"Evil will always prevail, because good is dumb."

My sister and I are pretty different people. I'm a caveman, she's a doctor. I live in downtown St. Louis, she lives in downtown Chicago, a block from the Gap on Michigan Avenue (and they say doctors are getting paid enough!) Well, I always hear her rave about Chicago restaurants and how St. Louis just can't compare to the sights and sounds of that "fabulous" city. Well, she was in town, because apparently doctors get vacations, and my family wanted to go out to a nice restaurant to celebrate my mom's recent graduation from massage therapy school. A 56 year old woman, graduating from school is a big deal and we were very proud. So, I decided to use this opportunity to bust out a secret weapon to show Wina Tang that there are restaurants here on par with Chicago. So where did we go? Larry Forgione's An American Place. For the past year, I've repeatedly heard rumors and stories about this place from various individuals, among them, Wusan Salker, the diva of everything nice, that this is the place to eat. Now when Wusan, a Mississipian, gets excited about a restaurant, I know it has to be good, because only the best is mediocre for Wusan.

Well, so how was it, you ask? Wusan knows her food! The dining experience was probably the most complex, flavorful dinner I've ever had. Wina is big on tasting menus and so we decided to try the 9 course tasting menu. Hard to go wrong here if you feel like ponying up some bills to celebrate. Here's the run down of the menu for the evening:

We started things off with an amuse-bouche, which is a free offering from the chef to sort of warm up the palate to the glorious dishes about to come. Ours was a cool, watermelon soup with crab, which at first, may seem quite strange, but the slight sweetness of the watermelon, paired with the saltiness of the crab, was perfect. The presentation was in a small bowl in the shape of an egg, with the soup resting where the yolk would be. Quite artistic.

1. Roasted corn with beurre infused with mushroom and a side of crab meat salad. Generally, I'm not a corn person, but the corn was extremely tender and sweet, which made me enjoy immensely. A little hard to eat, but the husk was still attached to it, so I just picked it up and ate it, while dipping it in the mushroom butter. The crab salad was very good, but I wasn't so sure that back to back crab was necessary. Plus, the two were eaten individually, so how well, they complimented each other, I'm not so sure. But, overall, both were excellent.

2. Deconstructed Caprese Salad. This was probably, by far, the dish I was most impressed with. A traditional caprese salad consists of tomato, fresh mozzerella, and basil. This was a very unique spin on that. An scoop of olive oil sorbet, on top of a tomato slice, on top of a wafer. All of it sprinkled with fresh basil and some sauce that was unidentifiable. Olive oil sorbet. The flavor of olive oil permeated the sorbet and had a coolness on the tongue that epitomized the word "savory". When everything was eaten together, it instantly informed me what fresh ingredients should taste like.

3. Sliced cured pork jowl with bell peppers. This may put some people off, namely Wusan, but I thought that this was another well designed dish. The jowl is from the cheek and neck of the pig. It was so thinly sliced, it reminded me of rice paper. The flavor was more akin to proscuitto. Because it was cured, it was quite salty. However, when that was paired with the sweetness of the bell peppers, again the combination of flavors formed a synergy in your mouth quite unlike anything I've had before. Simply put, awesome. Of note, my girlfriend did not like the jowl because it was too fatty, which made me quite happy, because more jowl for the caveman!

4. Seared scallop on a grilled eggplant, with greens and an eggplant sauce. This was my mom's favorite dish. She said the next time she comes back, she's getting a plate of these. The scallops were cooked to perfection at slightly rare. Overcooked scallops are horrible, but that wasn't a problem here. Another problem with cooking scallops, is that if you don't drain the liquid out of the scallop, you won't get a nicely seared crust on it. It's very similar to cooking a steak in a pan. Anyways, this was perfect here and the eggplant worked well with the scallop. Seasoning was perfect.

5. Veal with red wine reduction sauce. Okay. I have a confession and this may offend people of the Wusan persuasion, but I really, really, really like to eat baby cow. This was no exception and the veal was so flavorful. It was cooked well done, which usually makes me angry and violent, like most cavemen, but it was cooked this way because the meat was from the shank, which meant that there was plenty of flavorful connective tissue that needed a good braising in order to break down into the meat. The red wine reduction sauce was a little salty, but it served as a good dressing for the greens.

