Where: Kansas City, Missouri
When: February 24-26, 2017
With: Dave
Funny thing about a random place like Kansas City, Missouri. I had actually been there, almost 17 years ago while on a dance tour. However, sadly, as I now realize, we never left the hotel in which the dance classes took place. Therefore, this entry in the book was always killing me for how close I came, but could not strike off.
This winter, with a companion fare we had to use or lose, we decided to take advantage of our midwest proximity and take a short weekend trip to Kansas City so I could finally eat some BBQ and listen to some jazz. The flight was short, and within a few hours of leaving our house, we were off to explore this new city.
After listening to our Uber driver from the airport list all his favorite BBQ joints, my mouth was absolutely watering. Sadly, by the time we landed and checked in to our hotel, it was too late for anything to still be open. So I tried my best to ignore my hunger pangs and we instead started tackling the "jazz" portion of the entry. Our first jazz bar was The Phoenix.
When we stepped up to the door, we actually couldn't get in because the band was jamming out right in the entranceway. (Well, no question there was jazz here.) We were a little confused and didn't want to interrupt a set, but thankfully found a back smokers entrance to get in. I guess the jazz is more important than patrons?
The bar was everything you'd want a jazz bar to be: dark, with low-lighting on old tiffany-style lamps, patrons at high tops scattered about and focused on the music, and most important, at the center of it all, a great band completely jamming out and having a blast. Crunched in the front of the bar, the piano took up most of the area, leaving the rest of the band to crowd around and make do.
The band playing was the MGDs. They were fantastic. The vocals switched off between the piano player and the drummer, while the two guys on the left played everything from the sax to the trumpet to the bongos. And they danced around while doing it. It was so fun. Couple that with a quirky waiter making us fancy cocktails while trying to convince us to take shots, and we instantly felt like we were on vacation. We stayed until last call and the lights came on.
We were up early the next day for our only full day to explore the city. We were still so focused on the BBQ we had been craving that we decided to forgo a formal breakfast and just head straight to our first BBQ joint: Arther Bryant's. As we learned from our Uber driver the night before, the opinion on what is considered the "best" Kansas City BBQ is quite split, but many will say that Bryant's is the best BBQ in the country. While the establishment has been around since 1908, it wasn't until Arthur Bryant took it over and moved it to its present location in the 1950s that it started to become a major local staple. After Playboy said it was possibly "the greatest restaurant in world" in the 1970s, it has enjoyed national recognition.
Getting there at 10:30am meant there weren't any lines. It was as unassuming an interior as you'd want in a good BBQ joint.
We each ordered two meats to be sure to try as much as possible. I got the ribs and pulled pork, while Dave got brisket and the Bryant's specialty, burnt ends. Burnt ends are the marinated, burnt ends of the brisket. They were delicious, and the ribs were so tender. Paired with Arthur Bryant's own concoctions of BBQ sauce, and this meal was incredible.
After thoroughly stuffing ourselves, we took a short walk along 18th street towards the area of Kansas City known as 18th and Vine. This area is synonymous with jazz music in Kansas City. Now it was still barely noon, so the jazz clubs were certainly not open, but this area is home to two pretty cool museums (housed in one building): the American Jazz Museum and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
We started with the American Jazz Museum. It was relatively small, but packed a lot of history into it. All the jazz greats were given a section with a brief life story, pictures, personal affects and samples of their music. Thankfully, there weren't a ton of people in there or the various music clips could have become overwhelming. But it was cool to pick your favorite song by each artist, and listen to it while you read up on their lives. The featured artists included Louis Armstrong (who they deemed the inventor of jazz), Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Parker.
Attached to the museum is one of the most famous jazz clubs of the 18th and Vine district, The Blue Room. During the day, this bar is part of the museum, free to be explored. But come night time and it operates as a full-fledged jazz bar.
After the jazz museum, we moved on to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. This was my favorite of the two by far. It told the history of the baseball league that formed when Major League baseball undertook a "gentlemen's agreement" not to sign any African-American ball players.
After our time in the museums, we were still stuffed from breakfast. So we headed to the Power & Light district of Kansas City to do a little bar-hopping. This area is the big "scene" at night, but in the day, it was a cool two-story courtyard of bars.
We had a few drinks here, and then headed to the major Kansas City brewery, Boulevard Brewery, for a few locally crafted beers. After a few KC Pilsners, we finally started to feel hungry and ready for more BBQ at dinner.
