Trattoria Giuseppe

5442 Highway 21
Imperial, Mo
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If we're going to TG, we must be celebrating something. Indeed, Angel's birthday. Not actually her birthday, but rather, the weekend before her birthday, which is how busy people like us do things.
The Place:
Hard to find if you are not looking for it. There's not a lot of traffic on this section of Old 21, it's not actually in a town, or even within sight of one. It's an industrial area, body shops, gravel plants, a few older houses and trailers. The only signage for the place is on the bottom of a cluttered and worn marquee. It shares a building with a tavern, one with several Harley's and battered pickups parked outside.
But lots of people do look for it. Reservations are highly recommended. Though oddly and obscurely located, this is not some dingy roadside diner. Walk in and you are met by a full staff, this evening sharply dressed in black pants and shirts, with bright red neckties. No booths here, there is a bar off to the left, but this is not a bar and grill, at least on weekends. Once inside and seated you might as well be in New York City.
It's not fancy, if you bothered looking up the definition of the word Trattoria, you'd know that already.*
The building is old, the floors are a little slanty. No fancy tables or decor, just a comfy, homey place. Italian-American music plays softly in the background, Sinatra-big-band style, mostly. On one wall is a cluster of LP  covers, Pavaratti's Greatest hits, the soundtrack from The Godfather, etc. The tables, four tops, are covered in green textured vinyl. The chairs are simple, wood.
On each table the silverware is wrapped in crisp white linen, a shaker of parm and a cruet of olive oil are filled and ready.
They seated us in the back, one of about twenty or so tables. The menus simple, uncomplicated. Pasta, seafood, steaks and Pollo (chicken). There are some appetizers, including the locally ubiquitous fried ravioli.
Lisa asked about drinks.
The Food:
"Sweet tea" said Angel.
"Is regular tea okay? We don't make sweet tea." Lisa answered.
"Sure, but can I get that without ice?"
"Certainly." Lisa scribbled something.
"And you sir?" She asked me.
"Ice tea, please."
"With ice?" she puzzled.
"Of course, we're not the same person, you know." I answered, nodding my head toward my quirky wife.
Adam asked for his Pepsi, she skittered off.
I was in the mood for steak, Giuseppe knows his meat. He chooses wisely and prepares it expertly.
Angel loves seafood, but wanted to try something different. She drooled at the evening's special as Lisa had recited it to us. Steak Pescatore**.
When Lisa came back with our drinks and complimentary bread basket, we ordered.
Of course we all asked for the salad, the soup of the day had the word 'broccoli' in it, so I dismissed that as a possibility immediately.
I went for the New York Strip, with a baked potato. I could have ordered a small portion of pasta or the day's veggie offering, but the day's offering included the word 'squash', so that possibility as well,  I dismissed immediately. I poured a little oil into my saucer, peppered it and dipped some of the excellent bread. The tea was as near perfect as any I've  had anywhere outside my own home, clear, dark, very fresh.

Angel went with the special, sided with the veggie medley. Adam chose the Pepper Loin Filet with a cream sauce pasta side.
We appetized with the fried ravioli. A few weeks ago we dined at a place that boasted the best fried ravioli in the area. They were wrong, Giuseppe makes it better. Fresh, meaty, dipped in a house-made sauce, rich in texture and depth of flavor. I pre-double-dipped mine, dipping one edge, then turning it ninety degrees and dipping it again. This gave me two bites, each one sauced perfectly. I only had one of the treats, I had a potato coming. Angel and Adam scuffled over the rest of them.

Then came the salad. Most places, you order the 'house salad' and you get some iceberg lettuce, a cherry tomato and maybe a couple of rings of onion, with a packet of industrially manufactured sauce. Not here.

There's lettuce alright, and onion and even a couple of cherry tomatoes. But wait, there's more. Artichoke hearts, real olives, a small pepper (peperoncini) and fresh grated mozzarella cheese. All this mixed with the house-made dressing, slightly sweet and creamy. I don't always make a complex salad for myself, I'm from the midwest/south. However it is possible to take a few ingredients and make a salad worth crowing about. This is perhaps, more than likely, the best house salad of any place in the area. I ate most of mine, but not all of it, I had a potato coming. Sure Adam plucked off just about everything but the lettuce and cheese from his, but it still made a very good salad.
One of the things that frequently sets me off in restaurants is the timing of the courses. In the sports-casual franchises, Chili's, TGI-Friday's, Ruby Tuesday, etc. it often seems like a game of chance, more often getting it wrong, either too fast or too slow. Giuseppe is a professional. The courses are perfectly orchestrated. Just enough time to complete the appetizer, or the salad, then just a brief pause, not an awkward impatient timeout, before the next thing arrives. This is important if you are paying more than franchise chain prices. Service is taken very seriously here.
Sure enough, just as we pushed our plates aside, the food came.
A beautiful steak and a foil wrapped potato. Just a sprinkling of parsley was all that was needed to pretty it up. A big splat of dark butter sat melting on the top of the steak. Butter, pepper, maybe some salt and garlic, that's all. A good cut of meat doesn't need anything else. No need for A1 at Giuseppe's. Of course it was perfectly cooked to spec, medium rare. The potato was blemish free, hot and tender throughout. My thick steak was butter tender,
as was Angel's. The difference being the 'pescatore'. Topped with shrimp, scallops, portabella mushrooms and an amber sauce that looked mighty.

