Southeast Asia

Qui Tran Lives the American Dream and Continues His Mother's Legacy at Mai Lee

This is part one of Gut Check's Chef's Choice profile of Qui Tran of Mai Lee. Part two, a Q & A with Tran, will appear tomorrow. Part three, a recipe from Tran, will be available on Friday. Qui Tran can't discuss his childhood without mentioning Mai Lee (8396 Music Memorial Drive, Brentwood; 314-64 ... More >>

Askinosie Chocolate Expands Lunch Program

No, not to you. The award-winning Springfield, Missouri-based chocolate company will be using proceeds from two of its products to fund school lunch programs in villages in Tanzania and the Philippines. The PTA's at Mwaya Secondary School in the Kyela region of Tanzania and Malagos Elementary Scho ... More >>

There's Always a Cardinal on the St. Louis Bestseller List

Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending January 6, as compiled by the St. Louis Independent Booksellers Alliance and based on sales at Left Bank Books, Main Street Books and Subterranean Books. There are some changes to the local bestseller list this week. For one thing, fo ... More >>

The Jersey Invasion: Not Fade Away lays bare David Chases' rock & roll heart

Your Weekly St. Louis Bestseller List

Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending December 23, as compiled by the St. Louis Independent Booksellers Alliance and based on sales at Left Bank Books, Main Street Books, Pudd'nhead Books and Subterranean Books. You have seen almost all these books on the bestseller list ... More >>

Ten Christmas Gifts That Will Ensure a Man is Single By New Year's Eve

Any of you fellas frantically trying to decide what to give your boo for Christmas? Let Daily RFT narrow your options with a list of gift ideas you should definitely avoid this Yuletide season. (Unless, of course, you wish to be single by the new year.) 10) GonorrheaSt. Louisans bestow this present ... More >>

How Hollywood Movies Led to Genocide: The Act of Killing at the Toronto Film Festival

Film critic Karina Longworth is reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival this week. The best, most daring and form-defying documentaries in the world right now are being funded by the Danish Film Institute, and so it goes that the nonfiction knockout of TIFF thus far is The Act of Ki ... More >>

Gregg Williams, Barred from Coaching the Rams, Heads to Thailand

Gregg Williams was supposed to be in St. Louis right now, preparing the Rams' defense for a march toward respectability, or at least some semblance of competence. Instead, Williams was banned from contact with the team by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for the season for his role in the New Orleans ... More >>

It's World Book Night, So We Visit a ReadMob and Get Advice from Tim O'Brien

Sometime today, if you're lucky, somebody will shove a paperback book in your face and demand you take it home and read it. There are worse fates that could befall a person. The reason for this ardent promotion of literacy is World Book Night. A conglomeration of publishers, booksellers, librarians ... More >>

Ancient Culture, New Year

Spice World: You're a Star, Anise

Welcome to Spice World, in which Gut Check zeroes in on overlooked spices from around the globe, introducing those you may not own -- and probably should. History: Star anise, the brittle, woody fruit of an evergreen tree native to Vietnam and China, has the sharp smell and taste of black licoric ... More >>

Finding Hip-Hop in Kazakhstan and Country in India: American Voices Sets Up in St. Louis

Diplomacy between nations doesn't always involve dignitaries or high-level negotiations. A group with a presence in St. Louis engages in "cultural diplomacy," which involves exchanging musical expertise between Americans and countries often hit hard by conflict. Since it became incorporated as a non ... More >>

In the Galleries: We Buy Gold at Webster University, closing January 28

Good As Gold

William Franke: Founder of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Mired in Lawsuits

​William Franke, the man who once owned the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and who in 2004 helped found Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to attack the war record of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, is today getting some bad press of his own.  Franke, who made millions in real-estate ... More >>

Zee Avi

7:30 p.m. Monday, October 3. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue.

This Week in Gut Check, Regurgitated

Deborah Hyland​As usual, we ate a lot this week. We tried out the soft-shell crabs at Napoli 2 and the Reubenesque at Mike Duffy's, and we vegged out at Barrister's. What else did we do this week? We celebrated the return of garlic scapes. Ericka Frank of the Cakery and the Cup made some ... More >>

The Hangover Part Two and Bangkok Noodles from Pearl Cafe

Image via​The Hangover Part Two finally answers all those questions The Hangover left, puzzling moviegoers: "Will the guys keep in touch with Alan (Zach Galifianakis)?" "Is Stu into transsexuals strippers?" And most importantly, "Would it be funny if the exact same thing happened again in two ... More >>

Bros Roofie'ing Bros: Didn't we already see this movie?

A Grand Eating

The Perfect Mother's Day Gift (For Those Who Despise Mom's Special Day)

Behold your nose. The UMSL corpse flower!​We know how it is. You love your mother, but deep down you harbor a true resentment for her special day. For you, Mother's Day is the worst kind of made-up holiday, requiring you to either present Mom with something mawkishly sentimental or face the conseq ... More >>

Spare (for) the Rhinos

Bob Dylan's Five Least Receptive Audiences

Image via​Bob Dylan played his first ever show in Vietnam over the weekend as part of a brief tour of Asia. There was some amount of fanfare associated with this tour, and this stop in particular, given that so much of Dylan's most vibrant work was written as a response to military action in p ... More >>

