The List March 2010

A random collection of thoughts on the best and worst of Kansas City area restaurants:

Best Mexican A four way tie?

Fish Tacos

Mi Ranchito: One of the few places that doesn't insist on breading and frying up fish for tacos

Mole

Taqueria Mexico: This mole is so amazingly good, I would eat/drink it by the bucketful

Tortas

Tienda Casa Paloma: Massive sandwich, plan on taking half home or suffer a food coma in the afternoon. The Torta Casa Paloma is worth the $1.25 upgrade

Everything else

Vive Latino! We have eaten at Vive Latino every other week since the middle of December. I have not had a bad meal here, the staff is wonderful - especially Deanna, and I would be happy to do nothing but drink their horchata all day long

Best BBQ In this town there can be clear winners. For inexpensive BBQ, Snead's BBQ has my heart (attack) For upscale BBQ, Jack Stack - Kansas City combo with pork burnt ends and lamb ribs + half beans and fries has me drooling at the memory. Best Thai I can't get enough of the Thai House's Massuman Tofu curry. Best Indian I have been to many Indian restaurants in Kansas City. I am definitely a fan of the style, flavors and spices and the hands down winner for me remains Korma Sutra. Even if the food didn't kick as much ass as it does, the owner/front door man at the Overland Park location will make your visit worth the trip. My current favorite there is an off the menu item they whipped up for me consisting of paneer, garbanzos in a spicy tomato sauce. Also not to be missed is their coconut soup.

Best German Unfortunately for me, the by default winner is the Rhineland in Independence. Not because it's not good, but I don't live there anymore. A 30 minute drive to the Square through rush hour traffic just for some red cabbage isn't my idea of fun. Previous winner would have been The Berliner Bear.

Best Irish I have no winner here. It used to be WJ McBride's before they set sail. Waxy O'Shea's is bland trash. O'Dowd's has lost their way, their menu is just too much like the other Kansas City Hops spots. The food is good for pub food, but I want the taste of Ireland. Raglan Road? Their Orlando location rocks, KC one still sucks as of my last visit. Llywelyn's Pub, as I think about it, they're probably serving the best food for Irish joints but their food doesn't call to me.

It's getting late and I want to hit Publish Other awesome places to eat in KC in no particular order

• Room 39
• Potpie
• The Jazz - Mammou po'boy, stat! Also, best deal on dessert
• Blue Koi - Tofu ants on a tree with a mix-in of the firebird sauce + an almond bubble tea
• Classic Cookie - their specials are always awesome
• You say tomato - I can't even describe what this place is but go and have some of the best food of your life
• Latte Land - Italian Wedding cookies and nonfat green chai latte. That's all they should sell because that's all the soul needs
• Tasso's - Flaming cheese, so very very good. I would eat servings of that if I could
• Jerusalem Cafe - anything really but I do love their falafels
• Mediterranean Market - red pepper hummus could be injected straight into my veins and I would not complain
• The Gaf - Give me a gutbomb or give me another one
• Carmens - Give me many loaves of bread and their Italian butter and I'll be a fat and happy man
• Foos Fabulous Frozen Custard - Stickey Hickey = divine
• Cupinis - no bad meals here either but I love their club sandwich. The bacon is thick and goes so well with that garlic aioli. Their desserts are worth drooling over, in fact by the zuccoto. You'll thank me
• D'Bronx - J da bomb is a fantastic sandwich. 39th St location does it better than the Metcalf. And if they have them, pick up some of the chocolate and cranberry cookies for me
• HiBoy - burger, tots and an Oreo Cyclone, no lid. Best calories you'll ever taste
• Eden Alley - vegetarian heaven, current favorite is the Ruelke. Sweet potato burrito and their grilled cheese is also a solid choice
• Oklahoma Joes - ZMan
• Osteria il Centro - Walnut Chicken Pesto Pasta or something like that is the bee's knees
• Houlihans - Tuscan salad
• Taste - Grilled cheese and tomato soup

Mi Ranchito: 7148 W 80th St, Overland Park, KS 66204 Taqueria Mexico: 3300 Rainbow Boulevard, Kansas City, KS Tienda Casa Paloma 8220 Metcalf Ave. Overland Park, KS 66204 Vive Latino! 99th & Holmes, Kansas City, MO

