Stop #28: Benton Park Cafe

Tim's Review: I've been to Benton Park Cafe so many times, this wasn't really much of an event. Although I've never had their slinger, I've had just about everything else on the menu, so I pretty much knew what to expect. This is one those biscuit and gravy types that I'm not really a big fan of to begin with. It was good, but just really not my style. I had no idea there would be so many goddamn biscuits when I signed up for this tour. I like biscuits, I just never realized they found their way on to so many slinger plates.

The best part of this guy was definitely the bacon. Nice and crispy, just the way I like it. I might say some of the best bacon on the tour, next to Copia. I even snatched up some of Tony's bacon. That guy almost never finishes a plate! The biscuits and gravy part of it was actually pretty good too and now that I think back, probably the some of the best biscuits on the tour. But that's not saying much considering any slinger with a biscuit so far has completely sucked (12^th street diner, kickers corner). I was also a big fan of the potatoes, and I just realized they were in a separate bowl. Why didn't I mix that shit up!! Ohhh well.

So despite my lack of enthusiasm for this slinger, the simple fact that I'm a repeat customer will have to tell you that I like this place, but I'm just not really excited about it anymore. I'm sure I'll eat there again, but I'm sticking with the breakfast pizza.

Tony's Review: You dorks probably thought we forgot about the coveted Benton Park Cafe! HA! We were just saving this for when we needed to eat a good slinger. This place is easily one of the best places to get breakfast in St. Louis and if you're Mom is in town take her here, she will love it...at least my Mom did. Like Tim I've been here a ton of times and will continue to come here for a solid breakfast and this place has one of my pre-tour favorite slingers.

Like Tim said this is one of those biscuit and gravy slingers so it may not be for everyone but I personally like a good biscuit and gravy slinger. Benton Park has some of my favorite biscuits, not like the flaky ones you fruits like but a nice, dense as shit beer biscuit that will put hair on your butt. This slinger is totally covered in awesome gravy that I'm sure is slowly killing me. The eggs were fine as usual and the change of bacon really fits this well versus having a burger in there. Normally their hashbrowns are some of the best in the city all full of creaminess and bold flavors but when we were there, Sunday at din-din time, they were some of the worst I've had there. Clearly these potatoes are meant to be enjoyed at breakfast hours and not long after. If you're there when the potatoes are good you should mix them up like Tim said, but in this particular case I'm glad I didn't.

Unlike Tim I love the Benton Park Slinger, even though this particular time wasn't the best I've had, it is always one of my top picks for a B&G slinger. And if you haven't been to the Benton Park Cafe yet you are not a true St. Louis resident and you need to get your ass over there pronto you jabroni. 

Stop #27: Lemmon's

Tony's Review: What! Lemmon's! I thought they only served pizza, wings and some other non-slinger crap. Well you are correct. We had the exclusive honor of being treated to a VIP only...Slinger Pizza created lovingly by St. Louis' own Denny Dyer. Denny debated for weeks on the proper way to execute such a high profile task and spoiler alert—he nailed it.

He decided not to go with the thin crust but go all the way with a large Chicago-style pizza with middle toppings of cheese, bacon, jalapeno, hamburger and onion and on top of that was your layer of over easy eggs, chili and an unreal amount of cheddar and I'm probably missing an ingredient. This thing was over the top everything, huge in size, probably weighed 8lbs. and was intimidating to say the least. Luckily we had some friends to destroy this thing and I was barely able to finish my one slice let alone having two, Tim tried to eat two but he ended up just wasting pizza...what a slob.

Honestly I was reluctant about this slinger pizza, I mean this just look at that picture it screams "instant diarrhea" and "you won't make it home" but I accepted the challenge, I'm glad I did and my pants are clean! Denny nailed the crust, super crispy and it helped contain all of that garbage on top of it. The flavors were surprisingly evenly distributed with highlight bites of tasty bacon. One of the bigger accomplishments was getting the eggs to work, they didn't have the runny yolk like we had hoped but they still had a good thing going. This thing was really good, I'm happy to have a bud that would work so hard to make a trash pile like this slinger pizza. If you want to try the elusive slinger pizza talk to Denny at Lemmon's and if you give him $100 maybe he'll think about it.

