Stop #43: West End Grill & Pub

Tony's Review: Sometimes you find yourself in the Central West End and it doesn't totally suck...this was one of those times. West End Grill & Pub is a relatively fancy place without over doing it, probably a good place where educated adults hang out, not scumbags. But no matter who hangs there the slinger they're serving on the weekend is all business.

Welcome to the world of the Slinger Slider, yes another first the tour and a very tasty one at that. Building it from the bottom up we start with a biscuit, sausage, egg over easy, gravy and cheese with a side of breakfast potatoes. For starters that biscuit was on point, they have heard our cries about dry flavorless biscuits and have answered with a biscuit that gives a shit. Then we move on to the sausage which was easily some of the best we've had on the tour, a thick patty which had an excellent overall taste and didn't overpower anything. The egg was on top with a great yolk explosion which I always love but the real star of the show for me was the gravy. Tell your mother's old fashioned sausage gravy to move over because the new belle of the ball is CHORIZO GRAVY! This shit was legit, while it looks like blood vomit it tasted like a spicy treat full of flavors south of the border. The side of potatoes were really good too and I'm not quite sure what was in there exactly but they were perfectly cooked and were a nice change from the normal breakfast potato.

West End Grill & Pub is too fancy to have a shit slinger but I didn't expect it to be that good. This one will find it's way into my top ten for sure and I would recommend that you take your dad there for father's day.

Tim's Review: Aside from that little oops at O'shay's with their mashed (“Boxty”) potatoes, we almost had a solid 4 weeks in a row of good eating. It was smooth sailing on the slinger tour and then out of nowhere comes the West End Pub.

I love slingers, I love sliders, and I love chorizo. Although it was my first time there, it almost feels like the West End Pub has known me for years. How come no one thought of this before? We did have that little slinger burger at Range, but that thing was crap compared to the West End Pub (sorry Range). Speaking of sliders, on a recent weekend getaway I had the pleasure of a late night run to a Krystal. Even better than I remember! Try not to be jealous. Anyways back to this amazing slinger. West End Pub picked all the perfect ingredients to put in this winner. If someone were ever to ask me “hey dude, you want me to throw some corn in those breakfast potatoes”, I'd probably say “uhhhh. Hmmm. No. I'm not the biggest fan of corn, and that just doesn't really sound that tasty anyway.” But clearly, the West End Pub knows way more about breakfast potatoes that I do because this shit was great. Same with the rest of this plate. This is one of the very few spots that can serve up a gravy style slinger and make me a happy eater.

Last thing I need to mention, for some reason I felt the need to get an appetizer of a cinnamon roll. I obviously like this place a lot and want you to check it out, but I will warn you to not waste your time on the cinnamon roll.   Bottom line: Cinnamon roll sucks.  Slinger, 7th best in town. 

Stop #42: Goody Goody Diner

Tony's Review: We finally made it to the legendary Goody Goody Diner and this place did not disappoint. We walk in and the place is packed with a long wait to get a table, surely it's gonna take 45 minutes right? WRONG! We were seated in like 12 minutes, Goody Goody is on top of this shit.

Technically they didn't have a slinger, but they did have a Wilbur Omelet which is a slinger but in a world-class format that babes love from coast to coast—the omelet. A sweet fluffy omelet filled with some great cubed potatoes and their buddies green pepper and onion, a Tony favorite. Then we're smothering it with chili and cheese. You get a side of rice, grits or more Tony favorite potatoes, obviously more potatoes is the way to go. THEN you get a choice of toast, english muffin, bagel or FRENCH TOAST! Yes french toast was an option that you didn't have to pay more money for. God Bless the U.S.A!

The whole thing worked really well, the omelet was perfectly cooked and really nice and fluffy. The potatoes had great flavor and weren't overly cooked or too soft, and the chili was really nice. My only issue and something that could of potentially brought this into my top ten would be the addition of some meat into the mix. Some bacon or sausage in the omelet/potato party could of launched this into super stardom but until then you will just have to eat a good "slinger" omelet with your buds at a restaurant that probably has 100 other great things.

Tim's Review: Goody Goody was a nice break from all the fancy restaurants and sports bars that we've been eating at for the past couple months. This place was the classic diner style that got us into this whole slinger business to begin with.

I definitely dig the omelet style and this thing was sized for an over eater like myself. The 3 choices of bread sounded pretty awesome, but I was in the mood for toast. Plus, I think we could have ordered grits on the side instead of the breakfast potatoes, but I'm not really a fan. So I guess it's all my fault that I didn't order anything that could have made this thing stand out. The absence of the meat was a little disappointing and didn't help with the lack in overall flavor.  I don't understand how something loaded with all those onions and peppers could fall flat in the flavor department. It's was good, but it just didn't make enough of an impression to break into the top 10.

