the Road Home...

Editor's note- the dear folks at blogger had a screw up which prevented uploading pictures, and as wonderful as the prose is, it benefits from the images..SO i was forced to migrate to Google Chrome where the bug doesn't exist...

It’s time we brought the blog home with us so we can start on more local stuff.  Our final evening in STL before the journey to return home was highlighted by a nice dinner with some friends.   After a pleasant wine and cheese warm up in their beautifully decorated home, we drove way down south someplace near Sappington, and visited Roberto’s Trattoria.  It’s in Concorde Plaza (for you STL natives) tucked into a corner.  It’s kind of interesting if you take the trouble to click through to their website that they take so much time to say they are NOT on the hill, but fine Italian dining, yadda yadda.  One might think that the food would speak for itself, but maybe people who live closer to that area would find it an inducement to go there without the drive to “the Hill”.  Just seemed a little odd to me.

We arrived just at our reservation time, and were seated right away.  It isn't too large, and the dining areas are divided by a partition giving a little more “coziness” to the space.  As with a lot of Italian themed places, it was very friendly, there were obviously a lot of families enjoying a night out, and DFD was pretty much appropriate, at least what I observed.  We were served by an affable gentleman (and here I have to apologize to our friends and my readers that the little orange book stayed in my pocket, so some of the details of the evening have faded).  I don’t recall any speeches, just a greeting and recitation of the specials (which were…???) and an offer for drinks.  Somewhat good naturedly egged on by our friend, I ordered a DMOTRWAT, to give them the “drink test”.   I am happy to report it was expertly prepared and they passed with flying colors (see, I do remember some things!).  Another interesting memory resulted from MFO’s drink order.  It was pretty cold outside and she of course would be pilot in command of the MOMSTER in the morning, so she ordered hot tea.  Eventually a young man (not our server) arrived with the standard mahogany box, flipped open the lid and said: “I have no idea what any of these teas are, but here they are!”.  Well, you could take this two ways.  A restaurateur might be horrified that staff doesn't know what they are serving, or, as we did, it was so unexpected and innocently honest that we all took it in good fun.  An informal trattoria after all..

The menu was pretty standard St. Louis Italian fare, appetizers (fried calamari, eggplant spiedini, and yes, toasted ravioli); lots of pastas (rigatoni ala vodka, various linguini’s tortellinies, marinaras); and entrees (chicken parm and marsala, shrimp scampi, and so on).   I don’t think you can legally leave St. Louis without eating at least one Toasted Ravioli so we obeyed the law and split an order.  It was pretty good standard STL stuff.  MFO, ordered a scallop dish that was on the special list, and since I was in the “testing” mode I chose my Italian benchmark dish, Veal Piccata (Marsala and Saltimbocca also available).  Our friends had a Tilapia and Mushrooms on a bed of spinach and.... YYYYYY.  My Piccata was described on the menu as “Shiitakes, white wine, lemon, and butter”.  Okay, besides the mushrooms that’s pretty standard.  When it was served I was surprised to see the sauce was not white (white wine, lemon and butter), but was a darker brown, almost gravy like.  It tasted fine, but I’m not sure it was classically prepared, maybe the color arising from the mushrooms.  And, to my dear local friend who pays attention to such things (as I should have) I do not remember if there were capers.  MFO’s scallops were fine, but the accompanying pasta sauce was too spicy for her. 

Anyway we greatly enjoyed the experience of breaking bread with dear friends, and during the holiday season that is what it is all about.  I would gladly go back to Robertos (if our friends drove again), but you can throw a dart at the map of St. Louis and probably find good Italian food nearby!!  However, this isn't a bad target.

On the Road Again

Next morning we re-loaded the MOMSTER II and headed home..  the Christmas night storm that dumped eight inches or so of snow on FOJTY’s home town (Cape Girardeau) didn’t extend north to St. Louis, but we did see vestiges of it along the way in Indiana

And in the mountains of West Virginia

And speaking of West (by God) Virginia, we took a little detour at White Sulphur Springs to try to get a closer look at the iconic Greenbrier resort.  You can see it pretty far off the highway, but we had never seen it closer up.   So we took a little side trip to see the place.  Well, by and large this is the view you get of the Greenbrier

It is, after all an “exclusive” and you don’t want the riff raff wandering about..  We did however stop at the entrance which looked appealing

Not too far up the driveway was a guard shack, presumably to stop those riff raffs..  Some day maybe.

Moving on, with MFO at the controls I have the trusty Canon at the ready to take "window" shots (Mostly food related) that interest me, like this one near Louisville (yes I know I’m out of order here)

In Indiana there are some Amish, and I guess nobody is above using it for what it’s worth

Here’s what the actual "Amish Buffet" looked like

Maybe I shouldn't pre-judge, but I have to wonder how “authentic” these are.  The names do sound like they could be correct however..

So finally on the end of the second day (we stayed overnight in Charleston W(BG)V – with another “rug picnic”)

We crossed the Harry Nice bridge toward the familiar power plant

And the welcome home provided by the good governor

And soon were back at the digs, concluding this year’s Christmas Odyssey.  

We greatly enjoyed seeing the families of the FOJ’s, had some great meals out as well as the traditional Christmas Eve Lasagna dinner with FOJTE and wife, and the good lunches.  But, again it is about seeing friends and family and enjoying the company of them when you can.  

Hope your holiday period was also enjoyable, and now we will see what 2013 brings..  And I don’t even have to ask if you were

DFD

Lagniappe:  

Did you see the initial episode of Season III of Downton Abbey last night??  Great stuff, well done as usual.  Shirley MacLane is a great addition and a wonderful foil for Maggie Smith's character..

Thank you RGIII for bringing some magic to our pitiful (pro) sports city.  I hope your career isn't over.

And FINALLY the bowl season concludes tonight with the "national championship" game in Miami.  Should be the crescendo, but some how seems more like the denouement.  just get it over with for heaven's sake..and without descending into a rant, despite "Johnny Football's" performance, I hope Manti T'eo plays well.  The second time the much vaunted Oklahoma Sooners choked in the "big game".... just sayin...