Ursiform wrote:Farmland does not make me overly optimistic, but I'll certainly give 'em a shot. I'll try to sample as much as I can and post photos. As ballpark food tends to be unoffensive at best and disastrous on an epic scale at worst, I may be filing my Kauffman report under "taking one for the team."

Don't be too optimistic, but my dog was nowhere near a disaster. I'd put it in the unoffensive category for sure. Ketchup is applied at your own discretion. I got a rather large dog, don't know if footlong on the menu or what, but it seemed like a better sausage than my kids' regular portion.

Aaron Deacon wrote:

Ursiform wrote:Farmland does not make me overly optimistic, but I'll certainly give 'em a shot. I'll try to sample as much as I can and post photos. As ballpark food tends to be unoffensive at best and disastrous on an epic scale at worst, I may be filing my Kauffman report under "taking one for the team."

Don't be too optimistic, but my dog was nowhere near a disaster. I'd put it in the unoffensive category for sure. Ketchup is applied at your own discretion. I got a rather large dog, don't know if footlong on the menu or what, but it seemed like a better sausage than my kids' regular portion.

Excellent tip, thanks, I'll look for the larger size (which I will be consuming sans ketchup, of course)!

Just a note, day 1 (Springfield) was a total bust and almost put the kibosh on our baseball pilgrimage to KC. We got in muy late as some friends wanted us to take their new car and "break it in" for them and the darn thing broke down 30 miles out of Springfield!!!! I spent the next 4 hours manically dialing AAA to find out where my tow was. It was far, far away and did not arrive until 11pm. My father saved the day by showing up with beverages and nibblies and a heroic offer to let us use his car for the rest of our trip!

Dinner wound up being sandwiches made from what we could rummage out of my father's fridge...hopefully, we'll have better luck tomorrow.

The White Sox won and I just finished off some cold, leftover brisket and pulled pork from Oklahoma Joe's, life is good. Photo's and details to be posted on the appropriate threads once I emerge from my food coma, but our visit here in KC is going quite well.

Just a note on the hot dogs at Kauffman park - avoid, avoid, avoid the $1.00 "hot dogs" at all costs!!! I though, eh, for a buck, I'll give it a run. I managed 2 bites before tossing the wretched thing. I'll be avoiding the Farmland Franks carefully at game two tomorrow, lesson learned.

***edited to add, the $1.00 dogs are not the larger ones that Aaron recommended, they are the smaller ones***

Ursiform wrote:Just a note on the hot dogs at Kauffman park - avoid, avoid, avoid the $1.00 "hot dogs" at all costs!!! I though, eh, for a buck, I'll give it a run. I managed 2 bites before tossing the wretched thing. I'll be avoiding the Farmland Franks carefully at game two tomorrow, lesson learned.

***edited to add, the $1.00 dogs are not the larger ones that Aaron recommended, they are the smaller ones***

Ooo, sorry about that. Buck Night is an occasional promotional feature where sodas, dogs, and a couple other things maybe? are all $1. I'm not sure if they have a special hot dog supplier for buck night, but the preparation and execution is abominable. Glad you brought this up though, and that you're having a good time.

Cheers,

Aaron

Aaron Deacon wrote:Ooo, sorry about that. Buck Night is an occasional promotional feature where sodas, dogs, and a couple other things maybe? are all $1. I'm not sure if they have a special hot dog supplier for buck night, but the preparation and execution is abominable. Glad you brought this up though, and that you're having a good time.

Cheers,

Aaron

Well, for a dollar, you can't miss by trying something, right? It's a nice offer, especially for big families - $1.00 for peanuts, hotdogs and sodas, limit of 6 items per trip, but you can go back as much as you want. They have special tents throughout the park, so you don't have to wait in the normal concession lines. If I had a group of kids to feed at ballpark concession stand prices, I'd probably really look forward to dollar night. I don't, so you couldn't pay me to eat another one of those misbegotten dogs, but it's really an incredibly well run stadium in general. I wish we had snocone vendors roaming the stands at Comiskey!

Ursiform wrote:The White Sox won and I just finished off some cold, leftover brisket and pulled pork from Oklahoma Joe's, life is good. Photo's and details to be posted on the appropriate threads once I emerge from my food coma, but our visit here in KC is going quite well.

Any KC eating besides OK Joe's and the ballpark? I'm also curious if you made it to Zoo Bar.

Aaron Deacon wrote:

Ursiform wrote:The White Sox won and I just finished off some cold, leftover brisket and pulled pork from Oklahoma Joe's, life is good. Photo's and details to be posted on the appropriate threads once I emerge from my food coma, but our visit here in KC is going quite well.

Any KC eating besides OK Joe's and the ballpark? I'm also curious if you made it to Zoo Bar.

