Valley Broasters serves fried chicken and Filipino dishes in Grain Valley

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Valley Broasters may offer the most unusual culinary combination in the metro: broasted chicken (more on that in a minute) and Filipino cuisine. It’s also located in a strip shopping center in the hamlet of Grain Valley, 23 miles east of Kansas City — a place not known as a dining destination.

Is it worth hopping on U.S. Highway 40 to sample traditional dishes from the Philippines (lumpia, adobo chicken, lechon kawali and kare-kare) and chow down on a three-piece “snack box” of broasted chicken with a side of homemade macaroni and cheese?

Absolutely, yes.

Oh, right, I said I’d tell you just what the hell “broasted” means.

It’s a way to make fried chicken, centered on a high-pressure cooking method introduced by the Broaster Company of Beloit, Wisconsin, in 1954 — and it’s exceedingly difficult to find in local restaurants. That’s because the technique remains proprietary, requiring commercial stainless-steel pressure fryers and licenced breading mixes and marinades. The pressure means that very little cooking oil is needed to end up with chicken that has a golden, crispy exterior and is noticeably juicier inside.

When Phillip and Norma Thayer first opened Valley Broasters 15 months ago, after gutting a former liquor store, their focus was on broasted chicken and home-style side dishes (macaroni and cheese, broasted potato wedges, beer-battered onion rings, fried okra, house-made chips). But then the owner of an Asian market in the same shopping center — who, like Norma Thayer, is a Philippines native — began nagging the Thayers to add a few Filipino dishes to the menu.

“It hadn’t been in our original plans at all,” Phillip Thayer says. “But it caught on — fast. We added a few dishes last January, and last month we completely revamped the menu to add a greater selection of Filipino appetizers, entrees and desserts. We now have customers driving here from Olathe, Topeka, Tulsa and even Kismet, Kansas. It’s not easy to find Filipino food in the metro.”

Kansas City has indeed had mixed luck with Filipino restaurants over the years. In the 1990s, there was a short-lived place called the Manila Cafe, at 33rd and Gillham (it’s now a gay bar), and, more than a decade later, a Gladstone venue called La Filipina Cafe operated at 8002 North Oak Trafficway but closed several years ago. A proposed Filipino restaurant called the Pinoy Cafe was announced for midtown in 2012 but never opened.

“There’s not another Filipino restaurant within a 400-mile radius,” Phillip Thayer says.

Valley Broasters is a family affair, with Norma Thayer doing much of the cooking, assisted by her son, daughter and son-in-law. There are only seven tables in the harshly illuminated dining area (most of the business here is take-out), but it’s a friendly environment where patrons order at a counter and meals are brought to the tables by members of the extended Thayer family.

Order enough food — say, broasted chicken and a couple of the Filipino entrees — and the feast is brought out on a woven platter lined with fresh banana leaves and garnished with pineapple, sliced tomatoes and lime wedges. No alcohol is served here, but that might change in the future; for now there’s a refrigerated case filled with bottled water and soft drinks.

A popular Filipino starter, lumpia (also known as fried Shanghai spring rolls), filled with minced pork, carrots, onion and cilantro, reflects the Chinese influence on the cuisine of the Philippines, which has roots in two very different culinary cultures: the Chinese traders who introduced soy, noodles and fried foods to the native population and, later, the Spanish, who occupied the islands for centuries and brought along their taste for stews, grilled meats and rich desserts.

At least one dish served here, crispy pata, is both Filipino and broasted: a braised pork knuckle fried in the pressure cooker until crispy, served with Norma Thayer’s chili-seasoned vinaigrette. Many of the dishes served on the Filipino menu are pork-based, but there’s also kare-kare, a fragrant stew of oxtail, bok choy and eggplant in a savory peanut sauce.

Valley Broasters is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday at 1434 Southwest Eagles Parkway, in Grain Valley.