For part of my Spring Break I left the cold windy city of Chicago to visit my sisters in St. Louis where they introduced me to several of their favorite restaurants, or just new ones that had popped up.
First we went to Bailey’s Range which is a burger and milkshake specialty restaurant. Everything is made in house, from the ice cream to their ketchup. All their meats are procured locally and are grass-fed. The restaurant has a Burger Off, where once a week two different kinds of burgers compete and the one ordered more stays and goes up against a new competitor. There is also a list of 88 different kinds of soda most of which is made with cane soda that are organized by the company that produces them. I tried a lavender dry soda that wasn’t quite what I was expecting and probably would not order again, but it was an interesting experience. It was a light lavender flavor but mostly just the taste of carbonation.
I ordered their Sweet Smoke burger which is a pork patty with fontina, blueberry chipotle bbq sauce, and an onion ring (it comes with cilantro but I asked for it to be kept aside). The blueberry chipotle bbq sauce had a tangy taste to it and I was unable to taste the blueberry, but it was delicious. The onion ring made the burger huge. My sisters and I split an order of their large fries, and were unable to finish it off between the three of us with the chedder, honey mustard, and ketchup sauces. The large fry order comes with your choice of two in house made sauces. I just used the ketchup that came with my burger, it had a light sweet taste to it that I loved, especially since I’m not a huge fan of ketchup.
Before we left I ordered a small salted caramel milkshake, even though it was a milkshake I ate it with a spoon, since it was so thick. They sell their ice cream for people to take home.
The next place we went, on a different day was to Sushi Ai, found on the same street as Bailey’s Range. (both are downtown on Olive street) My sister and I ordered Bento boxes that came with appetizers. Miso soup and a salad (basically lettuce) with a non sweet peanut dressing. Both were good and interesting, the peanut dressing didn’t have much of a flavor.
My sister and I always get gyoza or pot stickers whenever we’re together. These were gone within seconds.
The dinner bento box included california rolls, tempura, rice and your order, mine being sesame chicken. The restaurant specializes in sushi and though there were many many different interesting sounding choices done artistically neither my sister or I ordered any for this trip. I cannot eat a lot of sushi and didn’t even finish all of this food.
Before I continue I should note that Bailey’s owns a lot of really fun and interesting restaurants throughout St. Louis. They tend to be green and health conscious as well as pretty popular. I’ve been to three, Roster (brunch/breakfast restaurant that can have a long wait on a previous trip), Range and this next place.
My sister (the other one stayed home to play the new Bioshock game) took me was Bailey’s Chocolate Bar. With red walls, low lighting, black furniture, candles, and roses at each table the restaurant has a nice date atmosphere, or a just a nice end of the evening feel to it.
Each table is brought a wine bottle filled with water and a small cookie for each guest. The large menu showcases their desserts, cheeses, chocolates, and pizzas. The thin menu on the right lists their drinks including chocolate martinis, beer, wines, champagne and other spirits. They also serve hot chocolate and coffees. I ordered the special martini for the day a chai martini that was chai, cinnamon ice cream, a cinnamon stick, rumchata (horchata and rum) and vanilla vodka. It was basically a milkshake in a martini glass. My sister got chocolate port.
My sister also ordered two petites, the Missouri Black Walnut which is the small heart and the other is a Chocolate Bacon Brittle. Both were good and interesting, just super hard to share unlike what I ordered the Chocolate Inebriation.
This is a layered chocolate cake with chocolate stout, bittersweet chocolate ganache and cinnamon ice cream. The cinnamon ice cream was light and helped balance out the chocolate.