Zeemanb

I think it may just be John Edward, not Edwards. He's the guy who does that fake psychic (as if there's another kind....) show where he talks to your dead relatives. Judy, you really missed out on a fine joke there. I feel bad for you. I'll go for the "Carol Anne! Go towards the menudo Carol Anne!" next time someone talks about getting to Taconazo from "the other side".

Okay, I'm drawing a blank trying to come up with some good John Edwards-related one liners here. Anyone else?

Just read on the Channel 5 website that the Jazz District development group is going to start courting national companies in an attempt to revitalize the area around 18th and Vine. Housing has already begun to pick up a little, but there are still too many empty retail spaces. Mixed feelings here...I realize that there aren't many locally owned business willing to roll the dice and open up shop in the area (or they would have done it by now), but at the same time the thought of relying on national chains to breath life into the district is depressing. Looks as though the Power and Light District (a.k.a. downtown Kansas City's salvation) will have many of the heavy hitter chains like Chipotle....guess it's not completely ridiculous to imagine an Applebee's or Ruby Tuesday's wedged somewhere between the Peach Tree and the Negro League Baseball Museum.

I've only seen the first episode so far and enjoyed it very much. Did anyone else wince in pain as the frat boys tore into the Jeep cake? What was the comment afterwards? Something along the lines of..."I think they would have been just as happy with a big pile of cake with Jeep written acros the top".

We talked about having some beers, but we knew it would just take up room where tacos were supposed to go! I don't think I was hungry again until lunchtime on Sunday, but still, I know we can pack in more places next time......I just know it.

