St. James Cheese Company

I met ellie and camille on my lunch break at St. James Cheese Company, a mere half block away from Camille's house. I can't believe we've never eaten there before given the vicinity to some of my other favorite eateries (Kyoto, creole creamery, crepe nanou). The small dining room was pretty crowded, as it was around noon at this popular lunch spot, so we had to sit outside even though it was sprinkling. We ordered at the counter covered in blocks of varieties of cheese from around the world. Ellie and I both ordered the gruyere (gruyere cheese, caramelized onion "confit", on multigrain bread).
Camille ordered the beechers cheddar (smoked turkey, basil, avocado, white cheddar and tomato on cibatta). We all got side salads, though you could also get kettle chips. The gruyere sandwich tasted kind of like french onion soup.... in a sandwich. Though this may not sound that good, it was really delicious.

It was pretty much like a grown up grilled cheese. The bread was really nutty and seedy. Camille's sandwich was also really good. The basil was a perfect compliment to the relatively mild cheddar and smoked turkey. The bread was really fresh and soft. I wish you could have tasted the avocado, though, as the basil overpowered the flavor a bit. St. James also has salad options which sounded really good, but the bread is so good and fresh that it's hard to pass up the sandwiches. The table next to us (full of belching children) ordered cheese and charcuterie plates which offered a variety of cheeses, meats, grapes, apples, bread, etc... and allowed for a sampling of different things. Maybe next time I'll give that a try. But for lunch, a filling and flavorful sandwich from St. james just hits the spot.

Slice of Awesome

Rachel and I arrived at Slice Pizzeria a little earlier than Jolie and Camille, just in time to catch the last 10 minutes of happy hour.  2 words: abita pitcher.  Huge and literally overflowing with beer (it sloshed all over the table when we tried to pour), this $5 pitcher was worth the trip to the downtown side of St. Charles.  Our waitress was sweet and tried to get us another pitcher before the end of happy hour, but alas, her efforts were in vain and we were in no mood to spend $10 on it. 

Back to the food side of things, the selling point of Slice Pizzeria is intuitive…you can buy pizza by the slice.  We started things off with half salads all around; because it sounded so good, all four of us got the spinach salad with mushrooms, red onions, pine nuts, and pepperoni bacon. The salad came with a gorgonzola smeared crostini.  We all agreed that they were stingy on the gorgonzola and the salads a little dry.  Overall the salads weren’t terrible, just less than amazing.

There were many interesting and delicious sounding pizza options, Jolie and Rachel got a slice each of the Spinach, Artichoke, and Sundried Tomato; Camille got a slice of “Fresh” which included basil, mozzarella, and tomatoes; I got a slice of Bacon, Basil, and Garlic.  All of the slices were delish.  I especially liked the whole cloves of roasted garlic that lay like landmines on my pizza.  Slice Pizzeria offers unique and inexpensive pizza options as well as copious cheap beer.  

Rachel Hahn: Top Chef in my heart

A few weeks ago (I know…late post), Rachel threw a dinner party that was simply divine.  Our wonderful hostess served Jolie, Camille, and I appetizers of baby mozzarella balls on a toothpick with grape tomatoes and freshly picked basil leaves.  These were delicious and refreshing; when we ran out we just went in her yard and picked more basil.  

      

As a person who intensely dislikes tomatoes, this is high praise indeed.  The only thing we had to look out for was exploding tomato guts.  Rachel also made us some lovely sangria with white wine and limoncello as well as mixed fruit.  It tasted great and we also got to munch on wine infused apples and strawberries as we drank. 

   

The main course was sooo delicious.  Rachel made naan pizzas topped with goat cheese, zucchini, and eggplant.  If that weren’t enough, she brought out parfaits in fancy wine glasses for dessert.  The parfait consisted of angel food cake topped with strawberries, blueberries and cool whip.  Rachel is a force to be reckoned with in the kitchen, she concocts original meals that are good and good for you.   Rachel truly is an all around food athlete.  

     

     

St. Joe's

So this entry won't say much since there is actually no food involved (minus a post-bar trip to wendy's for frostys). All I have to say is that blueberry mojitos at St. Joe's are perfectly delectable and fantastic. They each cost $6.00 and aren't actually that alcoholic... but they're so tasty that they are just worth it. Drinking is a sport too!!!

Additionally, the ambiance at st. joe's is pleasant. There is a back patio with pretty iron tables and lots of fans to beat the heat and blow away skeeters. There are also asian themed lanterns above the bar in the back (it looks a lot nicer than it sounds). Inside, there is a pool table and a semi-classy bar. Or maybe I'm just used to college bars and this isn't actually that classy. But it was still nice, nonetheless.

Juan's Flying Burrito

Jolie picked me up from my house and drove us to mid-city to meet ellie for burritos and margaritas at Juan's (a self-proclaimed "creole taqueria")!  Juan's was really crowded for a wednesday at 6:30 PM.  In fact we had to wait for a table, and once we were seated, a line up to the door was formed.  So it is apparently a very popular place!  Upon walking in, I noticed two hand-written signs (thick, colorful magic markers were clearly used) to advertise two special drinks:  summer sage sangria and melon margaritas.  Both sounded good, but I decided on the melon margarita ($6) upon being seated.  The melon margarita was really good (a little strong) but the chunks of melon at the bottom were too big to go up the straw, forcing me to drink it really slowly which I guess wasn't a bad thing.  I wasn't carded (which I had hoped for since I just turned 21!), and later when ellie and jolie ordered drinks, the waitress just said "Ya'll are 21, right?"   So clearly they're not too strict with drinking age here.  Anyway, ellie ordered a mango margarita ($6.25), which was basically a totally delicious mango smoothie.  Jolie got a house frozen margarita ($5.25) which was good, too.  I was pretty jealous of ellie's mango margarita.

We ordered some guacamole and chips ($3.95) as an appetizer so we didn't drink on an empty stomach.   They were good, but nothing spectacular or unique.

Jolie and I both ordered the supergreen burrito ($6.95), which is a mix of grilled spinach, onion, peppers, broccoli, green chile, mushroom, jalopenas, avocado and salsa.  You can get it with or without cheese/sour cream.  I got cheese and jolie got both cheese and sour cream.  The monster of a burrito is wrapped up in a thin spinach wrap. We felt okay about our choice being SO huge (and eating all of it) since there weren't any beans or rice... clearly just a way to make ourselves feel better.  The burrito was messy, to say the least--I got burrito juice all over my white shirt!

Ellie ordered "Al Pastor" burrito ($7.50), which involved shredded pork, grilled onions, pineapple salsa, sour cream, pickled jalopenos, cilantro, pinto beans, and yellow rice. Al Pastor was really flavorful and the pineapples were a great addition. However, the jalopenos snuck up on you and sometimes were really concentrated in certain parts of the burrito. Ellie was a good girl and took like half of her burrito home.

Overall Juan's Flying Burrito is a good deal. You get a LOT of food for pretty cheap. The drinks are good, too, but it might be better to go during a happy hour/drink special time, as $6.00 drinks can add up, especially when they're so drinkable and delicious. Also, prepare to wait for a table (even on a weeknight!) as this place is really popular after-work dinner/drinks joint. Also, the decor is really fun and I love their logo (which is on the burrito wrappers and on a neon sign on the wall): a donkey with wings.