Stop #34: The Mud House

Tony's Review: Hi Jesus, it's me Tony...just want to say thank you for giving us this day our daily slinger.

The Mud House is easily one of St. Louis' best and more importantly, most consistent places for breakfast for as long as I can remember. This place is usually busy with Q-Tips (Grams and Gramps), visiting parents and cool guys and girls just like you, you cool reader, but don't fret cranky pants it's worth the wait. I've purposefully held off on eating the slinger here in anticipation of this tour and I'm glad I did.

To start the slinger is only $6.50 which is crazy cheap especially for a classy joint like the Mud House (add bacon for $2 which is a mandatory unless you are a dummy and vegetarian). I mean just look at that arty photo up there and you can see how good it is, The egg for once is the star of the show, perfectly cooked and carefully placed on top of Flavor Mountain, USA. Below that is a vegetarian black bean chili, roasted potatoes, little bit of cheese and onion (this is where the bacon comes in handy which was thick and tasty as hell). Even the toast that came with was awesome and not just Wonder Bread like most places. The whole thing just worked so well together and every bite was top notch, it wasn't too big and for once on this tour I wish it was a little bigger so I could get fatter eating it.

Now by no means is this a traditional slinger, which I learned after eating this slinger doesn't even matter any more, every thing on the plate was awesome and it worked great as a whole. I don't care if places use fancy ingredients, change things and call it a slinger, Mud House has taught me that none of that matters. I thought about this a lot but knew pretty much by the end of the meal that this was my new #1 slinger. Congratulations Mud House there's a new hip slinger in town, he's an Aquarius, he's vegetarian and ladies...he's single.

Tim's Review: Before a nice long day of antiquing on Cherokee, there's no better place for breakfast than the Mud House. I've been here a handful of times before and this place hasn't failed me yet. I've had the french toast: it's fucking great, the breakfast burrito: one of the best, and the slinger is no exception.

Perhaps one of the most beautifully cooked eggs I've ever had, with a nice little crisp around the edges and a perfectly runny yolk. Instead of the normal slinger plate that has everything swimming underneath a gallon of chili, the egg sits on top of roasted potatoes and black bean chili (which I believe is also in the awesome breakfast burrito I was talking about earlier). I can only suspect that the egg sits on top because it is so goddamn pretty. No offense to the chili, but the egg is the star of this show. Besides that egg, the great thing about this plate is that it was the perfect mix of everything and I actually felt good after eating it. You also have the option of adding three, big fat strips of bacon, and if you don't add the bacon, you're a jackass. The bacon is worth every penny.

I knew after just a few bites, this thing was top ten material for sure, but it was up against some stiff competition. After some long deep thought, and reminiscing about many plates of chili, it lands in 4^th place. Unfortunately, this means the Olivette Diner is booted from the list. But this does not mean you shouldn't go eat there. I happened to make a second trip out there this past weekend to chow down on that giant ass waffle I saw the menu. Holy Shit!!! take a look at this:

Stop #33: The Piccadilly at Manhattan

Tony's Review: Never been to the Piccadilly at Manhattan located in a weird part of the city that I've never been to and probably won't ever be back to. This place is in the middle of what I assume is a weird neighborhood where all of the people cram into a small restaurant with a weird name and eat expensive weird food. And if anyone reading this lives in this neighborhood...it's probably time to move and join civilization again, Domino's has a new pan pizza that you gotta try.

Technically this wasn't even a slinger, it was a "Slinger Benedict" which is bullshit because the only thing Benedict about it was the poached egg, probably just an excuse to charge you $12 for it. They blew a chance to throw on some hollandaise sauce or something else whacky. Instead we got a very dainty serving of hash browns, burger, poached egg, chili, shredded cheese and bacon. I would think that a place as "fancy" as would invest in some bold flavors from Guy Fieri but they must of missed him when he was in town because this turfed out on flavor in almost every dept. The bacon was good which pretty much doesn't count, the burger was well cooked but had zero flavor, and the rest of it just blended in to a mess of nothing. The fruit on the side was really good so my heart thanks them for that. All in all when you're gonna charge the big $12 for a slinger you better deliver a $12 slinger and not a flavor lacking poached egg.

Tim's Review: I'm right on the same page as Tony on this one. I've never been to the Picadilly, in fact I've never even heard of the place. Which is a little odd since it's probably less than 3 miles from my house and according to the menu it's been open for somewhere around 100 years. Then I figured it out. I haven't heard of this place because it sucks. It doesn't suck like “dude, that was the worst shit this I've ever had!”. It was just tasteless food to fill my belly.

The menu really gave this thing some hype. Just the name “Slinger Benedict” sounds promising, but I couldn't really tell any difference between this benedict and a regular over easy egg. Then there was the “Hash brown cakes”. I think that's the most delicious sounding name possible for hash browns. I could only think of those amazing hash brown patty's you get at the Buttery (still some of the best hash browns around). But just like the egg, the name makes them sound better then they really are. These were regular, boring hash browns. The bacon was really good, but it's bacon and only the Market Pub House can be dumb enough to disappoint with bacon.

