Meet Me in St. Louis!

I actually haven't seen that movie and really only know it from the Sex and the City movie (lol), but the title seemed appropriate for the post.

Last weekend Tom and I hopped on a flight to St. Louis to visit his friends! It was a great weekend filled with two of my favorite things: beer and food!

We took off of work on Friday and got the first flight into St. Louis. With the time change we arrived around 9 AM and were ready for the day. When we got there we dropped of our stuff and headed to brunch at a cute place called Half and Half. The weather was beautiful and we got a nice table outside. I forgot to take pictures, but I ordered eggs and bacon and a bloody mary topped with a FRIED PICKLE!! It was awesome.

After breakfast we headed out to the breweries. Of course St. Louis is most well known for Anheueser Busch but there are actually quite a few microbreweries in the area. On the way to our first stop we realized we were driving along Route 66. So cool!

Our first stop was Schlafly...

Our second (and my favorite stop) was Urban Chestnut:

And our last stop was 4 Hands:

After a few hours of tasting beers we were hungry! For dinner, we headed over to the amazing Broadway Oyster Bar. I'm told the place had a very New Orleans feel (I've never been). We sat outside and there was a blues band playing -- it was such a great atmosphere!

Mural made of oyster shells

Of course we ordered some oysters to start. It's hard to be impressed when the oysters in Boston are so fresh and readily available. Still, oysters are always fun! :) It was also my first time tasting gulf oysters.

For my meal I ordered snow crabs! For only 17 bucks!! It's so hard to find good, cheap snow crabs and I was thrilled to see them on the menu. They were delicious. And so was my baked potato and asparagus!

After dinner we went over to St. Louis' greatest landmark: the Gateway Arch. The Arch was built in the 1960s as a monument to the westward expansion of the US. It's 630 ft high and overlooks the Mississippi River. Side note, I just realized I bungee jumped from a greater height than the Gateaay Arch (710 ft). I am a crazy person!!

Anyway, the Arch was very cool. We decided to go up to the top and it was a little scary. We went in these little tiny alien spaceship type things that took us up to the top. Very strange.

The capsule to get to the top

First look!

A little closer!

At the top!

Standing right underneath

Looking straight down from the top

After the Arch we went to Three Sixty, an AMAZING rooftop bar in the middle of the city at the top of the Hilton Hotel. I couldn't believe this place didn't have a cover AND had inexpensive cocktails ($8-$10). Crazy!!

Of course it had pretty stunning views:

It was a long day so after the rooftop bar we headed on home.

In the morning we woke up for a day of wine drinking! Apparently St. Louis has quite a few wineries -- who knew!

We started with brunch, and I got a huge plate of eggs and hashbrowns. We spent the rest of the day sipping wine, eating charcuterie, playing frisbee, dancing to 50s music, and laying in the sun. Sounds like the best day ever.

We finished the night off with some St. Louis style pizza (super thin crust), shuffleboard and beers at a local bar before calling it a night.

On our last day, Sunday, we planned to hit up two of St. Louis' most famous spots for food: Pappy's Smokehouse and Ted Drewes Frozen Custard.

Pappy's was first! We had to get there right at the opening to avoid a giant line and make sure we got food before it runs out! Luckily we only had about a 30 minute wait, and it was well worth it!

Check out those ribs.

After lunch we attempted to go to the St. Louis zoo but it started pouring :( We ended up stopping for frozen custard and then heading home for some board games before the flight.

I guess the only difference between custard and ice cream is the use of a lot of eggs in custard. You an also hold it upside down and it won't move! Strange. It was super good -- I got a "concrete" (small) with cookie dough and reeses.

Yum.

That was it for St. Louis! It was an awesome weekend and I can't wait to go back!

Oh yea, check out what happened to my popchips on the flight back...

HAH!

National Running Day

Very quick note to say that on Wednesday I woke up early (go me) before work and ran! And it turned out to be National Running Day! Yay for me.

I'm off to St. Louis in the morning...it's going to be a blast! And it's the furthest west in the US I'll have traveled. Woo hoo!

25th Birthday - Clio, ACBF, and party!

My 25th birthday was on Friday...crazy. When I was younger I always used to imagine myself as a 25 year old working in a city wearing a business suit and carrying a briefcase. I got the city part right but definitely not the wardrobe! No business suits for this girl.

It doesn't feel weird to be 25...truthfully it feels just like 24...and even more truthfully sometimes I still feel like a little kid. I guess that's a good thing?

