Stuff to eat. Mostly around St. Louis.
Byrd & Barrel Nugz & Tots
Many moons ago, I wrote about Byrd & Barrel. And, since the time of publishing, I've returned a number of times. Unexplainably, it wasn't until three weeks ago that I finally decided that I should try the chicken 'nugz'. Even though the staff, friends, and other reviews specifically lauded the buttermilk fried nugz, I did not heed their guidance. I was foolish. I've been back to Byrd three times in the last three weeks and had the nugz each time. You order them in sets of 5, and for me, 5 was plenty. You can choose between dark and white meat, and I'm pretty sure the dark meat are just deboned chicken thighs—meaning each nug is significantly larger than the nuggets you're probably familiar with.
It's hard to make any sort of fried chicken dish that I don't like, but I think it's fair to say that my relationship with these nugz is more than platonic. I have a crush on them. They're just so damn alluring. That crunchy, heavily seasoned exterior...the juicy chicken inside...their formidable size. I'm not sure you can ask for more in a chicken nugget. On the boneless fried chicken front, these slide up just behind the Sportman's Park chicken strips for me (which will likely never be topped due to nostalgia, if I'm honest).
This is probably blasphemous, but I was never into tater tots, nor hashbrowns (and no latkes, either!). Onion rings and French fries were more my speed. These spiced tots are something, though. I wouldn't have even gotten them if I wasn't pressured into it by the server, and thank god for her. They're spiced with what tasted like a hotter version of the nugz rub, and served with a cooling house ranch dressing.
My recommendation: get the sweet chili honey or the BBQ sauce. Both have a mild sweetness to them that balances out the spice. Or, if you're feeling fatty, get the provel cheese whiz.
Sidney Street Cafe: May 2016 Tasting Menu
Never have I ever...gotten the tasting menu option at Sidney Street Cafe. I am a control freak. I like to pick my food. Most restaurants have set tasting menus where you pick between two options for each course, or it's prewritten so you know what you're getting (Niche, for example, has both prix fixe and a chef's tasting). Sidney Street only offers a chef's choice tasting menu—you don't know what you're getting. Each course is a surprise, and no one gets the same thing. Share (or don't)! Try new things. You're in their hands and they're going to make sure you leave happy. It's sort of like that special massage place you went to in Thailand. Here's a look at my experience with May's tasting menu (5 courses per person x 3 of us = 15 dishes. I did not get all of these).
I've always believed that bread service at a restaurant should be something special or nothing at all. Chef Kevin Nashan obviously agrees, because their fry bread/beignets are out of this world good. Try limiting yourself to just one. You will fail.
All tasting menus start with the crudo—May's is a kombu-cured fluke (a Japanese preparation that turns the mild fish into an umami bomb) with blistered peas, pickled green strawberries, and, as odd it may sound, a white chocolate vinaigrette. The vin is more of a buttery, sweet, umami kick than biting into a bar of white chocolate.
The second round of courses includes a Spring Gnudi, complete with ramp pesto, melted leeks, egg yolk confit, lemon curd, and grilled ramp leaves. This dish confirms what I had long believed: ramps are the sexiest of the allium genus.
A plate of foie gras torchon with tandoori spiced apple, buttermilk borscht, and beet sorbet takes ingredients I normally associate with winter and heavy eating and turned it into a delicate plate appropriate for spring. Beautiful minimalist plating.
Buttery soft octopus over posole with salsa verde, Swiss chard chips, and little peppers whose name I can't remember remains a star on the menu.
Round 3 is seafood. I'm not given a taste of the smoked shrimp spring roll—rude, selfish tablemates—but previous versions of it were excellent.
The halibut plate has become Sidney Street's Spencer buzzword dish—even if the main protein was raccoon, I'd still order it thanks to uni bisque (I'm already sold), clams, squid ink, and crab. I take a few bites and realize I don't even need all the components: just give me that perfectly cooked, buttery halibut topped in that uni sauce and I will be happy. This is going into my epicurean spank bank.
Sidney Street has introduced me to many ingredients, and it was here that I fell in love with scallops close to a decade ago. Since then, I've lost interest. My love has faded. Rarely does a scallop seduce me. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in...with creamed English peas, a mushroom conserva, morels galore, glazed pearl onions, and a miso jus. Yet another dish that tastes like Japan in Missouri in Spring (perhaps Nashan can open a restaurant with that theme and call it ミズーリ).A small intermezzo of blueberry mint sorbet arrives and we're off to the entree races. My plate is the rabbit porchetta, stuffed with rabbit merguez and wrapped in bacon, set over a bed of garbanzo bean ragout, morels, smoked kidneys, and a buttermilk broth. If you haven't had rabbit before, Sidney is the place to do it. It's almost like chicken...but better.
The squab & dumplings and beef cheek have been updated with the season and remain solid choices. The confit and grilled squab, accompanied by drop biscuits, citrus braised endives, and a lemongrass veloute is the most rustic of the dishes, and my least favorite of the three. I've never been much of a fan of traditional "chicken & dumplings", and found the dumpling bowl to be a little heavy and muted, especially compared to the other dishes.