For dinner, we actually crossed state borders and went into Kansas (my first time!) to go to Joe's Kansas City BBQ. This is another place that is often voted best BBQ in Kansas City (again, opinions vary greatly as this time, our Uber driver told us it wasn't one of her favorites), and Anthony Bourdain put it on his list of top 15 restaurants in the world. The world.
Here's the catch on Joe's though. It's actually located inside a gas station. And not, "oh how cool, they turned an abandoned gas station into this hipster restaurant". An actual gas station, still servicing cars on the outside. While this sounds terrifying, the line out the door to order BBQ was reassuring that the food was better than the expectations associated with gas station food.
We waited in line for about 40 minutes, but it gave us time to carefully craft our order. Dave decided to try the ribs and the pulled pork, deemed a house specialty, with a side of fries (another specialty) and beans (my request). I went outside my typical BBQ order and decided to try the sandwich they deemed "the Z-man". It was smoked brisket topped with smoked provolone and two fried onion rings, smothered in BBQ sauce, all on a kaiser roll. I also got a side of Kansas caviar, which was sort of like a bean salad in vinegar.
Holy crap, everything was absolutely amazing. Dave was in love with the ribs, so much so that he said he'd be there once a week if we lived closer. And the Z-man was one of the best sandwiches I've ever had. The crunch of the onion rings along side the smoky brisket was such an amazing combo of flavors. And the Kansas caviar was delicious, and just the right amount of "light" food I needed to get through my second BBQ meal of the day.
After putting ourselves into an official food coma, we did have to drag our feet a little to get back into the city for one more night of jazz. The place we chose this time was the Green Lady Lounge. This was completely different than The Phoenix. This felt like stepping back in time to the 1930s. It was so dark in the bar you could barely see except for the fake flickering candles on the tiny tables surrounding the band. The walls were dark red, the ceiling was black, and there was dark wood everywhere. The main light in the room came from the 3-piece band in the middle of the bar.
The music this time was completely different as well. There were no vocals in the band, and they just had drums, guitar, and a keyboard player. We liked the band from the night before better, but we had no less fun. They switched between old classics, original compositions and plays on modern songs. We stayed for a few hours, drinking some Boulevard beers and toasting to what a great job we did of exploring this city in the 24 hours we had.
Kansas City was fantastic. The food was absolutely to die for, and I can't get over how fun jazz made the nightlife. While we feel like we really got to see the city, we would never say no to a return trip. Who could say no to jazz and bbq? Someone who doesn't like fun, that's who.
When: February 24-26, 2017
With: Dave
Funny thing about a random place like Kansas City, Missouri. I had actually been there, almost 17 years ago while on a dance tour. However, sadly, as I now realize, we never left the hotel in which the dance classes took place. Therefore, this entry in the book was always killing me for how close I came, but could not strike off.
This winter, with a companion fare we had to use or lose, we decided to take advantage of our midwest proximity and take a short weekend trip to Kansas City so I could finally eat some BBQ and listen to some jazz. The flight was short, and within a few hours of leaving our house, we were off to explore this new city.
After listening to our Uber driver from the airport list all his favorite BBQ joints, my mouth was absolutely watering. Sadly, by the time we landed and checked in to our hotel, it was too late for anything to still be open. So I tried my best to ignore my hunger pangs and we instead started tackling the "jazz" portion of the entry. Our first jazz bar was The Phoenix.
When we stepped up to the door, we actually couldn't get in because the band was jamming out right in the entranceway. (Well, no question there was jazz here.) We were a little confused and didn't want to interrupt a set, but thankfully found a back smokers entrance to get in. I guess the jazz is more important than patrons?
The bar was everything you'd want a jazz bar to be: dark, with low-lighting on old tiffany-style lamps, patrons at high tops scattered about and focused on the music, and most important, at the center of it all, a great band completely jamming out and having a blast. Crunched in the front of the bar, the piano took up most of the area, leaving the rest of the band to crowd around and make do.
My favorite song:
We were up early the next day for our only full day to explore the city. We were still so focused on the BBQ we had been craving that we decided to forgo a formal breakfast and just head straight to our first BBQ joint: Arther Bryant's. As we learned from our Uber driver the night before, the opinion on what is considered the "best" Kansas City BBQ is quite split, but many will say that Bryant's is the best BBQ in the country. While the establishment has been around since 1908, it wasn't until Arthur Bryant took it over and moved it to its present location in the 1950s that it started to become a major local staple. After Playboy said it was possibly "the greatest restaurant in world" in the 1970s, it has enjoyed national recognition.
