HOT SPOT
Clementine’s at Christmas
We’re suckers for peppermint ice cream in the wintertime, and every year at our holiday table a debate ensures over who makes the best one. This year, our hands-down vote goes to the Peppermint Bark from Clementine’s Creamery, one of Tamara Keefe’s “naughty” (alcoholic) flavors made with locally owned St. Brendan's Peppermint Bark Irish Cream Liqueur and pieces of scratch-made peppermint bark. Just to mix it up, pick up a pint of non-mint holiday flavors, including Salted Caramel Bread Pudding, made with St. Brendan's Salted Caramel Irish Cream liqueur and chunks of Companion’s challah bread pudding, or Gingerbread Love, a “nice” (non-alcoholic) flavor with spicy gingerbread ice cream and pieces of chocolate-covered gingerbread cookie. All are available throughout January at Clementine’s retail store in Lafayette Square. 1637 S. 18th, 314-858-6100.
INSIDER TIP
Cheap (or Zero) Corkage Fees
To recoup lost wine profits, most restaurants charge a fee when a guest brings in an outside bottle of wine, usually from $15 to $20 per bottle. (The Lobby Lounge at the Ritz has a $25 corkage fee, but considering the glass wine prices there, it’s a bargain.) At Balaban’s, buy the wine onsite, and the corkage fee is $8. At Winslow’s Home, the charge is $9, whether the wine is purchased onsite or not. At Brio, the fee is waived for the first bottle. BRAVO! will open two bottles gratis. But the most lenient policy is at BrickTops, where there’s never a corkage fee, no matter the number of bottles.
MICRORANT
Condiment Packets While Dining at a Chinese Restaurant
While it’s true that a handful of little plastic sauce packets can resurrect an otherwise marginal Chinese take-out meal, they should be used only for that purpose. Should we choose to dine-in at a Chinese restaurant, such accoutrements should be provided in bottles or bowls. Don’t think we can saw open packets of hot mustard with our teeth in public without making a scene and a mess. Or guide that stream of soy sauce anywhere near its intended target. Or apply that vaguely orange sweet and sour sauce in dabs, instead of one big gelatinous blob. Because none of it’s gonna happen. Rest assured, those stainy, sticky substances are all over our home, car, and cubicle. When we’re dining out, in your restaurant, spare us any further indignity.
Follow George on Twitter @stlmag_dining or send him an email at gmahe@stlmag.com. For more from St. Louis Magazine, subscribe or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
