I know it's been a while since I wrote an entry for my top 10 Kansas City foods series. To recap this is the list so far:

Number 10: Lamar's Cinnamon Twist
Number 9: Boulevard Wheat (with a lemon!)
Number 8: Cheesy Corn Bake from Fiorella's Jack Stack
Number 7: D'Bronx Pizza
Number 6: Kansas City Strip from Plaza III
Number 5: Stroud's rolls
Number 4: Christopher Elbow Chocolates

Here's my third choice:

By OWEN MORRIS

The first time I ever had Christopher Elbow Chocolates, I was living in Lawrence and rarely traveled to Kansas City, much less downtown. If I did, it was for a special occasion. And after hearing so much about Chris Elbow's amazing chocolates, I decided to make a special occasion.

I had trouble finding the store at first. While everybody talks about the amazing interior and the cool bathroom, nobody had mentioned to me that the outside is very discreet. You're likely to pass the storefront a couple of times before finding it, even if you are familiar with the area.

By OWEN MORRIS

Of all the foods on my list, this is the only one I could conceivably eat with every meal. It is the perfect side to any breakfast, lunch or dinner, and also a completely 100 percent Kansas City classic.

I am, of course, referring to the rolls from Stroud's, which make up my fifth food in this series.

Make no mistake, the cinnamon rolls are just as unhealthy as the pan-fried chicken and the mashed potatoes and . . . well, just about everything there. The cinnamon rolls taste somewhere in between coming straight from the oven and coming straight out of a fryer, and they're a mixture of crusty, gooey, bready and moist. Each bite is like eating a new piece of cinnamon roll until the basket of rolls is empty, only to be refilled again!

The best part is the encrusted cinnamon sugar on top that is heavy on the sugar and relatively light on the cinnamon. Besides the sugar and some butter, the rolls are allowed to speak for themselves, which is the way it should be. Too few restaurants offer cinnamon rolls on their menus; of the ones that do, the cinnamon rolls are too often covered in cinnamon or cream cheese icing or worst - powdered sugar icing.

A serious steakhouse would never dream or covering its filet mignon in a heavy sauce, so I don't understand why so many bakers and restaurants cover their cinnamon rolls in heavy icing. By not doing so, Stroud's has taken what traditionally is a breakfast or a dessert item and turned it into another part of the meal.

In picking Stroud's cinnamon rolls, I am going on history because I haven't been to the new Stroud's in Fairway. My mentor, The Pitch's food critic and fellow Fat City blogger Charles Ferruzza, did make it there recently for a review, and I was thankful to read that Stroud's hasn't lost much of the atmosphere and food of the old location. Charles described the rolls as fantastic and "fat squares of yeasty biscuit dough encased in crunchy, buttery cinnamon sugar," which is a much more succinct and poetic way of putting it than I could write and confirms that I'm not the only one to think they're darn-tootin' good.

I still reminiscence about the original location on Troost. If ever there was a restaurant that dispelled the theory of "location, location, location," it was the old Stroud's. When my parents first took me there as a youngster, I remember not being too impressed by the chicken itself but loving the cinnamon rolls and loving the entire experience. What kid doesn't love unlimited cinnamon rolls?

Looking back, I think the reason I didn't enjoy the chicken as a child: I was already too full by the time it came out. As my taste buds have grown older (though maybe not wiser but at least more experienced), I've learned to savor the delicate flavors of pan-fried chicken. I've learned to love the lard-covered green beans and their delicate flavors. With all that said, I still get most excited about Stroud's for the cinnamon rolls.

Image via the amazing website Road Food

By OWEN MORRIS

My goal is to have this series wrapped up by Halloween, which means I've got a lot of writing ahead of me. Fortunately, the response has been great, and I'm trying to link to any and all lists I find other people doing.

Today's pick will surprise people, either for being listed as low as it is or for being listed at all. The food itself -- a Kansas City strip -- is neither surprising nor daring. In recent years, though, which steakhouse is best has become an increasingly opinionated argument. Kansas City no longer has one steakhouse that stands head and shoulders above the competition.

In the past week, as I've been thinking about steakhouses, I have asked a lot of people what they think is the best steakhouse. The answers have run the gamut from new places such as Sullivan's to old classics such as the Golden Ox.

While's there a half-dozen steakhouses with great locations, interiors and varying degrees of aged steaks, there's one that screams Kansas City more than the rest.

By OWEN MORRIS

Another day, another Top 10 list at Another KC Blog, which comes up with 10 excellent choices like The Reuben at Browne’s Deli in the nine spot. It also has Minsky's prime cut pizza which I think is good but I decided to go for one of Minsky's competitors.

