Road Tips

Mission Taco Joint - St. Louis

My wife and I were in St. Louis earlier this year and we wanted to go try a restaurant that a friend had recommended for lunch.  The only problem was that it was Saturday afternoon and the line to get into the restaurant was well out the door.  Going to plan B, I started to head over to Soulard to go get some barbecue at the wonderful Bogart's.  However, as we passed over Interstate 55 on Lafayette Ave. coming into Soulard, I immediately noticed something on my right - Mission Taco Joint.  Now, I've been wanting to go to Mission Taco in the Delmar Loop area of St. Louis for awhile now, so I was pleasantly surprised to see one in Soulard.  I quickly talked my wife into going there instead of Bogart's.  (see map)

The hell of all this is - Mission Taco has been in Soulard since November of 2013.  (My wife says that I'm not very observant as I have probably been in Soulard more than a dozen of times on my trips to St. Louis over the past four years.)  It was the second Mission Taco Joint outpost for brothers Adam and Jason Tilford who've had the restaurant bug in their blood since they grew up in nearby Webster Groves.  

Both brothers started in the restaurant business at an early age - Adam's first job was as a pie cutter at Imo's, while Jason worked in the kitchen at the popular Two Nice Guys pizzeria that closed down due to the slowdown in the economy in 2009.  The brothers eventually went to work for the Levy Restaurant Group that handled the food service at the TWA Dome (now called the Dome at America's Center), then at the newly opened Kiel Center (now called the Scottrade Center).  They learned from the Levy corporate chefs on how to cater food for small to large events.

Pictured right - Adam and Jason Tilford.  Photo courtesy Riverfront Times.

The brothers worked at a handful of restaurants around the St. Louis area for the next few years.  An opportunity to take over the lease of a closed restaurant in Clayton came about and the brothers jumped at the chance to open their own place.  They remade the restaurant into a "chef-inspired gastropub" and they opened Barrister's in 2004.  The same year, the brothers opened a small taco shop in the Central West End by the name of Tortillaria.  (It closed in 2016.)  The brothers also had a third restaurant they opened under their Tilford Restaurant Group umbrella, a modern Mexican restaurant by the name of Milagro in Webster Groves.  And nearly three years ago, the brothers opened a full-service catering company on The Hill in St. Louis - Cater al Fresco - that features different styles of culinary fare for large and small groups.  

In 2012, the brothers began working on a concept of a bar/taco joint - more of an upscale taqueria, if you will. They wanted to have a wide selection of libations while serving tacos made with premium ingredients.  They opened their first Mission Taco Joint in February of 2013 with the second one opening in Soulard later in the year.  Today, the brothers have five total Mission Taco's - four in the great St. Louis area and one in the Crossroads art, shopping and entertainment district in Kansas City.  

We circled around Soulard and found a parking spot just down the street from Mission Taco Joint.  We walked up to Mission Taco and saw a bunch of people on a covered patio off to the side of the old building that housed the restaurant.  Going inside, we found a lively, well-lit place with natural light coming in the windows and open doors.  It was around 1:30 on a Saturday afternoon and the place was nearly full.

There was some interesting art work on the walls.  The far end of the restaurant featured a mural of a seaside scene complete with a mermaid holding a surfboard.  Large paintings of Mexican lucha libre wrestlers wearing masks adorned the spaces along the long wall of the dining area.  Mission Taco sort of had a Mexican beach-vibe to the place, even though it was smack-dab in the middle of the United States.

We were seated by the bar which was packed with Saturday afternoon imbibers.  Our server, Amy, came over to drop off food and drink menus for us.  I noticed that they had mai tais on the drink menu and I ordered one of those.  My wife got a house margarita that they make with white tequila, orange curaçao, agave nectar and fresh lime juice. 

The mai tai was very good - almost as good as the ones we would get out in Hawaii.  But my wife really liked her margarita.  I made quick work of my mai tai and I ordered up one of the house margaritas from Amy.  

True to Mission Taco Joint's name, they had a wife variety of street tacos to choose from.  But they also had burritos, empanadas, tortas, and chicken flautas on the menu, as well.  The meats used in their foods at Mission Taco are all cooked on an Aztec gas-ignited, wood-fired stove - one that many authentic Mexican restaurants will use.  The Tilford brothers were inspired by Chicago chef Rick Bayless who said the Aztec is the only stove to use when preparing Mexican food.  The Tilford's say the wood-fired grill gives meats and vegetables a nice smoky flavor while evenly cooking the food.  

The tacos range in price from $3.25 to $4.00 and are served on corn tacos - with the exception of a chicken habanero taco that is served on a flour taco.  They have a couple of vegan tacos on the menu - a wood-fired grilled portobello taco and the "Cho-Fu" taco that is made with soy chorizo, avocados, toasted pipitas (pumpkin seeds), pickled jalapeños and onions.  But they also had tacos made with beef brisket, shrimp, fish, carne asada and even barbecued duck.  

For our tacos, we went four different ways.  I ordered the brisket and pork belly taco, along with the grilled fish tacos.  My wife got the barbecued duck taco and the carne asada taco.  The brisket and pork belly taco was topped with an avocado slice and a spicy arbol chile sauce.  The taco was good, but it was very greasy.  While the arbol chile sauce was spicy, it didn't overpower the overall taste of the meat.  

The fish taco was topped chopped cabbage, fresh Mexican cheese, pico de gallo, and a smoky chipotle sauce.  I felt the taste of the taco was rather fishy, as in the fish wasn't all that fresh.  I was somewhat disappointed in the fish taco.

My wife's barbecued duck taco was a hit with her, however.  The duck was roasted in an ancho pepper-agave glaze, then it was topped with the same pork belly I had on my braised beef taco, along with avocado, pickled onions, and crispy strips of jalapeños.   Her duck taco didn't seem to be as greasy as my brisket taco and she thoroughly enjoyed it.  

The carne asada taco was made with grilled flank steak and topped with arugula, fresh Mexican cheese, and an avocado/serrano sauce.  My wife raved about this taco.  So much so, that I had to flag Amy down to have her get me one of the carne asada tacos to try.  And my wife was right - the steak was tender with a nice sear to the outer side.  But the avocado/serrano sauce was the key to the taco.  The mix of the avocado helped cut down the spiciness of the the serrano chile pepper in the sauce.  

While I felt the fish taco at Mission Taco Joint wasn't all that good, I have to say that the carne asada taco more than made up for it.  I liked the brisket and pork belly taco, too, although it was rather greasy.  My wife especially liked her barbecued duck taco, but she really liked the carne asada taco, as well.  The mai tai was good, but the house margarita was even better.  The service was very good and the atmosphere at Mission Taco in Soulard was festive and fun.  It was a good first visit to Mission Taco and I'm sure that I'll be back to either this one or any of the other Mission Taco's in St. Louis (and now in Kansas City) at some point.

