Well, figured I would take the wife out for a good meal in a different city. Found Al's Restaurant, in St. Louis. Took a taxi, under the bridge, across the RR tracks, and down by the river we came to it. Once inside the smell of mildew and rotting fish almost turned us away. We decided to give it a chance based on the reviews we had read. There was no wait on a Saturday night at 7pm, and that should have been the first clue. While waiting we noticed we were the youngest by about 20 years; second clue missed. Since we were the only people waiting, and it took 10 minutes to get seated we should have realized the third clue. Once seated, and another 15 min goes by, the appetizer menu was finally ordered from. Prosciutto, why would you ever put that over cantaloupe? What ever. Once we got that out of the way, we finally get to the steaks. They bring the steak tray out (to the people beside us) to show the different cuts. Which is very nice, but when he was describing the prep for them that should have been the fourth clue to get out. Steak, good steak, only needs to have some salt and pepper. If it needs to be fancied up the cook doesn’t know what they are doing. So, once he gets to us he didn't have the tray of the different cuts of meat, he brought us menus instead. I don't know if that was to scare us off or what, but holy crap! They charge a whole lot of cash for their steak. Again, another clue to run. We figured based on the reviews, and the price it should be the best steak ever. We ordered the steak, and a salad. I got a Cesar and she got normal vinaigrette. My salad had a lot of pepper in it and I mean a lot. I don’t like pepper so this was over- powering for me. Her vinaigrette made her stomach feel a little funny. Finally after being there for over 1 1/2 hours our steaks come out. First time I have ever gotten a Medium steak, cut into it, and had no juice come forth. How is that even possible? My wife’s Peppercorn steak was supposed to be med/well, it was more pink than mine. Plus it tasted horrible, kind of like they cooked it over a kerosene flame. Well we just said screw it and no desert. We couldn't be let down anymore so we got the check and a cab call. My wallet was now $130 lighter, it was 2 hours later, we were very dissatisfied, so we ran out to the cab with out even bothering to tell them how bad it was. Normally I would but it was like the whole time they didn't really care, and or were just too proud of their food.
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