night life in st louis

Half way - at the Omni Majestic, St Louis - an aberrantly cat-friendly hotel where the desk staff want to meet each cat individually, by name. Ever since we stopped here on the way out, I'd had my beady gastronomic eye on what looked like a very promising Peruvian restaurant - occasionally running my imagination through its menu (since Peruvian cooking relies so much on ceviche, potatoes and cheese, I'm very partial to it); considering it as The Last Treat of the Summer. Downtown St Louis is not the kind of place that suggests advance booking to one. But ALAS! It is Restaurant Week. Everywhere was packed - no chance of a Peruvian table - we had to go back to the same very, very bad Thai place we'd eaten in before, redeemed only by lychee martinis. And downtown - as above - is the same strange sad place at night (apart from a few blocks of restaurants) - full of magnificent architecture, much of which is longing to be turned into loft apartments - and almost empty. Just north of here - we made a small inadvertent detour coming in - are blocks and blocks of deserted, half burned, half torn down late C19th houses, telling the story of urban decline in a most dismal fashion. And these buildings, above, are to rent - the one on the right bearing the engraved lettering of a former private gas company - but their current prospects would seem bleak. All the same, those restaurant eaters must have come from somewhere ...