Ok first of all, I need to make an announcement.  We are moving! Those who know me personally already know this.  I absolutely hate to leave St. Louis- especially all of the food of St. Louis :) But the hubs is graduating from medical school and we are headed to a small town in Pennsylvania called Danville.  We will be there for at least a year, not sure after that.  So I guess I need to eat all of the St. Louis goodness I can before I leave.  And then I can become a north east foodie :) 

With that being said- for our "congrats on the match" dinner, we went to Katie's Pizza and Pasta located on Manchester.  I have been wanting to go here for a while now and we finally had the opportunity do it.  We got a few apps, some pastas and some pizzas and shared everything.  And EVERYTHING was absolutely delicious.  I wish I would have gotten more pictures, but it is actually quite dark in there and we went at night, so we only managed to snap a quick pic of one of the appetizers before the sun set.  Pictured below is the artichoke toasted ravioli.  I'm a huge fan of toasted raviolis in general, but having artichoke on the inside was incredible, especially with the pesto on top.  I didn't want it to end, but unfortunately all good things must.  We also tried the burrata with seasonal figs and prosciutto.  Figs and prosciutto are a match made in heaven, so this dish was definitely a good choice.  The pear salad was our next choice which included red pear, ricotta, dried fig, walnuts, swiss chard, honey and a balsamic vinaigrette.  The pears were perfectly crisp and well balanced with the acid of the vinaigrette and the sweetness of the honey.  Yum!  For our pizza choices, we got the Fig and Squash (can you tell I like figs yet?) withe roasted butternut squash, figs, pancetta, fresh mozzarella, goat cheese, sage, balsamic and fresh arugula.  You can't go wrong with this pizza.  Sage and Squash=perfection.  Goat cheese, ummmm yes. And the fresh mozzarella makes a huge difference as well as the fresh arugula on top.  I was wanting the lick the plate.  We also had the wood roasted chicken pizza with roasted garlic, chicken, dandelion greens, caramelized shallots, goat cheese and gorgonzola.  The sweetness of the caramelized shallots with the garlic and herbs on the chicken was such a good pairing.  This pizza was absolutely fantastic.  

Overall I can't say enough about how great Katie's was.  The only thing I will warn you about is that you need to have a reservation if you don't want to wait forever! But like I always say, if you have to wait a while, that means it's goooood.  And this was :)

I had a friend come in town and I loved the opportunity to once again eat my way through St. Louis.  Out of town guests are always good for that, right? We headed down town to eat at Bailey's range.  I'm a sucker for a good burger.  My choice for this time was the longhorn, which was an aged sirloin patty topped with salsa, guacamole, queso, and chipotle mayo.  The meat was perfectly seasoned and the mayo added the right amount of kick.  We also got some fries to share and they were so good- especially with the cheddar dipping sauce! All of their dipping sauces were great, but the cheddar was my personal favorite.  

Of course I have to take all out of towners to Ted Drewes, and this was no exception.  My go to flavor at Ted's is the oreo banana concrete.  I have gotten the same flavor every time (with the occasional, later regretted, exception) since I was a little girl.  I have had other flavors from tasting friend's, and they have been very good, but there's just something about the oreo banana that I can't veer away from.  

My husband and I tried out a new Ice cream place by Lafayette square called Clementine's naughty and nice ice creamery.  They offer booze infused (naughty) flavors as well as more family friendly ones (nice).  They are the only micro creamery in St. Louis and offer a wide variety of unique flavors like bacon jam + black pepper, cardamom and gooey butter cake.  We tried the nutella, gooey butter cake and salted caramel crack.  We actually tried more than that... but those 3 were our final decision.  The ice cream was perfectly creamy and very high quality and the flavors were delicious.  My personal favorite was the gooey butter cake.  I'm excited to see what new flavors they will have for the summer!

On our way to the botanical gardens, we hit up World's Fair Donuts because why not? After sampling multiple, my favorite was just the original glazed.  I'm a purist when it comes to donuts.  And this was absolutely delicious.  Very light and airy and perfectly glazed.  So good!

We leave at the end of May, so I'm getting in all of the St. Louis goodness while I still can! It's all happening way too fast!

Love,

Grace