Tim's Review:

I wasn't afraid of this thing for a second. This was actually my third slinger pizza from Lemmons and I say it like I'm bragging, but I probably just sound like a disgusting pig. I don't even know why that first one was made. I think Denny just gets bored at work and starts looking for stuff in the kitchen to throw in a pizza . I remember one time he made a pizza with fruit on it.... it was a little weird. They can't all be a raging success.

You want to know what was great about this Lemmons slinger? It had all the great qualities of the classic Lemmons deep dish: it was massive, it was filled to the top of that thick ass crust with mouth watering goodies, and after once slice you feel instantly tired and depressed. I think Tony actually started sweating a few minutes after he finished. I did try to eat two pieces, but I wouldn't really call it a waste. No one else was going to eat that shit. Besides, the only reason I didn't finish it was because I'm trying to exercise a little self control. Once I made the mistake of participating in a pizza eating contest with a co-worker. We each ordered our own large deep dish at Lemmons to see who could eat the most. I only ate 5 ½ slices so I lost. So embarrassing.

I'm sure it'd be nice if you could all try this delicious treat that Lemmons doesn't have to offer, but I'd rather you not go ask Denny to make it for you, for the simple reason that I would not feel as special. If this were a real menu item that every chump could enjoy, I'd put it in the top ten for sure.    

Stop #26: Sandrina's

Tim's Review: Another day, another mediocre slinger. Sandrina's is normally one those places you end up when you've had too much to drink at a 1:30 bar and start making poor decisions. This place always....ALWAYS smells like deep fryer! In the past, when I would push my way through the crowd after 1:00 am, everyone was smoking, the kitchen has been going all day, I'll let it slide. But when it's 6:00 pm on a Thursday with 5 people sitting at bar, what's the deal?? Get some air circulating in there.

Aside from the smell, Sandrina's isn't a terrible place. Their slinger wasn't bad, but I'd rate it slightly below average. For some reason they really hold back on the chili and tease you with pathetic 2 tablespoons worth. The chili was actually pretty good, probably the best part about this plate. Plus, it's a slinger, get a ladle and slop that shit on there! I want the rest of my breakfast swimming in that chili. The home fries was the other thing that really annoyed me about this plate. They were potatoes, diced up pretty small and overcooked, so they were a little crunchy. Normally that's not too much of an issue, but with crunchy potatoes and minimal amounts of chili, it was next to impossible to mix this thing up and the potatoes kept falling off the fork. Had there been a healthy amount of chili on there, the home fries would just need a few minutes to get nice and soggy and we wouldn't have any problems.

Maybe if we were back in week 12, Sandrina's might have made top ten, but at this point in game, slightly below average just won't cut it.

Tony's Review: Tim almost summed this up perfectly but he left out the burger! What an asshole! The burger on the slinger wasn't bad, it was a big, thick homemade patty that had a decent flavor but lacked a bit on the slinger. The potatoes were tiny and crispy but I didn't mind them as much as baby pants Tim. One thing I do agree on is the lack of chili on this, if it was a slinger burger it would of been fine but it was served on a plate with tons of room to put that poo poo juice (aka chili) all over the plate.


Overall it wasn't bad but it was forgettable, I'm sure there are better things on the menu to fix your hunger at 2:25 in the morning. And sorry about the photos the lighting in this place sucked. 

Stop #25: Copia

Tony's Review: For our 25th anniversary Tim and I decided to go somewhere fancy and very romantic. No we didn't go to Pasta House but we did have a very private lunch at Copia on Washington. This place oozes class from only offering their slinger during lunch, accommodating wait staff and only cloth towels in the bathroom. Whoa. Our friend Greg has been bugging the hell out of us to check this place out and claiming it's the best slinger he's had...well Greg now you can leave us alone.

