Our Town.
This weekend, Greg and I played tourists in our own town in celebration of our anniversary. Too often, we neglect our own city in favor of vacationing in others. We decided to reverse that trend and visit some of what St. Louis has to offer. The criteria were simple: Try to only visit places we've never been -- at least, not together; and try to find the best of everything.
We started off Friday evening with a wonderful dinner at An American Place. It was top-notch in food and service, and it is little wonder that this is one of the most highly-regarded restaurants in St. Louis right now. Our waiter, Luis, was awesome, and the atmosphere was beautiful:
We stayed at the Mayfair downtown, an historic hotel recently renovated into a contemporary dream. The rooms were small, but tasteful, and we loved it:
After our dinner at An American Place, we rested back at the hotel, then rallied and headed over to Kitchen K and the Dubliner for drinks and snacks. Having worked downtown, I'd been to both places for lunch during the workweek, but never after hours and never with Greg. Greg posed for the camera in both places. Despite appearances, I swear it isn't the same photo twice:
Juveniles that we are, we had to try the dingle pasties at the Dubliner:
Saturday morning we made our way to the Central West End and into Companion Bakery, where we shared bagels and coffee and read the local newspaper. It was an awesome time. We don't get to do that very often. Certainly not in peace:
When we finished it was still a little early for a trip to Bissinger's for chocolate, but we stopped at the Cupcakery and then for lack of anything better to do, walked over to the Cathedral Basilica. We took several photos and admired the mosaics we could see but couldn't venture into the inner sanctum because a confirmation mass was taking place:
By that time, Bissinger's was open anyway, so we high-tailed it out of there in favor of tequila chocolate caramels.
Next it was off for lunch at Pappy's Smokehouse. I knew this restaurant would be good because my Pappy had a smokehouse, so what's not to like? Well, this place has, in our opinion, the BEST barbecue in St. Louis, hands down, no question.
After gorging on bbq, we went home to take a nap. What can I say? Too much excitement. After much debate, we went to Iggy's Mexican Cantina for dinner. It was good food, but I nearly throttled the teenaged-boy-with-attitude who seated us. He threw, yes THREW our menus on the table. I managed to keep my composure, but I swear, it was close.
This morning, we brunched at Cafe Madeleine in the Piper Palm House at Tower Grove Park. It was delicious -- pastries and salads and smoked salmon and made-to-order omelets, and some of the best sausage gravy we've had in awhile.
We haven't eaten anything else all day. I don't know that we ever will.
We had a great time -- we certainly didn't begin to exhaust everything this fine town has to offer, and we look forward to more weekends like this.
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