Delaware Cafe [KC]

Delaware Café is a restaurant recently remodeled and menu revamped with some local fanfare due to the presence of young chef, Joe West, a local guy who trained at Shawnee Mission's renowned culinary program, won some cooking awards as a high schooler and has worked in some top kitchens in KC (bluestem) and elsewhere.

I stopped in for a late lunch today. I always forget how charming Delaware St is, down in the River Market area. I really enjoy walking down that street, moreso when it's not 100 degrees.

The space is great too, I'd not seen it before, but I really liked it. And it's huge! I could certainly see kicking back at the bar for a few cocktails some evening.

I ordered a soup and sandwich combo. Soup of the day was a black bean and sausage. The first bite really caught me off guard...I guess I had heard chorizo, or just assumed it because black bean soups so often are served with Latin flair.

I got a full hit of fennel...a much more Italian take on the black bean soup, and plenty of little white (navy?) beans too. Once my palate adjusted, I thought it was quite good. I'm a sucker for soup.

Oh, and it was garnished with a tasty little pizza cracker, whose flavors were a perfect accent to the soup. A very nice little touch.

The half BLT tasted good enough, but not nearly enough of the T for my taste. I was hoping to get good thick fresh tomato, with a little B and L accent. Bacon dominated instead, which usually isn't a bad thing, but there were two rather small, rather thin tomato slices that mostly disappeared in the sandwich.

The bread was a rather nice, airy foccacia. Again, a perfectly decent sandwich overall, but well short of August BLT gold (mmmm, which has me coveting the BLT I had at bluestem last year...need to get back for that.

Not a cheap lunch, at $9.50, but not out of line. The soup was huge--I'd hate to see the full portion! I had eaten more than I needed even before my waitress brought two complimentary chocolate chip cookies to end my meal, which was a very nice touch.

We'd planned to head down last Saturday for brunch--City Market/River Market has a great farmer's market, at which the brunch is planned and sourced each week--but circumstances conspired against us. I believe Chef West has spent more time on the dinner menu than the lunch menu to date, so I don't know how much my meal reflects his influence, but all-in-all, seems like a very promising River Market spot. I look forward to returning.

Delaware Café
300 Delaware St
Kansas City, MO 64105
(816) 842-0303
http://www.delawarecafe.com/

[Edit: Delaware Cafe closed late 2008 after a short life. The space is to open again soon as a promising concept called The Farmhouse: http://www.eatatthefarmhouse.com/]