Monday, January 2, 2017

Rooster Downtown for Brunch or That Time I was Rude to Jon Hamm

Rooster Downtown


NOT picture used as cover to stalk Jon Hamm

Let me just keep it real, I;m about as good at keeping my commitment to write on a regular basis as I am at sneaking pictures of celebrities in public places.  So, I'll kill two birds in this post by telling you about my brunch at Rooster where I used my family as a cover to take a picture of Jon Hamm attempting to have a peaceful breakfast before the Winter Classic in St. Louis this past Monday. 

Weekday brunches aren't always easy to find but Rooster offers breakfast 7 days a week, they're trendy, locally owned, and right down town.  It seemed like a no-brainer.  In retrospect I should have stuck with the recommendations made to me by another local foodie.  It wasn't terrible, and well, I saw Jon Hamm in the flesh.  But they seemed ill prepared for the crowds and our service left a heck of a lot to be desired.  Everyone was friendly and the food was good.  I had scrambled eggs over black beans and fried potatoes and I do believe my mom's eggs were perfectly poached.  My sister ordered a savory crepe and my nephew a classic Nutella and strawberry.  Both were tasty but I think the neph did mention a lack of strawberry.  Big props for having self serve Kaldi's coffee accessible while you wait.  

The wait wasn't bad but there was nowhere to stand that we weren't in the way.  Of course that's what led us to our "encounter" with Mr. Draper.  My sister shuffled off to an adjacent room to get away from the crowds and comes back immediately, pulling me by my jacket "You'd know what Jon Hamm looks like wouldn't you?"  Yep, sure was him and we shamefully faked a photo of the fam to attempt to get him in the background.  I was totally caught and later felt the need to explain to my youngest nephew that what I did was just plain rude.  Still posted that business on social media though.  What can I say, I'm a conflicted human. 

It was about 15 minutes after we sat before we were acknowledge at our table and then our silverware, water, glasses, food, and drinks all came piece meal if at all.  My oldest nephew finally just decided to drink the water straight from the carafe.  My sister's meal came when the rest of us were 3/4 of the way through ours after reminding the servers that she didn't have her food, and my beverage never came even after asking 2 or 3 servers about it.  Thankfully I wasn't charged for it.  But on a note of the ticket, they messed those up too, but that's forgivable as we did split our tickets. 

Rooster is one of several Bailey's restaurants in our area and I've been to a few of them.  I have to say that I've not been over the moon impressed with them, the exception being Bailey's Chocolate Bar.  They seem to rely heavily on trendiness and as I get older that impresses me less and less. The food was good enough for me to give this place another shot on a less crowded day, although given that brunch is something you usually eat on weekends, I'm not sure how soon that will be.  

Sorry this post wasn't funny or clever.  I wasted all my clever on my shameful social media posts about Jon Hamm.