Kloset BBQR said:
I've eaten at Bryant's, wouldn't go back. Highly overated. Try Oklahoma Joe's on the Kansas Side. Jeff Stehney owns it and also has a great BBQ Store right next to it. Wednesday night is the only night of the week you can get burnt ends there.........we'll worth the trip.
http://www.oklahomajoesbbq.com/
http://www.thekansascitybbqstore.com/
Gates BBQ was OK, better than Bryant's I thought but nothing to write home about.
If you like beans, try Fiorella's Jack Stack Barbecue. It's more upscale but the beans are killer. The rest of the stuff is again just so-so.
http://www.jackstackbbq.com/info.asp?ii ... 1230082654
I've also heard good things about LC's but I've never been there.
http://www.roadfood.com/Reviews/Overvie ... RefID=2640
Have a fun time in KC. There are over 100 BBQ restaurants there. Ask the locals for their favorites. Go to Bryant's just so you can say you've been there. The place is legendary but don't get your hopes up too high.
Thanks for all your tips. We spent four days driving to Denver and two days on the return trip with a full day in K.C. on the way to Denver and lunch on the way back. I'll post pics of the K.C. food, some highway signs for the travelling impaired, and lots of crashes from last week's ice storm (tell me how we went 125 miles in Illinois without one snow plow in our direction?)
Highlights of the first day included a place called Barbara Lee's in Louisville. We got there too late to enjoy a wider variety of cuisine. A classic breakfast/burger hole-in-the-wall with all the ambiance you can handle, from the toothless grit eatin' cook to the vice grips used as griddle knobs. Food was OK, although my omlette was the fluffiest I had ever eatin. tip: leave in a blender for 5 minutes
Next day, we hit Super Smokers outside of St. Louis. Been there before. Ate lunch and grabbed some sauces. Amy's chicken was dry and my slab of ribs were overdone. Sauces (all 6 of them were quite good) so i bought them. The shipping savings barely offset the waste of time leaving I-70 and figuring out how to get back on it.
First night in K.C. What to do? Go to Sonics. I shoulda known if Amy's niece worked at one, it would not likely be a good place to go. They screwed up Amy's order,re-order, and third re-order. Luckily I tipped the lady good to offset her running to our truck in 17 degree weather. I finally drove to the drive up to get it resolved.
First full day in K.C. Breakfast: none. slept in. Lunch: Danny Edwards Famous BBQ (formerly Lil' Jakes Eat It n Beat it). Good food. Funny story. Interesting man. Amy's chicken was good. My sample plate was also good. Brisket moist, pork flavorful, ribs done good. sides awful. No One in KC makes their own potatoe salad. I will skip the sides from now on (like I did at Super Smokers). I spoke to Danny about why the name change and move. The city condemned the block of Eat It N Beat It because they wanted to expand the convention center or something. So he moved to an industrial part of town and has almost 2000 sq feet at this new place. He told me how he cooks the big meat over night (set it and forget it) and the chicken and ribs in the morning. He mentioned something about not too many people order ribs. I thought that odd. Also, it seems the KC places don't cook spare ribs, just baby backs. Super Smokers the same thing. I interviewed him for about five minutes. I'll post the video on U-Tube if it turned out OK. Amy had lighting issues. So thumbs up to the Eat It N Beat It recommendation.
Next up: KCBS HQ - We drove across town mid afternoon and met the ladies there. I forgot the names, but we met the head lady and saw her desk. We saw the maps with pins representing all the contests for this year. According to the map, the Chesapeake Jubillee in Chesapeake VA is on (for those that are confused about the organizers saying it is not happening this year). They gave Amy the inspiration to write an article on pots n pans in the Bull Sheet. We got directions to (a place that only Amy would know what it was). She scored a bean pot. Just hit her panfreak.blogspot.com blog. I'm sure she'll post it and the story behind it. I'm just lucky we didn't spend more time there or as much money as we did at the KC BBQ Store. Speaking of which, we drove to Smoking Guns to say hi and see the place. We didn't eat anything there on the trip to Denver, but we did stop there on the way back for lunch (which was quite good- ordered a meat platter for two and did NOT order the sides. Well, I did, but we used the sodas as the sides. I'm tired of ordering crappy sides in K.C. and St. Louis.
KC BBQ Store and Oklahoma Joe's - Thanks for the recommendation. We stopped at the KC BBQ Store and got lots of sauce and rubs. Very nice store and lots of trophys from the different people competing. The guy that owns the store owns Oklahoma Joes next door. Per the recommendation, I got the "Z-Man" sandwhich, which is a brisket topped with provolone cheese and some onion rings. It was good, but I wondered what did I miss by not eating a sampler platter. Amy's chicken sandwhich was good. The place was quite interesting. They must have thought I was weird taking pictures of the place.
Denver was pretty non-exciting for us (for a few days). Amy had to focus on attending her library convention and buddying up with her co-workers and going out to where ever they fed her. We did have one dinner with Amy's nephew that lives there and then it was back to K.C. I did score some Del Taco. That was good.
Trip back east was horrible. While the drive West was as good as you could ask, the trip East was as bad as you could ask. Driving 1700 miles in two days is bad enough, add snow, ice, sleet, and freezing rain. At least the bad weather kept the cops off the road. I swear, Kansas ranked near the top of my altime list for number of cops. I rarely saw them in Colorado (except in Denver), and Kentucky and West VA. 4WD saved us from St. Louis to West VA. While the Weather Channel mentioned snow, they didn't mention the severity to expect. A 4 hour drive from St. Louis to Louisville took 8 hours. A 4 hour drive from Louisville to Charleston, WV took 5.5 hours. At least KY and WV DOTs did their job (sort of). They forgot to clear the snow and ice from the white lines, so lane changes still put you into a skid. MODOT, ILDOT and INDOT were non-existant. Still, I made my company meeting on Wednesday only 2 hours later than I originally predicted and that included a flat tire in Charleston.
All n all, a good trip to see K.C. and eat three decent meals. I appreciate the recommends. No way could I have done it without you. As for Jack's Stack, it seemed they are only known for their beans. I'm not a bean freak, but it would have been nice to see what they do to them. Perhaps next time. We already hit Arthur Bryant's a few years ago. No need to go back. Will think about LC's or some other place next time.
Will post pics and the interview video sometime in the next few days.