section sent me off on a mild tangent since I had company this weekend. We didn't make the paella the article by John Willoughby discussed (although I agree; it's amazing made outside), and another story, by David Tanis, on peaches must also have stuck in my brain.

There was this rose sangria Willoughby offered, and I riffed on that. Very happy with the results, too, especially if you go for an un-sweet sangria. The cling peaches I'd peeled and macerated with a little Grand Marnier and a squeeze of lime juices to go with the morning's pancakes didn't get finished, as the crowd headed out for the baseball game. This batch was dead ripe but still pretty tart, and that worked out well for the recipe. I did use the Spanish dry rose called for - I had some Marques de Caceres on hand, and there's always Grand Marnier in the liquor cabinet. They asked for freshly squeezed orange juice, but come on, it's July, half a year away from decent juice oranges. Chilled Tropicana it was. Skipped the requested lime juice. And I subbed my peaches for their apricots. So here's how it went:

 

1 750 ml. bottle chilled dry rose

1/2 c. orange liqueur

1 c. orange juice

4 peaches, peeled, pitted and sliced thinly

1 pint raspberries

 

Mix together. I'd serve over ice, and if it seemed too strong, add a splash of club soda to each glass.

About 8 servings, but as usual, YMMV. I think there are some gougeres in the freezer I may haul out....

Teppanyaki Grill & Buffet

The things one does out of professional curiosity. Stopped by Teppanyaki Grill & Buffet to have dinner en route to something else. I'd been curious about the Asian mega-buffets for a while, and here was a convenient way to investigate.

Yes, definitely mega. It must seat more than 200 people. At least 10 hot and cold tables with food. And at an early dinnertime on a weeknight, it was fairly busy, although the noise levels were astonishingly low.

Beyond the hostess stand in the large foyer one sees a line to pick out ingredients for the teppanyaki, or stir-fry grill. No one was manning it when I arrived, and there was no discussion of "When he comes back, you can___________" By the time I left, someone was working there, and an Asian couple had begun to give him some business.

At first the layout seems a little confusing - the first dougle-sided table has fresh fruit and desserts facing the door; on its far side are cold salad ingredients and cold seafood, not just boiled shrimp but squid salad, chilled and quite spicy mussels and seaweed salad. All four of those items were fresh and tasty.

Lots and lots of hot items, and nearly all were Asian or at least Asianesque, rather than the fried chicken-meatloaf-spaghetti oeuvre. Here's a condensed report:

Mongolian pork with green onions scored well. A chicken skewer, large pieces of squid marked "cilantro squid", black pepper chicken and salt &pepper shrimp all were pretty good, not fabulous, but acceptable. There were even whole flounder on the steam table, and it remained surprisingly sweet and not vastly overcooked. A steamer marked "dim sum" contained shu mai, the open-top pork dumplings, pretty flavorless, but some fried dumplings were juicy and well-seasoned. Crisp, un-greasy crab rangoon were better than much of what's around town in this price range. Crawfish were a surprise, showing up with sweet peppers, but they were small and overcooked. Overall, a surprisingly large amount of seafood on a budget-priced buffet. Skip the sushi, which seems mostly to be rolls with fake crab inside.

And that's the advice for the desserts, too, mass-produced cookies , taste-alike pudding-and-cake concoctions, and such. But frankly, for $10 per adult for dinner - which has a better selection, I'm told, than lunch - this is still worth it if you're watching your budget or feeding a bunch of adolescents or just need a bite on your way to somewhere else. The dirty plates disappear quickly, but it's a one-fork operation unless you find the rack with fresh tableware. (It's near that cold shrimp.)

Better than Golden Corral by a couple of miles.

 

Teppanyaki Grill & Buffet

7289 Watson Rd., Shrewsbury

314-353-7888

Lunch & Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Dinner buffet: $10 for adults

The Libertine

The Libertine is one of those places that diners will either love or hate. One pal of mine who considers himself a foodie took one look at the menu, said it was awful and refuses to go. Another of the same ilk, left to his own timetable, would have been waiting the moment the restaurant first opened. There are perhaps a few serious restaurant patrons around town who don't know this is the product of Josh Galliano, late of Monarch, and his vivid imagination. Well, his talent, too, of course, but it's the imagination that smacks you as soon as you read the menu.

