New York Chain

I remember reading a comment about the Jones Pool that said something like "it's something like you might find in a big city like New York". You hear that sentiment about a lot of things in KC. For some people midwestern things aren't good enough, you need to be like the big city. I'm not a New York basher and I love big cities, but that kind of self defeating attitude is a bunch of shit and I don't shit like that.

This came to mind when I was reading this article on NY Eats, the 10 chain restaurants that should come to NY. Never mind that we have 9 of the 10 chains in KC, but 3 of them are Denny's, Waffle House and Chili's. The Chili's entry really cracks me up.

You know the jingle, but here's something you maybe didn't know: the ribs at Chili’s are slow smoked over actual pecan wood so that they are always tender and fall right off the bone. It’s practically the poor man’s Blue Smoke.

 Now tell me something Kansas Citians, would you ever go to Chili's for ribs? Can you imagine living somewhere that going to Chili's for ribs would be something you would think about doing? Think about that the next time you have some sort of self defeating attitude about living in KC. New York strives to get Chili's ribs...who's better now?

Bull's Semi Homemade - Jambalaya

I'm an okay cook. I can improvise with ingredients. I even like cooking. With 2 exceptions, I don't use prepared mixes or boxed dinners. Those exceptions are macaroni and cheese and jambalaya. Macaroni and cheese is self explanatory, I think everyone eats mac and cheese from the box mixes. But, jambalaya is a bit out of the norm.

At some point in my bachelor days I decided to give the Zatarains Jambalaya mix a shot. All you have to do is brown a pound of Andouille sausage, pour 2 cups of water on it and add the mix which includes the rice, spices and dehydrated veggies. Once you find a good Andouille (I get mine at Werner's) this is a wonderful meal for yourself with easily prepared and tasty leftovers for 1 or 2 lunches depending on how hungry you are when you make your jambalaya.

Back in my Wichita days when I owned my own business and also worked full time, my only day off was Sunday (though I did do some work on my business on Sundays) I would make some jambalaya in the afternoon and watch baseball or football or whatever movies I had rented while I ate it. Then, Sunday was HBO and I would have another bowl or 2 while watching The Sopranos or Oz or whatever HBO shows were on. To this day, I get hungry for jambalaya on Sundays, especially during football season. Jambalaya was the second thing I ever cooked for Stella (she hated it because it was too spicy, she hasn't eaten it since). Now I mostly make it for football Sunday or when Stella's not around to eat dinner.

In the years since I've started making it with some add on ingredients. The first thing I added was jalapeno which I saute in bacon fat before adding the Andouille to brown. Then I started adding about half of an onion diced which I saute with the jalapeno. Sometimes, if I have one around, I add a finely diced bell pepper. The vegetables really add some texture and flavor to the jambalaya and make up for the admittedly crappy dehydrated veggies that are included in the mix. Best of all, though, the veggies fool people into thinking they're eating a jambalaya prepared from scratch (which is a hella lot work with 20 ingredients). I used to take it to work pot lucks and everyone thought I had slaved over the stove putting together all the ingredients. I can't think of a better jambalaya that I've eaten, even without adding fresh vegetables. I'm not saying there aren't better jambalayas out there, just that I've never had them. Finally, it makes 3 meals for $7 which is pretty good for as tasty as it is.

Man V. Food - Kansas City

Kansas City is going to get the Adam Richman treatment tonight on Man V. Food. He'll be visiting Strouds and Oklahoma Joe's before wasting his time out in Bonner Springs eating a massive amount of meat at some barbecue place I'm pretty sure I'll never go to. The show airs tonight at 8 on the Travel Channel.

Orange and Red

The Pitch's Fat City blog has been doing a series of posts counting down their 50 favorite dishes in KC. It's reasonably interesting and should certainly be used as a guide to trying new things in the area. That's exactly what I did Saturday morning as I was strolling along at the Overland Park Farmer's Market. I decided to stop into Clock Tower Bakery to grab a croissant (I love croissants and Clock Tower Bakery has pretty good ones, they even have a chocolate croissant), but they were either out or didn't have any that day. So, I dug into my memory banks and remembered that the orange roll from Clock Tower was one of the 50 favorite dishes. So I got it.

Mind you, I only had one and it may have been a bad one, but if that roll was one of the 50 best dishes in KC then KC isn't quite the food city I believe it to be. And that's not to say the orange roll was bad, but the orange zest may have had a little too much pith in it because it made each bite a little more bitter than I would have liked it. In the end, I would have preferred one of my beloved croissants.

Not only would I not put the orange roll on my list of top 50 dishes, it wasn't even the best dish I had that day. Rather surprisingly, in a day where I had Harry's Country Club fish and chips and some pulled pork in addition to the orange roll, my favorite dish of the day came from Mission Bowl. We had decided to go bowling at our neighborhood bowling fun center after dinner. We happened upon quite the little deal where each game cost $1.50 plus we got 2 free sodas. They also had some snacks set out at a little table by the concession stand. It had been several hours since I ate so I went to check out the snacks. They had some tortilla chips set out with a couple of little crock pots full of queso. They also had some red shelled mini tacos (I call em 2 bite tacos from my days eating at Willie C's in Wichita). I have a strong love for 2 bite tacos and I was intrigued by these red shelled ones. I grabbed 5 or 6 and headed back to our bowling lane.

This is not hyperbole, from my first bite of the red 2 bite taco I knew I was eating the best bowling alley meal of my life. They were fiery hot and quite dangerous to take a bite and then bowl. After the first one I learned to eat them while Stella was bowling so I could drink from my big PBR can after each taco. The first 6 were gone quite quickly, Stella was even addicted to them. I went back and got 10 more and found out they were jalapeno chicken mini tacos. These 10 were gone in a matter of moments. Unfortunately, Mission Bowl didn't put any more out so we were left with just chips to eat (I have a rule about not eating from crock pots in Mission). The jalapeno chicken mini tacos might force me to take up bowling or at the very least start eating at Mission Bowl. The red mini tacos definitely make my top 50 KC food items.

As an aside, I have been doing some Googling today trying to find the red delights and I've come up with nothing. I've never seen these anywhere and I'm sure they come off the back of a Sysco truck. I don't understand why more places don't have the red mini tacos. They're simply divine.