Restaurants

Dinner Is Served

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It's safe to say that if you remove barbecue from consideration, Niche is now the mecca for pork lovers in St. Louis. Excellent house-made pappardelle with mascarpone, lemon, pear and parsley is taken to a nearly ethereal level by the addition of smoked pork shank.

1. Sweetbreads at Franco

I loved the sautéed sweetbreads I had on my first visit to Franco (the RFT's and our readers' pick for Best New Restaurant 2007) so much that I tried to order them again when I returned a few days later. (They were sold out.) That was almost one year ago now, and on the first draft of this list, I had the sweetbreads penciled at No. 2. But then I decided to pay another visit to Franco (where, I must admit, they have figured out who I am) and try executive chef Justin Keimon's current sweetbreads dish.

This was fantastic, even better than the original: sweetbreads and mushrooms in a Madeira glaze between two thin layers of pastry shell and sitting atop a cauliflower purée. The composition looks an awful lot like biscuits and gravy, and the flavor is incredibly rich — meaty, yes, with the sweetbreads' mild earthy notes and a passing sweetness from the Madeira glaze.

And the worst?

"Baseball's Best Slider" at GCS Stadium

Baseball's Best Slider is the sort of thing you should order only when drunk or on a dare. It's a White Castle cheeseburger breaded and deep-fried, served with a side of cheese sauce for dipping. It looks more or less like what you'd imagine a breaded and deep-fried White Castle Slyder® would look like: dark brown and crusty, generally burger-shaped — albeit with knobs of gnarled batter that give it the appearance of a fried chicken thigh.

It tasted like ass. Love them Grizzlies, though!

Have a suggestion for a restaurant the Riverfront Times should review? E-mail ian.froeb@riverfronttimes.com.

For more about food and St. Louis restaurants, visit Gut Check: blogs.riverfronttimes.com/gutcheck.

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