Kraken Wise: Squid Rocks

​No question about it: Squid and octopus are in. On a whirlwind visit to New York late last year, Gut Check partook of octopus dishes at four different restaurants on four consecutive nights. Last week, right here in blogland, our featured chef of the week Grace Dinsmoor of Modesto shared her ... More >>

Nearly 100,000 Missouri Veterans Honored

Medal for World War II vets.​For more than a decade, the state of Missouri has awarded medals and certificates to all its native -- or transplanted -- sons and daughters who've served in World War II, the Korean War or the Vietnam War . And the program is coming up on quite a milestone: 100,000 ve ... More >>

Comment of the Day: Publishing Job Applicant's Resume Angers Readers

A post in which we cut and pasted a resume faxed unsolicited to Riverfront Times today drew a lot of comments. Some people were outraged that we made public the man's credentials while others found outrageous curriculum vitae -- which lists "rode in a jet helicopter at a sharp angle with door open" ... More >>

Artgasm: This Weekend's Art Openings, January 14-16, 2011

This weekend, you can catch the opening of Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson's Fireworks at the Isolation Room/Gallery Kit. The video captures the progression of a large indoor fireworks display as a vehicle for examining the relationship between action, consequence and spectacle It also, um, looks ... More >>

Artgasm: This Weekend's Art Openings, October 29 - 31, 2010

German photographer Murat Türemis traveled to Indonesia right after the 2005 Tsunami and again in 2010 to document the progress and changes. View his black and white photographs of the devastation at the Webster University May Gallery through November 24. Find details on this event and more in the ... More >>

When the Water Recedes

Make Your Own Person With Food!

image viaI said bundt cake, not butt cake!​Remember the Halloweens of yore? The haunted house in your best friend's basement, where her overbearing dad delighted in cramming your hand into a bowl of peeled grapes while trumpeting, "Oh no! It's a bowl of eyeballs!," causing you to piss your pan ... More >>

Gut Check's Week in Tweets

​Don't you know? Gut Check has a Twitter account. You can follow us @gutcheckstl.Here's some of what you missed on the Twitter feed this week: Good NYT article on Australian chef David Thompson opening a Thai restaurant in Bangkok. http://nyti.ms/9RmZ38 Alton Brown calls out Man v. Food http:/ ... More >>

Show Announcements: Week of August 26

Electronic Luddites, Ontario's Holy Fuck don't mess around with loops and laptops. Catch them with Houston drone angels Indian Jewelry at the Firebird on October 22 ​ The Ambassador *Melanie Fiona, September 4 Billiken Club *Active Child, October 26 Ciceros *Bass Line Bums, September 8 *B ... More >>

Ronnie's Kids

Today, "amnesty" is a dirty word. So what happened to the immigrants given a fresh start by Reagan in 1986?

Unexpurgated Mark Twain Autobiography to Be Published in November

Image source​104 years ago, when he was 70 years old, Mark Twain began dictating his autobiography to a stenographer. He finished shortly before his death on April 21, 1910. The finished manuscript came in at more than 500,000 words, but Twain didn't expect the whole thing to be published. "F ... More >>

Gut Check's Week in Tweets

​Don't you know? Gut Check has a Twitter account. You can follow us @gutcheckstl.Here's some of what you missed on the Twitter feed this week: Today, we bid fond farewell to our managing editor @riverfronttimes Ellis Conklin, who never did find decent chicken teriyaki here... ...and we also gi ... More >>

"Adult-Child" Slackers, Fear Not: Mom & Dad Can Now Insure You Up to Age 26 in Missouri

Image viaDude, I won't be insured on my trip to Thailand!​In an effort to blatantly overachieve and comply early with some imminent federal regulation changes, a bunch of Missouri health insurance companies have already decided to insure "adult children" up to 26 years old, even if they are:  ... More >>

The Dive Bomber's Worlds Collide at Stan's Bar

"When are you going to Keith's? Keith's is perfect for 'Dive Bomber!'" Except it's no longer Keith's. Now it's Stan's Bar, as of January 1, anyhow, when bartender Stan took over ownership. Such is the nature of neighborhood bars, being bought by patrons or employees to continue the lineage when the ... More >>

The Art to End All Wars

The Morning Brew: 2.19

​ Fine dining restaurant starts serving 99 cent tacos. (The Orange County Register)World's second largest tea company on its way to being Rainforest Alliance Certified. (Reuters)A beer tour through Vietnam. (New York Times)Dumbest employees ever try to sneak large hydrocodone pills into Burg ... More >>

The Morning Brew: Monday, 11.30

​ Bumper apple crop goes to waste. (The Associated Press)Southeast Asia's dog meat business. (Globalpost.com)Ten ways to cut food waste. (Mothernaturenetwork.com)New cookbook focuses on cute Japanese food. (Los Angeles Times)Why diagonal-cut sandwiches are best. (National Public Radio)

East Meets West: With Thai Sawadee, Chesterfield has a winner

Oriental King Preserved Duck Eggs

$1.69
Jay International Foods
3172 South Grand Boulevard

Noodlevana

Does Noodles & Company have a cure for the chain-restaurant blues?

Around the World in 21 Hours

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Tusker

That elephant nose painting

Grand New

Another Vietnamese restaurant on South Grand? Yes, and the food is superb.

Have Palate, Will Travel

The Blue Elephant does Thai food with a gourmet twist

Sen Resurrection

Thai one on at the relocated, renovated Sen

STAR TREK

Our reviewer and her intrepid pals navigate Vietnam Star's gargantuan menu

Eastern Exposure