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CulinaryYou know Kansas City’s got barbecue. But do you know that one of the nation’s best chefs serves up comfort food at comfortable prices at a Brookside neighborhood restaurant called Julian? Or that its Southwest Boulevard corridor near downtown Kansas City boasts a string of popular Mexican restaurants and that you can find Italian and Chinese cuisine worth finding? “We’re a restaurant town, that’s for sure,” said Al Hinman, president of the Kansas City Restaurant Association. “There are a lot of great places to go.” Food has always been big in Kansas City – the National Restaurant Association got its start here decades ago – but the fascination with food seems to have exploded in recent years, Hinman said. Part of it might be due to the national publicity that television food programs have been showering on local restaurants, including those on the Kansas side of the metropolitan area, he said. More than 30 places were featured last year alone on the Food Network, the Travel Channel and Bravo TV. And the presence of the nationally-known culinary program at Johnson County Community College only cements the area’s focus on food, Hinman said. The program attracts students from around the world; some go straight into the kitchens of Kansas City after they graduate. Celina Tio, the chef who serves up that comfort food at Julian, was recruited to appear on the Food Network’s “The Next Iron Chef,” said Mike Moseley, the restaurant’s manager. They were looking for top talent, he said, and Tio fit that criteria. Tio won the James Beard Foundation/Best Chef in the Midwest award in 2007 and led Kansas City’s high-end American Restaurant at Crown Center before opening Julian. (American’s current executive chef, Debbie Gold, also is a James Beard winner who starred on television last year; she was on Bravo TV’s “Top Chef Masters.”) Tio made it to the final four in her TV competition. Julian has a casual feel, Moseley said, and Tio wants customers to feel like it’s a place to visit twice a week, not twice a year. She offers high-scale comfort food such as fish, pork, chicken, soups and salads, he said, and the most expensive dish is $22. “It’s really good,” Moseley said. “People seem to love it.” Kansas City’s famed restaurants such as the Westport Flea Market Bar & Grill – known for its burgers – and Strouds – lauded for its fried chicken – landed television spots. And so did quite a few other places, including barbecue joints that not everyone has likely heard about. The owner of the Westport Flea Market said a crew of 14 people from Food Network’s “Meat & Potatoes” show arrived unexpectedly one Sunday when the place was open for business. “It was crazy,” owner Joe Zwillenberg said. “They filmed for 11 hours. We’ve been on a bunch (of shows) but the Food Network was the big one.” Naturally, the cameras focused on the restaurant’s meat, particularly its 10-ounce burger. “We’ve been doing a great thing for 29 years…and we stick to doing it the right way,” Zwillenberg said. His secret: he gets the beef from McGonigle’s Market, which he says is “the best butcher in the city.” Stroud’s, with its red-checkered tablecloths and yellow curtains, focuses on home-style cooking. The restaurant pairs it pan-fried chicken with made-from-scratch mashed potatoes, green beans and yummy cinnamon rolls. The Travel Channel’s “Food Wars” featured a competition between Gates BBQ and Arthur Bryant’s, arguably the best-known barbecue places in Kansas City. Top honors went to Bryant’s, which has a long, storied history. Local barbecue aficionados Dave Ellis and Jeff Couch, who work at Johnson County Community College, were happy to see that some lesser-known barbecue joints also got attention. Woodyard BBQ is particularly nice in the springtime, Ellis said, because patrons can sit outside on a patio with the smoker nearby and watch as the food is pulled right off it. And Johnny’s Smokehouse Bar-B-Q is right around the corner, he said, “so that would be another good find.” Couch said he ranks Oklahoma Joe’s as his favorite. So does noted chef Anthony Bourdain, who included it on a list of “13 places to eat at before you die.” Hinman, with the restaurant association, said he believes that Mexican food has become as entrenched in Kansas City’s culture as barbecue. Manny’s and Ponak’s on Southwest Boulevard are just two of numerous Mexican choices. Italian lovers can check out Cascone’s or Lidia’s. And Chinese enthusiasts might be interested to learn that Bo Lings was named No. 2 last year on the Chinese Restaurant News list of Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in North America. “We’re not as diverse as New York City or San Francisco but, heck, we’re in the middle of the United States,” Hinman said. “We’ve still got a lot of diversity here.”
Article By: Diane Carroll Johnson County Community College
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