DaBeet's Bistro - Muscatine, IA

Earlier this year, we were heading back from seeing some friends of ours in southeast Iowa and we decided to stop off in Muscatine and check out a new restaurant we had been hearing about - DaBeet's Bistro.  We had already eaten dinner, but we wanted to go into DeBeet's and see what they had for wine and dessert.  The place had a good wine selection and some very good creme brûlée, and we made a point to go back there for dinner at some point.  On a trip to Muscatine a few weeks ago, we decided to make good on our plans to dine there.  

Awad Dabit (the original spelling of the Anglicized spelling and pronunciation of DaBeet) was grew up in Palestine and was encouraged by his uncle to come to Muscatine to study at the local community college in 1999.  His uncle - John DaBeet - was an economics and statistics instructor at Muscatine Community College, as well as a local community leader.  Awad Dabit soon found work in the kitchen at Francesca Vitale's Italian Restaurant in downtown Muscatine.  (Click here to read about Francesca Vitale's.)  Salvatore "Sam" Vitale, and his wife, Francesca, because a large influence on the young Awad Dabit who found his calling in the kitchen.  The Vitale's encouraged Dabit to follow his heart and become a chef.  

With the blessing of the Vitale's and determined to become a chef, Awad Dabit was accepted into the Northwest Culinary Academy in Vancouver, BC at the age of 23.  After graduating in 2006, Dabit traveled across Canada working in five-star restaurants and resorts honing his skills with some of the top chefs in the country.  But he still maintained a relationship with his family and the Vitale's back in Muscatine.  But it was a conversation with Sam Vitale in 2015 that coaxed Awad Dabit back to Muscatine.  

Pictured right - Awad Dabit

The Vitale's were looking to do something else in the restaurant world and they made Awad Dabit an offer that he couldn't refuse.  They were looking at moving to a new location up the hill from downtown Muscatine to focus on their popular pizza business, but they wanted Dabit to take over their spot to showcase the French and Italian-inspired recipes that he learned while working with some of the top chefs in Canada after he graduated from culinary school.  After a short transition period, DaBeet's Bistro opened in early November of 2016 serving dinner starting at 4 p.m. Tuesday thru Sunday.  

We pulled up to DaBeet's Bistro around 6:30 one evening last fall and found a parking spot just down the street from the place.  (see map)  Going inside, we found the place to be basically the same as is was when we stopped in earlier in the year to have some dessert and wine.  Quite actually, the place didn't change all that much from when Sam and Francesca Vitale were running Francesca Vitale's for a number of years.  They still had the same high-backed wooden booths, the bar area in the back and the faux-Tuscan decor on the walls.

About the biggest difference from the old Francesca Vitale's was the "DABEET" over the arched kitchen windows.  Other than that I really couldn't see much of a change in the decor of the restaurant.  

We sat in one of the high-backed booths and were greeted by a young lady who was the only server in the dining room that evening.  I'd have to say that just a little bit less than half of the dining room was occupied.  

The menu at DaBeet's Bistro was probably more Italian with a number of pasta dishes, but was complemented with some French cuisine items.  There was a seafood linguine dish, as well as a mushroom risotto, and cannelloni stuffed with spinach and ricotta cheese.  DaBeet's also had coq au vin - a traditional French dish of grilled chicken breast cooked in red wine with onions, mushrooms and chopped bacon.  Beef short ribs were also on the menu, as was a cornish hen, and a North Atlantic cod served with lemon herb risotto.  

My wife got the veal piccata with cooked vegetables.  The pan-fried veal was topped in a creamy lemon caper sauce and was placed on a bed of potato pavé - a French-style block-shaped scalloped potato.  She had a glass of Orvieto to go along with her meal.  

My wife was more than happy with her choice of the veal.  She offered me a bite and I immediately took her up on it.  The veal was tender and full of flavor.  After I'd had a bite, I sort of wished I would have gotten the veal instead of what I had ordered.

After having a basic fresh green salad with an Italian oil dressing, I ended up getting the braised beef rigatoni. Along with the braised beef, it had chopped mushrooms, fresh basil and a light tomato sauce.  For what it was, it was very good.  I think I would have liked the veal piccata a little better.  Still, the braised beef rigatoni was a tasty dish.  I was happy with what I got.  And it went very well with a full-bodied cabernet they had for one of their house wines.

We considered dessert for a moment.  We'd had the creme brûlée as I said previously, but they also had a salted chocolate pot with cream, a flourless chocolate cake, and an Amaretto white chocolate cake.  We were actually more in the mood for something like tiramisu or a cannoli, but they didn't have that at DaBeet's.  When the young lady came around to ask us if we wanted dessert, we passed.  Besides, we were pretty full from our very good dinners.  

DaBeet's Bistro is open 4-10 p.m. Monday thru Saturday and features some very good Italian specialties with a smattering of French-influenced dishes.  My wife and I were both happy with our meals - she had the veal piccata with a creamy lemon caper sauce on top, and I had the braised beef rigatoni.  The dining area at DaBeet's is quiet and comfortable, and the service we received was very good.  DaBeet's has entered our rotation of very good restaurants that we'll visit during our trips down-river to Muscatine. 

Wild Rita's - Louisville

During our little trip to Louisville earlier this year to go and do and see things that I don't get the chance to when I'm there on business, we decided to go to a Mexican restaurant not far from our hotel in downtown Louisville that we had passed earlier in the day - Wild Rita's.  

The partners behind Wild Rita's - J.D. Rothberg and Shane Hall - have a somewhat long history with Louisville area restaurants.  Rothberg was the owner of the upscale Napa River Grill since 1999 while Hall was his general manager.  The two started a local breakfast spot called Wild Eggs in 2007 and it quickly became one of the hottest restaurants in Louisville.  By 2011, the Wild Eggs concept had grown to three locations in Louisville with an eye on expanding even more.  Rothberg sold his stake in Napa River Grill to local restaurateur and entrepreneur Junior Bridgeman in October of 2012 to focus fully on the Wild Eggs concept.  

In 2013, Rothberg, Hall and their Wild Eggs executive chef Tony Efstratiadis were brainstorming about a new restaurant concept for lunch and evening dining.  Setting their sights on doing traditional Mexican foods with a modern twist, the three came up with the idea of Wild Rita's, a Mexican cantina-style restaurant that also served a large number of different types of tequila.  But before they could open Wild Rita's, the group decided to go into the heart of Mexico to experience the foods and tastes of authentic Mexican food and a wide variety of tequilas.  

