Grateful Inn

Mon, 24 Jan 2005 01:36:52 GMT

Greg Perez is Back With Grateful Inn

The Grateful Inn is Greg Perez’s latest venture into the St. Louis restaurant scene, occupying the “shotgun” space once used by the Atomic Cowboy coffeehouse in Maplewood. I don’t usually rave much about restaurant décor here, but I’ll make an exception in this case. Perez has chosen to hang the walls with some of his collection of rock’n’roll art, and the result is stunning. Sadly, the original tin ceiling wars with the music Perez and his staff choose to play. When some of your customers are old enough not only to have attended Grateful Dead concerts but also to have been comped to them, maybe it’d be a good idea to turn the volume down just a tad

It’s hard to decide whether the Grateful Inn is a restaurant with a huge drinks menu or a bar with a larger-than-average menu, but given the mission of my column, I’ll choose the former. The kitchen here is tiny, sandwiched behind the bar and spilling out into a grilling area on a patio behind the restaurant. There’s no china or silverware, just plastic spoons and forks and black foamware plates and bowls. According to the staff, Perez toyed with the idea of naming this restaurant “Paper Plates”, a play on the name of his former restaurant, Painted Plates.

The star of the appetizer menu is the Five Spiced Chicken Wings ($5.00), a large portion of nicely grilled wings in a soy ginger glaze with a peppy flavor of five-spice powder. The Chicken and Pepper Bacon Skewers ($5) sounded better than they tasted, coming to the table with dry chicken and thin, barely peppered bacon. To our disappointment, the luscious-tasting Angry Melon Salad, a mixture of honeydew and cantaloupe with lime juice, chili and sea salt, was off menu both times we visited. When we enquired, we were told the honeydew wasn’t good enough. We thought that was odd, having tasted good honeydew elsewhere. The Fresh Fruit Salad, a mix of market available fruit with almonds and honey ($4) was too sweet the first time, but excellent the second. When coated with too much honey, the fruit lost all of its savor.

Individual pizzas ($4-6) are available, and the two we tried were good. The quirky Steak and Four Cheeses pizza might have been better with a bit less bleu cheese and A-1 sauce, but that’s just my palate. You might love it. I enjoyed every bite of the Hemp and Seeds Pizza, which is so light on cheese it might be described as a Pizza Bianco. The toasted seeds are savory and delicious. It’s surprisingly filling.

The P. B. L. T. & A. ($6) is a substantial pepper bacon, lettuce, tomato and avocado sandwich on Texas Toast. Again, we detected little pepper on the bacon. Sandwiches come with sides of the fruit salad or tasty herb roasted potatoes. The savory Black and Blue Steak ($6) is blackened tenderloin with bleu cheese, A-1 sauce and onion on dollar rolls with horseradish sauce on the side. Less of a winner is the Five Spice Grilled Pork Loin ($6) sandwich. The sweet pineapple flavor completely overpowers the subtle taste of the delicious meat.

If a customer doesn’t want to dip into the long list of trendy cocktails on the back of the menu, there’s a nice list of alcohol-free alternatives. The Grateful Inn features fresh juices, including some really nice Ginger Lemonade. You can also have a hand-dipped $6 milk shake, or warm cookies and milk. We succumbed to a pear poached in port wine served with homemade vanilla ice cream. It was disconcerting to eat a classic dessert from a disposable bowl, but the dessert was perfect nonetheless.

Grateful Inn
7386 Manchester Road
Maplewood MO 63143
314-647-DEAD (3323)
Major credit cards
No smoking
Wheelchair accessibility excellent

Originally posted in mid-December '04

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 04:58:55 GMT

Credit goes to jenkitty for the tea map mentioned in this review.

Cha Yoon

The month of December brings us all sorts of reasons to be tense: holiday shopping, gift wrapping, preparing for exams, travel, even the spate of plays and oratorios that so many talented professional and amateur entertainers will be taking part in over the next few weeks, and the weather adds to the stress level. If you've ever thought longingly of finding somewhere to relax for a few hours over a nice cup of tea, I've got a suggestion. Try Cha Yoon—"Yoon's Tea", a little teahouse tucked away in the Central West End.

Cha Yoon is a pleasant space decorated with long loops of Japanese paper and accented with "lucky cats" and decorative teapots. Pleasant music plays, the tables are intimate, and there are a few big black chairs up front if you really want to veg out. About the only discordant note comes from the blender making bubble tea shakes.

The tea menu is thick and impressive and must include at least a hundred beverages. I expected no less from a teahouse listed on http://www.teamap.com, an online directory of tearooms and teahouses around the country. You can order exotic elixir teas here, with ingredients that have been prescribed medicinally in China for generations. There’s a long list of fine black teas, as well as green teas, oolongs, herbal teas, chais, and that darling of Asian youth, the bubble tea. Bubble tea can be a lot of fun. It's usually made with fruit flavoring, milk powder, tea, and big, chewy pearls of tapioca. At Cha Yoon, the tapioca pearls are optional.

The Green Apple Bubble Tea at Cha Yoon is a pleasant surprise. It's not as sweet as usual, and really does taste of apples. The Buddha's Fingers Oolong tea is also outstanding. It has a fine, peachy fragrance, and doesn't get acrid or develop a tannic aftertaste. The chai my companion ordered turned out to be a standard Republic of Tea chai, nothing special, but it was served in a nicely warmed pot. Teas come by the cup or by the pot, except for bubble teas, which arrive in tall cold glasses. Some care is given to suit the pot to the tea, which is a nice touch. Infusers or loose bags are used, so that the tea leaves will neither be stifled by a tight bag or float out and stick to your tongue.

Cha Yoon also serves sushi, soup and appetizers. Their Tuna Tataki ($6.95), a thin sliced seared tuna, is perfectly executed, attractively served, and drizzled with a delicate ponzu sauce. Inari ($2.50 for 4 pieces), the traditional soybean pouch filled with sushi rice, is tasty, but was a little loosely packed the day I visited. $2.50 buys you a heaping plate of Eda Mame, boiled soybeans, and $2.75 more will get you a plate of delicious seaweed salad with sesame and red pepper flakes. The usual sushi and sashimi combos are available at very reasonable prices. The Cha Yoon Roll ($5.25) is shrimp, eel, masago, mango, and avocado. It's quite a good deal.

If the tea and sushi have seduced you into whiling away enough of your afternoon that it's turned into the cocktail hour, you can order wine, beer or sake. If not, you can finish off your little bit of escapism with some dessert. Two kinds of cheesecake are available, as well as Mochi ice cream (balls of ice cream wrapped in sweetened rice—2 for $2.95).

4 North Euclid Ave
St. Louis, MO
(314) 367-2209
Mon - Thu: 11:00am to 10:00pm
Fri - Sat: 11:00am to 11:00pm
Major credit cards
Wheelchair accessibility fair
No smoking

dakiwisreviews

Grateful Inn

Originally posted in mid-December '04