My apologies for the lack of posts on Friday. I was busy helping to dismantle (literally) the pile of crabs pictured above.
Planning to take in a Major League ballgame somewhere besides St. Louis this summer? The New York Times has an awesome interactive map showing the best and worst dish at all 30 MLB stadiums.
They suggest trying the bratzel and avoiding...wait for it...the T-ravs.
I'm off to Baltimore to visit the family, so don't expect up-to-the-minute posting today and tomorrow. Gut Check will still be here, though. Keep checking back. Unless you have one of them new-fangled RSS feeds. Me? I actually write this blog on a typewriter.
Photo: terpsichore.stsci.edu
A look at what’s happening at our favorite St. Louis food blogs…
Seriously, folks, I'm going to have to start doing these twice a week. I've already introduced one of this week's new food blog offerings: Off the Menu from Post-Dispatch restaurant critic Joe Bonwich.
Also making its digest debut this week is Ask Me About My Burger, a site dedicated to reviewing burgers in St. Louis. Lots of fun. Go check it out.
The usual suspects, after the jump...
I would eat meat pies every damn day. I would die young, but happy. Regular posting resumes tomorrow. Nothing but salad and water till then.
-Ian Froeb
Photo: www.nolacuisine.com
By the time you read this, I should be in Shreveport, Louisiana, for a wedding. So if any restaurants unexpectedly close, or this weekend's farmers' markets feature the greatest strawberries in the history of the world, you might not hear it here first.
Next Week: The return -- in a big way -- of Cheesesteak Quest.
Have a great weekend. Eat something good.
Photo: www.destination360.com
Wednesday's New York Times included a fascinating article by wine writer Eric Asimov on the exploding dining scene in Portland, Oregon.
This is a golden age of dining and drinking in a city that 15 years ago was about as cutting edge as a tomato in January. Every little neighborhood in this city of funky neighborhoods now seems to be exploding with restaurants, food shops and markets, all benefiting from a critical mass of passion, skill and experience, and all constructed according to the gospel of locally grown ingredients.
In close proximity is a cadre of farmers committed to growing environmentally responsible produce with maximum flavor, delivered to restaurants and to the gorgeous farmers’ markets that dot the city. There are local fisheries and small beef, lamb and pork producers. Not far away is the Hood River Valley, with its myriad fruit growers who supply glistening, fragile berries and stonefruits of every stripe and color.
There's a practical side to the renaissance, too.
Portland also has what anybody in the restaurant business will tell you is most important of all: affordable real estate. Just as young, passionate chefs flocked to the East Village and Brooklyn in the 1990s, chefs have gravitated to Portland because it lets them have a vision and take risks without lining up corporate backers and lawyers.
Now, a direct comparison between Portland and St. Louis would be fruitless. Different parts of the country, obviously. Different produce. (No matter what your opinion of Missouri wines, area vineyards have a long way to go before they could reach the critical mass of Oregon's.)
What excites me about this article is that Portland's scene is organic in the broadest sense of the term -- and could be applicable to any city near any sort of agricultural bounty. Chefs who exploit local resources rather than adhering to a top-down, this-is-what-people-expect-from-all-restaurants-everywhere ethos.
We certainly have chefs in St. Louis with similar beliefs. Can we build on that, though, and forge a scene that is distinctly St. Louis (or Missouri)?
Another way to put it: Why couldn't St. Louis become the pork mecca of foodies everywhere?
Once again, file this under random musings.
As you read this, I should be on my way to Dallas for a long weekend. (Weather permitting, of course.) Now, Gut Check won't go completely silent this afternoon and tomorrow -- last time I checked, they do have the Internets in Texas -- but I can't promise there will be many posts in the next 36 hours or so. Still, should I happen to stumble upon something interesting food-wise on my trip, you can be sure I'll let you know.
We've come to Columbia for the True/False Film Festival, a celebration of documentary filmmaking. Our schedule is tight, but I'm determined to sample — sample being the key word here — as many of Columbia's restaurants as I can in 48 hours.
How many restaurants can I squeeze into 48 hours? Where, exactly, do I go? Is this the first restaurant review to mention both Chester A. Arthur and marshmallows? Learn the answers to these questions in this week's review.