It was during their culinary explorations that they also found a unique hand-made piece of art - a mosaic mask that depicted a face that was half-human and half-jaguar.  The locals called the mask a "were-jaguar", it roughly translates into "man-jaguar".  Dating back to the early history of Mexican civilization, the were-jaguar was folklore that represented a supreme being where man meets animal, guiding the civilization to live a life of adventure and happiness.  When Rothberg and Hall opened Wild Rita's Modern Mexican & Tequila Bar in the spring of 2014, the were-jaguar was a prominent piece of art in their restaurant.  

(In 2015, Rothberg and Hall received an investment of capital from a local equity group to help with further expansion of the Wild Eggs concept.  The two stepped away from the day-to-day operation for Wild Rita's to concentrate on their expansion plans for Wild Eggs.  Tony Efstratiadis has stepped in to oversee operations at Wild Rita's for Rothberg and Hall.)

Wild Rita's is located at the corner of E. Market and S. Jackson on the east end of Louisville's downtown area, near the I-65 overpass.  (see map)  Some may call it an "iffy" area as the overpass is a gathering place for Louisville's homeless and drug-addled.  It was sad to watch the world they were living in literally across the street from the restaurant.  It wasn't the nicest part of Louisville, but it was safe enough.  

We were greeted by a host who took a bit of time to figure out where we needed to be seated.  He seemed sort of confused where to put us, but we were eventually seated at a four-seater table next to the front windows of the restaurant.  (It turned out that he had a large party that came in about a half-hour after we were seated and he needed to figure out who to put where as to accommodate the large group.)  The large windows looking out onto the corner of Jackson and Market afforded us a prime view of the people across the street doing their "thing".  It was a shame that they were doing it so close to a nice restaurant.  

The restaurant dining area was large and open, and it got considerably louder in there when the large group showed up not long after we were seated.  There was a small counter area behind the dining area that looked like it may have been used for cooking demonstrations or small groups.   

There was also a small, but very nice bar area with a full selection of tequilas.  We were definitely up for tequila that evening.  Our server for the evening, Johnathon, came over to greet us and took our drink order.  

Of course, we had to have one of their signature margaritas made with Don Julio Resposado tequila and Grand Marnier with squeezed lime juice, just like I like to make them at home.  They were small, delicious and somewhat expensive.   

The artwork throughout Wild Rita's was sort of a wild bit of contemporary and traditional Mexican artwork.  Many items were evidently picked up by the group of owners during their culinary trips to Mexico.  But the wildest things on display were chihuly light fixtures that were handblown at the Flame Run glassworks in downtown Louisville.  They had a number of these interesting fixtures hanging throughout the place.

I was kind of confused about these figures on the shelf in the picture above to the right.  I knew these were some sort of Mexican-designed artwork, but I didn't know if they were Incan, Mayan or something completely different from both of those.  I never closely followed along in art class in junior high when the teacher would talk about the different styles of artwork.  

We started out getting a basket of chips and salsa, along with a small bowl of their guacamole in which they put some chopped jalapeños to give it a spicy kick.  We also got three of their housemade salsa - a salsa verde that was mild with a small spicy kick at the end, a salsa rojo that had a bit of a bite along with a taste of fresh cilantro and garlic, and a pico de gallo that featured very fresh chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic and cilantro.  The chips were crisp and fresh -  everything we started out with had that just made taste quality. 

Looking through the menu, we found a number of items that piqued our interest.  The fried pork shoulder caught my eye, as did the enchiladas that you could get with beef, chicken, chorizo or shrimp inside.  The Cochinita Pibil is a Yucatan-style barbecued pork rubbed with achiote spice to give it a peppery taste.  They also had a skirt steak that they would flame table side with tequila.  

They also had street tacos on the menu and my wife ended up getting some of those.  She got a chicken taco, a braised short rib taco and a blackened cod taco.  Also on the taco menu was a carne asada (steak) taco, a crispy pork belly taco, a tempura-fried cod taco, and an achiote rubbed braised pork al pastor taco.  For her side, she got some kale that was braised with chopped jalapeños, onions and tomatoes.  My wife declared that everything was very good and offered me bites of the blackened fish taco, as well as the short rib taco.  And I had to agree with her.  They both were very good in their flavor.  

I was torn in different directions about what to get, but I ended up gettin Wild Rita's version of their chile relleno - a cream and cheddar-jack cheese-stuffed poblano pepper topped with ground beef and a salsa verde (my choice for both).  It came with Mexican rice and black beans - I'm digging the fact that many contemporary Mexican restaurants are serving black beans more than refried beans.  And the chile relleno was very good.  It was large and plump with a fried egg-batter coating around the outer shell of the pepper.  The cheese was oozing out with each cut and the seasoned ground beef with the salsa verde tied the flavors all together.  We still has some of the salsa verde left from the "tres salsas" we ordered and I just put more of that great salsa on top of the chile relleno along as mixing it in the rice.   

We liked pretty much about everything about our visit to Wild Rita's.  It was a nice place with interesting decor in a section of Louisville that borders on the "not-so-nice".  Still, it was safe enough that we didn't worry much about the neighborhood.  The food we had at Wild Rita's was fresh, flavorful and interesting.  And it was tough to beat the wonderful top-shelf margaritas they had to offer.  Along with some very prompt and professional service from Johnathon, our overall experience at Wild Rita's was top-notch.

Geno's Pizza - Eau Claire, WI

I'm in the process of putting on a new dealer up in Eau Claire and I ended up spending a night there this fall at The Lismore, a boutique hotel in the downtown part of the city that is a Doubletree/Hilton property.  I was sort of hungry for pizza that evening and I did some on-line searches to see what was available around the downtown area.  It turns out that a place on the outskirts of town - Geno's Pizza - got a lot of rave reviews for their pizza and I thought I'd drive out to see if it was up to all the accolades it received in their on-line reviews.  

Kevin Burzynski opened Geno's Pizza in June of 2014 with a marketing plan of "word of mouth" to get the news out to the citizens around Eau Claire that they had the best pizza in town.  His thin crust pizzas were chock full of toppings offering a great value for what people were getting.   Geno's Pizza is located at the end of Fairview Drive on the south side of Eau Claire, next to the Metropolis Resort/Action City family entertainment center.  (see map)  Geno's shares the building with Casa Margarita Mexican restaurant.  (And the restrooms for Geno's are located in Casa Margarita, as well.)  

After parking out in front of Geno's Pizza, I went in to the restaurant with a couple guys who were there to pick up a pizza to go.  I didn't know the drill in ordering a pizza, so I stood at the counter/bar and waited to order a pizza from the menu they had up front.  It turned out the manager, Paul, ended up waiting on me.  After I ordered a small pizza and a beer, he asked me if I wanted my beer while I waited to get my pizza.  I told him that I was planning on dining in.  "Oh," he exclaimed.  "You could have sat down and I would have come out to take your order."  Oh!  OK - rookie mistake.  But it was just him and a guy back in the open kitchen who were working that night.  Paul was the bartender, server, and bus boy.  