I think this is one of those situations where I heard some great things about this place and then there was just too much time for the hype to build. I like Goody Goody a lot, and the slinger was definitely worth a try, but if I'm going to be 100% honest, I got to say I just don't think I'll be making the drive to eat there again anytime soon.   

Stop #41: O'Shay's

Tony's Review: Happy St. Patrick's Day assholes! We traveled to the Grove to eat at the finest Irish bar on Manchester, O'Shay's. This place was "legit" and hit all the mandatory requirements: Guinness on  draft, only playing Irish music and of course have an Irish Slinger. I actually liked this place so I'll stop using an asshole tone.

This was a slinger like none other that we've had so far and I would say it was our first official dinner slinger. This thing was so far from traditional, here is the actual menu description: "Our taste of Ireland starts with a Boxty bed then a layer of cabbage, tender corned beef, hickory smoked horsey sauce, fried eggs, smoked rashers, topped with Harp beer cheese sauce and scallions". When we ordered the waitress asked us what kind of dressing we wanted on our side salad!? A salad with a slinger? YES! Once we got our plates I was instantly impressed, this thing was perfect for a dinner slinger and it wasn't a giant troff of food which I always like, plus there was some surprise bacon on top of it. Turns out a Boxty bed is just mashed potatoes which was a first and a delicious first at that. The whole plate worked really well together, there wasn't too much of anything to overwhelm my "expert" pallet. For me the stars of this slinger were the horsey sauce and the beer cheese sauce, this shit took a detour down the Flavor highway and merged onto Over the Top Bold Flavor Expressway. All of the ingredients on it were top notch and to me the only thing that kind of sucked was the fried egg, would of been nice to have an over easy egg with a pure yolk explosion but it still held up and worked.

I thought this slinger would suck bad but was pleasantly surprised and proven wrong. This will find it's way into my top ten somewhere but my partner Tim probably has a completely opposite review.

Tim's Review: I'll just set the tone by making something clear: I hate mashed potatoes. It's one of the very few foods that I will never eat. Yes, I've tried them before and yes, I've tried the different kinds. Everyone always says, “oohhh, but have you tried the potatoes with butter and garlic and......” whatever other shit they try to mix in to give it flavor? Yes, I've tried all that crap. I don't care what the hell you want to sprinkle in there, I don't like mashed potatoes. Since I've never heard of Boxty potatoes before, you can imagine my disappointment when I get a plate in front of me that has a big fat slop of mashed potatoes on it. According to my friend Wikipedia, Boxty potatoes are a “traditional Irish potato pancake”, and that really doesn't sound too bad. I'd probably give that a try. But this shit at O'Shay's was no potato pancake, it was straight up mashed. I politely push that mess aside, and nibble on what's left.

In all fairness to O'Shay's, every other part of this slinger was damn good. Corned beef and cabbage, normally not my thing, but this shit was great. I never thought I would see horsey sauce in a slinger, but I'm glad I did. What's the deal with the egg though? An over easy egg is not hard. I, like my mashed potato loving partner Tony, want to see a yolk bust all over that plate. Although the side salad was a nice little surprise, it wasn't anything special.

I completely realized that I'm not with the majority in my hatred of mashed potatoes. I've probably only met 2 other people in my life that feel the same way. No top ten for me, but for the rest of you clowns that think mashed potatoes is the best slop around, I strongly encourage you to give O'Shay's a try.

Stop #40: Salt

Tony's Review: Our big 40th stop and we celebrate in style with one of the nicest stops and slingers we've had. We were surrounded by fabric table clothes, neatly placed silverware and numerous people looking for the bathroom (it was hard to find, not for diarreha reasons). This is a really nice place and we easily had the best waiter yet, dude was on point with premium water refills and being very attentive to our napkin placement on our laps, he kept adjusting Tim's, it was getting weird.

But enough about the best waiter in the world and on to their ultra premium slinger filled with ingredients that fancy people care about and scum bags like myself don't care about. This was a delicate, petite slinger which I'm into and not a troff of garbage like a lot of other places. Reading off their menu the slinger entails: biscuit, soy braised pork cheek (EEEXXXCCCUUSEEE ME), frites (which is what assholes call french fries), smothered in gravy, topped with an egg. This description is true, it was all of those things but the one thing they left off the menu was the lake of au jus or some liquid that the whole slinger was sitting in. Even though this is filled with bullshit it did taste really good, the biscuit had a nice taste, gravy was fresh, pork cheek was pretty good, fries were fine and the egg was nice but the whole dish was ruined for me with the au jus lake. Everything just slopped together and you didn't get to enjoy the yolk break into the plate it just got lost in the gravy.