6. Braised lamb. Okay, this was slightly similar to the last dish in terms of sauce, but the lamb was served on a corn pudding that was perfect for reducing the saltiness of the sauce. Corn pudding was a first for me, but it was so smooth and creamy, it may become my preferred method of eating corn. What made this dish even more interesting for me, was that the lamb was cooked to medium rare, which is extremely difficult given the small size and thickness of the meat. It had a nice pink running through it, which put a smile on my face.

7. Blue cheese with preserved fig. Well, with the crescendo peak reach in the meal, the chef was now bringing us down with a cheese plate to be followed by two desserts. I made the mistake of eating the cheese first by itself. The cheese was very strong (stinky) and a tad bitter. But, in another exhibit of how flavors should be paired together, the cheese was perfectly balanced when eaten with the sweetness of the fig. The fig drew out flavors in the cheese that initially were overpowered by the stink and bitterness and mellowed those two flavors out, creating a perfect cheese experience. Amazing.

8. Preserved apricot stuffed with rice pudding. Okay, this was my least favorite dish. The apricot and its accompanying sauce was so sour, that the sweetness of the rice pudding could not counteract it. Least memorable and I won't waste any more time writing about it because of the dessert after this one redeemed everything.

9. Chocolate lava cake. Simply put, the best dessert I've ever had. Even better than Harvest's bread pudding! You cut into the cake and chocolate just oozes out of it, like lava. I was afraid that it was going to be too sweet, but it wasn't. The chocolate inside was very warm and when eaten with the blackberry sorbet, it was a nice contrast of hot and cold, sweet and sour. The blackberry sorbet was sour, but matched perfectly with the lava cake. I don't like chocolate very much, and I'm not big on desserts, but this alone, was worth the meal because of how good it was.

Well, the meal ended with some designer confectionaries from the restaurant. Good, but after the meal, they weren't memorable. Service was okay, not the best I've had, but not the worst. The server tried to be friendly, but all he'd say was "is everything still okay?" To which I would respond, "of course." And off he would go. I got the impression that the staff wasn't quite knowledgeable regarding the food they were serving, which was unfortunate because I had lots of questions about it. For our party of five, they added a gratuity of 20% to our bill, which my Dad paused at, but because the meal was so good, he happily signed the check. The meal was expensive enough that this won't be a frequent event, but I recommend that everyone at least try it once to see how a food experience can be entertaining for you taste buds, other than sheer amount. The portions were small, but I was very full after the meal. Amazing considering I'm a big caveman. What did the big doctor Wina think? She said it's as good as anything she's had in Chicago. Presentation wasn't as over the top as in Chicago, but for the prices here, it was a steal compared to Chicago. Victory!!

And now, here's my restaurant pick for the week and what you should order there:

Wong's Wok (In the Delmar Loop Market)

Well, after a big expensive meal like that, nothing makes me feel better than going to Wong's Wok and getting some $5 beef noodle soup. Wong's Wok is a hole in the wall, but the chinese people sure love their beef noodle soup. For $5.25 you get a big bowl of noodles, beef, bok choy, and soup. It's a little spicy, but perfect if you get a milk tea drink from the bubble tea place next door to it.

"You know what the trouble about real life is? There's no danger music."

Here's a mid-week special. Black List foreign correspondent Durtis Cevlin was assigned to Hawaii a few months ago to report on the strange island and this thing called "poi." Apparently it's related to the potato of southeast Asia, taro. Well, the interesting thing about Durtis is that he's a caveman soldier, who's been certified to jump out of a plane. Who knew cavemen could jump out of planes? I think, though, it's a conspiracy from doctors trying to get rid of us cavemen by hoping that we'd all want to jump out of planes, once we heard other cavemen were doing it. Then, we'd all die out or hurt ourselves, because we'd delegate packing our parachutes to our secretaries or paralegals, who would just luuuuuv that assignment. Speaking of which, the doctors almost got Durtis because he broke his foot during training, but like any other good cavemen, he jumped out of 3 more planes with his broken foot. We're a smart lot of cavemen. The caveman motto: if at first, you don't offend, try, try, again. Anyways, here's Durtis' report:

Understanding Hawaii's demographics allows one to understand the bewildering and intricate mosaic we call, "Hawaiian Cuisine."
Contrary to popular belief, Hawaiians and visitors to Hawaii do not subsist entirely on coconuts and sand. In this multi-part guest feature, the author will attempt to categorize and detail the main subdivisions of Hawaii's population, as relates to the wide variety of food we eat here.
Hawaii's entire population subdivides thusly:

1. Tourists.
2. Locals.
3. Military.
4. Homeless.

This installment will address Tourists.