The dining space wasn't all that big and featured some high-top tables with some vinyl-checked table cloths on the regular tables along the wall.  Flat screen televisions were hanging on the wall - all of them were tuned to a Green Bay Packers pre-season game.  

The dining room looked into the open kitchen where some well-used gas pizza ovens were the centerpiece of the space.  I asked Paul how old the ovens were and he said he didn't really know.  "The owner bought them used," he explained.  "But they've got a lot of seasoning in them and that really helps our pizzas."  

I ordered up my usual sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  The pizza was cut into tavern squares, the crust was thin and crispy, and the toppings were definitely thick and plentiful.  The sausage was in large chunks and had a great fennel taste.  The mushrooms were fresh and earthy, and the pepperoni had that great salty and spicy taste.  The pizza went exceptionally well with my Goose Island IPA.  

Geno's Pizza calls their pizza "the best in Eau Claire".  While I can't comment on that since this is the only pizza I've had in my visits here, compared to other pizzas I've had around the Midwest, I thought their pizza was very good.  The hand-tossed dough was thin and crisp, the toppings were fresh and plentiful, and they had a pretty good selection of craft beers that would very well with their pizza.  It's not much to look at from the outside, but the small dining room with the open kitchen was comfortable and clean.  If someone would ask me where to get a pizza in Eau Claire, I wouldn't hesitate in offering up Geno's Pizza.  

 

Hi-Pointe Drive-In - St. Louis

While I've been to Sugarfire Smokehouse a couple of times since they first opened five years ago, I've just not thought much about their barbecue like I do other barbecue places around St. Louis.  But other people must really like Sugarfire because they now have five locations in the greater St. Louis area and a sixth location out in Washington, MO.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on the original Olivette location for Sugarfire.)  Since my initial visit to Sugarfire, I've heard from people both via e-mail ([email protected]) and in passing conversation that the burgers they sell at Sugarfire are worth the wait (instead of the cafeteria-style ordering that is done for barbecue).  However, earlier this year, I heard that the owners of Sugarfire had opened up a place to showcase their burgers with no barbecue.   While we were down spending some down time in St. Louis this past summer, we stopped in to have lunch at the Hi-Pointe Drive In.  

I'm just gonna be really lazy here and basically cut-and-paste the background on the owners of Sugarfire Smokehouse and Hi-Pointe Drive In from my original Sugarfire entry - 

Chef Mike Johnson started out his career studying at the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont.  After graduating from there, he went to Europe to try his hand at cuisines served at restaurants in France, then he moved out to Napa Valley, then down to Los Angeles before settling in at the highly-regarded (and now closed) Charlie Trotter's in Chicago.  Johnson then went to work for another celebrity chef, Emeril Lagasse at Emeril's in New Orleans.  

Johnson settled in St. Louis and worked at a handful of restaurants before he ended up at Boogaloo as chef/owner serving Caribbean and Creole food.  Johnson then sold his share in Boogaloo and went on to Cyrano's in Webster Grove working with Charlie and Carolyn Downs.  Johnson eventually became a part-owner in Cyrano's, but he had other ideas for another restaurant.  

Johnson decided that he wanted to get into barbecue and he began to travel to New York to learn more about that city's exploding barbecue scene. Eventually, Johnson went down to Georgia to study under legendary pit master Myron Mixon who heads Jack's Old South Barbecue cooking school that takes place once a month over a long weekend at Mixon's home. 

With barbecue in his blood, Johnson then found a location in the Olivette area of St. Louis that used to house a former Dickey's Barbecue franchise that had gone out of business.  He went out and bought a smoker - the same smoker that Pappy's Smokehouse uses (click here to see my entry on Pappy's).  And along with Carolyn Downs who was in charge of making pies, cookies and pastries for the new endeavor, Sugarfire Smokehouse opened in the fall of 2012.  

As I said, Johnson and Downs now have six Sugarfire locations (as well as Sugarfire Pie which is right next to the original location on Olivette), but it was the clamoring for their burgers that made them look into opening a burger joint with no barbecue.  Their burgers are flat-grilled, and are a blend of grass-fed brisket, chuck and boneless short rib.  For sometime, Johnson had his eye on a building that used to be a former Del Taco just off I-64 (or 40 Highway, to the locals) in the Hi-Pointe neighborhood just south and west of Forest Park.  (Previous to that, the building had been a drive-in restaurant.)  At first, he wanted to put a hot chicken place there, but when a couple hot chicken places opened in St. Louis, he decided to put in an off-shoot of Sugarfire's award winning burgers.  Hi-Pointe Drive In opened in early January of this year.  

The outside of the building is rather unique and visually striking.  Architect Tom Cohen did sort of a reverse contemporary industrial look to the building by using recycled shipping containers on the facade of the building.

We pulled into the parking lot at Hi-Pointe Drive In around 1:30 in the afternoon and promptly found that it was full.  We ended up parking on a side street behind the restaurant located at the corner of McCausland and Ethel, very near where Clayton, McCausland, Skinker and Oakland all meet up, and in the shadow of the largest Amoco sign in the world.  (see map)  There was a nice little patio out front with an arched awning covering it.  Up a couple steps next to the patio was a small dining area that was made out of a shipping container. 

Inside the restaurant, we found a sort of contemporary industrial decor with wooden high-backed booths and a series of wooden tables and chairs.  It wasn't a large place, but it wasn't like people were on top of one another either.  

The drill for ordering at Hi Pointe starts at the front counter with the menu on boards above the prep area.  The burgers are flat grilled and feature hormone and antibiotic free grass fed-raised and grain-finished beef from Creekstone Farms in Kansas.   There's really only one burger on the menu and you can get different toppings on it, but they do have a signature taco burger that was created in conjunction with the Mission Taco Joint in St Louis.  For the health conscious, they have a turkey burger and a veggie burger for vegans.  

They also have a number of sandwiches to choose from on the menu including a turkey club, a roast beef sandwich, and a hot salami sandwich that featured Genoa salami and soppressata and topped with a spicy giardiniera and an Italian dressing.  They also had a handful of salads such as a chef salad, a grilled salmon salad and a Caesar salad.  A kids menu is also available at Hi Pointe.   

I got a double Swiss cheese and bacon burger with lettuce, tomato, onion and pickles.  I got a side of fries to try out with the burger.  I knew I wouldn't eat many, but my wife wanted some, too.  The burger was served on a grilled potato bun that Hi Pointe gets from Fazio's Bakery located just across Interstate 44 from The Hill in St. Louis.  The toppings were all very fresh, the bun was spongy and the burger patties were juicy and delicious.  This was, indeed, a very good burger.  And it went very well with the City Wide American Pale Ale from the local 4 Hands Brewing Co. they had available from the list of craft beers served at Hi Pointe.  