Getting there at 10:30am meant there weren't any lines. It was as unassuming an interior as you'd want in a good BBQ joint.
We each ordered two meats to be sure to try as much as possible. I got the ribs and pulled pork, while Dave got brisket and the Bryant's specialty, burnt ends. Burnt ends are the marinated, burnt ends of the brisket. They were delicious, and the ribs were so tender. Paired with Arthur Bryant's own concoctions of BBQ sauce, and this meal was incredible.
After thoroughly stuffing ourselves, we took a short walk along 18th street towards the area of Kansas City known as 18th and Vine. This area is synonymous with jazz music in Kansas City. Now it was still barely noon, so the jazz clubs were certainly not open, but this area is home to two pretty cool museums (housed in one building): the American Jazz Museum and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
We started with the American Jazz Museum. It was relatively small, but packed a lot of history into it. All the jazz greats were given a section with a brief life story, pictures, personal affects and samples of their music. Thankfully, there weren't a ton of people in there or the various music clips could have become overwhelming. But it was cool to pick your favorite song by each artist, and listen to it while you read up on their lives. The featured artists included Louis Armstrong (who they deemed the inventor of jazz), Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Parker.
Attached to the museum is one of the most famous jazz clubs of the 18th and Vine district, The Blue Room. During the day, this bar is part of the museum, free to be explored. But come night time and it operates as a full-fledged jazz bar.
Starting in the 1880s, it showed a timeline of baseball for African-Americans parallel with major events in US history and how the League was formed and affected as a result. Sometimes, it was crazy to see how actually, baseball helped spur on the civil rights movement in America.
There were some really incredible stories and artifacts included in the museum. The part that really fascinated me was that the players in this league were so far and away more talented than the players in the Major Leagues. In fact, they were encouraged to play fast and aggressive, and as a result, were more exciting to watch. For example, players were fined $5 every time they were tagged out standing as opposed to sliding.
When coupling the talent with the multiple struggles faced by players off-field, their accomplishments are even more amazing. Teams would often sleep on the bus if certain cities didn't have hotels that accommodated black people. And sometimes, long drives between games passed without a meal because no restaurant would serve the team.
Ultimately, the museum chalked the end of the Negro Leagues up to just how good the players ultimately were. Once Jackie Robinson left the Kansas City Monarchs to be signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the racial walls in baseball began to come down, the Major League was where the best players flocked to. The Negro League eventually faded out team by team, and thankfully, Major League baseball became fully integrated.
These are just a few of the Negro League uniforms of men who went on to be famous Major League players.
We had a few drinks here, and then headed to the major Kansas City brewery, Boulevard Brewery, for a few locally crafted beers. After a few KC Pilsners, we finally started to feel hungry and ready for more BBQ at dinner.
Here's the catch on Joe's though. It's actually located inside a gas station. And not, "oh how cool, they turned an abandoned gas station into this hipster restaurant". An actual gas station, still servicing cars on the outside. While this sounds terrifying, the line out the door to order BBQ was reassuring that the food was better than the expectations associated with gas station food.
We waited in line for about 40 minutes, but it gave us time to carefully craft our order. Dave decided to try the ribs and the pulled pork, deemed a house specialty, with a side of fries (another specialty) and beans (my request). I went outside my typical BBQ order and decided to try the sandwich they deemed "the Z-man". It was smoked brisket topped with smoked provolone and two fried onion rings, smothered in BBQ sauce, all on a kaiser roll. I also got a side of Kansas caviar, which was sort of like a bean salad in vinegar.
After putting ourselves into an official food coma, we did have to drag our feet a little to get back into the city for one more night of jazz. The place we chose this time was the Green Lady Lounge. This was completely different than The Phoenix. This felt like stepping back in time to the 1930s. It was so dark in the bar you could barely see except for the fake flickering candles on the tiny tables surrounding the band. The walls were dark red, the ceiling was black, and there was dark wood everywhere. The main light in the room came from the 3-piece band in the middle of the bar.
The music this time was completely different as well. There were no vocals in the band, and they just had drums, guitar, and a keyboard player. We liked the band from the night before better, but we had no less fun. They switched between old classics, original compositions and plays on modern songs. We stayed for a few hours, drinking some Boulevard beers and toasting to what a great job we did of exploring this city in the 24 hours we had.
Kansas City was fantastic. The food was absolutely to die for, and I can't get over how fun jazz made the nightlife. While we feel like we really got to see the city, we would never say no to a return trip. Who could say no to jazz and bbq? Someone who doesn't like fun, that's who.
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