St Louis.... I like you

St. Louis still surprises me. I expect the best thing they can do is BBQ, and not much of anything else. I wrote about their Italian food last time, and like I said, it’s not great. But there are small little places that continuously surprise me. The Shaved Duck is one of those. The interior has a bohemian feel to it: low lighting, exposed brick walls, “artsy” looking things used as decorations. They serve only craft, local beers and wine. No Bud, no Bud light, surprising considering you’re in Anheiser-Busch country. They also serve wine, which is expected from a bohemian looking place. The menu is simple. You have BBQ, couple of good ideas with duck (duck confit sandwich, duck fat fried fries), and you have home cooking (meatloaf, mac n cheese).

I have learned, through the years, if a place serves duck, get the duck. My cousin got the duck gumbo, which was super, and the meatloaf. I decided to get the ribs, because I knew I wouldn’t have time to make it into the best BBQ place in the world, Pappy’s. The ribs were not great; they were kind of tough and still stuck to the bone. I much rather prefer the 8hr smoking, fall off the bone goodness, but it was still better than anything I can get on the east coast. I do like the dry rub though; I much rather prefer a dry rub and then let me add the sauce, which is a plus since the sauces were homemade. The bourbon based sauce tasted like a sweet bourbon, while the rest was also as advertised. The spicy sauce had a good amount of kick to it, which surprised me, since most white people don’t handle spicy very well, compared to the spicier cooking folks (Cajuns, Chinese, Korean, Indian).

Overall, the place was really good, and St Louis has yet to disappoint, expect for the Italian. St Louis is one of those places where it’s great to visit and a lot of fun, but the opportunities are just not as great there and because of that, it would be hard to live there. I’ve considered it, though very briefly, as a relocation spot, but that got shot down quite fast when you wonder into East St Louis.

Now for capoeira. I’ve been in this weird phase of hunting down Angola schools, since I’m not really feeling the contemporary game at the moment, though I will still go to CDO when possible. In St Louis, there are a couple of groups and my schedule worked out so that I could only make the Angola class and not CDO. Jesse teaches at Centre Esportiva de Capoeira Angola(CECA) under Mestre Pe de Chumbo, who originated from Mestre Joao Pequeno. It was a really small class, 4 people, in a not so great part of town. They started with music, and by music I mean we sang Maior E Deus, the ladainha, for 30 minutes. This was the first Angola class I’ve taken that didn’t do that much partner work. We did sequences for most of it, then the last 10 minutes was combining into partner work, which was weird to me. But all and all a great class, go check them out!