Saturday, July 20, 2013

Providence New American Kitchen

I'm admittedly not a food critic. I'm not even a food blogger, although I do enjoy posting my recipes and meal planning tips. But I know good food when I taste it, and when I find something that I fall in love with, I can't help but share it with everyone I know...which is all of you!

Let's get two things straight right off the bat:
  1. Providence New American Kitchen did not ask me to write this review or reimburse me for it. I'm writing this purely because I can't stop thinking about the food. Yes, it really is that good!
  2. I'm currently trying to remind myself of basic writing rules that include not using exclamation points all of the way through a paper. So while I try to stay within writing guidelines, you'll just have to imagine that there is an exclamation point at the end of every single sentence in this post. Yes, it really is that good!!

Providence New American Kitchen is located in Downtown Kansas City inside the historic Hilton Hotel President. The restaurant opened in October 2012, so is still new on the culinary scene. It's a very comfortable, cozy space filled with art commemorating the Nation's History and reclaimed wood to make it more cozy.

How did we find out about this place? I was reading a blog and entered a giveaway for a gift certificate to a newly opened restaurant. Happily, I won, and tucked the gift certificate away for when we could escape our quadruplets long enough to try it out. Our 5th Anniversary celebration weekend, which was also our first time away from our kids since they were born, seemed like the perfect time to try it. I am so glad that I brought my camera with me!

We found a GEM! 

The hardest part about visiting a new restaurant is deciding what to eat. The menu at Providence New American Kitchen made it far more difficult than usual. Everything sounded delicious!

Eventually, we settled on three entrees with one of them being a salad that we split in half. The server, Allie, was very gracious and had the Smokehouse Cobb Salad split in the kitchen for us. We were thrilled with the half portion size that we each recieved and thought the topping ratio to salad was perfect. We had eaten a horrible starter salad at dinner the night before, so this salad shone extra bright. The highlight was definitely the housemade smoked tomato vinaigrette. I wish I could get a bottle of that dressing for our home!
Smokehouse Cobb Salad

While we were waiting on our salad, Sean pulled op the FourSquare app on his phone and saw that the restaurant had a check-in special. By checking in, we got a free Campfired Cured Salmon appetizer. How fun is that? It came with four small cornmeal English muffin halves and a piece of whisky cured salmon dressed with a corn creme sauce. It disappeared pretty quickly! Sean especially enjoyed this one!
Campfire Cured Salmon

After eating our two appetizers, our main dishes came.

We are those people who like to read reviews before trying a new restaurant. It helps us decide if a restaurant is worth trying and what the best items on the menu are. The Apple Wood Smoked Meatloaf was mentioned in a couple of reviews as being delicious, so Sean decided to give that one a try. It came with smashed potatoes, green beans, and a wild mushroom gravy over the meatloaf itself. Sean thought is was delicious, and I managed to snag a bite before it was gone. I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of meatloaf. I actually try to avoid eating it, but if all meatloaf tasted like this one, I would be a meatloaf convert! The mushrooms on top were a wonderful addition!
Apple Wood Smoked Meatloaf

For my main dish, I chose the Turkey and Asparagus Sandwich. It sounded a little strange to me, but I like turkey sandwiches, and I like asparagus, so theoretically, I should like this sandwich, right? Wrong. I fell in love with this sandwich! This is one of the best sandwiches I've ever eaten. Period. It had an absolutely gorgeous spicy goat cheese on it that I think made the sandwich what it is. You could taste the flavor of the chili without any heat. Of course, at this point in the meal, I was already partially full from our appetizers, so I was eating more slowly. The server asked several times if I would like the rest boxed up, but I told her I wasn't leaving that table until the entire sandwich was in my tummy. If I could eat this sandwich everyday, I would. So amazing! (I hope you remember that you are supposed to add exclamation points to every sentence!)
Turkey and Asparagus Sandwich

While we were eating our main dishes, I realized that I was making our wonderful server nervous with the camera. She was so sweet, so I told Sean that I felt like we should tell her that it was a special weekend for us, and that I'm a blogger and wanted to document everything so we wouldn't forget. She was very gracious and seemed happy to know why I kept taking photos of everything.

We didn't realize this, but she went and told the restaurant manager, Rick Brook, about what we were doing. He came over to greet us, and talk a bit about our kids and weekend. A truly warm and welcoming gentleman! He then asked if we had considered dessert yet. Sean said that he had seen a good review on the Carrot Cake (which is also his favorite dessert) and was thinking about trying that. Mr. Brook then turned to me and asked if I liked chocolate. I said, "I'm a woman. I love chocolate!" He told us to give him a few minutes and he would bring out some desserts he was sure we would enjoy.

When he returned, he brought us each a dessert to celebrate our 5th anniversary. Sean had the Carrot Cake. It was a delicious slice of cake, topped with candied c
arrots. I didn't even realize you could candy a carrot, but they were a perfect compliment to the cake. It also came with a scoop of carrot ice cream. This was such a fun surprise to taste! It was delicious and unique. Mr. Brook told us that everything on their menu, from their vinaigrette to their ice cream, is made in house. Nothing pre-made is brought in from the outside. He has some seriously cleaver chefs in his restaurant! Kudos to Executive Chef Eric Carter and Executive Sous Chef Alejandro Diaz!
 Carrot Cake

He brought me, the S'mores Flavors dessert. I knew we had just met him, but could he possibly have figured out that I often make s'mores in the microwave while the kids are napping, because I love them just that much? I was beyond delighted to see what he had picked out for me! It had a piece of chocolate cake that was still warm and gooey through the middle, a scoop of graham cracker ice cream, and toasted marshmallows on the side. It was all of my favorite types of dessert combined to create the adult version of my favorite snack. Oh wow! Even though I was full from my meal, I ate the entire dessert and enjoyed every last bite!
S'mores Flavors

Do you know how sometimes you can go out to a restaurant and have a great dish, but the rest of the meal is just okay? The chefs at this restaurant definitely go against the norm. Every. Single. Dish. was spot on! The quality, flavor, and presentation was so consistent, it really blew us away! That is why I absolutely had to write a review on this restaurant. Restaurants that do everything right are hard to come by. Providence New American Kitchen is most certainly one of our favorites now!

Sean and I spent the whole meal trying each other's dishes, and enjoying each other's company. What a truly perfect way to spend part of our weekend getaway!

4 comments:

  1. ok not only was the food spot on but their customer service was great too. That was one heck of a manager. If I ever make it to Kansas I'm going to have to give them a look up. I'm happy you were able to go out and enjoy your weekend getaway. Sometimes you need a break from the kids. Hope you're enjoying this weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds like a place Mike and I will have to try now! We're always looking for new places in KC. Thanks for the reveiw! - Andrea at Blue Ridge

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