Getting to Mardi Gras

Tay came to town Thursday night to spend the weekend with us. Over dinner, I asked him, "how much studying materials did you bring with you?"

He said, "Absolutely none."

For dinner, I brought up the idea of going to get chop suey, since St. Paul sandwhiches are a local speciality available nowhere else in the world. And there's a good reason for that, it turns out. So Tay and I both dived into our devices to determine which is the best place to get St. Paul, cheerfully aruging over what makes the "best" sandwich. Is it the shadiest location? The best tasting? The highest rated restaurant? In the end, we went to a place a lot of people recommneded that was actually pretty close by, and got our food to go. It was pretty nice for a St. Louis shop suey takeout shop, actually. All the lights were on, it looked relatively clean, the food was totally forgetable, pretty mediocre even for American Chinese take out. The St. Paul sandwich also pretty forgettable. 

The St. Paul sandwich was invented in St. Louis in the 1940s or earlier by Chinese immigrants trying to lure Americans into the flavors of China via a hybrid dish- it is basically an egg foo young patty sandwiched with mayo between two slices of white bread. Actually, it takes better than it sounds. Slightly. 

Actually, most of St. Louis's culinary specialties seem to be hybrid dishes: 

• toasted ravioli = Italian pasta+American breading and frying
• St. Louis style pizza= New York pizza + plastic
• gooey butter cake = butter, sugar, flour, eggs + Heaven
• Budweiser beer = Czech pilsner + extra water

Friday, after a big breakfast, we drove to Cherokee street to stroll along and take in the neighborhood, and ate tacos for lunch at La Villanessa. Good service, and amazing, huge creamy horchatas which had been blended almost like a milkshake. 

Coffee at Mud House afterwards, and we slowly cruised by some of the ancient mansions at the edge of Soulard. Afterwards, we went on to the liquor shop.

I had been advised that the best way to do Mardi Gras in Soulard is to bring your own flask, thereby not freezing your hands off holding watered down $9 hurricanes and Budwieser beer, which was the only beer sold on the street (a travesty considering the amount of fantastic breweries in St. Louis). 

Those of you who know us will not be surprised to hear that we did not own flasks, so it was a high priority Friday to secure both flasks for everyone, but also something to put in the flasks. Our local liquor store was happy to outfit us. We picked up the standard stainless steel flask, nothing fancy, and a bottle of Jack Daniels since it was the drink we all agreed we could take neat.

After our shopping excursion, we took Tay down to UpperLimits to give him a taste of bouldering. He did really well actually- he has a lot of upper body strength and an athleticism which lends itself to the sport. We all climbed there for about two hours, and finally went home. Ate a smorgasboard of leftovers for dinner.