St. Louie #2 (with food porn)

 Hey everybody -- 

It was our nth day in St. Louis (was that first day really a day?) and we took it easy between basketball games. 

An editorial comment: some whiney readers have acted confused by the initials that I use.  To remind you, K is my life partner, EH is my daughter, and RR is my college friend from Indy (he's had to explain the RR to his kids...or thought he might have to 🤣).  I doubt there will be any others today.

Today's big adventure was the St. Louis Aquarium.  After brunch, RR said "let's just go down to Union Station and park and see what we can do."   That was the plan.

Union Station was a big deal back when as a railroad (I won't use RR because SOMEONE will get confused :) )depot -- they had the World's Fair and Olympics here not long after the railroad opened in the late 1890s.  There's an aquarium in the old train shed, along with a bunch of other businesses, including a hotel, eateries, and then there's a Ferris wheel nearby.  And a large koi pond (trivia: did you know koi can live up to 200 years? seems fishy, but that's what the sign said). 

So we did the aquarium.  We all agreed we like aquariums. 

But first...they said there was a train to the aquarium.  We got "on" and found we were in a room that was meant to look like an old train car and it had screens for windows.  We were told to not look if you got motion sick.  And then the screens raised and it showed the station in XXX and we rolled out and eventually, no, I'm not making this up, took flight over St. Louis.  Yes, I understood the instruction about looking away.  Then we ended up IN the Mississippi River, which seems a negative thing to do if you are a train.  Anyway, it was not for my age group (as RR attested :) ) and we went in.

It was a good aquarium.  I liked this picture --

of the pretty coral.   Or here's one of the glass fronted clock (you can see all the fish inside) in the waiting room for the train. 

After walking around a bit, we decided we were okay with going back to the AirBnB, turning on the basketball (there really wasn't a good game) and hunting down ice cream. 

Brunch (to swing back) was found by EH, who deserves credit, in a neighborhood near Washington of St. Louis campus.   It was in a garden center.  

The food was outstanding.  As RR said, a cut above yesterday's and twice as expensive.  Let's start with the appetizer K and EH got -- a pistachio tea cake. 

EH had a breakfast burrito. 

I had the churro waffle -- it has la dulce sauce on it. 

And RR had the crab cake bennie. 

All was good. A+. The place's name is Bowood. 

After some short naps and the end of a game, EH and I made the hot walk (it was 85 again today) to the local ice cream shop -- Serendipity.  

That's mine.  I had not had ice cream in four days, so I was going through withdrawal.  Not kidding. The top flavor is Take Me Out to the Park, which is flavored like Cracker Jacks (get it? :)) and the bottom was Gold Coast, a dark, dark chocolate that wasn't quite sweet enough, but strong cocoa to the point of slight bitterness.  EH had the mundane mint chip.  I finished my two scoops faster than she ate her one (there was a long explanation as to why) :) 

[period of time elapses, in case you think we went straight from ice cream to dinner]

EH made dinner reservations in The Hill neighborhood; they have road signs with their name on Italian flag colors.  She chose Italian.  We even got lucky and found a spot in their too small parking lot (somewhere here I am supposed to say what a good job RR has been doing of driving, so here it is.  No irony here.  No, none. :)) 

It was as genuine an Italian restaurant as McGurk's was an Irish pub.  White table cloths, Italian music, and so on.  So we went big on Italian food.

RR had the lobster bisque to start (K and I had a Caesar -- it was the week of the Ides of March).

EH had the seafood risotto.  

RR had the veal marsala, with its side of angelhair. 

The pictures of my lasagana and K's branzino didn't come thro (operator error).

We were stuffed; RR failed his much repeated goal of being in the clean plate club.  WE brought boxes (and dessert) home.

Worth noting is that the townhouse next to us is the home of a motorcycle club.  This morning they had a gigantic smoker rolling; about 20 bikes showed up in the afternoon.  They had a full pig on the smoker -- it has smelled good all day (laced with marijuana smoke).  I saw the town security car come by this afternoon and stop and give them a long look, then roll on.  They've been pretty quiet, so, NBD, but it's been interesting. 

The Purdue game is at 11 in the morning.  WE're going to grab a breakfast and hit the arena.  #BoilerUp