Dos Hombres closed its doors this week after a 3 1/2 year run. This blurb cites the poor economy as the cause.
I was actually craving some mediocre Mexican food today. Thankfully Kansas City has plenty of that. Enter Dos Hombres, a relatively mundane, whitey-looking Mexican joint in the River Market area. I always see this place when I’m down there, and choose Harry’s CC instead. Anyhow, Dos Hombres features a completely terrible name, but a decent menu of sanitized tex-mex delicasies. The place is really as much a bar as restaurant. I opted to sit at the bar, which proved to be a good call. In fact, it’s always a better option when dining alone: the service is better and you don’t feel like a loser for sitting by yourself.
The staff is a crew of professional servers. What does that mean? Well, these people know what they are doing for sure, but they also exude that air of worldy crustiness that is unique to the service industry. Many restaurants in this town don’t feature what I consider true food service personnel, but Dos Hombres has ’em. These people are used to moving fast, serving drinks, and talking shit with the best of them. No, it’s not rough and tumble or anything, it just seems like these folks are truly making a living being waiters and waitresses and not just pulling extra cash for looking cute or screwing the owner.
Anyhow, the food as I mentioned is not altogether authentic. The lunch menu is decent and affordable however, and I found the pork in particular to be very tasty–likely homemade and not dumped out of a cryo-vac Syco bag. My food did come topped with grated parmesan cheese–undoubtedly an effort to “class up” the entree. But really it was just disconcerting. I mean, freeze-dried cheese out of a shaker is hardly impressive, people. Anyway, I was served very quickly and the bartrendress was quite adept at making idle chatter. I was out of there in less than 1/2 hour, which is quite good for a sit-down joint.
In short, this is a surprisingly good option simply because it is efficient. The food is fine and the portions are large.
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The espinaca dip is the best thing on their menu. I also recommend the carne asada.
Funny, what time were you there yesterday? I had lunch there yesterday too.
This post is actually from a week or so ago, but I just realized I hadn’t published it yet! So I actually wasn’t there yesterday. What’s in the espinaca dip?
Espinaca is incredible – it’s a white cheese and spinach dip. Plus, the thing to remember about Dos Hombres is that this restaurant has been in business for 25 years in the area (through different locations spanning from Columbia to Lawrence). So they’ve perfected gringo Mexican quite well. Also try their fajitas – they have a secret marinade that is something to write home about.
[…] putting a grated, dry cheese–parmesan perhaps–on their tacos. I’ve seen this at other Tex-Mex spots and I’m really not a fan of the practice. It made an otherwise delightful fish taco a little […]