Anyway my birthday was fantastic!! It started on Thursday with an extravagant gift from my boss (actually it started at Iron and Wine a few weeks ago), the Nike FuelBand! I really like it but forget to wear it sometimes. I'll talk more about it once I've worn it for a few weeks.

On Friday I came into work to a box of munchkins sitting on my desk. I had so many for breakfast and ate them throughout the day. Yay for birthday treats! For lunch my co-worker took me out for sushi and it was delish. I tried to stay pretty light since Tom told me to be hungry for my surprise dinner that night!

Before dinner Tom came over with beautiful pink and yellow flowers, and some birthday gifts! This guy knows me too well: he got me a molecular gastronomy kit and a head chef coat (with French buttons)!!

I cannot wait to use the kit and to be a real top chef, weeeee!!

After presents, it was time for dinner. We ended up at Clio, a practically secret fancy place in the Elliot Hotel that I had been talking about for months!! We took one look at the menu and Tom asked the ultimate birthday question: "Should we do the 14 course tasting menu with or without the wine pairing?"

And so it was decided! 14 courses were about to come our way. We opted out for the wine pairing -- we had a big day of drinking ahead of us and I'm not a big wine drinker so I didn't think it was worth taking up space in my belly with wine :)

Compared to Menton last year, Clio was a lot more adventurous with the combinations and flavors. I will do my best to remember each course, but I guarantee I'll miss about 50% of what was on each plate.

A dark TKO waiting for drinks!

Birthday girl and a delicious martini...HUGE smiles!

Amuse bouche -- a little crouton type thing with a goat cheese emulsion.

Course #1 - Tomato water with oil droplets, some type of berry, and a little tomato ice pop

#2 - Striped bass sashimi with orange slices, goji berries, chardonnay droplets and a soy based sauce

#3 - Oysters with caviar and chives

#4 - Strawberry gaspacho with tuna, fresh (first of the season) strawberries and a crispy  garnish

#5 - Lamb tartare with a yogurt sauce made with the bones of the lamb

#6 - A lobster cassoulet with parsnip broth, topped with chili threads and a (lemon?) foam

#7 - Some type of white fish topped with BBQ sauce and served over greens

#8 - Escargot with crispy duck tongue (!!)

#9 - White asparagus with morel mushrooms, a crouton, and Parmesan foam

#10 - Foie gras with honey, raspberry jelly, mushrooms and a crispy honey stick thing -- there are also little pickles hidden under the foie gras

#11 - Slow cooked pork with a very crispy skin, couscous, asparagus and ramps

#12 - Blue cheese and cheddar cheese with raisin bread (unpictured), dates and candied raisins

#13 - This picture looks weird, but that is two cream filled cripsy cannelloni, raspberries and a red pepper sorbet

#14 - A crazy dessert! There is a chocolate gelato, a mint gelato, white chocolate powder, and a LOT of other stuff!

#15 - An extra birthday course! A pineapple something, raspberry sorbet, and white chocolate powder.

Little blueberry chocolates with the check!

Extremely full at course #15!

This dinner was amazing and made me so incredibly happy! My 3 top courses were the lobster cassoulet, the sashimi, and the foie gras. I'm such a sucker for foie gras. I really really liked all 3 desserts -- it's hard to pick a favorite. Just as fun as eating was making Tom analyze and rate every course while we ate! He's such a good sport :) His favorite was the white asparagus, surprisingly!

On Saturday we had a big day planned! During the day I went to the American Craft Beer Festival with a few friends. It was awesome as usual. This year's festival had over 640 beers from over 140 brewers. Insanity! I attempted to check off all the beers I tried from the packet they gave me but probably missed a few. I think my favorite of the day was Lawson's Double Sunshine IPA. Not a big surprise since it scored 100 on Beer Advocate. I didn't take any pictures during the day because my hands were always full, but I had a really great time. By the time the festival ended at 4:30 I was pretty drunk.

After the festival we went back to my apartment to get ready for a little get together I was throwing. Major thanks to Tom and his brother who got everything together and set up while I ate pizza and took a nap :)

The party was really fun and me and Tom won the beer pong tournament!! We set up a real bracket and everything :) Unfortunately we weren't playing for anything. Next time they'll be a prize for the winning team!

I didn't take any pictures at my house either, but here's one my friend took of the ladies (and Andy):

Okay, this is a long post and has far too many exclamation points. I have one more birthday present happening next week :) Can't wait for it!!