Midwest - Kansas City Restaurants

We're relatively new to KC and are interested in restaurant recommendations...

Some of the places we like are:
-The BBQ joints (Oklahoma Joes, Arthur Bryants, Gates, Jack Stacks)
-J. Alexander
-The chains on the plaza (Houston's, Capital Grille, M&S Grill, McCormick and Schmicks, PF Chengs)
-Bolings
-Cactus Grille / Jose Peppers / Baja 600
-Waldo's Pizza
-Yahooz / Yia Yia's

Any other recommendations?

Whatever is decided, please pick me up from MCI on 4/25, 4/29, and 5/13 :D

Oklahoma Joe's was a hit with the recent BBQ-Do.

I had lunch that weekend at Mico's (Mi Cocina) on the Plaza. Pretty okay, but not inexpensive. (glass of wine and basic combo plate $18)

Cafe Sebastien at the Kemper Art Museum is supposed to be great, but I didn't make it there. Also for more bbq, have heard BB's Lawnside is great.

Kansas City is an amazingly likeable town. At least in the spring.

Try Stroud's if you like fried chicken. It has been a few years, and I thought I heard the original location closed because of road reconstruction, but I think there is another location in KC area.

Whatever is decided, please pick me up from MCI on 4/25, 4/29, and 5/13 :D

Rent from Hertz at MCI. 30% AA Plat discount, one free weekend day coupon on website, free parking everywhere. I got a very nice Subaru Outback station wagon for $7.50 a day and some minimal tax.

MWP2Paris also took the BBQ-Do folks to Foo's frozen custard in Brookside (?). Excellent. And the neighborhood looked like a good-eating area.

Rent from Hertz at MCI. 30% AA Plat discount, one free weekend day coupon on website, free parking everywhere. I got a very nice Subaru Outback station wagon for $7.50 a day and some minimal tax.

MWP2Paris also took the BBQ-Do folks to Foo's frozen custard in Brookside (?). Excellent. And the neighborhood looked like a good-eating area.
Hi lili!

Thanks for the tip! To which website are you referring to? I'm not finding the 30% PLT discount.

I used to live there. A couple of my favorites that you didn't mention are Jake Edwards BBQ & Minsky's Pizza. There is a bonus with Minsky's, as it is Idine, which I didn't even know about when I lived there. I make an attempt to eat Minsky's every time I am in KC.

High end: Pierpont's Union Station (best restaurant in town in my book); Piropos in Parkville

Chains: Cheesecake Factory (best chain in town in my book), Ruth's Chris (best steak place anywhere in my book)

I second Waldo Pizza & Strouds (right now, the only Strouds location is up north - it is a bit of a drive from OP, but well worth it).

Doughboyz Pizza is also quite good (it's in south Olathe).

Zin, Cafe Trio, and Joe D's are all good as well (all KCMO).

Depending on where you live in OP:

Fortune Wok - There appear to be 2 of them, though I've only been to the one on 135th. A little more 'nouveau' than what I consider to be a bit more 'standard' Bo Lings, but I'm a fan, and everyone I know loves it:

11236 W 135th St - 913-239-8648
14537 Metcalf Ave - 913-681-8863

If you haven't been to them, you should at least try Yia Yia's and Yahooz, which are both owned by the locally based PB&J Restaurants (http://www.eatpbj.com/). (They seem kind of like Rich Melman's Chicago-based Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, which now has something like 50 restaurants, and I've found the quality to be consistently excellent at the PB&J places to which I've been.)

Yia Yia's Euro Bistro
4701 W 119th St
913-345-1111

Yahooz
4701 Town Center Dr.
913-451-8888

Welcome to town!

I'm really sorry and sad that I missed the DO everyone.

Perhaps we should do another 'night out' for drinks sometime, maybe out South given all of the folks who seem to be out that way.

Not that anyones suggestions were not good, but where is mwp2paris when you need him?/ He is the TRUE Kansas City restaurant aficionado. :p

Circe's on West 39th. suckling pig, imo, its had to beat. circeck.com

Not that anyones suggestions were not good, but where is mwp2paris when you need him?/ He is the TRUE Kansas City restaurant aficionado. :pMy sense is that mwp2paris could tell us authoritatively about restaurants in just about any city in the USA.

