Lakeside Tavern washes ashore in Leawood

Yes, there’s a body of water on the grounds of the Mission Farms development at 105th Street and Mission Road, but I’m not sure it’s fair to call it a lake. A big, pretty pond is more like it — the kind you find on farms and golf courses. So the Lakeside Tavern, which opened in Mission Farms two months ago, isn’t really by the side of a lake. But the place must be a tavern, right?

No. Without question, it’s a sports bar. Not that this cavernous space — formerly occupied by Boudreaux’s Louisiana Seafood & Steaks and, more recently, the Mexican concept Los Cabos — seems designed to be much else. Finally embracing the room’s destiny, Lakeside’s owners have installed nearly a dozen monitors in the steely-blue lounge and dining room, all tuned to ESPN. To match, the menu is heavy on burgers and fried foodstuffs.

Given the venue’s snazzy location and owners (including chef Joe Birch, co-founder of Avenues Bistro), expectations for this joint are probably riding higher than those for any old beer-and-burger depot. A noisy sports saloon in midtown might get away with greasy chili and tater tots, but this is Leawood. The chili, then, is made with Kobe beef, and the chubby fried tots are stuffed with gruyere and bacon.

I know, I know — you’re rolling your eyes by now. Maybe we should look at Lakeside Tavern as a parody, a clever caricature. How else to view a place which captures the mood of a traditional suds-wings-and-football bar with about the same authenticity that Wyandotte County’s T-Rex Café attempts to re-create the fun and excitement of the late Jurassic Period? I’m still trying to figure that out.

The joint does have its good points. The beer list is strong, the servers are an appealing mix of young hotties and veteran pros, and the menu (particularly its nonmeat options) shows signs of creative effort.

With the Chiefs already packed away for the season, I didn’t have a chance to experience Lakeside among rabid fans watching an exciting game. Maybe the vibe in the place would have been more electric then than during my three meals there. On my visits, the customers seemed to be mostly neighborhood folks (including a disproportionate number of trophy wives wrapped in costly furs), in for a quick and relatively inexpensive meal. “It’s an older crowd during lunch and in the early evening,” one of the servers told me. “It gets a little younger in here later.”

That’s younger in Leawood years: under 50. But Kansas boomers need their neighborhood watering holes, too — where everybody knows your name, and “pigs in a blanket” are frankfurters wrapped in flaky phyllo, baked and cut into tidy segments. Don’t look for neon-yellow mustard, though; these little piggies come with jalapeño-cilantro aioli.

That is, if you’re lucky enough to get it. That aioli is the dipping sauce that’s supposed to arrive with the light, airy, fried polenta sticks. I can’t rave enough about these “fries,” which amount to cornmeal-mush frites. But on that first lunch at Lakeside, they were served with runny ranch dressing. Only after I ordered them again, during another visit in the evening, did the actual spicy mayonnaise — creamy and punchy — come with the starter.

Most of Lakeside’s dishes come with some kind of sauce, which is a tip-off that the kitchen’s ambition has outpaced its judgment. Proof: The “special sauce” on the Train Wreck burger was the dullest (and least “special”) version of classic rémoulade I’ve ever tasted. And talk about a wreck: It did nothing to liven up the sourdough hoagie that formed the boundaries of the shrimp and avocado po’boy. That sandwich sounded so good on the menu but looked like a slab of trashy Texas toast, split open. (“It’s not Texas toast, it’s white sourdough,” the server explained, preserving the mystery of this particular decision.) The fried shrimp were po’ all right: petite and so heavily breaded that they they could have passed for fried mushrooms instead.

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There really is a fried fungus passing itself off as a pub standard, and it’s a rare success: a portobello dish modeled on chicken-fried steak. The meaty mushroom was breaded in panko crumbs, fried perfectly crisp and blanketed with an almost evanescent wine gravy instead of the gloppy cream-and-pepper concoction served with the pounded-meat version. It was actually a lot juicier and tastier than most chicken-fried steaks in this town. Would I ever order it again? Maybe, but I’d choose my sides better. The cheesy corn with ham was intensely spicy, and I might have enjoyed the mashers if they had been hot and not so shiny. I never trust spuds that seem to have been prepared for a photo shoot rather than for dinner.

The house specialty at Lakeside (according to the menu, anyway) is burnt ends. That’s an ambitious goal in a metro where burnt ends are a sacred dish. And executive chef Devin Wilson’s ends didn’t satisfy my middle. For one thing, they weren’t served hot, so they went back to the kitchen with the mashed potatoes. But even at the proper temperature, they lacked the smoky succulence of the meat at LC’s or Woodyard. At $11 with two side dishes, it’s a better deal than it is a meal.

Lakeside’s menu boasts that the fried bologna sandwich is “amazing,” but I couldn’t bring myself to order it — at any price. That same house-assigned accolade doesn’t extend to Lakeside’s Cuban sandwich, and that’s probably for the best. The tender pork belly and bits of roasted pork were fine, but I would have liked the sandwich a lot more if it had been even a little more authentic; it needed to be grilled in a sandwich press. The nutty whole-grain bread used for the warm veggie club was toasted stiff — too stiff — which made eating the stacked avocado, lettuce, tomato, jack cheese, cucumbers and grilled zucchini awkward. And why wasn’t it cut in half (or quarters) before being served?

During my last meal at Lakeside, the volume of the TVs seemed to get louder as the evening wore on. By the time I was considering dessert (“AMAZING ice creams” according to the menu, which apparently also gets louder toward the end), my tablemates and I could barely hear one another over the howl of deodorant commercials. I looked over at the hostess station, and the teenager standing guard was yawning. It was 8:30 p.m.

The food might not lure me back to Lakeside Tavern, but the “lake” might. A lovely patio overlooks the water, and the setting takes on a little magic in the moonlight. Maybe Lakeside Tavern will turn out to be a summer place, the kind of sultry scene where a couple can sit back, enjoy a glass or two of wine, and share a plate of Kobe chili cheese fries. That’s romance, Leawood-style.