Webster House

We did what any self respecting middle aged (well I'm middle aged, Stella's quite young) Johnson County couple would do. We saw a restaurant on public television and went to eat there the next night. In this case we went to Webster House (1644 Wyandotte, KC, MO) the night after it was featured on one of our favorite shows "Check, Please".

We used their handy dandy online reservation system found on their website around 5 PM to secure a reservation at 6:30. I'm not entirely sure that was necessary because the Webster House is quite large and was probably just a little more than half full, but Stella doesn't like to take any chances. We had a little bit of trouble figuring out where the dining room was because the first floor of the converted school house was an antique store the likes of which you might find in a higher end hotel, it kind of reminded me a couple of shops in the Fairmount in San Francisco. We finally found a flight of stairs that led us to the dining room. We were seated in a dining room adjoining the kitchen, which I wouldn't really recommend unless you really like hearing the expediter say things like "fire the scallops for 54" or "truffle fries up for 29". But sitting there did have one perq which I'll get to later.

Pretzel Rolls with 3 types of butter

Truffle fries and Long Strange Tripel

We sat down and perused the wine list while waiting for our lovely waitress, Tina, to get to us. She was having a little trouble keeping up with the 4 top next to us with a couple of UMKC professors (one of which looked just like Jeff from "Flipping Out") and their wives. I'm just speculating but they were drinking iced tea like they were high on E. Tina, quite frankly, was getting a little tired of filling up their tea glasses. I was a little disappointed in the selection for wines by the glass. Stella and I have pretty different tastes in wine, I like dry reds and she likes sauvignon blancs mostly, so we typically each get a wine by the glass. But, Webster House only has about 12 wines by the glass to choose from (ranging in price from $9 - $14). Stella was able to find a chardonnay ('06 Markham Chardonnay from Napa) that Tina thought was a great choice (and turned out to be, in fact, a great choice). I decided to skip wine once I noticed the availability of the 4 Boulevard Smokestack beers priced at $10 each which is a great bargain in a restaurant assuming you get a whole bottle. You do get a whole bottle and I really enjoyed my 750 mL of Long Strange Tripel.

We started with an appetizer of truffle fries to go along with the complimentary pretzel bread with 3 butters; a sea salt butter, shallot and artichoke butter and molasses butter. The sea salt butter went wonderfully with the pretzel bread, the sea salt making the bread seem just like eating a pretzel at a Wizards game. The shallot and artichoke butter was much better than I expected with a nice taste of shallot with just a touch of artichoke (which I don't really care for). And the molasses butter reminded me of eating an Auntie Anne's cinnamon sugar pretzel with caramel dipping sauce, but much less sweet. Honestly, I could have eaten a couple more pretzel rolls with butter for dinner and walked out of Webster House a pretty happy dude. The truffle fries came to our table mere seconds after they were announced done by the chef in the kitchen and nearly scalded Stella's tongue when she popped one in her mouth immediately. The fries were marvelously fried, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside. Truffle oil was barely present, if at all. And they were sprinkled with parmesan cheese, of which I'm not a huge fan. The fries were better than 90% of the fries you're going to eat, so I'm not saying they're bad, but I think I'll go with another appetizer next time we go.

Short ribs

The meal was nicely paced and Stella and I had plenty of time to talk and look around. I took some time trying to figure out what the room we were in was when it was a schoolhouse. It very clearly was too small to have been a classroom, which 2 of the other dining rooms clearly were. Our room was more like a hallway with 2 original archways. It could have been a small study room. I just couldn't figure it out. The kitchen was about the same size as the room we were in and had a little counter with 4 seats facing it that I thought were for individual diners, which is a nice touch for traveling businessmen, especially since Webster House is just a couple blocks from Bartle Hall. But, I found out I was mistaken, the little counter was a chef's table. You can sit at the chef's table and have him prepare you a 4 or 5 course meal for $30 tailored to your tastes. All the while, you get to talk to the chef since he's right in front of you. All you have to do is call and reserve your time. I dare say a better $30 can't be spent for dinner and entertainment. The couple of plates I saw the chef serving the couple partaking were quite large and sounded wonderful. They were mostly a reimagining of already existing menu items using components from many dishes on the menu. Stella and I will be doing this very soon.