Which of the above restaurants are close to MCI? I'm coming there (with another FTer) for a same-day MR this weekend, and I'd love to get some BBQ or a steak, but don't want to drop a huge cab fare.
Thanks in advance

If the OP, Dulles Flyer, is from the D.C. area, then you are probably used to a wide variety of ethnic cuisines that are a little more difficult to find in Kansas City. When we moved to Overland Park from Alexandria, VA, we really missed places like Peking Gourmet in Falls Church, for example.

I highly recommend Malay Cafe, which is up near MCI, or Thai Place in O.P.
Otherwise, I agree with other posters here that Stroud's is fantastic, though you have to travel north of the river, now, and of course Waldo's pizza.

If "flyinryan" is doing a MR to Kansas City this weekend, you can probably do a shared ride on KCI Shuttle, cheaper than a taxi, to say, the Sheraton on the Plaza, and then walk to any of the "Plaza" restaurants listed above for steak. The best BBQ places are not easy to get to without a car.

When I was in K.C. a couple of months ago, my husband's grandmother's housekeeper recommended Smokehouse BBQ, which has a new location pretty close to the airport:
http://www.smokehousebbq.com/

It's at I-29 and Barry Road - you can see it from the highway.

We were running too late to stop there on our way out of town, so I can't give an opinion based on personal experience.

Lidia's just north of Union Station

The American Restaurant in Crown Center

The Savoy Grill for lunch downtown

Andre's (again for lunch) just south of the Plaza

Starkers on the Plaza has a great wine list and excellent food too.

But any real Kansas Citian has to experience Bryants and Strouds.

Hi lili!

Thanks for the tip! To which website are you referring to? I'm not finding the 30% PLT discount.

Sorry for the very, very late response IceT

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Sorry, not Plt, just AA ff. All I know is it's almost as cheap as Priceline and I get the Gold Canopy thingy. $24 per day all in at SFO for full-size plus upgrade. Priceline bid $11 per day with $10.50 in airport taxes and I think $5 to PL was right up there, and no Gold Canopy or Hertz credit. When I checked without inputing my AA ff number the car was something like $42 a day.

I second Piopos. Delicious food, nice ambience, great service. The American Restaurant is lovely also. Might I suggest this website: http://diningreviews.com/kc/diner/

a few places we are considering for our upcoming weekend in KC

http://www.blancburgers.com/ (sweet potato fries & burgers made with tenderloin, ribeye & NY strip)

http://www.labodegakc.com/ (tapas dining)

http://www.miranchitokc.com/ or Sol Azteca Mexican Grill (both Mexican)

http://www.mccoyspublichouse.com/kansascity/ (pub food, more for drinks though)

Vietnamese Café

Malay Café

1st stop is Oklahoma Joe's BBQ on Friday night when we get in.

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1st stop is Oklahoma Joe's BBQ on Friday night when we get in.
Went to Oklahoma Joe's BBQ

Pulled Pork, Chicken, & Sausage links were all big thumbs up :-:^:-:

Brisket & smoked chicken gumbo were just ok, nothing special, the items above are much better.

we also went to Fiorella's Jack Stack BBQ www.jackstackbbq.com

Primary reason we went is that they serve BBQ lamb ribs and we are big fans of lamb. Most of the BBQ here was ok, but not in the same league as Oklahoma Joes. The item that Mrs Sweet Willie & I liked the best at Jack Stack's were the BBQ beef ribs which was a surprise as normally we are not fans of BBQ beef ribs at all.

Having just spent 5 days in MCI on nonprofit business, I gotta say that downtown MCI is fantastic. The Aladdin Hotel (branded as Holiday Inn, but on the National Register of Historic Places with origin 1925) was excellent for its different architecture, and some of the restaurants ... in particular, the 801 Chophouse was good. Pricey by my standards, and being from Texas, I wasn't just totally bowled over by their offerings of red meat ;), but it was still very, very good.

The newly-opened Kobe Japanese Steakhouse? Well, it was okay, I suppose, as hibachi goes, but the chef we had needs to practice a bit more on the standard show ...