1. Tourists come in three varieties: American tourists, Japanese tourists, and Other.

a. American tourists are generally fat, loud and sunburned. They camp outside Cheesecake Factory days in advance to secure a table for dinner. Why do they do this? I don't know. Perhaps their overpriced and vaguely pan-Asian-American-European-fusion crap tastes better in Hawaii than in Omaha. It must, because folks wait hours and step over homeless people to get in there. No joke. Same goes for TGI Fridays, Chili's, IHOP and every other suburban hell-hole that has somehow managed to infest Honolulu. They're packed. Constantly. With Americans. Their food sucks.

b. Japanese tourists can be identified by their smaller stature and distinct plumage of cameras and other electronic devices. They spend their entire Hawaiian vacation riding around Waikiki on trolley buses.

Occasionally their handlers allow them to disembark from these buses, at which time they buy T-shirts emblazoned with English gibberish. I have personally seen T-shirts proclaiming, "Las Vegas: Felt-Tipped Marker" and "Know As Pinky". My favorite was the simple, almost Zen-like, "Pine." Besides buying T-shirts, Japanese tourists also visit indoor shooting ranges and eat Japanese food. Honolulu abounds with Japanese restaurants, some of which truly deserve praise.

Actually, "Japanese food" includes many sub-varieties—a topic worthy of an article all its own. Watch this space.

c. Other encompasses the various Australians, Germans, Canadians, Italians, Columbians, Martians, Mutants, etc. etc. etc. who come to the island. Watch for oddly attired, hairy, moustached men and women wearing scarves. God only knows what they eat. I think they go to luaus every night, where the locals attempt to reduce the staggering oversupply of poi that built up during the 50s. They pretend it's traditional, and the suckers gobble it down like there's no tomorrow.

In the next installment, I will address Locals, and how they hate everyone.

******

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for part 2 of this 4 part special from Durtis, Black List foreign correspondent.

"What, did you think that I wouldn't be a good eugoogylizer?"

So, the other day, I was eating lunch with a friend at Kitchen K, who, for purposes of anonymity, I shall only refer to as Wolly Hray. Wolly, a Renoan (as in Reno, Nevada) and I were talking about her triumphant return to St. Louis and my shock that she had returned to Missouri, after her insistence that she would never return to the "armpit of America" when she left the first time. I, for one, always thought the armpit of America was Branson. Anyways, she was telling me about how the people born and raised here are weird because they absolutely loooooove St. Louis. Everyone born here and raised here is crazy about St. Louis and never want to leave this town because of how "awesome" it is. I found this to be a little disturbing, but possibly true to a certain degree. Most of my friends who live here, grew up here and love this town. I was not born here, but grew up here and have no plans on leaving for the time being. So, either this town grows on you, or they're putting something in the food. Speaking of which, this week here's my list of my top 5 places to eat downtown for lunch for people who work downtown.

I work downtown and almost everyday, my fellow cave men/women lawyers and me go out to eat lunch. Downtown there are some good places to eat and lots and lots of bad places. I'll save the bad places for another post. The criteria into these selections consists of quality of food, value for your food and wait time (us silly cave men must account for every 6 minutes of our day). I also must preface this list by saying that these places aren't the highest quality restaurants in St. Louis. They're merely among the regular places that I would go to for lunch and for varying reasons, they're my favorites.