I made it to a number of places, including the Zoo Bar, but got sidetracked with an out of town funeral and so haven't had the chance to post about it. Just got back from Springfield today and am sorting through pics, I'll be sure to post ASAP.

BTW, loved, loved, loved the Zoo Bar. Fantastic!!!!

We'll be eagerly awaiting your report! I'm leaving Montréal for KC for the Fall semester in two weeks. Obviously, I've got to try the Zoo Bar.

But (read it and weep!! , my home is 3 mins from Okie Joe's! Yeee-hah!

Geo

Geo wrote:We'll be eagerly awaiting your report! I'm leaving Montréal for KC for the Fall semester in two weeks. Obviously, I've got to try the Zoo Bar.

But (read it and weep!! , my home is 3 mins from Okie Joe's! Yeee-hah!

Geo

Geo, I AM jealous. IIRC, you are also very close to Stroud's. Lucky you!

The Zoo Bar is...hmmm...you really have to see it for yourself. I will say that if I wanted to drink myself to death surrounded by amusing characters, this is the place I'd head to without any hesitation. Good scotch selection, too, but as it's a lawyer joint, I guess that is to be expected.

The Picky Eater has still not uploaded all of my pictures, but I have enough to illustrate our recent trip to Kansas City. Per everyone's wonderful suggestions, our first stop was Oklahoma Joe's.

At 3pm on July 3rd, there was a 45 minute wait. Absolutely worth it (and you can look at all of the fun hot sauces/rubs sold in the attached gas station/store while in line). We wanted to try as much as possible, so we ordered a rib/brisket combo, a pulled pork/sausage combo, sides of coleslaw and beans and rice and an order of chicken gumbo. With a beer and a soda, our total was about $30.00.
Ribs and Brisket

Both the Ribs and the brisket had gorgeous smoke rings.


Three ribs to the order, but they were the most generously cut/enormous ribs I've encountered in quite some time. Look at the size of one rib in the Picky Eater's hand - it's mammoth!

None of which would matter if they weren't up to snuff, but wow, these were some terrific ribs! Smokey, meaty, toothsome, moist, rich, pulled off the bone with very little resistance (NOT meat jello)....I'd eat these any day. The sauce didn't float my boat, but it wasn't overbearing, either. I'll probably order everything dry the next time I go, including the brisket, which was heavenly. Redolent with fat and smoke, juicy, rich and tender - this is what the gods intended brisket to taste like.
The pulled pork/sausage combo was also a treat, particularly the pork.


Geo, given your proximity to this wonderful pulled pork, should you ever need a live in scullery maid/sous chef, do let me know. I'll gladly work for regular servings of this pork. The sausage was very respectable, nice natural casing, great smokey flavor, packed with well balanced spices and juicy enough, but next to that pork, it didn't stand a chance. Tender, lush, fatty, and smokey, even the liberally applied sauce couldn't hide the drool inducing flavor of the pork. Although it was on the PE's plate, I managed to distract him long enough with the giant rib pictured above to snag the bulk of it for myself.
The sides were quite respectable, we particularly enjoyed the coleslaw in it's very light dressing. The beans and rice were well received by me, but the PE did not enjoy them at all. I think it was the file powder that threw him off.

The chicken gumbo was a treat, packed with smoked chicken and peppers. I felt like it could have used a bit more heat, but a very respectable gumbo nonetheless. That being said, I'd probably not order this again as saving room for the meat is paramount.

The pickles served here, btw, are fantastic. Are they house made?
One last note, if you like things spicy, I'd highly recommend BYOS as their very charmingly labeled house hot didn't even have an impact on the PE's very heat sensitive palate, let alone mine. We sampled from a few bottles in case we had gotten an odd batch, but it was consistently tame. Good, but no heat.

Overall, I'd have to say that I have a new favorite barbecue place in KC. Really a treat, thanks again for directing us here everyone!

Oklahoma Joe's
3002 W 47th Ave.
Kansas City, KS 66103
913-722-3366
http://www.oklahomajoesbbq.com/

Our next stop was Kauffman Stadium, our ostensible reason for visiting Kansas City. What a beautiful ballpark, I especially enjoyed the wide open concourses and the fountains in the outfield.
Go Sox!


A very nice thing they do to make an already very affordable trip to the ballpark even more so is dollar night. On these evenings, peanuts, sodas and hot dogs are $1.00.
The Most Dismal Hot Dog In The Known Universe

As I mentioned upthread, these buck wonders are not fit to eat. Vaguely meat flavored mush on a bun, no snap, no juice, no texture, no spices, no good. No amount of mustard or onion could save it for me, but if I was a little kid that hadn't grown up on Vienna Beef, it would probably be delicious. These sorry dogs make appearances at every game when the Royals mascot shoots them into the field with a hot dog cannon.

