Fried Tears

Raglan Road 170 E 14th St Kansas City, MO 64121 Ominous beginning to this blog with two clunkers in a row. Raglan Road isn't in the same category of a failure as The Blue Grotto but I will say that we weren't impressed with our supper this evening. The space is gorgeous, I love the bar and the dining area, it's good craic. The front half is the dining area with the back half opening into the KC Live area. There's definitely a difference in the mood and the volume between the two halves. The naked wood tables were set with ceramic tiles placemats. While I liked the visual appearance of them and they undoubtedly protect the surface, they were cumbersome. My plate rocked on top of it and rearranging them to get the oversized appetizer platter to fit on the table was more Tetris than I like to have with my meals. The menu was nice, it had a lot of delicious sounding items on it. We were all hungry as we sat down and were fussing over which appetizer to go with: I thought the sausages with mustard sounded good while my wife was torn between the Guinness ribs and the scallops. Our helpful waitress solved our dilemma with "We have a combo platter." The ribs had a bit of a sweet glaze to them but that was the only flavor they had. The mustard battered sausages were a double disappointment as they had neither a mustard taste to the batter and the sausage had every appearance and taste of a vienna sausage. The pan seared scallops were more of a tempura deep fried. I would say they were the best of the trio but I doubt I would try them again. With the appetizer, they also brought out a small bread plate. In it was a small sampling of brown soda bread and a white, maybe it was a sourdough with a red pepper something. The soda bread had a nice texture and a good taste, the other was forgettable with no discernible pepper bite. They also had a Guinness dipping sauce that tasted more like honey and olive oil. For our main course, we had the risotto (with mushrooms, asparagus) with the addition of shrimp, a pork loin on colcannon potatoes, leeks and mushroom with Myst glace? The sauce was too sweet for the dish. The pork was good and there was a taste of cloves somewhere in there that helped balance the sweetness. It was elusive though, I would taste it with the pork one bite, next in the leeks and potatoes. My wife was disappointed to see the shrimp were fried as she had already had enough fried food this meal. The few bites of risotto I had were good. It was creamy on the outside but still firm in the center with a nice parmesan flavor. Our boy had chicken tenders and fries which were standard fair although they did appear to be non-mass produced. We wrapped up the meal with dessert because hey, why not? The desserts all sounded good but we went with the creme brulee. The presentation was different from what I am used to. Instead of an individual dish, it was a slice about the size of a slice of cheesecake from the Factory. It was very pretty and I enjoyed it. It came with a scoop of ice cream sitting on a bed of walnuts with a melted sugar abstract art piece sitting on top. I will give try Raglan Road a few more times before I give up on it but I'll definitely be going in with my expectations lowered.