Fountain City Grille

207 E Main St
De Soto, Mo
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I've described De Soto before. Historically it's a railroad town. In 1859 the St. Louis Iron Mountain Railroad built a repair center there, today it is owned by Missouri Pacific. The tracks are still in use, the repair shops still functioning. Main street runs along the tracks, the old buildings reminiscent of an earlier time, which the city works hard and proudly  to maintain.
I took this photo from the parking lot of Fountain City Grille. Directly behind the guardrail in the foreground are the tracks, the buildings are on main street. Directly behind main street, the land and city rises quickly and steeply. The various streets behind Main terrace the community.
The Place:
Fountain City, De Soto's nickname of old, reflects the many small but ornate fountains that can be found around the town. The Fountain City Grille is located across the tracks from Main Street in a big, old building known as the Arlington Hotel. Yes they offer rooms for rent, pretty nice ones I am told.
The first floor of the Arlington though, is the Grille itself.
You enter from the front and walk down a hallway filled with antiques, most of them more industrial than delicate, reflecting the iron horse industry.
We were seated and told that Heather would be waiting on us. Sure enough, this prediction was accurate. A young lady with long black hair twisted into a ponytail and pulled forward draping her left shoulder arrived. She welcomed us, brought us rolls in a cloth napkin covered basket and asked about drinks and appetizers. Looking around I was pleased to see that they'd stayed with the decor, walls painted black, the old trim in white, the rough wood floor painted a very dark brown. Sitting in this place makes you feel like you're posing in an old black and white photo.
We declined the appetizer, but asked for tea, Pepsi and Pepsi. The drinks were delivered promptly, we were ready to place our meal orders.
The Food;
I was intrigued by the second most expensive item on the menu, the prime rib. Fans will recall that a few weeks ago at Tanglefoot in Festus I'd ordered prime rib for the first time I could recall.  I didn't care for it one single bit. The prime rib at the Grille was listed as the evening's special, and described as 'melt in your mouth'.  For the sake of my fans I felt obligated to give the meat another try, to see if it actually was the cut I didn't like or just Tanglefoot's version of it. I sided it with mashed potatoes and also like at TF, green beans. This would be pretty close to an apples to apples comparison.
Angel asked for the seafood fettuccine and a side salad. Adam ordered a filet mignon with corn and mashed potatoes.
I had one of the rolls in case the meat was awful. They were light, fluffy, and delivered with actual butter.
Angel's salad came soon, a small, simple thing, yet fresh and crisp. The dressing she opted for was a sweet vinaigrette, and it lived up to its title, it was very, very sweet.
Sometime during the twenty or more minute wait for the main courses, someone pointed out the silverware. It was a mix of several different old patterns. Quaint, charming.
The wait was indeed rather long considering that they weren't really terribly busy. The music didn't help much, a local radio station 'Fresh' 102.5 out of St. Louis. An eclectic mix of pop music from the 70's through the 00's. Frankly I think a pop radio station playing at a pricey restaurant is a bit tacky, but I guess it's not that big of a deal. There would be live music later, outside on the patio.
We chatted and watched people come and go, the staff was all dressed head to toe in black. Tasteful and consistent with the decor.

Prime Rib

 Finally, the meals arrived, Heather packed all three on one very large tray. She unloaded the tray deftly and we all stared at the prime rib. It didn't look at all like Tanglefoot's. This was dark, charred and juicy looking, like a very big, very competently cooked steak. The green beans looked tasty as well. Green beans are not hard to make right, and these looked spot on. Take note Tanglefoot, this is what green beans and prime rib should look like.
I pushed the serrated knife into the meat, a portion fell away as if fallen by the mere suggestion of being sliced with a knife. The whole steak was that way, tender, moist, meaty. Buttery tender, it did indeed melt in my mouth. Now I get what all the fuss is about when it comes to prime rib. The potatoes were perfect as well, a little bit of rough texture. The green beans were sauteed very well, a little tooth, a simple flavor, I actually wanted more.

