FeaturesApril 21, 2015
Dining around the world: Options for international cuisine abound in Southeast Missouri
No need to change your latitude to adjust your attitude when it comes to dining in Southeast Missouri. Cape Girardeau and the surrounding area offer fare of the islands -- the Caribbean, Greece, Ireland, Japan -- and flavors of Mexico, Europe and Asia. Venturing beyond the hamburger horizon, our palates can book passage to paradise...
Story Nancy Hadler, photos by Laura Simon, Glenn Landberg and Fred Lynch ~ The Bridge
No need to change your latitude to adjust your attitude when it comes to dining in Southeast Missouri.
Cape Girardeau and the surrounding area offer fare of the islands -- the Caribbean, Greece, Ireland, Japan -- and flavors of Mexico, Europe and Asia. Venturing beyond the hamburger horizon, our palates can book passage to paradise.
Zoi Mousadakos is celebrating her 21st year as a restaurateur in Cape Girardeau. Anchoring the southeast corner of Broadway and Caruthers Avenue, Zoi's Gyros Corner delivers the taste of Greece though the drive-up window or inside the vest-pocket-sized dining room, where the sound of Greek television is heard in the background.
"I put my love into the food. I take pride in it. I make everything from scratch, and use the same spices you'd find in my kitchen at home," says Mousadakos, who was born in Greece and immigrated to New York in 1975 before finding her way to Southeast Missouri.
Zoi's menu includes the mainstay gyros; kefka, Mediterranean-style meatballs served in pita bread; hummus; salads; dolmathes, or stuffed grape leaves; and the traditional Greek dessert, baklava.
"I'm proud of my little place. I love this place. I find my oxygen here," Mousadakos says.
A few blocks east, Sam Alsmadi serves a trio of dips -- baba ghanoush, hummus and mahamarah -- at Mediterranean on Broadway. Central to the menu is a traditional Middle Eastern sandwich, falafel, which consists of deep-fried balls of ground chickpeas with tomato, onion and tahini sauce wrapped in a pita.
Alsmadi, who has been in Cape Girardeau for nine years after a 20-year career in the hospitality industry in St. Louis, says the restaurant's best-seller is the garlic chicken sandwich.
About an hour's drive southwest of Cape is another Mediterranean outpost, Dhafer's Mediterranean Steak House, the province of chef Dhafer Al-Makuter and his wife, Melissa, who serves as general manager of the Dexter, Missouri, restaurant. The menu includes cuisine from throughout the Mediterranean region -- Italian pasta dishes, the classic Middle Eastern meat dish shawarma and a chicken caprese sandwich, invoking the cooking style of the island of Capri off the Italian coast.
Serving a healthy dose of Russian cuisine and new to the Cape Girardeau restaurant world is Milk and Honey Cafe at 229 Broadview. Svetlana Alsup emigrated from Russia in 2010, and with her husband, Randy, settled in Sikeston, Missouri. Now, she operates the restaurant in partnership with her son-in-law, Peter. The place has a unique ambience, and the bright dining room is trumped only by the arresting aromas emanating from the kitchen.
"For many, this is the first experience with Russian food. And they like it and keep coming," Alsup says of the menu, which includes borscht, traditional beef-vegetable soup with beetroot; meat- and vegetable-stuffed dumplings; pirozhki, a meat or vegetable pie; blinis, the Russian take on crepes; and desserts including honey cake, milk chocolate cake, German strudel and almond raisin butter cookies.
When asked what offering is surfacing as a customer favorite, Alsup, without hesitation, answers, "Honey cake. It's different." Its ingredients include milk, egg, sour cream, honey and walnut, and the cake is sold by the piece, or an entire cake may be purchased for $12.75.
Galati's Italian Ristorante has been serving authentic pizza, pasta and sandwiches at 124 N. Main St. in Perryville, Missouri, for 25 years.
Sal Galati, who emigrated from Sicily to St. Louis in 1974, is known for what he calls his "old-fashioned" pizza style, and his wife Vita creates pasta sauces based on traditional family recipes.
The extensive menu includes freshly made breadsticks and bruschetta; pizza ranging in size from 12 to 18 inches with a choice of 21 toppings; a half-dozen specialty pizzas; create-your-own and other calzones; and pasta favorites including spaghetti, lasagna, chicken parmigiana and more.