This baby pulled out all the stops on it's way to Flavorville, USA and adding real bacon strips to the mix was top notch, Market Pub House should take note how a classy place does bacon. The slinger was surprisingly traditional offering two cheeseburger patties, over easy eggs, home fries, homemade chili, cheese and the previously mentioned bacon. No onions on this one, you probably have an important meeting if you're eating at this place for lunch. The burgers may be some of the best we've had so far, they somehow captured the taste of a diner burger but made it 1,000% better and they were full of awesome cheesy bites. Bonus points were added when I started cutting up the bacon and adding them to my burger bites, aka bacon chee. Really all of the ingredients were great, potatoes were well cooked and seasoned, eggs were good and the chili had a really nice taste though it would have been nice if there were more chili on that big plate.

We debated if this was the coveted new number one, which is high praise already, after some debate it comes close but won't grab the crown. First, this thing costs $13 which is good for a restaurant like Copia but fucking insane for a slinger. And there was something missing from the slinger it could of been the onions but I think it was how it was served with all of the ingredients on their own only joined by the chili, maybe if they stacked it and let all the bold flavors get to know each other it could of been even better. Without a doubt this was one of the best we've eaten and there were only picky things about this one so if you're a millionaire you should check this one out.

Tim's Review: I've had a couple people tell me that Tony and I are kind of mean in this blog. My only defense for that is: “hey, we've choked down a lot of shitty slingers!” They do make me a little angry sometimes (I'm looking at you Market pub house). Luckily, that's not always the case. Every once in a while, we eat something great. Copia was definitely a high point on the tour and I left happy.

I'm pretty much on board with everything Tony said on this one so I'll be quick. Every ingredient on this plate was top notch. I still feel like I could have used a little more chili, but this thing was probably a perfect size. I really don't need to stuff my face with crazy amounts of chili in the middle of the day, then go back to work and pretend like I'm not a piggy. Shhhhhhh. I actually didn't even notice the missing onions until I read Tony's review, so obviously they weren't really needed anyway. I do need to emphasize how awesome that burger was though. This is one of the very few burgers we've had that I would actually love to eat outside of the slinger. On a bun, melted cheese, lettuce, tomato, and if that bacon was there, I'd be in heaven.

So the line bottom line: Copia delivers a great slinger and a solid contender, but you got to pay for this masterpiece. It's definitely worth a try, but when someone else can serve up a comparable plate for close to half the price, I can't say I will choose Copia on a regular basis.  After some serious thought, Copia is the third best slinger around.

Stop #24: Market Pub House

Tony's Review: Well it's finally happened, Tim and I are in complete disagreement on a slinger and it only took 6 months to happen. I've been to the Market Pub House in the Loop once before we went for our Sunday Brunch slinger, it was only for drinks and it was probably one of the worst places I've been to. Not for the usual reasons like full of jocks, too smokey or bad food/service it just had the worst overall atmosphere which didn't make me want to get drunk with my buds, that shit don't fly. But I had to return for the slinger which is only served on Sunday and comes with a free mimosa, one bonus point.

The slinger was a far step from traditional consisting of biscuits, sausage, tater tots, cheese, eggs, sort of bacon and white gravy but still had the tradition of piling a bunch of garbage onto a plate and calling it a slinger. I personally don't mind the "biscuit and gravy" slinger approach and find it a nice change of pace from the normally disappointing chili and burger experience. The biscuits were pretty lackluster but they didn't totally suck and the gravy I really liked, it wasn't that pre-made white crap that a lot of places serve that is always lame. As usual the eggs were basically just eggs, not the best not the worst. Now onto the problem areas, first the sausage, while it tasted good there weren't patties or links on there it was just a few random chunks of meat that showed up from time to time to remind you that you were barely eating it. Second the tater tots, again they tasted good and weren't as problematic as the previous tots we had from Marley's mainly because I had about 5 of them on the slinger. And finally there's the bacon on top which was a complete joke, it was old busted ass bacon and I think someone actually cut up a 1/4" of a real slice of bacon and drizzled it over eggs.

Even though I think this place is pretty whack as an actual bar/restaurant and the slinger had a few flaws to it, I still did enjoy eating it and I would mainly like thank the gravy for carrying the whole dish to the land of satisfaction.