Filet mignon

  Adam's filet, smaller than my slab of meat, looked just as good. Angel's plate looked a bit odd, a thick, bright orange sauce over the pasta. It was described on the menu as "Creamy Vodka shrimp sauce with lobster meat tossed with fettuccine."
She said the sauce had a tomato-soupy taste to it, but she didn't know what a vodka shrimp sauce was supposed to taste like. She really liked the big shrimp and lobster chunks but would have preferred a simpler sauce, maybe an Alfredo. She ate most of it, but said she'd probably not order it again.

Seafood fettuccine 

My meat was terrific all the way through, I went on and on about it, sharing chunks of the massive meat slab generously. "Comparing this prime rib to Tanglefoot's is like comparing a baloney sandwich with . . .with. . .  with something I don't like!" I told them. I absolutely loved it.
Heather stopped by and refilled our drinks, I almost switched to water, but she'd already filled my glass. The tea was not very good. Old, a little bitter, and I detected an old, stale perfumey aftertaste.
Chef Tremyane (see the Grille's Facebook page) made an appearance. When he asked, I told him I liked his food very much. I wasn't lying, this meal was quite delightful.
Summary:
The food was flawless, except for maybe the pasta sauce, but since going in we didn't know what it was supposed to taste like, maybe it was something quite good to someone else.
The meat was astounding. I don't think I'll order the prime rib often, it is quite pricey and quite large, but at least I now know what it is when it is done well.
Heather did a great job, she'd even responded confidently when I ordered and had asked for her recommendation for the done-ness level. Adam did the same, her recommendations were spot on, she knew the menu and the capabilities of the kitchen. She was friendly and quick to smile.
The service itself was a bit slower than I generally like, but we don't do fine dining very often, it may just have been the chosen pace.
Although the dress code was casual and the place is more folksy charm then stuffy, snooty, high end dining, the price put this place clearly on the high end. The bill came to a shocking seventy one dollars and change, making this clearly one of the more expensive places we visit.
At twenty two dollars each, the two steaks certainly drove the price up, but I have to say, it was worth it in quality.
The drinks, at two dollars each, should have been of pretty good quality. The tea simply was not. I've had worse, but not by much. On the PJTea scale I'm going to give it a -3. I sort of expect that at a fast food place, a fine restaurant though, I expect much better. The drink is a palette cleanser, when it is awful it does not help an otherwise great meal.
Great food, seriously good. A bit pricey, service a bit sluggish, but certainly not a waste of money.

Ruby Tuesday

1120 Shapiro Dr.
Festus, Mo.

Updated:   See the note from Ruby Tuesday Corporate at the bottom of this post! * * * * 


That's right loyal fans, this is our 200th review.
Four years.
It was no contest, we had to go back to where it all started, Ruby Tuesday. Our first review was not at this place, it was instead because of a truly disappointing meal at Ruby T's that we decided to start going other places. Thus, eatandcritique was born.
Ruby T's has proven to be able to pull off exceptional meals. Even their worst effort is better than many places, but they set the bar for themselves very high.
The Place:
Above the interstate and below Lowe's. Not as kitschy as some chains like them, not anymore anyhow. A big bar, lots of seating, a couple of TV's playing sports.The music was safe, from the 70's and 80's a little too loud. Loud enough that it was hard to ignore the lousy songs.
Fortunately there weren't very many of those. One song, U2's "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" from the album "Joshua Tree" is still about the only thing worth listening to to ever come out of Bono's mouth.
Elton John's iconic 'Rocket Man' tossed me back to my high school years, when I was introduced to the John/Taupin sound, the early stuff, back when it was good. Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics, including 'Candle in the Wind' as well as the rewrite of that song customized for Princess Di's untimely death. Good stuff. Still a little too loud though.
We were greeted and seated. Brittany would be our server. Young, but not too young, she seemed polished and confident.
She took our drink orders, tea, sweet tea and coke. We sat back and looked through the menus, the drinks arrived in a couple of minutes. That was all the time we needed.
The Food:
Remember the salad bar, remember the salad bar. You have to do that when deciding on what to order here. The salad bar is routinely the better bar around, anywhere. You're going to pile it on, so pick a less than heavy meal. Fortunately they offer that

