What Would You Do?

What would you do?

After driving 3 hours

In the snow and ice

On Christmas Day

With 3 kids

Who hadn't eaten since 9:30

A full 10 hours before.

What would you do?

You open the door to your parents' home

And ask what they have to eat

Your mother says, "I have a casserole"

And you throw up in your mouth a little

You've spent a lifetime avoiding casseroles

Because of your mother's casseroles.

What would you do?

You see it go in the oven

It's some sort of mac and cheese with sausage on top

The sausage looks like moose droppings

Your mother's bad casserole rep was earned

But, you're completely starving.

And it's Christmas day.

What would you do?

We had to go to a movie theater

The Warren Old Town to be exact

To get a gift certificate anyway

They have a bar and restaurant there

It's sure to be open.

What would you do?

We abandoned the kids

Their casserole fate was sealed

And headed into downtown Wichita

Not a creature was stirring

Not even a hobo.

The Warren Old Town had changed

The restaurant wasn't where it was.

What would you do?

I asked the ticket lady what was open

"Nothing downtown" was the reply

She then explained that they had excellent food*

Right there in the bar

So, that is what we did

Sat down at the bar

And perused the menu

With a Boulevard Wheat and Single Wide.

What would you do?

The menu could have been from anywhere

TGIFriday's, Applebee's, Cheddar's or Chili's

We decided on southwest egg rolls and jalapeno poppers

In retrospect, if we had listened closely

We would have heard the freezer open and close

When you're hungry you can eat nearly anything

The egg rolls and poppers were evidence of that

But, the hunger was sated for the time being

Unfortunately, we were down 30 bucks.

The beers were good though.

What would you do?

I'm really asking.

I don't know the answer

Because the Warren Old Town certainly

Was Not It.

*Taking food recommendations from a Wichitan is definitely tricky business. They simply don't have the restaurant options we have in KC. The scene is dominated by chains and fast food restaurants. Wichita is the birthplace of such fast food mainstays as Pizza Hut and White Castle and there are many local fast food chains. A Wichitan typically cannot give a solid food recommendation unless they've lived somewhere else for over 5 years or have an aversion to fast food.

Death By Food: Cheddar's Edition

I hope you're happy smh. Cheddar's officially opened on Monday, December 14, and I was there on Tuesday. I packed up the family. I drove down the street. I took the first step towards the end of my life by eating the "Cheddar's favorite" Monte Cristo.


2 kinds of meat. 2 kinds of cheese. Battered & fried. Served with powdered sugar and raspberry preserves. It's no wonder that I fit comfortably into a standard Cheddar's booth if that is a favorite item of the normal Cheddar's customer. IT'S A MEAT FUNNEL CAKE WITH DIPPING JAM. I think my wife was actually concerned for my life.

It was good, but I could never eat one again. I was fine with it after the first corner. The second corner had me at full capacity. Corners three and four were an act of self-hate. I would compare it to a night of drinking shots, and you end up throwing up and can never go back to that liquor again. The only good thing that came out of the evening was that I was so full that I had no desire to eat my fries, which were horrendous. Easily in the top five worst fries I've had in my life. I would rather eat Burger King fries.

As for my take on Cheddar's as a whole, it's OK. It looks like Houlihan's and tastes like Applebee's. Actually, it may taste better than Applebee's, but only because Cheddar's likely uses twice the fat content in their food. Prices seem pretty cheap, with only a couple steaks slipping over the $10 mark. Due to the quality of their fries and my wife's red beans & rice looking so bad I declined to taste them, you should definitely do yourself a favor and opt for a fresh vegetable side to help offset the lard injection from your entree. If someone wanted to eat near my house, I would go back. But that is more of a statement against TGI Friday's, Applebee's Outback, Mimi's, etc than in favor of Cheddar's.

El Chupacabra Sighting!

One thing I hate about new restaurants is the anticipation. In most cases, these spots do horrible jobs of pimping themselves out prior to opening. There's just a void of information out there, and I'm here to fill it. Perhaps this will inspire places to put some information out there so the first thing that comes up on Google isn't an opinion based on nothing but how bitchin' your logo looks.

All that aside...how bitchin' does this logo look?!?!?


When this place first popped up, they had a cheap banner out front that said "Horny Toads" featuring a horned toad laying alluringly on his side. Needless to say, I was filled with a need to experience all the Horny Toad had to offer. Weeks went by and nothing happened. Now all of North Kansas City is being ravished by El Chupacabra fever. By all of NKC, I mean 3 guys from Johnson County driving by during lunch.