This could of easily been in my top ten but the au jus lake really ruined the whole plate for me. If you use these premium ingredients that dick heads care about you should let them be dry and tasty not wet and soggy. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be eating out of the dumpster behind the McDonald's on Jefferson and 44.

Tim's Review: Good lord, I can't believe it's already been 40 slingers! It seem like just yesterday when Tony and I were the only 2 creeps sitting in the Courtesy Diner at 6pm ordering slingers. Salt is easily on of the fanciest places we've seen, but I still can't decide where I felt more out of place: Salt or Copia? Both are waaay too to classy for me and my Dickies. And for the record, I was one of those clowns snooping around looking for a place to urinate. How the hell was I to know that it was on the second floor?! This has to be the nicest bathroom I have ever relieved myself in. Not only was the lighting super romantic, but there was a fireplace in there!!!

Perhaps we're a little too easily distracted by the fancy décor. How was the slinger?? Pretty fucking great. I don't really care about all the high brow names they want to throw on this thing. I call it a gravy slinger with biscuit. Usually I'm not a big fan of the biscuit and gravy style, but this one was actually worth eating. Great biscuits, fries, perfectly fried egg. I'm going to say that this was my second favorite gravy slinger, right behind Rooster. Just like Tony said, if weren't for all that damn juice covering the bottom of the plate, this thing could have been top ten.  

Stop #39: Josh's House

Tim's Review: This is one of those super special slinger stops that only Tony and I get to enjoy. For some reason, when Tony put the word out that we're trekking around St. Louis eating all the slingers we can, people want to make their own version and watch us eat it. I had a friend tell me his idea of a slinger made with white castle burgers. Hmmmmmm, I don't know if that's genius or if it's headed for the hall of shit.

So one afternoon, this guy Josh says he's cooking for us. I met this guy once or twice before, but this is really Tony's buddy, so I felt extra creepy knocking on the door of a strange house to get some breakfast. Since I've never been there before, I couldn't help but think how weird it would be if I knocked on the wrong door, someone opens up and I'm standing there.... “ummm, I'm here for the slinger”. I make it in ok and then realize, I don't know anything about this guy. Why does he even want to make us a slinger? So I ask, “hey, is this some kind of special slinger recipe?” Maybe it's something he's been perfecting over the years. I was a little surprised (and secretly a little worried) when Josh responds with, “Nope. This is the first time I've ever made a slinger.” Great. Now I'm thinking I'm going to have to pretend to like this shit and then avoid conversation with him if I run into him again. Luckily, not the case. This thing was a great, classic slinger. Nice crispy hash browns, two massive burger patties, hearty home made chili and topped with an egg. Between the burger patties and the chili, there had to be at least a pound of meat on this plate and I couldn't help but finish every last bite. I think the chili was my favorite part and I could definitely eat a bowl that by itself.

For his first slinger, this guy knows how to make a little piggy like me happy. Way to go Josh!

Tony's Review: Oh Josh Booth, aka The Boothman, aka the White Knight, aka the King of Shit, has been known to cook some great food and ever since we started this damn tour he has always offered to make us a homemade slinger. So we waited patiently for 9 months and once he got off his ass and finally made a sweet batch of competition style chili with a list of bold, secret spices he was finally ready for us to come into his home, complain about how shitty the food was and thank him for wasting our time...luckily he proved us wrong and we didn't have to do that.

Josh went over the top with this one and he was clearly trying to impress Tim and I till our pants hit the ground and we were loose and conversational. To start we had some freshly sliced, homemade shredded hash browns, and as if that wasn't enough this mother fucker cooked them in bacon grease. Then he puts two gigantic home made, secretly spiced burgers on there which were cooked in a cast iron skillet so and I quote, "It wouldn't fuck with the flavors of the dish". Top it off with his competition style chili which was loaded with ground beef, this was easily the meatiest slinger we've eaten so far. Some hand shredded cheese, onion and two fried eggs to complete the plate. I'm not a huge eater but I struggled just to eat half of this delicious dish, luckily Josh was there to enjoy his own beautiful creation and enjoy the miraculous flavor combinations that his loins produced.


I knew Josh's slinger would be good, the dude knows how to cook, but I was super impressed with the extra care he put into it and how great all of the pieces tasted. If Josh was a real restaurant he would be in the Top 10, but since he's just some asshole with a house and a kitchen that no one else can go to he cannot be in there, but he can earn the crown of the King of Shit. Thanks again Josh.