The tea arrived. It was beautiful. Look at it. It almost sparkles, no cloudiness, bright, crisp, fresh. Note to other restaurateurs: If your tea doesn't look like this, it is not going to be very good. Not all sparkling tea is great, but if it isn't this clear, I guarantee that it will not be very good.
We placed our orders.
Me: Petite Sirloin. The recommended sides for that were grilled zucchini and spaghetti squash. I laughed. I gagged, I insisted on a substitution, mashed potatoes and green beans. Seriously folks, zucchini and squash? Nobody actually eats that crap. Brittany assured me, with a smile, that it was no problem.
Angel asked for the tilapia and lobster. She sided it with squash and zucchini.....just kidding, mashed potatoes. Adam took the Asiago peppercorn sirloin.  He added mashed potatoes as well.
Brittany had barely enough time to safely clear the area before the three of us charged the salad bar like sea-weary sailors hitting the docks for a lusty weekend liberty.

My salad

Angel's (blech) salad

They've got everything for a monster salad that you could want, it's all fresh, and most of it is plentiful. This time the crouton supply was a little low, but that didn't concern me. I piled on a little lettuce, a little spinach, bell peppers, red onions, mushrooms, beans, a little cheese, egg and bacon bits and a teaspoon of potato salad. I drizzled a small amount of blue cheese dressing and then a a larger amount of thousand island. During the week I would call this, by itself, a meal. Thus the reason for the 'petite' sirloin steak. Angel and Adam created their own salad versions. The lovely wife poisoned hers with broccoli, Adam punched the lights out on his with French dressing. Then came the biscuits. Mmmmm, cheesy and garlic-y biscuits, soft, fluffy. Those things are dangerously good.

We had time to finish our salads, I finished early since I'd accidentally over-dressed mine. I'll have to start paying more attention to that.
Brittany stopped by with drink refills, I fell in love with her. I simply said "You know this is the best restaurant tea around don't you?" She smiled then looked toward Angel, as people often do when I make bold and brilliant statements.
"He is highly critical about tea." Angel responded, somewhat dismissively. Brittany slammed her back.
"I get that!" she said. She picked up one of the glasses and said "This is what tea is supposed to look like, you don't see that very often!"
She went on to say that she too was critical of sub-par tea and would often not order it in places that she knew to do the job badly. We then started discussing brands. Tea nerds....
"I have one more question. " I said.
"Sure." She smiled.
"Are you, by any chance, married?"
Seriously, I said that. Angel went all old-school wife-furious. Not really though, she knows that I value a good glass of tea and that I take it very seriously, much more so than her. Brittany laughed it off, or pretended to out of respect for my family. On the newly instituted PJTea scale though, I'd easily rate Ruby T's offering a +4.

Petite Sirloin

The meals arrived, exactly as ordered.
The first thing I noticed was the brightness of the beans. As was covered in last week's review of Tanglefoot, it is indeed possible to ruin something as basic as green beans. This small pile was proof they can indeed be prepared simply, yet properly. They still had 'tooth' but were sauteed perfectly. The potatoes were garlic-y but not too much so. The steak... Oh, the steak.

Tilapia and Lobster.

 A great cut of meat, properly tended to, lightly seasoned, grilled to the exact point of being beautiful. Juicy, a little char, tender, smoky. As planned, I was able to finish it all and was not disappointed with a single bite.
Angel gave me a fork full of her lobster topping. It was simply to die for. The first thing I tasted was the lobster, the chunks absolutely melting in my mouth. She managed to finish most of it, but there was a certain richness and a heaviness to it. The fish, she said, was moist and flaky . Tilapia is a very mild fish, it accepts accompaniment just fine, in fact it begs for it. This lobster and cheese concoction took it up quite a few notches.

Asiago Peppercorn Sirloin

Adam didn't say much about his, but it was obvious that he was pleased. The corners of his mouth were in the slightly-up position. "Very good." was his final evaluation. He manages to say things succinctly with a lot fewer words than I can.