My number seven spot goes to D'Bronx, specifically the pizza at the 39th Street location. This is my most controversial choice because D'Bronx pizza isn't owned by its original owners; besides, it has started to expand and is named after New York not Kansas City. So why include it? Because while the D'Bronx has New York roots, it's uniquely Kansas City.

First, it's true D'Bronx has lost a step in recent years, and the new Johnson County location has poll numbers about as favorable as Dick Cheney's. Still, I was at the original location recently and the pizza was essentially the same as it's always been: a little too much cheese on top so that it scrunches up, but not so much that you can't taste the sauce. A crust with lots of corn meal specks on the bottom, and big, hearty pepperonis.

What sets the original D'Bronx apart from every other pizza joint is not just good pizza, but also the building. Stepping into D'Bronx is like stepping into another time. Most of the walls are covered in graffiti; if you are a long-time Kansas City local, chances are you will spot either a friend's tag or maybe even your own. A year ago, a friend I hadn't talked to in months called me to say she saw my signature on the D'Bronx wall. (Second booth from the front, around eye level.)

Yet for all the tags, tattoos and rock n' roll fliers, D'Bronx remains a family place. Often, grandparents appear to be hosting full-on family reunions on the long rectangular table in the south room. In that sense, D'Bronx is what an Italian eatery should be: a place to gather.

If the food was sub-par, the building wouldn't matter -- but the food holds its own against the back-drop.

By OWEN MORRIS

I have another Kansas City Top Ten list to pass along. This one comes from the constantly inventive blog Venus in the Kitchen. Venus has some great and surprising choices. In fact, she and I share a couple, including my Number Eight selection today.

Martin City was a good 20-minute drive from my childhood home, so my parents rarely took me or my brothers there. When we did go, it meant one of two exciting things: We were going to see a show at the Martin City Melodrama's original location (I can't remember a single thing from the various shows, but I do remember that they slayed the nine-year-old me), or we were going to Jack Stack Barbecue.

Back then (for at least part of the time) Fiorella's Jack Stack was known as Smoke Stack and wasn't the upscale barbecue behemoth that it is now. When you entered, you were immediately hit by two smokes -- barbecue and cigarette.

Like German cars, barbecue was something I did not appreciate until I got older. I was a typical boring kid who preferred sickly sweet sauces (KC Masterpiece). At barbecue joints, I'd order a boring roast beef or turkey sandwich. Jack Stack was the first barbecue place where I bucked that trend. After seeing a couple big plates of cubed beef walk by, I pleaded, begged and cajoled my parents into letting me get something called burnt ends. I like to think my real Kansas City education started that day.

What I l really loved from Jack Stack as a child -- and still do today -- isn't the burnt ends, though. It's not even barbecue, but it is Number Eight on my list of Top Ten Kansas City Foods to Eat Before You Die.

By OWEN MORRIS

This is the second entry in my backwards countdown of Top Ten foods to eat in Kansas City before you croak. For number Ten click here.

Before I reveal my ninth choice, I just wanted to highlight my blogger friend Dan's list at Gone Mild, where he named all ten of his choices in one great list.

He's got some really interesting choices -- including his number one, which is much more controversial and better thought-out than anything on my list. He calls Winstead's burger "simply the Kansas City classic," and povitica from Strawberry Hill "beautiful to look at, teeth-achingly sweet to sample." Make sure to check out the rest of Dan's list!

Now on to my ninth choice:

By OWEN MORRIS

"Foods to eat before you die" has become a popular Internet meme. Two of our sister blogs Fork in The Road from Village Voice and Eating our Words from Houston Press put their own spin on it, so I have decided to do the same for Kansas City. This list is my own and purely subjective. I chose what I did for a variety of different reasons. If you don't like it, send me your own list or put one in the comments. I'm counting backwards and today is my Number 10 Kansas City food to eat before I die.

Number 10: Lamar's Cinnamon Twist

This listing is based purely on nostalgia but hey, that's a big part of what food is about. I am just old enough to remember driving to the inner city with dad in our (even then) old Volvo station wagon. Driving to the city meant that my dad was going either to a junkyard or to get some food. The junkyards I never cared much for, but the food always excited me. And nowhere moreso than LaMar's Doughnuts.

While LaMar's is now a franchise with many locations in various states (its headquarters are sadly no longer in Kansas City but in Lincoln, Nebraska) at the time there was only the one store and even as a four- or five-year-old I could tell it wasn't very nice aesthetically. Fortunately, I was too young to know anything of cleanliness. Not that any of that mattered anyways.