Stuff to eat. Mostly around St. Louis.
Wild Mushroom Agnolotti / Sidney Street Cafe
People are always like, “Spencer, you go out to eat all the time!”
The truth is: I don’t. I’m just like you—I only go out to restaurants 4 or 5 times a week.
Some nights—usually when I see Kevin Nashan’s adorable face on the ‘Gram—I’ll snag a seat at Sidney Street Café’s bar and just throw down an order of their wild mushroom agnolotti. No, it’s not too fancy for a weeknight dinner. The bar is there for a reason. No one will judge you and your jeggings—unless you don’t order the agnolotti. Then they’ll know you’re some kind of a-hole. An even more baller move would be to eat this, then walk over to Peacemaker and have even more food. They call that “The Full Spencer.” They also call it “excessive.”
Agnolotti, of course, is a pasta, typically filled with something delicious, but also sometimes something bad. But not this one! This one started out as their Pasta of the Day special nearly four years ago, and it turns out it was so special, it’s never going away. Just like me. Chef Bob Zugmaier fills a homemade pasta dough (Do I even need to say that? Does anyone reading this thing Sidney Street is buying premade pasta dough?) with a farce made from local mushroom and quark—an Eastern European fresh cheese—then finishes them in a pan with Chinese black vinegar, shirodashi, and a bit of butter. The pasta is then topped with crispy kale and pickled sour cherries.
The result is exactly why Sidney Street won a James Beard award. The pasta itself is wonderful with that creamy, earthy filling, but it's the pan sauce that makes this dish an absolute winner. Chinese black vinegar, a.k.a. black gold, is what you typically dip dumplings into. It’s the best vinegar. Go to Global Foods or Pan-Asia and buy some immediately. It serves as the sharp base, then it’s cut with the sweetness of the shirodashi, and ultimately mellowed by God’s greatest gift, butter. The dish is almost Vista Ramen-esque, straddling that line of Asian and European.
So…this pasta is good. You should eat it. Thanks for your time.
Wild Mushroom Agnolotti
black vinegar pan sauce, pickled sour cherries, crispy kale
This Everything Bagel Sandwich is Everything, Except a Bagel
Look at that title. I’m really getting the hang of the clickbait game.
But we’re not here to applaud my incredible creativity and humor (however, if you’d like to do that, you can comment below). We’re here to talk about a new creation from Nathaniel Reid.
From what I can surmise, chef Reid was sitting around the house, doing nothing—you know how much free time business owning bakers with two young children have—when he saw the groundswell of bagel talk on the Gram. Not ready to open Nathaniel Reid Bagelry quite yet, he sought to find another way to satisfy St. Louis’ craving for more carbs. He went back to the bakery and worked through the night on bagelish treats. Pumpernickle entremets. Asiago macarons. Bread sliced kouign-amanns. None were right, and in a fit of rage, he trashed the entire kitchen. The result of this rage-fueled destruction was croissant dough absolutely covered in spices.
The answer was right there: an everything spiced croissant.
But that wasn’t enough for him. It needed to be more than a bagely croissant. Because that’s the kind of man he is: an innovator.
Reid slices the croissant in half, schmears on herb cream cheese, then adds capers, lettuce, tomato, smoked salmon, and red onion to create…a smoked salmon everything-spiced croissant sandwich. And it is so good.
The croissant sandwich will be available every Saturday for the foreseeable future, starting this Saturday, October 5th. Get it.
The Mole Poblano at La Tejana Taqueria
As a, uh, big boned kid, I was obsessed with the mole poblano at Pueblo Nuevo up in Hazelwood. My dad worked nearby, so we’d always go there for lunch on days we visited him. I’d get a grenade-sized beef empanada, two chicken mole enchiladas, and a Diet Coke, then just go to town on them. Any extra sauce leftover over was shoveled up with tortilla chips. That plate would go back to the kitchen looking like it was brand new. I was like a young Joey Chestnut.
From there, my obsession with mole grew—if it was on a menu, it was going in my belly. I met good moles. I met bad moles.
Not all that long ago, I (foolishly) thought, “If I can make my own curries, I can make my own mole!”
While it is technically true that I did in fact make a mole from scratch, it took what felt like a week of my life and required an entire aisle of groceries from Global Foods. I would describe the flavor of it as “disappointing.” After that day, I decided that mole was off the table for things I’d make from scratch. It was a dish best left up to the experts.
Nowadays, my mole intake comes from two main sources. If I’m cooking at home, it’s La Guelaguetza’s mole pastes. If I’m looking to go out, it’s at La Tejana Taqueria.
My first meal ever at Tejana was probably the kind of meal you imagine I eat daily—the table was absolutely covered in food. Tacos, gorditas, platos, margaritas, quesadillas. It was beautiful. As we were finishing our meal, Tyler Garcia, the son of owners Tony and Bren Garcia (and now the owner of the Locoz Taco Truck) came over with an off-the-menu dish: a gigantic burrito with their mole poblano inside. I was smitten instantly. So much so that I purchased a quart of it to-go, then took it home and dipped everything I could find in it. I’ve never been able to find the words to accurately describe it. The thick, almost mahogany colored sauce is nutty, chocolatey, spicy—but also sweet, with hints of warming spices like cloves and cinnamon. If I really just sit there and think about what I’m tasting, I turn into Violet from Willy Wonka, just announcing potential ingredents—"It’s guajillo chiles! And almonds! No…pepitas? Almonds and pepitas? Sesame seeds!”
Everyone knows that Tejana has bomb tacos. I’ve been at the taqueria multiple times when staff from other Mexican restaurants have been there eating. I’m just trying to spread the word about their mole, which I really do think you should try. You can get it either as an entree plate with bone-in chicken or as an enchilada platter—my go-to. Just order one less taco and share the dish for your taco buddy. If you don’t like it, well, we probably can’t be friends. Like the torta ahogada at Taqueria Durango, I can almost guarantee this is going to throw a wrench in your future ordering. I think it’s one of the tastiest bites in town.
