Goin' to Kansas City

[jhlurie]

Actually, Ill accept BBQ recommendations too, but I figure the people I'm visiting (they've lived there for 8 months) probably know plenty of them.  So does anyone here have any special knowledge of good restaurants in K.C.?

(Edited by jhlurie at 11:27 am on Aug. 23, 2001)

[Rosie]

Lidia's, Kansas City, MO. would be my choice. Others are: The American Restaurant, Cafe Sebastienne, Riorella's Jack Stack Barbecue, Grand ST. Cafe, Jasper's and Milano. I've never eaten at any of these places except Felida in NYC so be sure to give us a report.

[jhlurie]

Upon arrival I was taken to a place called Stroud's.  Stroud's seems to have locations at least here and in Fort Worth Texas.   For what it's worth (maybe not much)  Stroud's received the 1998 James Beard Award-suppossedly for its Pan Fried Chicken.  

The Chicken was indeed very good--but the Pork Chops were even better.  Pan seared, heavy with black pepper... just the way they're suppossed to be.  The accompanying fresh applesauce was completely unnecessary, but was good enough to eat seperately, since it literally was just mashed up apples without added sugar.

The Chicken was freshly killed by the way--the "quaint" motto of Stroud's is apparently "we choke our own chickens".  And they do... out back--the morning before they fry them up.

The other major highlight was the Cinnamon Buns.  They give these instead of bread or cornbread.  Not too sticky (and with only minimal icing), they work really well.

Fixins with the meal include mounds of mashed potatoes, cottage fries, green beans with bacon and an extra bowl of gravy.

I also tried some of the chicken fried steak, and it was quite good as well--although to my northern palate I thought it needed just a bit of the black pepper that the Pan-seared Pork Chops had in such abundance.

The location I visited was called Stroud's Oak Ridge Manor--a converted log cabin built in 1827 an expanded many times through the years so that the front has classic southern architecture (with a porch as large as several rooms of the house!), one of the sides has a large dining room overlooking a lake litterally brimming with VERY large swans and the back end is the original two room cabin.

[jhlurie]

Back from KC...

In addition to Stroud's, a few other observations...

BBQ/Traditional American: With the exception of Stroud's and a night at the Buffet at the Ameristar Casino (formerly The Station Casino), I didn't visit anything in these categories--since I'd been to several of these types of places on my last visit to K.C. 6 months ago.  Since I've already brought it up, I'll say that the Ameristar Casino Buffet is on par with the better quality buffets in Las Vegas.  The night I was there was a theme night, where the featured item was filet mignon from the popular meat distributor Omaha Steaks.  I had 3, since I've always thought that Omaha Steaks are of very good quality.  Other theme nights feature Crab, Lobster, etc.

Chinese: The Chinese food in the area is poor, according to several sources, with one great exception--a place I DID visit myself.  In an unassuming corner of downtown (well away from the tourist areas) is a place called Bo Ling's, where I had absolutely superior Dim Sum. The quality was as good, or better, than my NJ standard Silver Pond, and the selection included at least 30 different items during my visit (and according to several reviews I read at least another 20 items I didn't see on that visit).  Of particular note was the black bean BBQ pork, the completely outrageous chicken spring rolls, the noodle dishes freshly fried up right in front of you, some absolutely fantastic Gai lum, and some of the best sticky rice I've had anywhere.  Since I'm not partial to shrimp dishes I can't comment on those, but I was told by my dining companions that they were off the scale in terms of yummyness.  

http://www.bolings.com

for more info, and don't be put off by the somewhat cheesy website.  I visited the oldest location, at 4800 Main Street in downtown K.C. and can't really comment on the other two locations that the website discusses.  If you ever visit K.C on a weekend, this place is a MUST.

Cajun: I had some mediocre Cajun food at a place called "Jazz", but for completeness I'm commenting on it.  The only item of note at Jazz were the Beignets I had for desert, which were very good.  The Jambalaya I had was passable, but only just, and most of the rest of the menu consisted of "blackended" versions of various meat and seafood items.

