Last weekend, Andrew took me to Kansas City for my birthday gift and we had an fantastic time! It was so nice to escape Tulsa and explore a new city. We did tons of shopping, had AMAZING food, relaxed and had no agenda. We just winged the entire trip and it was great.
We stayed at the Aladdin Hotel, which is owned by Holiday Inn. This hotel's decor was ultra modern. It was definitely not your typical Holiday Inn. The customer service was impressive, but their beds were so hard. The hotel was located downtown, two blocks away from the Power and Light District and maybe 10 minutes from The Plaza, so the location was prime. Here are some pictures of our hotel and the room.
The lobby of the hotel:
Views from our room:
Power and Light District
This aspect of downtown Kansas City has recently been developed. The place isn't really hopping during the day, but at night you are surrounded by bars, music, entertainment and great food.
For my birthday lunch, we ate at Ted's Montana Grill and had "naked" burgers (Hamburger for Andrew and a Grilled Chicken Burger for me). Yep, just the meat and the bun for us! These burgers were delicious...one of the best ever! It was so good, that I would have been entirely happy with just the burger and would have forgone the fresh cut fries. Also, this restaurant was very green. It was a nice thing to see. Everything was bio-degradable...the straws were even paper. Have you ever sipped a drink through a paper straw?? It's the weirdest thing ever. The straws were sticking to our lips. Needless to say, I prefer plastic straws :). Anyway, the atmosphere was very comfortable, the food was very reasonable ($25 for both of us, including tip) and the food was to die for. Without a doubt, I would recommend this restaurant if you were eating in the Power and Light District.
For my birthday dinner, Andrew had made reservations at the Bristol. This restaurant was literally 3 doors down from Ted's. The Bristol isn't a new restaurant for us, as we normally eat there in St. Louis for family birthdays, but it was still yummy. It was very interesting to see the differences between the St. Louis Bristol and the Kansas City Bristol. The KC Bristol is a newer facility, has contemporary/modern decor and has very open. The STL Bristol has traditional decor, has been established longer and has a very intimate dining experience. Overall, the food and service was good, but nothing really to write home about.
The Plaza
Over the weekend, we spent a lot of time at the Plaza. I LOVED the plaza. It's such a quaint part of Kansas City. You have all of the stores imaginable in a few street blocks. Everything from chain stores to unique, one of a kind stores. For example, on one street I was able to find a dog bakery, a paper store and a gourmet food store. I was in heaven!
One of the things that I loved about the plaza was the architecture. The buildings were ornate and some of the buildings had decorated porcelain tile around the edges. They were really beautiful. When we were at the Plaza we saw several crews preparing the buildings for the Plaza lighting on Thanksgiving night. Each building is outlined in christmas lights. It's supposed to be very festive and breathtaking time of year. For the next time that I go to Kansas City, I would love to go around the holidays. Maybe this is something to think about for next year. :)
Another thing that I loved at the Plaza was Jack Stack BBQ. I was hesitant to try this place at first, but this place had the BEST BBQ. If you were wanting to find a place in Kansas City for BBQ, Jack Stack's is definitely the place to go. You walk into the restaurant and you can smell the smoke from the smoker. The smoke is sometimes so strong that you end up smelling like BBQ for the rest of the day. Anyway, I had the best grilled BBQ chicken sandwich and Andrew had the best sliced turkey and baby back ribs. It was truly delish! The restaurant was so good that we ended up eating there two times over the weekend. The restaurant decor could be described as western meets 21st century. It was very comfortable. I loved the chandelier in the middle of the restaurant. Also, everything was moderately inexpensive (It was about $23 for two people). Andrew and I highly recommend this restaurant.
City Market
We ended up heading to City Market in the River District on Saturday morning, which was a few blocks from the hotel. If you can imagine a huge farmer's market, this is what City Market is all about. It was really neat to see everything that was offered and it was ridiculously cheap. Andrew and I both wished we had a farmer's market of this size in Tulsa.
When we were there, we found a cupcake bakery called "Baby Cakes" that supposedly had delicious cupcakes. I decided on the vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting, which I guess in a cupcake world was reasonable priced ($2.37 including tax). I was really disappointed in the cupcake though. The cake was good, but I didn't really like the frosting. There was a ton of frosting and it wasn't really soft. Would I eat there again? Probably not. The Tulsa cupcake bakery, Kupcakz, was much better.
Olathe, Kansas
Several years ago, Andrew and his family lived in Olathe, Kansas. Andrew lived there for about three years (sixth through ninth grade), so we decided to head back to see how things have developed over the years. Olathe, Kansas has boomed! There have such a large selection of stores and restaurants in one intersection. It's awesome. While we were in Olathe, Andrew was able to show me his old house, his old schools, as well as his old church. It was all great to see!
Andrew's old house:
One of Andrew's old schools:
Overall, Andrew and I had a fantastic time in Kansas City. Even though we were sad to leave, we were glad to be going home. (I can't tell you how excited we were to have our own bed and pillows back :) )We can't wait to head back to Kansas City next year.
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