Shatto Pumpkin Spice Eggnog

Sunday night I picked up my first bottle of Shatto eggnog of the season ($3.99, $2.50 if you have a bottle to return). The first of many. Honestly, Anderson Erickson makes my favorite eggnog, but Shatto's is very good and is a little lighter with the nutmeg. The temperature and my need for nutmeg have an inverse relationship, as the temperature drops I will be craving the nutmeg heavy Anderson Erickson nog.

I found out from Chimpotle after I drank some nog that Shatto was coming out with a pumpkin spice eggnog today. It was a long couple of days wait, but finally today came. After dropping off my girls at preschool, the boy and I went over to Hy-Vee and picked up a bottle of pumpkin spice eggnog.

It's quite fabulous. It tastes more like pumpkin pie than eggnog. It kind of makes me question what the property is that makes eggnog, eggnog. I'm guessing it's eggs but that would make a Tom and Jerry eggnog wouldn't it? Like Jimmy Buffett, I'm not going to ponder the question too long. I'm just going to enjoy my Shatto pumpkin spice eggnog.

I somehow have to make this bottle last until the weekend or I'm going to OD on nog.

KC on $40/Day

I got a day off from being a housedad yesterday, so Stella and I had the opportunity to get out to some good restaurants. We decided I would pick her up for lunch. Since Stella is the prototypical Johnson County woman; mother and works for a nonprofit doctoring type outfit in Leawood, we were stuck eating somewhere in the Leawood area. When I left the house I had it in my head I was going to try some fried shrimp po'boys from Westchase Grill but my heart was telling me we should go to Blanc Burgers and Bottles. Once I found Tomahawk Creek Parkway and her actual building (they all look the same out there, luckily I was tipped off that it had a fountain) I had decided to go with my heart. I wasn't going to try someplace new, I was going to go to Blanc for a burger.

Stella offered no objection to a Blanc burger so we headed over to Blanc in the Mission Farms development. Luckily for me, Tomahawk Creek Parkway turns into Mission Rd. on the north side of 435 so I at least understood the street names and could find Mission Farms rather easily. We each got the lunch special which is one of five burgers and your choice of fries, sweet potato fries or onion rings or you can go with one of a couple of salads. I got the burger au poivre with regular fries and Stella got the classic with onion rings. I would have got the sweet potato fries but I wanted a piece of Stella's O-ring and she only enjoys a good stiff fry in return, sweet potato fries don't typically cut it.

My au poivre burger was excellent and in my book, the second best burger in town behind the Blanc Kobe burger. Stella's basic burger was good, but she agreed the au poivre one was better. She was concerned it would be too peppery, but confirmed that it was not. With the lunch special you don't get your side order in the fun little shopping carts, they just come on the plate and are about half portions which meant only four onion rings. The fries were nice, but once you've had the truffle fries there, it's hard to appreciate the regular fries. I wish they had a deluxe lunch special with the Kobe burger and truffle fries for $12 or something like that, the extra $3 (the regular lunch special is $9) would give people a great value for the best burger lunch they'll ever have. In any case the $9 special is plenty special and we got out of Blanc for under $25 (with tip) full and happy.

I dropped Stella off back at work (I'm pretty sure her building is 90% women as I didn't see any guys at all) and ran a couple of errands. I then went to see "Paranormal Activity" to try and scare myself silly. Shortly after I got home from the movie, Stella got home from work. We decided we weren't really that hungry after the Blanc meal and thought it a good idea to try out the small plates at Extra Virgin's happy hour.

Extra Virgin's (19th and Main) happy hour lasts from 11:30 - 6 and includes about half the menu at half price. What is already a fairly priced restaurant for what it is transforms into a very affordable meal during happy hour. We decided to each get a small plate and then share one since we weren't that hungry. I would suggest, if you're making a meal of it to at least get 2 plates each with another plate for every 2 people to share. I wouldn't get more than 3 plates per person, because you do end up getting plenty to eat on each small plate. Most of the items are between $8 and $12 so at half price they're $4 - $6, you've spent more on fried appetizers at Chili's. The Extra Virgin small plates have the added benefit of using quality ingredients.