"We make everything from scratch -- the pizza dough, the pizza sauce, the pasta sauce, everything," Galati says.
"I guarantee my food. I know it's good," he adds. "When people come in for the first time, I tell them, 'If you don't like it, you don't have to pay a dime.' But, so far, everybody's been paying."
A new restaurant bringing Italian fare to Cape Girardeau is Mario and Angela's Italian Cucina, which opened in January at 1740 Broadway and is open evenings, starting at 4 p.m., and closed Sundays.
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And, yes, there really is a Mario and there really is an Angela. The Grippos are a dad-and-daughter duo, with Mario, who emigrated from Italy to New Jersey in 1972, in the kitchen and Angela out front.
The menu is chockablock with Italian favorites -- more than a dozen pasta offerings, pizzas, strombolis and calzones, salads and 12-inch submarine sandwiches. The dessert offerings include New York-style cheesecake, tiramisu, cannolis, Italian cream cake and Italian rum cake.
Any of the menu items is available for "take and bake," meaning the dishes or pizzas are put together, and the customer bakes them fresh at home.
"Crazy good" is how Angela describes the response to the restaurant, adding that the eatery is known for "generous portions at a reasonable price."
Graciela Aguirre, owner of Muy Bueno, a Cape Girardeau mainstay since 2007, says the extensive menu reflects the recipes of her mother and grandmother and the flavors of her hometown of Durango, Mexico. Aguirre emphasizes the food is "100 percent fresh, and made as it's ordered."
While it's difficult for her to identify a dish that might be a customer favorite, Aguirre says, "People really love the tamales."
She classifies the guacamole as "a signature dish. Little kids as young as 1 year old even love the guacamole."
Muy Bueno, at the corner of Independence Street and Sheridan Drive, had an intersection with fame in 2013, when actors and the production crew of "Gone Girl" frequented the restaurant. Star Ben Affleck dined there about three times, Aguirre says, adding that whether eating in the dining room or ordering carryout, the restaurant saw crew members about three times a week.
Mexican food comes to Scott City via Las Brisas, with a wide-ranging menu that includes lunch specials, steaks and seafood, vegetarian selections, a children's menu and desserts that include fried ice cream, a fried banana or apple burrito, flan and the traditional sopapilla, a deep-fried flour tortilla topped with honey, butter and cinnamon.
Christopher Marques, La Brisas manager, says the large restaurant -- the dining room seats as many as 70 -- is family oriented; it doesn't serve alcohol.
Marques says that, among the Mexican dishes, the chimichangas and fajitas are probably the most popular.
If French is your fancy, look no further than The Inn St. Gemme Beauvais in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, the oldest continuously operated bed-and-breakfast in the state. Constructed in 1848, the inn serves classic and modern French cuisine -- three-course meals on Friday and Saturday evenings.
Although not a formally trained chef, Cathy Brans -- who with her husband, Jan, has owned the bed-and-breakfast for 12 years -- weekly creates a distinct menu that includes choices of four appetizers, four entrees and four desserts. A recent menu offered "cuisses de grenouilles au buerre persillad," frog legs in parsley butter, and "escalopes de veau viennoise," veal scallops with anchovies, olives and capers.
The dining room can accommodate 32 diners, and reservations are recommended but not required.
While living in Texas, the couple got the bug to open a bed-and-breakfast, Cathy explains.
"We searched the Internet, found this place, came up here and fell in love with it," she says. "Missouri's a beautiful state, but it's a well-kept secret."
Christopher Dirnberger, general manager of Katy O'Ferrell's Publick House in Cape Girardeau, says the restaurant and bar have received "overwhelming support" since opening a little over a year ago. As an upscale Irish pub, the place has its very own holiday -- St. Patrick's Day -- and the crowd on March 17 was tremendous.
While the menu is chock full of Irish fare -- Dirnberger says customer favorites are shepherd's pie, Celtic potpie and fish and chips -- it also includes steaks and seafood, salads and sandwiches. Open every day, Katy's features a daily happy hour from 2 to 6 p.m. and from 9 p.m. to close, with half-price appetizers and drink specials.
Co-owner with his father, Mark, Dirnberger says he "is happy to be part of all the good things happening along Broadway" in downtown Cape.
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