Do you have a local restaurant or bar that you like to think of as “your place?”

I haven’t exactly been bowled over by the vast array of unique and affordable eating and drinking establishments in St. Louis since I’ve moved here. It’s not that there aren’t any. Let’s just say I can’t throw a stone out my apartment door and hit two Irish pubs, a wine bar and a cute little Italian place, as was the case when I lived in Chicago.

I can, however, walk for 25 minutes (or drive for 5) and get to Sasha’s. This is “my place.” Actually, I’m pretty much always with Will when I go there, so I like to think of it as “our place.”

Sasha’s is a cute little wine bar in a cute little neighborhood next to a cute little park. It has charm and character, good wine, and a great outdoor seating area. It also has Sofia sparkling wine that comes in a cute little can with a cute little straw. What’s not to love?

Niebaum-Coppola Winery

Apparently being cute and little will get you far with me. Take my dog, for example.

But back to Sasha’s. Will and I have been regulars ever since I became an official St. Louis resident. We’ve made some great (albeit fuzzy) memories there.

There was the unusually warm November night when we were sitting outside and got caught in a thunderstorm. (This was more fun than it sounds. We didn’t get that wet. And we were drunk.) There was the sunny summer day we decided to walk over with Gatsby and I ate my salad with him sitting in my lap. Then there was the time that we went for an early dinner and promised each other we would only get two drinks, but we ran into Will’s aunt, cousin and grandma and ended up staying and drinking with them until the wee hours of the night. I think we probably quadrupled our self-imposed drink limit for that night.

The thing about Sasha’s, and the reason we always make a pact not to drink too much when we go there, is that we end up enjoying ourselves so much that we don’t want to leave. So we stay. And we drink. And we get sloshed. And until the hangover sets in the following day, we have a really, really great time.

We love the place so much that we actually have a sketch of it hanging in our dining room. The picture was a thoughtful wedding gift from Sarah, one of my bridesmaids, and if we ever move from St. Louis, at least we’ll have a cool-looking piece of art to always remind us of “our place.”

One early summer evening, we were sitting outside at Sasha’s when another young couple sat down next to us. With a baby.

Now, we were also accompanied by our pseudo-child Gatsby, but bringing a real human child to a wine bar is a different story. However, after recoiling a little at the site of the tiny stroller troll at “my place” (my very adult place), I took another sip of wine and pretty much forgot that he/she/it was there. A little while later, I glanced over, and the couple was enjoying their wine just as much as we were, with their baby happily and silently looking on. Heck, with Gatsby nearly choking himself after winding his leash around a table leg, having a dog was almost more trouble than having an infant in this case!

So, I don’t know. Maybe babies don’t cramp your style quite as much as I think. Not that I want to find out any time soon…

Here’s the part where I shamelessly promote myself.

I was inspired by my love for Sasha’s (and my desire for a free trip to San Francisco) to enter a writing contest on trazzler.com. I whipped up a cheesy little blurb about the wine bar, and if I get enough votes, I can win a trip to San Fran (my second favorite American city after Chicago)!

If you want to check it out, click here:

http://www.trazzler.com/trips/sasha-s-wine-bar-in-clayton-mo#

If you feel like voting, you just have to sign up for Trazzler (they don’t send any annoying emails, I promise), go to my trip and hit “save.”

I don’t think I’m going to win at this point, but you never know! And if I do get to go to San Francisco…I will think of you all fondly while I’m there. And maybe take a few pictures and post them on this blog. Exciting, right?!?!?

Random question of the day

Ok, how many of you girls out there (or guys, I don’t judge) had this awesomely nineties pastel radio/cassette player when you were growing up?

I had it in purple and my best friend Debbie had it in pink. And I feel like every other girl my age had it too. I’m just curious if I’m right. I heard Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” on the radio at lunch today and the image of my old girly boom box immediately popped into my head. I made some purely magical mix tapes by recording songs off the radio with this bad boy.