Sweet Potato Fries, Thai and Comfort Food: Liberty’s Variety for Your Date

Liberty is an interesting place for a couple of reasons.  As someone not originally from Liberty, I see the older side of this town, with its old homes, small businesses and history, as a distinct part of the spirit of Liberty.  The newer side seems to be bustling with commercial business and restaurants.  So, how does one experience Liberty…on a date?

The great thing about these two realms co-existing is that Liberty’s old and new have something to offer couples wanting to explore.  And, though the town really isn’t really too big, there are some great ideas for dates.  I’ll tell you what my girlfriend (Kate) and I, and some of our friends have done in the form of a date along with some other ideas.

Where might someone meet up with their date (if you don’t already live with them)?  Well, it can be the first stop on your date, a pick-up from home, or meet at the square, which would be a nice place to walk around, sit and chat on a bench, or grab some coffee at Crepes on the Square.

Picking a place for a meal can sometimes be a hard one, but don’t stress.  For breakfast, Kate and I return to Corner Café.  This place offers quality American food.  We usually order from the section of the menu titled “The Lighter Side”, which offers meals consisting of eggs, toast, biscuits, hash browns, grits, pancakes, sausage and more.  Sometimes, we order one of Corner Café’s huge waffles or cinnamon rolls to split between us.

Liberty’s Roy and Candy Moran find themselves at Ginger Sue’s from time to time.  It is specifically a breakfast and lunch restaurant and is located at 12 W. Kansas St. on the southwestern part Square.   

Where Kate and I munch for lunch varies widely.  For those wanting saucy, glazed chicken, honey grilled beef, or a mound of Hawaiian fried rice, Tasty Thai might be for you.  It’s located in the strip immediately west of Olive Garden in the commercial area on the north side of Kansas Ave/Missouri 152.  Tasty Thai offers some incredibly flavorful dishes, and most a priced right around $10.  This is where splitting can come in handy if possible.  The portions are on the bigger side, always enough for both Kate and I to eat.

The lunch special there, as with most places, provides a little extra at a lower cost, including a great tasting noodle soup, a side of your choosing (pot sticker or egg roll), and your entrée.  The menu is extensive.  So, if you’re not sure what to order, try the mixed vegetable or the tiger cried beef along with the dishes I named above.  When we get an appetizer, it’s the “poo thong” we order.

There are lots of good restaurants in Liberty.  Another Asian specialty is Fuji.  For a long time I didn’t know this jewel was sitting right there, in the commercial area immediately southeast of where Missouri 152 and Interstate 35 meet.  This is a Japanese steakhouse. 

Kate and I went to lunch there about two weeks ago for a hibachi-style dinner.  The flavors were there.  They served the salad, soup and dinner signature of Japanese steak houses, and it was good food.  I recommend getting all three sauces they offer for dipping.  David Nguyen, who works at Fuji, said that typically the hibachi seating is comprised of families and the sushi bar is where couples are found, but Kate and I went for the hibachi.  The chicken we ordered was really good and the price we paid for lunch was under $20 for the two of us.  Kate said likes the spicy tuna roll at the sushi bar.  Nguyen said that’s a favorite there.  We will go back.

Another option the Square offers is Los Compos.  This is quality Mexican.  The salsa here is interesting.  Because it contains notes of marinara with what I normally expect for salsa flavor, and the end result was delicious.  Try the number 11: tamale, taco, chilie relleno.  Justin and Erin Talley enjoy Los Compos because they like the flavors and because of the staff’s speedy service.  When they go they like to get the fajitas.

And we can’t forget Crepes on the Square.  The menu there offers savory meal crepes consisting of American and Mediterranean flavors.  One meal is a Monte Cristo version of a crepe.  The Talleys said they enjoy the s’mores crepe, which has the ever-delicious Nutella in it.  In the summertime, Scoops on the Square, located next door, offers a great place to grab ice cream with your date.

One of Kate and I’s favorite snacks are scrumptious sweet potato fries.  We found that 54^th Street Bar and Grill has a good-sized basket of them for about $2.  Another place we snack is Lemon Tree.  This newer addition to the Liberty area offers yogurt as a healthy alternative to ice cream, which is one of Kate most favorite things to eat on planet Earth.  She really likes Lemon Tree a lot, and they provide a fun, self-serve style for dessert.  Simply grab a bowl, walk to the wall-full of flavored yogurt dispensers, fill your bowl, and top it with everything from fruit, candy, chocolate, waffle cone, and more. 

