{"id":177,"date":"2016-06-22T05:12:21","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T05:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diatomics.com\/w\/?p=177"},"modified":"2016-06-22T05:25:47","modified_gmt":"2016-06-22T05:25:47","slug":"fiorellas-jack-stack-bbq-kansas-city-mo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diatomics.com\/w\/2016\/06\/22\/fiorellas-jack-stack-bbq-kansas-city-mo\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiorella’s Jack Stack BBQ, Kansas City, MO"},"content":{"rendered":"

When someone says, “Kansas City Style BBQ,” do you immediately think of KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce? I don’t. \u00a0But I was warned that it was completely not like that at all, because SOME people think that it is. Fine. I emptied my mind of all barbecue sauce commercial based expectations. I would go into Kansas City with a clean slate.<\/p>\n

First off: a US geography lesson. Where would you think Kansas City is? If you said, “Missouri,” you’re more right than I was! But there’s ALSO a Kansas City in Kansas – it’s just a suburb of Kansas City, MO. That was confusing – fortunately Wikipedia, Yelp, Foursquare, and the MacOS maps.app all have my back and pointed me directly to the best place to get Kansas City (Missouri!) BBQ: Oklahoma Joes. Which is not in Oklahoma.<\/p>\n

Enough of that – we’re saying “KC” from now on.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma Joes changed their name to Joe’s Kansas City a few years back, clearing up one point of confusion. Unfortunately, Joe’s is not open on Sundays, and Sunday was the only day I had in KC. Second choice: Fiorella’s Jack Stack BBQ.<\/p>\n

As I approached Fiorella’s I noticed that the air around it smells like BBQ smoke, which is a nice smell. There are 6 or 7 groups of people sitting outside, waiting. Two good\u00a0signs. I’m not in the biggest hurry. I can wait. But no – since I’m on my own now, I can just breeze in and sit by myself at the awkward 2-top bar table where one of the seats is too close to the pillar for anyone to use. And I did.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A panorama from my POV. I was seated next to the iron cage pig.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is the most family-restaurant-like of all the BBQ places I’ve been, with the possible exception of Bobby-Q. \u00a0Judging by the full-restaurant experience, I could see people preferring to come here and sit in a moodily lit place where everything is wooden, instead of the brutally down-to-earth spots at which I’d been eating in other states. You can just\u00a0show up at 8 PM and get whatever you want, too. Not as much of a burden.<\/p>\n

The menu item I got was “Jack’s Best,” which is what the website recommends if you’re looking for a sample representing good KC BBQ. Yes, website, that IS what I’m looking for. It includes: Pork baby back ribs, Beef burnt ends, aaaand one Prime beef rib, so there’s your single KC rib serving again. Two sides, cheesy corn and “pit beans.”<\/p>\n

\"Jack's<\/a>
Jack’s Best. CW from top left: Cheesy corn, Pit beans, Prime beef rib, Mr Whitebread trying to look like food, Burnt ends, Baby back ribs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The meat on all these is noticeably smoky and very tender. They’ve all got BBQ sauce on them – it’s that dark, sweet, mollasses-based stuff that everyone I know thinks of when you say “barbecue sauce.” It’s what the stuff you get with chicken mcnuggets is a pale imitation of. I’m pretty sure this meat would be good without the sauce – it’s still smoky and pretty nice meat. But that’s not what KC BBQ is about.<\/p>\n

What I’m getting from all this is: KC BBQ won the hearts and minds of the mainstream. When you get BBQ pringles or whatever, what you’re getting is not like a dry rub, not like a tangy or vinegar-based BBQ. You’re getting the KC heavy molasses sauce metaphor. And looking at the restaurants I chose to represent each, it’s not hard to see how KC won the PR war. It’s accessible.<\/p>\n

The beef rib was, by the way, amazing. When I was young, one of my favorite mom-dishes was oxtail stew. This beef rib was kind of like a giant mostly-meat oxtail in consistency, but a little more steak-like in flavor. Plus BBQ sauce. Really satisfying. I’ll have to check out beef rib night (at Jack’s) when I get back to Seattle, for comparison.<\/p>\n

I did get the carrot cake for dessert, as recommended by Yelp, but I had to take it to-go. I had a little bit back at the hotel, but I wasn’t really feeling it. I mean, on top of near-daily BBQ, I’ve been eating around\u00a05 ostentatious-level donuts a day, guys. Something’s gotta give. And it’s probably my pants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When someone says, “Kansas City Style BBQ,” do you immediately think of KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce? I don’t. \u00a0But I was warned that it was completely not like that at all, because SOME people think that it is. Fine. I emptied my mind of all barbecue sauce commercial based expectations. I would go into Kansas … Continue reading “Fiorella’s Jack Stack BBQ, Kansas City, MO”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":174,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diatomics.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diatomics.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diatomics.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diatomics.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diatomics.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.diatomics.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182,"href":"https:\/\/www.diatomics.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions\/182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diatomics.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diatomics.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diatomics.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diatomics.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}