Ann Lemons Pollack

  • What I Did On My Spring Break, Vol. 2

    A Facebook/blog entry from my Chowzter buddy Juliana Loh on one of our many delightful experiences at the gathering in London. One of the most accurate photos of me ever taken, gratis Ricky Ly, another Chowzter, from Orlando.  Here's Juliana's story.

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  • Just a Bite: The Grill at The Ritz Carlton

     The rumblings heard from the direction of Clayton may have been at the Ritz Carlton. Changes are afoot in their restaurants. I went to a press meal at the Grill last week, and found several things worth remarking on. Certainly I never thought I'd be nodding approvingly while eating a kale salad. Chic often doesn't

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  • On London: Food and Otherwise

    The single best thing I think I ate on the trip in May was an omelet Arnold Bennett at The Delaunay. Made with smoked haddock, plenty of cream and, combining two traditional versions of it, both hollandaise sauce and cheese, the whole thing glazed under the grill before it's served. I'd read about them for years,

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  • Katie’s Pizza and Pasta

    A handsome restaurant, Katie's Pizza and Pasta is, but a little wonky. No longer affiliated with its original site across from the Esquire Theatre, the new Katie's has a larger menu and a larger dining room. True to the times, it's noisy, but the outdoor tables – which were usable for perhaps a month since

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  • Billy Elliot The Musical

     The Muny's 96th season kicked off with, in effect, a shout of "Five, six, seven EIGHT!" Monday night as it put "Billy Elliot The Musical" on stage. The show itself may not be the best musical to cross a Broadway stage in the last decade – for instance, it slows a bit late in the

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  • Love! Valour! Compassion!

      Love! Valour! Compassion! created such high feelings when it was first staged here in 1996, a year after it was on Broadway, the company had a very difficult time finding somewhere to house the production. (It ended up on a small stage at Webster University.) The play, about eight gay men at a summer

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  • Vinnie’s Italian Beef and Gyros

     I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who have never said to themselves, "I should be eating more vegetables." I am not one of them. I say it all the time. I like vegetables, I just don't crave them the way I do things like really ripe peaches or a fine lamb burger.

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  • The Prospect of Whitby

    There's nothing wrong in being a tourist. Places become tourist cliches usually because they're worth seeing, things like the London Eye and Big Ben and the British Museum. But after you've seen them, if you have a sense of curiosity, there are other places to explore. Some are slightly off the beaten path. Others are…more

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  • Brunch: Bixby’s

     Maybe it's chancy talking about a restaurant in Forest Park just before Fair St. Louis (I almost wrote "the Veiled Prophet Fair") moves to the park for a few years. But Bixby's, in the Missouri History Museum, will be there after that's finished. And frankly, reserving ahead for brunch is a good idea. This is

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  • Eating London Tours

     If you are a traveller who likes to eat, I hope by now you have discarded the idea that food in London is still the punchline to a joke. Of course not everywhere is great or even adequate. Even in New Orleans, you can still get a bad meal, a city that used to pride

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