The booths are in rough shape and the "fresh brewed" iced tea looked like it had been in the dispenser for a few days. But I like the food. The meaty ribs are tender and have very good flavor. The brisket is also very good. The bone in chicken doesn't have as much flavor as the other meats.

The onion rings are not fresh made, but are still crispy and good. The previously frozen crinkle cut French fries are cooked perfectly. They are golden and crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. To my tastes buds, they are better than the fresh cut fries at many other places.

The pages devoted to visiting the Kansas State Capitol were updated today. After several years, the Kansas State Capitol dome tours return February 3, 2014.

Exterior of the inner dome of the Kansas State Capitol

The page about the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays was updated. The Sternberg Museum's 15th Anniversary Celebration will be Saturday, March 8th, 2014 when they will offer admission and membership prices from 1999!

Sternberg Museum of Natural History

For supper we went to Hayward's Barbeque in Overland Park. This 41 year old restaurant just changed hands on February 1. It is now owned and managed by Eric Sweeney. Eric and his Pit Master both came from the higher profile Oklahoma Joe's BBQ. We dined there last night. Most changes haven't been made yet, but we liked the changes they have made to the food so far.

The founder of the restaurant, Hayward Spears Sr., will still be the public face of the restaurant. The wall of celebrity customers shown in the picture to the right still greets you near the entrance.

Wall of photos at Hayward's Barbeque

One corner of the market has a kitchen and counter where fresh tortillas are grilled and other dishes are prepared. This is the wonderful food that I hoped K-Macho would offer. Today I had the parrillada, grilled marinated beef short ribs and Eckrich sausage with beans and rice. This dish is cooked to order, sot there was a wait, but the grilled meat, onions and peppers were excellent. Even the refried beans (which I'm not normally a big fan of) were very good.

Linda joined be for supper at Burg & Barrel in Overland Park. By coincidence, this was the third meal within a block of 75th & Metcalf in 5 days. This neighborhood bar & grill continues to do a good job on slightly fancy hamburgers and Fresh cut fries. My only real complaint is that all of the seating except for three booths is at the bar or at high tables with bar stools.

I had the Marinated Garlic Pork Rib appetizer and Moo Phad Phet (stir fired pork with mushrooms, bell peppers, jalapenos, onions and scallions in spicy red curry sauce served with jasmine rice. The flavors on the Moo Phad Phet combine nicely. It was milder than I like, but a little fish sauce with Thai peppers from the spice bar perked it up nicely.

Then Linda joined me for supper at the original Thai Place on 87th Street in Overland Park. Although I first dined at the Thai Place shortly after it opened in 1991, it had been three or four years since I last visited this excellent restaurant.

We started with crab Rangoon's and grilled chicken satays. The eight small fried wantons were good, but I felt let down by the chicken. The satay didn't have much flavor on its own and the peanut sauce had coconut in it. That doesn't sound bad in theory, but I didn't think it worked well.

Linda's golden crab rice made with fresh crab meat, garlic and scallions, was mostly rice. Fine as a side dish, but without enough other ingredients to satisfy as a main dish. My seafood phad thai is called their signature dish and the stir fried rice noodles with jumbo shrimp, scallops, mussels, squid and crab meat with eggs, bean sprouts, cabbage and scallions, topped with roasted peanuts lived up to it. It was ordered hot and I had to pace myself, but that just meant that I had a good meal and had a generous serving leftover to take home.

The wings were good. Tanner's Bar & Grill has offered them for some time and these are equally good.

I'm sure some people love the onion rings, but I like lightly coated rings so I mostly tasted the fired onion and the beer batter taste predominated in the rings.

The food was better than I remembered. The chili was good as always, but the "Gen Dare" (single hamburger topped with hash browns, grilled onions, melted cheese, ketchup, mustard and pickles on a seeded bun) was really quite good.

For supper we hit Elsa's Ethiopian Restaurant, which is listed in the Overland Park Restaurant Guide. Ethiopian restaurants serve the food on flat, spongy sour bread called injera, which doubles as the utensils for picking up the food. 

The Key Wat (spicy beef stew) was good as always. I have a harder time finding side dishes which I like, but the misir wat (spicy lentil stew) was much better than I expected.