 Summary:
Most of the time Ruby gets it right. Occasionally they don't, but on this occasion they hit it out of the park. Brittany was outstanding. The meals were all exactly as ordered, timely and our drinks stayed refilled. She was pleasantly chatty when engaged, but otherwise left us to enjoy the meal. I noticed her at other tables as well, very consistent and professional. Ruby Tuesday's is lucky to have someone as professional and competent as her. She really should be paid more though.
The bill came to a few cents under sixty dollars. Remarkably, a couple of bucks less than we spent at Tanglefoot, but at Ruby's we got a much, much better meal.
The salad bar at Ruby T's is simply outstanding. How often do you order a slightly smaller entree just so you can accommodate a bigger salad? We do this regularly here, nowhere else that I can recall.
Once again, the tea. It's a simple thing, or at least it is generally treated that way. Most restaurants treat iced tea as an afterthought, or with no thought whatsoever. In my mind that's a shame. All I ask is that the tea served be given as much consideration as a frosty beer, a mixed drink, or a cup of coffee. If it is old, cloudy, or bitter, pour it out and make some fresh.
As we were leaving, Brittany said that she was glad to meet someone on the same page with her about the tea. Well Brittany, we are indeed on the same page now, this one. Thanks for making the 200th review a pleasant and memorable one.
_________________

Fans: I haven't forgotten you. Thanks to all of you for making this silly little blog so successful. You've apparently been spreading the word, I come across new readers quite often.
And please, don't be shy, let me know what you think. Or at least tap one of the ads that show up on the page. I get a couple of cents each time someone does that, just think of it as a 'tip'.
Thanks again!


***** The email from Corporate:


First - congratulations on your 200th post! We are proud and humbled to be the recipients of your fine review.
Also we are always happy to hear that our guests appreciate our team members as much as we do! Guest satisfaction is our number one priority, and we are committed to ensuring gracious hospitality and incomparable service. We will proudly recognize Brittany for providing you with such fine service.
Thanks again for your words of praise. We look forward to serving you again soon!

Valerie Dee
Manager of Guest Services
Ruby Tuesday

Ruby Tuesday's

I’ve mentioned before that this whole exercise, to find different places to eat came about after experiences at Ruby Tuesday’s. Our first meal there was phenomenal, but three attempts to recapture that excellence each ended in frustration.
On Saturday we had planned to try an Italian place a client of Angel’s had recommended, not only did he offer a recommendation; he backed it up with a gift certificate. The accompanying card advised to call ahead for reservations. When Angel did so on Saturday afternoon, she was told that the place was not taking reservations for the times we requested five to six PM. They suggested either four PM (too early) or seven PM (too late).
This left us blank, none of us could come up with an alternative. So we did what we had done so many times in the past, we defaulted to an old familiar. This is one of the problems with a household made up completely of introverts.* This is how we ended up at RT’s.

