Local Options - Down South Grill on Main

I forgot to bring a lunch to work yesterday, and so I headed out at noon to find some carry-out to bring back to the office. Since I work nearby the best dine in/carry out cheap lunch spot in the city (possibly the universe), my car automatically headed toward Pancho's.

On the way there, though, I chided myself for predictability and decided to try something new. A few blocks south of Pancho's, near the intersection of 39th and Main, are two places that begged to be tried. Island Spice Caribbean promises something out of the ordinary, and I had recently noticed the Down South Grill in the space that used to be Antonio's next door to the space that used to be the Grand Emporium. (Yes, I just double-dated myself . . .)

I wound up choosing the Down South Grill for the simple reason that a Johnson County Beemer was tailgaiting me in the right lane of southbound Main, and there was a sweet, legal, unmetered parking spot right out front. Few responses to a tailgaiter are as satisfying as parking in front of him.

So, Down South Grill it was. Like its pizza place predecessor, it consists of a counter and a small bench for waiting. Nothing fancy here at all. The menu is posted on the wall, and consists of a few sandwiches (including a pork chop sandwich), a few "Cajun Po-Boys", wings, a chili dog, and a few basic sides. The combos include fries and a drink, so why not?

I chose the Cajun Chicken Po-Boy combo. For $6.49, I walked out with a styrofoam container jam packed with food, with a little hot sauce and catchup for the fries.

Normally, I tend to gush when I write about food found at a dive location. I would like to do so here, because the people working there were friendly, and only one other person visited during the time I was there. Every dollar that gets spent at a chain restaurant instead of a local operation is a slap in the face for diversity of choice and local flavor.

While I can't honestly gush about my Cajun Chicken Po-Boy sandwich, it was a huge portion of moderately-spicy chicken. The chicken wasn't breaded, which was a nice touch, and the roll was jammed with fresh lettuce, good tomatoes (the likes of which you will never find at a shareholder-owned food outlet), and a tasty mayo-based sauce. The fries were good, not great, and there were plenty of them. For $6.49, I got a reasonably good meal that I could not even finish - and I supported a restaurant owned by local people.

Next time you're thinking of driving through Wendy's, or stopping by Subway, think for a second about whether there isn't a local option. Kitty's burgers are better than Wendy's, and a "Number 1, Spicy" at Bella Napoli may be the best sandwich in Kansas City.

Anybody want to meet me at Island Spice Caribbean Restaurant next Tuesday? Here's the menu - it isn't cheap, but, come on, they have curried goat, and who wants cheap goat?! They might have cow's feet, if we're lucky. They even have a side dish they call "festival" - can you get a side of "festival" at Burger King? Or calaloo?

If we want interesting local options on Kansas City's food scene, we need to vote with our dollars.

Noodle Shop Closes

Sad news for local foodies - the Noodle Shop at 59th and Holmes has closed its doors. It was a small shop, with great service, and kind of a blogger favorite. The food was both comforting, as only noodles in broth can be, and also exotic, with strange pickles and even vegetal hedgehogs.

The only way to prevent even more losses is to remember that you cast your votes with every dollar you spend. Are you voting for chain food, or are you voting for local flavor? Good intentions and rare visits don't cut it.

Best Wings Ever?

I love great wings, and I want to make them at home.

My wife comes from the Buffalo area, so our standards for buffalo wings are pretty high. We've had great wings that make lips tingle and terrible wings with insipid goo spread over them. But we've had some seriously wonderful wings - the best in Kansas City come from the Peanut, where they serve up massive, crispy, peppery hot wings that make the perfect accompaniment for a pitcher of good beer.

Tonight, I finally made great wings.

There are a few hallmarks of great wings. They're hot, but edible. They're crisp, but not burnt. And they're cooked through but not dry - so the meat comes easily off the bone.

Those are the universal requirements - and, when we cook at home, we have a few more constraints. First, we're not frying - we don't have a ventilating hood, and I hate to waste that much oil. Second, I don't have access to the mutant huge wings they serve at the Peanut. Finally, we're trying to eat a little healthier, so anything that can cut down on the fat is appreciated.

