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Monarch

On the first pass I spotted arancini at the Monarch booth. If you’ve never had one, an arancini, in its simplest form, is typically risotto that once cooled is rolled into a ball; stuffed with some kind of meat, cheese, or vegetable mixture; breaded with breadcrumbs; and fried to a golden brown. They get their name because the Italians say they look like “little oranges”. Arancini, as I understand it, is close to the Italian word for “orange”. They are one of my favorite Italian foods, so I was excited as I don’t often see them in St. Louis.

Unfortunately, these weren’t very good. The filling in most I’ve had has always been relatively stodgy with rice that, while perhaps not al dente (do to the traditional usage of using leftover risotto) still had a touch of bite to it. The filling in these was very thin and coupled with the rice, which was overcooked, they had a porridge like quality that I found unappealing.

note: I have noticed that one traditional version calls for making a ragu for the stuffing. It is entirely possible that this is what they were going for, and it was just a personal bias based upon what I like about arancini.

We also had the empanadas at Monarch. Unremarkable, they were a bit doughy, and merely ok. They were filled with braised beef that the menu said was tenderloin. It was a waste if it in fact was, because they would have had a more meaty flavor if they’d used a tougher more flavorful cut of beef or even oxtail. They were also missing the aioli mentioned on the menu.

I’ve only ever had lunch at Monarch, but if these are truly items they would serve, I’m even more baffled that people flock there than I was before. Neither of these items was worth the five dollars they charged.

Everest Café

Everest Café is a restaurant I’ve never been to. At their booth I sampled Gorkali Chicken with Basmatti Rice. Wisely serving some dark meat, the chicken was moist, and for someone who loves it (like myself) the heavy hand of curry was wonderful.

If unfamiliar, Everest is a Nepalese restaurant. Two of the dishes they served –gorkali and vegetable samosa- are both common Indian dishes. While I understand the food of Nepal has roots in the various cultures in their region (like India) I found the decision to serve only Indian influenced dishes perplexing.

When an ethnic restaurant goes to an event like this, they are there, at least on some level, acting as culinary ambassadors for the nation whose cuisine they serve. Knowing as little as I do about Nepalese cuisine, I have to believe that the general public knows even less. Why then, would they not throw in something like a more Tibetan influenced dish to showcase another angle of what Nepalese cuisine has to offer?

I just don’t get it.

LoRusso’s Cucina

LoRusso’s pulled through for me by proving another one of my culinary theories: everything tastes better fried. Frying, it seemed, was the order of the day so far - and what could be better than friend dough?

Just about every culture has some sort of fried dough in their arsenal and for the Italians, apparently it is sfinges. I’d never heard of this, and wanting to make sure they weren’t just making something up, I did a little digging when I got home and found that they are also often referred to as zeppole.

Basically like a sweet fritter, these had ricotta in them and tasted similar to a funnel cake do to the liberal dusting of powdered sugar. The ricotta gave them an appreciated lightness as they were our third fried food of the day.

Lumiere Place

If you hadn’t noticed by now, the Taste of St. Louis palette is decisively beige; the scent of fried foods lingering in the air.

With a great deal of money riding on their success, Lumiere Place did their utmost to pull all the stops for this event striding in with a refreshing dash of color. Their tent was two to three times larger than everyone else’s, and I have to admit, the presentation of everything was amazing for an event of this size. They were well organized, and I knew I had to try them all.

Tropical shrimp and scallop ceviche with cilantro-chili oil

I love ceviche so I approached this with an extreme bias. Often, ceviche suffers from people being afraid to use too much citrus. Citrus, however is the point of ceviche. It’s the acidity that “cooks” the fish and gives it bite while imparting flavor. I’m not sure what tropical shrimp are, but these appeared to be rock shrimp. I prefer the choice of rock shrimp in ceviche as, at least in the times I’ve had it, they tend to stand up to the “cooking” better than traditional. I don’t know if this is a true benefit to using them, or if it’s just a matter of better cooks choosing them in my past experiences.

Regardless, theirs was well done. It had enough citrus tang to set the rock shrimp and scallops off nicely. It was also the first thing I’d had that was properly seasoned with salt and pepper. If I had one complaint, it would be that the chili oil could have had more kick to it. That, or something like a little jalapeño or other pepper, would have given it a little more heat and rounded it out nicely.

Heirloom tomato gazpacho and Goatsbeard Farms raw milk goat cheese crostini

Last year someone (I forget who) served scallop soup. I learned two things from that experience: 1) it’s a pain to eating soup in a crowd of people and 2) eating hot soup in the summertime temperatures of St. Louis is not the swiftest idea anyone ever had. This on the other hand, was great.

I’m not generally a huge gazpacho fan. More often than not, it tastes like someone through a bunch of vegetables and cilantro into V8. That’s obviously not what it should be, and although I was geared up to hate this, because I hate the whole “shooter” style concept, it was a great idea to puree it and serve it this way. It seemed to be almost completely tomato, and again, where others had failed, it was well seasoned. It was refreshing with just the right amount of acidity to bring out the ripe tomato flavor, and the classic goat cheese combo set it off nicely. Although, Goatsbeard Farms does not make a raw chevre to my knowledge.

White port marinated Tuscan melon shaved Danielle prosciutto and micro arugula

Excellent prosciutto; wickedly underipe melon! This is one of those integrity of the ingredient dishes. Without the melon to back it up, you’re left with nothing more than a plate of meat. The melon was so underipe in fact it had the texture of apples, and a little fancy pants micro arugula isn’t going to cover that up.

Lemon honey poached sekel pear with dark chocolate and toasted almonds

This looks beautiful doesn’t it? It’s the first thing I saw when we walked by the Lumiere booth on the initial pass. It was second only to the arancini on my list of must haves.

It was terrible.

The pear, hardly poached, made it impossible to cut with the little fork/spoons they provided. I was forced to pick it up by the stem to take bites, and even then it wasn’t worth eating the whole thing. The lemon flavor was completely absent, and if you’ve ever poached a pear before, you always do so with several spices in the poaching liquid to add a depth of flavor. Either the spices were absent, or the fact that it was so undercooked made it impossible for the pear to take on the fragrance.

Prior to the event, Lumiere Place had stated that they would be showcasing three of their dining establishments at the event. However, not one of these dishes gave you any indication as to which they would represent. Still, I have to hand it to them though. Even though I didn’t care for two of the four, the pricing on what they brought was a better representation of what you should expect at these events. It’s not a way for restaurants to make money, it’s a way for them to showcase their offerings and get you to make an actual trip to their location.

Harvest

Knowing we could guarantee leaving on a high note, we saved Harvest for last.

In my opinion, the best constant on menu dessert in St. Louis, is the Harvest bread pudding. There is nothing I would dream of changing as it has never been anything but perfect. I ate more then I’d ever care to admit in the year I worked at Harvest, and unlike most things in life, it’s never grown old. The strong egg flavor of the brioche custard pudding in tandem with the warm buttery sweetness of the bourbon currant sauce makes it tough to beat.

This year it was served with raisins instead of currants, and although the currants are certainly a better mix as they are a touch sweeter, even this could not hold the dessert back. I can only assume they were left scrambling to make enough bourbon sauce for the weekend, and didn’t have time to get in the truckload of currants needed for three days worth of bread pudding. So if this was the first time you’d ever had a taste, definitely make a trip to Harvest to have the real deal - with currants..

Aside from some Schlafly Oktoberfest (which they sadly ran out of after one), that was our day. We rolled home for a nap a little fatter than before.

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