Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Michigan Group

We have two groups of out-of-town, long time friends. The "Michigan Group", five men who went, together, and graduated, in 1951 and 1952, from the University of Michigan; and the "Lobster Group", four couples who, in it's inception, some 40 years ago, all lived in the northern suburbs of Chicago and who have gotten together, in various places, to share an evening built around a Lobster dinner. Our trip to St. Louis was to be with the Michigan Group.
The Michigan Group included two couples, currently living in Cincinnati and one couple each from St. Louis, Chicago and San Diego. St. Louis was the site chosen for this past weekend.
We all assembled, Friday night, for our first dinner at "Atlas Restaurant" 5513 Pershing, St.Louis, MO 63112-phone 314-367-6880. There were 11 of us in total, as the daughter of our St Louis "brother" joined us for most of our meals.
"Atlas Restaurant" is own and run by couple from San Francisco who have been in St. Louis approximately 5 years. They run a first class establishment with excellent food and service. Unfortunately they have decided to return to "Baghdad by the Bay"(Herb Caen) and have just concluded a sale of the property. Hopefully the new owners will keep up both quality and selection.
The group had various drinks, from ice tea to "Bombay" and shared several bottles of wine.
The "special" for the evening was Walleye Pike and at least 30% of the diners chose that. I had a taste and found it well prepared and perfectly seasoned. I started with Sweetbreads which were chopped into bit size pieces and sauteed in butter and a very light, herb cream sauce. The others, not being adventurous, let me consume these without sharing. For my main course I had a "house made" ricotta Gnocchi served with Julian of spring vegetables. This also had a very light "Alfredo like" sauce. The two sauces, although similar, each had their own distinctive flavor and were irritable with the fresh baked french loaf. Orders of Duck, Trout, salads, beet and several butter leaf lettuce covered most main courses. Desserts ranged from a Butterscotch pudding parfait to Berry crisp and the ever present vanilla creme Brulee.
After dinner we all returned to the Motel for conversation and planing for the next day, which I will report fully in the next posting.
Now it's off to "Graeter's" to try the Turtle Sudae ice cream before the "flavor of the month" disappears the end of this week.

No comments: