Kansas City Food Blog

​You need plans. Fat City has a recycle bin full of listings. In this post, all our problems are solved.

Get Your Sugar Fix at The JCCC Pastry Shop
If you need an eclair stat, you have just a few more minutes to get over to the Johnson County Community College Pastry Shop. Every Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. during the semester, culinary students crank out homemade pies, tortes, and chocolate candies. It's a classic bake shop that just happens to be on a college campus.

Mix It Up
It is time again to witness bartenders from across the city come together to see who'll make the last cocktail standing. The third annual Greater Kansas City Bartending Competition -- a benefit for the Halo Foundation -- is Sunday, November 22, at the Uptown Theater. The event kicks off at 6 p.m. with the 11 finalists mixing their drinks (one original, one classic cocktail) live and on-stage to compete for the $1,000 grand prize. Tickets are $5 at the door.

​We've decided here in Fat City that eggnog season starts a few weeks after Walgreen's and CVS pharmacies put out their Christmas merchandise -- you know, mid-October -- and that no one needs to make the concoction at home anymore (using those cute punch sets that you can find at flea markets and estate sales) since it's easier to have someone make it for you. Jonathan Bender discovered the Top Five Eggnog Options in Kansas City (stay away from the Silk Nog, he warns) and Charles Ferruzza tasted two kinds of eggnog shakes in this week's Battle of the Dishes: Eggnog milkshakes.

The question we didn't answer, but inquiring minds want to know, is where the hell eggnog comes from? Well, here's a very brief history of the drink. You'll never think of a noggin as a human head ever again. Still, you may want to use your noggin (the thing that protects your brains) to remember the important etiquette rules when it comes to buffets. You can use the historical noggin ("a small carved wooden mug") to sip a draught of Boulevard's Harvest Dance Wheat Wine. Or a ham daiquiri.

We discovered wine openers and wine coolers and such at the newly-expanded Function Junction store in Crown Center, which opened last Saturday and Jonathan shared a holiday wine guide. Oh, the big new Function Junction store does sell casserole dishes, which might come in handy if you plan to enter blogger Emily Farris's annual Casserole Party, like Nadia Pflaum did. She lost, but her report on the event was a winner.

Have you made your Thanksgiving reservations yet? Here are some ideas.

(Image via Flickr: Labelitlove)

 

 

​Pull your tractor into the barn (or your Civic into your garage) and get ready to celebrate this year's crop. Boulevard Brewery's Harvest Dance Wheat Wine Style Ale (750 ml bottle, $10.76 with tax at Royal Liquors on 103rd and State Line) is now on shelves. 

The latest entry in the Smokestack Series lets you know what to expect from the moment you begin to pour, thanks to a hint of banana. It is a heady beer, one that would threaten to overflow your glass if you were pouring too quickly.

This is clearly a wheat beer -- kind of a steroid-y, older brother of the traditional wheat bottle -- which means it is very drinkable and yet has a stronger but pleasing finish. The bottle suggests "a long, dry oaky finish," and it delivers. The slight bite at the end makes me want to pair this with beer with chicken souvlaki or something that has been cooked slow and low. 

Who makes it at home anymore?

​Plenty of restaurants will be open on Thanksgiving Day this year. The holiday wasn't always a big business day for the restaurant industry; until the late 1980s, Thanksgiving was considered a holiday when most people preferred eating -- and cooking -- at home. But anyone who has ever hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for the extended family knows it can be an ordeal: roasting that bird for hours, creating all those side dishes, trying to remember which relative won't eat pumpkin pie and which one insists on mince pie. Yes, some people like to do the Martha Stewart thing and cook elaborate Thanksgiving meals in their own kitchens, but that number is dwindling: The National Restaurant Association reports that 53 percent of Americans prefer their holiday fare ready-to-go.

Over the next few days, we'll offer a number of Thanksgiving Day dining possibilities here in Fat City -- the fancy, the cheap, the nontraditional -- but you're in charge of making your own reservations. We can't do everything for you.

At Ophelia's, that pretty upscale restaurant in Independence, executive chef Marshall Roth will be serving a buffet-style meal priced at $23 for adults and $10 for children. Call 816-461-4525 for reservations.

The metro's various Ted's Montana Grills (except for the one in Zona Rosa, which closed earlier this year) will be serving a $14 meal featuring traditional roast turkey and dressing, garlic mashed potatoes, country-style green beans, squash casserole, cranberry sauce and a yeast roll. The full menu will also be available all day, from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., for diners who prefer bison meatloaf to turkey.

 

What's a holiday without eggnog shakes?

​You know the holidays are officially here when McDonalds starts serving its eggnog milkshakes. McDonalds likes to be ahead of the game, because frozen custard vendors Culver's and Sheridan's haven't kicked off their eggnog shake season. A Culver's manager told me that they typically start serving eggnog shakes after Thanksgiving; the kid who answered the phone at the 75th Street Sheridan's location wasn't sure when that venue would have an eggnog shake. "Late November, I think," he said.

But Baskin-Robbins has stocked its stores with tubs of butter-yellow eggnog ice cream, so you can get an eggnog shake there. A great eggnog shake, I might note. Thick, creamy, and deliciously spiced with just the right note of nutmeg.

The McDonalds eggnog shake isn't anywhere near as attractive. When I took off the translucent plastic lid, the shake was vanilla-white, with a squirt of yellow food coloring in the center; you had to stir it up to make it look egg-noggy. Like all McDonalds shakes, this one had a distinct chemical aftertaste, although it did have a faint hint of nutmeg. The McDonald's shake was also considerably sweeter than the B-R version.

True, the eggnog shake at Baskin-Robbins was more expensive: the small shake -- which didn't seem all that petite -- was $3.99. The small McDonalds shake was two bucks less. But damn it, you're worth it!

​A committee looking to change the way the city deals with urban farms met for a second time on Wednesday night. The goal was to further define the group's mission and begin the process of reaching out to neighborhoods.

"The reason we're here is that some growers in urban areas have had onerous restrictions placed on their ability to grow and sell products. We want to determine how we can make changes that are still amenable to the larger community," said Gretchen Kunkel, who moderated the meeting and attended as a representative of the Greater Kansas City Food Policy Coalition.

The committee split into three sections for a majority of the meeting at the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Center. Topics were communication strategies, outreach to neighborhoods, and what research needs to be done to see how other cities are approaching the issue of urban agriculture. 

​A study released yesterday by the Center for Science in the Public Interest found that a medium popcorn and soda sold at the Regal Entertainment Group was the equivalent of eating three Quarter Pounders from McDonald's topped with ... wait for it... 12 pats of butter. And that's before we compulsively press the handle of the buttered topping dispenser.

Kansas City-based AMC fared slightly better in the tests, although that's mostly because of the smaller portion sizes at the chain. A Regal medium is 20 cups of popcorn (1,200 calories, 60 grams of saturated fat), while AMC's is only nine cups (590 calories and 33 grams of saturated fat). The high fat and calorie count in the popcorns is attributed to the use of coconut oil, which has a high amount of saturated fat.   

​It's hard not to like Adam Richman, an everyman who takes on an eating challenge in every episode of the Travel Channel's Man v. Food. He isn't a competitive eater, just a food show host who happens to be astonishingly good at meeting the biggest eating challenge in a given city.

And yet it's easy to dismiss the travelogue/food show because of the oversized eating hook. Richman talked about this on The Johnny Dare Morning Show on 98.9 FM back on September 2. 

"There's great, great food in Kansas," said Richman, who hadn't heard of the Bacon Explosion but tried to make it clear that oversized foods are not what the show is meant to be about:

"People very often mention dishes we should have on a show. That's kind of the challenge to keeping the show. There's a fine line between doing something that is super indulgent and something that is super interesting that might be unhealthy for unhealthy's sake."

Five Guys Burgers and Fries, a Chinese supermarket and a chili cook-off -- sounds like a normal week in Kansas City. [She Eats]

Christopher's Elbow's guilty pleasure? He's mortal like the rest of us: chicken wings at the Peanut. [Christopher Elbow]

A review of Southwest Airlines' coffee while in-flight -- perhaps a first in coffee tasting? [Coffee Cup News]

If you're one of the legions waiting for Trader Joe's to bestow a store on Kansas City, a new service that delivers groceries from St. Louis should help tide you over. [KC Grocery Service]

​This is the time of year when you should be excited about egg nog. You haven't had it in a while and you've forgotten what's it like when you have too much.

In Kansas City there are a number of options vying for your egg nog dollar. As a cautionary note, avoid Silk Nog, the soy milk iteration of egg nog (curious ingredient: sea salt). It's essentially soy milk with an egg nog aftertaste and the start and finish in your mouth do not mix. Despite having no citrus elements, it manages to have the burn of cheap orange juice.

Let's move on to more festive thoughts. Here are the top 5 egg nog options in Kansas City, listed in reverse order of which will make your stomach happiest.

5. Hiland Old-Fashioned Egg Nog (curious ingredient: corn starch) -- I should have listened to the scary snow man on the packaging -- this egg nog packs a punch. It says non-alcoholic, but it has the taste and smell of butter rum lifesavers. This is a kick-you-in-the-face kind of egg nog that you'll love or hate at first sip.