Antarctica Starts Here.

Yeah, more restaurant reviews. I've got a lot going on right now, and this is all I really have time for right now. Hopefully I'll have time to write something more interesting in the next couple of days.

Okay. First up, the Rearn Thai Restaurant (7910 Bonhomme Avenue; Clayton, MO; 63105; phone 314-725-8870; fax 314-725-8809). It's a fairly good Thai restaurant a stone's throw from the hotel I'm staying at, and by fairly good I mean bring one or two friends, order two dishes and an appetizer, and you'll eat well, and not forget soon how good the food is. C- and I ordered the appetizer sampler platter in addition to our main courses, and two people can easily eat too much from the sampler platter alone. My pad thai, let me state, was made to perfection: It included chicken, pork, and shrimp, and the sauce was thick, tasty, and nicely covered everything on the plate. C-'s dish (the name of which escapes me because it's been a couple of days) was also reported to be extremely good. We weren't able to finish everything, and called it quits after demolishing two thirds of the sampler platter and about a third of our main courses. This place is a little difficult to find but not overly so. Overall: One and a half flareguns. If you're in Clayton and you like Thai, go here. You will not regret the stop at all.

Next, Super Smokers' BBQ, the barbecue joint that C- and his wife, coneisseurs of BBQ both, wanted to visit while we were here. It was a bit of a drive from the hotel (and the takeout menu I picked up doesn't have the address on it, but if you hit the link above you'll find it) so I don't know exactly where it is, only that it was a good half hour drive or so to get there on a Friday night. Their ribs are not the ribs you'll find in a city like DC or Pittsburgh - they're more meat than bone (one supposes that they're supposed to be that way), their pulled chicken sandwich isn't too bad (it was a bit moist around the edges but nicely textured and dry inside the bread), and the sauces are probably near the top end of those I've had because they're manufactured in small batches at the restaurant to very tight tolerances. The mustard-based sauce doesn't taste wholly of mustard, the hot sauces have just enough spice to stop by and say 'hello' but not overpower your sense of taste or the flavour of the meat, and the sweet sauces were sweet but not cloyingly so. I'm told that they all worked well with ribs, and I rather enjoyed sampling them on my pulled chicken sandwich. Verdict: Two flare guns. I'm not much of a fan of BBQ but I liked what I got, so check 'em out.

Last but not least is Il Vichino's (41 North Central; Clayton, MO; 63105; phone 314-727-1333), an upscale Italian eatery a couple of blocks away from the site. Somehow we keep winding up eating calzones in Clayton - I guess it's because there are so many good restaurants within a three block radius of wherever you happen to be. Their calzones aren't bad - the crust's a bit heavier than that of the others I've had around here and there's a lot more cheese in them than other places' fare. On the whole, Il Vichino's isn't too bad.. I much prefer the other Italian restaurant that we'd gone to around here (The Uptown Cafe') because they had a bit more range of flavour.. a bit more complex, a bit more varied, a bit less cheese covering it all up. Two and a quarter flareguns.