My wife got the single burger with provolone cheese on it.  For her side she got the roasted Brussels sprouts, a staple in her diet as of late.  She, too, thought the burger at Hi Pointe was very good.  She especially liked that they provolone slice was thick and gooey, melted precisely on top of the burger.  

The people at Sugarfire Smokehouse saw the potential to focus on their very good burgers and that's how Hi Pointe Drive-In came to be.  With a burger/sandwich centric menu and a good selection of craft beers, Hi Pointe has quickly become one of the more popular new spots in St. Louis.  We were both very impressed with the burgers we had and my wife was happy that they had roasted Brussels sprouts as a side.  About the only negative thing that popped out at us was the somewhat cold and surly attitude we received from the guy we ordered our burgers from.  But other than that...  There's a lot of good burger places in St. Louis and Hi Pointe is definitely one of the better ones in the area.    

Mark's Feed Store - Louisville, KY

My wife and I spent some time in Louisville in the late summer going around to different places that I don't usually get to see when I travel there for business.   We were up exploring the Highlands neighborhood in the middle part of the day and found a barbecue place that we wanted to try.  Except that it didn't really look like a barbecue place, and the name wasn't really indicative of it having barbecue - Mark's Feed Store.  Still we wanted to give it a try.

Mark Erwin had been working in the service industry and had been on management teams that opened new restaurants.  One thing that he noticed that Louisville didn't really have was a good barbecue joint.  Erwin had gone around to visit barbecue masters across Kentucky to learn the tricks of the trade.  But while smoking meats was one thing, he also realized that if he didn't have the sauces to go along with the barbecued meats his restaurant wouldn't survive.

For months, Erwin worked in his kitchen to come up with the right combination of ingredients for his signature sauce.  One concoction - which consisted of 26 ingredients including 13 secret spices - was the one he deemed as the sauce that he would like to pair with his smoked meats.

Finding a spot for his barbecue joint turned out to be somewhat easier.  He found a historical building that once housed a feed store in the Middletown neighborhood in Louisville and decided to incorporate the concept into his barbecue joint.  He put in an old style barbecue pit in the place and opened the first Mark's Feed Store in 1988.  

Erwin grew the business by opening up more locations around Louisville, as well as in Lexington and Elizabethtown, KY.  But after 25 years of running Mark's Feed Store, he was looking for a change in life.  That's when Ulysses "Junior" Bridgeman came into the picture.  

Junior Bridgeman was a basketball star at the University of Louisville and enjoyed a 12 season career in the NBA, primarily with the Milwaukee Bucks.  After Bridgeman retired from the NBA at the age of 33, he bought five Wendy's locations in the greater Milwaukee area.   Milwaukee fans grew accustomed to seeing the former basketball star working behind the counter at one of his Wendy's restaurants.  

Bridgeman's Wendy's franchise stores in Milwaukee were doing anywhere between $400,000 and $800,000 in annual sales - not too good for comparable stores in similar markets.  Bridgeman instilled a team concept in his stores empowering his workers to take pride in their jobs and offering bonuses if certain goals were met.  Within a short while, Bridgeman's Wendy's locations were taking in a minimum of $1.5 million in annual sales.

Pictured right - Junior Bridgeman.  Photo courtesy Fortune Magazine.

As business grew for Bridgeman, so did the number of locations he owned.  At one point, Bridgeman Restaurants (now called Manna, Inc.) owned 160 Wendy's franchises - many of those in Wisconsin where he played professional basketball - the second most by any single franchisee in the U.S. for Wendy's - and nearly 125 Chili's locations.  He also held franchises in Fazoli's, Perkins, Fanny May Chocolates, and Blaze Pizza.  At its height, Bridgeman's company - with offices in Milwaukee and Louisville - owned around 450 different restaurant locations and employed 9000 people.

Bridgeman also owned the Napa River Grill - an upscale steak and wine place in the Westport Village shopping area on Louisville's east side - when he found that Erwin was looking to sell Mark's Seed Store.  Bridgeman's company took over ownership of Mark's Seed Store in October of 2013 from Erwin who is now in commercial real estate specializing in restaurant properties.  In 2016, Bridgeman divested many of his holdings in Wendy's and Chili's to become an independent bottler for Coca-Cola owning the rights to distribute Coke products in southern Illinois, Missouri, eastern Kansas and Nebraska.  However, he still owns Mark's Seed Stores with 8 locations in Kentucky and southern Indiana, as well as a number of franchised restaurants.  

It had just started to rain pretty heavily when we pulled up to the Highlands location of Mark's Feed Store along Bardstown Road at Sherwood Ave.  (see map)  We went around the block and found a parking spot on Sherwood next to Mark's Feed Store.  

The Highlands location of Mark's Feed Store is in an older building with a long and narrow dining area.  There was a set stairs that went to a dining room upstairs that we didn't visit.  Booths were along the walls with tables in the center of dining area, all of which had vinyl checkerboard table coverings.  

Our server that afternoon, Dylan, came over with a couple lunch menus for us.  I ordered up a pint can of the West 6th IPA from the West 6th Brewery over in Lexington, KY.  My wife just stayed with water, but I like to have a beer when I have barbecue.  

The lunch menu is more condensed than the dinner menu at Mark's Feed Store.  They feature a sandwich lunch special daily with a choice of either pulled pork, brisket or chicken with one side for $6.99.  (Add .50 cents for brisket.)  All in all, the lunch menu was pretty basic with no combo plates, no burgers, and no dinner entrees available.  But one thing they did have was burgoo as an appetizer.

For those who don't know, burgoo is a stew that is more of a social event than anything.  It's similar to booyah, a stew that is found in northern Wisconsin and northern Minnesota.  Burgoo has its roots in Kentucky where people long ago would combine the bounty from wild game hunts - usually deer meat, squirrel meat and game bird meat - then added vegetables such as corn, green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, and okra to the mix.  The concoction was simmered low and slow - sometimes as long as two days - in a large vat that had to be stirred on a regular basis.  The burgoo was generally served to large groups during harvest season.  

Today, burgoo is still found throughout Kentucky, but you will also find it in parts of central and southern Illinois, and southern Indiana.  Game meat burgoo from long ago has been replaced by a modern day recipe featuring a combination of chicken, pork, lamb, and sometimes beef, with a myriad of vegetables.  And depending upon the recipes used it can be made with a little bit of a spicy bite.  Most of the time these days, burgoo is made as part of a fund-raiser or a local celebration.  My sister-in-law comes from the town of Winchester, IL and they have an annual burgoo festival that draws hundreds and hundreds of people.  And the highlight is the making of the burgoo a couple days in advance.  I understand that getting a two to three hour shift manning the vats of burgoo during the overnight is usually an excuse to drink heavily during that time.  

