Home of the One and Only Kansas City #BBQBible!
Home of the One and Only Kansas City #BBQBible!
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FCS: Best of 2023
For me, this edition of Fountain City Superlatives is always special as I get a chance to recap the year that I had. However, after a year of focusing on almost-exclusively barbeque, I worried that I may not have much more to give. Thankfully, that was not the case. This breaks down the best new things I tried in Kansas City in 2023. Some of the categories you know and love are missing. Some others are brand new. But here lies a, mostly, non-barbeque recap of my year.
Bar-V-Que
Barbeque is a community food. It is best when shared with others. And yet? Not every member of every community eats meat. Year after year, vegetarianism becomes more popular in the United States. And whether it’s a lifestyle, or just for a meal, more and Kansas City pitmasters are flexing their creative muscles to serve up Kansas City flavors that are inclusive to a much wider audience. These are some of the best places to enjoy bar-v-que in the city.
Devan’s Dozen: (Pork) Ribs Edition
When it comes to barbeque, I consider few meats more luxurious than a properly smoked pork rib. Given the wide range of ribs present in KC, from the truly great to the utterly inedible, I decided to rank the 12 best slabs of ribs in the city. But first, I laid out my own 4 C’s as it relates to ribs for explaining what one should look for in a truly great rib. After all, every single great rib has one key characteristic in common.
The Fountain City Foodie’s Guide to the World Capital of BBQ (KS)
Setting out to try every single Kansas City barbeque spot, it can be easy to know where you start, but where does one finish? There’s no set checklist of every BBQ joint in the metro. There’s no order guide of what you must, and mustn’t get! That is, there wasn’t. As I recorded my own decade-long pilgrimage through the Q Capital, one friend joked this was a “BBQ Bible”. Not only did I confirm it, I got a little carried away with the concept.
Part 2 / 2 explores the 5 Kansas counties that comprise KC.
Devan’s Dozen: Fried Chicken Edition
When I was a kid, fried chicken was a special treat. It wasn’t that fried chicken was reserved for special occasions. Instead, it was that fried chicken made any meal a special one. A friend asking me the question a couple years ago of, “What’s the best fried chicken in KC?” spawned a very intentional quest to answer that question. So here are my Top 12 Fried Chicken Spots in KC. If you’re expecting Stroud’s or Go Chicken Go, you won’t find that here.