Kansas Trip - Day 1

Thanks to my fabulous friend in Missouri, I've been enjoying my trip to Kansas. I'm here for a landscaping trade show in Overland Park.

I started out my dining adventures with my co-workers at Fred P. Ott's in Overland Park. We were starving and it's the closest restaurant (besides the Kosher Subway) to our hotel. It's your average sports bar, but it also features local beer and a condiment area (that looks like a salad bar) for burger fixins. Thankfully, every decent restaurant serves salad, so I had a mountain of lettuce, cheese, and ranch dressing. I was tempted to try the frickles (fried pickles), but I thought it was a better idea to pass on them. My co-workers enjoyed some chili cheese fries and taco salads that they thought were really good. A little later in the afternoon (after we were done working), we enjoyed some drinks in our hotel's martini bar. The place is always bumping and has very strong yet reasonably priced drinks.

After working on Saturday, my friend and her boyfriend took me to Country Club Plaza to check out the only vegetarian restaurant in the area - Eden's Alley. Located in the basement of a Unitarian church, you wouldn't expect much from the restaurant, but the food was really good. I had a a really flavorful tomato bisque soup with a spinach and mushroom loaf. Sweet potatoes came on the side. It was SO good. My friend had really garlic-y hummus and her boyfriend had egg salad bruchetta. He thought it was good. I'm not a fan of eggs, but the dish at least looked good.

Afterwards we went to Blonde - a formerly trendy nightclub that's hurting for business. It seems to be trying too hard to be trendy. But the $5 premium martini specials made up for that! I felt bad because the place was so empty...but hopefully things picked up later in the night.

I learned that most bars in the Kansas and Missouri area have happy hours every day of the week. Awesome, right? There are $5 martinis almost everywhere every day until 10! And places serve $2 well drinks. Even if my company wasn't paying for my trip, this would be a cheap place to have a lot of fun in!

Tomorrow - day 2's dining...