Mom's Kitchen

After operating at the corner of Goodfellow Boulevard and Dr. Martin Luther King Drive for more than a decade, Mom's Kitchen moved to new digs five miles to the southeast, on Delmar Boulevard just outside the shadow of the City Museum in downtown St. Louis. There's not much more on this stretch of Delmar than car-repair shops, but Mom's exerts sufficient soul-food power to anchor the whole block. The setup's simple: A hot bar offers the main courses — rib tips, fried oxtails, chicken (baked or fried, and chicken wings if you're lucky) — alongside sides such as mac & cheese and some killer cabbage. There's a solid square of corn bread to sop up the overflowing goodness, and each table is equipped with the requisite squeeze bottle of hot sauce. Don't be surprised if Mom herself, proprietress Leola Meeks, pokes around to make sure everything looks and tastes good.