Other than that, I was quite impressed with both the variety and the quality of the food offerings at this park. In addition to the usual beer and hot dog vendors roaming the stands, they had an enviable treat that I'd love to see at Comiskey:
SnoCone Vendor

On our second day at Kauffman, I had a much more satisfactory dog from a grill stand that was serving up polishes, brats and dogs with grilled onions AND peppers!

This hot dog was a HUGE improvement over the previous days:

Other stands offer cheesy corn and barbecue (no longer Arthur Bryant's), pizza, cheese steaks, fresh grilled burgers, ribeye sandwiches, etc. These stands are open to public view via glass windows and the friendly fellows doing the cooking enjoy putting on a bit of a show.

They also have a number of organic, healthy, and gluten free items, very progressive for a ballpark, I think.



This custard stand was pricey, but had very nice looking offerings.

In addition to your normal stadium fare (barbecue, fries, nachos, etc), the Stadium Grill has some beautiful looking gourmet offerings. Alas, I was unable to sample them as I'm not a member, but the food is on prominent display for all passerby's to see.

Prices are a bit on the steep side, even for a ballpark ($4.50 for a bottle of WATER? Highway robbery), but you can bring some items in with you if you chose. According to the Royal's website "Guests may bring food and water into the stadium, provided the water is in a plastic bottle or cup and the food is packaged in soft-sided containers that do not exceed the maximum size of 16x16x8 inches."

A great, super family friendly, ballpark with some unusual food offerings that I'm planning to visit annually so I can sample more of the treats they have on hand! Kansas City is lucky to have this beautiful facility (although, I of course, will take my standard dog and grilled onions at Comiskey any day ).

Another stop in Kansas City was the venerable Stroud's for the Picky Eater's 4th of July birthday dinner. The Picky Eater loves chicken, so this was a perfect choice for his birthday.

As the two of us eat in one day what most people consume in one sitting, we shared a single chicken dinner. Everything here is homemade, from the soup to the made to order pan fried chicken. For a fee, they offer a split meal, providing full sides for two along with your chicken. In addition, we received starters of salad for the P.E. and soup for myself. We really got a kick out of the cracker basket brought out with our soup and salad, it's truly in keeping with the lost in time atmosphere of this place.



The salad was pretty standard, but the soup was wonderful. Those noodles are homemade, thick and chewy, the broth rich and flavorful and studded with bits of chicken and veggies. The soup made me feel guilty for not making my own noodles all the time, it's so easy and they just taste so much better.
Next up, dinner - chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans and cinnamon rolls. This is what they consider to be a meal for one!!!

Pan Fried Chicken

Mashed Potatoes

Gravy

Green Beans with bacon

Cinnamon Rolls


It was a ridiculous amount of food and all of it was very good, especially the chicken. Wonderful crisp, peppery skin encapsulating moist, flavorful and full of juice meat. You can't get fried chicken like this in Chicago, I mean, look at this:
How could you not love this?

Sure, the beans were served Southern Style mushy and the gravy could have used a *bit* more spice, but really, a lovingly prepared old fashioned chicken dinner with everything working quite well together. We were enchanted with the whole thing, especially when they brought the Picky Eater a birthday surprise.
Birthday Sparkler!


All in, under $30 for this birthday feast served in a most congenial atmosphere. Another great LTH recommendation, thank you!

Strouds
4200 Shawnee Mission Pkwy
Fairway, KS 66205
913-262-8500
http://www.stroudsrestaurant.com/

My apologies for the lengthy posts, almost done!
Due to the fact that we hit 2 baseball games instead of just 1 (amazing seats are fantastically cheap, we just couldn't say no) and restaurant closings due to the 4th of July, we did not hit as many places as we would have liked. Our final two stops of significance are The Zoo Bar and Hi-Boy Drive Inn.

Aaron Deacon wrote:I may find alcoholism a little more entertaining than is good for me, I guess, and I'm not quite sure how to capture the various odd and interesting bits of conversation and color that transpired in our couple hours at the bar. The bartender and owner really made the visit, the latter gregarious and genial, the former infectiously cheerful. And the patrons quite colorful.

Aaron, you summed it up quite well! We hit the Zoo Bar after dinner at Stroud's. Had I not mapped it, we never would have found it, it's fairly inconspicuous and tucked away into an area of downtown that is rather abandoned during the evening. It's a long narrow room with seating only at the bar.

It's pretty much untouched by time, still having one of these:

We walked in to find a group of regulars enjoying their 4th of July potluck, with the entire back corner of the bar devoted to their illicit picnic. To me, bar potlucks are always a good sign, so we hunkered up to the last two seats on the bar and settled in. The regulars are a friendly bunch and in short order, we had made a number of new friends and were regaled with fantastic stories about Kansas City.

