Denis Culinary Tours

The Glitzy and Glamorous Life of a Restaurateur Comfortably ensconced in my padded chair, I daintily sip a glass of good summer rosé and peruse the elegant menu.  Ooh, I think, I could own a restaurant like this.  It would be sooo cool. So very fab. So glamorous. So glitzy.  So satisfying.  Surrounded by creative people, I would oversee delicious food and drink and my customers, no, guests, would heap praise upon me by the giant spoonful.  I would go all over the world tasting other menus.  I would hob nob with the rich and famous.  Maybe a TV show even.  Of course a cookbook.  At least on the radio. Cindy McClain and her team have been injecting energy in the Independence Square since 1999. Aaaawk!  Screeeeech! Crash! Stop.  That’s the sound of reality breaking the window glass of my dreams. Ask any restaurant owner, any executive chef, about the glamour and excitement of running a restaurant -- and they’ll laug...

Since it was cool, even if rainy, at long last this week, I took some friends on the streetcar and we ate at il Lazzarone , a not so new anymore pizza place in the city market. What struck me most was that three of them hadn’t been on the street car and that the entire excursion could be considered an adventure – which one kept exclaiming it was.   What if we started looking at all such trips as adventures?   Life would be so much more exciting.   And even if you’re going to a familiar place, you can turn it into an exploration. For instance, one HOT day last week, I was at McCormick and Schmick’s .   No way was I going to sit outside.   Yet there was a breeze, hot again, but we braved the heat and decided to sit on their lovely patio, ordered a tropical drink and then their fresh strawberry lemonade, ate the perfectly seared bigeye ahi tuna and despite the cars, I pretended I was in Hawaii.   It certainly all felt tropical – and I felt better about ...

THE FACTS America has become a sushi-loving nation since sushi’s west coast expansion after World War II when it was considered a delicacy enjoyed mostly by celebrities and other movers and shakers. By the late 1970s sushi restaurants were booming throughout California and spreading throughout the country. Today, sushi has become an American staple for everything from dining out to dinner parties to cocktail happy hours. Sushi was a street food Sushi began in the 1830s as a fast food sold at streetside stands in a place called “Edo,” modern day Tokyo. Because there was no refrigeration, fish was typically marinated to prevent spoilage. By the late 1890s, ice making machines and other refrigeration systems were used to keep sushi fresh. Most sushi is actually maki or nigiri Sushi comes in many forms, including cone-shaped rolls known called temaki and a rice bowl topped with fish referred to as chirashi. Typically, when Americans refer to “sushi,” they are talking abou...

5 Great Reasons to Happy Hour on the Plaza Friend Nancy and I went to Café Trio this week and it reminded me I need to come here more often.     There are several reasons for this brilliant assessment.  1. The food and drinks are VERY good. And there are so many choices – including soups and salads which you seldom see on a happy hour menu. I went for the chicken livers and they were great and plentiful – and I am an expert on chicken livers, at least eating them. But there’s also excellent truffle fries, flatbread, fried chicken, mussels, crab cakes and steak burgers – 14 different items right now.  2. The prices are REALLY reasonable -- $4 well drinks and wine, $5 martinis, $3 beers. Their food features range from $5 to maybe $8 and these are good sized portions, folks.  3. They have a GREAT location with their OWN parking. It’s the Plaza and you can easily park there. Whoo-Hoo.  4. They have TERRIFIC ambiance inside and a WONDERF...

The Top Ten Reasons to Attend Stems: A Garden Soirée JUNE 23, 2018 - 7-11p.m. Overland Park Arboretum & Botanical Gardens $150   General Admission Ticket $250   Patron Ticket BUY TICKETS Visit   stemssoiree. org   or call  913.322.6467 for all ticket and event information.

Dinner and a . . . Sometimes I could kick myself. I eat out a lot. But I could be eating out and doing more at the same time if I just opened my eyes a bit and planned better – just the tiniest bit. Here’s what I mean: the Gaslight Grill in Leawood offers periodic (free) music by talented KC musicians on their Cabaret evenings besides their five days a week jazz in their Back Room. On May 8th, which I missed of course, they had Kristen Alley and Alyce Pickering singing tunes from James Taylor, Carol King, and Chicago. See my first sentence. Webster House has a full program of events including their monthly supper clubs, jazz trios, special happy hours and the like. Back on the 9th their supper club featured Candace Evans and on May 23, they have a special wine tasting. There’s lots going on – there are three ways to find out easily. The first is to go to our Events Calendar . The second is to search by nightlife , or to sign up for our Instagram , or twitter . The t...

Chipped beef on toast A few weeks ago for this space , I talked with Colby Garrelts, famed chef of Bluestem and Rye restaurants. I really appreciate someone who is equally at home fixing the most elegant and sophisticated of dishes AND who loves, and prepares, much more “down home” food, but usually with a twist.  A great example of that is the meal my mom used to fix us, often when she and dad were going out, chipped beef on toast.  It was that pretty basic version I mentioned in that blog, but now I’ve gotten Chef Colby’s permission to give you the recipe of his far tastier version which I found in his and wife Megan’s newest cookbook, Made in America. It is, proclaims its cover, “A Modern Collection of Classic Recipes” and that’s just what it is – food that is familiar, but they’ve made it MUCH better. It is organized cleverly – Daybreak, From the Cupboard and Garden, Cast Iron, From the Fryer, From the Grill and so on. Desserts of course, too. It’s as much fun...