The burgoo at Mark's Feed Store was very good.  I ordered a cup of it and it was more like a small bowl of burgoo than a cup.  Like good burgoo, it was thick - so thick that the spoon could literally stand up in the center of the stew.  It featured smoked pieces of pork, chicken and brisket with corn, peas and other veggies mixed in.  It did have a bit of a spicy kick to it, but it didn't overpowering the overall taste of the burgoo.  I would have had no problem coming back to Mark's to enjoy just a bowl of burgoo.  It's a great comfort food, for sure.  

For lunch, they had a "Bar-b-que Lite" platter that featured a choice between smoked brisket, smoked pork or smoked chicken with a choice of one or two sides.  I got the brisket along with a side of baked beans and spicy fries.  The brisket was served in a small paper food boat and was cut thick.  But it was tender and had a good smoky flavor to it.  The fries, however, didn't seem to have much - if any - spicy flavor to them.  And the baked beans were simply dreadful.  They didn't appear to be anything more than Van Camps pork and beans from a can warmed up and served.  Even adding barbecue sauce didn't help those out.  

My wife ended up getting the 4 Bone Baby Back Ribs lunch platter.  The ribs had a lot of meat on them, but they were covered with what appeared to be a glaze.  They didn't appeared to be smoked, but I tried a bite of one of the ribs and they had a good smoky flavor to them.  The meat pulled apart from the bone rather easily and were very tender to the bite.  For her side, she got the mac and cheese, but she wasn't too enamored with it.  "It tastes like it's been warmed up in a microwave," she told me.  "It's all rubbery."  

Since Mark Erwin felt that good barbecue also had to have good sauces, there were three different types of sauces on the table.  There was a tangy sweet that I liked quite a bit; a hot sauce that really snuck up at the end of the flavor; and a honey mustard that I didn't try because, well, I don't like a honey mustard sauce.  I usually like to combine the spicy and sweet sauces together, but they didn't seem to go well together.  I ended up sticking primarily with the tangy sweet sauce as I finished up the brisket.  

The highlight of the lunch was - I felt - the excellent burgoo they had at Mark's Feed Store.  While the brisket and baby back ribs were good, the sides were simply abysmal.  It tasted like the baked beans were nothing more than canned pork and beans, the "spicy" fries didn't have hardly any spicy taste to them, and my wife's side of mac and cheese was overcooked and rubbery.  But the service and the atmosphere was fine at Mark's Feed Store, as was the barbecue we had.  I just wish they would have offered a combo plate during lunch as I would have liked to have tried some of the pulled pork barbecue, as well. 

Northbound Smokehouse and Brewpub - Minneapolis

I've been searching out more and more brewpubs on my visits to cities across the Midwest - there's nary a dearth of brewpubs it seems like anymore.  It's almost like the market is getting oversaturated by brewpubs, but they all seem to be pretty profitable.  One brewpub that I found in Minneapolis had a unique financial strategy in getting started - offering "members" free beer for life if they invested a minimum of $1000 up front.  This is the story of how that happened - along with my visit - to Northbound Smokehouse and Brewpub.  

Jamie Robinson was a young entrepreneur who owned his own limousine company in the Twin Cities, but his passion was brewing his own beer at home.  He loved brewing beer so much that he ended up selling his limo company in 2006 and went to work as an assistant manager at Town Hall Brewery in Minneapolis.  Robinson honed his brewing skills while at Town Hall Brewery and also attended the Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago to gain more in-depth knowledge of brewing techniques.  

While at Town Hall Brewery, Robinson worked with a young chef by the name of Bryce Strickler.  Strickler grew up in Virginia, MN in the heart of Minnesota's Iron Range and attended the prestigious Johnson and Wales culinary school before ending up as the chef at Town Hall Brewery.  Robinson wanted to own his own brewpub and he talked Strickler into joining him in his dream.  The two then partnered with Amy Johnson who was working in finance, but had a background in restaurants.  Each of the partners put in $15,000 to lease a building at the corner of E. 38th St. and S. 28th Ave. in the heart of a neighborhood that was popular to young professionals.  (see map)

They group had a building and a business plan, but the one thing they didn't have was start up money.  Banks and investment groups were still a little skittish on start-up ventures after the Great Recession of 2008, but Robinson was able to find one bank that said if they were able to come up with $160,000 on their own, they would lend them the other $160,000 needed to get their brewpub started.  That's when the group came up with an ingenious idea to raise the capital to get the doors open.

Their plan consisted of raising the money by offering people free beer for life at the brewpub with an investment of around $1000.  Legally, they couldn't call the people who invested "partners", but they were called "members" who would be eligible to receive beer for free as long as the brewpub was in business.  Robinson and Strickler had already experienced something similar at Town Hall Brewery where the brewpub had a "pint club" that gave members who paid a fee to have free beer on Saturdays.  

The plan to raise money worked - and worked tremendously.  About 150 "members" invested money into the brewpub - initially called Smokehouse Brewpub because of Bryce Strickler's acquisition of a smoker that he wanted to use in the restaurant.  By September of 2012, the newly named Northbound Smokehouse and Brewpub opened.  A couple years later, the group built an outdoor beer patio on the side of the brewpub.

At first, all three partners were somewhat autonomous in their positions in the brewpub - Robinson ran the brewing operation, Strickler ran the kitchen and smoker, and Johnson ran the front of house.  But by 2016, Jamie Robinson was the lone owner of Northbound Smokehouse.  Bryce Strickler sold his shares in the place in 2013 and moved to Denver to work in restaurants there; and Amy Johnson also sold out, but continues to live in the Twin Cities and works as a board member for a non-profit organization that works with city parks in the area.  Jason Foster, a native of Texas, but who has worked for a number of restaurants around the Midwest, took over the kitchen and smokehouse after Stickler left in 2013.

After Northbound Smokehouse and Brewpub opened five years ago, a young guy by the name of Joel Scott joined the brewpub as an apprentice.  Scott had grown up in a family that featured a number of home brewers and he was fascinated by the process of brewing and chemistry.  In 2013, Scott earned a scholarship to the Siebel Institute through the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild and has taken over as the head brewer at Northbound Smokehouse and Brewpub.  

Northbound Smokehouse is located at the corner of E. 38th St. and S. 28th Ave. southeast of downtown Minneapolis.  (see map)  It's mainly on-street parking at Northbound and I was able to find a spot across the street and down the block from the brewpub.  It was a nice late summer day and there were a few people seated in the outdoor patio that was built a couple years after Northbound Smokehouse opened.  

