Learning to Love Leawood, Or My Lunch at Room 39

It’s no secret that I pretty much hate the suburbs. I don’t hate the people who live in them, of course, or even that people live in them; they’re just not for me (though I have recently developed an affinity for Fairway and Westwood in eastern Johnson County). I also hate that someone or something has tried to recreate Midtown Kansas City in Leawood. Well, that is I hated it until I began working in a cubicle in a glass building with windows that won’t open in lovely — you guessed it — Leawood, Kansas.

Driving from the suburbs to the center of the city and back takes a lot of gas — and nearly an entire lunch hour! And a girl’s gotta eat, right? (Right; you do not want to see me with a case of the hungry grumpies.) Because I’m green, hungry, and often broke, I’ve become more comfortable with the idea of putting “Midtown South” in my mouth. I’ve been to La Bodega (which isn’t as much fun because happy hours are outlawed in KS), Blue Koi (which I don’t like that much anyway; not enough texture variety in the dishes), Blanc Burgers & Bottles, Andre’s Confiserie Suisse, Ingredient, SPIN! Pizza, SPIN! Pizza and SPIN! Pizza.

Did you know I'm a card-carrying member of the Clean Plate Club?

So, today, when my future mother-in-law (we’ll call her “Ruth” because that’s her real name) suggested Room 39, I jumped at the idea. I had forgotten Room 39 even existed out there. Perhaps it has something to do with the place being named after its location on 39th Street in Midtown, or that I’ve only ever had brunch there, and think of it as a weekend place. Either way, I’m so glad we went. The space is lovely, and it turns out that the food tastes just as good a bazillion miles southwest of Midtown.

As I’ve mentioned before, when I go out to eat and there are scallops on the menu, I MUST ORDER THE SCALLOPS. So I did. These were plated with sweet potato puree, sautéed spinach, thick-cut bacon, mustard vinaigrette, and some sort of micro green. I had no problem cleaning my plate.

Ruth ordered the shrimp off of today’s special menu. It was served with sugar snap pea puree, roasted potatoes, extra virgin olive oil, and grana padano, which is a salty parmesan-style cheese. She had a little bit more trouble cleaning her plate than I did, but only because there were so many potatoes — sweet ones, red ones, purple ones, white ones. I was happy to see a little diversity in Leawood.

After lunch, we walked a few doors down to the ridiculously adorable Natasha’s Mulberry & Mott — Mulberry and Mott is an intersection are parallel streets in the very non-suburbsy New York City, thank you very much — where I got a giant coconut macaroon that I devoured before I remembered to take a picture of it.

Leawood might just win me over yet. Not enough to make me move there, but still.

Honestly, I feel a lot like this guy must have.