Meet Me in St. Louis

This is more of an addendum to my post yesterday about the brewery tour, but I wanted everyone to know more details about St. Louis like the food and the hotel. Hopefully, I will be able to see more of it on my next trip but work comes first right?

November 3, 2009

We stayed at the Westin near Busch Stadium, home of the Cardinals. It's a nice hotel although the lady at the front desk was neither intelligent nor motivated. They were also out of contact solution - boo. They did honor my Starwood points though - sweet.


The room was also quite nice although there wasn't much of a view.


On the otherhand, dinner there on Tuesday night was quite good. The restaurant is called the Clark Street Bar & Grill and the first night we ate in the bar.


We split the chopped iceberg salad which had Mandarin oranges which added a sweetness to contrast the sharp taste of the blue cheese dressing.


We also split a margarita pizza. They have a huge wood oven so the pizza was thin, crispy on the edges and gooey in the middle...mmm.

Lastly, we had the key lime cheesecake for dessert. When it came out I was a little afraid of the stunning green but it still tasted like good ole key lime. Delicious.

We spent the rest of the night preparing for our meeting at Anheuser-Busch the next day.

November 4, 2009

We were up early and off to Anheuser-Busch headquarters for our meeting. Afterwards we stopped at the hotel for lunch before going on our tour of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery (see my previous blog) Lunch wasn't very good. The "Simple Green Salad" was too simple and the white bean chili was thick and pasty. Not a great lunch considering how good dinner the night before was!


We spent the rest of the afternoon touring the brewery and then went straight to dinner with the client at Mike Shannon's Steak and Seafood restaurant. Mike Shannon is a famous Cardinal baseball player so the restaurant has a major baseball theme with bats carving into the walls and rows upon rows of back-lit baseballs. It has an upscale, yet fun atmosphere which was perfect.


We split the Tuna Two Ways appetizer, which featured an Italian tuna dish and an Asian tuna dish. It was okay.


I also had The Wedge salad which also was okay.


Then I had the Sweet Potato Fries with smoked ketchup which were delicious and the Tenderloin Filet which was very good. It was a little rare for a medium steak I thought but still delicious.


We were much too full for dessert but I did get a shot of the client's Lobster Ravioli which looked incredible (I'm allergic to shellfish so I couldn't tell you how it tasted).


From there we walked back to the hotel ready to work late into the night to prepare for tomorrow's meeting.

November 5, 2009

Another day of meetings and food. For lunch we took the client to Sage Urban American Grill, which is right next to the brewery. One of my favorite things about St. Louis is that Shock Top is on tap everywhere you go - it is by far one of the best A-B beers around but usually hard to find. Except in St. Louis.


Sage is a great little restaurant bar. For appetizers, we shared a plate of Gus' Pretzels with mustard dip. They were piping hot and had just the right amount of salt. No wonder Gus is so famous in St. Louis!


For my entree, I had the Trio of Mini Sandwiches. I choose the Tuscan Chicken, Beef Tenderloin, and Buffalo Crispy Chicken sandwiches. They are really more like sliders. The Beef Tenderloin was delicious, the Crispy Chicken was a little too spicy, and the Tuscan Chicken was totally bland.


Here's a look at what the rest of the group had.

Greek Chicken Wrap with hummus, tomato, cucumber, red onion, olives, spinach and romaine with balsamic dressing and feta cheese. This wrap was huge!

Baby Spinach Salad with sliced mushrooms, almonds & sun-dried tomatoes tossed with warm bacon dressing and garlic herb croutons. She also got it with grilled salmon on top which she said was nasty because it had clearly been thawed and then grilled.

Mardi Gras Quesadilla with blackened chicken, andouille sausage, Cajun rice, and cheese. This looked amazing.

Overall, I thought it was a good lunch but not a spectacular one. I am still dreaming about the pretzels though. So good.

From the restaurant, we grabbed our suitcases and headed towards the airport. On the way I was able to get a quick glimpse of the famous St. Louis Arch.

Overall, St. Louis is a fun city for a couple days but definitely a little small to live in. I hope to be able to see more of it on my future work trips.

L.A. Restaurant Week

So apparently I am the only person in Los Angeles who knows about L.A. Restaurant Week. Thus, I am going to get you all up to speed since you only have one more week to enjoy it.

L.A. Restaurant Week is an L.A. only experience that happens two weeks out of the year. A selection of restaurants create three-course fixed menus that are way cheaper than their normal menu. It only works on weekdays and you get to choose from three different appetizers, entrees, and desserts off the fixed menu.

There are three levels of pricing:
1) $ = $16 for Lunch and $26 for Dinner
2) $ = $22 for Lunch and $34 for Dinner
3) $ = $28 for Lunch and $44 for Dinner

Here is an example. I went to The Palm in downtown on Monday night. It's a $. Here's the menu I choose from:

Appetizers
Choice 1: The Palm's Signature Lobster Bisque
Choice 2: Traditional Caesar Salad
Choice 3: Iceberg Wedge Salad - Danish Blue Cheese Dressing and Apple Wood Smoked Bacon

Entrees
Choice 1: Chilean Sea Bass Fillet - over Sauteed Escarole with Marinated Sun Dried Tomatoes and Smokehouse Bacon
Choice 2: Filet Mignon - 9 ounce - Wild Mushroom Ragout & Roquefort Pommes Frites
Choice 3: Broiled Crab Cakes - Mango Salsa

Desserts
Choice 1: Key Lime Pie
Choice 2: New York Cheesecake
Choice 3: Creme Brulee

I choose the Iceberg Wedge Salad, the Filet Mignon, and the Key Lime Pie.