Elsa's Ethiopian Restaurant

We tried the $11.99 Carne Asada (thinly sliced, seasoned, char broiled skirt steak served on a bed of of sautéed bell peppers, onions, tomatoes and fresh mushrooms and the $13.99 Los 3 Compadres Platter (crab meat, fresh shrimp and chicken sautéed in wine with onions and cilantro, then topped with Monterey jack & cheddar cheese and baked). Both dishes were good, but not necessarily better than that available at so many Mexican restaurants in the Kansas City area. It wasn't obvious that the platter was baked.

The service was very attentive and the meal came with complimentary chips and salsa.

For supper, we returned to Kanz's City Pizza & Burger, which had brought out a new menu just a few days after our recent review. It turned out to mostly contain the items from the previous menu, plus four sandwiches which had been available from a small sign on the table. 

The only new item we spotted was a Kanzone (calzone) which we ordered for $10 with pepperoni, Italian sausage and bacon. At first glance, it was enormous, but it is mostly big around, not as thick as some. The $9.50 Hudson Burger with fresh cut fries was my favorite dish this night. The 8 ounce burger is covered with bacon, jalapenos, pepper jack cheese, a onion ring and onion ring sauce, but the server asked which cheese I want and I think I enjoyed it more with the cheddar cheese.

Kanzone

The marinated, grilled steak tips were well prepared and a nice size serving for $9.49 including fries. The $8.99 "Tanner-loin (tenderloin sandwich) is hand breaded and really very good. One of the better pork tenderloins in Johnson County.

The $6.09 grilled chicken, bacon & ranch sandwich was very good, while the $6.09 pork tenderloin was OK, not as good as the one I had the previous night at Tanners in Lenexa. The $2.89 sides of fresh made onion rings are the standout and worth a visit on their own.

We stayed the night in the most popular room at the Lyons Twin Mansions in Fort Scott. We dined at this B&B a few years ago and had been there for a wedding just last fall, but this was our first stay.

Out third floor room was called the Mandalay boasted a therapeutic massage tub on a glass pedestal and 52" plasma TV. It was quite attractive and a lot of effort was put into the room design, but it really was not very comfortable. 

There were many minor inconveniences like no place but the bed to set and open a suitcase, or no towel bars or hooks.

The bathroom had no windows and was very poorly lighted. With the shower curtain pulled, the shower stall was almost pitch black.

Worse, the bedroom had no blinds or curtains. The windows were fairly high on the the walls and we were on the top floor, so that hadn't bothered us too much the night we arrived, until morning when the sun poured in on the bed, making it impossible to sleep.

Mandalay room at the Lyons Twin Mansions

The highlight of the day was discovering that like a Phoenix, Memory Lane Marketplace is the newest incarnation of the former Scotty's Classic Cars in Arma, Kansas. The Marketplace is a unique combination of antiques, Kansas products & crafts and classic car restoration. The surprising store is just a couple of blocks off of the I-69 Bypass.

Many of the artists exhibiting work in Memory Lane Marketplace are from southeast Kansas and Phyllis Bitner is still finding new artists and Kansas made products each week. She is a big booster of Kansas and the Pittsburg area.

We were back in the Kansas City area in the evening and paid our second visit to the Thai Place in Overland Park. The $18.95 Hurricane Seafood was a real treat, with shrimp, scallops, squid, mussels and imitation crab meat stir fried with onions, bell peppers, jalapenos, mushrooms and scallions in a spicy red curry & tamarind sauce. 

At the server's urging, I went with medium, rather than hot on the spicy and I believe that it was a better choice. While I am capable of eating a hotter dish, the medium really was more of a pleasure for me.

Memory Lane Marketplace

Hurricane Seafood

It was a little long, but was enjoyable.

We had lunch at the nearby Biemer's BBQ. The sausage and ribs were good, but the burnt ends were a standout. Some of the best I have had. 

The six year old restaurant is in a building which formerly was Bucky's Drive-In for 40 years. It isn't much to look at and the booths aren't very comfortable, but it is the best BBQ which I have had in Lawrence.

In the afternoon we attended the KU versus TCU men's basketball game in Allen Fieldhouse. THe 95-65 blowout was fun for a Kansas fan to watch, but we also got a kick of Barbara Eden being at the game. It turns out that her husband is a KU Alumnus from Topeka and she has become a big KU basketball fan. The big screen on the scoreboard cut to her or referenced her several times.

