Sunday night, I was invited by a friend to attend an amazing event at The National Golf Club in Parkville — a 6-course dinner prepared by season six Top Chef contestants Eli Kirshstein and Kevin “Beardy” Gillespie and The National’s Executive Chef, Eric Barkley.

You may remember a few weeks back when I talked about the Top Chef Tour coming to Kansas City. In that post, I said:

[My friend] Eric [who is the Director of Food & Beverage for The National] is actually bringing back Eli and one of my personal favorites, Kevin “BEARDY” Gillespie for a special 6-course event (two by each Top Chef and 2 by Chef Barkley from The National) at their clubhouse in May.

Well, I was lucky enough to be invited as a guest to this amazing event. Alli and I were seated next to the pastry chef and executive chef (and 4-time James Beard Award nominee) of bluestem in Westport, which was really a treat. Not only were we treated to an amazing meal, but we had some great company and got some insight into the cooking side of things from Colby and Megan.

And now, the food…

The first course was prepared by Chef Barkley. It was a walleye served on a bed of sweet corn topped with ramps (wild leeks), morels, black truffles with a white wine foam. There were a lot of things that I just typed that I had never eaten before Sunday night, particularly ramps, which are apparently a very difficult to acquire vegetable (unlike normal leeks). As a lead-off dish, this was bright and interesting, but kind of large. The sweetness of the corn counteracted the acidity of the pickled ramps and the richness of the walleye and black truffles. I liked it a lot.

The second course was prepared by Chef Kirshtein, a scallop served on top of black garlic with Enoki mushrooms. I was really looking forward to having some scallops, but was a little disappointed in this dish. The scallop itself was nicely cooked and the black garlic was delicious, but I couldn’t get into the mushrooms. I want to be adventurous in my eating, but these were a little out there.

This next dish surprised the crap out of me. I did not expect that Chef Kirshtein’s chicken with broccoli gremolata and lily bulb puree would be my favorite course of the night. I have never tasted a chicken that was cooked better. The skin was crispy and the meat of the chicken was rich and tender and in stark contrast to the vinegar-y broccoli gremolata. Another wonderful surprise about this dish was the lily bulb puree. This was a point in the meal where it was extremely helpful to have chefs Garrelts at our table. I learned that lily bulb was actually a fancy name for onion. So basically, it was like a potato puree, only with onions. And it tasted awesome.

The fourth course was our first from Chef Beardy Gillespie, and it was actually a Top Chef challenge winner from last season’s Pigs and Pinot challenge. What was it? It’s difficult to tell from the picture, so let me help: it was a pork terrine with a pickled cherry and a mushroom salad (not like a green salad, but like a chicken salad…it’s that gray stuff on top of the pork terrine slice). I really liked this dish. It wasn’t amazingly appetizing to look at (although it was extremely cleanly plated), but it tasted salty and sweet and balanced. Yum.

Our next dish, from Chef Eric Barkley, had my favorite side item of the night. Served with a wagyu Kansas City (they called it New York…I refuse to do so) strip loin topped with a vidalia onion compote was a completely EPIC gorgonzola bread pudding with bacon. (Okay, so the dish was technically centered around the strip loin, but not for me.) So much awesomeness here. If I described it more, you might become insanely jealous and hunt me down.

The final savory dish was from Chef Beardy and was quite an experience. Now, I’ve had lamb loin before at Perilla in New York. I have not, however, had lamb loin with sweetbread (most mis-named food EVER) fricassee, lemony greens and potato cream. I wasn’t too hip on eating the thymus and pancreas of an animal, but I figured I had to give it a shot. Really weird. The lamb was pretty good too and the pomegranate brown butter that it was served with was quite tasty.

I didn’t actually photograph the 7th bonus course, which was prepared by the Herndon Career Center from Raytown. The dessert plate was a myriad of deliciousness — a Meyer lemon verbena sponge cake, chocolate two ways, homemade orange “pop rocks” and some nitro ice cream in a macadamia nut cone. The cone was the best part, but considering that it was concepted and prepared by high schoolers, I was really impressed.

