Broadway Revival

Have you ever noticed that a catchy phrase or a snappy advertising jingle lasts much longer in your consciousness than a lot of past love affairs? It does for me, anyway. I can barely remember the names of the heartbreakers I used to pursue, but I can still sing every word from a song written for the “Shake-A-Pudding” TV commercials, advertising a Jell-O product that hasn’t been manufactured since The Brady Bunch went off the air.

Fast-food restaurant chains seem to come up with the most potent ad campaigns — Burger King’s “Have it your way” and the “You deserve a break today” jingle created for McDonald’s come to mind — that linger in the memory decades after those phrases were dropped in favor of something newer, catchier, hotter.

By this time next year, I wonder if anyone will remember the clever but ill-fated “Dangerous neighborhood. Killer food” line created for the tiny Grille on Broadway restaurant. The tag line — which the Broadway Westport Council hated — was finally dropped by Sean Cummings, the Grille on Broadway’s owner, after a shooting spree on May 2 in the parking lot of the McDonald’s a block south of the Grille in which five men were hit by gunfire after an early morning argument.

“After that happened, it seemed kind of rude to keep using that slogan,” says Grille on Broadway Manager Michael Poppa. “We’ve changed it now to ‘Size doesn’t matter.'”

Well, at least that’s closer to the truth than the “dangerous neighborhood” concept, which certainly wasn’t luring city-phobic suburbanites (who tend to be wary of any venue north of 47th Street on the Country Club Plaza anyway) to Kansas City’s urban core. But, in fact, the brick building that contains the pint-sized Grille on Broadway was built while the neighborhood was still semisuburban. There were three-star hotels (the Ambassador, the Hyde Park) across the street, and just a few blocks west were some of the grander mansions of the Valentine neighborhood.

And even though the stretch of Broadway from 35th to 37th streets has definitely lost a lot of cachet over the years, the mix of shops and restaurants has changed surprisingly little. The corner space, now occupied by Crabs on Broadway, had originally been two storefronts; there was always a restaurant in one or the other, as far back as the 1920s. There’s always been a beauty shop on the block (remember Mr. Ade’s?) and a Chinese restaurant since Nixon was in the White House.

But nothing stays exactly the same. The Interlude Cocktail Lounge of the 1950s became a gay bar (currently called Wilde’s) in the 1970s, about the same time that an oddly shaped retail space — originally Ethel’s Gift Shop and then a shoe-repair joint — became Nabil’s Restaurant. It had quite a following in its day, though I never quite understood the charm. I ate at Nabil’s twice in the 1980s and thought the food salty and the ambience claustrophobic. The dining room could barely contain the exuberance of waiter/manager/bartender Tommy Macaluso (who later left to open his own classier restaurant on 39th Street) or the massive ego of my dining companion (who left town when the ego got too big even for Kansas City).

Years later, when it first opened, I wandered into the Grille on Broadway and had a couple of delicious meals, both accompanied by whipped potatoes that had been tinted hot pink with God only knows what … beet juice? I didn’t mind them, but my dining companion, Walt Bodine, was scandalized by such an affront to the tradition of mashed potatoes. Pink was fine for strawberry mousse or watermelon sorbet, but potatoes?

The pink taters are gone, but the walls are still painted raspberry, and the high-pitched ceiling is the color of a ripe tangerine. It’s cozy enough, maybe a little too cozy. A fashionista friend of mine says the dining room makes her feel as though she’s “eating inside a Donald Pliner shoe.” Or a Peter Max print. My friend Bob dissed the look as “a clown’s closet.” I found the narrow dining room — which has only thirteen tables — to be a shade too intimate myself, particularly if it’s crowded and one loud, well-lubricated group dominates the room, blabbing at full volume.

I experienced that very table on one visit, when the group in question was so obnoxious, I felt I was dining with them instead of several tables away. Admittedly, some snippets of their conversation were intriguing enough to have made me want to hear the full story, like this tantalizing tidbit: “But when did they throw her in the pond?”

I was ready to throw myself in the pond by the end of that meal. It had started so promisingly, with thick slices of purplish-red bison carpaccio drizzled with a brash jalapeño aioli and two crab cakes (“They taste so wonderfully crabby!” raved my friend Julia) that were light and fluffy under a golden crust, dappled with a smoky jumble of roasted garlic and tomatoes. I had brought Bob and Julia along, and they loved the appetizers and adored the organic-greens salads, dressed up with slivers of crunchy jicama, tart Granny Smith apples and almonds. “What an adorable little restaurant this is,” they agreed.

Things took a less festive turn after the salad course, when it took forever for dinner to arrive. I was more forgiving; I knew the kitchen was a one-cook operation, overseen by “Poco” Llamas, who gets some assistance on the busy weekends but does a solo number on weeknights. Bob had ordered a custom version of that night’s penne pasta special, asking the cook to substitute asparagus and beef tenderloin for the squash and celery. The resulting dish was served without asparagus and in a watery broth that was visually disappointing. “Totally inedible,” Bob said coldly. Julia had ordered the filet medallions prepared “Broadway Style,” as the menu proclaims, with fresh greens in champagne and sautéed fresh garlic. The medallions were perched on a mound of decadent mashed potatoes flavored with wild mushrooms, but this spud island floated up from a thin, champagne-scented “sauce” that looked, Julia said with a sigh, “like dirty bathwater.” She plucked the meat and potatoes off the dinner plate and onto her bread plate.

I was thrilled with my dinner, a swirl of thick, chilled buckwheat noodles tossed in a lemon vinaigrette with paper-thin curls of tender veal. I practically inhaled the dish in five bites and seriously thought of ordering a second plate. Instead, I waited to share a dessert with my friends, a martini glass lovingly ladled with rich, creamy chocolate mousse generously laden with Kahlua.

A second visit to the restaurant, with my friends Pat and Julie — also on a weeknight — was a completely different story. We were the only customers in the restaurant. We got fawning service from Michael Poppa (clearly thrilled to have someone in the joint to wait on), and everything was delicious, from the plump oysters tossed in a barbecue rub and flash-sautéed (the gorgonzola sauce doused the fire) to my very tasty vegetable tamales. The tamales were gourmet-class, steamed in banana leaves and fragrant with cumin and coriander. They went down easily, but the $21 price tag made me choke slightly.

I actually preferred Pat’s pork tenderloin, moist under a crust flavored with soy and ginger and served on curry-splashed noodles. Julie had ordered the night’s beef special, a gorgeously tender filet served with huajillo chili mashed potatoes. That’s right — they’re now orange instead of pink.

If the dinners all scored that night, the featured dessert was a flop, a crème brûlée loaded with fresh raspberries and flavored with Chambord liqueur under a chewy, burnt-sugar crust. It wasn’t crème brûlée; it was homespun egg custard with fruit. I’d wanted to order the chocolate mousse again, but Julie was insistent. You could say that I did not have it my way that night. Some advertising jingles do need to come back.