Fool Proof

There’s a bittersweet irony to the recent news that Houlihan’s Restaurants Inc. has filed for Chapter 11 protection. The original Houlihan’s Old Place on the Country Club Plaza — the groovy singles gathering spot that spawned a restaurant empire — no longer bears any resemblance to its former self. Thirty years, almost to the day, after restaurateurs Joe Gilbert and Paul Robinson threw open the doors at that first Houlihan’s, the namesake chain is barely limping along.

Once upon a time, Houlihan’s Old Place was the hippest scene on the Plaza, serving escargot and burgers, crepes and hot dogs, Crab Newberg and chocolate milkshakes. It was the first restaurant concept that jumbled up continental cuisine with diner fare, but with a sense of fun and style. Three decades later, Houlihan’s has suffered so many corporate tinkerings that it’s become dowdy and lowbrow. Meanwhile, two independently owned restaurant-and-bar concepts — re:Verse and Tomfooleries — have become wildly successful by doing just what Houlihan’s used to do: offering seductive food and cocktails in a dimly lit, intimate environment.

If middle-aged Houlihan’s lacks sex appeal, the young and vibrant Tomfooleries (which celebrates its tenth anniversary in April) has plenty. It’s a singles magnet after 9 p.m., when the bar area and the booths in the smoking section get crowded and raucous. The place draws a more diverse crowd in the early evenings and on weekend days, particularly during its lavish Sunday brunch.

If Tomfooleries seems to have taken a few cues from the old Houlihan’s, there’s good reason: Owners Barton and Shelly Bloom were both working for the G-R chain when they met. He was a manager; she was a waitress. Only 28 years old when they decided to open their own place, the Blooms got plenty of dire warnings when they chose a spot on Plaza’s west side rather than locating east of Main, near Winstead’s.

“It turned out to be a very good idea,” says Bloom. “Our customers found us first, and now the Plaza is moving in this direction.”

The office building that houses Tomfooleries was once just a satellite of the Plaza retail stretch, but since the opening of the Valencia Place development (where McCormick & Schmick’s reigns) just east across Pennsylvania street, the Blooms’ restaurant seems to have been annexed by the Plaza.

That’s the good news. The bad is that many diners (and I was among them) perceive Tomfooleries as a rowdy, loud and hormonally charged scene.

“Isn’t it kind of a frat-boy hangout?” asked my friend Beth, a willowy beauty who likes any kind of loud, rowdy scene except that one. Beth, who makes her living scouting bars and nightclubs for new musical groups, was back in Kansas City on a visit and scowled when I suggested dinner at Tomfooleries. “Is the food good?” she asked.

I was ashamed to admit that I didn’t know. I hadn’t set foot in the place in ten years, and the only lucid memory I had of the meal was eating a dessert served in a plastic dump truck.

“That’s not a good omen,” Beth said, laughing as our little group (including actor David Reed and my friend Bob) was being seated in a dark booth adjacent to the bar.

It was a Sunday, about 8 p.m., and the joint wasn’t very busy. An hour later, though, every table was full. And not a frat boy in sight, but plenty of attractive twentysomethings, swigging beer and martinis and polishing off chicken quesadillas.

“This is a late-night place,” explained our server, who was delivering big plates of Southwestern egg rolls and buttermilk-dipped chicken tenders. “We serve food until 1 a.m.”

[page]

That can be a bad sign, too. Typically, in Kansas City at least, only the eggs-and-burger joints keep their grills fired up until that hour. But Tomfooleries’ menu is more imaginative than I had expected (though not all of its offerings are well-executed), and its service was more polished than I had predicted. After three visits, with a rogue’s gallery of friends, I always left the place in high spirits. When Tomfooleries is on its mark, the food scores as well as some of the professional athletes flexing their biceps at the bar.

Those appetizers, for example, had culinary charisma. The “egg rolls” actually consisted of fried tortilla wrappers stuffed with chopped chicken, black beans and roasted corn, with a nearby raspberry-chili sauce that packed an unexpected wallop. The chicken tenders were light, almost greaseless pieces of fried breast that we dipped in honey-mustard dressing — and used to scoop up the last few drops of that fiery raspberry glaze lingering on the Southwestern egg-roll plate.

Salad offerings presented a bazaar of ethnic possibilities, from American Southern to vaguely Asian. I was delighted to find on the menu a salad of roasted pears, blue cheese and candied walnuts (I had tasted a similar-sounding creation in Florence last year), but it arrived with too few pears, not enough walnuts and way too much pungent plum dressing. And the restaurant’s signature salad, a pile of cool greens topped by fried chicken pieces, was drizzled with a sugary peanut-butter glaze that made the added honey-mustard dressing gratuitous.

When our dinners arrived, however, Beth raved about her luscious grilled center-cut salmon, which glistened with herb-infused oil and was draped enticingly over a mound of long-grain rice. We all admired the Shrimp St. Bart’s pasta, crowded with sautéed shrimp in an absurdly rich, slightly peppery pink lobster cream sauce. My crispy filet of tender cornmeal-breaded catfish was drizzled with a tart marmalade glaze but, sadly, came with two dry, boring corn fritters. And the lemon-pepper cream sauce smothering the Chicken and Lemon Pepper Fettuccine was watery and bland — if there was roasted garlic in the sauce, we couldn’t taste it.

My vegetarian friend Debbie came along on a later visit and was dazzled by all the menu’s meatless possibilities but ordered what turned out to be a rather ordinary black-bean veggie burger. It looked naked and vulnerable when it arrived, but after she asked for some blue cheese crumbles to dress it up, she proclaimed it “sensational.”

I had the same lusty feelings for the Stuffed Chicken Tuscany, which came to the table as perfectly composed as a Carravagio still life: a baked chicken breast bursting with red dried tomatoes, purple kalamata olives, golden raisins, roasted green peppers and tawny caramelized onions, marbled with a jade-colored pesto cream sauce and fluffy bits of briny feta cheese. The combination of tastes — salty and sweet, slightly spicy and smoky — was as sensually pleasing as the color palette.

But when it comes to sensual overload, no eating experience in town comes close to Tomfooleries’ Sunday “Bountiful Brunch,” with its exorbitant number of pastries, hot dishes, cold shrimp, side dishes and desserts. Even a made-to-order omelet has fifty potential ingredients, from bacon and potatoes to pineapple and peanut butter. I loved the unexpected buffet choices, such as wedges of cold pizza and hot corned-beef hash.

I had long wondered why customers here stood in line for an hour to eat brunch — and dinner too, on busy summer nights. Now I understand. The Blooms took the fun and sexy restaurant formula Gilbert and Robinson created and cleverly refined and repackaged it for a modern audience. Like its name implies, there’s a sense of cheekiness at the place, no matter what time of day. When it comes to the food, however, they don’t fool around.