The empanadas caught my eye but I didn't know what cabrito was so I had to ask our lovely waitress. She told me cabrito was baby goat at which point I got very excited. Since it was baby goat it likely hadn't been molested by Chimpotle. The waitress said she either gets my reaction or people are horrified. I knew I was going to have the cabrito empanadas. I was a little upset that the braised pork cheeks were not one of the half price plates. That was the only item that would have gotten me away from the cabrito empanadas.

Stella was a bit torn between the duck leg confit, the chicken thighs stuffed with figs and chorizo and the prosciutto raviolis. She went with the prosciutto raviolis. For our shared plate we got the baked mussels with herb garlic butter. I think I could eat every meal with some mussels.

I don't think 4 prettier empanadas have ever been made. They were absolutely perfect looking served atop what they called a green olive salsa. From the first bite, I knew that these were going to be the best thing I ate all day. They were just perfect, I don't even have a nit to pick with them. Perfect spice, perfect tenderness, the pastry was just the right consistency to go with the tender meat, even the olive salsa added a nice little bite to each bite. On a day where I ate a Blanc burger, the cabrito empanadas were the best thing I ate that day.

Stella's raviolis were quite wonderful as well. They were gloriously light and perfectly flavored with the chimichurri. If I'd known chimichurri was involved with those raviolis, my initial cabrito decision would have been made harder.

The mussels were the worst part of our little meal. That's not to say they were bad, they weren't, they just had some stellar competition. They came on a very hot plate, each mussel covered in a little breading. The ones I squeezed enough lemon on were absolutely wonderful. The ones without enough lemon seemed just a little dry and the flavors were muted to a point that each mussel was just mediocre.

Everything was just so good we couldn't leave without one more item, the churros and chocolate. Stella loves Churros so much I almost believe that her German ancestors mistook a Mexican for a Jew a long time ago and enslaved him to make them churros all the live long day. For $5 you get 5 little churros (3 or 4 bites each) and a ramekin of chocolate. The chocolate was a shade too bitter for the 2 of us but it was very good. The churros themselves were excellent. The combination of the 2 was just about perfect with only the chocolate being a tad too bitter being the nit that needs picking. I think our tab for the whole thing including drinks and tip was about $35.

I don't really eat breakfast but I did have some Shatto eggnog with some granola with spiced figs which probably cost about $1.50. My lunch was about $13 and dinner was about $20. I ate the best KC has to offer for under $40. Rachael Ray is my bitch.

Say Cheese

Saturday evening, while recovering from the glory that was Beerfest, I saw a Facebook update from Shatto Milk Company saying their hotly anticipated cheeses would be available at the Whole Foods at 93rd & Metcalf. Needless to say, I was in the door around 4PM and casing the joint for creamy goodness. Not being familiar with healthy food or comfortable in the company of hippies, I wasn't quite sure where to start. A quick peek in the dairy section will net you a lovely bag of cheddar cheese curds. Like the milk and ice cream products before them, the plastic bag of curds sport the black text on the right. They might say "squeaky," but some better words might be salty and/or delicious. But the real stars of the show were just around the corner.

Wedges and wheels and samples, oh my!

Lucky for me, Whole Foods was slicing up samples of each of the five cheeses to taste before having to drop $10 on a half-pound wedge. Of the five aged cheeses, two are cheddar followed by a smoked gouda, havarti and port salut. I pressed hard for the gouda, but we ended up walking out with the port salut (which they labeled/named Perrin) and the Lilly cheddar.

Shatto hopes to have the cheeses more wildly distributed in the near future, but for now Whole Foods is your only option. I doubt they will have samples out every day, but as long as you go with what you like, I don't think you can go wrong. My two favorites were the gouda and havarti, and I happily walked out with two completely different offerings. It feels like Shatto has hit another home run with this venture into the premium cheese market. And now for some cheese porn...

