Arthur Bryant's - Kansas City, MO

Rated one of the best BBQ joints in Kansas City, MO, Artur Bryant's was a delightful treat after a 9 hour drive. I was headed to KC for a concert and the drive from Denver took about 9 hours with stops. I was good and really ate pita chips and hummus for most of the trip. So when I pulled into the lot at Arthur Bryant's the smell of smokehouse BBQ was overwhelming and my stomach immediately began to yearn for some tasty BBQ.

Never having tried KC BBQ before, I was pleased to see that the menu had some of my favorite choices; pulled pork open face, sausage, sliced pork, baked beans, slaw, and lemonade. The ordering was quite intense. It is cafeteria style, tell them what you would like, repeat yourself again and then hopefully you end up with what you ordered. The service at the check-out was great. The ladies behind the counter were speedy and able to adjust my order to add the baked beans at the last minute to my combo platter of pulled pork, sausage, and fries, with a lemonade.

Lets talk about the beans first. What a delicious treat. The flavor of the beans was heightened by the chunks of bacon that accompanied the sweet, smokiness of the beans. I am a sucker for lemonade at a BBQ joint, I just can't pass it up, and I am glad that I did not. It was a refreshing blast after bites of the spicy sauced pork. The pulled pork open face sandwich was good. Not great, but good. It was not as tender as I would have like for meet that should be cooking all day. However, even with the pork being just ok, the sausage made up for it 10 fold. I expected links of sausage and was surprised when my plate ended up with a Wonderbread sandwich with slices of pork in between. At first I was unsure, but in closer examination, it was truly sausage that had been cooked perfectly and sliced very thin, lengthwise. Clearly this was the best part of the meal. I chose the KC Original Sauce. A good amount of spice and heat balanced by a touch of sweet.

Overall the meal was an 'A'.

My last bite: The sausage sandwich dipped in the baked beans. Yum!