Chileheadmike and I have been talking about doing some kind of “taco crawl” up and down Central Avenue in KCK for at least the past year, and Saturday we headed out with his daughter for an impromptu dry run. With the lofts and loft-dweller friendly businesses hitting critical mass in the Crossroads, we have been hoping to crown Central (and Kansas) Avenue as “The New Southwest Boulevard”. This is by no means a comprehensive list of what the area has to offer, we probably passed by five times as many taquerias, carnicerias, paleterias and bodegas as we visited (all between 7th and 18th Street on Central and Kansas Avenues). I’m originally from the area…… born at Bethany Medical Center, grew up going to church at 15th and Central, got my first tattoo right across the street from it at East Coast Al’s, and it was amazing to see how the strip has changed over the years. When I last went to church down there in 1992 or so things had gotten pretty scary. Lots of drugs, violence, prostitution around the clock....your run of the mill HBO “America Undercover” documentary. At some point things have taken a huge turn for the better, at least at first glance. It’s much more lively and inviting, with lots of thriving new businesses and most importantly.......FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD! El Taconazo- 624 Kansas Avenue This was where we decided to meet up. We were both familiar with Roberto’s and planned to meet there, but alas it is no more. We couldn’t tell if El Taconazo occupied the space or if Roberto’s used to be further down the street. Besides having the coolest name, it also turned out to be our favorite all-around catch of the day. They provide table service and have what may be the largest menu I’ve ever seen in a Mexican restaurant. Everything from tacos to tortas to whole fried Tilapia. Since we were planning to hit several places, we kept things simple. At least that was the plan. We got a selection of tacos; pastor, carne asada and the simply titled “cabeza” ($1.50 each if I recall correctly, all served on two small corn tortillas with cilantro and onion). I also opted for the lengua burrito. Five stars all around. I’ll let chile boy speak about the chips and salsa, but they were pretty damn great. The tacos were all top notch, but the lengua burrito was stupendous. Packed with slow cooked and seasoned, chopped beef tongue along with a small amount of lettuce, tomato and white cheese. For $3.95 I wasn’t expecting something that huge, so needless to say it put me off my game a bit for the next three stops. I will absolutely be back to investigate more of the menu choices. In my humble opinion, it is a contender for "Best of KC". Paleteria Chihuahua- 1103 Kansas Avenue Just a few blocks down from El Taconazo is this little ice cream and taco shop, in what looks to be a former Dairy Queen or Velvet Freeze. Counter service only, with a small selection of tacos and tortas, churros and ice cream. We got a few tacos with carnitas and one with deshebrada (which I was slightly disappointed to find out only meant “shredded beef”), as well as a chocolate filled churro. The tacos were very good, almost identical to what we got at El Taconazo, but with the addition of lime wedges, fewer onions, and very finely shredded cabbage. The churro really came out of left field. I’ve only ever had them plain, and we were all surprised to get the choice of chocolate or caramel filling. I don’t have the biggest sweet tooth in the world, but I’d go back for another dose of that cinnamon and sugary goodness. Casa de Hernandez- 1817 Park Dr. Okay, the one clunker of the day. Not terrible food, don’t get me wrong, just your standard American-Mexican fare. Lots of cheese on everything, nachos and quesadillas galore, no heat to the salsa, etc. I kind of suspected that’s what we’d be getting, I grew up eating there way back when it was Casa de Tacos. We sampled tamales, flautas, fideo and a Mexican style chili with lots of beans and pork. Everything was decent enough, but the menu just didn’t have much beyond the norm. Considering the great food choices available just east of the restaurant, I probably won’t be back unless it’s because I’m talking someone down from an On The Border binge. I’ll take the hit on this one, boyhood nostalgia won out over common sense. Laura’s Restaurant- 1304 Central Avenue Damn that wonderful and filling lengua burrito at El Taconazo....little did I know this would be the last stop I could muster. Laura’s is pretty popular, by that I mean I’ve heard friends mention it in passing. They have table service, are open 24X7 on the weekends, have a taco stand outside AND a bakery right next door. I believe the building was a Hardee’s at one point. They have a pretty large menu selection, but we took the taco route once again just to try and get a good baseline between our three main contenders. Beginning with some wonderful horchata to settle the belly we ordered deshebrada and lengua tacos. I also ordered a lengua gordita (corn) and FINALLY I got to go all Tony Bourdain with a “buche” taco (deep fried pig stomach). I don’t even know enough Spanish anymore to make myself look stupid, so somewhere along the line I ended up with an extra lengua burrito that I ate at home late last night. These were some good tacos. Mike’s daughter chose this as her clear winner, but I’m sticking with El Taconazo. My gordita was very good, with the thick corn tortilla sliced through the middle, deep fried and stuffed with a TON of chopped and fried (totally different than Taconazo) tongue and some refried beans. This was my first experience with buche, and I have to say that I had about half a second of hesitation (before I tore into it with vigor). I’m guessing they deep fry the whole stomach and then chop it up. It just looks very different; perfectly symmetrical layers of fat and meat, and I could see the texture freaking a lot of people (and by a lot of people I mean my girlfriend) out. But man, it is delicious. And not in that “I ate something strange and have to pretend it was good” kind of delicious, but truly wonderful. Very much like the fatty/crisp pieces of a smoked pork butt. A winner. We stopped by the bakery next door, and I picked up a selection of pastries to take home. I love Mexican pastry, it’s rarely overly sweet or gooey. The perfect companion to freshly roasted coffee. Although I love it, I’m totally ignorant when it comes to Mexican pastry. I don’t know what all the different treats were called, but they were beautiful as well as delicious……and all for under a dollar apiece. Anyway, that’s it for the dry run. I know Mike has some good commentary on the way. We’ll get some recruits and hit it again here pretty soon I’m sure. I’ll have some time between now and then to ask some friends in the area about their favorite spots and specialties, because my one regret was that you can only eat SO MUCH great Mexican food in one afternoon without expiring. We had some great food and have a new favorite Mexican restaurant to add to our list, but we haven’t even skimmed the surface of what the “New Southwest Boulevard” has to offer.

They do have the numbered table tents, but with all the people and tables they get kind of lost. I liked my food, but dammit I was wanting some Don Chilitos.

It’s no Pizza Street, but similar to what Mike said I thought it was really good pizza. The crust on the white pizza that I got seemed to hold up better than the one with red sauce, and flavorwise I’ll probably stick with that option going foward. The caramelized onion and fig marmalade is something I’d like to have at home to put on pretty much everything. Definitely dug the gelatto too. Our server was really great, but like Mike mentioned, there has to be a more efficient way to get food on the tables. The line did reach almost back to the front door around 11:45 or so, but died right back down at noon. They seemed to be doing a very good job of moving people through there. Tons of strollers in there.......just like Pizza Street. For $9.50-$10.50 per pie I think it’s a good value. I’d go back for lunch or maybe even grab a couple carryout pizzas some night and see how they fare the trip to North KC and a quick rest on the pizza stone.