Tim' review: Shit sandwich ................... ................... ...................................  ...........................Goddammit!!!! I really wanted to leave this at a two word review, but since Tony seemed to like this slop, I feel the need to explain myself.

For starters, this was the farthest thing from a slinger yet. It was biscuits and gravy with an egg and according to the menu, it's supposed to have tater tots in there. I can't tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing that they forgot mine. I'm pretty sure a few stupid tots would not have changed my mind about this garbage. Second: I know I've mentioned this a couple times in the blog before, but it's worth restating: Biscuits don't belong in a slinger! If you remember, 12^th Street Diner had biscuits in their slinger and they are in the hall of shit. To make it even worse, these biscuit completely sucked. You know those frozen breakfast meals you can get at the grocery store? Jimmy Dean sausage, egg and biscuit. Microwave ready in 30 seconds! I think market pub stole some biscuits from Jimmy Dean. And just so we're clear, Jimmy Dean frozen biscuits suck.

Let's see... what else...... how about the bacon? Bacon is always good right? Well Market pub managed to drop the ball with the bacon as well. Look at that picture. I think they cut one slice of bacon in half, chopped it up, and then split that up between me, Tony and two other tables. I'm pretty sure I ordered off the big boy menu, can I get at least one full slice of bacon?! We don't want to forget about the gravy. I guess I can see Tony's point of view and this gravy was probably the best thing on the plate, but it's all relative. Let's say I drop a turd into a hot dog bun, smother the whole thing in gravy and chow down like it's greatest summertime bbq ever. MMMmmm, the gravy is the best part! See what I'm saying?

So to sum it all up, this thing was junk all around. If you ask me, I would nominated this guy for the hall of shit. Oh yeah, and fuck that stupid mimosa!

Stop #23: Lafayette Fire Company

Tony's Review: Well, well, well look what we have here. A restaurant/bar run by local firefighters and paramedics? YOU BETCHA! This place was full of historic and current EMS stuff all over the place including custom photo tables which weren't distracting at all. But who cares about the decor right this isn't a St. Louis Interior Design blog is it! NO!

I had been to this place once before maybe two years ago and had some egg scramble thing that may have been one of the worst breakfasts I had suffered through at that point so going into this I had extremely low expectations. This slinger gave you the option of 1/2 lb. beef patty or two sausage patties...I'm a man so of course I chose the beef patty...and you had the choice of traditional hash browns or "home fries" I remembered the "home fries" from last time and they sucked so I when the classic route. As soon as that dumb waiter put the plate on the table I was impressed. The chili was great, super meaty and you could tell that a firefighter made it in the kitchen. Another slinger with jalapenos on it! I don't know if these restaurants are reading this blog and know that we love jalapenos on slingers but a lot of mother fucking places are doing this! It's 2012 put a jalapeno on it! The hash browns were spot on with their bold traditional flavors and once you mixed them up in the chili mess you knew you were doing things right. Now lets talk about the burger, a lot of places think that if you put a 1/2 lb. burger on a slinger its instantly good, well they're wrong. Again we had another slinger that was on the right track and dropped the ball with the burger. But to be fair the Lafayette Fire Company barely dropped the ball with their burger it was the least offensive "big" burger that we've had but it totally ruins the magic that happens on the plate. 

All in all I was really impressed with this slinger and these EMS people can make a good one. Not sure how the rest of the menu is but I'll give it another shot before I call 911 on that place. Boom.

Tim's Review: I was definitely not as excited about this place as my friend Tony. I guess that's why it took me so long to write about it. Tony is getting this huge boner over firman decorations and a mediocre slinger. Calm down dude. It was just ok. I'm not mad about eating there or anything, but I wouldn't say I was really impressed either. Let's just say there are plenty of other places that are my list to get back to before this one.

It had some pretty decent chili. Hash browns were the standard diner style. I think the only reason they were even good was because we haven't had hash browns like this in a while. Nothing special. I do think the jalapeno's are always a great addition. I guess I would say this is slightly above average as far as slingers go. It is worth emphasizing that the burger was the weak link once again. I think these places figure that with all the other crap you're dumping on top of this plate, the burger doesn't need to be anything special. If this dish had a good burger, it may have nudged its way into the top ten. Oh well. I'm done thinking about this slinger.