On the side she had that squash-y stuff. It did look pretty and  she said the squash was very good. Sure it was.
Adam's smaller steak was pepper-coated and was sided with a small portion of bow tie pasta in a cream sauce. I asked him how it was after he cleaned his plate. "Awful."
That's called sarcasm, he gets it from his mother.
Neither Angel or I finished our steaks. On my part this was deliberate. I was already planning breakfast, steak and eggs.
Angel wanted some kind of decadent dessert, which is fine, it's her birthday and Giuseppe is well prepared for such demands. I've had the cheesecake before, it was exceptional. Angel went dark, dark chocolate that is. Some kind of nuclear chocolate-chocolate cake that only a woman can really appreciate. She got it to-go. Adam joined in with a slice of cheesecake, I declined. That much sugar would put me in a coma. A nice kind of coma, but still. I've gone so long without sweets it's like mainlining heroin anymore. She had it at home a couple of hours later, with coffee. Coffee at seven or eight in the evening. Another thing I can't seem to do anymore.
Summary:
The service was, as usual, exceptional. Even the younger members of the staff were courteous, professional and competent. Lisa was cheerful, detail oriented and there when needed.
The bill came to $106.14. Yeah, not cheap. That did include three perfect steaks, two desserts and an
appetizer though. "This is the only reason we don't eat here every day, or week, or month." I explained to Adam, who is now working steadily and is becoming more and more aware of the cost of things.
I knew going in that the meal would cost this much, but it's her birthday, and those don't come around every year anymore. We can't do this very often at all, which is okay, it keeps it special.
For us Trattoria Giuseppe is simply as good as it gets.
I've dined in very fine places in NYC, Chicago, Tokyo, Boston, New Orleans, San Francisco, D.C., Kansas City, St. Louis and more. Those were some very, very good places indeed. As good as, but not really any better than this modest, hard to find, off the path location.
I've said it before and I'm sticking with it. Trattoria Giuseppe, is by every measure,  the very best restaurant in the area.

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* Trattoria is an Italian-style eating establishment, less formal than a ristorante, but more formal than an osteria.

** Pescatore is, roughly, Italian for 'fisherman'.

Detour Grill and Bar

2855 Seckman Rd

Imperial, MO

http://www.detourgrillandbar.com/

The Place:

A little tricky to get to from our house, Angel’s beloved TomTom led us by it’s estimation of best route, though there must be a less complicated way to get there.

Detour is locally owned and operated by three guys that grew up in the vicinity. This is their first establishment together and one of the area’s newer grills.

It’s located in a new strip mall amidst a few thousand suburbanites. Imperial covers a lot of territory, this particular piece is on the edge of reasonable commutability. Parts of Imperial are rather remote, rural. This chunk is just a little closer to Metro St. Louis and popular amongst commuters. Houses are newer and pricier here.

There were several cars in the lot. None of the neighboring units of the shopping center had occupants yet, so the cars were for patrons of Detour.

Definitely a newer place, everything was clean, modern and relatively unscuffed. The bar was crowded and noisy. There was sports on the various TV screens and 80’s and 90’s music pouring from the sound system. The group at the bar was raucous, some had apparently been quaffing for most of the afternoon. Unlike the jeans and overalls that populated Hillbilly’s last week, the patrons here were more upscale, and older. Not OLD, just more mature, retirees and near retirees, dressed in suburban casual khakis and polo shirts.

The dedicated dining area was to one side, barely isolated form the imbibers. This area too was new, modern, sleek. The carpet was dark though colorless, the walls pale, lined at the bottom half by rather cheap looking wood paneling and at the ceiling an orange* and black diagonal stripe theme representing the colors of warning signs at road construction areas… Detour, get it?