You know what I have a hankering for? They almost had me with their Primordial Ooze Fondue, but my pick is definitely the Intelligent Design Carbonara. It's a Kansas specialty!!!

I'll take the bullet, but I'm not going alone. And I'm not going sober. And I'm not going anytime close to this holiday weekend. Okay, I'm not going at all. You know how many times I could eat at Pizza Street for that kind of money?!?!

I don't want to get too far off base or T-Rex-centric in this thread, but I did find a freakish statistic in the following article that lists "high traffic tourist destinations" as targets for any future T-Rex locations. Here's the thing.....it states that Disney World draws 16 million visitors per year; a perfect spot for another theme restaurant. Nothing weird there. BUT in the same paragraph it states that Village West (anchored by NASCAR and Nebraska Furniture Mart) draws in....................15 million visitors per year. Good to know the 'dotte is only one million visitors shy of eclipsing the Magic Kingdom as a tourist destination. I'm telling you, if they'd lighten up and put in that Coyote Ugly bar that was banned a few months back, they could give Mickey a run for his money! Link to the article below. Meet the Flintstones

But it doesn't stop there .... I guess the company that owns the Build Your Own Teddy Bear franchise has set up a "Build Your Own Dinosaur" inside T-Rex. Total genius move on their part. What kid ISN'T going to beg their parents to spend the extra (what I'm guessing would be) around 40 bucks on top of dinner for their own dinosaur? Gone are the days of simple branded t-shirts and frisbees. I do recognize we are definitely in the very, very small minority with our feelings towards restaurant chains and suburban strip mall "theme parks" like Village West, because the majority of people that I talk to start the conversation with "Oh man, have YOU BEEN TO VILLAGE WEST YET!?!?!?". And I do enjoy Dave & Busters on a weekday afternoon myself. It's just disheartening because other than Arthur Bryant's I can't think of any other KC business raking it in out there. I'm happy to stand corrected if that's not the case, I don't know what all is out there and I admit that my mind can't get past the thought of a Jimmy Buffet themed cheeseburger joint.....because there are very few things in this world that I hate as much as the muzak from that sonofasonofabitch. BTW, can somebody PLEASE fine U.E. a menu so that he can grab his camera and get out to T-Rex for recon duty????

If they are chain minded, then go with it, go for one of the upper scale choices. that is unless they just want and need to have a cheesecake factory there. One thing to work with is to insist that the architecture of the building be in the spirit of the area. The downtown area of Wichita has some very nicely designed buildings of an older vintage that could be worked into the feel and atmosphere of what they are trying to achieve. Or am I shooting for the moon. ← Sounds like this may be just the place to open a "T-Rex".....the dinosaur themed restaurant brought to you by the creators of Rainforest Cafe. Okay, I screw around a lot but I'm not making this up. T-Rex just opened in KCK as part of the mega-chain sprawl known as Village West. I believe we are the test market for the first one. Some friends of my family visited last week and reported a 30 minute wait to get a PAGER (two hour wait for a table). Again, not joking.

I do it just to pass the time between episodes of "Semi-Homemade".

Yeah Ronnie, it's one of those places that is probably always packed but you'd be hard pressed to find someone who is truly happy to be there outside of the kids. I didn't happen to notice any high schools nearby, but for what it would cost teenagers to load up on pizza every single day I can see legislation on the horizon......"the adult stores next to the schools we can deal with.....but those pizza buffets have GOT TO GO!". Even cheaper and more dangerous than Mickey D's...... One thing I forgot to mention as I was fishing for pop culture references to include in my original post was the conversation my girlfriend and I had about "buffet economics". We are both curious to find data on the profitability of giving people all the pizza they can eat for $3.99. Especially if it's a local vs. national chain, without access to a monstrous in-house supply chain a la McD's. It's not great food, but it's better than most delivery. They have to have pretty high overhead to rent that much strip mall space, they do have to pay employees, etc. It's obviously profitable, I'd just be extremely curious to see data on how much each pizza really costs, how much the average customer eats.........how exactly they come up with the magic number of $3.99. I wouldn't be surprised to find out if ALL these clean new pizza buffets from coast to coast really were owned by McD's or WalMart, and every market just has its own brand.....Pizza Street in KC......(the hypothetical) Pizza Depot in Wichita, etc. All the exact same company, same pizza, with its own local identity. I'm sure this has all been discussed into infinity on eGullet, just thinking out loud and too lazy to use the search function.

