Dining, Pitch

Waldo's Kokoro Maki House makes decent sushi — and good Korean food

Charles Ferruzza — Tue, 21 May 2013 22:00:00 -0500

Find both Korean cuisine and sushi at this Waldo spot. by Charles Ferruzza "There are not four Korean restaurants in Kansas City," said a friend of mine who is something of an expert in the cuisine of the Korean peninsula. "There are seven."…

Mapping your favorite sandwiches

Charles Ferruzza — Tue, 14 May 2013 22:00:00 -0500

by Charles Ferruzza If Kansas City has a signature sandwich, it's surely beef brisket, thickly stacked on cheap, doughy white bread. But humankind cannot exist on barbecue alone — or Wonder bread, for that matter — and any city with cosmopolitan ambitions salutes sandwiches from different regions of the United States.…

Double draggin' into two places, each trying to do two cuisines

Charles Ferruzza — Tue, 07 May 2013 22:00:00 -0500

by Charles Ferruzza You can thank popular franchise operations like the Cheesecake Factory, T.G.I. Friday's and even IHOP for expanding our American perception of international dining. In the 1960s, America's best-loved dining chain, Howard Johnson's, stuck to the tried-and-true: fried chicken, broiled steaks, chicken potpie.…

Anthony Accurso gives his family's namesake restaurant a kick in the mozz

Charles Ferruzza — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0500

A new generation updates an old Accurso's. by Charles Ferruzza There was a time when it was unheard of for an Italian restaurant not to serve spumoni, that slab of Neapolitan with attitude. The confection — two layers of ice cream folded around a center of sweetened whipped cream flavored with rum and toasted nuts, and doused with a rummy sauce — was often the only dessert you could order in such a place, unless the joint also served cannoli.…

American Royal champ Plowboys is headed for Blue Springs

Jonathan Bender — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0500

American Royal champ plans to open a barbecue joint in Blue Springs. by Jonathan Bender Once a pitmaster has won the American Royal, there's really only one last mountain to climb in Kansas City: opening a barbecue restaurant in a town that demands smoking excellence. So four years after he hoisted an oversized check as the American Royal Invitational Grand Champion, Todd Johns is firing up Plowboys BBQ in Blue Springs.…

The Basha: good, cheap Middle Eastern food in OP

Charles Ferruzza — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0500

by Charles Ferruzza I like restaurants that pretend to have some connection to royalty: Burger King, Princess Gardens, Dairy Queen. One aspires to make even a soft-serve cone a luxurious experience.…

Free State shows off its new bottling plant with a daylong brewing lesson

Jonathan Bender — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0500

Spending a day on the production floor at Free State Brewing. by Jonathan Bender Spent grain is caked on my forearms, like I've just lost a fight with a cereal mascot. And more grain keeps belching my way, from a pipe above a bin resting on the arms of a forklift.…

Stopping for food - good food - along the Quindaro

Charles Ferruzza — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0500

Exploring restaurants in KCK's historic Quindaro neighborhood. by Charles Ferruzza In the summer of 1857, J.V. Fitch, proud resident of Quindaro, sold ice-cream sodas in his shop, one of many new businesses in the fast-growing hamlet on the banks of the Missouri River. Ground had broken on the freshly platted community only six months earlier, but by August, Quindaro's population was more than 600, primarily runaway slaves and free blacks, members of the Wyandot Indian tribe, and free-state white settlers.…

Renée Kelly's Harvest: farm to Renée Kelly to table

Charles Ferruzza — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 22:00:00 -0500

Renée Kelly serves modern home-style dishes that fit the season. by Charles Ferruzza I keep waiting for some enterprising TV producer to build a reality show around Renée Kelly. She's a natural for the Food Network: a young, photogenic and smart chef and restaurateur, ready to be captured in her namesake venue, a century-old stone farmhouse in a Kansas City suburb.…

Café Sebastienne's Jennifer Maloney keeps her art contemporary

Charles Ferruzza — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 22:00:00 -0500

Cafe Sebastienne is a showcase for chef Jennifer Maloney's talents. by Charles Ferruzza Painter John James Audubon, who frequently described his meals in his journals, was once so poor that he ate only apples and bread. (For protein there was, according to one source, the occasional "cold raccoon for breakfast.") The sculptor Louise Nevelson reportedly found sustenance in her struggling years by eating onions and drinking whiskey, when she was financially unable to prepare favorite dishes such as red cabbage and lamb.…

Intorno bakes a little St. Louis style into downtown Lawrence

Charles Ferruzza — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 22:00:00 -0500

A little bit of St. Louis proves delectable in downtown Lawrence. by Charles Ferruzza One of the first things I learned as a new Kansas Citian, back in 1984, was that the locals believed real Italian cuisine had been influenced more by St. Louis than by Rome. That pretty much sums up KC's inferiority complex.…

Pig & Finch tries to take wing in Leawood

Charles Ferruzza — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 22:00:00 -0500

Pig & Finch tries to take wing in Leawood. by Charles Ferruzza Park Place, the retail-and-restaurant development in Leawood, shares its name with one of Monopoly's most expensive properties. It's not hard to picture the high-toned restaurant Pig & Finch as an addition you might build on the game board's version of Park Place, but it's a real business at the real (local) Park Place.…

There's no wrong time to eat alone at the bar

Charles Ferruzza — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 22:00:00 -0600

The comforts of solo supping at the bar. by Charles Ferruzza Oh, the things I've witnessed, eating alone at the bar. I once saw a man reading aloud from the Bible and sloppily drinking scotch.…