Here's what I did. I got a few pounds of wings, already cut into segments, and lacking the meatless point of the wing. I brought a pot of aggressively-salted water to a boil, and dumped in the wings. When the pot started boiling again, I turned off the heat, covered it, and let it sit for around 10 or 15 minutes. In the meantime, I started up the propane grill (I know, charcoal is cooler, but I've come to love the convenience and reliability of the gas . . .).

After draining the wings and shaking them as dry as possible, I spread them out and sprinkled them with a Louisianna blackening spice mixture. To imitate the Peanut more closely, I would have stuck with salt and pepper, but my daughter's time at Tulane has enlivened our cajun appreciation, so that's how we rolled tonight.

Letting the wings absorb the spice a little, I started on the sauce. The base was Frank's Red Hot sauce - probably a cup and a half. I tossed in some white vinegar, and then added some horse radish and a couple cloves of pressed garlic. A hearty squeeze of Sriracha sauce added extra and different heat. A hint of Worcestershire sauce makes everything (other than breakfast cereal) better, and a touch of honey mellowed the heat and added a little depth. I heated it all up together in a small saucepan.

After the sauce was bubbling away, I put the spiced wings on the grill, over medium-low heat. The lack of flare-ups demonstrated that much of the fat had been boiled out of the wings, and I was able to grill them slowly to a golden crisp texture.

After removing them from the grill, I doused them with the sauce and served them with celery sticks and bleu cheese dressing.

And they were spectacular.

No, they weren't up there with the Peanut - fried, massive, peppery wings of eagle/chicken hybrids. But they were the best I can do, and they were the best ever served in this household.

And they were much better than anything you could find at Hooters.

Food Extremism

Thursday was a special day for eating. Lunch was spent with classic working man's food - Mexican tacos packed with organ meats. Dinner was at one of the best restaurants in the Kansas City region. The meals were both outstanding, though wildly different.

Lunch was at El Taco Nazo, on Kansas Avenue in KCK. While I enjoyed my huaraches (sandal-shaped fried masa topped with pork leg and with adobado - marinated pork), and Ali enjoyed her gordito and taco, Sam had the most memorable meal with 5 soft tacos. He had the adobado and pork leg, too, but he also had one with fried pork stomach, one with beef tongue, and one with head meat. He allowed his squeamish father to try a little of each, and they were, well, interesting. I'm not an organ meat connoisseur, but I enjoyed them. Not as much as I enjoy typical beef, chicken and pork, but I'm glad I tried something new. The restaurant also deserves credit for an excellent guacamole and an outstanding salsa with a smoky note sounded by roasted tomatoes. I look forward to returning.

Dinner was a venture way up north to Smithville, where we visited the Justus Drugstore. It's a long way literally and figuratively from $1.50 tacos in KCK to an appetizer of foie gras terrine with vanilla maple pecan, fig, ginger pear port syrup, and fresh pear served on cinnamon brioche french toast, but it's a journey I'm happy to make.

Everything at Justus Drugstore was wonderful. The service was attentive but non-intrusive, over a 2 hour plus leisurely meal. The wine list was a great selection, and many available by the half glass, allowing my promiscuous palate to have its way.

Allow me to just list a few of the items we tasted, as described on the menu.

Brandade - smoked walleye, potato, extra virgin olive oil, herbs and crostini. We all loved this appetizer. It was kind of like crab dip to the power of ten.

Freshwater Striper Bass - spinach foam, chestnut mushroom risotto, swiss chard. Delicate, but full of flavor.

Roast Half Chicken - maple ginger, caramelized fennel mashed potatoes, bok choy. I'm glad Ali got this instead of me, because I would not have shown her restraint. I'd have picked that bad boy up and gnawed it to the bone. It was that good.

Pork Two Ways - grilled berkshire pork ribeye, braised pork shoulder, blueberry ginger gastrique, soft polenta, lemon shallot green beans. The pork shoulder was delectable and the ribeye was the best pork I have ever had. Both had been brined by angels.

American Kobe Flat Iron Steak - caramelized shallot maytag blue cheese sauce, potato cauliflower gratin, braised brussel sprouts. I love good steaks, but I don't think it's possible for a restaurant steak to really blow me away. What did blow me away, though, were the sides. The brussel sprouts were astounding, and the cauliflower potato gratin was tasty without being overpowering.