Curds in the way

Sharp looking cheddar

Cutting the cheese

Wendy's REAL crappy idea

Forgive me while I vent over the death of my favorite fast food sandwich of all time, the Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwich.


Don't be mistaken, the sandwich still exists. I choked one down a mere moments ago. But it was the last until Wendy's rights the wrong they have committed. Give me back my bun!!!

I knew things would never be the same once Wendy's got purchased by those Arby's sons of bitches. But to my surprise, Wendy's stayed strong and kept providing me with stellar spicy chicken sandwiches. Until Tuesday night. Tuesday night, I stopped to grab one on the way home and something wasn't right. The bun was just...meh. I chalked it up to stopping late and probably getting something I don't even want to know about. Cut to today and the first day of non-catered lunch this week. Cut to today and my second awful spicy chicken. It's the same damn bun. And if you don't think the bun is that big of a deal, please look at that picture above again. Shit's like all bun. Why do you all of the sudden just change a bun?

Apparently because you've got a REAL shitty new ad campaign. I know it's real when I taste my favorite sandwich for the past decade and want to spit it out. I'm not sure why trying to re-brand your burgers to keep up with everyone else means putting the new hamburger bun on your chicken sandwiches. Wendy's, you've gone and taken a big crap on my heart, which is actually pretty psyched at the news I won't be eating these anymore.

So yeah, Wendy's has new buns. I think they taste like crap and have a sticky-ish texture. They will be retaining the old, familiar buns for small sandwiches like the Jr Bacon and such.

Checked Out

I'm not what you would call a fan of public television, but after seeing this season's schedule for Check, Please! Kansas City, I've spent the last few weeks suffering through episodes to see the person who suggested U-Gene's Deli & Pizza. It did not disappoint. If the U-Gene's logo to the right isn't creepy enough for you, you should really check out the pile of awful that is their website.

I've eaten at U-Gene's numerous times, and I will probably eat there again. I wouldn't say the food is bad, but the fact that anyone would go on a show to vouch for the place boggles my mind. I love Taco Via, I gave it 5-stars on Yelp, but it is a complete shit hole. There are some places that should never be recommended but simply stumbled upon, U-Gene's is one of those places.

The Check, Please! intro sold U-Gene's as the only good alternative a woman from Chicago could find to Chicago-style pizza. U-Gene's doesn't serve Chicago-style pizza or anything closely resembling it. I only eat at U-Gene's for lunch, so perhaps I'm missing the boat since the lady said the pizza isn't as good at lunch. Huh? They make a shitty version of their food just for the lunch crowd? That makes sense. While this lady dished out the praise, the look of disgust from the man who suggested Blue Koi filled me with delight. It almost made me wonder if they aren't allowed to be too harsh on a selection, because that guy looked like he wanted to go off. Had I been on this episode of Check, Please! and asked for my final summary, it would have went something like, "Greasy pizza and crispy sandwiches. Great for helping out with a bowel movement or when you're completely drunk."

My second favorite moment of the show came while they were reviewing Blanc Burgers & Bottles. Best burger is a very hotly contested claim, and while Blanc completely does it for me, I'm willing to accept other opinions. Willing unless you're the type of person who goes on TV to hype up U-Gene's. The lady said Blanc wasn't even the best burger she had that week, and then left us all hanging. If U-Gene's is your favorite restaurant in KC, where is your favorite burger from? Sonic? I need to know.

If you're interested in future episodes of Check, Please! I suggest circling 10/22 on your calendar. Hayes Hamburgers will be featured. The one time I have eaten at Hayes, the grill cook had a custom Chiefs jersey and no teeth, and we watched a woman behind the counter individually slice a ziploc bag of 50 hot dogs. Thank you, Check, Please! for celebrating some of the Northland's finest.

I Say Meh

Ever since Stella saw You Say Tomato (2801 Holmes) on the PBS show "Check Please" she has wanted to go. You see, for a Nebraskan, like Stella, bierocks, which they call Runzas because of the ubiquitous Nebraska chain, are irresistible. Since there just aren't that many places around town that sell bierocks once she hears of one, we have to go.

