Review: Home Wine Kitchen . STL

Home Kitchen and Wine Bar sits in the middle of St. Louis' up-and-coming dining neighborhood of Maplewood. This area is quickly becoming our restaurant go-to and Home Kitchen and Wine Bar is no exception.



Ambiance
The name "Home" feels right for this place, as tightly packed tables line a wood plank wall across from a bar that occupies the other wall. Chalked wine menus adorn the walls above the bar, but not in a cluttered fashion, making the place dark and cozy. If you eat here, chances are you are rubbin' elbows with your dining brethren at the tables flanking you. While they do have high chairs, my husband and I made the mistake of waltzing in (stumbled in, really) one weekend lunchtime and bringing our shrieking, butcher-paper-grabbing baby. The staff was friendly, but I am not sure this home is big enough for the diners it draws and our loud munchkin. We ate quickly and got out of Dodge. Lucky for me, I went another time with a few friends for a leisurely, adult lunch and it was heaven. The rest of this review is based on the heavenly trip as I am not sure what I inhaled the first time around.

Service
The place is small and doesn't require a lot of staff. I counted one server and the co-owner, which probably makes sense, but with our server running ragged over the lunch hour we had to request drinks a few times (simple drinks like tea and tonic water). She was upfront and friendly about being forgetful - perhaps the popularity warrants more servers to take the burden off?

Food
Two words: The burger. A few words more: The bacon, egg and CHEESEburger (with garlic aioli, bestill my heart!) that has graced the cover of a local food magazine. I say this after mooching a single bite off a lunch companion that won the 'best dining selection' for the day, maybe even for the week, month or year. Good thing it was her birthday lunch or I would have smacked it out of her hand and stuffed it in my mouth. I was so effusive in my immediate review of the single bite that she asked me if I was going to have a "When Harry Met Sally" moment. Yeah, that good.

Other selections at the table were the pain perdue salade and pork sugo. The pain perdue salade was an argula salad, laced with a ribbon of prosciutto, piled on top of Parmesan toast and topped with a fried egg (see picture for details). Seemingly the healthy choice at the table (don't judge). I ordered the pork sugo based purely off the sound of name and that it included pasta. Seriously, braised pork belly and pasta? A generous portion of pork and papparedelle were intertwined with a red wine sauce, ricotta cheese and lightly cooked tomatoes. Short of licking our plates, we all joined the clean-plate club. For dessert we opted to split the chocolate brownie with marshmallow and toffee (dessert one) and the crustless buttermilk pie (dessert two). The savory dishes set a high standard that the dessert didn't totally measure up to. Perhaps we were just too full?




Notes
Buzz online says 'No Menu Mondays' is the way to go for the adventurous foodie. This foodie also really liked ordering off the menu on a Saturday, but next time I am going all out for the burger...or wait for someone else to order it and smack it out of their hand.