They haven't radically changed the layout of the site's previous tenants, but the tables are farther apart, always a pleasant touch. We can't figure out if the terrazo floor is the original from the building's early years - it looks elderly, but there's a big emblem on the floor in front of the bar with the letter L, appearing of the same vintage, and one wonders coincidence or artful? Service was excellent, but someone needs to pay attention to the tepid water that's served; we've heard this complaint several times.

There's no distinction on the menu between first courses and mains, merely the price to hint at that. We sashayed through the lighter items, happy in the option to try more things. For instance, a tomato sorbet turned out to be salad-like, garnished with cucumber, dice of fried green tomatoes, grape tomatoes and a little roasted pepper to adorn the main attraction. And it was an attraction indeed, soft and full of tomato flavor, the texture almost creamy. It came close to stunning. A terrine board offered a chicken pate, chunky and with concentrated fowl flavor, cured paper-thin slices of pig ear, and some country ham rillettes (looking to the St. Louis eye much like braunschweiger). Condiments included pickled cherries, a first-rate cranberry chutney and housemade pickles. All succeeded well except the ham rillettes, whose flavor had pretty much vanished, not much smoke, not much salt, not much pig.

A dish titled Roots was saladesque as well, with chilled roasted fingerling potatoes, sliced baby beets, arugula, shavings of a version of parmesan, and cubes of airy-looking beef cracklings, the whole dressed with a beet-laced vin cotto, sort of a balsamic vinegar with wine and beet juice. It was a good look at vegetables relatively un-fussed with that add up to satisfaction. Another fairly simple dish, shrimp with squid cracklings, showed cold steamed shrimp punctuated by pieces of crisply fried but un-breaded squid, the whole sitting on a layer of avocado mousse, all cool and summery.

Much has been made of the pig tails, the surprise hit of the menu. This week's Post-Dispatch food section reported Galliano as saying they have gotten 40 pounds of the tails on a Friday and needed that much again for Saturday. Crispy pig tails 'Buffalo Style' is how the menu styles them, and visions of curly, crunchy tails eaten like wings danced in one's head. No. Totally no. The kitchen bones them, slices them and stuffs them with more pig and goodness knows what else; then they're fried. The interior remains soft, a nice but not overwhelming spiciness apparent. But the skin becomes crisp-chewy, the way the outside of a pork roast can become with long, slow dry heat. It's a frolic for the mouth. These guys loll on a bed of gorgonzola-laced polenta, made even richer with notes of brown butter. This will make every year-end list of great dishes of the year.

When the crispy octopus arrived, we though it was the pig tail. A curled length of protein lay upon what might have been the polenta but turned out to be a puree of yellow Japanese sweet potatoes. Yes, the lightly charred exterior was a little crisp, but the interior was perhaps the most tender octopus ever. The kitchen, which must eye every delivery thinking "What can we pickle in this?", topped it with kim chee made of broccoli stems, and very tasty they were, too, even to a non-fancier of the Korean fermented condiment. A lightly peppery drizzle kicked things up slightly.

A surprise to see gooey butter cake on the menu here, but the peaches with it tipped the scale in its favor over other choices. While the cake was a little overbaked - too brown on top, dry on the bottom, its sweetness was a good match to the tartness of early peaches. The ice cream alongside was made of pickled cherries, and carried some salt, which seems to be 2013's dessert seasoning of the year. Not so great here, but interesting to play with as a component of the whole.

Galliano and staff have brought some very interesting combinations forward, If you're happy with some unexpected ingredients and combinations, this is clearly the place for you. Maybe not so much for the steak and potatoes crowd (although there's aburger on the menu), but exciting for many of us.

 

The Libertine

7927 Forsyth Blvd., Clayton

34-862-2999

www.libertinestl.com

Dinner Tues.-Sun.

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Entrees: $16-$22, Smaller plates $7-$13

Table

Hie thee to the South Side and quickly. At the far east end of Cherokee Street across from the Lemp Brewery Cassy Vires and Josh Renbarger of Maplewood's Home Wine Kitchen have opened Table. The large room, dark and pleasantly cave-like with a fireplace that's going to be great on cold nights, has high round tables near the bar and long communal tables in other areas, plus sofas and easy chairs. The effect is Serious Casual. What they term a patio is a large area west of the dining room, on the corner of the block. It's covered and has two wrought iron grills on two sides where a door and windows would have been; overall, it feels very New Orleans.

