St Louis - Connection and Reflection

The roadtrip just keeps getting better, as dinner in St. Louis was the highlight of the trip so far. As with many stories, it started out with a misstep since I had originally intended to eat at a place called Super Smokers where I used to eat pork steaks with a couple of colleagues at the time. I've never seen pork steaks available outside of St. Louis -- gooey butter cake being another regional item -- so I was looking forward to another 12-14 oz. portion of boneless porkaliciousness. Unfortunately, while on the road I discovered that they're no longer in business (which explains why their name isn't hyperlinked here). Props to Don for coming to the rescue, as I asked him to find the best pork steak in St. Louis while I was en route. He came up with a place called Roper's Ribs, though he warned me that it might not be in the nicest of neighborhoods. Arriving at 9:30pm (they close at 10pm on Saturdays), I did find the area to be a little rough. The establishment resembles Chinese carryout places in economically-challenged neighborhoods in that there were 4 2-top tables in a small room -- maybe 12' x 16' -- facing a solid floor-to-ceiling wall with a small counter at which to place one's order. There were pictures to go along with the menu of food items above the counter so although I had come with the intention of ordering a pork steak, the pictures led me to order the tip and snoot combo. Yes, that's pork rib tips and pig snouts. The food takes a while to prepare so I finally retrieved my food a little before 10pm, with no other customers present since they all carried their orders out.

I'll pause the story here to describe the food. The standard styrofoam container was very heavy, being filled to the brim with tips, snoots, and sauce. The layer of rib tips was covered with the snoots, which were about 1.5" x 3" in size. Each piece had folds much like brains do (more on gyri and sulci here) and were fried very crisp; they could not be pierced with a plastic fork so I had to use my fingers. The snoots required significant force to bite through, nearly as hard as rock candy. Curiously, the snoots did not shatter into small pieces upon biting through as expected; the snoots aren't brittle -- perhaps being softened by the sauce -- and seem to have the architecture of a series of air pockets like fried pork rinds, though far denser. The inside is not as hard as the outside, but still very crisp. They don't have a strong flavor by themselves -- it's just slightly porky -- but do an excellent job of absorbing sauce. They're pretty tasty but not something I'd prefer to have as the central focus of a meal. The rib tips were fantastic. One of the keys to barbecue is that the meat is not supposed to be falling-apart tender; the connective tissue needs to be rendered down into gelatin but there still has to be a little tooth and texture to the meat. The rib tips were right in that zone, and the little cylinders of cartilage (~0.33" in diameter) embedded within were crunchily edible. Anyone who's seen me eat chicken wings knows of my fondness for cartilage. I categorize barbecue sauces first by thickness: if the surface of the sauce is flat then I think of it as "thin", a textured surface means that the sauce is "thick". Roper's sauce rates as thin by this scale but is far from watery; it rests lightly on the tongue and coats it, whereas a sauce made up of mostly water or vinegar will not coat the tongue. The sauce is less sweet than the Kansas City style and is not hot, but blends enough spices that I couldn't pick any specific ones out. Apparently some people just drink down the sauce by itself and I can see why, as there's a warm, slight pepperiness to it that is very savory but not insistent. I tend to think of flavors in terms of musical pitch: citrus and acid flavors feel like high notes to me, while earthy and savory flavors are in the lower register. Roper's sauce plays in the mid-upper range with a nice bass line. The key is that the dish is about the meat, not the sauce. I think of Roper's use of sauce as that of a skilled supporting actor, displaying consummate ability without diverting attention from the star of the show. The ribs were just as good several hours later as a late-night snack, perhaps because they were submerged in sauce and had no opportunity to dry up. I'm forced to say that my favorite ribs used to be from a literal shack by the side of the road in Kansas City called LC's, but my favorite is now Roper's.





Just as the fellow behind the counter was locking the door at 10 sharp, 3 preppy-looking Caucasians walked in; I only note this because we stood out as ethnic exceptions to the clientele that I had witnessed during my visit. They indicated that they had driven down from Wisconsin for a wrestling tournament, had specifically ventured here because they had read internet reviews of the place, and were willing to take whatever food items were available just so they could say they had eaten there. They must have said the magic words at some point because the dude behind the counter indicated that he would ask one of the owners to come and say hi to them when their food was ready. I should note that I had indicated that I was from DC and visiting during a cross-country roadtrip, and did not receive a similar offer. So Denise Roper comes out a little while later, and she has the kind of presence that fills a room and draws one's attention not because of volume, but because she is so genuinely open and friendly and welcoming. She took pictures with the Wisconsinites and then I piped up -- with a mouthful of snoot -- that I'd like some of that action as well. The Wisconsinites left during that time and I began chatting with Denise about my trip and the different styles of barbecue that I was looking forward to eating. I mentioned the Memphis dry rub preference and she told me that Roper's tried introducing dry rub ribs some time ago but it failed because St. Louis is all about the sauce. We did a little analysis of the involved marketing challenges, sparking a plan to re-introduce dry rub on the menu. We continued discussing various aspects of running the business and some time later a gentleman with an apron stepped out and joined the chat; this was Carl Roper, Denise's husband and the man behind the meat. We launched into a spirited discussion regarding the challenges of the local clientele and the different things that they've done to weed out undesirable customers, from pricing to numerous menu alterations -- they took tripe off the menu because it involves too many variables and they were getting too many unfounded complaints -- to simply deselecting certain individuals. One of my professional areas of interest is customer valuation so it was fascinating to explore the ways in which the Ropers intuitively grasped the concept without the buzzwords the corporate world uses and implemented a large number of very thoughtful adjustments. They've had this shop for 17 years (and have been making barbecue since the mid-70's) but only started really making significant adjustments related to their customer base in the past 7 years or so. Long story made only slightly less long, we talked for well over an hour after closing time and it ranks as one of the best experiences I can recall. It's not every year that one gets to discuss food, business, and human nature with two warm and engaging people who were responsible for the best ribs one's ever had. As an aside, Denise's business card is actually printed on a thin sheet of hickory, since that's the wood they use to barbecue.



Three cheers for taking chances and a small sense of adventure, as it would have been very easy to have bypassed Roper's for a safer-looking neighborhood, it would have been very easy to have ordered the pork steaks instead of the tips and snoots, and it would have been very easy to not have requested a picture with Denise. The rewards of curiosity far outweigh any number of missteps.

Miles driven (Naperville, IL to St. Louis, MO): 275 / 1020
New friends made: 3 / 21
Police cars flying by with sirens blaring during dinner: 6
Bugs cleaned off of windshield: 378