Fine Dining, Kansas City

I had a lunch of spinach salad that had strawberries, mandarin oranges and goat cheese. I also had a taste of my sister's sandwich of bacon, sliced apple, grilled onions and cheddar cheese.

Favorite Dish: I loved everything but particularly enjoyed the creme brulee bread pudding.

The Melting Pot is a relaxed multiple-course fine dining experience. The help is attentive and the food is outstanding.

Favorite Dish: The spinach and artichoke cheese fondue is melt-in-your-mouth, scrape-the-bottom good. You get bowls of dippers such as green apples, three types of bread, and vegetables. You can get more and more bowls of dippers to dip until your hear's desire (or you've run out of cheese!). The banana foster's white chocolate fondue is a nice variation from traditional chocolate fondue. You can watch as your waiter sets the bananas on fire and pours blue glowing flames into your white chocolate fondue. You get a plate of desserts to dip such as cheesecake, poundcake, coated marshmallows, and fruit. The dippers are great desserts alone! This fondue is more subtle and less sweet than your traditional dessert fondue. I also had a chocolate martini. They dip the rim of the glass in their chocolate fondue and the rich goodness drips down into your drink. Every time you bring the glass to your mouth for a drink you get a coating of chocolate.

How about some fondue? I heard many wonderful things about The Melting Pot, so my husband and I went here to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary and it was great! We called ahead for reservations, so we had our own private dining experience in a booth where no other patrons could see us, unless they were walking by, and if we wanted to we could have pulled the curtains so no one could have seen us.

We ordered the meal for two which comes with salads, a cheese fondue (we substitued the chocolate desert fondue instead) and a main course. You get to select the flavor of fondue for each of the courses. Each table has it's own cooking top, so you basically cook your own food.

Favorite Dish: We had teryaki sirloin, marinated chicken, and another marinated beef, since neither of us like seafood much. I think the meal usually comes with shrimp and fish. They were very accomodating when we asked for substitutions. Vegetables and mushrooms also come with the main course.

The dessert fondue was to die for! We chose the Yen Yang chocolate fondue. It was white chocolate and dark chocolate together in one pot, but the more you dip the more it mixes together. It came with fresh strawberries, pineapple, brownies, pound cake, cheesecake, and marshmallows for dipping.

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Another trip to Kansas City, another decadent lunch at Fou Frog with friends! I met colleagues from my days as a page at the Linda Hall Library (1988-90!) for a leisurely mid-day meal. This is a great place to linger over your meal and with a glass of French wine in front of you. Fou Frog - which has now been open in the burgeoning City Market neighborhood for almost a decade - is far from being stuffy or pretensious. The food is top-notch, but the setting and atmosphere is comfortable and informal. The menu regularly features a number of tradition beef and chicken favorates, but the real "catch" here are the fish and seafood specialties. The wine list is very good, with a number of reasonably priced vintages as well as some more expensive "classics." Think "White Burgundy"!

Favorite Dish: Any of the daily seafood specialities can be recommended - and the bouillabaisse is usually excellent.

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I retired for good on 1 September 2010 and no longer go to Kansas City. In May 2012 I was looking for a hotel for a colleague and noticed that the Cafe Trio had moved to the east side of the Country Club Plaza. I put the new address and web page here. I think a restaurant called the Graffiti Cafe had opened in the historic Congress Building location but is already out of business. Since I have not been to the new location, these are still the old pictures.

I go to Kansas City a few times a year on business but usually stay in Overland Park (south KC). There are many good restaurants there. Occasionally I stay near the Country Club Plaza. One of the good restaurants in that area was Papagallos in the Midtown area north of Country Club Plaza, located in the historic Congress Building at Broadway and Knickerbocker Place.

It had been a while (obviously like three years) since I had been to Papagallos. I convinced my colleagues to try it but when we got there it was now the Cafe Trio (and had been for ~2.5 years...how time flies). Of course, we decided to try the new restaurant and we were very glad we did. Although it was slow in coming, the food was outstanding and definitely worth the wait. If you have time for a leisurely meal, I highly recommend this restaurant. There is also a bar and entertainment on the weekends. Don't forget that there is free indoor parking too. Outdoor dining is available in the summer.

Favorite Dish: The roasted rack of lamb encrusted with a blend of spices and stone ground mustard was excellent. My Chicken Fontina was outstanding. However, you could get the Seafood Trio (salmon, prawns and scallops) with a side of delicious grilled vegetables and two people could have a feast for the price of one.

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"Affäre" is a Berlin-ish restaurant in the Crossroads District, located in the space formerly occupied by the fabulous Bar Natasha. I recently lunched there with several dear friends on a quiet Black Friday. We had a great time getting caught up, and liked the food quite a bit as well. It's a very welcoming space, a good addition to the neighborhood. It's interesting that there should be two German-themed restaurants so close to one another - the Austrian "Grunuaer" in the Freight House being the other. I hope they both can "make it"!

Generally I have a rule never to eat at a restaurant with an umlaut in its name, but this place merits making an exception. My trout was quite well prepared, though maybe it was a tad too buttery. And I love the purple potatoes that came with the dish.

Their signature cocktail is well worth a sip - or two. The "Affäre" has Pinckney Bend gin, Bitter Truth Violet, and Thatcher's Cucumber. Fantastic!