Remember, if things don’t super smooth, just know that  everything is not riding one single date, said Moran.  With that kind of pressure on a single date, it makes things harder to enjoy and maybe more easily upset.  So, relax and try again if things aren't dreamy.  Smooth isn’t the goal, but enjoying is.  So, get out there and find what Liberty flavors have for you and your date.

Keep It Real,

Carl G.

Cardinal Hills, a Golf Course in Liberty

Cardinal Hill is a golf course on Liberty’s northern edge.  The course has been there since about 1970 under the ownership of William Jewel College, but has recently been changed from the previous name of Clay Crest Golf Course in March of 2009.  Locals come out to enjoy a game on these green, dipping forest hills, including cool and overcast winter days.

Players come in all year says assistant course manager Jeff Zimmerman, “unless there’s snow on the ground”.  Zimmerman says that players “are in here not-stop from open to close.”  On this 43 degree day, there were about nine players on hole and at the driving range in 360 degree view from the club house, younger and older, male and female.

Many players come from Liberty, but not all.  According to Zimmerman, some come from Gladstone, Parkville and play here on behalf of local school programs for primary and secondary schools.  “North Kansas City ladies’ golf team plays out here, and so do the boys.”

For young players, there is a junior program.  “It’s a huge one.  It’s like 150 kids,” says Zimmerman.  Because of the size, Cardinal Hill is beginning a two-year program to include more young people wanting to play golf.  “Also, Kansas City Golf Association is an organization in the Kansas City area that puts on a junior program.  It’s a summer program.”  The organization plays at many courses throughout the summer, one of the stops being here in Liberty’s Cardinal Hill Club.  Zimmerman says that they will be played again this coming summer’s program, as well. 

Like many places, this golfer’s playground offers teaching from in-house instructors Jim Jamis or Zimmerman himself.  “We can do groups---whatever people want to do”, Zimmerman says.  People can come in at any time to schedule personal lessons or group lessons to improve their golf game.  This course also houses other opportunities for the public as a Liberty location that can be used for charity events and for tournaments.  “We stage the carts, we do the range of course…we score the event for them, make their food---whatever they need we give them.” 

“One of our marshals runs an event year.  It’s for exotic birds---a fundraiser for them.” Most recruiting for the various events that happen on the course is done by the tournament organizers.  For example, a local Hospital will sign up its staff to play and the club will provide the course.

“All our tournaments are open to the public.   We usually try to have one a month---different tournament---open to the public.  One of them is called Sizzlin’ Summer Scramble.” This particular event “turned out to be an annual one”, he says.  Scrambles, by the way, may have prizes.  He says, “we’ve got scrambles that pay.  First prize [for example] gets 100 bucks gift certificate in the shop.”

There are other events Liberty and surrounding area local golfers to be a part.  “We run mini-leagues out here.  We’ve got a Thursday night men’s league that I put on.  [It’s] open to the public---whoever wants in, I put on a league.  It’s 15 to 30 people.  It’s a just a fun thing,” Zimmerman says.

Liberty has some good sites to have a good time:  the square, local restaurants and event spaces, and a couple of golf courses to play.  To set a tee time for Cardinal Hill, click here.  For Liberty Hills, click here for a guest coupon before March 15.

Keep It Real,

Carl G.

Cupcakes for Sale and a New Kid on the Block

It’s a clear March Kansas City day, a little chill in the air.  Momentarily docked at Grand and Pershing in the midst of large business buildings sits a van, which is white and tall because of an extra storage-looking compartment on top.  It has a pink and purple cupcake on its port and starboard along with letters which read “3 Girls Cupcakes”.  There at the propped up right-side window is 3 Girls Cupcakes owner Simonie Wilson.  She’s handing out baked sweets from her mobile “cupcakery”. 

This temporary stop is one of six on a daily “cruise” through Kansas City’s downtown area today.   “I have 20 stops now, and it’s really just grown by demand,” Wilson says.  She gets many of the ideas about where to set up shop from the customers.  Along with strategic, scheduled stops, customers can check daily for locations and times via Facebook, Twitter, her website, e-mail, and phone calls.  “All day long.  I’m checking all of it.  People will just text me, Twitter me all day. People ask for me to just swing by.”

