Class of '06

Bill ordered the dish that I'd coveted on my previous visit: spaghetti and lobster meatballs with porcini-rubbed scallops. "There's more breading than lobster in these balls," Bill sniffed. "Instead of spaghetti, it's very spicy angel-hair pasta," he said. "It's almost too pretty to eat." But he ate every bit of it anyway — with no lack of enthusiasm, I noted.

"Too pretty to eat" is, however, a recurring theme here. Nearly every plate that comes out of the kitchen looks as if it's been styled for a magazine photo shoot.

Beef-loving Frankie loved the wood-smoked strip, and I was amazed at the satiny sliced duck breast with a mulled-wine reduction, sided with a warm ginger-onion confit and hearty risotto laden with wild mushrooms. It was a spectacular autumn dish.

My companions made savvier dessert choices than I had on my earlier visit. Frankie greedily savored every last crumb of an inventive take on old-fashioned "apple crisp" — lighter and fresh-tasting rather than hot and crispy, it was a layered tower of spice-dusted blanched apple slices and crisp phyllo pastry, splashed with cinnamon caramel.

If Bill — who was regaling us with gossipy tales from his life in the 1950s — had ever stopped talking, he might really have enjoyed the finale to his meal: the trio of creamy fruit sorbets served in an oversized martini glass. I stole a few bites myself before the ices melted into a glop of mango, berry and lemon.

When Bill finally turned his attention to his dessert, I asked him if he knew the year that Overland Park had been created.

"I grew up in the northeast part of Kansas City back in the 1930s," Bill said, holding his spoon aloft. "We didn't even know that Overland Park existed."

It's never too late for a history lesson.