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We’d venture that most of you think offal is awful. Offal means organ meats, as in preparations like chopped liver, menudo, pate de fois gras, skewered Brazilian chicken hearts, grilled sweetbreads, fried calf brains, tongue sandwiches, haggis, lamb fries, and sautéed bull penis. (Click the link – we dare you.)
You might eat some of the above, but unless you’re Andrew Zimmern, you probably balk at much of it.
We were like you. We were hesitant to eat a fried cow’s stomach on Texas toast with pickles, mustard, and onion.
Then we found Tripe City, where owner Deb Cresswell (left), aka Ms. Deb, cooks up tripe four ways:
-“Extra-extra-crispy” has a lot of fried breading, obscuring the true tripe flavor, and mollifying those hesitant to eat an animal’s tum-tum
-“Extra-crispy” tastes like a thick bit of chicken skin fried up juicy and delicious
-“Medium” has some crispiness, explained Miss Deb, but it also has some “pull,” meaning meaty resistance
-“Soft” has the least crisp and the most pull, and is for true tripe lovers
We ate the extra-crispy (below), and it was juicy, savory, fatty and formidable (in a good way). The hot sauce, mustard, pickles and onions on the bread – the same condiments that enhance a St. Paul sandwich – were the way to go.
The tripe is king here, so much so that the owner gradually changed the restaurant’s name from Samplings by Ms. Deb to Tripe City.
Still, consider other goodies like a thick burger cooked to a medium pink (above) or the juicy fried chicken (below).
For dessert, maybe a peach cobbler thick with oven-browned dough (below left), or that delish soul-food banana pudding (below right) in which the Nilla wafers, saturated by pudding, take on the magically doughy consistency of bread pudding.
Clearly, Ms. Deb didn’t just fall off the tripe truck yesterday. Indeed, this is her third restaurant (her others have included one called “Zaas” and an earlier incarnation of Samplings by Miss Deb).
She was eager to point out her commitment to improving her community, too. She hires people living in halfway houses, she said, and teaches culinary arts for Beaumont HS, bringing the students into Tripe City’s kitchen for hands-on instruction.
“I believe in giving a hand up, not a handout!” she averred with a characteristic flourish.
So what of the carnivore who will eat bacon, chicken, ribs, and so on, but draws the line at a fried stomach with a little “pull” in the meat?
“You must try the tripe,” said Ms. Deb, “and your fear will disappear.”
Tripe City
5124 Natural Bridge
314-381-0649
Tue - Thu 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Fri - Sat 11 a.m. - 8 p.m.
