RJ's Pig Feast

RJ's Bob-Be-Que is having a little party tonight to celebrate the rebroadcast of the "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" episode featuring them. As part of the celebration they are smoking a whole pig which is fulfilling award winning blogger Meesha's yearlong dream of eating a smoked pig. A buffet with the pig, cole slaw, beans, sweet potato casserole, fresh applesauce and corn bread muffins will be available for $15/person.

Word is they're pretty packed up, but there's still space available so you'd better call 913-262-7300 to RSVP and reserve your spot. You don't want to miss out on whole pig and if you play your cards right you may even see several D list KC bloggers hanging out eating pig. If you're not coming out, you can watch the episode, which will make you really want to eat barbecue, will air at 9:30 on Food Network. If you are coming out, festivities at RJ's begin at 8.

Panera is Bad For You

McDonald's is always the convenient whipping boy for health activists saying that McDonald's food is bad for you. But, that's a little too easy, it's like picking on the gay kid in high school (too soon?). Everyone knows that McDonald's is bad for you, but they're always the example of how fast food is bad for you. I don't understand why, after they go after McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's, they leave a place like Panera alone.

I'm not going to lie, I hate Panera for reasons unrelated to it's healthiness. I spent about 6 months working on a project a couple of years ago in which we had 2 or 3 lunch meetings a week. At those meetings we almost always had Panera, and aside from the French onion soup and lemonade, I never liked any of their food. Many times a sandwich would sound good but actually taste horrible. But, I always kinda thought Panera's food was better for me than typical fast food.

It's not. Panera's just as bad, if not worse, than McDonald's. For instance, half a smoked ham and swiss sandwich has more sodium than a McDonald's double cheeseburger (1220mg to 1150mg) and only 80 calories less and 7g fat less than the double cheeseburger. That's half a sandwich, hardly a meal. So if you're doing the Pick Two menu at Panera, you're going to get a salad to be a little healthier than the fries you're going to get at McDonald's, I chose the half fuji apple chicken salad. Well, you're obviously going to do better on the sodium front at Panera. Except, you're not. You're going to get 410mg of salt in that salad as opposed to 270mg in a medium fries. Again, the salad does better on the calorie front with 260g to 360g, but the fat is almost even 15g to 17g. So for a total meal you get 610 calories, 30g of fat and 1630mg of sodium at Panera. At McDonald's you get 810 calories, 39g of fat and 1570mg of sodium (I added 2 ketchup packets at McDonald's).  If you have high blood pressure or any other heart related problem, you just screwed yourself by going to Panera. If you're relatively heart healthy, you saved 200 calories and 9 g of fat by eating at Panera, unless you ate that pesky little baguette they throw on your tray. Then you give up 180 calories and add another 440mg of sodium. Your carb total is even between the 2 meals.

For my money, there's not a dime's worth of difference in the nutritive value of the 2 meals, but the Panera one is much more dishonest. In my mind a half sandwich half salad lunch should be way better for me than a double cheeseburger and fries. If I'm not informed of my caloric or sodium intake, I might be more willing to splurge a little for dinner and have some chocolate cake for dessert or eat a heavier meal and still think I didn't go over what I should be eating in a day.

Now, let's say I'm trying to eat healthier and actively seeking a good for me meal at Panera and McDonald's without looking at the nutrition guides on their websites. So, looking at their menus (I did not cherry pick here, I chose these meals by what sounded healthiest and what I would like to eat, except at Panera I chose turkey, which I hate and will not eat, but turkey is the best for you meat either restaurant carries.) I chose 2 grilled chicken wraps and a side garden fresh salad. At Panera, I chose the half smoked turkey sandwich and the half orchard harvest chicken salad. My McDonald's meal totals 570 calories, 21g of fat, 1240mg of sodium and 64g of carbohydrates. My Panera meal totals 740 calories, 25g of fat, 1930mg of sodium and 84g of carbohydrates. If you somehow don't eat the baguette that shows up on your tray at Panera you still get 560 calories, 24g of fat, 1490mg of sodium and 52g of carbohydrates. Panera loses in all categories except carbohydrates if you don't eat the bread, but be honest with yourself, you're going to eat that baguette.

In both cases, trying to eat healthy or ordering what I want, I would rather eat the McDonald's meal (and I don't like McDonald's either). Neither place is particularly good for you, but, at least at McDonald's you're not fooling yourself into thinking you're eating something healthy. Panera somehow escapes people's scorn when it comes to serving bad for you food. I don't think they should, they're even more guilty of making bad for you food, because they serve it under the guise (whether intentional or not) that the food is fresh and good for you. I can't speak to whether it's fresh or not, but it's definitely not good for you.

I encourage you to play my little game with both restaurants' handy nutrition calculators; Panera and McDonald's. Or go one step further and compare Panera to your favorite boogeyman of negative nutrition and see how they stack up.

