Roasterie

The Roasterie Kansas City blend has long been one of my favorite coffee blends. My wife and I consume so much of it that we buy the large bulk bags of it at Costco. When The Roasterie factory was renovated, in the second half of last year, to expand and add a cafe (called the Bean Hanger), we knew that this would be a frequent stop for our Saturday morning coffee needs.

The exterior is impressive; the most stunning aspect being, of course, the full size DC-3 mounted atop the factory. The interior is modern with a bit of a retro flair that we have come to expect from The Roasterie.  They have even just added an event space between the cafe and the factory, it looks amazing! I snapped a quick photo of the coffee bar, but it does not do the space justice, Roasterie has a 360 degree Google view on their website (if you want a better look at it): http://www.theroasterie.com/about/tours 

The Bean Hanger has memorabilia and coffee paraphernalia for sale along with countless blends of Roasterie coffee.

Factory tours are offered daily (Mon-Sat) at 10am, with a second tour at 11am on Saturdays. We have yet to take one, but are very anxious to do so.

During one of our recent trips to The Roasterie Cafe, we tried the drink of the month (for February): The Sweetheart Mocha. It was a regular Roasterie mocha, however instead of regular steamed milk, it had steamed Shatto strawberry milk. This was probably my wife's favorite latte of all times! The barista even put a little heart on the top for bonus points.

The Roasterie is offering an Irish Cream latte, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, as the March drink of the month. Or you can stop by and pick up some of The Roasterie Irish blend to take home and make your own Irish Coffees (recipe to the right, click to enlarge). Aye, cheers!

This is an awesome place on the Westside to go meet up with friends, take a first date, read a book, learn about coffee, or just grab a dang good cup of coffee!

First Time for Everything

As it is said, there is a first time for everything. My first of the week: my first live TV appearance. 

I was asked to go on Fox 4 to talk about some of my favorite local brands and restaurants for St. Patrick's Day. I was given three and a half minutes to talk about as many different products/places as I could. I do want to apologize to any great KC brands/restaurants that had St. Patrick's Day items that I did not have a chance to discuss.

Admittedly, live TV can be a bit intimidating. There are [who knows how many people] watching and if you screw up, they all see it and are going to discount everything that you say. I tried to give good information, not be too corny, and still keep it all under three and a half minutes. I did feel a bit like Ricky Bobby in his first interview though, I did not know what to do with my hands.

I am no Anthony Bourdain, but you can judge for yourself how you think I did (link pasted below). Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Lets get my views up so that maybe they will have me back on again. Perhaps for Cinco de Mayo?

http://fox4kc.com/2013/03/09/irish-coffee/

A Different Way of Thinking

I recently attended a wine tasting at Boozefish Wine Bar, for a friend's birthday. We drank good wine, we ate hors d'oeuvres, and we had a good time. Though the wine was good and the hors d'oeuvres were full of flavour, this post is about a conversation that I had with the sommelier. I left with a new look on language that will hopefully be reflected in my coming posts.

We tasted a flight of Single Vineyard wines from Lamadrid, an Argentinian vineyard. Lamadrid owns vineyards all over Argentina, the Single Vineyard designation simply states that all of the grapes in that particular bottle came from a "single vineyard" (similar to single barrel whiskey). The flight consisted of a Torrontes, a Malbec, and a Cabernet Sauvignon, of which all were great, but I gravitated toward the Malbec. This initially came as a surprise to me, as (in general) I prefer Cabs to Malbecs. However, this did not surprise the sommelier, as Malbecs are the pride of Argentina.

He went on to state that while "new world" wines are named after the grapes that make them up, while "old world" wines (namely those from France's wine regions) are named after the city or region in which they are produced. Pourquoi? Because the wine is not supposed to taste like the grape that it is made with, but the region in which it was produced. The Malbecs of Argentina are said to be the same, Malbecs just taste like Argentina.

Similarly, the French language (a Romantic Language) allows French wine writers to describe wines in ways that the English language just does not allow (but take what I say about the English language with a grain of salt, as I am no English major, which I am sure is grossly apparent in my writing). Where English wine writers describe wines as "buttery" or "with hints of citrus" or whatever, which may be true (and distinguishable by the trained tongue), but are also often used to confuse and belittle those not trained in all things wine. The French prefer to personify the wine and describe it as "playful" or "fickle" or other adjectives. 

Having said all of that: I started this blog because I wanted to let the everyman know about awesome food in a non-pretentious, food critic-y way. I wanted to "cut the crap" (if you will), get down to what is important, and un-complicate good food. Apparently the French agree with me!

Boozefish provides flavourful hummus, cheeses, and cured meats to pair with the wines. The sommeliers  provide an education to pair with their pouring. I am just going to do my best to bring it to the people.

Head to Boozefish if you want an education of your own. They also have a good selection of craft beer, for those non-winos. And if that is not enough to convince you, you may even run into a girl that your friend had an awkward physical encounter with in college.. who is there with her husband (it happened to us, and it was still awesomely awkward). More than anything, I would describe Boozefish as sophisticated, but not stiff. Sante!