That feeling would be enhanced by a Hurricane, the house's twist on the old New Orleans classic, part of an interesting drinks menu. Their 'cane is less diluted and richer than fans of Pat O'Brien's will recall, a definite improvement. The basil sidecar didn't taste like drinking a sweet pesto, since they use lemon basil, but had a nice mystery to it. And my pal, Mr. Dark 'n Stormy, went for a Benton Park Bourbon, in part because it used ginger beer, balanced out by lemon and bitters. The wine list, carefully curated, as usual, by Renbarger, offers 10 whites and 10 reds plus 4 in a category called "rose & sparkling". The latter includes the reliable Chateau Revelette Provencal rose and a fascinating and notably un-sweet sparkling Lambrusco from Chiarli in the Piedmont of Italy.

Nearly all the food is small-plate sized; there are three seeming entrees which we didn't try in an effort to cover the rest of the largish menu. Things arrive, cautioned a server, in the order they come out of the kitchen, but as at all such places with a plethora of plates, ordering just a few things at a time is common and reasonable.

To begin with one of the stars, consider the potted crab. This is a dish found in Britain and the southeastern United States along the seaboard, often a starter for a dinner party. Fresh crab is seasoned and mixed with clarified butter, pressed into a crock and topped with another layer of butter. Spread on bread, it's amazing, and the small pile of minced and lightly pickled lemon finishes things of with elan. Vires' version has more zing than what I've had in the US, and is closer to the unctuous excitement of the UK's best.

Truffled egg salad brings three crostini with the egg salad atop. We missed any flavor of the promised anchovy bread crumbs, anchovy being a good mate for egg salad, but the truffle note was lovely. Perhaps a tad higher salad-to-bread ratio might have been given, but it was still satisfying. Also in the spreading category were the mushroom "escargot", duxelles, or mushrooms finely chopped, sauteed and stuffed into escargot shells. The acidity of the wine used for cooking left a tartness to go with the earthy mushroom.

Short ribs also got applause. Cut in the Asian cross-bone style and grilled after marinating in a smoky tea, a little note of orange danced about, tiptoeing through it. The effect still managed to be Asian-esque, the meat tender, although, as is short ribs' wont, with connective tissue and a little gristle. Duck confit is piled in fresh peaches and given a fast run through a hot oven to soften the peaches and warm the confit, its juices seasoning the peach. The fruit's tart-sweet notes match well with the concentrated flavor confit gives.

Fabulous chicken livers: Lightly fried and still pink inside with a crunchy breading and sitting on a tabasco aioli, they were pretty much perfect. And while regular readers know I never say this, Joe Pollack would have exulted in this dish. But he would have pointed out that this menu makes vegetarians work a little - the maque choux, Vires' take on the traditional south Louisiana dish of corn and other vegetables, including deepfried okra, has bacon, for instance, not heretical by any means, but certainly moving it off such folks' radar. (I suspect that farther into the hot weather, the vegetable offerings will soar.)

And to finish the plates discussion with a bang, consider the pork cheek ragu. Not a sauce over pasta but a thick braise full of the flavor of long-cooked vegetables, including smoked tomatoes and sweet onions and the deep porkiness of pig cheeks, it was a marvel, flavors so complex as to cause us to fall into contemplative silence, a rare occurrence indeed.

Intriguing desserts, the simplest of which was a chocolate pave - think really good fudge but softer - paired with freshly baked crumbly shortbread and a slightly sharp blackberry-mustard relish. Prosecco gelatin in a flute topped with whipped frozen strawberries, almost a gelato, very light sweetness from the berries, none in the prosecco. (No, the prosecco's bubbles do not survive the process, unfortunately.) And then there was their napoleon, which layered paper-thin, crisp almond cookie wafers with lemon mascarpone and tops them with blackberry whipped cream, all put together at the moment of ordering so the crispness remains to contrast with the cool creaminess of the moist components.

Be aware that cozy tete-a-tetes are near impossible given the communal tables, where it seems impossible not to ask the folks nearby just what it is they're munching. Head to the sofas for that. Servers are enthusiastic and mostly very knowledgeable about the food and even the building.

 

 

Table

1821 Cherokee St.

314-449-1888

www.tablestl.com

Dinner Wed.-Mon., Brunch Sat.-Sun.

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Small plates: $7-$16

The Kitchen Sink

This really casual little spot just north of the Forest Park Metro stop has some remarkably tasty offerings. Just pay attention to where you park. A good idea before the Muny, or for lunch near the History Museum - not that there's anything wrong with Bixby's, of course, but the feeling here is way different.

It's called The Kitchen Sink.