5. Thai Express (5 minutes before you get your food). For those of you who work downtown, you know where it is. It's one of the few restaurants downtown that serves food, but have no kitchen in the restaurant. Real sketchy. Where the food comes from, I don't know. I pretend it comes from Thailand and when they go on vacation every year, it's because they have to go back to the motherland to get more food. At least that lie provides some comfort to my stomach after I eat there. What's good about this place? You get a plate of food, bigger than my head, for only $6.50. Now, this may not seem like anything special, but let me assure you that my head is quite large and there's so much food, you won't finish it, unless you were Andre the Giant in a former life. Now, it's also not about quantity, but quality wise, the food is pretty good. But, you have to know what to order. I always get the green curry and masaman curry. Both have good sauces and are tasty. Stay the hell away from the teriyaki chicken. It's a cross between the sweetness of cotton candy and feet. I cannot personally verify this because I do not know what feet taste like, but Kohn Jeen (to protect his identity his name has been altered) did. Rumor has it, if you tell the lady serving this place that you're on the Atkins diet and do not want rice, she'll replace all of the rice normally on the plate with more meat. Yes. More meat. When a cave man in my office found this out, he came bounding (or rolling) into the office after he ate there, with the biggest smile on his face. You too, can replicate this joy for yourself!

4. 10th Street Italian (10-15 minutes for food to be served). This is one of those places where everything tastes good and they have enough variation that you can eat there almost once a week, without getting sick of the food. I like this place because the people there know me by name. It makes me feel special, and if you eat there once a week, or every other week for a year, they'll know your name too and it'll become your own little Cheers. The meatball sub here is a longstanding favorite. It's not disgustingly huge, but it is quite flavorful and you feel satisfied after you eat there. The 10th Street Chef Salad is outstanding, with the right amount of meat and cheese and the dressing is light enough that it doesn't over power everything. This salad paves the way for the salad that is to come after it (see below), in that it is very fresh, but not as big as the salad that is to come after it. The pastas are great and what's even better is that you can ask them to change all sorts of stuff with the pasta. Last time I was there, Anthony recommended that I try a different pasta with one of their specials and it made a huge difference. I say go and try to find the perfect combination and let me know what you can get.

3. Jimmy John's (5 minutes for a sandwich). For some reason, the sandwiches here are really, really good. So good, in fact, that it makes me think that may be putting crack in their food. It is crackalicious. The sandwiches are filling and they get them out "so fast, you'll freak." My personal favorite is the Big John or the Hunter's Club on white. Good deli meat, fresh veggies and quality cheese on a sandwich. What more can I say, or what else do you need to know? In fact, I think I need my fix now after writing about it...

2. Homeless Shelter (McMurphy's Grill) (15-20 minutes for food to be served). There's something special about this place. Maybe because eating there, allows me to think that I'm helping the homeless people who are working there to be trained as serves, or it's because everytime I see the salads they serve here, I scream out in terror at the sheer size of them. McMurphy's is a little short on quality and freshness of their food, but very long on service and quantity of food. Now don't let that scare you. By being short on quality, I mean I've found a piece of brown lettuce here and there in my salad before, but that's to be expected when they use 3 heads of lettuce per salad. I just don't want you to confuse the freshness of the veggies here, with say, An American Place or some fancy place like that. With that said, I like this place because it is unpretentious and the food is simple, without crazy trend of food deconstruction. It has dishes like beef stew, meatloaf, hamburgers, and ginormous salads. Nothing fancy, but nothing disappoints. On top of that, nothing will cost you more that $6 or $7 and because the servers are all in training, everyone is attentive and your drink is rarely empty. If you get the server with the hearing aid, don't freak out if he puts his hand on your shoulder. He's a nice guy and not trying to hit on you. He heard that stupid fact that if you put your hand on your customer, they'll tip you more.

1. Copia (15-20 minutes for food to be served). This is pretty standard in terms of nice locale and good food. It is one of the recent spats of restaurants opening up on Washington Ave. It calls itself an urban winery. It may be one, but I haven't seen signs of that yet. The food, though, is excellent. Their style of cuisine is best described as American fusion with whatever else the chef feels like. They have a bbq pork sandwich that is excellent and I challenge anyone to eat it without getting messy. My colleague Cicheal Mhevhal (again to protect his identity) has tried numerous times and each time has soiled himself like a little girl. I haven't had a bad experience yet with the food. The bar is pretty good (we cavemen like to drink at lunch because it makes us feel powerful, like mahogany) and service is pretty standard regardless of how crowded they are. They allegedly have a patio that is open for lunch, but for some reason, whenever I ask about it, they say it's opening next week.

