OBJECTIVES OF THESE REVIEWS

Objectives and Motivations:

• I have travelled widely throughout the world and have lived in all parts of this country.  I take food seriously, and seek out the best restaurants wherever I travel.  I have always maintained notes on my restaurant experiences for my own personal purposes.  Putting my notes online for my current area of residence makes it easier for me to find this information for my own personal use, wherever I may be.
  
• One of my colleagues at the University of Kansas suggested to me that I put this online.
  
• A disturbing number of excellent restaurants in Lawrence have failed in recent years, including BleuJacket, New Hampshire Bistro, Prairie Fire, and Fifi's.  The lack of available critical reviews of restaurants in Lawrence may have contributed to the lack of appreciation of those restaurants that may have contributed to their demise.
  
• Existing sources of information about restaurants in Lawrence and Kansas City are often supported financially by the restaurants, never provide negative information about any restaurants, and fail to assist in making clear the distinction between the best restaurants and the rest.
  
• To my knowledge, the most professionally qualified restaurant critic in this area works for the Kansas City Star newspaper and rarely reviews Lawrence restaurants.
• At the University of Kansas, we frequently have sophisticated international visitors, who request information about restaurants.
  

• Relative to American styles, my preferences, since living in Los Angeles and San Francisco, can best be characterized as "Californian," although I am originally a Bostonian.  If you are looking for information about Midwestern barbecue and steak restaurants, you won't find much here.
  
• As is common among Californians and academics everywere, I tend to prefer the healthy Mediterranean styles of southern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa as well as the styles of all parts of Asia.  As should be no surprise from those preferences, I especially like fish and other seafoods as well as innovative vegetarian preparations.  You will find information that can be useful to you in Lawrence restaurants, if you similarly minimize your consumption of foods that are unnecessarily high in saturated fat.  For example, I usually prefer the modern neuveau style of French cuisine along with the styles of Provence in the South of France, to the older heavier styles of the North of France.  I similarly am selective about what I order at restaurants specializing in the styles of northern European countries.  Regarding Asian food, I particularly like Burmese and Indonesian food.  But I have been unable to find Burmese restaurants in this country outside of San Francisco or New York City, while Indonesian rijst tafel (yes, that is the correct spelling) is not available in Lawrence.  Also there unfortunately are no Russian restaurants in Lawrence.
• To anyone who has lived on a coast (I have lived on the East Coast, West Coast, and Gulf Coast), fish and other seafood in the Midwest is a problem.  Although this situation is improving, my reviews disproportionately emphasize commentary on fish, since the biggest disappointments in dining in the Midwest usuall involve seafood.  Regarding shellfish, I almost never order it in the Midwest and hence will rarely comment on it.  To anyone who has become accustomed to really fresh clams, scallops, and mussels, it is almost impossible to avoid disappointment with shell fish at any restaurants anywhere in the Midwest.
• Among the styles of preparation I particularly like is "oreganato style," which is an improvement on the more basic "aglio e olio" preparation.  Although oreganato style preparation does not currently appear on any of the menus in Lawrence, the chefs of many of the city's restaurants are capable of doing it, if you explain what you want.  In reviewing those restaurants, I provide details of what I request when I am seeking oreganato style.  If you would like to experience oreganato style from a restaurant that really knows how to do it, you will need to drive to Paul Manno's in St. Louis County.  In southern Italy,  preparation in that manner often is accompanied by a side of pepperoni.  Unlike pepperoni in the US, which is based on meat, pepperoni in Italy is based on a particular kind of red pepper and contains no meat.
  
• Considering the currently world famous American obesity epidemic, I am not at all hesitant to display my bias towards healthy foods.  In contrast, one of the country's largest newspapers in one of the country's largest cities has a restaurant critic who displays the opposite bias.  In my opinion, her ill advised reviews have contributed to the failure of some of that city's best restaurants.  The personal consequences of her preferences are graphically displayed in her photographs often published above her reviews.  She is enormously obese.
  

• Lawrence:  If all you want to know from this site is what are the three best restaurants in Lawrence, I'll tell you in advance:  Pachamama's and Krause's are the two best, followed by Teller's downtown as third.  For sushi, downtown's Cafe Beautiful, which unfortunately does not have a liquor license, is a real standout.  The second tier, below the very best restaurants comprising the first tier, includes many restaurants that we enjoy often, but you'll have to go through this site to find them.  If you are a serious gourmet, are willing to make reservations well in advance, and are willing to pay a high fixed price for six courses, then Krause's is in a class by itself and offers an experience that you will not find elsewhere in Lawrence and would be hard to match (but not impossible to match) in Kansas City.  Suffice it to say, that if you value what Krause is doing, the price is not unreasonable. 
  
• Kansas City:  The Kansas City metropolitan area is large, and its ever improving restaurant scene changes rapidly.  If you include the dining room along with the food as part of the experience, I'd suggest that the best in the KC area are the American Restaurant in Crown Center, Bluestem in Westport, and Cafe Sebastienne in Midtown's Kemper Museum of Modern Art.  But if you are concerned solely about the food, you can find equally excellent food in less distinctive dining rooms at such restaurants as Le Fou Frog downtown, along with other fine restaurants mentioned in these reviews.