Chuck Eats KC - January 12, 2023

Kansas City Restaurant Week

Restaurant Week starts today! The week features dozens of restaurants across the Kansas City metro area. All a wide range of cuisines are available: French, Japanese, Cajun, Italian, Ethiopian, vegetarian and more. Participating restaurants include Summit Pizza, Plate Italiano Moderno, Mesob, Waldo Pizza, AIXOIS French Restaurant, Blind Box BBQ, T-Shotz, Em Chamas Brazilian Grill, Kobi Q, and dozens more.

The Guadalupe Centers will be the featured beneficiary of restaurant week.

I would love to hear from you about what you tried this week.

Vegetarian and Vegan Dining in Kansas City

Last week, I was on KCUR-FM’s morning show “Up To Date,” talking about vegetarian and vegan dining with other local food writers. This is a topic that I want to expand on in a new series in this newsletter and on upcoming podcasts. This will include restaurant reviews, history, and my thoughts on the subject. Here is an outline of what I plan to cover:

• This Week: An Overview of local vegetarian and vegan dining options
• Next Week: A History of vegetarian dining in Kansas City
• Down the Road: What is Kansas City missing when it comes to veggie dining? What are vegan restaurants doing in other cities?

What does the vegetarian and vegan dining landscape look like in Kansas City in 2023? What kind of healthy eating options are out there?

Like previous years, the Kansas City area has a handful of restaurants that only have vegetarian or vegan fare and a growing list of restaurants that have more veg options on their menus. Pirate’s Bone opened a second location and then closed both locations (temporarily?). Chain vegetarian restaurants Cafe Gratitude and True Food Kitchen are still in operation. New vegetarian and vegan concepts keep opening, like Tree Hugger Kitchen in north Kansas City.

If you are vegetarian, you can usually find options on any restaurant menu. Certain cuisines like Asian, Mexican, Indian, Mediterranean and Ethiopian are very vegetarian friendly. Chinese and Thai restaurants usually have rice and noodle dishes that are meatless. We have moved beyond the days when tofu dominated all of the options. Some Asian restaurants like Blue Koi have vegetarian and vegan appetizers. One of my favorite Chinese dishes without tofu is eggplant and garlic sauce on rice (New Peking, Bo Lings, Kin Lin, Princess Garden).

Indian restaurants often have buffets with vegetarian curries. Their menus often have an even broader number of vegetarian options.

Mediterranean cuisine is a mainstay for many vegetarians and vegans. You can get hummus, pita, spinach and rice dolmades, tabouli salad, spanakopita, falafel, baba ghanouj, salads and soups, jaffar, zaatar, cauliflower zahra, and vegetarian sandwiches and gyros.

Half the menu at Ethiopian restaurants is often vegan. There is little milk or cheese in Ethiopian cuisine other than things like American desserts. The food is often eaten with injera bread, but rice is often available. Try Gomen (fresh greens), Misir Watt (red lentil stew), dinich watt (chunks of potato), or atikeltt (cabbage, potatoes and carrots).'

You can find interesting vegetarian and vegan food at restaurants that may not seem veg friendly. This goes beyond pubs serving up Impossible Burgers and fries. Barbecue? Several barbecue restaurants have things like pulled jack fruit sandwiches with BBQ sauce or portobella mushroom sandwiches with sauce. Vegan sushi? Yep, that is available in Kansas City. There is also the wealth of chef-driven American style restaurants that have inventive veg-friendly dishes.

If you are new to vegetarian and vegan diets, what should you know about restaurant menus? Most of this depends on what your motivations are for your diet and how strict you are about animal products in menu dishes. As a vegetarian you may eat eggs or dairy or gelatin or some combination. You may be strict about the presence of animal ingredients, like rennet in cheese and gelatin in candy, dips and more. I started off in 1989 as a strict ovo-lacto vegetarian and in recent years I’ve been a non-strict ovo-lacto vegetarian who eats seafood 3-4 times a year.

There are many resources online that can explain what restaurant foods may have animal ingredients when they look like they don’t. Fish sauce can often be found in many broths used in Asian dishes, which may even be labeled as vegetarian. Pretty much all cheese used in Mexican restaurants will be cheese that includes rennet. If you are in doubt, always ask restaurant staff.

Vegans are generally well versed on animal ingredients in foods. Restaurants that are exclusively vegan are safe bets for dining out. There are non-vegan restaurants that have meat on the menu and maintain strict separation of animal ingredients in the kitchen. Ethiopian restaurants are one example, but as above, as restaurant staff, chefs and owners. Also your local vegan groups can be helpful places to find vegan friendly restaurants that have mixed menus.

First Look: Vegan Jurnee

First Looks is a shorter review for the newsletter. A longer version will eventually be published on my website (often with updates).

I love serendipitous restaurant discoveries and it’s a big bonus when they are vegan and match a cuisine style I’ve long wanted to see in Kansas City. I recently went looking for Mattie’s Foods on 63rd Street. I had been following their food truck and then restaurant, on social media for years. They’ve been on my shortlist of restaurants to try.

When I looked them up on Google Maps, their entry said they were temporarily closed. I was in that neighborhood and decided to drive around their parking lot. I saw people inside and opted to get out and see if Mattie’s was opened.

I was greeted by a very friendly person at the counter, who asked “How did you hear about us?” When I explained how I had been following the restaurant and food truck on social media for years, the person said that they were a different operation and pointed me to a page listing their socials. Looked at the menu and saw what looked like something similar to soul food vegetarian, a cuisine I’ve been hoping Kansas City would see in restaurant form. I know that a handful of black-owned food trucks and restaurants have opened in recent years that might be described as soul food vegetarian, but thanks to the pandemic I haven’t been able to explore them.

Vegan Jurnee is taking over the kitchen at Mattie's Foods for the month of January. Their menu is a mix of vegan takes on diner and bar food with breakfast and salads. I tried their Boundless Cheezeburger (pictured below) and their baked beans. I’ve eaten many different takes on vegetarian burgers over the past three decades and this is one of the better ones. Crunchy, with juices and plenty of flavor. Has a note of chicken, which might turn off some vegans, but maybe I was just struck be some flavor notes I don’t normally get in a veggie burger.

Why have I been hoping for a soul food vegetarian restaurant or two in Kansas City? When I lived in Washington, DC in the late 1990s, I visited several vegan soul food restaurants, including the late Soul Veg, which was across the street from Howard University. At Soul Veg, you could get burgers, lasagna, green beans, corn on the cob, collard greens, mac and cheese, fries, and other vegetable sides. While Vegan Jurnee tends more toward diner and fast food dishes, the menu is similar. Like the baked beans! Why can’t get vegan versions of that in more restaurants?

633 E 63rd Street, Kansas City Missouri
816-226-7440
https://www.facebook.com/VeganJurnee
Wednesday 9-3
Thursday 9-7
Friday 9-7
Saturday 9-7

Openings, Closings, Good Byes and Coming Soon

• The Goods by Good pop-up concept has opened up in The Levee Bar & Grill at 16 W. 43rd Street in Kansas City, Missouri.
• Sun Fresh Market is closing their location at the Red Bridge shopping center at the end of January.

Picture of the Issue

Chuck Eats KC Podcast

The third episode of the Chuck Eats KC is now available to paid subscribers. The latest episode looks at restaurants in the Waldo neighborhood, reviews Kin Lin, and looks back at Annie’s Santa Fe. Listen to the latest episode.

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TikTok? TikTok!

Chuck Eats KC is now on TikTok at @chuckeatskc. I plan to post from local restaurants, visit locations of bygone restaurants, and talk about Kansas City history.

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