And there you have it. Give these places a try, or if you've been there and you think they're crap, please feel free to add a comment. It might even be a good comment...for me to poop on.

Here's the recipe for the week. Growing up, my mom used to make this for dinner all the time. Goes great with rice and is about as traditional a chinese dish as it gets. Nothing fancy, but tastes great and is fairly healthy. It's also very easy and very quick for you cave men/women out there who don't have time because you're trying to "capture" it all. I'm trying to disabuse the world of the notion that Chinese food is all fried and sweet. Damn you, General Tso!

General Wang's Dish
(Serves 4 with other dishes)

Ingredients:
6 eggs (if you want to be even healthier, feel free to use egg beaters)
16 oz. of soft tofu (you can use hard or medium if you want, but for best results, use soft)
4 Roma tomatoes
3 cloves of garlic
1 stalk of green onions
salt and pepper

Prep Work:
1. Beat the eggs until they're smooth, but not too hard or else I'll think you're an Asian parent.
2. Cut the tofu into 1 inch cubes and drain the water out of the carton.
3. Cut the tomatoes into 1 inch cubes.
4. Chop the garlic.
5. Slice up the green onions as finely as possible.

Chefing:
1. Fire up the wok or pan and put some oil into it. If you want to be precise, go with 5 tablespoons.
2. Put the garlic into the pan and make sure the garlic doesn't burn. If it starts burning, turn down the heat.
3. Throw your eggs into the pan and begin to scramble the eggs. Now, don't scramble into tiny pieces. Just gently fold the egg over itself you have fairly large uniform chunks of egg.
4. Before the eggs are fully cooked, throw in the tomatoes and toss it all together for 2 minutes.
5. After the two minutes and after the tomatoes have cooked a bit, add your tofu and continue toss this all together in the pan.
6. Add a teaspoon of salt while this is all cooking and sprinkle pepper over it if you'd like. Taste it and see if it needs more salt. If so, add slowly. Sidebar: YOU MUST ALWAYS TASTE YOUR FOOD WHILE YOU'RE COOKING IT TO MAKE SURE IT TASTES GOOD! IF YOU DON'T, DON'T BLAME ME IF IT TASTES LIKE CRAP.
7. Turn off the heat, pour out the contents onto a nice serving plate, and sprinkle the green onions over the top for presentation. General Wang's dishes always have to look nice.
8. Eat!

Till next week...

"It's a Mother's Day Miracle!"

I like to eat good food. And, I don't discriminate against different genres of food. As long as it's good, I eat it. If it's foreign to me, I'll try it. In the words of the great thinker R. Dameron, "I'll try anything twice." But, this blog isn't only about good food. I hate bad food, bad restaurants and bad service and it has occurred to me that there is a dearth of accurate reporting on good and bad St. Louis (where I'm from) restaurants. My mission, if you so choose to read along, is to present to you my thoughts on restaurants in St. Louis, both good and bad, along with some recipes that I've developed over the years for traditional chinese food, and other stuff I like to eat. Like clam chowder.

So, you ask, why is this blog called the Black List? Well, the Black List is reserved for those special restaurants where the food or service is so bad, that I would rather punch myself in the face than step foot in the restaurant again. So, here is the inaugural Black List:

5. BARcelona. A lot of people rave about this restaurant. Fools. It's just a matter of time before they find a special addition in their food. I ordered the calamari there and as I was chewing a bite, I turned into a magician. I pulled a hair out of my mouth that kept going and going, like a damn scarf. At least magicians can wash those scarves. The waitress didn't apologize, took the appetizer away, and I was left with the queasy feeling in your stomach you have before you worship the porcelain bowl. You know, the problem wasn't that the hair was lying nicely on top of the food. It was cooked into the food. So, either that means their prep cooks or "chefs" themselves aren't tying their hair back or wearing a hat. Disgusting. I'm sure if I went back, it might be a good experience, but would you want to risk it, knowing that they don't wear hats? If they can't even get the hat or hairnet policy right, what about leaving meat out?

