OK, I must admit. I am a foodie at heart, hence my need to really focus on eating healthy when not ingesting large quantities of great food when I head out to a great restaurant. It also explains my fractured foot from having to run way to much because of ingesting so much of the said good food. All that said, I never do food posts on my blog but, it’s my blog so I can do it if I want:)

I really do not give St. Louis its fair shot when it comes to food, I have started to make it a point to start venturing out to more local places when in town rather than hit my typical favorites, Drunken Fish, don’t worry I will will still come visit, but I need to say good bye just for a bit.

I travel a lot, a couple million miles over the past 10 years or so, I tend to hit more trendy, adventurous spots while visiting NYC, Austin, San Francisco, and other cities known for their unique dining experiences. But realized I really was not giving my home town a chance.

This past weekend my wife, Tiffany, and I decided to pick a restaurant that had been getting buzz and seemed *interesting*. We were keeping an open mind, meaning great steak or sushi either one could of won out.

In this case we chose neither of those and went with tapas, the restaurant we choice was Sanctuaria, the bar alone would be well worth the visit to say the very least, holy crap the drink menu was much larger than the food menu. And by drinks I am not talking about Gin and Tonic, I am talking some of the most creative mixed drinks you will find, period. I have had the pleasure to enjoy a drink all over this fine country in some pretty bad ass places, but this place was as good as any, period…

A little research shows that the Mixologist on staff, Matt Seiter, has won many an award and has a book coming out explaining some of the drinks, read this page and you will get the method behind the madness in the bar here. For reference Tiffany had the “Kind of Played Out” which is Del Maguey Vida Mezcal, Rehorst Gin, Honey Syrup, Lemon Juice, Blue Curacao, Fresh Lavendar Flowers, and Club soda. She enjoyed to say the least.

But since I was driving I was there for the food. First off, we checked in on Foursquare, there are specials for Sanctuaria on there if you check in with a friend, take advantage of it. My online marketing head loved the fact they were taking advantage of Foursquare.

So what did we order:

MONTEREY JACK AND GUAVA EMPANADAS WITH AJI AMARILLO SAUCE

CHICKEN SKEWERS

FRITA SLIDERS

BLACK BEAN STUFFED PIQUILLOS

TOSTONES

You can see the descriptions of each here on the menu.

Obviously with the title of my post we loved the food, it was great, unique, and the flavors were great. My favorite was the Frita sliders, seriously how bad can Chorizo sliders be. Spicy but not ridiculously so.

But most surprising was the chicken skewers. Tiffany ordered them and I gave her the “Really, chicken skewers???” look but they were phenomenal. I really just expected to get the standard chicken on stick and it be ok. But they managed to give what looked like turkey size tenderloins with an amazing amount of flavor, the flavor from the cuba libre glaze stood out, I can say without a doubt the most flavorful chicken I have had, I did not expect much, and I really do like unique items on a menu, in other words I would of NEVER ordered chicken skewers, ever.. But I will order these again.

All that said, ever item was exceptional.

I am not a food reviewer, but my point with all of this is that you will not be disappointed.

We did have dessert as well, do yourself a favor order the Havana Bread, it takes 20 minutes to bake, BUT heres the trick, order the Carrot Cake Ice Cream with it. It is a perfect combo. Do it!

A little side note, a few days later we were having dinner at our local spot here in Farmington and ran into someone who we were discussing food options with, we started talking about best restaurants we have tried lately, no joke, no exaggeration we both said Sanctuaria at the exact same time. This is someone that we had never really spoke to before in any detail and this restaurant popped up. It has created a name and I am more than happy that we decided to head out and find some good foodie spots locally. I never thought that there was not good food locally, I just never took the time to go in St. Louis, I did all my foodie eating while traveling. Looks like that will be changing.