Culpeppers is a down-home, American restaurant complete with big screen TVs showing every possible game inside. There’s also a full bar for diners to sit, chat and order drinks.

Like any inexpensive American-style restaurant, Culpeppers offers an extensive menu that is sure to please the pickiest palate, as evidenced by the restaurant’s slogan, “Food for the rest of us.” From hot wings to ribs to seafood, Culpeppers really does have it all.

I went to Culpeppers for this past Parent’s Weekend with my grandparents, who wanted to make sure I wasn’t starving in college. After much contemplation, I decided to order the gourmet turkey sandwich, while my grandparents ordered French onion soup in a bread bowl and the house salad.

Sure, we chose basic items from the menu, but they were still flavorful and delicious. My turkey sandwich came on sweet, whole-wheat bread with just the right amount of mayo to make the meal really pop. The sandwich came with my choice of either steak fries or waffle fries, and with my indecisiveness, I decided to get half and half. Both styles of fries were thick and hearty and complemented the sandwich very well.

In stereotypical fashion, my grandparents insisted that I try their French onion soup. I’m from California, the land famous for its clam chowder in bread bowls, so I was at first hesitant to try this St. Louis version.  From the outside, it looked like the bread bowl was slightly burnt and that the onion soup consisted of nothing more than layers of melted cheese. When I dug in, however, I was surprised to taste a rich and sweet onion flavor.

Any soup can be prepared by Culpeppers in a bread bowl, and I highly recommend it because the contrast between slightly burnt bread and soup is great. When they finished their soups, I made sure to scrape up the bottom of the bread bowls, which had soaked up the sweet, soupy remnants.

My grandfather’s salad was standard, yet, just like everything else at Culpeppers, the portion was huge. It also came with cubes of American cheese, which I thought was an interesting touch to the typical salad.

While none of us were able to finish our meals (they are still currently sitting in my refrigerator), my grandparents insisted that we get dessert. We decided to split the brownie sundae between the four of us, which was a great choice. The dessert came complete with a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream and was drenched in chocolate sauce. Needless to say, it was very rich and is a dessert that must be split among a party.

On the whole, Culpeppers is a great casual American place to go to with a large group of friends. Everyone is sure to find something they love and that they can take home to enjoy for days to come.

Culpeppers, Central West End, 300 N. Euclid Avenue
Rating: 4/5

Ranoush, a Syrian restaurant on the Delmar Loop, offers a worthy replacement to Saleem’s. (Josh Goldman | Student Life)

Walking along the Loop, you might not notice a change in the landscape, but a new restaurant—Ranoush—has risen where Saleem’s once reigned. The new locale is difficult to spot as it has kept much of the style and aura of the former establishment.

Ranoush is actually Syrian while Saleem’s was Lebanese, but this subtlety went unnoticed by my American palate—the main difference in the food was the goodness. Ranoush seems to have beaten Saleem’s in that respect.

I went with my friend, senior Danny Marom, and we split the “Ranoush Menu” for $22. The combination buys you three appetizers (called “mezza” on the menu, separated into cold and hot options), a choice between two entrées, mint tea, and baklava. As the appetizers regularly cost around $5 each and entrées between $12-17, this ended up being a very good deal.

For our appetizers, we chose the hot mezza of Kibbeh, fried balls of spiced meat, and Arayes, a pita stuffed with beef and pine nuts. The Kibbeh had a perfect crunch-exterior-to-soft-interior ratio, but I felt that the flavor was too mild. The Arayes had a pleasantly stringy texture, like pulled as opposed to ground meat. The roasted pine nuts in this dish added a nice crunch to contrast with the texture of the meat, and both were covered in light flavorful grease. It was just enough to satisfy our hunger and keep us interested in the rest of the meal to come.

From the cold mezza menu we chose a classic: hummus. The hummus tasted like it does in Israel—lemony and smooth. I would dare to say it competes with, and maybe even surpasses, Sabra (a brand of hummus found at global grocery stores and known for its authenticity). The real sticking point for me was the sumac on top, which pushed it over the edge from nicely done to simply great hummus.

Unfortunately, the pita (middle eastern flatbread) that came with the hummus did little to add to the dish. It was thinner than a pita-eater might expect and contributed virtually nothing to the flavor, while demanding a bit of chewing. Gone was the pleasant and satisfying bite of puffier pitas. The flatbread also came out cold, an easily amendable error that could make a world of difference if fixed.

For the entrée, we were given the option of choosing between two dishes, and we chose the “Ranoush mixed grill,” a combo of grilled chicken, shrimp and beef kebab. The beef and the shrimp were both fine—a bit tough, but still tasty. The chicken blew my mind. As Marom explained, the morsels of chicken “tear apart at the perfect rate to allow your top tooth to delicately meet your bottom tooth.” It broke apart as though there were nothing there but a cloud of meaty juiciness.

(Josh Goldman | Student Life)

With the end of the meal in sight, we slowly devoured the baklava alongside a pleasantly minty tea. The chefs at Ranoush use a rosewater syrup instead of the typical honey coating on the baklava: a pastry made with layers of buttery phyllo dough and walnuts, with pistachios sprinkled decoratively on top. I found the rose flavor an apt alternative to more honey: It provided a refreshing twist on an otherwise heavy dish. I also want to commend Ranoush on its vegetarian-friendly menu; the restaurant offers a lot of vegan and vegetarian options—a total of nine vegan and 12 vegetarian mezza and three vegan entrées.