Barbecue Border War

I thought to myself this morning, by golly I’m going to go to Adam’s Rib for lunch today. So I did. I headed over and found out they have a lunch special for $5.99. Mind you, it was impossible to tell what the special entailed since it wasn’t on the signs, but it was a lunch special. I had to ask at the counter what the special was. It turns out it was a single meat sandwich with your choice of fries, beans, potato salad or cheesy cornbread for $5.99. That is a great deal.

I got a pulled pork sandwich and fries, my standard barbecue order and brought it home. I should mention that they’ve changed the ordering system since the last time I went. You now walk in and go straight to the register right in front of you. I was a bit confused this time because I started to walk to the one to the side of the door. Again Adams Rib has made a fool of me when I’m just trying to get my lunch.

I was once again amazed at the amount of food I got. The sandwich is a little smaller with the lunch special than I remember the regular sandwich being, but that’s okay with me. The other one had too much meat for me to ingest. Included in the to go box was a ridiculous amount of fries. They have also added a hot barbecue sauce which is greatly appreciated because I don’t think much of their regular barbecue sauce.

With the spicier sauce added onto the pulled pork sandwich, it was nearly flawless. It was quite juicy and flavorful without being the wet ball of goo the sandwich turned into last time. The bread/pork ratio was great and I was impressed with how great the sandwich worked. The fries were wonderfully crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Dipped into the spicy barbecue sauce they became wonderful French treasures.

Needless to say, Adams Rib has stepped up their game after being open for a couple of months. My barbecue decision when I’m home has now become quite complicated between RJ’s Bob-Be-Que and Adams Rib. My house is almost right in between the two of them, they both have great specials, the food is excellent in both places and the service is equally friendly. They both even have gentle giants working at them, RJ’s has Big Dave and Adams Rib has a big dude (at least 6’4”/250) behind the counter. I think they need to have a wrestling match to determine the BBQ king of JoCo.

I think with Adam’s Rib hitting their stride, I think a case can be made that the Kansas side has better barbecue than the Missouri side. Kansas has what I feel is the best barbecue in the metro with Oklahoma Joe’s. RJ’s is really good as is Adams Rib. Missouri has the big 2 in Gates and Arthur Bryant’s and then there’s LC’s (we’re going to leave Jack Stack out of this because they have big locations on both sides of the state line, Gates and Bryant’s do too, but they are iconic KCMO restaurants). LC’s is really expensive for what it is and good luck getting out of Gates and Bryant’s for under $10. RJ’s and Adam’s Rib might not be quite up to that quality, but they’re really close (they’re just missing the history) and are a couple of dollars cheaper. Plus, service at the 3 best Kansas barbecue restaurants puts the Missouri restaurants to shame. They’re downright rude at LC’s, they hurry you through at Bryant’s and Gates employs schtick.

To me, I’d rather have Kansas barbecue than the Missouri counterpart. Maybe I’m crazy. I still think Bryant’s is the second best barbecue in town and Gates third. But going to either of those 2 is a pain in the ass and I’m liable to be treated like crap while there. For marginally worse barbecue I can be virtually guaranteed good service and a better value.

I know there are many barbecue places on both sides of the state line and I don’t pretend to have visited them all. But 90% of the time, I’m going to eat at one of the 6 I listed here or Jack Stack. For me, I think I’d rather eat barbecue in Kansas.

I should also mention that Adam's Rib is holding a Man V. Food type competition among local "celebrities" on Saturday. The celebutestants are going to try and wolf down a 10 pound brisket burger in 20 minutes. The winner gets the proceeds of the event to go to the charity of their choice.

The Barbecue Forum

I took a vacation day today so I can go to my kids' parent/teacher conferences. As I was sitting around with the kids watching Handy Manny (I like to try and figure out which episodes Wilmer recorded after all night coke binges) I was monitoring Twitter. Matt Yglesias, author of a very smart liberal blog, tweeted that he was in KC attending an economics forum at the Kauffman Foundation. Since I grew up with wonderful midwestern values and consider myself an emissary for Kansas City, I replied to him that he should have someone take him to Oklahoma Joe's.

Apparently, Yglesias is a little better at reading Twitter replies from non-followers than I am, because he responded within minutes. Kauffman Foundation had brought the attendees Oklahoma Joe's, and Arthur Bryant's and I'm guessing, Gates. The nosy bastards at the Huffington Post also responded that Kauffman provided Oklahoma Joe's. They served them a wide variety of KC Barbecue. The Kauffman Foundation really knows what it's doing.

For the record, the favorite was Oklahoma Joe's. This is the reason why it is my pat answer to the question "where should I eat in KC". Every city has fine dining restaurants that are pretty close to the same. Oklahoma Joe's is not replicated in other towns, there is simply nothing else like it.

KC Beerfest 2008

The 2nd Annual KC Beerfest came to a close early Saturday evening. Generally speaking, the second was better than the first, but that's to be expected with a year under their belts and this being the second session of the year.

My own personal journey began at the Arthur Bryant's in the Legends. I had never been to Bryant's before and am fairly upset at what I've been missing all my life. The food was great, and it's a good thing we made the stop since the food at this year's Beerfest may have indeed been worse than last year. I saw numerous people walking around with string necklaces covered in pretzels, and I was pretty excited that they came up with some creative ways to get beer soaking material to the masses. Wrong. Those people made those themselves and brought them in. The food appeared to be exactly the same as last year. The one time I made it near the booths, no one was even around. Get a smoker, sell some turkey legs or brats. Please don't screw this up for the third time next year.

Beerfest should really be about the beer though, and they pretty much nailed things this year. To start, they did a better job of maximizing the space. Beer booths on either side of the garage, and they put the booths together in the middle to maximize working space for the breweries and volunteers. I hardly had to do any pushing through a crowd and only felt the splash of someone else's beer on my person once. They handed out a numbered list of beers and had flags posted so you could find any specific beer easily.

The money spot in the whole area was Boulevard operating at an end and wrapping around both sides. You could walk up to their booth at any of six stations and get something completely different. Avery was located almost directly next to them with an equally large selection that was in good supply. The biggest improvement at the Beerfest was the fact that breweries really seemed to come equipped this year with a supply to last close to the scheduled 4 hours. A number of booths also had some free giveaways, which I missed most of. I did get some swag from Miller Chill and an Odell Brewery sign that was the envy of many a drunk skank.

As for bests and worsts, I'm going to have to play the role of homer. Boulevard's overall selection was fantastic. They had the normal fare along with bottles of all four Smokestack Series beers. Boulevard then went above and beyond, offering the pilsner you can get at the brewery tour and the new limited edition Smokestack Saison-Brett on a tap. My favorite beer of them all was an unexpected treat, as they brought along some bottles of the Imperial Stout offered to some local bloggers (i.e. not me) a few weeks ago. The guy I spoke with said they may be looking to release it for sale around Spring with the Irish Ale.

The worst beer I had was one I had experienced before. I recently bought a sixer and thought it was awful. Since the brewery is fairly local, I held out hope that I got a bad batch or that it might taste better on tap. It didn't. The stuff is awful and my companions hated it even more than me. Tallgrass Wheat? More like Tallass. Fo Sho. And now, some pictures...

Grown men wearing matching outfits at Arthur Bryant's

A shot of maybe one-quarter of the crowd from afar. Once again, great job maximizing space this year.
Ass-less chaps on a KU fan. Typical.
If you wear a glove when you drink 3oz shots of beer, what do you put on to pleasure yourself?A new sign for the rec room