| An omelet, si vous plais? |
The meal starts with complimentary house-baked scones. (Yesterday's were blueberry with an orange glaze.)
| Dracula's favorite dumpling! |
That's because the sauce is made of melted candy.
Update (October 5, 2010): The long-awaited answer from last week? These big, meaty balls are served at the new Carmen's Cafe restaurant in Leawood.
| A bowl o' balls can be a beautiful thing. |
There's nothing worse than a lousy meatball.
They can be too big and undercooked. Or they can be too small and dense. They can be too heavy on the breadcrumbs, too crumbly, too heavily herbed. Alternately, they can be devoid of seasonings.
But what makes a great meatball?
Update: The fried chicken dinner that was the featured in this week's "Where Am I Eating?" post garnered some very good comments, but none of them actually pinpointed the actual restaurant: Backfire BBQ in the Legends Entertainment Complex in Kansas City, Kansas. Chicken is only available on Sundays, but that's also the day the venue offers fried chicken and homemade waffles.
Original story: For some Kansas City diners, it just isn't Sunday unless there's a big fried chicken dinner involved -- a tradition that may date back to the glory years of the legendary old Wishbone Restaurant and its long-razed contemporaries (among them the Green Parrot, Mrs. Peters Chicken Dinners and the Victor Hugo Restaurant). Only Stroud's remains from that era.
But a new restaurant in the metro is serving fried chicken -- on Sundays only -- that one fanatic I know just crows about: crunchy fried bird served with mashers, very good gravy, Texas toast, and Grandma-style green beans for $10.95.
What restaurant serves this dinner?
But one local restaurant has revived the deep-fried apple pie in all its unhealthy deliciousness, serving it very hot, with a cinnamon-sugar crust and a scoop of ice cream.
Which restaurant serves this pie?
Home page image via Flickr: David Leggett
The answer to this week's "Where Am I Eating?" question is Panhead Billy's BBQ, a rustic-looking roadhouse in religious-sounding Kingdom City, Missouri. Things can't be too uptight there, though, because Panhead Billy's can get pretty wild. There are a line of brassieres hanging on one wall and you can still smoke inside the dining room.
I stumbled into this combination biker bar and barbecue pit traveling through Missouri on one of our speedy eastbound interstates. The joint serves a limited menu but attracts a motley clientele. When I stopped there, I saw a biker chick who looked remarkably like Maria Ouspenskaya -- the grim-faced fortune teller in The Wolfman -- and, sitting at a different table, a biker raconteur who regaled the whole dining room with the tale of hosting a "naked party" at the Lake of the Ozarks. (One of the more sheepish male guests, he said, preferred wearing a tie-dyed G-string to giving the Full Monty).
Where is this restaurant?
Update: Commenter Mallary almost had the right answer to this week's "Where Am I Eating" quiz. That's right, Mallary, it's Paparico's Mexican Restaurant on Wornall Road.
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It doesn't matter how bad things are going in your life, a plate of freshly prepared soft tacos -- shredded beef, in this case -- can be as effective as a pharmaceutical mood enhancer. These tacos taste as wonderful as they look, sprinkled with fresh cilantro and sided with a bubbling pile of refried beans, rice and a creamy sauce made from fresh jalapeno peppers and avocado.
What restaurant is serving this dish?
Update: This was a tough one! The restaurant thhat serves this dramatically-garnished bowl of seafood etouffee is Shields Manor Bistro in Platte City.
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Fat City loves a creative garnish. Turnips carved into little swans. Carrots artfully transformed into lotus blossoms. Even the traditional orange slice and sprig of parsley, the standard garnish of the 1960s and '70s. Plates always need a splash of color.But one can go, you know, a little crazy with the concept.
In Fat City, we're particularly fond of this version: plump, slightly chewy petals of squid dipped in a feathery-light tempura batter, flash-fried and served with a colorful palette of sauces: spicy mayo, hot mustard, sweet chili and sweet-and-sour.
Which local restaurant serves this calamari
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