We were tempted to have another meal in Lawrence, but were afraid that the waits would be very long on a Saturday night after a home basketball game. Instead, we revisited Anthony's Diner in Eudora. Anthony's is a little Pop restaurant which specializes in Italian food. 

The food is consistent and very reasonably priced. I had never had their pizza and tonight I had a 10" thin crust pizza with 3 toppings for $9. It was a good value and really quite good.

Biemer's' BBQ

Barbara Eden and her husband on the Kiss Cam 

More to the point, the descriptions of dished in the menu did not appeal and we didn't care for those we tried.

But The Basha now has a buffet lunch on Saturday & Sunday and seemed like a good time to try a number of dishes.

There were about 10 hot items in chafing dishes. Getting food was awkward since the dishes were packed side by side and all had lids, but we managed to fill our plates without an incident.

The food we had was enjoyable, but we still don't know what to order of the menu, since these dishes had names like Basha beef or Basha chicken and are not on the menu. The $13.99 price was reasonable for this buffet.

And they now have iced tea.

Chef & owner Rich Caines is always experimenting with new dishes and this day he brought me a taste of the bacon he was experimenting with making. He has also started smoking hams, though that is a slow process. It is fun to stop in and learn what new things he is doing.

For supper, we went to New York Dawg Pound in Overland Park. The quality at this hot dog stand is consistent and they have managed to come up with unusual combinations which actually work well together.

The Dalmatian has grilled peppers & onions, jalapenos and hot mustard. Ol' Blue (Kansas City style) has onion straws, BBQ sauce and pickle. Either one is $3.75, or you can get both, plus one side and a drink for $9.75.

Dalmatian & Ol' Blue

Today's lunch was the $11.00 'Shrooms burger, which is topped with wild mushrooms, Swiss cheese, grilled onions, lettuce & tomato. Some people would have been very happy with this burger, but I ordered it medium rare and it was served well done.

The burger came with a choice of sides and the house made chips were very good. They would be even better with a coating or dip.

Today's meal was a dish which I hadn't had before, the $14.99 half slab of baby back ribs which comes with baked beans and fries. The menu lists it under the heading of Kansas City BBQ, but there was none of the flavor which that heading supplies. They tasted as if they had been just baked in a oven, with sauce add near the end. They were tender and the sweet sauce was god, but these were the ribs that could be found in many chain restaurants.

The beans were fine, with the same sweet flavor as the BBQ sauce and no discernible meat. The battered and parmesan covered fries try to be something special and many people enjoy them. I don't think that the parmesan adds anything to them.

The service was good, as usual.

We did learn not to order a half sandwich & half salad. The whole sandwich came with the same size salad at the same price.

A new page devoted to the Flint Hills Discovery Center in Manhattan, Kansas was added to this site. We visited it shortly after it opened, two years ago, but by oversight the page was never created.

The $8 fried tobacco onion straws was a huge serving, pilled high with bacon and bleu cheese. Way to much for one person. The onion strings themselves were quite good, but as good as the combination sounds, I think the bacon and bleu cheese detracted from the flavor. I would be much happier with a $5 serving which was half the size and did not include the toppings.

The $9.49 incineration wings did not seem that hot in the first few bites, but by the third wing there was pretty good heat. The look very big on the plate, but there was a lot more bone than usual in those wings. The blue cheese dressing which I had them substitute for the rustler's ranch was the best blue cheese dressing which I have had in some time.

The Diet Coke has tasted funny both times I have dined here and had them replace it with iced tea.

For supper, Linda and I returned to Longbranch Saloon on Metcalf in Overland Park. Linda had the $9 catfish sandwich. She wanted potato skins instead of another potato and after the manager came over, he agreed to let her substitute a partial order of the skins, just this ones. The Longbranch skins may be the best in the area.

The $16 trail's end ribeye 12 ounce, hand cut and charcoal grilled. Really a nicely prepared steak. It is a good value with garlic toast and the choice of two side dishes.

trail's end ribeye

We found a busy, fairly large cafe at the far end of the Antique Mall. Although it is located where it could have its own entrance, diners must walk the length of the mall to enter. 

