Restaurant News Nov 9th | Openings & Closings

The following is some restaurant news from around town as reported by other websites, blogs, and foodies.

Mestizo is now open in Park Place

Posted by Jonathan Bender on Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 8:30 AM

• Chef Aaron Sanchez is hoping KC embraces his latest restaurant.

If you build a foodie culture, the celebrity chefs will come. Mestizo (5270 W. 116th Place), the new concept from Food Network star Aaron Sanchez, opened Saturday at Park Place in Leawood. The restaurant, a collaboration between Sanchez and the Trifecta Management Group, is a modern take on traditional Mexican dishes.



The Kansas City Business Journal has a video of chef Sanchez talking about what diners can expect as the camera pans throughout the interior of the newly opened restaurant. The two-level space features a patio with an outdoor fire pit and sits alongside the outdoor ice rink. A tortilla-making station just inside the front door and a bar stocked with more than 40 different kinds of tequila are the focal points inside.

The starters include house-made chicharrones (pork rinds); a salad of jicama, cucumber and mango dressed in chile, lime and salt; and a pozole soup with braised pork and hominy. The menu is focused on botanas (small plates) like seafood paella fritters, plantanos rellenos (plantains with smoky black beans) and a tamale of the day. Mestizo also serves ceviche, tacos (skirt steak and braised tongue) and a few Sanchez family recipes like his mother Zarela's creamy rice.

Mestizo is open from 11 a.m. to 12 a.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday. Reservations can be made by calling 913-752-9025.


Rainbow China now open on State Line

Posted by Charles Ferruzza on Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 11:45 AM

• No, this restaurant is not over the rainbow, but very close to Kansas.

The little strip center at 80th and State Line Road hasn't been so lucky in keeping restaurants as tenants. The last operation in the space at 8017 State Line was the Pizza Oven, which was in business for two years before the owners — Kevin and Chris Ferrel — closed it in June. Prior to the Pizza Oven, this venue was the home to two Philly Cheesesteak joints an a short-lived Korean restaurant.

But the Lin family, who opened Rainbow China in the old Pizza Oven space on November 1, feels more optimistic about success. The new QuikTrip store next door has proved to be a boon for this restaurant's carryout business. And although there are several fast-food dining options on this stretch of State Line — including a Panda Express — Lilly Lin, who runs the restaurant with her parents, Cindy and David, says they've priced the dishes at Rainbow China competitively and are offering both Chinese-American meals (General Tso's chicken, orange beef, coconut shrimp) and more traditional Hunan and Szechuan choices.

The Lins have done a complete renovation of the storefront space (including eliminating the giant pizza painted on the concrete floor), painting the interior a pale shade of lavender and installing a refrigerated soda-pop machine — this restaurant is alcohol-free — and one of those illuminated photo menu signs above the counter that depicts 12 of the restaurant's top sellers, like sweet-and-sour chicken and pepper steak. Many of those dishes come with P.F.R. I had to ask what that was. "Pork fried rice," said Lilly, looking at me as if I had just arrived from Mars. Doesn't everyone know what P.F.R. means?

I do now. Still, I chose regular old fried rice with my jalapeno chicken, a tasty Mexi-Asian innovation that probably would have been better in a flour tortilla than spooned over rice. Diners can eat in the small dining room or take their orders home. Just remember to rub the belly of the shiny golden Buddha statue — a jolly icon dripping with gilt coins — on the front counter before leaving. "It's good luck," one of the employees told me. It hasn't worked yet for me, but I'm hoping it will bring some much-needed good fortune to Rainbow China.

New locally owned Liberty restaurant/bar opening soon

By JOYCE SMITH

The Kansas City Star

The founders of Stables Grill in Kearney are expanding to Liberty.

Their Conrad’s Restaurant & Alehouse is scheduled to open in the Triangle Crossing, 210 N. Missouri 291, on Nov. 14.

Conrad’s founders Shawn Barber and his father Victor Barber also founded Stables Grill in Kearney in 2001. But they both are long-time Liberty residents and wanted a restaurant in their hometown.

“We’re pretty familiar with this market and this type of operation fit a need,” said Shawn Barber, managing officer and president of SCB Liberty LLC, owners of Conrad’s. “It’s an independent and Liberty has a lot of chains and just has a few independents, and we’ll have items on the menu that aren’t here now.”
The menu will feature made-from-scratch and made-to-order classic French, Italian and contemporary American cuisine – hand-cut steaks, fresh seafood, chicken, chops, pastas, salads, burgers and sandwiches.

For example, Applewood salmon, walnut-encrusted trout, seafood scampi, gorgonzola rib eye, barbecue pork chops, Cajun burgers, beer battered whitefish sandwiches and steak salads.

Prices will range from $5.99 to $26.99. It also will have American craft beers on tap.

The 12,000-square-foot space is divided into two areas. On the left will be the “restaurant” a more intimate dining space, and on the right the “alehouse” for live music featuring local and regional brands, along with HDTVs, pool tables, a state-of-the art golf simulator, and raised areas including a lounge with fireplace. It also will have an indoor/outdoor patio as a designated smoking area.