Birthday week!

The day of my actual birthday, I worked in studio all day and didn't make a big deal out of it. That night, however, Saori and I were planning on going out to dinner at Salt, a highly rated restaurant in CWE known for high quality American cooking. But... it was closed tuesday. So we thought hey lets just go grab some cheap dinner like Pho Grand, and then hit up the downtown roofttop bar. And then we realized that Pho Grand was also closed tuesdays, so we went to our local go-to Pho place- also closed. We did finally get our pho nearby though, and that was pretty good.

Afterwards, I directed Saori downtown to the Hilton which had the sky bar. Once we got down there, we were finding it hard to find parking, which a little unusual for St.Louis and Saori said, "Is there a game tonight?" crap. First of all, it makes parking a nightmare anywhere close to the stadium, which we were, second, the rooftop bar immediately throws in a $10 cover on game nights, and it would be packed during and after the game. My tuesday night strategy for the empty downtown totally falling apart here.

We did finally make our way to Bridge, an upscale bar downtown which is pretty much a wine bar that serves beer instead of wine. I really like it because they have a rotating draught beer menu with about 60 beers on tap from local breweries and around the world and you can try each one in glasses ranging from 4oz to 32oz. Good place to try a few beers although most of the beers sold are pretty strong. So if you have five four-ouncers, you're spending a minimum of $20 and definately not in any condition to drive.

The next few days were pretty normal as far as normalcy goes in grad school. Friday night, I enjoyed happy hour with my classmates while it poured rain outside, and then Saori took me out to Salt for dinner.

Salt serves really good innovative American food made with local ingredients. And duck fat. Lots of duck fat. We had duck fat fries with aoili and house-made ketchup, one seared scallop (just one, but a big one, served in a small mason jar which was sealed and contained a bit of smoke)which we divided into four bites between us, tomato soup served with a mini grilled cheese sandwich, and the sorghum laquered roasted duck, which was pink in the middle and served on a bed of kale sauteed with bacon. Amazing. The duck was really ducky and succulent and I think it was either sorghum or maple syrup drizzled which tied the whole thing together. For dessert, we got the duck-fat fried red velvet 'twinkie' which is exactly what you think it is. Not one but two servers came around to gauge our reaction to the dessert which was apparently pretty new on the menu and I gave my feedback on the batter which they had recently changed.

Yesterday (saturday) was a very busy day. We hit three of the places seen in this movie highlighting the best things about living in St.Louis:


Here is St. Louis from Anastasis Films on Vimeo.

We started off by going to Soulard Market, a place I've been wanting to visit ever since I got to St. Louis. This market is about 100 years old and is full of vendors selling fruits, vegitables, flowers, pets, seafood, meats, spices, and fresh pasta. At 10am, it wasn't that crowded yet. Bring cash and your own bags. We picked up some pasta and some breakfast there.

Afterwards, we went to get coffee at Sump,  less of a coffee-shop and more of an obsessive love-letter to coffee. The menu has only a few items on it, and they only serve particular coffees in particular ways. If you want the Guatemalan coffee, you have to get it with the Chemex process, which is the way that the heavily bearded proprietor determined would bring out the best characteristics of that particular coffee. 

Humming with the heavy dose of caffeine, we went back to studio to work for a few hours before we went back downtown to do a site visit on the riverbank. Afterwards, we met up with Dew and Chuck at SoIll, a modern and clean climbing gym with some great bouldering walls. For some reason, the V0s and V1s were a lot easier than those at Upper Limits. The facility too was very updated, airy, and full of light. The rental climbing shoes were superior and much newer than Upper Limits. The price for a daily pass was a few dollars more though. Another major difference is that the bouldering walls in SoIll climb a lot higher than Upper Limits, so when you get to the top, you have a lot longer to fall- however, the floor is a giant rubber cushion, so you can drop eight feet with no problem. It is a bit more scary being that high, but it also motivates you to stay on that wall.