Bloomsbury Bistro has a relatively large menu for a cafe which is only open from 11AM - 3PM on Monday through Saturday. I had the meat loaf sandwich, chicken noodle soup and corn parmesan, while Linda had a sweet onion & smoked gouda quiche with a roasted pear & goat cheese salad. All of the dishes were very good looking and tasted nearly as good as they looked.

We split the toasted carrot cake, which was the main reason for the visit. The house specialty is carrot cake layered with a pineapple cream cheese filling, than toasted and topped with a brown sugar glaze. It was very good, with the layers and topping reminding me of elements of a German Chocolate Cake.

Our supper was a revisit of The Burger Stand at the Casbah in Lawrence. The Burger Stand is a stand along gourmet burger stand within a Massachusetts bar. 

Although we arrived about 4:30PM, there was already a line nearly to the door. It took about 25 minutes to place our order and another 25 minutes for the food to be prepared.

The menu consists of just a few burgers and other sandwiches, including several vegetarian options. Sides include several varieties of fries, onion rings and fried pickles. 

Linda had the $8.79 Black & Blue Burger which was topped with blue cheese & granny smith apple chutney, while I had the $8.99 The Smoke Burger with apple wood smoked bacon, smoked gouda cheese and chipotle cocoa ketchup. The burgers were well prepared, but for my taste, they try to be a little too original. I would be much happier with building a combination of my own choosing.

We split a $7 basket of beer battered onion rings. The coating overwhelmed the onion and we left over half of the order.

The Burger Stand at the Casbah

The hand breaded pork tenderloin sandwich was a disappointment. Dry and really no flavor at all.

The $13.99 sandwich consists of 1 lb. of Beef, Turkey, Pulled Pork & Sausage, plus pepper Jack & American cheese, 2 pieces of Bacon, Smokin Joe's Spicy BBQ sauce and French Fries on a large bun. It looks even larger when served, but that is largely bun. I don't believe there was any more meat than there is on a sandwich at Arthur Bryant's and there is far less than a full serving of fries. With not eating the bun, it was a generous, but not over the top meal. I would have liked more cheese, but the combination was very good.

I had never had the turkey before. It is something I rarely get at BBQ restaurants, but it was quite good. So was the spicy BBQ sauce which is not on the tables or offered. It is only available on this sandwich or by request (at no additional charge). The spicy sauce really made this sandwich and should be readily available.

This evening, a new page devoted to the Stuart House City Museum on Mackinac Island, Michigan was added to our sister web site www.MightyMac.org. The Stuart House was built in 1817 to house the resident agent of John Jacob Astor's American Fur Trading Post. Today, the City of Mackinac Island operates the museum during the summer, with admission by donation.

Earlier in the week, we learned of a new restaurant in western Lenexa, so we tried out ASA Sushi Hibachi & Lounge this evening. The large restaurant is very attractive. It looks as if a lot of time and money was put into preparing this Japanese restaurant before its opening last fall.

We asked for the Japanese Steakhouse Hibachi and were surprised when the seated us immediately and started the meal without waiting to fill other seats at the table. They continued to do the same at other grill/table combinations for every party which came in.

The list of items on the hibachi menu was a bit longer than many Japanese restaurants in the Kansas City area, offering various combinations of chicken, shrimp, filet, rib eye, KC Strip, salmon, lobster, calamari, sea bass, scallops and swordfish. Prices were a bit higher than most, with most single item meals being more than $20. Fried rice is $2.50 additional

The performance during the preparation was fairly short, but there were only two of us and we have seen them many times before. The most unusual thing about the performance was that after the chef made the onion volcano, he discarded that onion, instead of cutting it and adding it to the vegetables. They could have used the additional onion.

Everything about the meal was fine, but I can't say that we noticed anything to bring us back to this restaurant, rather than one of the closer and slightly less expensive ones.

Stuart House City Museum
 
 
 
 

Sushi bar at ASA Sushi Hibachi and Lounge

We started with the $8 braised beef bacon with barley and apple. We were all surprised at how well the barley went with the meat.

Our entrees were the $23 rabbit ravioli, $21 happy chicken and $34 ribeye. I enjoyed the grilled ribeye with horseradish and herb butter, barley and seasonal vegetables more than any dish I have had before.

One of us ordered the potato soup, but ate very little of it. The server noticed that the soup was hardly touched and removed it from the check with no prompting.

The menu is now significantly shorter than it was the first couple of year the restaurant was open.