The Pasta House Company on West Florissant remains a family-style St. Louis chain that works hard to create a cozy, retro 1960s family diner atmosphere. Black and white checkered tile cover the floor. The ceiling trim is fire engine red tile. Oversized posters of spaghetti westerns interspersed with black and white photos of vintage Italian city scenes adorned the walls of the eatery.As a family friendly restaurant, they had plenty of booster seats for kids and variably sized tables where people could pull up either a highchair or a wheelchair. A small party would find some quiet and solace …

After my disappointment at Brewskeez, I wanted to give local sports bars another try. I thought we must have a locally grown alternative to the anonymity of TGI Friday's, so I turned to Deaver's. This open floor restaurant doesn't compete with big chains on decoration. It’s a big rectangle broken up by three rows of dividers. Instead of farm implements and random kitsch, flat-panel TVs tuned to an assortment of channels covered the walls. Interspersed throughout those, though, were surprisingly good paintings of crowds at baseball games and the occasional signed jersey or poster of a player. …

Brewskeez is a surprisingly large sports bar tucked into a strip mall on Lindbergh, just behind rows of fast food. It's easy to miss past the Steak 'n Shake and Jack in the Box that front the main road.  There was a light crowd at lunch, people drinking their meals while collected around the bar. The smell of smoke sent me back a couple steps, but if you're looking for a place where you can still smoke in peace, this is it.  I ordered my usual iced tea while I looked at the menu. When the bartender brought it to me, I realized I was the only person not having an alcoholic beverage. The good …

Our "Veggie Viewpoint" columnist does a great job showing off the healthier side of Florissant. To help balance her out, this week I decided to show some hardcore carnivore love. Bandana’s Bar-B-Q is not a place for vegetarians. Even the salads are covered in barbequed meat. No, this is a meat-tastic monument to carnivores. Your entree choices are meat from birds, meat from cows or meat from pigs.The menu had a new, welcome addition since the last time I visited. Check the small print next to your food descriptions. You’ll find calorie counts for every dish. I’m not sure people wanted to know…

I owed a friend dinner. As a restaurant reviewer, she asked me to take her to some place unique to Florissant. My first instinct was the amazing Thai food at Pearl Cafe. Then I decided to try something notorious in Florissant: White Barn.I’ve passed it a million times without pulling up. People either worship their burgers or spit firey hate at them. There are no in-between opinions. Any place that can generate such strong feelings must offer something special. Plus, since it was my turn to buy, rumor had it I could get away cheap. White Barn is a tiny white rectangle tucked into the post …

Florissant Fish and Chicken sits on Lindbergh Boulevard and is set up to be a two-in-one deal: the makings of a Long John Silver's—but better—and a corner shop. This is a pay at the counter, fast and casual kind of place. While I waited to place my order, I watched the man behind the register prepare the previous customer’s fish—from scratch. Yes, the open dining room and kitchen let me watch him select naked pieces of fish, roll them in batter, dust them with seasoning and put them in the deep fryer. I can’t remember the last time I saw someone hand bread anything right before frying it. …

I honestly wanted to like Fresh Italy more. The restaurant has an attractive, if simple interior with grape vines hand painted onto wood tables alongside green leather benches. A few vines of fake ivy lit up with glowing grapes climb the fake stucco walls. Framed photos of Italy are interspersed with wall sconces holding up mugs, tin cups and  assorted small containers filled with fake flowers. There’s nothing corporate about the atmosphere. It's obvious this is someone's family restaurant.None of these decorations are new. One gets the impression they were put up when the restaurant was …

The Barn Deli in Florissant’s historic Myers Farm House has a bargain of a lunch. You might have trouble finding it as it's tucked off of Dunn Road, though. From the street, it appears to be in the parking lot of a hotel. Take the small, windy drive--it’s worth it. Inside, you’ll find the deli is only one part of a building with multiple shops. The yarn store is upstairs (though the clearance room is on the first floor as soon as you walk in) and a combination of local tourism and a Christmas year-round shop is toward the back. In the middle, you’ll find the restaurant. The dining room tables…

When my guest and I headed to this week's choice, I thought we would beat the church crowd at Hendel’s by showing up at a quarter to 10, but the indoor dining room was already packed. My brunch companion and I were still seated almost immediately at a table in the charming reclaimed front patio, which had once obviously been open to the air. Within 10 minutes, anyone walking in had a half hour or longer wait. Hendel’s looks like it was decorated by a tasteful grandmother with a weakness for country kitsch. There’s a lot of wicker and wrought iron, but they're tempered with nice expanses of …

