FOOD These are tacos worth sitting down to eat. The meat in Taqueria El Torito’s dishes (burritos, tortas, platters) comes right from the carniceria next door, so it’s fresh. Whether you go for asada, pollo, carnitas, chorizo, cabeza or lengua (or, for 50 cents more, tripe), it’s delicately seasoned and tucked into a flour or corn tortilla with chopped onion and fresh cilantro. The food looks as delicious as it tastes, and the aroma alone ensures that your takeout bag stands a slim chance of making it all the way home with the same contents.
BEST REGULAR BURGER
Tannin Wine Bar & Kitchen 1526 Walnut • 816-842-2660 • tanninwinebar.com
Don’t believe every menu you read. There’s not much honest, beautifully marbled Kobe beef in this country because the USDA relaxed its longtime ban on Japanese beef just last year and now permits limited importation. The wagyu beef that chef Brian Aaron uses for his hamburgers is often called “American Kobe” because the domestic wagyu cattle are usually (but not always) from the same breed of cattle as the sought-after Japanese beef. Still, Aaron’s house burger at Tannin tastes expensive, partly because the beef is so fine, and the slices of smoked cheddar and fresh tomato and the strips of very crispy bacon lend it major class. OK, $12 isn’t cheap for a “regular” no-frills burger, but honestly, we’d pay more for this one. Don’t tell Tannin.
BEST CHEAP HAMBURGER
Humdinger Drive-In 2504 East Ninth Street • 816-231-0888
When times are tough, sometimes a burger has to stand as a complete dinner. That’s where the $3.99 double cheeseburger at the Humdinger — a 52-year-old urban drive-in that has outlasted most of the other buildings on this forlorn stretch of Ninth Street — scores beautifully. One generous sandwich offers most of the basic food groups: meat (two beef patties), vegetables (lettuce and pickles), dairy (American cheese) and bread (a fluffy sesame-seed bun). Your burger meal is made to order by a staff enclosed behind a Plexiglas shield plastered with notices (“Be Nice to the Servers”), menu specials and terms of business (the Humdinger accepts only cash, but there is an ATM next to the video game). So, yeah, that means you have to take the burger home or eat it in the car, but that’s where you keep your chips and your soda anyway.
Kansas City’s Best Burger for 33 years!
BEST BREAKFAST
Genessee Royale Bistro 1531 Genessee • 816-474-7070 • genesseeroyale.com
First, the bad news: Genessee Royale doesn’t serve breakfast on Sundays (but offers it the other six days from 8 to 11 a.m.), and you can get the hot, sticky, caramelized “Brown Shugga Bacon Monkey Bread” only on Saturday mornings. But the other news is better than good. Restaurateur Todd Schulte, the soup guru who opened his beloved Happy Gillis Café & Hangout in Columbus Park, has turned an old West Bottoms gas station into the most eclectic, lovable diner in the city. There’s not a traditional offering on the breakfast menu, yet everything feels somehow familiar and homey. Eggs can be had with a cream-top biscuit and gravy or, if you prefer, roasted asparagus and crispy ham on a Farm to Market bialy. The orange and grapefruit juices are freshly squeezed, and the asskicking coffee is a Bull Mountain blend. Where else but the Bottoms do you even want a champagne cocktail and a Wolferman’s English muffi n first thing in the morning?
817 Westport Rd Kansas City, MO 64111 816-931-1986 westportfleamarket.com
Boy, can we stuff a ballot box!
BEST TORTILLAS
San Antonio Carniceria y Tortilleria 830 Kansas Avenue, Kansas City, Kansas 913-281-6433
This tortilla factory is also a café (the pork tamales made here are legendary), a grocery store and a meat market, but the plastic bags of tortillas are what draw customers from all over the metro. The tortillas are so fresh that the packages — 10 tortillas to a bag — often are still warm from the griddle after they’ve been stacked at the counter. Made in the traditional way, with a blend of lard, flour and baking powder, the tortillas are satisfyingly soft but properly fattening and as fluff y as naan.
BEST KNOTS
Johnny Jo’s Pizzeria 1209 West 47th Street • 816-401-4483
The pizza may be the specialty at Johnny Jo’s Pizzeria, but we go for the knots. Don’t get them naked. You want them dressed in garlic-butter-herb sauce and topped with romano cheese. Get them to go, and we guarantee you’ll be wolfi ng them down from the moment you leave the tiny West Plaza pizza joint.
pitch.com
best of kansas city 2013
the pitch
53