After the meal, the chefs came out and answered some questions and told stories of their culinary background and their experiences on the show. I’d heard some of Eli’s stories from the Top Chef event from last month, but it was really fun to hear some of Beardy’s stories, since he was my favorite from last season.

I can’t thank my friend Eric enough for inviting me and Alli to attend this event. It was such a great experience to each such delicious food. I know that The National is working on another Top Chef-inspired event in September. Be sure to follow me on Twitter and I’ll be sure that you know about the event if you’re interested. If you love food and you love Top Chef, you really shouldn’t miss these special events.

I know that I’m glad I didn’t miss this one.

Once every 3 years or so, my family has this ridiculously excessive tradition. We wake up early on a Saturday and have a donut tasting.

And it is exactly as awesome as it sounds.

However, this is an amazingly un-local thing. The local-est place that we go is Lamar’s, but we also tried Krispy Kreme and Dunkin’ Donuts this year. After my devotion

Then, there’s this.

Meesha is organizing a meetup at John’s Space Age Donuts in downtown Overland Park on May 19, the same day that the new Dunkin’ Donuts opens up just down the street. I’ve got some friends who freaked out when Dunkin’ Donuts came to town. After my donut day, I can categorically say that Dunkin’ Donuts is very MEH and they certainly can’t hold a candle to Lamar’s. I’m going to try and make it to John’s on May 19 and give them a try.

It seems like they’re the awesomest. What are your KC suggestions for my family’s next excessive donut day?

Eli Kirshtein from Season 6 and Nikki Cascone from Season 4 came into KC and showed off their culinary chops and answered some questions in four sessions outside Cosentino’s Market. The first 15-20 minutes were spent making a quick Scimeca’s Sausage meatball with sauerkraut, aioli and topped with some gala apples.

By themselves, I like very few of the components in this dish. Sauerkraut? EW. Mustard? No thanks. But as a dish, it totally worked. The flavors worked together to create something really simple and tasty.

My favorite part of the event was the Q&A, though. As someone who’s been watching Top Chef since season one (and I’ve talked about it plenty), I was interested in hearing about the show and their experiences. One of the things that cracked me up was Eli and Nikki talking trash on some of the more well-known chefs of the world, particularly Bobby Flay (“Just throw it on the grill with some chipotle in adobo and some cilantro.”).

I was actually really surprised at how open and honest they were, pulling no punches about the contestants they competed with (Eli still hates Robin, it seems) and the challenges they competed in.

It was a really nice event and I have to say thanks to my friend Eric from The National, who got me the tickets. Eric is actually bringing back Eli and one of my personal favorites, Kevin “BEARDY” Gillespie for a special 6-course event (two by each Top Chef and 2 by Chef Barkley from The National) at their clubhouse in May. As amazing as the event sounds, the price tag might be a little out of my range.

For the rest of my pictures, check out my Flickr photoset.

Tonight was our big date night in the city. We had tickets to see Complexions Modern Ballet at the Joyce Theater (which was amazing), but before the performance, we had one of the greatest meals I have ever eaten.

I was a fan of Harold Dieterle’s as soon as I saw him on Season One of Top Chef [proof 1 2 3]. In fact, I even put “eat at Harold’s restaurant Perilla” on a bucket list I made in May of this year.

Tonight, I actually got to check that off tonight.

What you’re seeing in this picture is the tasting of Colorado lamb, my entree at Perilla.

I started with the Crispy Calimary & Watercress salad. It had mint and pecans and a chili-lime vinaigrette. Alli started with the Baby Red Romaine salad, which had bartlett pears, stilton cheese and spicy pecan vinaigrette. I tried both. They were so balanced and amazing (you’ll see a theme begin to develop).

For the main course, I had the lamb trio — grilled rack, crispy braised belly, homemade cheese & parsley sausage. Alli had their Red Kuri Squash Agnolotti with chanterelles, grilled halloumi & brown butter-hazelnut sauce. We also got the Farro Risotto on the side to share. We followed it up with a piece of the pumpkin pecan pie with caramel sauce and pumpkin ice cream.

I don’t think that we could have made a bad decision. Frankly, I’m fairly certain that everything on the menu is phenomenal because everything that we had far exceeded my high expectations. Our service was exceptional. The decor is appropriate. The music…well, I don’t know who makes their playlists, but it might as well have been me.