Sometimes dining out is more adventurous than expected. As someone who has spent some time in Ireland, I can honestly say I stumbled across a stunningly authentic Irish pub in Florissant's neighbor of Black Jack. Erase any notions you have of Llywellyn’s or Scottish Arms. The food might be good, but the atmosphere is more like Ireland via Disney. There’s nothing sanitized about Meyer’s Country Cottage and Irish Pub, 4960 Parker Rd. Put on your big boy pants, and get ready for an afternoon of adventure.From the outside, Meyer’s Country Cottage and Irish Pub looks like an old farmhouse that …

Although Gettemeier's isn't easily spotted off of Thunderbird Lane, it's an old-fashioned pub that you should think about putting on your to-eat list. Walking into a corner bar full of locals is always a neat feeling. There aren't many of those left. When my guest and I came in for lunch, a senior citizen was playing PowerPutt arcade golf with his adult daughters, while they shared a basket of mozzarella sticks. Across the room, a couple of men played the electronic dart machines, both trying to distract the other with commentary about the golf game playing on the big screen TV to their left…

Now, I'm a sucker for anyone that offers breakfast all day, and Helfer's Pastries and Deli Café used this to entice me inside. From 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., you can get eggs on raisin bread for $1.79, eggs on a croissant or biscuit for $2.19, and  some ham, bacon or sausage for 40 cents more if you’re in the mood for some protein. Big spenders can go crazy with a $3.59 slice of quiche. It's a simple selection at very affordable prices.I went in with every intention of making a hearty meal of quiche, raisin bread and eggs, but as much as I adore breakfast, I was seduced by sandwiches. As I waited my …

It doesn’t look like much from the street, but the delicious smell of slow-cooked barbecue hits you like a wave when you walk into this tiny eight-table restaurant, which sits off of Dunn Road. There’s nothing fancy about Sergeant's. The handwritten menu, on a board in dry erase marker, hangs above the order window. The only decoration is a stencil of a happy pig on one orange wall. The one-man operation doesn’t even have a soda fountain. Instead, a few bottles of Coke products lurk in a fridge. I love places like this. You can’t get more home cooked than a one-man operation that’s obviously …

There's something to be said about foreign food and restaurants. They can leave an unforgettable taste in your mouth and send you to that country, or it can make you better appreciate the United States.   African Palace in Florissant made me want to check my pockets for foreign coins and expired train tickets. The windows are covered in thick curtains, so the only light comes from atmospheric lamps hung strategically over the tables, so I walked from bright daylight into a twilight dusk. The three TVs behind the bar were split between one news feed from BBC and two soccer matches. A group of …

Despite being in a small strip mall, if you’re driving down Lindbergh, it’s impossible to miss the large signs encouraging drivers to try Cugino’s  for lunch. I tried it in its first week, which might be where I went wrong. Since I’ve never tried Cugino’s previously, I’m not sure if the problem was the lunch time kitchen staff or the menu. I'll work under the assumption that the daytime cooks are in training. Lunch is a seat yourself affair in the bar. The small menu focuses on sandwiches, such as roast beef with provel, blackened chicken with provel and a burger with provel. There's no …

With a name like Hokkaido, I expected Japanese food. What I found was a massive all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet with an impressively large American dessert selection and a tiny, token corner of unlabeled, mediocre sushi. It was a study in contradictions: The friendly hostess gave way to a surly waitstaff. Well prepared Chinese food was contrasted with a badly done Hibachi grill. I left with incredibly mixed feelings. Let’s start with the good news. The Chinese food was good. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the pineapple chicken, which was made with actual white meat in a …

Simply prepared homestyle food can be incredibly good. The Florissant City Diner is a stellar example of plain food made exceptionally well. Pirrone’s, however, didn't meet the same taste. If you’re born here, you probably love St. Louis style pizza. I’m from Oklahoma, a land where we grow cows and plant oil wells. Sometimes we sell the oil to buy spices to go on our beef. Being born out of state disqualifies me from having an opinion on the thin crust, sweet sauce and provelle cheese pizza’s beloved by natives.In order to give Pironne’s a fair shot, I decided to order off of the sandwich …

There aren't many tiny hole-in-the-wall diners left in this country, but Florissant still has one. You know you're in for something good when you can feel like a cartoon character practically floating into the restaurant on a cloud of a delicious scent. Photos of friends and family line the bar. A cork board by the front door is impossibly cluttered with business cards from regular diners. As I sat down at a table, a man walked up to sit at the counter.  The waitress shouted, "Bob, the usual?"  from across the room. He nodded, smiled and picked up a newspaper as she brought him a cup of …