If you're not doing the tasting and absolutely must eat beef, go for the cheeks instead of the steak. Pull apart tender meat over a fermented potato pancake with bone marrow vinaigrette. *Drops the mic*
I can't believe I used to be some loser who never ordered dessert. I shudder to think of all the sugar I've missed out on. The classic "Snicker Bar" and Carrot Cake haven't changed, which I won't whine about, because both are so goddamn good. The fact that I can eat the carrot cake over and over and be blown away each time should indicate just how good it is. The Zuggernaut is one helluva chef.
I hope I one day meet a woman who can satisfy me like that cake.
There's a new challenger to the Iron Throne of desserts though, it seems. As the server places a plate in front of me that looked like The Shire from Lord of the Rings, two things strike me: I am a loser for thinking of The Shire instantaneously and I am about to be eating matcha, aka green tea, aka one of my favorite things. All together, it has a black sesame butter cream, white chocolate matcha crumb, rhubarb compote, black sesame ice cream, matcha microwave cake, pickled rhubarb, and a matcha meringue.
It, like the rest of the meal, is glorious. After years of avoiding the tasting menu, that's what I'm doing from now on.
Schlafly Stout & Oyster Fest 2016
I remember thinking that frat parties in college would be epic, just like I saw in the movies. Huge, sprawling houses would be full of cold beer, vast quantities of food, and the coolest people. As we all know, that was never the case. I never got to live that dream. Then I went to my first Schlafly Stout & Oyster fest, a wonderland of food and drink! I felt like Harry Potter when he first arrived at Hogwarts, eyes wide and full of amazement at the wonderland before him. I saw men shucking oysters at lightspeed in the outdoor "Shuckerdome"; I saw beer flowing out of a truck; I saw fried oysters being lowered from the 2nd floor by a winch and raw oysters send upstairs via pulley. I was overwhelmed.
A gameplan was formed. I would start in the Shuckerdome, then make my way through the rest of the madness.
I enter the Shuckerdome, a new addition to this orgy of excess, and make my way over to the bar. I order a Grapefruit IPA because it is unseasonably warm, and a Milk Chocolate Stout because this is Stout & Oyster fest. Two beers should last me a while, I think to myself, but then I taste the Milk Chocolate. This tastes just like real milk chocolate! By the time I have walked the 15 feet it is to the oyster line, half my beer is gone. Scrumptious.
Picking which oysters to get is too difficult, so I just decide to get a dozen and take 2 from each place. The East Coast options are Blue Point, Beaver Tail, Chesapeake Wild, and the West Coast options are Penn Cove Select, Sunset Beach, and Dabob Bay. The shuckers, I would come to find out, are some of the most hilarious people I've ever met, and they love nothing more than shucking oysters, eating oysters, and drinking beer. These guys are celebrities—20 of them were flown in just for this event and shucked for 12 straight hours Saturday. I would hate to be their forearms come Sunday.
I find a barrel to eat on and go to town on these oysters. No horseradish, no sauces. Just me, some lemon, a whole mess of oysters, and two beers. The East Coast remain my favorites, with their smaller size and briny flavor. I am saving this Dabob Bay monster for last. I don't know how to handle it—it seems like too much to go in my mouth at once time (that's what she said). It ends up being a two-biter. Like someone else said to me, some of those Dabob monsters looked like a chicken breasts in a military helmet.
Oysters eaten, beer nearly gone, I head into the courtyard of the Tap Room. Here, people are in line to get absolutely huge grilled oysters and mouthwateringly delicious fried oysters. I keep hoping someone will just give me one of their fried ones, but no one offers.
On the opposite side, they're selling souvenir samplers for about an hour before they run out of most beers and switch a commemorative glass of Oyster Stout. I have my doubts about Oyster Stout (made with real oysters), so I do what must be done and drink it. It is surprisingly tasty. To me, it tastes like a normal stout with a salty, briny aftertaste. I approve.
From there, I make my way inside. I stop by the restaurant—it's packed. I peek into the bar—it's packed. So I head upstairs, where a whole mob of people are eating or waiting to eat oysters. The shuckers up here are even funnier than the ones in the Thunderdome Shuckerdome, some with accents so thick I can't understand them. I just nod and smile. They smile and get back to work, ignoring the idiot with a camera.
I ask them how they're getting the oysters upstairs, so they show me: they have a guy out on the fire escape who calls down to another Schlafly employee, who then hooks the requested oysters onto a pulley.
I head back downstairs, ready to leave, when I pass Schlafly celebrity Stephen Hale carrying Imo's boxes for the shuckers. Lucky guys. I try to get Stephen to give me a slice, but he smartly distracts me with more beer. The Double Bean Blonde that he had told me about a few months back is on tap!
I don't know if this or the Milk Chocolate stout was my favorite, but I would happily drink either any day. The Double Bean, made with Ghanian cocoa nibs and Kaldi's roasted coffee beans, smells and tastes like coffee and chocolate, but without the heaviness of a stout. Magic.
