Taste of Shawnee

When I was first divorced, I'd head out on weekends with my kiddos on all sorts of outings and adventures. Mostly free stuff, my finances at that point in my life were dismal. I aspired to maybe one day just be broke. Sitting around the house getting on each other's last nerve didn't seem a very good option, so we went to the Nelson, the Kemper, Moon Marble, Kaleidoscope, the Adequate Mall, Wonderscope, etc. We went to parks, flew model rockets, flew kites. One time they had an ARCA race out at the Kansas Speedway that was for some reason free, and I dragged the girls out there for about ten minutes, it was as blustery and cold as it was noisy and none of us really dug it.

You might think that years of such adventures would have conditioned my daughters to be up for any outing I might suggest even at the ages of 18 and 19. Yeah, you'd be wrong. They are over that.

But presented with some free tickets to A Taste of Shawnee, to my delight and astonishment they were both on board. And I mean Mo says not to everything these days. But she was genuinely excited to go to a food festival.

Now, Shawnee is not Chicago, but there was a ton of great food to be had. Probably the high point was the Hereford House which was serving shaved prime rib sliders and boneless buffalo wings. There was plenty of barbecue of course, Shawnee is part of Kansas City after all, and pizza, Chinese takeout, donuts, wedding cake, chicken fried steak, etc.

If Sushi Mido had been there, it would have been perfect. I can't swear they're my favorite restaurant in Kansas City but easily my favorite in Shawnee (and they're top two or three for the metro area).