This menu cost $34 without tax and tip. On the regular menu, the 9 ounce filet is $44 by itself. That should give you some idea of the savings. I went home with half a salad and half a filet because there was so much food so in theory I got two meals for $34!

FYI, here is what some of the other stuff on the menu looks like.

Lobster Bisque

Crab Cakes

New York Cheesecake

NOTE: The New York Cheesecake is flown in daily from New York. Yeah. Amazing.

Go to www.dinela.com/restaurantweek to see what restaurants are participating, what level of price they are, and what the pre-fix menu offers. Then be prepared for a lot of food and a lot of fun all next week. But hurry because it's only here for the week and it's only in L.A.

A Day with the Carnies

Sunday I ventured to Pomona, CA, for the L.A. County Fair to spend a day with the carnies.


The fair is broken up into a couple of main areas: See Map

1. Fairview Farms
2. Grandstand
3. Carnival
4. California's Heritage Square
5. Shopping Place
6. Park Square
7. Clocktower Plaza
8. Action Avenue
9. Palms Marketplace
10. Home and Gardens
11. Museums

We parked near the Blue Gate so we entered near Fairview Farms. Our first task was to find the corndog stand. Five minutes later I was desperately regretting my lunch choice but alas it was too late.

Looking up from our lunch table, we saw a huge grandstand with racetrack and the gambling itch began in earnest. So, we clambered up the stairs just in time to see one of the horse races. I urged my boyfriend to bet on the race but betting on horses is kind of overwhelming so we bet between the two of us on which horse would win. I picked #3; he picked #4. I won. The odds meant that if I'd bet $20 on my horse I would've won $100. GODDAMNIT.


Elated that my horse won anyway, we hurried to the Home and Garden area to see the Extreme Pet Show. We got there way too early and ended up watching the Splash Dog Competition first. This competition was AWESOME! Essentially, the owner and dog stand at the end of a long platform that ends in a huge vat of water. The owner gives the dog a signal, throws a toy towards the water and then the dog jumps into the water. It's like the Olympic Long Jump; the goal is to get your dog to leap the farthest across the pool. This dog beat the world record apparently:


Still too early for the Pet Show, we decided to "Enter Africa." In Africa, we saw a crazy looking pelican, touched a scorpion, looked in the cage of a giant porcupine and got to play with the cutest hedgehog I have ever seen. Such random animals but so cool! The employees working with them were really nice and informative as well. The scorpion guy asked if I wanted to hold it but I politely and fearfully declined. He said that this particular type of scorpion is extremely docile and won't sting unless you try to crush it with your hand. Still not a good enough reason for me unfortunately.


Finally, the Pet Show hour had arrived. There was the puppy high-jump, the puppy long jump (the dog jumped over the backs of three people), and the puppy obstacle course containing poles to weave through, a tunnel to climb through, and a flying Frisbee they had to catch. To be honest the Splash Dog and hedgedog activities were way cooler. The Pet Show is DEFINITELY targeted towards really little kids. Lame.


From there we wandered to the Carnival section and searched for our two favorite carnival games. The first is the horse racing one were you roll balls into holes and for each ball you get in a hole your horse moves forward. Obviously, the more balls you roll in faster, the faster your horse wins the race. We won a bright orange elephant that I named Ollie. The second game literally is just throwing baseballs at beer bottles trying to break them. No real skill involved.


The best part was all the employee working the games who were obsessed with USC and were so excited to talk to us about football once they found out we were Trojan alums. It was awesome. One guy even said, "It's so fun to talk to smart people!" (Oh carnies)

Tickets for the games and rides are hugely expensive so we quickly ran out of tickets. You can buy 40 tickets for $20 but then you find out that even a carnival game is 10 tickets for one play. That's pretty much four ride/games for $20. Sucks. So we spent the last of our tickets on the log ride which looks super ghetto but was really fun. There is one minor drop that is more fun than scary and then a huge vertical drop that gets you really really wet. I love water rides!

It was about this time that we were starting to get a little tired of the fair and the heat, but there was no way we were missing the pig races so we headed towards Fairview Farms. The pig racing stadium is at the very back of the Farm area so on the way we watched a couple baby goats playing in a pen. They were adorable.



The pig racing was hilarious. There were four pigs in each race and four sections of the grandstand rooting for each pig. I naturally was rooting for the orange pig. Each race had a theme from Gilligan's Island to Celebrities to Country Singers. The racing names ranged from Lindsay Lo"Ham" to "Piggy" Chesney. An old cowboy was the announcer. It was ridiculous to be honest. I had no idea pigs were so fast!


Before leaving the fair we stopped at the BBQ outpost for BBQ corn (my favorite!). It was as delicious as I remember. We also got a glimpse of some Mexican Wrestling in the Heritage Area on our way out. They looked like Jack Black in Nacho Libre - fat and spandexy haha.


For a $15 entry fee my five hours at the fair were well worth it and I didn't even see everything! The one nuggest of wisdom for you if you go is to look for the Sparklett's water tents because they have free water on tap so that you don't have to buy atrociously expensive bottled water.


All and all a great way to spend a sunny Sunday in Los Angeles.