I did get to try some wings at this place though and they weren't bad. I brought my nephew along, and thought he might like to get down on his first slinger, but he's really into hot wings. He's only 12, but this kid is the hot wing king. You can get the 3 alarm wings if you're a sissy. My little buddy goes for the 5 alarm and he took them down like a champ. In between these “hot” wings, he was even taking in a few of my jalapeno's. I hope he remembers uncle Tim when he grows up and becomes a champion eater.   

Stop #22: Kicker's Corner

Tim's Review: Kicker's Corner is a nice little spot on South Broadway. I'm not so familiar with this area, but once I heard someone describe this part of town as “the armpit of st. louis”. I don't think that's really a compliment, but I like it. Kicker's Corner is kind of a dump. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Especially since the staff there were so nice. Just like at Bailey's Range, we got some special treatment at Kicker's Corner. They only serve the slinger on the breakfast menu, and I guess we came in after the official cut-off, but they were kind enough to make it anyway.

I feel like this place had some great potential, and I'll give them an A for effort, but it just didn't measure up. Let's remember that we are in week 22 now and we've experienced some quality slingers in the past few months. It's getting harder and harder to break into the top ten. The great part of this slinger was the potatoes. I don't exactly know what style these were. They weren't hash browns, they weren't diced, I guess I'd just call them breakfast potatoes?? I don't care what they're called. The point is they were cooked perfectly. Great texture, great flavor. The jalapeno's topping this slinger were also a great addition. The bummer about this plate was the burger. What the fuck was up with the burger? Probably one of the worst on the tour. So bad, that after a couple bites we just started eating around it. Problem solved, until I got a hunk burger on the fork by accident. Ahhhhh! It's even worse when it sneaks up on you. After I shoved a good portion of this mess down my throat, I was disgusted when I looked down and saw all that nasty burger juice lingering in the bottom of the bowl. The other gross part was the biscuit that was hiding under everything. 12^th St Diner pulled this same bullshit! I don't want a crappy biscuit soaking up all the chili, getting soggy and ruining my plate. It's completely uncalled for.

I don't want to leave a bad impression of this place. I'd like to come back for a happy hour sometime. On Monday and Wednesday, they have a cooler of “Fun beers” for $2.00. I saw some Blue Moon, some Limarita, not sure what other kind of beer is in there, but for $2.00, I'm sure you can find something you like. Kicker's Corner seemed like an alright place, but slingers just aren't their thing.

Tony's Review: I have also never been to Kicker's Corner nor do I often find myself that far south on Broadway but we've heard some things from our slinger friend Matt to check this place out. I liked the feel of the place and wouldn't call it a dump like that asshole Tim, it was clean and didn't smell like shit so it passes in my book. Like Tim said the staff were great and did give us the special treatment they must of recognized us from all of our internet fame.

This was easily one of the biggest slingers we've had so far, if not the biggest. The one thing that instantly caught my eye were the fresh jalapeño, also this was one of the best looking slingers we've seen. Tim talked about the potatoes perfectly, fresh, home made breakfast potatoes that were very good. Chili tasted pretty good and all of the toppings were really working together on the pile but then disaster struck...the burger. I took one bite and knew that this slinger was fucked, it started out so promising and then that asshole joined the party. It wasn't a case of not having a good flavor or improper seasoning I think this was some old ass nasty meat that should not of been served. So of course I had to take another bite to confirm that this tasted like a cat's asshole...turns out it did. And the biscuits at the bottom of the plate, again, after a couple bites you're like "Oh cool, biscuits" and then you realize the whole bottom of the plate is covered in this soggy shit and instantly you don't want to eat anymore.

I ended up just scraping the top off and enjoying all the edible toppings it's too bad this slinger was 50% great and 50% the grossest shit I've ever tasted. I'm sure the burger was a fluke and it probably tastes better than that but I'm not going back to risk it. If any of you extreme, Mountain Dew drinking, wakeboarders out there want to try it, leave a comment.