Snead's Bar-B-Q

Snead's Bar-B-Q (171st & Holmes Rd Belton, MO 816.331.7979): Old Fashioned Hickory-Pit Bar-B-Q since 1956 W, R, Su 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. F & Sa 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. I had caught wind of Snead's a few years back but all I could remember was "somewhere south on Holmes." After visiting them for a late lunch today, I wish we had not waited so long. Snead's serves a mighty fine dry BBQ. The flavor of the bare meat is good but it's their two sauces that really make it shine. They have two flavors of homemade sauce: a mild and a hot. Most place's sauces are made hotter by just adding more pepper but at Snead's they change out their base. The mild is a sweeter, molasses based sauce while they switch out to a vinegar base for their spicy. Both are winners and after a leisurely hour there, I still couldn't decide which was the better sauce. I punted halfway through my meal and just mixed them. I ordered their small "brownies," burnt ends, which they offer beef, ham and sausage. I split it beef and sausage and it was a good call. Pork burnt ends are my weakness but this was a great call. The beef was large chunks of succulent beef, slightly marbled but not overtly so, served with a good set of sliced sausage on 4 slices of standard white-bread sliced into triangles. Covering all of that was a mess of homemade fries. If there weren't a few oddball fries in there, I'd have thought them to be a food service bag but nope, they appear to be the real deal. Most meals come with coleslaw and pickles (also irregular enough to probably be made in house). I'm not a fan of slaw in general but I could consume mass quantities of their deliciousness. My boy ordered the combo plate of ribs and sliced beef. I only had a taste of the ribs but it was fine. Not the most amazing I've ever had but toss some of their sauce on it and I'll be sucking the marrow from it. My wife went with the "log meat on a bun" which was just the left over bits and pieces finely chopped and slapped onto a bun. I think I'll have to go with that next time as it's a wonderful mix of all their meats. She also had a salad that I wish I had snapped a picture of. It was a standard house salad with a tiny dentist sized dixie cup of finely shredded cheddar cheese. What I wanted a picture of was the enormous tureen of salad dressing it came with as my wife asked for it on the side. The building itself is long and split between a smoking and non-smoking section. There were people smoking in there but the ventilation was up to the challenge of keeping it out of our section. The non-smoking section looked to be twice as large as the smoking section and lighted with plenty of natural light. We were seated in at a window-side table which looked out over, well a backyard: grass, trees, small pond, fairly standard country setting. The room itself, besides expansive, seems the sort of place that fills up with locals after Sunday service. The walls are adorned with country kitsch one would expect but in a pleasing way. I love good service and this place delivers. We were quickly seated, asked for our drink order and our waitress checked in us periodically. My massive Coca-Cola glass never ran out of iced tea which is unusual for as much as I drink. Our food was delivered promptly and everything was correct. For me, it was a lot of the little things that really made me happy to have a meal here. Drink prices, while I do understand places need to make money, it just seems wrong to me to charge 3 dollars for a glass of tea. At the risk of dating myself, I remember when places charged far less for tea than pop (and they didn't offer complimentary refills on pop either). Fountain beverages and tea (sweet or unsweet) are just $1.40 and that's fine by me. In fact, their prices all around are very reasonable. $5.75 for their sandwiches to 17.95 for a full slab of ribs with the sweet spot around 7 dollars. I feel remiss for having been to a BBQ joint and not sampling their beans but that will be remedied with the next visit. My wife has called dibs on trying their sweet potato fries. They have daily specials which I'll also have to sample at some point. The final reason I will have to visit Snead's again is pie. I should have ordered dessert first as when we walked in, a pecan pie had been listed. When it came time for ordering dessert (to go, no way we had room for it), they were down to Lemon meringue, blackberry, chocolate, apple and maybe one other? I knew we had to walk out with at least a blackberry as it's my wife's favorite berry and I might have an inclination toward chocolate. Unbeknownst to my wife, I have already sampled both and I'm surprised I was able to stop at only a forkful of each, well maybe a fork and a half. Good, flaky crust is such a thing of joy. I had to run back upstairs and check my receipt. For a minute, I thought they hadn't charged me for our slices of pie but it's just part of the whole reasonable pricing of their food that had me confused. $41.25 for 3 drinks, 2 slices of pie, a sandwich, and 2 meat-centric dinners.

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.

That's how they do it in Italy!

