St. Louis Food Blog

Jennifer Silverberg

This week I visit the Bleeding Deacon, a South City bar with a surprisingly appealing menu.

Damn. My cell phone was at home, charging. I didn't need to make a call, didn't need to take a photo. I needed light, and barring an unexpected nuclear detonation, the faint glow of my phone's screen was the best I could hope for.

I was trying to order dinner at the Bleeding Deacon. This is a bar, so by definition it's dark, but I'd chosen a table in a Bermuda Triangle that sucked away whatever ambient light was spilling from behind the bar, from inside the kitchen, even from the killer jukebox -- Jay-Z, Morrissey, the Beatles' white album and Whitesnake, and that was only a single page of selections -- to my immediate left. A tea light did sit on my table, but the flame was guttering: I had to hold the menu so close to the fire that I swore I could see smoke curling from the corner of the page.

So this is the point where I rant about how dimly lighted restaurants are these days, and how we're all going to go blind trying to read our menus, right?

Check back here tomorrow to see what I think.