Cap all that off with a little sorbet and ice cream, and you have a meal worth a forty minute ride to the great white north.

What to Get at Manny's?

I'm asking for a little help here. Lunch today is going to be at Manny's, the venerable Southwest Boulevard institution. I need to regain my strength after last night's Missouri Plan Marathon.

The only problem is that I've never really enjoyed a meal at Manny's. I've always walked out of there stuffed, but feeling like the food had come from a Johnson County mall food court. I haven't had anything that approaches what I would get at any of my personal Mexican Food Fantastic Four - Pancho's on Main, Rudy's Tenampa Taqueria, La Fonda El Taquito, and Midtown Burritos and More.

Any suggestions, Manny's fans?

Good Burgers for Power & Light?

One of my fears for the Power & Light district has been that it will be exactly the same as every other developed downtown I've visited, utterly without local flavor. I remember wandering Denver's plastic 16th Street Mall once, and asking a couple where I could get a great Denver meal. "There's a New York Cheesecake Factory up a block or two," they gushed, "but if you don't want to wait, there's an Applebee's around the corner."

Welcome to Anywhere.

Yesterday, though, Eric Barton of the Pitch gave me hope. He reported on the Plog that Rob Dalzell will be opening a place called Chefburger in the district. Dalzell is responsible for 3 bright spots in Kansas City's food world - 1924 Main, Souperman and Pizza Bella, so that's good news in and of itself. Eric Barton notes, however, that Dalzell brings his burger mojo from Taylor’s Automatic Refresher in St. Helena, California.

Barton reports that he ate at Taylor's Automatic Refresher the day after eating at the French Laundry, perhaps the most sought-after meal in the food world. While Barton gives the French Laundry its props, he claims that his burger at Taylor's was equally memorable.

t wasn’t any secret ingredient that it made it so damn good, just a freshly baked egg bun; crisp veggies; a special sauce that I think was just Thousand Island dressing; and one fat, perfectly cooked patty. It came wrapped in paper, and we got onion rings and sweet-potato fries on the side.

We can only hope that Dalzell will be bringing some of that James-Beard-Award-Winning burger magic to Kansas City. Barton has single-handedly raised my hopes for the Power & Light District.

A Website for Foodies to Play With

Foodpairing is devoted to breaking foods into their flavor components. You can use it to create substitutions, or relationships between foods. This, for example, is the foodpairing chart for strawberries:

Let me know if you get any great inspirations . . .

Why I Missed the Meet-Up

The recent local blogger meet-up sounded like a great opportunity to meet some of the Kansas City bloggers I don't know, and have a beer with those I do know. I was looking forward to it.

From Sunday through Wednesday, though, we had a guest from India living with us. She was here as part of a Rotary exchange program, and, since our children are away at school, we offered a spare bedroom. Because our visitor is a journalist with a huge newspaper in India, I expected that she would like to check out the blogger scene.

Fortunately for us and for Ancillary Adams, she had better plans! Perhaps inspired by the wine poured at Pierpont's elegant bar, she offered to cook for the four of us.

Ancillary Adams' wife spent the afternoon scouring the Indian markets for necessities like ground raw mango powder. The four of us then cooked for around 4 hours, some of us more involved than others, but everyone participating.

She made two naan-like things - one with a potato filling (dipping sauce = yogurt) and one with a cheese filling (dipping sauce a cilantro chutney). Then there was a chicken curry that she was not happy with - but to us was great, rich with layers of spices.

There was a spicy lentil mixture on top of garlicky rice that had been infused with cumin seed.

There was this onion, cilantro, spice mix that was shaped with some flour and deep fried.

There was a sweet with sauteed vermicelli and sweet milk, flavored with cardamom.

The spices she used were soooo good - toasted cardamom seeds, lemons, lots of little chilis, cumin, coriander, garam masala, tumeric, cinnamon, chili powder, toasted coconut . . . It added up into food that was hot but irresistible.

After dinner, she talked to us about Hinduism and led us in a meditation accompanied by incense she brought from India.

I hated to miss out on the blogger meet-up, but it was quite a memorable evening . . .