I have to applaud the whole Schlafly team and the shuckers for their hard work. From what I saw, the event went off without a hitch, which is tough when you've got a Walking Dead sized horde of drunk, shellfish eating people wandering around. In the end, over 55,000 oysters were sold, the equivalent of 1,050 cases of beer was consumed, and it was the highest attended festival in Schlafly history.
It sounds like next year will be even more epic. Make sure you're there.
I was paid by Schlafly to photograph the event, but not to write this blog post. All opinions are my own.
Byrd & Barrel
A few years back, St. Louis got hooked on the idea of frozen yogurt. Everywhere you turned, a new place popped up. Yogoluv, FroYo, Chill, Red Mango dotted the city (or mostly the 'burbs, I guess) like pimples on a teenagers face. Two years later, barely any are open. Shockingly, people didn't want to eat a delicious frozen treat the 6 months of the year that it's goddamn freezing here. As the yogurt trend melted away, something new emerged: good quality BBQ shops. Tired of the garbage that is Bandana's, St. Louisans flocked to Pappy's and Sugarfire, both of which have expanded rapidly and successfully. It came as a shock to no one (except for vegans probably, but no one cares what they think) that people loved to be able to eat fantastic BBQ whenever and wherever they were.
It's like everyone collectively acknowledged that we, as Midwesterners, love huge portions of food with buckets of flavor. BBQ was the gateway drug—the next wave is fried chicken.
It seems that if there's one thing Josh Galliano taught his young Padawans at Monarch, The Libertine, and An American Place, it's how to expertly pull off fried chicken. His proteges include Rick Lewis, the man behind Southern, and Bob Brazell, the dude who decided to refurbish an old Popeye's and make it Byrd & Barrel.
Both Lewis and Brazell opened restaurants this summer, both with a focus on god's greatest gift to mankind, fried chicken. Southern's focus is on Nashville Hot Chicken and comfort food, while Byrd aims to use gourmet fried chicken in a whole mess of ways.
byrd & barrel st.louis menu
byrd & barrel interior st.louis
byrd & barrel st.louis bar
byrd & barrel counter st.louis
Months ago, Brazell (whose team includes former Gallianites Tommy "Salami" Andrews, Will "Tugboat" Volny, and Ryan "Ryan" Mcdonald) told me some of the ideas he was kicking around for his menu. The one that got my engine revved up right away was the South Side Poutine. B&B substitutes the fries typically seen in the dish with big tater tot balls, tasting like Waffle House hashbrowns that have been clumped together and deep fried. The balls are topped with tender smoked chicken, cheese curds, chicken (or mushroom) gravy, and chives.
If I ever make a "Top 10 Drunk Foods" for St. Louis, this will be at the top. Cheese, gravy, fried, meat. Winner.
byrd & barrel st.louis poutine
It was a nice surprise to see that their chicken skins aren't done the way every restaurant seems to do it—that is to say, copy what Sean Brock's Husk has done and just dust them in a spicy southern seasoning. Instead, these skins are drizzled with a General Tso's style sauce, giving them a little tang and sweetness. Not eating this entire plate of skins took a LOT of mental fortitude.
byrd & barrel fried chicken skin
Feeling guilty about our first two dishes, I had to throw some vegetables in. The roasted cauliflower came with toasted cashews, grana padano cheese, salsa verde, and a slightly spicy peppadew aioli. The plating style keeps with the other dishes of being sort of a controlled mess on the plate, but the flavors are clearly from experienced chefs. I would get these again, without a doubt.
byrd & barrel sauces st.louis
byrd & barrel st.louis cauliflower
If you can emphatically say that you love chicken livers, then you must get the banh mi. This is the most chicken livery thing I've eaten in St. Louis, and that includes all the chicken liver mousses. Crispy fried livers are tucked into french bread and topped with pickled carrots, cilantro, jalapeños, cucumbers, and aioli, like every other banh mi.
The one thing you must get your first time at B&B is the Mother Clucker: a giant, juicy, wonderful, fried chicken thigh topped with caramelized onions, a sweet and spicy pepper jelly, and provel cheese whiz (just typing that makes me aroused). To finish, Red Hot Riplets are delicately placed on top.
I've already vowed to name my first born (male or female) Bob Brazell Pernikoff because of this sandwich.
byrd & barrel chicken liver sandwich
byrd & barrel fried chicken sandwich
I knew going into the meal that I'd love Bob's thighs, but I had no idea how much I'd love his pickle.
The Tickled Pickle is probably the most ridiculous dish I've seen in St. Louis. A hot dog is stuffed in a pickle, then breaded and fried like a corn dog. It's preposterous, but it works so well. Dipped in the housemade sriracha grain mustard, it's perfect. I think for that drunk meal I mentioned before, the poutine would be my starter and this would be my entree.
byrd & barrel hot dog pickle corndog
I was worried about having St. Louis having two new fried chicken places opening at the same time, but now I'm wishing there were more Southerns and Byrd & Barrels all over. One day...