Little is known about El Chupacabra other than it being a mythical, Mexican, goat-eating creature that will reside at 2417 Burlington St in Kansas City, MO. There are signs in the window stating that they will open soon and that there is absolutely no solicitation. There is a noticeable lack of goat carcasses in the parking lot, which totally makes me think this place isn't legit.

Carb Loadin'

While visiting our in-laws a few months back, I was treated to the rare occasion of actually not eating a homemade meal. The act of eating out turns into a much bigger adventure when you leave someplace like KC for a small town on the border of Minnesota and South Dakota. They called in an order to some bar called Extra Innings, which featured wraps made out of pizza dough called "paninos." I went with the Chicken Parmesan and was delighted to find a wrap that contained pasta, minimal cheese and a over-baked chicken patty. There was a cup of sauce on the side, but the dryness of all ingredients cooked together was too much to overcome. Pasta inside of a wrap may be one of the most epically bad food decisions ever made. After that night, I never imagined I would encounter it again.

I did cross it again though, and it was just as awful. This next encounter featured spaghetti and meatballs with sauce actually in the wrap. The sauce definitely makes it easier to eat, but the meatball was hardly present. Instead of meatballs, it might make more sense to lay an Italian sausage down the length of the wrap so it's there for every bite. Or perhaps just meat sauce. Or maybe....just maaaaaaybe...you fill the wrap with canned pasta. And if you really want to make sure the meat is in there, you have to go with mini meat-filled raviolis and meatballs.

The first step, which is highly important, is to drain the liquid. This helps make sure the sauce doesn't get your tortilla wrap too moist and ruin the integrity. I suggest pouring it into a cup to use as an enchilada sauce later.


Next, just slop some raviolis and meatballs out the can. Frankly, I think a wrap may be the preferred way to eat this product because it allows you to avoid as much eye contact with the food as possible.


Finally, I just wrapped them up Chipotle-style and threw them in the microwave to heat up the innards. Microwave the crap out of them. Mine were only lukewarm and elicited a gagging reaction. The original plan was to eat these in order to make a co-worker throw up, and that plan nearly backfired tragically. Potato Skins and Sunkist were lovely compliments in both taste and color scheme.

Aixois

Something this city needs is more French bistros. I really crave a croque monsieur on a regular basis and don't have many places to go to get one. That's why this weekend Stella and I were looking for someplace new to try and we decided on Aixois, a place we'd meant to go for years now.

Aixois is a nice looking place on Brookside Blvd. in the Crestwood Shops that always looks inviting as you are being as white as you can be driving from the Plaza to Brookside. It's quite charming inside the long dining room and we were seated along the back wall in the booth and chair type table (one side has the booth seating and the other has a lone chair, it's important to picture this for the rest of the story). Stella sat in the booth seat and I sat in the chair with my back exposed to the rest of the restaurant (which I hate). Luckily a the back wall is a mirror so I could see everything behind me so there wasn't much of a possibility I would get shivved from behind without me seeing the assailant coming.

I had kinda assumed I was going to get the croque monsieur but as I looked at the menu the moules et frites looked the most appetizing. I was still a little full from the 10 oz. prime rib at Hereford House from the night before and a ham sandwich just wasn't the most appealing thing to me. But I really wanted some pommes frites and mussels always sound good to me. Stella decided on one of the daily specials, a seafood crepe with shrimp and a cup of french onion soup along with a Diet Coke.

The Diet Coke came out in one of those little 8 oz. bottles. To me, this is ridiculous. They have a full service bar at Aixois with, I'm assuming, has a Coke and Diet Coke shooter in it. It annoys me to no end that restaurants serve those little bottles instead of giving you your soda off the tap. It is acceptable in older buildings with no space, but Aixois wasn't really limited in space for a soda fountain. It just seems pretentious with no cause to serve those little bottles and charge $2 for them and then not give refills.

As we were waiting for our order to arrive a middle aged couple was seated next to us. Instead of doing the traditional one in the booth the other in the chair, they decided to turn the 36 in. X 38 in. (I don't know the exact measurements but the table was very close to a square, but was a rectangle) table around so the widest part was in front of them as they were seated together on the booth side. Keep in mind that this means they are sitting right next to Stella because the seating was arranged for 1 person to sit there. So instead of having room next to her, she had a little bit of space and then an extremely arrogant, annoying, loud male type figure next to her. The couple then proceeded to order rosé wine. The lady of the couple was perfectly lovely, but the guy was just a giant jackass. I thought that he might have been coked up to his gills. He complained about their winter home, cheap $200 watches that he had to replace every 2 years (he had had enough and they were going to go to Tivol to get an acceptable one after lunch) and their daughter's choice of classes at the university. We assumed that their daughter was going to school on one of the coasts so as to get as far from her douche dad as possible.