This thing definitely sounded like it was going to be good, but I wasn't fooled. I will say congrats to the Picadilly though, for somehow sticking around for so many years. They must be getting a good amount of people to come back, but I won't be one of them.   

Stop #32: Humphrey's

Tony's Review: Located in the heart of the SLU campus lies a deep fried bar called Humphrey's. Home of everything deep fried and an overdose of SLU memorabilia and photos from past alums. We had to set an alarm to eat this slinger since they only serve breakfast to 11am, pretty sure this was the first alarm slinger we've had, as you can see we're pretty dedicated to our loyal fan base. Luckily we beat the breakfast rush as we were the only people in the bar and were greeted by the scents of way too many cleaning chemicals from what I assume was an awesome time the night before.

Pretty standard slinger here, hash browns, cheeseburger, eggs, chili, cheese, toast and bonus breakfast potatoes all served on a styrofoam plate, very classy. Not sure why it came with hash browns and breakfast potatoes but it should of stuck with the breakfast potatoes cause the hash browns lacked any sort of flavor. The cheeseburger was pretty good with some powerful cheesy bites, chili was average and they get a cheese five for putting thick ass rope cheese on top of the chili bringing it to a dairy overload. To be honest I thought for sure this slinger was gonna suck but it actually ended up being a solid average slinger. Not taking the trip to the top 10 but not a bad choice if you want to wake up at 9:30am to eat a styrofoam plate full of shit.

Tim's Review: Tony wasn't exaggerating, we were the ONLY idiots waking up early on Sunday for the brunch at Humphrey's. This is the kind of place where you come to watch sports, drink beer, and hi five your buddies. I really doubt anyone has ever said “hey, I'm in the mood for a kick-ass meal. Let's go to Humphrey's!”. The food at Humphrey's is just a little trick to keep you there drinking and hi fiving longer.

Well surprise, surprise, this shit actually wasn't too bad. This was really close to tasting like a classic diner slinger, something along the lines of Courtesy diner. Good chili, nice cheesy burger's, but the two potato thing is just plain dumb. Pick a style, make it good, and stick with it. Not that either of the two potatoes were particularly bad, but the breakfast potatoes were easily the better of the two, so the hash browns were just unnecessary. I'm not sure why, but the styrofoam plates were so annoying. Is it too much to ask for some goddamn plates! I felt like my plastic knife was going break trying cut up the burger.

So bottom line, I guess this place was worth a try. It was ok, not great, but I'm not mad about eating there either. I can't really see myself back here anytime soon.

Stop #31: Rooster

Tim's Review: Finally!! A gravy slinger that is worth a damn. I've never eaten at Rooster before, but I've heard good things. I didn't let myself get too excited about it though because whenever that happens I set myself up for a huge let down. Until I sat down, I completely forgot that Tony already told me this was a gravy slinger. I read the menu and immediately got really, really sad. I wasn't exactly a fan of the gravy slingers to begin with, and all the nasty gravy crap we've had on this tour so far wasn't changing my mind.

This has been the best gravy slinger by a mile. Instead of that crappy, thick, white gravy that all the other chumps use, Rooster uses a brown sausage gravy. All you other jerks that decide to pour gravy all over the plate, take note: this brown gravy shit is 100 times better than your white gravy shit. Underneath all that blessed gravy, were some great potatoes, a nice egg with a runny yolk, and a big fat piece of toast that was perfect with all that gravy I was just talking about. No biscuits (which is a good thing)!!! The only thing I can bitch about with this plate is that the andouille sausage was a bit too much for me. It was really good and had great flavor, but I think it was just too strong and over powered everything else on the plate. Plus, it was really thick and got a little annoying to chew. I think a good burger patty or maybe a couple of regular sausage links would do just fine. That brown sausage gravy is doing all the work here.

I never expected a gravy slinger to push its way into my top ten, but Rooster really impressed and squeezed into 9^th on my list.

Tony's Review: First off, I don't know how Tim has never eaten at Rooster before, this place is a St. Louis breakfast must eat, he clearly isn't cut out for this. I've eaten here numerous times and to be honest I think I've gotten the slinger here all but two times. This specific slinger is long rumored to be the creation of our dear budman, Andy, who worked at Rooster during the time of its creation. Whether or not he was the main man or just the guy who brought the eggs up from the basement is to be determined...either way he was part of something great.

Tim pretty much summed up all of the main points to this slinger, an excellent gravy slinger that is above most other gravies. For me the highlights were the bread at the bottom and the gravy, I agree with Tim about the Andouille sausage being a little too much after a while and also the potatoes at Rooster always leave a little to be desired. None the less, as a whole, this slinger is top notch and is a good place to bring a babe if you're trying to impress her with your culinary knowledge.