So the end result of the ban will be...........people who never knew foie gras even existed will create an even greater demand and expect to see it on even more menus? Works for me. Yay ban!

And now for something completely different.... Yeah, when I do something as mind-boggling as eating a meal at "Pizza Street", I'll admit it. It's for science. We drove down to Powell Gardens this weekend for their annual Butterfly Festival (great day trip btw, I highly recommend it), and we were on Hwy 291 coming home when my girlfriend wanted to stop somewhere and get a quick bite. She saw a Fazoli's on the horizon and mentioned that, so I was scanning the hell out of the strip malls looking for something cheap that wasn't Fazoli's. I saw Pizza Street and wasn't sure what in the hell it was........"What in the hell is Pizza Street?" It must have sounded like "let's go with the devil I DON'T know this time around...say Fazoli's again and we're going to be on the six o'clock news", because the next thing I know I'm throwing down eleven bucks (including drinks!) for what the sign outside advertises as "Kansas City's Own" original pizza buffet. Local chain? National chain? I have no idea. What I do know is they love hosting children's birthday parties. That's where the real blessings in life are.....McBirthday Parties. There were two major blowouts going on while we were there. Was it possible? Were they going to back a truck up to the door and unload leftover Chuck E. Cheese and Showbiz Pizza mechanical singing animals? It was not to be. If I were in charge of hosting a group of screaming children, it really would be the perfect place to go (unless I could talk the parents into a Clockwork Orange theme). You can be in and out of there as fast as you like, and the thirteen year olds running the place aren't going to hassle you if your angel decides to go Jackson Pollock on the ice cream machine. The cool thing is those big birthday groups eat really fast and get out of there. Maybe they dig the experience so much they want to hurry up and have some more kids. If you time them just right you can have one child to parallel each rung of the burger themed pizza and claw machine evolutionary ladder. Anyway, as far as the food goes, it's a $3.99 all you can eat pizza buffet. But it doesn't stop there. All kidding aside, the pizza is better than something Domino's or Little Caesar's would bring to your door. Very similar to DiGiorno frozen pizza with less sauce. The good thing is it moves really quickly when there's a crowd, so there's always fresh pizza coming out of the oven. Fresh, hot Pizza Street Pizza. All the usual toppings, along with their signature pizzas like baked potato and cheeseburger. The cheeseburger pizza tastes EXACTLY like one of those little McDonalds cheeseburgers. Is that necessarily a good thing? Hell yes it is. The next time I'm getting towards the bottom of the second bottle of my cheap Torres Sangre de Toro and I've still got a couple hours left in my Boondocks DVD marathon, I'll be pining for that cheeseburger pizza like it was ol' Dean Moriarty. Other than that, the pastas make Fazoli's look like Lidia's, they have all those fruit flavored dessert pizzas, a small salad bar, and of course the ubiquitous ice cream machine with vanilla, chocolate, and........wait for it...........................vanilla and chocolate swirl. If you're down to the change lurking in your seat cushions like we were this weekend, I'd say that Pizza Street is probably one of the greatest $3.99 bargains in that entire four block area of 291 Hwy. For $4.99 I think you can have one of the employees hold one of the screaming birthday party kids right next to your ear. So head on down to Pizza Street, the king of all local chains.

And by Bluestem he means Joe's Crab Shack........the greatest seafood value in all the land.

