Text 11558, 112 rader
Skriven 2011-05-30 10:47:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: KC trip report 402
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Kansas City. The official published game plan: have a big
blowout at Jack Stack with our friends, then next day
descend as a horde upon 4 (count 'em) bbq legends -
Oklahoma Joe's, LC's, Gates, and Arthur Bryant. As there's
nothing to do in town on Sunday (the Q places being mostly
closed), we'd all 15-20 of us just blow town then.

Someone suggested Danny Edwards instead of Gates, fine
with me, and Lilli wanted to have a go at a couple places
in Kansas as well, so we decided to show up a day early
to make time and room for everything.

The amended plan: Thursday: Rosedale, Quick's. Friday:
BB's Lawnside, Fiorella's Jack Stack - Freighthouse.
Saturday: Oklahoma Joe's, LC's, Danny Edwards, Bryant's.

What happened was quite different.

CO3232 BWI CLE 0942 1112 Q40 2F
CO2335 CLE MCI 1220 1318 ERJ 3A

An uneventful, slightly unpleasant pair of flights on
commuter equipment - the Q40 being slightly quieter but
more cramped, the passenger cabin of the other somewhat
better designed. Luckily, both flights were short, the
weather was decent, and everything was more or less on time.
In between, I had half an hour to drink a couple Jim Beams
with Dos Equis chasers, the bartender reminiscing about his
days doing the same, only as part of his job, many years
before. The Cleveland airport is not too horrid, the
commuter terminal nice and airy, the regular part sort of
dim and rabbit warreny in the way that airports used to be,
but not unfriendly. I guess I have to get used to this, as
it's one of the hubs of the great new Continited airline.
Arrived at MCI a few minutes early and settled in for some
free wi-fi, but the first thing that came up was a notice
that Lilli's flight was also early, so I hustled the 200
feet or so to her gate to find her just exiting the gate
area. She greeted me with the unjoyous news that she had
forgotten her driver's license, so we'd be stranded for a
day before meeting up with and being at the mercy of our
group, who were arriving Friday. As public trans between the
airport and the city is next to nonexistent, we had to take
a shuttle to the hotel - this cost the same as what 3 days of
rental would have, total.

The Sheraton Suites is a pretty nice older property at
the edge of the tony district known as Country Club Plaza.
Tony as in Hermes, Sheraton, and Rolex are the lower-end
names there. The rooms, what we saw, involve smallish
bedroom, smallish sitting room with sofabed, bar and
microwave, and large two-part bathroom. I figured this
was pretty good for KC, and anyhow as neither of us is
huge, the accommodations were fine. 

There's a somewhat bigger than normal club lounge, probably
owing to there being 3 club floors here, though the 18th,
ours, is the most prestigious, if that's the appropriate
word. All right, convenient to the wine, which is free
from 5 to 8 or something like that.

As Internet was free, and transport was not, I checked for
walking-distance Q, and the only thing that came up, if you
don't count a longish trek to the Kansas side of the city to
visit Oklahoma Joe, was Fiorella's Jack Stack - Country Club
Plaza, sibling to our planned dinner party spot for the next
day. The plaza itself is a peculiar phenomenon, apparently
inspired by Seville, but with midwestern touches. It is, as I
said, quite the shopping mecca, but the food options, aside
from the obligatory steakhouses - a Capital Grille, Ruth's
Chris, and Plaza III within about a block, seem pretty modest,
Cheesecake Factory being the most buzzy joint in town. That
said, Jack Stack (all locations) is reputed to be one of the
top BBQ restaurants in the US; and judging from my previous
encounters there, I'd tend to agree (Austin, I think, beats
all the others cold, though). An easy half mile past the
first Panera and other notable locations, and we were there.

It was, luckily enough, happy hour at the bar, with half-
price appetizers and alcohol at quite reasonable rates.
We got the burnt ends appetizer, a mix of beef and pork;
quite good and went well with the Boulevard beers on tap,
of which mine was the dry stout, a rich, bitterish,
coffee-aromaed concoction. We liked what we'd had and
got another plate ($4.50 at happy hour), which was less
satisfactory but satisfactory, and then had the clever
idea of ordering a third plate extra fatty, which came
out fairly fatty and fairly luscious. Good choice, and we
had enough time to explore while it was still light and
enough budget space for her to consummate her birthday
present to me. Which was a batch of Lactaid pills and
dessert at Christopher Elbow's ice cream parlor Glace' -
typical for our type of outing, she didn't know quite
where it was, but we walked there pretty directly anyhow.
I think Lilli has a crush on Christopher Elbow as well as
on me: she keeps sending or giving me chocolates from his
shop, and now this. I admit I didn't use many pills, as
on the list were coconut and mango lime sorbets, yum. The
former was a little thin and wimpy, as compared to the
same at Toscanini's; the latter well balanced both in
flavors and tastes, a modest triumph. Lilli got something
old and something new: beet and goat cheese, probably good
for what it was, though all I could taste, in my little
one-half-pill bite, was objectionableness; Venezuelan
chocolate, however, was delicious.

We managed to make it back to the hotel before it got
too dark for me to see. Very thoughtfully on someone's
part, the trip back was more than half downhill.
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