Every surface in the place is covered in graffiti, literally, and the shelves are packed with oddments.


I particularly enjoyed this tribute to Rikki Tikki Tavi


There seems to be two shifts of drinking at the Zoo Bar, the early shift with the lifers and the late shift with a slightly younger crowd. We came in between and had the place to ourselves for a bit. The wonderful bartender Carol made up a batch of her special shots for us, involving cream and a liquor I'd never seen before. Very tasty, I was pleasantly surprised.


Before we left, we were invited to leave our mark on the walls.

My sig is a bit harder to spot, but pays tribute to LTH, without which I would not have found this gem of a drinking hole.

Thanks, Aaron, we had a GREAT time! Inexpensive drinks, wonderful staff/owner, friendly regulars, as laid back as humanly possible, and a fantastic jukebox, this is a great little bar!

The next morning was a bit rough, but we managed to drag ourselves over to the Hi-Boy Drive Inn, which was not too far from our hotel and the ballpark. I stumbled across this on Yelp and felt compelled to try it out.

I'm a sucker for old neon.

Family owned since 1957, this is an independent operation that claims to have the best onion rings in Kansas City. No seating inside or out, this is strictly dining ala trunko. Their menu consists of a variety of shakes & floats as well as burgers, tenderloins and the aforementioned onion rings.


We had the Hi-Boy, fries and onion rings. Sadly, many of our pictures from this quaint spot have vanished, including my pics of the onion rings.


The fries were standard food service frozen (saved by being properly cooked, very crisp and salty), the onion rings were good (I didn't find them to be spectacular, but maybe I caught them on a bad day), but the burger was really quite good. Standard depression era patty with crisp edges that was better than expected, but the real surprise was the bun. It was terrific, reminding me a great deal of the homemade buns at Patty's, making this a worthwhile burger if you are in the area. The tomato was notable in that it actually tasted like tomato!

This was an interesting intersection. Across the street from Hi-Boy was this place that I was intrigued by:

I'd be curious to hear if anyone has been here, we were unable to go as it was closed. Is it a steakburger place? A Mexican place? I'm not sure, but their signage makes me hungry!

Another spot at this intersection we were unable to try due to being closed was Dixon's Famous Chili. Next time, I'll be sure to check hours before trying to go someplace. I was very disappointed at not being able to eat here and have it high on my priority list for our next visit.


We had a wonderful visit to Kansas City, thanks again for the great suggestions, we can't wait to come back!

The Zoo Bar
1220 McGee St
Kansas City, MO 64106
816-842-6060

Hi-Boy Drive Inn
3424 Blue Ridge Cut Off
Independence, MO 64055
816-861-2677
http://www.hiboydrivein.com

Awesome, reports, thanks Ursiform!

Haven't been to the Hi Boy yet, there are a few other pretty cool old greasy burger places I need to catch up on also.

I haven't been to Dixon's, but it is in the same style as Fritz's, which is very nice for novelty and character, but I don't think you're missing out on good chili.

Looks delicious, ursi! Thanks for the post and pix!

ursi, I'm leaving Montréal tomorrow morning for my Fall Semestre in KC. You've so beautifully reminded me of places in the neighborhood I've got to hit as soon as I arrive home. Ribs at OKey Joe's and a big platter of chicken at Stroud's.

Montréal has its world-renowned pleasures. But then, so does KC, as you've so nicely documented!

Tnx,

Geo

Ursiform wrote:Another spot at this intersection we were unable to try due to being closed was Dixon's Famous Chili. Next time, I'll be sure to check hours before trying to go someplace. I was very disappointed at not being able to eat here and have it high on my priority list for our next visit.

I'd keep Dixon's on your need-to-do-it-once list. I'm glad I went but don't find myself craving more, at least not right away.





Instead of a bowl of red, Dixon's serves up a plate of brown. Basically it's minimally seasoned ground beef that can be customized in many ways. First choice is with or without beans. Then decide if you want it dry or moistened with bean broth, beef grease, or both. You can order your broth and grease on the side if desired. Accompaniments such as chopped onion, grated cheese, jalapeño relish (excellent!) or sour cream can also be ordered. Bottles of chili powder and pepper vinegar are on the counter.



That's a large regular—meaning with beans—plus a bit of bean water and beef grease already added. Our server couldn't have been sweeter and was concerned that my first Dixon's experience should be optimal. She even brought me extra bowls of beef fat and bean water.



Since I'd already ordered my chili greased and wetted this was overkill, to put it mildly. Still, I poured it on. With all those extras, it's possible to come up with a pretty tasty bowl. It might not be great chili but it's certainly a fascinating regional style. Have a look at stevez's post on Fritz's for a similar place.

Dixon's Chili Parlor
9105 US Route 40
Independence MO
816-861-7308
http://dixonschili.com/