Fish Fry #2 - A MORE Sacred Heart

This past Friday, Em and I got our weekly fish-fix at the Most Sacred Heart Catholic Church Fish Fry in Eureka (yes, they really are the most ... way more sacred heart than our parish).

My one word review? Wow.

They had their act together. Firstly, there was a line of cars trying to get into the parking lot (usually the sign of good or slow fish fry). The only menu choice was between a small and large plate (small being one server, large being all-you-can eat) but at $6/$9 very reasonable. They made up the plates as you walked up (no side choices) which was great for getting the zillions of people through the line quickly, but left everyone getting the same 3 sides (all good: pasta, coleslaw, and green beans). The fish was tasty, the sides were good, and your dinner included drink, desert and bread.

Me being me, I had to get the all-you-can-eat plate ... but they gave you so much food on your first plate, that I really didn't need a second. I pushed on, however, and got in line for some more fish and coleslaw, but got there in time for them to be in-between fish batches which was drastically slowing up both the eat-in and carry-out lines. I figured I would chalk up my extra $3 dollars as a donation and get back to the table where Em's and my deserts were waiting for me (Em gave up sweets for lent). After a slice of homemade cherry pie and lemon cake ... I was done.

All in all, very good. However, get there early!

(The previous week we ended up going out to a local pub/restaurant for dinner and didn't go to a fish fry)

G&W - Bavarian Style Sausage Company

This small sausage company located in South St. Louis has great sausages, smoked meats, and atmosphere.

This past Saturday morning, my dad and I were in search of some good sausage, and we were not left wanting. The place is a small building sandwiched between old car dealerships on a road that dead ends at some train tracks. But don't let the outside fool you, or the large bull painting frighten you, inside lurks yummy foods worth the drive. Walking in you find yourself in a small room with 3 large meet cases full of assorted fresh and smoked/curred sausages, fresh meats, cured meats, and cheese along with a variety of Germanic focused dry goods. A few guys are working behind the counter, cutting meat, swapping stories, doling out cooking advice, and tossing you a free beer if the line gets too long (meaning > 2 people, I declined given that it was 9am and I hadn't eaten anything yet).

After sampling a few of their homemade delicacies, we ended up getting an assortment of things: shinkenwurst, smoky and spicy landjager, some great jerky, breakfast sausage, garlic bratwurst, another ham bases sausage, some "black forest" ham sliced paper thin ...

Everything was great and reminded me a ton of my grandpa who was a German-American through and through and didn't consider a day done until he had meat+potatoes and probably some kind of sausage. Sauerkraut, a plus.

Random Web Links for 2008-02-22

• Recipe of the Day: Roasted Brussels Sprouts With Garlic - Bitten - Em made something similar to this a while back and they were actually quite good
• Easy Baba Au Rhum - Bitten - food that gets your drunk :-)
• Save Money with an Indoor One-Pot Herb Garden - I am going to try this in the spring
• Spaetzle for Breakfast - I gotta try this
• The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy - and Their Open Source Alternatives - good list of OS alternatives
• Quick Whole Wheat and Molasses Bread - Bitten - i need to try and make more bread

Asian Chicken Wantons

I threw these together at the last minute tonight, trying to use up the leftover wrappers from our Miso soup recipe, and they turned out surprisingly well.

I chopped up one thawed chicken breast into medium sized chunks and put it into the food processor along with a couple tablespoons of diced green onion, ground ginger, red pepper flakes, sesame seeds, salt/pepper, and a few dashes each of soy sauce and toasted sesame oil. After a few pulses I spooned the mixture onto the wonton wrappers and folder/sealed them over the top. A couple minutes in some oil over medium heat and the chicken was cooked and the wonton wrappers crispy. (make sure the chicken cooks before the wrappers get too dark) Dipped in some tempura dipping sauce or some sweet & sour sauce and they were pretty darn good.

Miso Soup w/ Sweet Potato Dumplings

This past week, Em and I made this soup. While not either of our favorites, it had a lot of interesting stuff going on and was pretty good.

I couldn't find pure miso paste (who would have thought Trader Joe's wouldn't carry it) so we ended up with miso soup mix ... which was a good things since Em saw that several people had commented that the soup portion was a bit bland. Our soup tasted just like the miso soup you get in a Japanese restaurant. The dumplings, arguably the best part, were very good. Em would have preferred less additions to the sweet potatoes but I thought it was a nice balance. The only downside was the extra prep time (compared to the tiny amount of time it took for everything else).

All in all, it was a good recipe that we might try again with some variations (plus we have 3 more packets of miso-soup mix so we can experiment).

Valentine's Day Dinner - Big Sky Cafe

This Valentines Day, Em and went back to an old favorite for the first time since coming back to town. We had dinner at Big Sky Cafe, the same restaurant we got engaged at. Although they have changed much of the decor since we were last there, and the table we sat at that night is gone, the food was still delicious, the atmosphere unique and the wait staff well trained.


We started with drinks; a perfect Manhattan for me, as usual, and a Valentines day special martini for Em.

I had Blue Crab w/ Fresh Avocado small plate and the Duroc Pork Rib Chop. Both were great, but he highlights were how light the Parmesan and sage bread pudding was and how all of the flavors in the crab dish hit you at different times.

Em had Roasted Golden & Red Beet salad and the Steak and Cake. From all accounts both dishes were superb. Its hard to "beet" a really great crab cake and a perfectly cooked piece of beef tenderloin covered toasted walnut blue cheese butter. :)


We will have to go back sometime for desert. We were both too full at the time, but they had some very interesting ones on the menu.

Random Web Links for 2008-02-13

• Cooks.com - Recipe - Chicken Wontons - recipe to try ... need a way to use leftover wonton wraps
• Consumer food labeling suits reinstated - you really can sue for anything :)
• Roasted Walnut Oil - I might just need to pick some of this up at some point
• Recipe of the Day: Falafel (Bitten) - recipe to try ... I need a deep fyer
• Best Wine Racks Kitchen-related design from our network - really cool wine rack design. I loves simple and uniquely designed storage setups like this
• Recipe of the Day: Ginger Beer - Bitten - we had some great homemade "real" ginger-soda up in Chicago which was great
• Recipe of the Day: Italian-Style Vegetable Pancakes - Bitten - like potato pancakes++
• Recipe of the Day: Potato Nik - Bitten - I always wanted to try latke, this is just one big one
• Happy World Nutella Day 2008! (Feb 5th) - they have holidays for everything