Updated: October 2nd, 2025
Who are you folks?
Lorraine Goodrich is a long time personal chef and caterer. Chuck Munson is a food writer, artist, librarian, and former web developer.
How long have you lived in Kansas City?
Chuck grew up in South Kansas City, lived elsewhere from 1989-2003, and then returned. Lorraine has lived in Kansas City for most of her life.
Wait, how do you guys know each other?
We graduated from high school together! Blue Valley Tigers! We also went to middle school together. Both of us took Mrs. Hein’s cooking class in seventh grade.
What is an ovo-lacto vegetarian?
A vegetarian who eats eggs and milk. Chuck has been one since 1989. He has been eating fish and seafood occasionally for the past 7 years or more often in 2024-2025.
Do you guys receive free food and stuff from restaurants or anybody you review?
Most of the time, No. There may be rare exceptions, as when we review food at a client’s restaurant, or when we receive food as part of an interview, but in those instances, the relationship will be clearly stated up front.
What is “JoCo Mexican”?
This describes a style of sadly drowning a Mexican entree with a plate full of yellow cheese. You took perfectly good food and assaulted it with a lake of cheese. Save this approach for nachos. A style preferred by unadventurous American suburbanites.
What is “Midwest mild”?
Ethnic restaurants in the Midwest sometimes tone down the spice level of their dishes to appeal to Midwestern tastes. You may want to ask up front about the spice level if you want to kick it up to authentic levels. This is changing as native Midwesterners are becoming familiar with international spice profiles and more folks from outside the Midwest move here. This fussiness about ethnic spices can be silly, as the same people complaining about spiciness eat barbecue and Cajun food all the time.
Kansas City is the capital of BBQ. How can you review food if you don’t eat meat?
While Chuck doesn’t eat (red) meat, he does visit and dine at BBQ restaurants with friends and family. Lorraine likes barbecue.
Who are the Dining Companions?
Chuck will often refer to “dining companions” in his reviews.
Dining Companion #1: A long time friend and Kansas City resident. Excellent cook, food lover and restaurant enthusiast. Appreciates vegetarian foods.
Dining Companion #2: A sibling
Dining Companions Kids: Our younger culinary experts. Helping you find kid friendly food around Kansas City that isn’t cheese quesadillas or $8 Kraft macaroni and cheese.
What are your favorite foodie things?
Chuck used to enjoy watching lots of cooking shows, especially the Food Network, while he worked from home. Favorite shows included Chopped, Worse Cooks in America, Beat Bobby Flay, Pioneer Woman and especially The Great British Baking Show. Currently, Chuck watches food stuff on Youtube and Twitch.
Why don’t you list websites for each restaurant in your guides?
Many restaurants, unfortunately, don’t have websites. Others only have a presence on Facebook or social media. As an independent media website, we don’t link to walled social media. Other restaurants foolishly use “websites” made for them by exploitative food delivery companies. We find it unethical to link to shoddy websites made by these companies. There are also restaurant “websites” out there that have been illegally created by Google and third party delivery app services. There are many delivery services out there which create listings for restaurants without permission. When in doubt, call a restaurant to get info or find out how to order.
Do you enjoy cooking?
I love to cook! Pretty good cook when it comes to utilizing ingredients on hand. Love to collect cookbooks and my only New Year’s resolution for 2019 and 2020 was to cook more from recipes (haven’t done that yet). Haven’t cooked much in recent months for medical reasons.
Do you work with local restaurants?
I’ve worked with the Blue Nile Cafe for the past decade, as their web developer, designer, digital marketing expert, and consultant. Always open to working with other restaurants.
Why don’t you have a Facebook page? Why not more active on social media?
We are supporters of the Open Web, so we are part of the growing movement that is re-building an independent Internet that is free of corporate fiefdoms like Facebook.
Do you have a podcast?
Possibly returning in late 2025.
Restaurant Listings (New October 2022)
Can you link to a restaurant’s Grubhub, Menufy, or Ubereats ordering link?
Probably not! They aren’t paying us for links and we prefer to link to a restaurant website whenever possible. We provide at least the phone number of each restaurant. We do provide ordering links for some restaurants when independent or co-operative ordering services exist for that restaurant (like Slice for pizzerias).
Why don’t you provide links to a restaurant’s Facebook page or Google website?
These “websites” are not anything of the sort and businesses sabotage themselves when they solely rely on these “services.” Facebook is bad for small businesses, often lying about reach and advertising metrics. Google creates “listings” with an algorithm which often gets basic details wrong like phone numbers, hours and menu items and prices.
Can I improve my listing here?
We will soon have a paid plan where you can have us expand listing information for a reasonable cost. We also will have higher tier plans where we write long descriptions about your business. Reviews are independent of these listings. We will not take any comp meals or services in exchange for reviews.
Do you use AI?
No! Of course not. We want no part of those scams and we do not use any of those awful, garbage tools. Everything that Chuck writes and creates for this website and associated channels does not use AI.
It is possible that our calendar listings may include AI-generated text, as we copy event descriptions from third party sources. We also cannot guarantee that every bit of music added to our video shorts are free of AI. We try to avoid the scam as much as possible.