La Bodega

A while back LaCrone wrote a post on the Clean Plate Club blog about places in town he was ashamed he'd never eaten at. I commented on that post listing 3 places, Plaza III, The Majestic and The Savoy. But I left off La Bodega (703 Southwest Blvd., KCMO), that's just how much it was buried in my mind as a place to eat. Well that changed recently as Stella and I finally thought of it when we were trying to decide where to eat dinner.

chorizo y pollo

Calamares

We got there during their happy hour which includes about 15 of their small plate entrees at half price and half price beer and sangria as well as 10 wines served for $5 a glass. Wes Port wrote a nice little post about the happy hour a couple of years ago on the KC Beer Blog. As we sat down we only knew they had a good happy hour, we hadn't looked at a menu before and didn't know quite what to expect. It was a little overwhelming at first since neither of us knows our Spanish food very well. We decided that we would each get 2 plates on our own and then share 1 and see where we stood when we were done with that. I ordered the calamares a la plancha (sauteed squid in olive oil, garlic and lemon sauce) and patatas bravo (potatoes in a spicy tomato sauce). I was very close to ordering the pimientos rellenos de piquillo (red peppers stuffed with rice and ahi tuna) but when I looked in the regular menu I saw that it was served cold. Cold rice dishes don't appeal to me unless it's sushi plus it was a little bit cold the evening we went and I wanted something a little more hot and spicy. Stella got the pincho de pollo y chorizo (skewer of chicken and chorizo) and datiles con jamon y chorizo (dates wrapped in pancetta and stuffed with chorizo). If there's a dish with stuffed dates on the menu, Stella's going to order it. We decided to share an order of pintxos de higo (roasted red peppers, goat cheese and a fig coulis on grilled bread). Again, if you have a fig dish on your menu, Stella's going to order it. We also each got a red sangria.

Our food came out in under 5 minutes. The calamares looked wonderful, a nice departure from the battered and fried version you normally see. A nice pile of rice accompanied the squid. I was unprepared for the size of the patatas bravo, this was no small plate, it was a full plate of potato quarters covered in a rich looking chunky tomato sauce. Stella's pollo y chorizo skewers were a bit puny, the jamon y chorizo was 5 dates that looked quite fabulous and the pintxos de higo contained 3 slices of bread with a healthy smattering of goat cheese and fig coulis.

Patatas bravas, you must eat this

Let's start off with the weakest of the bunch, the calamares. There's a reason squid is usually fried, it's because it's hard to get much flavor into the meat.
The whole thing was a bit bland, not bad tasting or anything, just the weakest of the items we got. Despite the small size of the pollo y chorizo, Stella enjoyed it thoroughly. But what she really loved were the dates. I had to sheepishly ask if I could try half of one and she kindly let me. They were like candy which is the only thing bad I can say about them, because they were much more of a dessert type item than a dinner entree. I could barely taste the chorizo in them and Stella said the same. The pintxos de higo were wonderful, the goat cheese and fig is a classic combination for a reason. On to the star, the patatas bravo. I loved every bit of it. If you go to La Bodega and don't get the patatas bravas. I have to say you failed. This should be a side dish at every restaurant in town, there should be a food truck slinging bravas parked in Westport, I should see a bravas stand at every festival around town. Bravas does for the potato wedge what poutine does for the french fry. I don't think I could have spent a better $3 anywhere in town. The tomato sauce on the potatoes was a perfect bit of spicy with the tomato's natural sweetness. The potatoes had a nice bit of crisp on the skin and were light and fluffy inside. It was just a pretty wonderful little combination.

pintxos de higo

Since Stella didn't get the patatas bravas she was still hungry after her dishes and had to get an order of albóndigas caseras (meatballs in a garlic cream sauce). We also each got a white sangria. I snacked on the leftover bread from the breadbasket and worked on finishing the potatoes. The bread was some kind of wonderful as well since they had olive oil and basalmic vinegar on the table. I love some bread with oil and vinegar. I didn't like the white sangria as much as the red and I'll probably order beer next time. Stella liked the white better than the red. Sangria's not really my thing so Stella's taste is probably more correct. She enjoyed her meatballs and conceded that she probably should have had them instead of the pollo y chorizo.

Finally full we got our check to which we were going to use some credit we had built up on our KC Originals card and pay the rest with a credit card. The waitress informed us that we could only use our Originals credit on the only full priced item we got and only on half of that. So instead of being able to use our entire credit we could only use $4. The KC Originals has no such rule that you can only use your credit on full priced items, La Bodega just doesn't want to redeem your credits, so keep that in mind. It makes me only want to redeem points at La Bodega just because they want to make up rules. It soiled an otherwise wonderful experience at La Bodega. It also soils the KC Originals card which we love using. The restaurants love to give you the points but, at least in La Bodega's case, are looking to screw you over when you try to redeem your points. Just know that no rule about redeeming points only on full priced items does not exist.

Other than the points redeeming thing, La Bodega is a must visit place to eat in KC and the patatas bravas is a must order there.