Okay, quick update on my Nutella adventure........ I should probably back up a little bit here. For several years I've been trying to convince my BBQ team captain to change our team name to "Satan's Glorious Victory"....just for one competition. No real reason, it just sounds like a fine name. A real attention getter. Well that hasn't gone anywhere, but the name has stuck with me. Sometime last week I realized that the title was probably more appropriate for a very, very chocolatey dessert......it's a big name to grow into but Nutella would obviously be involved on some level. I began by making one chocolate oblivion torte per the Chocolate Bible recipe. It's a wonderful thing, a blank canvas that I thought could use the better part of a container of Nutella spread across the top. Fifteen or twenty seconds was indeed enough time in the microwave to soften it up a bit, and it was suprisingly easy to spread in a VERY thick layer. The rest will take some tweaking if it's truly going to be "Satan's Glorious Victory", but for the trial run I finished it off with eight Ferrero Rocher chocolates in a ring around the top and lightly toasted and crushed macadamia nuts covering the center. I'll think of some way to take this recipe right over the cliff, but everyone seemed to be pretty, pretty, pretty happy with it tonight after dinner. My girlfriend was surprisingly quiet, eating it very slowly, and I thought "crap.....she hates the texture or something.....geez", but when she finally spoke she just said "I'm in awe right now". So the inaugural run was a victory.........a GLORIOUS victory (for the dark master)!

This is one of the few shows that doesn't prompt a "oh GOD, do we HAVE to watch more FOODTV?!?!" from my girlfriend.........so I guess I love it. I saw the bbq challenge for the first time last night and there were a couple of elements that struck me as very bizarre. First of all, for the most part you can count on a BBQ competition to have pretty solid judging standards and procedures (very similar to the chili throwdown judging). But instead....they get the mayor of the town to judge chicken vs. ribs. I'm guessing it was an issue with the time involved for both of them to get pits up to temp and re-do the throwdown plates. It's just weird that they take the one method of cooking that totally lends itself to being fairly judged and completely ignore it. The other thing... did Bobby even bring a smoker with him? I know that grills can be used for indirect cooking, but I didn't even see any of that. I did see a lot of smoke coming out from under the lid of his one giant Weber, but the only thing I saw was grilling. Anyway, just strange to have a bbq competition fall that short when Bobby obviously knows what bbq is and has the chance to "throwdown" against someone who spends his life on the competition circuit. Then again, I do realize it's Food Entertainment in much the same way rasslin' is Sports Entertainment. The girlfriend digs it, so at least I get a peaceful half hour of FoodTV!

Pretzel sticks dipped first in peanut butter then in chocolate ganache. In THEORY, I've always meant to let them sit on wax paper to cool and set for a little bit, but you know how that goes.........

I've actually had this at a local fast food Chinese Restaurant in a not-great part of town (just off of 63rd and Troost, for anyone familiar with K.C., Mo.). Had the grease been fresher, and had they not used such large pieces of surimi I could see this being good in a fried cheese curd kind of way. Don't think I've seen them on any other local menus. They were billed as "Crab Sticks" which I just had to try out of curiosity. Definitely not a light, tempura style batter btw.

Thanks, I'll definitely use it for icing this weekend, BUT the next time my throat is feeling a little scratchy a swig or two may be good for what is ailing me!

General question on the spreadability of Nutella........ does it go well right out of the container to spread across the top of a cake or cheesecake, or could it stand a little heating in a water bath? I've seen recipes for Nutella icing that call for 1/2 Nutella and 1/2 vanilla icing and that just doesn't seem like the right thing to do........watering down the Nutella. My experiences so far with the stuff only go as far as an open container with a spoon during varying degrees of inebriation, as the good lord intended. Planning a devious new recipe for a gathering this weekend, and Nutella seems to be just the thing to take it right over the cliff.

Yeah, and you also have what the doctors refer to as a relaxed brain. Seriously, I guess I've been denying the city market and should go back down there at some point in the near future. Although it sure is nice to stay close to home. Have only noticed the Campo Lindo truck down there a couple of times, wondering if the schedule varies or they just show up later in the morning. I was at a meeting last night and someone brought in an awesome batch of gazpacho that one of the vendors at the OP market sells every weekend (along with salsa, I'm guessing). Can't remember the name of the seller, but will inquire and report back.