Finally our food arrived after about a 20 minute wait. I was quite impressed with the mussels as the meat was quite plentiful in each one, about the size of a quarter. They were served in a shallot, herb and wine broth that, frankly, smelled horrid. But each mussel was perfectly cooked and flavorful. The pommes frites were a little thicker than I thought they should be and just a little moist. But, they were well seasoned and wonderfully tasty. Stella raved about her crepe but thought the french onion soup was just okay which was a disappointment.

Aixois seems to be real popular with people out to celebrate something. At a table in the corner a guy was celebrating his 65th birthday with his family. At a table behind us a woman was receiving gifts from her girlfriends. Another table had a family celebrating someone's birthday. The place was full on a Saturday at 12:30 but there was no wait for a table so it is perfect for a spur of the moment lunch. Our total with tip was near $30 so it's not inexpensive but good for a splurgy type of lunch. I liked my meal and Stella liked hers, but it wasn't world changing. I'd call the whole meal an average lunch. The Frenchness of Aixois gives it some caché and class, but it's price and quality doesn't distinguish it. I'd love for KC to have more places like Aixois though, simply to make the French bistro a little more accessible for those of us who aren't going to go to Tivol after lunch.

Frozen Pizza Chronicles - Red Baron Fire Baked Crust

I've been eating frozen pizzas my entire lifetime. My favorite all-time is the Dish deep dish pepperoni, but I enjoy a simple $1.50 Totino's pepperoni quite regularly. I've tried just about every kind out there. As you can imagine, some are inedible (Jack's and Jeno's come to mind), some are kinda enjoyable (California Pizza Kitchen, DiGiornio) but not quite worth the price.

Typically a frozen pizza should be sized so I can eat it alone in one sitting. It just doesn't seem right to share a frozen pizza, though the Dish is a notable exception. As I was perusing Facebook the other night one of my friends, The Hoosier, was touting the new Red Baron Fire Baked Crust pepperoni pizza as the best frozen pizza he's ever had. I wrote to him that can't possibly be true because The Dish makes the best frozen pizza. The Hoosier agreed that The Dish is mighty fine, but takes forever to cook and costs quite a bit ($6-$8). Based on his measurements of relatively cheap with short cooking time, I can picture the pizza being better.I haven't had a Red Baron pizza since college where I ate quite a few. I probably haven't had a Red Baron pizza sober since I was in Jr. High and I didn't enjoy them then. I only ate them in college because I was hungry at 2 AM and QT sold Red Baron pizzas. Granted this is a post about frozen pizza but I've never been drunk enough or hungry enough (had I smoked the weed in college I think I might have gotten stoned enough) to eat the QT sandwiches of that era. I never enjoyed a single Red Baron pizza and that was the reason I didn't immediately buy the Fire Baked Crust when I saw it at the store last week.

For a pizza The Hoosier was touting as cheap, $4.49 seemed kinda steep to me, but it was a nice size, right on the border of what I can eat in one sitting. It also took a really long time to cook for a pizza The Hoosier was touting as much quicker than The Dish. I cooked mine right at 20 minutes, but it took a good 10 minutes to get the heat up to 450. A Totino's pizza takes about 1/3rd of the time of the Red Baron, but is also kinda awful so you take the good with the bad.

I used The Hoosier tip of letting it sit for six minutes before cutting it up. Unfortunately for me I was also making lunch for the kids (angel hair pasta with a lemon basil Parmesan vinaigrette, a Vard house favorite), so the 6 minutes turned into at least 10. But once I did cut it and eat it, I was pleasantly surprised, very pleasantly. I could definitely get behind the sentiment of best frozen pizza ever. Unlike most frozen pizzas, it had a good amount of sauce, so it wasn't dry like most frozen pizzas. The crust had a good crisp and thickness to it. You could definitely taste it was a frozen crust, but it's a very good to great frozen crust. The cheese and pepperoni were plentiful and tasty.

As a whole, the pizza is excellent and I'd rather have a Red Baron Fire Baked Crust pizza than any offering from Pizza Hut, Papa John's or the like. When you see them on sale at the grocery pick a couple up and keep them in the freezer for the lazy Sunday lunch or Manic Monday dinner. If you feel strongly about a frozen pizza that I haven't covered in this post, let me know in comments, I'll give it a try.