2008/06/08 Blue Grotto 6324 Brookside Blvd Kansas City, MO 64113 Map My wife was hungry for some pasta and one of our favorite places for Italian is Carmens in Brookside. Alas, it was Sunday and they are closed but I noticed the place that had been under construction had a hand-lettered sign advertising that they were open at 6 p.m. We slipped across the street and peered into the large windows into the Blue Grotto. It is located between Domo and the Brooksider. We weren't sure what type of a place it was, beyond one that clearly serves alcohol. We stepped in and it had nice look to it with a long dark bar and naked wood tables set across from it. Very modern to my savage eye. We asked the hostess at the far end whether they served food and my spidey-sense went off when they described it as artisan pizzas but we were hungry so up we went. Their literature says it heats the dough to 900 degrees Fahrenheit and it was an impressive structure. The dining area is located at the back end of the bar and above the wood-fired oven. The tables were in the same motif as the bar area, dark tables of naked wood. Two things immediately struck me. The first was a constant blast of icy cold air from the ductwork aimed directly at our table. I am a polar bear so it did not bother me but other patrons got up and actually asked for them to do something about the coolness. I can only assume that is what the family was doing as the wife and small girl got up from the table and came back with a staffer while the father sat there with the large linen napkins covering the head and shoulder that were facing the duct. We were leaving but it appeared they were getting seated elsewhere as the employee standing on a chair wasn't able to do much about it. The other thing that struck me was the noise! Hard surfaces are everywhere in the place and sitting at the back and top of a long narrow bar made me feel like we were on the edge of a phonograph horn. The menu was a simple slip of paper and sounded delicious. There were a trio of appetizers, first plates, as they referred to them. A trio of salads and then about ten pizzas. They were reasonably priced, 10-15 dollars as I recall which was a fine price-point for me. The final item on the menu was "NO SUBSTITUTIONS." We had already ordered beverages before we saw that. My wife had a nice glass of malbec and my son, 6, asked for an orange juice. My boy eats a far more varied diet than I did but he's still a child and the sausage (salsiccia) pizza sounded great, as long as they could arrange it such that the mushrooms and onions were only on half of the pie. I thought the margherita pizza sounded delicious as did the appetizers and the salads. Our waitress welcomed us with great news, two of the three appetizers were unavailable. This was 6:10 and they had apparently sold out of things or something, who knows. Salads then---they had a Greek which sounded good but not as good as the Ceaser and the blue. We placed orders for the latter two, the Margherita and then asked whether they could simply arrange the toppings such that one half is only sausage. > I'm sorry, we can't do substitutions. >> Yes, I see that. I'm not asking for a substitution. We want all the toppings, simply distribute them so that sausage is on one half. Make the other half use the rest of the ingredients. With a pained look on her face, she said she'd ask. It seemed such a harmless thing, as they're assembling the pizzas right there, they're not prepackaged but what do I know. As our waitress slips away, she says something about the pizzas may not come out at the same time. That's fine we assure her. Time passes, my boy downs his glass of OJ and we had let him know that he was only getting one glass. A waiter swings by and says I'll get you another juice and whisks the glass away. "Wow," I think, "they don't normally give refills on that sort of thing." Salads start appearing around us and I'm jealous in my anticipation of my wife's blue. It has an apple that is looks like it's been through a shoe-string fry maker. My glass kept going empty, they use a tall but very narrow glass and the staff wasn't always upstairs. Tall and narrow had me a bit nervous with my boy as even though he is 6, accidents do happen so kept a close eye on him and his glass. At least mine was going dry due to my own efforts whereas my wife's glass started at 1/3 full. Not half as my uncultured self would expect but less than. Of course we just laughed about it and made cracks about the glass being half full, half empty. Fully an hour later, our pizzas arrive, both at the same time. Well, eventually they arrive. The person delivering them, I can only assume the owner/manager as he was dressed differently stopped by every table and asked whether this pizza was theirs. People that had sat down after us, ordered after us had their salads already and we were a little tired of waiting for anything so we let this person know that we wanted to cancel the salads as we are no longer interested in them. He gives us this look of disgust at the stupid customers and says, "well, that's how they do it in Italy" and huffs off. My wife and I share a look of "Did that just happen?" It's our fault that we don't like being poorly attended to and choose to not eat salad as dessert? They do substitutions there as our sausage and other things pizza was substituted to be just sausage. My pizza with it's torn basil was less than stellar. The dough wasn't bad but and there was just too much of a bad taste in my mouth to really enjoy it. The sausage was fine but didn't strike me as anything great. Our waitress apologized about the salads once she finally showed up, we didn't mention the sausage as we had already given up on the place. The bill came and I was so eager to get out I just handed her my card. Of course that was a mistake as the salads were still on there. They were having troubles with their credit card machine so there were not copies for us but we could take the ticket home and she assured me that they fixed it all. I said that's fine, I trust you. I'll also be checking my online bill and happily disputing the charge if it's incorrect. So, in summary looking for poor service, marginal food and snotty attitude? The Blue Grotto is a great hole I won't be climbing into anytime soon. And remember, any time you mess up, claim "that's how they do it in Italy!"

Raison d'être

I dine out far too frequently and I enjoy tasting new things. I am not however, a foodie. I might wish to be one but just this weekend I picked up a bag of fried caramel so to say my palate is refined would be laughable. I was horribly finicky as a child, my diet consisted of cereal, milk, hot dogs, bologna, plain meat, potato chips, etc. The concept of fruit, vegetables and sauces were beyond the realm of possible. Last Tuesday I had escargot so my eating has changed a bit over the years. More about my tastes later, on with the show!