Defeated by the short ribs, I had to let this hunk go

For my entree, I chose the beef short rib. Short ribs are a new love of mine, they combine 2 things I love, steak and ribs. The short rib is a substantial hunk of meat like a steak only it's really tender like a delightfully smoked rib. Plus, they're slow braised which fills them full of flavor. The Webster House short rib is braised in a red chili braise that infuses the meat with just a little bit of spice. The rib is served on top of a warm jalapeno polenta cake that kind of looked like a little corn bread ciabatta. From my first bite, I was in love. I was able to cut my short rib with my fork, pull out a little bit of polenta and dip it into the cold tomatillo sauce drizzled on the plate. The combination of flavor was delightful, just a hint of spicy heat, corn sweet and wonderful, wonderful tender beef with a nice roasted meat crust. I don't think you can get a steak with 20% of the flavors of those short ribs. I was really glad I didn't eat a second pretzel roll because I wanted to fill my belly with a much of the meat as I could. I had quite a challenge in front of me; 2 large chunks of meat, a pretty big chunk of polenta and at least 500 mL of Long Strange Tripel. My next 30 minutes was set. The only fault on the plate was the absence of a larger amount of the braising liquid.

Diver Scallops

Stella got the seared diver scallops for her entree. This was a much more manageable amount of food to eat with 4 scallops with a little beet and endive salad accompanied by a butternut squash risotto and a toasted parmesan cream. I'll be honest, I didn't think it looked that great. The risotto was a light green color and the scallops just looked overcooked and chewy. Looks can be deceiving. The scallops were perfectly cooked and seasoned. The risotto was perfect in flavor. Stella didn't leave a bit of food on her plate. I was not successful in finishing mine. I finally had to throw in the napkin with 4 or 5 good bites to go. It was a shame to let it go.

Best caramel corn ever

We were too late to get over to Elbow to get some chocolates for First Friday so we decided to have dessert there. Stella was stuck between 3 choices, German chocolate cake (I told her I wouldn't eat any of it, I don't like German chocolate cake because I don't like coconut..or Germans), Almond cake or caramel corn which is modestly named "The Best Caramel Corn Ever" on the menu. After consulting with Tina, our waitress, Stella decided on the caramel corn. I'm glad she did because it was the best caramel corn I've ever had. Admittedly, this is a weird thing for a restaurant to be really great at, but, at least you don't have to go to the Sedgwick county fair in Kansas or some such place to get the best caramel corn ever. You can just go to downtown KC. Each piece of popcorn was perfectly popped and coated with caramel. Then there were some peanuts, cashews and 2 pecans included. The pecans were so good we were very aware of how many there were. If there were 4 pecans in our serving of caramel corn, this whole post would have been about the caramel corn. The pecans were that good.

Webster House isn't a hip place, I don't think there was anyone under 30 in the place. It's not the most cutting edge restaurant in town. It's not the coolest place in town to be. But, it's a great place to spend an hour and a half or two hours eating a wonderful meal and drinking wonderful wine and beer. The small imperfections in our meal such as not enough truffle in the fries, not enough gravy on the short ribs, not being able to find the dining room are just that, very small imperfections. We enjoyed impeccable service, wonderful food and most of all a good time. Webster House is a treat that is quite unique in Kansas City and should experienced by everyone in town at least once and is a great destination for the downtown traveler to KC.

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

Brett is Best

It has been a long wait since I first heard about the Boulevard Saison-Brett. I've mentioned it numerous times, but saisons tend to be one of my favorite styles of beer, especially in the fall. I even have a sixer of Schlafly Saison in refrigerator right now. I rarely drink the regular Smokestack Saison because I love Sixth Glass so much so I drink it if I'm going to buy a Smokestack. But, I rather like the Smokestack Saison and consider it a flagship of the style.

While Stella was out running errands after dinner last night she went to Gomer's in Lenexa and picked up a bottle. She got home about 7 and I threw it in the fridge to cool before the debate started at 8. Stella was real interested in the debate and I enjoyed watching the other ones while commenting in The D's debate chatroom. But the debates and participants don't do much for me, so I wrote a Haiku to help explain my feelings.