4. Mai Lee. Okay. Another favorite for some. I'll be honest. I really, really like the food here. In fact, I'll even do carry out for this place. But, if you want me to dine there, the service alone puts this hell hole on this list. I don't know what's with the wait staff here, but the majority of them act as if they're a cross between Clay Aiken (in that androgynous kind of way) and the Soup Nazi. It takes forever to get a menu, to get drink orders, to get your food and to get your check. When you ask for it, they act as if you've just insulted their mother, sister and dog all at the same time. Thankfully, I'm not a soccer player and if they tried to headbutt me a la Zidane, I wouldn't flop down on the ground and need the magic towel/spray bottle that heals all.

3. Tanner B's Downtown. I hate having to do this, but they're on the list. Service is fine, wait staff is very friendly and helpful, but man, is the food their horrible. One day for lunch, I made the terrible mistake of ordering their meatloaf special. While this alone, may make you question my judgment in food, I may have been drunk that day when I was ordering, so clearly, it's not my fault. Well, this meatloaf was more akin to a hockey puck. It was clearly microwaved prior to service and they zapped it a little too long. You know when you microwave something too long and it gets dried out? Imagine that happening to a big chunk of meatloaf. I think I could have used it as a self-defense weapon, such as a throwing star, although those happen to be illegal in the City of St. Louis, along with nunchaku. Such blatant discrimination against the yellow. Other people have guns, yet they decide to outlaw the weapons yellow is good at. (Blah blah blah, ending with prepositions, SHUT UP). Anyways, no meat pucks for me.

2. Emperor's Palace. Okay. This is more of an indictment on Chinese buffets in general. All y'all need to hear this warning. This is a true story. I knew a guy who grew up in a cave in China. He came over here for school and worked in various Chinese buffet restaurants. One day, he told me, never go eat at a Chinese buffet, but, if you're going to, at least don't go eat at one during the summer time. If a guy who grew up in a cave is afraid of eating at a chinese buffet in the summer time, would you? Emperor's Palace of one of those new trendy California style Chinese buffets that have everything you could want. Problem with that is quality is sacrificed for quantity. I'm eating at this place on night and as I'm walking by the cocktail shrimp section, I notice something very wrong. The shrimp aren't pink. They're all gray and raw. The worst part, is that I see all these people grabbing this shrimp, thinking they're cocktail shrimp and shoveling them into their mouths. A few minutes later, I go back there, positive that there's be a reinactment of that scene from Stand By Me, but fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it), nothing is amiss and they've replaced the shrimp again with cooked shrimp. I still wonder if they changed the ice that night.

1. In Soo. Continuing a trend of bad restaurants that people like, this place has horrible food and horrible service. The owner is supposed to be this cute asian lady that gets all up in your face telling you what you want and bosses you around in some sort of sick dominatrix theme. The people who like this place because of her should go seek help from a professional, or go find an actual dominatrix, because at least the actual dominatrix won't shove In Soo's horrible "chinese food" down your throat. In essence, In Soo's food represents everything that is wrong with american chinese food. It looks like it's been fried in hydrogenated oil, tastes like someone has poured corn syrup over the dish and the presentation looks as if someone visited Stink Alley and threw what they found in it onto a plate. I'll pass on the bossy lady and her "chinese food." She ought to be ashamed of her food. I'm embarassed for her that she would call that crap chinese food.

So, thus ends the first Black List for this week. This list is very fluid and restaurants come on and off this list, depending on if they get better, or if I forget how bad they were the last time.

Now, here's my restaurant for the week, along with what I would order if I were you and eating there. This segment will usually feature an excellent asian restaurant, along with certain excellent menu items, most people don't order. Why? Because I want people to stop ordering General Tso's. It's not real chinese food and made up by some dude in California, the land of fruits and nuts.

Wonton King, 8116 Olive Blvd. U-City.

This fine Cantonese restaurant is on Olive. in the heart of the growing Chinese Strip. Don't be put off by the roasted ducks hanging in the glass cabinet as you come in. The food tastes great. Here's what to order, if you have 4-6 people eating with you:

1) Salt and Pepper Pork Chop
2) Eggplant Hot Pot
3) Chinese Watercress. If they don't understand, say, with your best chinese accent, "Kohn Ching Tsai." Should be the best chinese vegetable dish you've ever had.
4) Ma Po Tofu. This is only if you like spicy food.
5) Beef Satay Hot Pot with Rice Noodles
6) If you're feeling adventurous, half a roasted duck.