Thai:  I wanted to visit at least one of the main steak houses (Rosie mentioned a few), but on the night we'd elected for this we got sidetracked in another part of town.  So instead we visited a little hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant called "Tasty Thai".  If that sounds like the name of a place in a strip mall... its because it is.   Next to a K-Mart, a Papa John's Pizza and a Laundromat, in fact.  The location is SO bad (it's in a part of town called the Northlands, north of K.C. proper and filled with LOTS of strip malls) that the place apparently almost went bankrupt last year--after only being open for about 6 months--for lack of business.  But a timely review in the Kansas City Star apparently saved their hides, and the food is well deserving of having been saved.  The Northern Thai Golden Noodle Soup (similar to Tom Kar, but with egg noodles) was hot enough to almost floor me (and my tolerance is VERY high), but also contained hints of enough other flavors to keep my interest.  The Yum Nua (Beef Salad) was probably the 2nd best I've ever had... and I've had some really good Thai Beef Salad.  Other excellent dishes I stole portions of from my companions included the excellent Tiger Cried Beef (marinated beef in a tangy sauce), and a very subtle Panang Curry over noodles.  Despite the slightly hick/ghetto location inside strip mall city, Tasty Thai has a website at

http://www.kctastythai.com

where you can view the menu for the unlikely event of ever getting stuck in Northern Kansas City and needing some decent food. :)

Mexican:  You may (or may not) be surprised to hear that the Mexican in Kansas City is FAR better than in the Northeast.  In fact, many people there who have traveled think it better than most West coast Mexican.  The odd thing is that most of the Mex restaurants are of the previously mentioned "strip mall" variety, and yet folks there say that if you pick a different one at random each day, apparently they are all uniformly--and somewhat anonymously--excellent.  I ate one lunch and one dinner in two such places, and while I can't verify that all Mexican food in K.C. follows these rules, I think that it might be true.  The two key elements apparently are a.) better produce and meat than just about anywhere else in the country and b.) a large displaced population of immigrant Mexican workers who were originally brought to the area as seasonal farm workers.  Together they seem to equal an excellent selection of small Mexican restaurants throughout all of Western Missouri and Eastern Kansas.

Italian:  I didn't try any Italian this trip (I did last time), but from what I've heard it's uniformly horrible in K.C.  Then again--a slight disclaimer--I simply may not have asked the right people...

Overall, I'm still not THAT impressed with Kansas City as a place to live (the pace is too slow for an Eastern lad like me...), but I will confirm that good food is indeed very possible there... largely due to an influx of talented and creative Mexican, Thai, Chinese people who are ensuring that the kind of food I had at Stroud's is only one of many available.

(Edited by jhlurie at 11:06 pm on Aug. 28, 2001)

[Rosie]

A technical question. You wrote "The Chicken was freshly killed by the way--the "quaint" motto of Stroud's is apparently "we choke our own chickens".  And they do... out back--the morning before they fry them up."

I thought that freshly killed chickens had to sit a few days for the muscles to relax?  

[jhlurie]

Quote: from Rosie on 7:59 am on Aug. 29, 2001

A technical question. You wrote "The Chicken was freshly killed by the way--the "quaint" motto of Stroud's is apparently "we choke our own chickens".  And they do... out back--the morning before they fry them up."

I thought that freshly killed chickens had to sit a few days for the muscles to relax?  

It's what I was told... however I was told so by a civilian (someone at another table), not by an employee.  

The slogan is accurate, however.

[Jason Perlow]

Jon no offense but how can you say the dim sum at Bo Lings was better than Silver Pond when you dont even eat shellfish? That omits everything with shrimp in it, which Silver Pond really excells at..

[jhlurie]

Let's say that the non-shellfish were "as good or better" (my exact phrase) and that the people I was eating with (who have eaten at Silver Pond) reported that they thought that the shellfish were also "as good or better".

Then again, since we are in NJ and not in KC, and since Silver Pond is still better than 95% of its competition outside of Chinatown, its still a pretty good choice. No?  And I also think that the phrase "as good or better" admits that there is a slight margin of error since I didn't have food from both places side-by-side.  If you want to quible I'll say instead that it ranged from "almost as good up to better".