Inside Northbound Smokehouse, I found a nice little space that was well lit and featured a nice L-shaped bar.  The brewing tanks were located in a room directly behind the bar were I bellied up and took a seat.  Brian was the bartender that day and he was very busy with a lunchtime crowd that was beginning to thin out when I got there.  

They feature four year-round and a half-dozen seasonal beers at Northbound.  I got one of the regular beers - the Light Rail IPA, named after the Metro Blue Line light rail system that runs between downtown Minneapolis and the Mall of America.  There's a stop that's less than a five minute walk from Northbound Smokehouse.  

The food menu had a number of interesting items to choose from.  Their MN Bangers and Mash featured an elk bratwurst and a wild rice sausage were made in house.  They had a smoked brisket sandwich topped with cheddar cheese and sautéed onions that caught my eye.  The open-faced turkey sandwich featured in-house smoked turkey with mashed potatoes, then topped with a turkey gravy and a cranberry-horseradish sauce, all served on a waffle made out of turkey stuffing.  Yow!  That sounded great, but I wasn't looking for anything real heavy.

But I couldn't resist looking hard at the house-smoked all-beef hot dogs topped with Smokehouse's house-made chili and cheddar cheese.  The house-smoked corned beef reuben also looked good, as did the Italian sandwich they had a special that day.  I told Brian that I was in somewhat of a quandary between the chili dogs and the reuben.  "I like the chili dogs, myself," he told me.  "But it's tough to go wrong with the reuben, too."  

And that's what I ended up getting.  The reuben was literally made from scratch in Northbound Smokehouse's kitchen.  It featured thick cuts of in-house smoked corned beef and it was topped with smoked Swiss cheese, house-made sauerkraut, and house-made Thousand Island dressing and then grilled on marble-rye bread.  It was outstanding.  The corned beef had a great smoky taste to it, the sauerkraut and Swiss cheese had their own distinctive tastes to add to the sandwich, and the Thousand Island dressing basically tied all the taste sensations together.  The toasted marble-rye held together very well with what was a messy sandwich.  The sandwich came with a side of house-made potato chips that were crispy and slightly overcooked.  French fries were available for a $2 buck upcharge, but I knew that I wouldn't be eating many of those so I got the chips.  

Northbound Smokehouse and Brewpub had an interesting food menu that piqued my interest in a half-dozen items.  The reuben was outstanding made with in-house smoked corned beef along with a house-made sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing.  Their beer selection was also very good - the Light Rail IPA was exceptional - and it was a great setting for a little neighborhood brewpub on Minneapolis' southeast side.  Now that I've found it, this will be on a regular rotation of places that I'll go on my trips to the Twin Cities.  

Casagrotto - Lake Ozark, MO

A friend of mine likes to ride his motorcycle down to the Ozarks and hang out in the Lake Ozark/Osage Beach area hitting the bars and restaurants that cater to the tourists who flock to the area in the summer months.  He told me of a place in Lake Ozark that had - what he thought - was the best pizza he'd ever had.  He asked me if I'd ever tried the pizza at Casagrotto, and I told him I hadn't.  I immediately put it on my "Restaurants to Visit" list and on a recent trip between Jefferson City and Springfield, MO on evening, I stopped into Casagrotto to see if the pizza was really that good.  

Mark and Ryan Brick literally grew up on lakes.  Their father was a trial lawyer in Des Moines and the Brick family would spend a number of summers on Clear Lake in northern Iowa.  By the 1980's, the family was looking for an even larger lake to summer at and they began spending time on the Lake of the Ozarks.  Their father then made a life changing decision in his mid-50's - he ended up buying Village Marina on Lake of the Ozarks and it included 24 boat slips and a small deli.  Ryan Brick ran the marina and deli for his parents while Mark Brick had completed his degree in business and began to work for a bank.  

As Mark continued to vacation at Lake of the Ozarks, he found that he liked the lifestyle there in the summertime.  The family was looking to expand the marina and Mark decided to stay on and work in the family business.  Village Marina quickly expanded to two locations on the lake with over 250 boat slips, boat sales and service, and a restaurant - The Boathouse - a seasonal bar and grill that has become one of the more popular spots to dine and drink in the Ozarks.   

In Lake Ozark, the Casablanca - and its pizza place downstairs, Casagrotto - was a long time favorite of tourists and locals to hang out.  The building originally was the first post office for the city of Lake Ozark, then was made into a bar/restaurant in the 50's.  Eddie Jordan - who owned other restaurants around the lake - and Sharon Watson were the owners of the Casablanca, but they wanted to sell the business.  Once Ryan and Mark Brick found out the place was up for sale, they approached Jordan and Watson to make a deal to buy Casablanca/Casagrotto and the Bricks took over the bar/restaurant in 2012.  

Casablanca/Casagrotto is located on what was the former main road through Lake Ozark, Bagnell Dam Boulevard.  (see map)  Parking in the summertime - especially during the weekends - along the road can be pretty tough with all the bars and tourist shops that line the street, but I was able to find a parking spot just down the street from Casablanca.  Walking into Casablanca, I found a cozy little bar that seemed to skew a little older in clientele than what I expected.  But it was a nice place to get a drink and a sandwich.  The only problem was that they allowed people to smoke in Casablanca and the cigarette smoke was very prevalent.  

My friend had told me that Casagrotto was in the basement of Casablanca and I found a stairwell that took me downstairs to the pizza pub.  I found an even smaller space in the basement with a small number of high top tables and a nice bar, where I sat.  They had over 20 beers on tap at Casagrotto and I got a Stone Go To IPA from Misty, the bartender/server that evening.  She gave me a menu to look over, but I pretty much knew that I was going to get a small pizza that evening.  

There were two guys making pizzas off to the side of the bar area.  I got to talking to them as they were in close proximity to where I was seated.  They were both pretty funny guys.

One of the guys was telling me about the brick oven that they used to make pizzas.  He said it was four or five years old and weighed something like 6000 pounds.  "They had to bring it up through the backdoor in pieces," he told me.  "The thing is almost too big for us down here." 

Of course, I ordered my standard Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  The small is a 10", but it sort of looked smaller than that to me.  One of the guys shaped the dough and put the toppings on top of the pizza.  He was literally taking chunks off a big ball of sausage he had in his hand and was throwing the chunks on to the pizza.

The pizza came out of the oven in about 10 minutes.  It was a thin, crispy crust and the toppings were really loaded on.  The thick chunks of sausage had a great spicy and sage taste to them, there were plentiful discs of pepperoni, and the sliced mushrooms were fresh and earthy.   The size was perfect for one person - at least for me.  But it was so good that I was sad when I took the last bite.  