So this weekend we had the chance after some shopping on the Plaza (we picked up the pumpkin pecan butter from Williams-Sonoma to make these). Before today I've never been to the Dutch Hill neighborhood, I just never make it that far east in midtown. I only know the name of the neighborhood because it was noted in the Ferruzza review of You Say Tomato that was posted at our table.

You Say Tomato is in the only building in the neighborhood that isn't industrial or a house (at least on Holmes). I would describe the building as decoratively worn, others might call it rundown, still others might call it charming. I think the description of the outside will vary based on how much someone might like what's inside. Inside is an oddly little laid out restaurant. They want you to call it a grocery too and they do have some items for sale, but if you're going there for anything other than fresh fruit you're probably not going to find what you want. On the left hand side is the grocery section, on the right hand side about 10 mismatched tables, in the back is an open kitchen and counter to do your ordering.

We weren't able to find a table that would fit all of us (Stella, me and the 3 kids). Luckily a youngish couple sitting at a really large table for 6 agreed to move to a smaller table so we could sit at the big table. Once we got the kids sat down and situated, I went up to the counter to order. I knew everyone else was having a bierock I just had to figure out what I was going to have. They have quite a selection of make your own sandwiches (choose your bread, meat, toppings etc.), knishs (which were tempting) a panini of the week, a couple of salads and soups and a bunch of breakfast items which I guess they serve all day. I decided to go with a BLT.

I sat down at the table and tried to control the 2 year old while I read the framed Ferruzza review (pretty glowing). He made a point about You Say Tomato reminding him of what restaurants in KC were like in the 1930's. But I don't think that's right, I could see this place being straight outta the 90's, 1890's that is. Something about it seemed like we should be eating by candlelight. I'm sure I'm remembering it wrong now, but it seemed like the only light in the place was coming from the big windows in the front of the space. Ferruzza also wrote "the kitchen isn't really snappy even on slow days". I can't attest to what it's like on a slow day, but the fact that I committed that quote to memory as I was sitting might be saying something about what it's like on a pretty busy afternoon.

When our food did get to the table it looked pretty great. The bierocks were freshly baked and extremely hot. My BLT looked really good with bacon sticking out in every direction. This is the first time I've ever seen slices of watermelon as a side dish, but each plate had a slice of watermelon. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, this was a welcome development. I get the feeling that whatever they have that's fresh and good will come out as the side dish on any given day. I got my BLT on sourdough, my favorite sandwich bread and it was lightly toasted. I should have ordered it with a lighter application of mayo but I wasn't expecting the amount of mayo it actually had on it. I think there was enough on there for about 5 sandwiches, but I'm not a big fan of mayo so I could be wrong. Each half of the sandwich had 3 thick slices of really ripe and red tomatoes and something like 6 slices of bacon. It's a nice sized sandwich and for $6.95 it should be.

As for taste, the BLT worked. It didn't change my life or anything but I enjoyed it. As I suspected, the mayo was omnipresent. A BLT can only be as good as the tomatoes and these just weren't the best tasting tomatoes around. I think with a little bit of salt they would have been wonderful. Without the salt they were a little bland but plenty juicy. The bacon, as always, was good and even though there was a lot of bacon on it, I found myself wanting more, namely to balance out the mayo a little more.

Stella really enjoyed her bierock, though she noted there were some large cabbage chunks in it that would have been better chopped a little finer. For $6 it was quite a lot of meat and about double the size of a Runza. A better unit of measurement for most people might be the size of a Chipotle burrito, the bierock was about the size of a well filled Chipotle burrito. One of the kids didn't really like her bierock but she ate it anyway. My 2 year old boy absolutely loved it though and he ate a full half of one of the bierocks. Between the 3 kids they ate almost all of 2 bierocks, leaving mostly the bread coating. When we were done eating there was no evidence watermelon has any red in it. If my boy had had his way there would have been no evidence watermelon was a part of the meal.