The Place:
Between Lowes and Intestate 55 in Festus, the large parking lot on this very chilly evening** was nearly but not completely full. We were ushered immediately to a table, past the very item that Angel likes the most about this place, the salad bar. I have to admit it’s a pretty darn good one.
We were seated and handed our menus in a booth along the drafty windows. We were directly beneath a speaker that was belting out just a little too loudly seventies and eighties mild rock. Some of the songs were okay, some were Disco. At a distance there was a professional football game playing on TV screens but not close enough to maintain an interest or cause frustration or distress.
Along the walls were Sports-Americana items, oars, skates, sleds, framed jerseys and posters and photos of sports-related people. The lighting was provided by suspended lamps with dim bulbs hanging over the tables.
The Food:
The menus had changed a little in the months since we last ventured there. We noted the addition of lobster in various configurations. This was very tempting, we lunged at it.
Angel and I both ordered the sirloin and lobster with the salad bar of course. We also asked for the creamy mashed potatoes and the sautéed green beans with onion straws.
The disappointment began exactly at this point. We were informed that they no longer served the sautéed green beans with onion straws, a side I absolutely loved. This sent our faces back into the menu where Angel came out first calling out ‘snap peas’. In my mind they were the same color as green beans generally the same shape so I too requested them.
Adam ordered the buffalo chicken mini sandwiches with fries, no salad bar.
Of course tea, tea and Coke. The tea was fresh, bright and excellent. I suspect it is something other that Lipton, though I do not know for sure.
The salad bar as I said is among the best I’ve come across anywhere. The selection is all fresh and plentiful. There is some iceberg lettuce but it is just one form of leafy green among many. I chose the other stuff; I don’t know what it’s called, romaine etc. and plenty of spinach. As for toppings there are many. I tonged up about twenty grape tomatoes, bacon chunks, cucumbers, bell peppers, mushrooms, two types of shredded cheese, a spoonful each of dirty potato salad and apple salad. This was topped by a small dose my favorite two-dressing combo, Thousand Island and Bleu Cheese.
Angel timidly picked through her preferences then went nasty on the croutons. Her and Adam rave about the croutons there, I don’t care for them. They are very dark and to me seem to have the consistency of small chunks of a radial tire. She doubled, tripled up on those since she knew Adam would pluck most of them. She insists the croutons are the best anywhere, I recognize and respect her inalienable right to be completely wrong about certain things.
I tried to not eat my entire salad, saving room for the steak and lobster, but I failed miserably. Everything was so fresh and so good that it was not possible to leave much on the plate. As predicted Adam took about half of the croutons off Angel’s salad.
The wait for our meals was longer than usual. The music slid unmercifully into a meandering, mind bruising Whitney Houston ballad followed by an equally grating, sappy love song from Peter Cetera.
When the main courses finally arrived the salad was a barely remembered thing of the past. The first thing I did after checking for the rareness of my steak was to try the peas. They were in a word, awful. Green peas are potentially overpowering among more subtle flavors. It only takes a few in a stir fry or stew to completely take over the dish. Here on my plate, still in the pods were a big pile of them, and there they stayed. Too sweet, too strong and the texture was that of parboiled slugs.
The creamy mashed potatoes at RT’s are the absolute best I recall having anywhere; very smooth and creamy, slightly, only slightly herbed, simply dreamy. Had they taken them off the menu I would have stormed out and burned the place down.
The steak was cooked perfectly; unfortunately the beef itself was quite less than first rate. I’ve had worse to be sure (Cracker Barrel), but this one was just a little too tough; not enough marbling, the obvious sign of significantly less than grade AAA beef. It was far from awful though.
The lobster was surprising in more than one way. First there were three lobster tails in shells. Don’t be alarmed, they were tiny; only about three to four inches long and only about a half inch in diameter. I’ve had crawdads this size. The other surprise was that they were fantastic! Perfectly cooked, subtly seasoned and generously buttered. They complemented the so-so steak exactly as some high god or another intended the notion of surf and turf to do.
Angel’s delight and surprise was the same as mine. We wolfed it all down rather quickly leaving behind entire portions of the peas and desperate fingernail and tooth marks on the tiny lobster shells. Adam left nothing behind; the small spicy chicken sandwiches suited him just fine.

Summary:
All in all it was a pretty good meal; less so for the price. This is among the pricier of the chain restaurants/sports bars. Ruby Tuesday’s is currently under an up-scaling mission reaching out to the upper-upper middle class a little more. In my mind they are pennies away from pricing themselves out of the local market. With tip the meal for three totaled nearly seventy dollars. At that price range, the steaks need to be better quality and the lobster needs to be closer to actual size. The salad bar is beyond compare though, even with the Goodyear croutons.
I will score this experience, primarily against itself. I have had a perfect meal at RT’s, once. This visit would rate at best an eighty five. The snap peas, the lesser quality of the meat and the overall expense weighed heavily.
We will probably go back, the salad bar calls to us. As for recommending to others, yeah, sure, maybe. By that I mean that if someone were to suggest taking me there, I’d accept.


* Introverts: Based on Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment tests.

** “Very chilly” is an understatement. At the time of this outing the area had been suffering through more than a week of brutal, soul-sucking cold temperatures. Only once in the previous six to eight days had the thermometer ventured near twenty degrees and on that day it was blustery and it dropped more than three inches of dry thin snow, the consistency of shredded ice. Most days topped out in the low teens. At these temperatures even a mild breeze turns the air into razorblades. The draftiness of the windows mentioned later in the review was more a result of the extreme outside temperature than the quality of windows.