We were seated at one of the booths, black on black. We were handed menus and left alone for a few minutes. The menu was smaller and less populated than at Hillbilly’s but there was still quite a variety. We were waited upon, asked for our drinks, tea, tea and Pepsi, and at the same time asked if we knew what we wanted to eat. We said yes and gave the order. The young lady just looked at us and nodded, not writing a bit of it down. This made me nervous since I know how lousy my memory handles short term lists…meaning not well at all. She seemed confident though, and to her credit got it all correct.

The Food:

Angel and I ordered the 12 oz. NY Strip Steak, salad and baked potato. I ordered my steak a bit pinker than Angel’s because I’m a man. Adam asked for the nine inch meat lover’s pizza. Nothing but meat, four or five kinds from at least two or three different kinds of animal. So there vegans, vegetarians, wiccans, etc. We eat meat and we are not at all ashamed of it. Go ahead and suck on your tasteless, vile soggy piles of kale and tofu… we’ll take the dead animals and plenty of them thank you!

The tea was tasteless, which is one step below unremarkable. No effort at all.

Our salads were delivered along with a hot roll and a small condiment packet of ‘whipped spread’; it didn’t even pretend to be butter. The rolls were very good, the whipped spread melted right into it. Angel didn’t partake of the spread, Adam sat and played with the spare condiment packet as we dug into our salads.

The salads were pretty good. There were olives, tomato chunks, shredded white cheese, iceberg lettuce (some too-large chunks) and red onions. The dressing was tossed in for us rather than sitting on top in a glob. It wasn’t too big so there was plenty of room for the meat.

The main courses arrived in good time, post-salad and pre-boredom. The 12 ouncers’ looked bigger, the foil-wrapped potatoes were huge. There was enough butter and sour cream in them to cause a dozen or two cardiac events. I unwrapped mine completely, Angel left hers in the foil. I like potato skin and this was almost crisp. Delightful. The skin is were all the vitamins are.

The steaks were broiled perfectly, though Angel said she didn’t care for sear marks. But added “as you can see I was really disappointed”, what she was pointing to was the area of the plate that used to host the steak, now completely barren. I like sear marks on steaks since that is about the only evidence that there was any cooking involved at all the way I order them.

Adam’s pizza was well populated, bacon, pepperoni, burger, Canadian bacon, sausage. There may have been baby seal meat and spotted owl drumsticks on it as well. There were no peppers, pineapple, tomatoes, onions or anything timid like that, they meant it when they called it a meat-lover’s. Adam said the pizza was not as rich as other St. Louis style pizzas, but did not mean that as a condemnation. We like a little STL style, but the sweetness of the sauce and the richness of the cheese can weigh us down pretty quick.

I couldn’t quite finish my steak or potato. I’d lunched heavier than I should have, on chili, but the meal was very satisfying.

Summary:

The tab came in at forty five dollars and change. Quite comparable to Hillbilly’s, more than a diner, less than a chain. The quality and quantity of the food was excellent though.

The service was lackluster, but not terrible. We were impressed with the lady’s ability to memorize a modestly complex order, but there was not a casual or familial feel. Sure, she kept referring to Adam as ‘Honey’, which is quaint from a forty+ish gum smacking diner waitress, but this lady appeared to be in her mid twenties and much less rural.

The wait for the check was longer than it needed to be, by a few minutes. We did our best to look impatient and in a hurry, but our attempts went unnoticed.

As we waited for the check and the box for the remainder of Adam’s pizza, he sat and twiddled that whipped spread packet some more. Fortunately, for the sake of comedy, the packet did finally explode like a massive grade-A pimple spraying the chemical spread all over his shirt and pants. We knew he was embarrassed, so we laughed our fool heads off. We’re Bentley’s, it’s what we do.

Other than the less than excellent service, the noise was the only other concern. There were rebel yells, enormous laughter, and a constant loud din. I suppose if you enjoy people around you enjoying themselves openly this would not be a problem. It’s just not us though. Maybe more wall separating the bar from the dining area would help, maybe just not allowing loudness would work as well. Or, we could just not go back and the Noisy McNoisy’s can have the place to themselves.

* Orange paint: You don’t see this color used for houses and businesses very much. I first learned about its properties back in the dark ages when I served in the Air Force. A wise senior NCO gave me a tip. He told me that he, upon hearing that the Inspector General was coming around, had his crew paint the entire department, floor to ceiling, in what was referred to officially as ‘Alert Orange’, readily available through normal supply channels. “The thing about it is that it overpowers the eyes. It’s dead center of the visible spectrum and can cause nausea and headaches if looked at too long or too much. People will generally, without realizing exactly why, spend very little time in a place painted that color.” I did indeed use that color to paint one wall behind my desk. Not just for the IG though. I have no scientific proof, but I can say that no one spent much time visiting.