The Unvegan

EDIT: This place has been renamed as “The Bar-B-Que Bar” and seems the same, but I haven’t been back to re-review it.

A lot of places are known to have delicious BBQ. St. Louis and Memphis are both huge and Texas always claims to be the best, but I have always felt best about Kansas City BBQ. This affinity probably goes back to the only time I went to Kansas City and got some Gates Bar-B-Q in my pre-meat blog days. It was so good I left Kansas City with my very own bottle of sauce. When I started working in North Hollywood, I noticed a place called The Kansas City BBQ Company nearby, but having heard nothing about it I sort of forgot about it. But recently a co-worker claimed it was really good, so an outing was planned and we all took a stroll down Magnolia to see how good Kansas City could taste in North Hollywood.

After much deliberation, I went with their sliced beef brisket sandwich ($9.50). This came with a side, so I picked fries and ten waited for my order. It took a little while and few people that were behind me were served first, but finally, my meal was ready. But what was this? Pickles? In my basket? With juices leaking into the bun?! This did not bode well for my meal.

After removing the pickles and tearing off every bit of pickle juice-soaked piece of bread, I was able to give the sandwich a real look. It followed the delicious pattern of bread-meat-bread-meat-bread, but seemed to be lacking in total sauce. I took a bite and found the meat to be nice and tender and the bread was pretty much there to keep the sandwich together. I was right about the lack of sauce, but there were a couple bottles of sauce at the table to supplement with. One was regular and the other was spicy. I mixed them together into a perfect concoction and started dipping my sandwich in. This was good. Not Gates good, but still tasty.

I was surprised to find that this little BBQ place in North Hollywood actually captured a bit of what it’s like to eat BBQ in Kansas City. It might not stand up too well in the actual City of Kansas, but out here in the west, it isn’t too shabby at all.