"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...