Going to You Say Tomato is a little like going to your kind of weird aunt's house. The aunt your dad tells you really experienced the 60's, the aunt who's never really had what most people would call a job, the aunt who has a lot of "trinkets" laying around. Her house is full of mismatched furniture and antiques, but the antiques were all picked up at curbside. Inevitably you have a good time at the weird aunt's house because it's just so different from what you're used to but if you stayed there for a week, you'd get a little tired of the place. Now that I've been to You Say Tomato, I'm good for a while, maybe next summer. It's not that there's anything wrong with the place, there's just not much for me. For others, namely those that love the weird aunt's place or are the weird aunt, it may be the bee's knees.

Tacos Via the 80's

Walking into Taco Via (95th and Metcalf) the other night was like going back in time, literally. I'd read on Yelp that the place hasn't changed at all in twenty years. They even had a sign hanging by the register advertising a mexi-pizza as new that I would guess was introduced to the menu in 1998. The menu board had a picture of each item. You could tell the chronology of when the items were added by how faded the pictures were. The tacos picture looked almost like a negative. The decor looked like it was lifted from a Hardee's remodel site in the 80's. I was immediately impressed.

I was quite hungry from a day of working in my yard building a raised garden. For some reason hard manual labor always puts me in the mood for either barbecue or tacos. On this day it was tacos as I had run across a couple of 5 star reviews for Taco Via earlier in the day. When I see something like that and find that most people have rated it very highly, I feel I must check it out.

Taco Via is so retro they had white kids working behind the counter. No immigrants at Taco Via (not that that's a bad thing), no Taco Via goes old school, from the times before the minimum wage got so high that an unskilled 16 year old could actually work in fast food. The kids even looked like they were from the 80's or at the very least from the movie "Adventureland". Next time I go in I'm going to wear my pinch rolled jeans with a Z. Cavaricci t-shirt and puka shell necklace* because Taco Via reminded me so much of the time when we hung out at the Taco Tico (Wichita fast food taco place) in high school.

*Sure it's easy to think I was a douche in high school because I wore a puka shell necklace and it would be true if I went to Shawnee Mission East or Blue Valley North. But, it's not true. I went to an inner city high school in Wichita, things were tough. You could only wear a puka shell necklace at my school if you had stabbed someone or killed a drifter (you could only wear beads if you stabbed a teacher or security guard). The 80's were a different time in Wichita, stabbings were seen as kids being kids and only slightly discouraged. Robert from Lunch Blog will back me up on this since we went to high school together.

I got 3 tacos and an order of nachos (total around $7). They have a special of 1 taco, 1 nacho, 1 sancho and a drink for around $6.25, but I have a fairly strict no sancho policy. The tacos are standard issue American style fast food tacos, only bigger. For $1.49 each, a meal could be made of 2 or 3 of these. They have a healthy amount of meat and plenty of lettuce and cheese to round it out. The nachos are unlike any nachos I've ever seen. I called them nacho cookies when I showed them to Stella. They were uncurved (flat) taco shells covered in melted orange cheese, jalapenos and salsa (you can get them without the jalapenos). Needless to say, they were delicious. When you get an order of nachos, you get 2 nacho cookies. The tacos taste like a good version of a Taco Bell taco. Think of the first taco you ever ate and thought "I'm going to be eating tacos for the rest of my life", that's what the Taco Via taco tasted like. The sauce was a little tangy with no heat. It wasn't that great and didn't bring much to the table. I'm not going to say you're going to be blown away by a Taco Via taco, but it WILL taste like happiness, your youth and maybe even remind you of that first taco you had.

I think every town has a kind of homegrown taco place that has held on through the Taco Bellization of America. In Wichita it's Taco Tico, in Lincoln and Omaha it's Amigo's. I'd like to think that in KC it's Taco Via. It's a shame it took me 10 years of living here and craving Taco Tico to find Taco Via. Now that I have, I've wanted to go back and eat again. I just have to find my Z. Cavaricci shirt first.