One more thing: at the end of our meal, I told our server to please give our compliments to the chef and that I was a huge fan of everything. She said, “Well, he’s here, would you like to say hello?”

Um…YES PLEASE.

I thought that she was going to bring Harold out to the table…no, she came back and waved to us, signaling us to come with her and we followed her back into the kitchen where I got to shake Harold’s hand and thank him personally for the meal. I admit that I was a bit starstruck, but who cares? It was awesome.

I can’t state this too strongly: our meal was legendary. It’s been 4 hours since it ended and I’m still thinking about it. Thank you so much to Harold and the entire Perilla staff for making our dinner very special. It far exceeded my experience at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill. Oh, I didn’t tell you about that?

All in due time…

In that town are maybe 6 places to eat, but everyone in the town knows of the Pizza Shack.

Named the Best Pizza in Iowa (in 1981), the Shack, as it is affectionately known has been owned and run by the same family, the Hamptons, for a few decades now. The Shack was there when my parents were at Graceland in the late ’60s and it is still there now, ten years after I graduated.

I worked there during my freshman, sophomore and junior years at Graceland and during those lunch shifts, I met and got to know the woman who would become my wife. I was a cook and she worked the front of the house. We got to spend a lot of time laughing and talking as we would get ready for lunch service.

I lived next door to the Shack for a year too. That was the year that Alli and I started dating. Coincidence? Probably. I remember how I used to come back from work smelling of pizza. I never tired of that smell of dough and sauce and pepperoni. The old oven, the linoleum floor, the stop light and jukebox and the old decorations all are a part of the wonderful experience and make the memory all that much richer.

If you’re ever on I-35, headed from Kansas City through Des Moines, be sure to stop in Lamoni. Just watch out for the Amish people.

Whenever we’re cooking, Dreyfuss is around, waiting for something, anything to fall to the floor. On the other side of the counter in the picture is a rug. And on that rug is an imprint of his butt from where he sits while we cook.

Alli started this habit of giving Dreyfuss the remnants of her burrito bol on the nights that we got Chipotle for dinner. We are regretting it now because anytime he sees that brown bag he starts freaking out and whining constantly until he gets the scraps.

All along, we’ve thought there was some sort of addictive chemical in Chipotle that makes us love it as much as we do. Turns out we were right.

We’ve been trying to find a time to hit the breakfast option at the Fork & Screen since it opened and with the release of Away We Go (FINALLY), we were excited to give it a shot.

I’m going to cover the movie review separately.

The Fork & Screen needs to stick what it does pretty well, which is bar food. Their breakfast was pretty bad. The portion sizes were decent and the potatoes were OK (fries and homemade chips are what the Fork & Screen does best at lunch and dinner), but my biscuits and gravy were average at best.

While the biscuits were pretty good, the “sausage” gravy was flavorless and seriously lacking sausage. I got it with a side of scrambled eggs with cheese that was just a really bland, boring, dry version of truck stop eggs, except not as good as I’ve described. No amount of salt or pepper could salvage this plate of MEH.

Alli didn’t have any better things to say about the French toast, saying:

The French toast was almost certainly frozen at sometime. I couldn’t even cut it with my fork.

I don’t think we’ll head back to the Fork & Screen for breakfast anytime soon. While I love that the movies cost only $10 that early in the morning on Saturday (with $5 towards your food), the food just wasn’t very good.

Alli made this terrific relish a while back that was a part of a Rachael Ray recipe for Vegetarian Sloppy Joes.

It’s not too difficult, basically chopped cilantro and pickles mixed together and served on top of whatever you’re eating. We’ve had it a few times since, on top of turkey burgers (for me) and vegetarian sandwiches (for her). Alli has made it with dill and sweet pickles, both of which are good, but I vastly prefer the dill pickle version.

If you want to try it out, it’s not hard.

1. Chop some pickles.
2. Chop some cilantro.
3. Mix.
4. Serve.

Enjoy!

No, that’s not Chipotle.

That is Mexican food leftover from the wedding. Still.