My friend was spot-on with his recommendation of Casagrotto, located in the basement of Casablanca near the dam in Lake Ozark.  The pizza was simply outstanding. The don't skimp on the toppings at Casagrotto as the pizza was weighted down from the large chunks of sausage, as well as the plentiful amounts of pepperoni and sliced mushrooms they placed on it.  The beer selection in Casagrotto was also very good with a number of good craft beers on tap.  Quite simply, Casagrotto was one of the best thin crust pizzas I've encountered in my years of travel.  

Lorenzo's Trattoria - St. Louis

We've eaten at a lot of restaurants on The Hill in St. Louis.  My wife spent a few days in St. Louis this summer and we decided to go to a place that we'd never been to before for dinner one evening.  One of the few places we've never tried - but have driven by dozens of times - was Lorenzo's Trattoria.  My wife said, "Hey, let's try this place!"  

Larry Fuse, Jr. was raised on The Hill and was around a number of the restaurants while growing up.  After he graduated with a culinary degree from the Forest Park campus of St. Louis Community College, Larry Fuse, Jr. held positions in the kitchen at Cafe Mira, Brazie's and the toney St. Louis Country Club in Ladue.  At the age of 23, he approached his father who co-owned a building on The Hill that was used as the offices for his father's partner's construction company.  The younger Larry Fuse convinced his father to allow him to put an Italian restaurant in the spot, only this restaurant was going to be different from the others on The Hill.  All of the restaurants in the neighborhood featured southern Italian cooking - red sauces, primarily.  He wanted to do a northern Italian restaurant that features more seafood and cream sauces.  Lorenzo's Trattoria opened in late December of 1999.  

The restaurant at the corner of Daggett Ave. and Edwards St. on The Hill. (see map)  We were able to find a parking spot just down the street and went inside.  We were greeted by a hostess who told us it would be a short wait for a table.  We hang out at the small bar near the front door for a table to open up.

After about a 10 minute wait, we were shown to a table in a large room toward the back of the restaurant.  The dining area at Lorenzo's Trattoria consists of four different areas - three are in the main part of the restaurant and a fourth appeared to be a private dining area down a hallway lined with wine bottles in a case.  The dining room we were in was spacious and open, and the lighting wasn't too dim, nor was it too bright.  It was very comfortable to dine in.  

We were greeted by our server for the evening, a young lady by the name of Athena.  The place was very busy and Athena appeared to be very busy.  In fact, there seemed to be some tension among the waitstaff at Lorenzo's that we picked up on very early in our visit.  Athena was pleasant, but we could tell she was somewhat frazzled as the evening continued on.  I got a beer to start out and my wife got a glass of the Bolla Soave.  

One of the servers brought out a signature item from Lorenzo's Trattoria - their famous breadsticks served with a side of a gorgonzola cream cheese.  The breadsticks are made each day at Lorenzo's and Fuse said he got the inspiration for having the long, skinny breadsticks served at the venerable Al's Restaurant, a restaurant in downtown St. Louis that opened in 1925.  As a little boy, Fuse loved the breadsticks at Al's and when he opened his own restaurant he incorporated serving his house-made breadsticks as an opening appetizer for patrons.  The breadsticks were crisp and had a toasty taste to them.  The toasty taste overpowered the taste of the gorgonzola when they were dipped into the creamy cheese.

Since Lorenzo's Trattoria is the only northern Italian-style restaurant on The Hill, they have a number of items on the menu that feature cream sauces, seafood, risotto dishes, and rustic dishes made with beef, pork and chicken.  One of the more popular entrees at Lorenzo's is the sautéed calves liver dish served with caramelized onions.  They also had ossobucco on the menu, as well as grilled salmon with portobello mushrooms.  

I wanted to start out with the tomato/mozzarella salad.  It featured large slices of tomatoes topped with fresh mozzarella, sliced red onions, kalamata olives, chopped fresh basil, and capers, then finished with a red wine vinaigrette.  The tomatoes were crisp - they tasted more like a winter tomato than one that should be meaty and juicy from a summertime crop.  For that, the tomato/mozzarella salad was a little disappointing, but the mozzarella was very fresh, as was the chopped basil.  

For our entrees, it turned out that we were both thinking of the same thing - the veal piccata.  They had an angel hair pasta dish with a bolognese sauce and grilled Italian sausages that caught my eye, and I almost went with the tortellini stuffed with portobello mushrooms in a white cream sauce, but the veal piccata kept calling my name.  My wife was thinking about getting the fettuccine alfredo with grilled chicken as she and I usually order something different to either share off each other's plates, or to at least have a sample of what the other ordered.  But we both couldn't get past the veal piccata.

The veal piccata entree featured an ample amount of flour-dredged, pan-fried veal loins that was paired with sun-dried tomatoes, portobello mushrooms and capers, and was served on a bed of pappardelle pasta covered with steaming fresh spinach.  The veal was very tender, but the outer layer was a bit too "flour-y".  And it was also somewhat overloaded with what I thought was white pepper - not that I complained about that because I like a lot of pepper on my food.  

The pasta is made in-house and I thought from the first couple of bites that it was a bit undercooked.  But as it sat underneath the steaming spinach, the pasta seemed to cook more and was definitely less stiff and more enjoyable.  While we both had minor quibbles with our veal dish, we decided that it was much better than we initially thought it would be.  

While there was a lot of veal and pasta on our plates, we decided to get some dessert.  The only problem was that I couldn't figure out what to get from the list of delectable items on their dessert menu.  My wife was sort of thinking about getting something light like gelato, but they only had spumoni offered on the menu.  Athena told us that even though it was too late that evening (it was just after 9 p.m.), a lot of people are encouraged to "walk off" their meal and take a two block walk to Gelato di Riso, a popular dessert cafe on The Hill that is owned by Fuse, that features a lot of different styles of milk-based and fruit flavored gelato.

But my problem was what to order for dessert.  My wife said that she'd share anything that I wanted to order, but there were four or five things that really sounded good to get.  They had cannoli, a cheesecake, tiramisu, bread pudding, and creme brûleé on the dessert menu and when Athena came around to see what we wanted I asked, "Do you guys have a sampler of desserts?  I want to try one of everything."  But in the end, I ended up ordering the bread pudding.  It was made with cinnamon and Amaretto, then drizzled with a chocolate and caramel sauce.  It was sinfully delicious and very rich.  We had a hard time finishing all of the dessert, but we made a significant dent in it.  

All in all, we thought our visit to Lorenzo's Trattoria was enjoyable and the food well-above average.  The minor quibbles we had with the flour-y texture of the veal piccata, and the crispness of the tomatoes in the caprese salad were minor compared to the overall meal.  Our server - who was frazzled and stressed early on during our visit - settled down and became more friendly as the evening went on and things settled down.  With a lot of good restaurants on The Hill, Lorenzo's Trattoria stands out with its northern Italian cuisine served in an elegant, yet comfortable and relaxed setting.