Sunday, September 26, 2010

Lunch In St. Louis At Landry's In Union Station.

After a busy morning, Rosie and Mr. Hawthorne are ready for a late lunch stat. We somehow ended up at St. Louis Union Station ...
... and for some reason (hunger?) went to Landry's. I'd never heard of this place before, but apparently it's a chain, so I'm already breaking my rule.
We walked over a little bridge to the restaurant and I thought the gold fish were going to assault us. Apparently, they're used to being fed. They have a rather extensive menu and we're starving.
Of course, we ain't going nowhere near ersters.
I ordered the clam chowder to start with. Very creamy. Quite clammy. Some potatoes. Slightly smokey from the bacon. I liked it.
Mr. Hawthorne ordered the fried stuffed jalapeno peppers with fried onions and ranch dressing on the side. These were great. They'll be going on my to-do list. Very lightly battered. There was plenty of ooey-gooey cheese inside but it didn't overpower the celery, shrimp and crab meat stuffing. Rosie likey.
Nice salad. Bleu cheese on the side and I tried a Balsamic honey mustard dressing. Usually I don't like a honey mustard because the mustard is too overpowering, but this was light and quite nice. I'll try my spin on this one when I get home. Gee. Rosie's picture of her salad is out of focus. I wonder why. Well, I'll tell you why. But first, a question for you: Can one's service at a restaurant be too fast? The answer is a resounding yes. At a restaurant when I have a soup or appetizer course, a salad course, and an entree, I like to have my courses one at a time. Is that too much to ask? I want to finish my soup or appetizer, then have my salad served. I like to finish my salad then have my entree served. We hadn't finished the soup and appetizers when the salad came to the table. I hadn't even served myself the salad when the waitress brought the entrees. Then she scurried to find a place for all the plates. She ended up taking condiments off the table and putting them in an empty chair. This is totally unacceptable to me. The salad was out of focus because I was rushing to shoot the picture while the waitress was rearranging everything on the table to try and find room for all the plates. Fer crying out loud. We were eating a late lunch so there was only one other table in there. She didn't have all that much to do. Seems like she could at least have gotten the timing right. As it was, I had unfinished soup, Mr. Hawthorne had unfinished appetizers, I had uneaten salad, then we had two more honking plates of entrees served before we were ready. I want one thing at a time. Is that too much to ask for? Apparently so. I'm figuring the waitress thought she was doing great to load everything on the table at one time. "Look at me! I got all the food out so fast. I was amazing! " I started to tell her to let me balance the entree on my knee. Waitpersons: Please pay attention to your diners. Do not bring out an entree before your customer has started on the salad. This should not be a problem.
Mr. Hawthorne ordered shrimp fettuccini tomatoes, mushrooms and Alfredo sauce. The Alfredo sauce was good. The shrimp was overcooked. All FIVE of them. (Why he ordered shrimp when we're in the midwest, I don't know.) The fettuccini was a disappointment after one has made fresh pasta. I guess it's not really fair to judge Midwestern shrimp. How do you people live without fresh shrimp?
I had the tilapia with artichoke hearts and mushrooms with a nondescript white sauce. The fish was lightly breaded and fried. And the fish had a slight pond flavor. I've had tilapia many times before and the tilapia I've had has never had pond flavor. Mr. Hawthorne won't eat tilapia since he saw that Discover program about farm-raised salmon. After the salmon were removed from the water, tilapia were put into the tanks to clean them up. Tilapia are scavengers. They eat crap. I don't know why Mr. Hawthorne is bothered by this. He eats oysters and an oyster is nothing but one big filter. He eats crabs and a crab eats anything and everything. Hell, that crab you just ate could have been feasting on a bloated corpse just minutes before he was caught. I don't have a problem with this. But my tilapia was slightly ... off. And what's up with all that damn spaghetti? If I had wanted spaghetti, I'd have gone to an Italian restaurant, not a seafood place. I didn't order spaghetti. Had I known I was getting a plate of spaghetti I would have ordered something else. Oh, well. Let me reiterate: Do NOT go to chains. Mea culpa.

5 comments:

Marilyn said...

"How do you people live without fresh shrimp?"

Simple: we don't know what fresh shrimp tastes like, so we don't know what we are missing.

But we do know to not overcook the shrimp!

Oh, and Rosie? You are in the Midwest now. Try some Midwestern foods. The seafood is just going to keep disappointing you.

Rosie Hawthorne said...

Mar, I am a creature of habit. I eat very little red meat. I eat mostly fish. It's hard to change, but I know I must. Small steps.
I have to decompress gradually.

Marilyn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Marilyn said...

Rosie, Rosie, Rosie. There are such things as 6 ounce beef filets. We Midwesterners don't always eat 24-ounce steaks every whenever. Or ever. We also tend to eat a lot of pork and chicken (or others who are not allergic to it do, at least).

I would suggest going with the pork and chicken first, but that requires a delicate touch as well. Cook it too long and it's shoe leather. Unfortunately, I know too many people who seem to like shoe leather.

And sorry for the deleted comment, but blogger won't let one change one lousy misspelled word.

Kathy said...

Marilyn is right. Midwest does NOT equal seafood. Let it go until you're either home or see the Pacific out your window. Become a gnosher of beef or maybe some bison?) and other tasty, fleshy animals.