Author: foodnerd

On the way to the stadium for the Red Sox/Royals game, we stopped for dinner at Arthur Bryant’s barbecue. I was very excited about this, having read Calvin Trillin’s rhapsodic odes to the joys of Mr. Bryant’s Kansas City meat cookery. Bryant’s is the ur-barbecue in Kansas City. When my brother found out I’d been to KC, his only concern was, “Please tell me you went to Arthur Bryant’s.”

This is a brick building across from a vacant lot, with cheap tile floors and formica tables, and a long line up to the counter of meat pilgrims from every walk of life. You order your meat from the first man, and your sides from the cashier; there is clearly a method to this, and we did our best to fake our way through. And brother, let me assure you that it is worth it.

These beef burnt ends are where it’s at, moist, tender, and sopped in a fantastic dark red, complex sauce that’s only just barely sweet. There is pillowy Wonder bread (the ordering window is lined with the brightly colored bags of it) underneath, turning into a savory muck as the sauce soaks in. The pulled pork is also exemplary, but I had to go for the ends.

The fries are nothing special, I wouldn’t bother on a return trip. But the slaw is excellent, chopped and well-seasoned, not sweet, and the beans are excellent as well. These beans are not as sophisticated and balanced as the ones at Jack Stack, but they are spicy-delicious and go well with the meat. The lemonade is too fake-sweet — if you want something other than beer or iced tea, I’d go instead for the sugary, bright-red cream soda, something I’ve never seen anywhere else.

We have acceptable barbecue here in Massachusetts, particularly at Blue Ribbon, which is quite near the house, but there is really nothing like eating barbecue in its native habitats, made by people who’ve been perfecting the art for generations. Yum.

This is the quintessential American summer experience: drive up to strip mall, park outside frozen-treat stand, loiter, select delicious treat, and sit crouched on the curb licking at the freezing sweet goodness, feeling the night breeze finally blow and cool you off, just a little tiny bit.

Sheridan’s version of this involves very rich softserve, ie, custard, either plain, in a smoothie or sundae, or (most popularly) turned into a concrete, which is to say mixed up with a bunch of random solid material, like say, pretzels. Or chocolate bits and peanut butter. Or berries and marshmallow cream. Sheridan’s does distinguish itself with a wide and very pleasing array of exotica that can be mushed into your vanilla or chocolate custard, and you could come up with something exciting for just about every taste.

Mine was vanilla with pretzels, so i could taste the creamy custard and get a little hit of salt while I was at it. Tallasiandude got vanilla with marshmallow cream and butterfingers, and our pal D got chocolate custard with something in that I forget, but it was really awfully good. I think next time I might do a chocolate custard with something mocha-ish involved, and possibly almonds. Nums.

Our second day in KC we intended to hit up some more barbecue for lunch, but Oklahoma Joe’s is closed on Sunday. Two cars full of hot, hungry people needed a quick plan. Sonic? YES PLEASE.
Even though my mother has a serious jones to find a Sonic (we have none in the Massachusetts area), somehow I’d missed the idea that it was a gen-u-ine drive in. No inside tables. Just a drive thru, and even better, a bunch of drive-up slots each with their own menu and ordering intercom, and a bunch of carhops to bring you your loot.

The burgers are excellent, quite fresh tasting and the bacon is very flavorful — usually you can’t even taste the bacon on a fast-food burger should you bother with it in the first place. You can have fries but no one does, because you can also have tater tots. Yahooo! And tots with melted smoked cheddar over the top, even fake-ass processed smoked cheddar, are fantastic. Onion rings, very crisp the way I likes ’em, and in a weird sweet batter that somehow totally works.

The beverage to get is the limeade — fresh limes squeezed into a cup of sugar syrup and topped off with fizzy soda water. You can get cherry or strawberry or what-have-you, but I like mine plain. It all comes with a cellophane-wrapped peppermint balanced on top of your drink, which is pretty much pointless, but completely adorable.
We didn’t brave any of the frosty ice cream treats because there was a rumor of heading to Sheridan’s Frozen Custard later in the day… more on that to come.

Our first night in Kansas City was very hot. Hell, all our nights in Kansas City were very hot, and the days were hotter. Temps near 100, heat indexes nearer to 120. But everyone has central air, or so it seems, and all was entirely well. We waded through the humidity of the lovely 1920’s Plaza open-air mall to the cool dark well-appointed confines of Jack Stack’s barbecue palace, where we enjoyed the first of much barbecue goodness and drunken shenanigans with our friends.

To mute the roar of a glass of bourbon in a weary traveler, we ordered fried mushrooms, a pile of meaty delights with a horseradish cream to dip in, and onion rings, a mighty tower of buhgiant thick rings crusted in herb-livened cornmeal batter. Freaking awesome.

And then came the meat. Bar got KC’s Best, a plate of beef burnt ends, pork ribs, and a completely insane 3-inch-tall marbled hunk of soft moist smoky short rib, plus barbecue beans that are probably the best I’ve ever had, spicy, subtle, not too sweet, and perfectly balanced in flavor.

I ordered pork burnt ends and sliced brisket, mostly to round out the samplings given what everyone else was ordering. Both were very good, the brisket a textbook specimen of Texas barbecue (albeit with a KC-style sauce, also excellent and spicier than I expected, given the molasses-y KC sauces you get up north), and the ends smoky but drier than I would like. (Mind you, the leftovers made a noble hash for brunch later in the weekend, chopped and mixed into a pile of potatoes, fried onions, and extra sauce plus some of the hot taco sauce i found in the O’s fridge. Yums.) I should have gone with the beef burnt ends, as they were the stated specialty of the house, and distinctly more awesome… or that Crown Short Rib, holy cow, drool.
And do not miss the cheesy corn bake, a ramekin of corn kernels aswim in some loose, creamy cheese sauce and a few cubes of bacon. Hubba hubba. And I have to say, the french fries are excellent here also, perfectly crisp and golden, with creamy insides — very likely double-fried, just as they should be.

But the true star of this show, I thought, was the hickory smoked prime rib that tallasiandude got. All the soft, melting fatty tenderness of prime rib, with the smoky flavors of slow-barbecued meat. Good lord, that was delicious, and something you don’t often see on a menu. Do not miss.
Our lovely hostess D recommended the carrot cake, but we were all so very full of meat that we couldn’t possibly eat any, so we got two orders to go. At breakfast the next day we found that she was entirely correct: a dark, very moist, not overly sweet spicy cake with visible carrots, topped with a perfectly sugary cream cheese icing. Exquisite.
nom nom nom nom… yay, barbecue!