Obama, McCain

Two sides of the same crap coin

Need some Saison-Brett

Like last week, I had a bright spot, the Saison-Brett. I cracked it open after only 50 minutes of chilling in the fridge so it wasn't quite down to cellar temperature. When I popped the cork I was transported to a French field of flowers. Never have I ever had such a wonderful full aroma when I opened a beer. I may become a bartender just so I can smell that smell professionally. It poured a hazy yellow with a wild foamy head like it had been shaken too much, but I think that's the Brett working it's thang. When it was poured the beer had a bit more malt smell and I could pick up the hops. I absolutely loved my first taste. It had the saison taste with some citrus and banana notes, a mild hoppiness and some spice. If you've ever read a book and got midway through and thought to yourself, I don't want this to end so you try to ration your reading. I'll just read this chapter and then I will put it down and reward myself with more tomorrow. That is what this beer is like. It's great that it's in a 750 ml bottle because there is quite a bit to drink, but you still want to make it last as long as you can. You should also take some time to drink it because 750 ml of an 8.5% beer will take its toll on you.

Lucky for me, I had the debate to watch and a chat room to discuss what we were watching. I took some time to school some fools on the economics of energy policy and a couple of other topics. All of the typing took my mind off and my hands off the Saison-Brett. For that I was thankful, it helped make the Brett last the length of the debate.
I should mention that the packaging on the Brett bottles is very nice. Each bottle's label appears as a certificate with a unique number, mine was 3492 of the 11,950 bottles produced. The Saison-Brett on the bottle appears handwritten (and I know whose handwriting it is). It's really quite a striking bottle. On the back label is a batch number, this batch is 2008-1. When I went over to Boulevard to make this season's batch of Nutcracker (that's right, I'm taking credit for the whole batch now) we discussed doing taste tests comparing batches. If you were able to buy several bottles you should set aside one or two and compare them to another batch further on down the line. It also may be interesting to find out how the Brett (Brettanomyces is a wild yeast strain that is a bit unpredictable and is used to bottle ferment this beer and gives the beer it's name) ages. It would take someone with willpower greater than mine to let one of these sit around for a year, but I'm definitely going to try.

The Saison-Brett (or as some call it, George Brett) is, as of right now, my favorite Boulevard beer, followed closely by Sixth Glass and Nutcracker. It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode, Switcheroo, where Jerry is dating a girl that he likes just fine except she's not a laugher but then he meets her roommate and desperately wants to pull a switcheroo (It can't be done Jerry!). The other roommate was so much better, if he hadn't met her, he would have been fine with the original girl until he got tired of her not laughing. But once he heard the roommate laugh he was immediately smitten and had to be with her. The Saison-Brett is like the laughing roommate. Like the roommates, the great thing about Boulevard is Boulevard would be open for a threesome, you, the Saison and the Saison-Brett, that's how cool Boulevard is. I'm shocked at how big a difference the Brett makes in this beer, but a difference it does make.

Get out there and get yourself some bottles of Brett. Drink them, save them, have threesomes with them, I don't care, just buy them. The more you buy, the more they'll make and the more they'll experiment with new beer styles. Beers like this put Boulevard in the conversation of who is the best brewer in the world.

Boulevard Smokestack Series: Saison-Brett

In late 2007, Boulevard Brewing of Kansas City introduced a new line of craft beers called the Smokestack Series. This week, they released the fifth installment of the series, Saison-Brett, on a limited release. How limited? Each bottle is numbered with the label listing a total of 11,950 bottles produced. As it so happens, I have bottles 3383, 3479 and 3509.

Due to the beer being limited to fewer than 12k bottles, liquor stores are charging about a $4 premium compared to the normal Smokestack beers. As of Monday, Lukas Liquor in Overland Park had a few bottles on the shelf. This afternoon, I was able to find some bottles in the fridge at Gomer's in Lenexa. If you want to wait until next week, Batson Liquor in Mission said that is likely when they will receive their shipment. I would recommend checking on Monday when they feature the Smokestake Series 10%-off.

As for the beer itself, I love it. If it's not my favorite of the series, it is definitely top 2. It's actually kind of odd since the regular Smokestack Saison is not one of my favorites. Overall the beer is pretty light, and I think the dry hopping it goes through improves the flavor for me. The Saison-Brett is 8.5% alc/vol.


If you want to try this beer out, I suggest you start hitting the streets because it won't be in stores for long. I know of at least three bottles you won't be getting your hands on, and I may go on another shoppign spree.