Proof that we did more than just eat on this trip. LOL
Its been a good long while since we took a vacation. We drove to St. Louis, MO (with stops in Bentonville, Springfield, and Tulsa) for a concert in late September. 🚗We did plenty of fun sightseeing, but first ... food. 😋 Sadly, we didn't get to eat at as many restaurants as I had originally planned. I didn't do proper Google research; one of the restaurants I wanted to try closed early (Nathaniel Reid Bakery) and another one was closed the day we were in town (Basil India). Despite that, we still got to try lots of new delicious foods.
Andrea told me about the Crystal Bridges Art Museum in Bentonville, AR and when I mapped it, it ended up being a really good half-way point. We stopped in on our first day and had lunch at the museum's restaurant, Eleven. The fries were soooo salty but in a good way (Wes said they were too salty but I thought they were perfect!) 🍟He got a smash burger and I got the "Bentonville" hot chicken sandwich, their take on Nashville hot chicken. It wasn't very spicy but still spicy. The two extremely nice & friendly employees behind the counter compared it to the spiciness level of Taco Bell's hot sauce. I tried a trendy new shrub soda, and it was not for me -- too earthy/healthy tasting. I got the pineapple shrub and it tasted mostly of shrub (vinegar & ginger) and barely of pineapple.
We went to Tavola Trottoria for dinner. It was one of the highest ranked restaurants in town but I think their 4.8 stars were for atmosphere and decor rather than the food. The food wasn't bad but I don't think I would go again. I got the eggplant & goat cheese lasagna and Wes got a chicken dish -- don't remember what exactly. The best thing we got was our appetizer. We got bruschetta layered with brie and a pesto fig compote spread. Our waiter was super nice & attentive, and the restaurant was very fancy so I guess it was worth the trip.
The next morning, we went to Crepes Paulette for breakfast. There was construction on the surrounding streets so we parked somewhat close and walked. I thought it would be okay to walk a few blocks on a September morning... nope. It was almost 90℉ by 11am. 😫 The restaurant was right next to a coffee place so I politely asked the owner if we could get coffee from next door and bring it in to have with our breakfast. (Wes gets so embarrassed when I ask questions but the owner, Paulette I'm guessing, was super chill about it.) My crepes are ranked a close second for best meal I had on this trip. I got a pumpkin pie crepe, which was good, but my second crepe was AMAZING. It was their Elvis crepe, which had bacon & bananas, slathered with peanut butter and covered in maple syrup. 😋 Wes got a strawberries & crème fresh one.
I wanted a Lumberjack latte (white chocolate and maple spice) but they were out of one of the syrups - I can't remember which one, so I told the barista to just sub it with whatever she thought would taste most comparable. She did a good job but I don't think I liked it as much as I would have liked it with what it was supposed to be made with. Wes got his usual cold brew with oat milk.
We had lunch on the road (I had a bag of taco pizza flavored chips from Casey's gas station) and made it to St. Louis for dinner. We went to The Vine Café. My dinner was my favorite meal of the entire trip. This was the first time I ever tried Lebanese food. And now I want to eat it a million times more! LOL I wanted the cilantro chicken but they were out (we got there around 8pm so it wasn't too late but a lot of places close early in St. Louis), so I got a Mediterranean kafta instead. It was like a mix of Indian and Mediterranean food, not spicy like Indian but a similar blend of spices. Wes got the lamb kebob. Our dinners came with soup and the soup of the day was lentil curry. It was the best lentil soup ever! The portions were gigantic; we had enough for dinner the next night.
We went to MoKaBe's Coffee House for breakfast the next morning. Another place with cute vibes but not so great food. 😕 (and also less cute than Tavola) I thought we were both ready to order so I went up to the counter, turns out Wes hadn't fully looked at the menu and had no idea what he wanted. He hastily ordered a breakfast burrito and said it was bad. His chief complaint being that the salsa and guacamole in the burrito tasted store-bought. I got a ham breakfast sandwich on an everything bagel. It was okay but my bagel was not "everything." It probably had a light sprinkle of seasoning at best, more like an itty bitty dash of it. I must have been underwhelmed with my coffee because I'm looking over pictures and I cannot even remember what I had.
We walked around the Central West End district all day and I stopped in Clementine's Naughty or Nice ice cream parlor for a snack (Wes got a cold brew from Starbucks instead). 🍦I should have taken more pictures because this was the most adorable little place. I wanted a sticker but they only had iron-on patches of the design I liked. There was lots of other merch, too, but I didn't get any. They had "naughty" booze infused flavors and "nice" vegan choices. I stuck with regular ol' non-alcoholic dairy ice cream. There were TONS flavors I would have liked to try, and I'm sure they offer samples, but the girl behind the counter seemed very unhappy to be at work and I didn't want to further ruin her day by asking her to actually do her job. So I just ordered a flavor I knew I would like. I got the "Blue moon", which was a blue raspberry lemonade ice cream in a lavender cone. It was very very good.
The next morning we had our last meal in St. Louis at the Courtesy Diner. If you imagine an old timey 24-hour diner from any movie or pop culture reference, this place resembles it to a tee. I got the "hangover" and Wes got the standard 2 eggs with choice of meat breakfast meal. I never thought to put sausage gravy over a chicken fried steak but it works! Both of our meals were delicious. And very filling, which was perfect because we didn't stop for lunch on the drive to Tulsa.
We had dinner at Kirin in Tulsa. We were dressed in very casual "I'm going to sit in a car all day wearing this comfy outfit" clothes and this place is meant for patrons who dressed a bit nicer. 😬 Nevertheless, we were seated and our waitress didn't mind. Wes got Singapore noodles and I got sushi. 🍣 This was the first time I've seen colorful roe. I'm sure each color tasted different but I was mostly impressed by how pretty it was. 😅 I don't remember what was in my colorful sushi, but the other roll I ordered was the classic spicy tuna. I liked both my rolls and enjoyed how much pickled ginger came on my plate.
Wes likes stopping for coffee on road trips and I like stopping at boba cafés. I knew we'd be driving through Tulsa so I looked up boba places and found Bo's Boba. It doesn't sound as funny now as I type it but I had a whale of a laugh when I said it out loud for the first time. Oh, the hilarious alliteration!! 😂 Wes got a fruit tea and I got a raspberry milk tea with crystal boba. The milk tea was genuinely very good, but raspberry was not the correct flavor to add into it. I thought it would taste like strawberry milk... instead it tasted weird and tart.
And thus concludes another foodie adventure. Next up is pictures from all the touristy sightseeing we did!
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