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The following modules appear on the "Food & Drink" home page of stlmag.com and are updated weekly.
Dine-In Gingerbread House at River City Casino: The life-sized "house" (14" tall and 10' square) contains more than 450 pounds of dough, 100 pounds of granulated sugar, 300 pounds of icing, and almost 700 pounds of cookies, cupcakes, and gum drops. Up to four guests can be served breakfast, lunch, dinner, a special $20 prix-fixe holiday menu...or maybe just a glass of wine or some hot chocolate. A $20 reservation/donation fee benefits the Center for Hearing and Speech. For reservations and hours, call 314-388-7625 or visit rivercity.com. Daily through December 24.
Restaurant Barometer Ol' restaurant saws like us know it's exponentially more difficult for a restaurant to serve a table of 12 than three tables of four...more difficult on the server, bar, kitchen, and bus staff. So it's amazing when it all comes together--when drinks arrive promptly and the entire table's food arrives expeditiously, hot, and tasty. If a restaurant can pull this off--and not many do--now that's a reason to celebrate.
Grocery-store Bread Bread service/quality is one of the benchmarks guests use to evaluate a restaurant. Serving a sliced up baguette that 30 seconds ago was in a plastic Schnucks bag insults our inteligence and cheapens the dining experience. Hey, we just sat down! So much for first impressions... Only thing worse is if the store-bought fluff is served with those miniscule plastic cups that contain about an eighth of a teaspoon of butter...or margarine! Oh, wait, that's another rant...
