To help kick off our Kansas City Kossacks group I thought I'd give everyone a little whirl through the world of KC BBQ, as well as introduce this blue-island-in-a-sea-of-red city that we call home. Join me below the orange billow of smoke for barbeque deliciousness.
Yes, he's ours!
Kansas Citians identify themselves geographically; you live either north of the Missouri River or south of it and you live either on the Missouri side or the Kansas side. When someone tells you they live in Kansas City, assume it's Kansas City, MO. If they live in Kansas City, Kansas they'll communicate that in shorthand as KCK. They share a name but Kansas City and KCK are entirely different cities.
We say we don't like St. Louis but don't believe it.
If you're visiting for the barbeque, don't forget the many groovy things to do here. One of my favorite spots is the historic 18th & Vine District, home to the American Jazz Museum and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. I took this photograph while I visited the District last night.
Here's a little sample of Kansas City jazz:
So much of the culture of Kansas City is due to the influence of the black community here, a vibrant community that suffered through vicious segregation and Jim Crow laws. Satchel Paige pitched for the legendary Kansas City Monarchs and he's buried in Forest Hills cemetery at 69th and Troost. I visited his gravesite recently and people still bring him baseballs.
Another favorite spot is the new Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, a magnificent building designed by architect Moshe Safdie. It houses the superb Kansas City Symphony, the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and the Kansas City Ballet. Opening night for the Kauffman Center was pretty spectacular as it featured huge projections onto the building itself. Here's the video:
Be sure to visit the Country Club Plaza for shopping and excellent restaurants (if it's cold, duck into the Plaza III for a bowl of steaming hot steak soup), Westport for drinking and dining and the Power and Light District for more drinking and dining. When you've had enough of the drinking and dining you can visit the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and be sure to make the short drive to Independence to see the Truman House and of course the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum.
I doubt you'll be here for our professional sports teams as they're both wretched, but if by some mistake you're headed for the Truman Sports Complex to watch the local teams lose you're close, very close to your first taste of Kansas City BBQ: LC's. Located 5 minutes from the sports complex, just off of 435 and Eastwood Tfwy, LC's is the crown jewel of that Kansas City specialty - burnt ends.
LC's is in an industrial area and features a horrible dump of a building with bars on the windows, but don't let this deter you for even one second. Pull into the miniscule parking lot and walk inside to greet LC himself, who is always on duty at one of the tables. Everything here is good but whatever you do, try his burnt ends first and use it as a base for your evaluation of other KC BBQ joints.
When you order burnt ends here (or at any local joint) the pitmaster will pull out of the smoker a point of a beef brisket that's been smoked, double smoked and triple smoked. He'll chop it into cubes with a large cleaver, give it a dousing of house sauce, and present it with white bread (ALL BBQ here comes with white bread, which I dislike, so I normally order my burnt ends not encased in white bread and when I get home put it in something which is really blasphemy in Kansas City - a ciabatta roll). Burnt ends are the essence of Kansas City BBQ and it's something you should try at least once. This place is jammed before Royals and Chiefs games so plan accordingly - the lines will be out the door.
If LC's is too crowded, try Big T's across the street. Not only is it good but they feature drive through 'cue, which is nice in the winter when you don't want to trudge across a sleet-filled parking lot.
Now it's time for your BBQ crawl: next stop, the legendary Arthur Byrant's. The original location is on 18th and Brooklyn so it's a good spot to relax after visiting the 18th & Vine district. Everything on the menu is good here; I like the ribs and the brisket sandwiches.
Ask 10 Kansas Citians about Gates BBQ and you'll probably get 10 wildly varying responses. I love it. Everything is good there but I especially love their barbequed beans, which are filled with little bits of burnt ends and swimming in their famous tangy sauce. They're sort of greasy, but wow...incredible.
Everyone here has their favorites, including Oklahoma Joe's (which I dislike, but others swear by it), Jack Stack, Rosedale, BB's Lawnside, The Stack, or even the smoker that's always fired up in front of McGonigles meat market, where you can walk up and get an incredible brisket sandwich. Honestly, you can probably find a brisket sandwich within 5 minutes of anywhere you happen to be in the city. We're a beef kind of place.
Since we're talking food, I'll give some props to a couple of places on the Kansas side. My favorite originated in the Strawberry Hill District of KCK, where eastern Europeans settled to work in the meat processing plants. A Croatian treat from this area is Strawberry Hill Povitica, which is a bit on the pricey side as making it is labor-intensive but worth it's worth any price. You can get big-ass English muffins at Wolferman's or hot hot hot stuff at Original Juan.
If you don't live here and have no desire to visit, you can make burnt ends at home and I'm here to tell you how.
First, you need to smoke a whole brisket. You can do so in a Weber grill or you can purchase a bullet smoker fairly inexpensively. Use a marinade or rub on your brisket, whatever floats your boat, and smoke it according to these pretty simple directions. I generally use a combination of water-soaked hickory and cherry woods in the smoker for a brisket, but it's all a matter of taste.
You'd better get up early to start your brisket, because when it's done you still have work ahead to produce the whole point of this exercise, burnt ends. When your brisket is done and it's rested, hack off the point of the brisket from the flat. Chop the point into cubes and place them in an aluminum container in which you've poked multiple holes. Place the container with the cubed ends back into the smoker and smoke for another hour and a half. Remove the container and dump the ends into another aluminum container without holes. Slop in your favorite BBQ sauce (I always use Gates) and put this container back into the smoker for another 90 minutes. Yep, another 3 hours total. It's worth it, honestly. You are finally finished and full of joy at the sight of those crispy, succulent, smothered in sauce ends.
So, Kansas City Kossacks - whether you live north of the river, east of Main, in Brookside or Waldo or on the Kansas side - are we up for a BBQ crawl? Recommend your favorite 'cue joint and let's plan something.