While cruising on some rare, unscheduled time, Wilson will park somewhere and “just see what happens.  People see me out of the tall building and come down.”  Wilson says that some good stops include the Sprint Center and Hospital Hill because those places are the only ones lunch trucks normally stop.  “People go there looking for food.  People are more prone to look there because in Kansas City, people don’t just walk out on the street expecting food.  It’s kind of new.”  3 Girls Cupcakes is the first of its kind of bakery for Kansas City.  Wilson says that a cupcake shop opening in Kansas City would generate some buzz, but this take on the cupcake business is one to differentiate herself.

“It just never occurs to me not to try.” Wilson’s philosophy, “see a need, fill a need”, helps her stand out among the 3 cupcake shops in Kansas City.  Baby Cakes, located at the City Market, was the first on the scene about seven years ago, according to Wilson.  Cupcake À La Mode came into the area after that with locations on the Plaza and in Leewood.  Smallcakes started up after that and has gotten some notoriety for their presence on Food Network’s Cupcake Wars TV show.  They now have three locations. Not only that, Wilson says there is a big mobile food truck market starting here in Kansas City.  One of them is a coffee truck that started up this year.  It also carries baked goods.  The roots of Wilson’s philosophy for 3 Girls Cupcakes mobile food business started in a few places.

“I used to be just a cupcake consumer, and in Liberty you would have to drive at least a half hour to get a cupcake.  One time, I was on a trip to Nashville.  And in Nashville there’s one like all over the place.  Like every corner.   And I thought, ‘why Kansas City couldn’t have that?’  I started thinkin about it, and there was one cupcake shop that had a curb-side pick up.  You could just pull up in your car if you’d preordered.  All of that just kept gellin in my head and after we got back from vacation, it just popped in my head: people don’t need another bakery that they have to drive to.  People need cupcakes that come to them.”

Wilson says most people try it out because a mobile cupcakery is a new idea for Kansas City, but their liking the product is what keeps them coming back and spreading the cupcake word to their friends.  However, 3 Girls is not only a mobile business.  Wilson provides sweets for events, too.

“I’ve done the Jiggle Jam, which a children’s festival right here in Crown Center, and the Farmer’s Market in Liberty is a similar sort of situation where there’s no van.  It’s just like selling cupcakes from a table.”  Other places people have been able to grab some of 3 Girls’ cupcakes include the Legends, wine tastings at the Excelsior Springs winery.  “I pretty much give everything a shot,”  Wilson says.

Wilson’s influences for baking go farther back than the inspiration for the mobile, and event cupcake bizz.  For her, food is a part of her history, and food is a passion.

“I’ve always liked sweets and I’ve always baked.  My aunt, she actually had it out of her home at the time, years and years ago out of California.  She did mostly wedding cakes.  She was like next door to me, and it was always just this…allure, you know?  Like ‘how can I get in there and eat some icing’?

I think I was around 12 when I started going over there, and she started showing me how to make royal icing flowers and how to ice a cake and just all of that basic stuff: what’s really behind baking.”

Wilson describes the environment in which her passion grew.  “It was cool ‘cause she had a really old house and she had been an artist her whole life.  So, she had all of her artwork everywhere.  She had one big room just devoted to cakes.  I just remember it being white because it was like white icing white wedding cakes, white plates, white everything.  It was all clean.  So she must’ve been doing a pretty good job because I know how hard that is!”

To the kids in her neighborhood, Wilson’s Aunt was “the cake lady.”  The 3 Girls Cupcakes van has its own sort of gravity, and a person who get there hands on a cupcake becomes “like a little kid” (saying, “‘Ooooo!  I get to eat this’”), others are sort of perplexed by the idea of cupcake mobility cruising Kansas City Streets while they walk by.

  “There’s a few faces [people make], but there’s one like ‘what is that?’, you know?  ‘You have cupcakes now?’  But then there’s the cupcake face, which is people walkin by, and they may not even be talkin to me or anything, but I see it.  And they’re like ‘Ooooo!’, you know?  There’s just a face!”

With no one else around the van and Wilson checking the Internet-connected phone in her hand, it’s time for her to cruise on to the next cupcake stop on the schedule.  She lowers the propped up window back to the van’s side, starts the engine, and sets out to Eighth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, the final stop for the day.