New food hall with six chefs offers a ‘culinary adventure’ in downtown Overland Park
Nearly a year in the making, downtown Overland Park’s new food hall is here.
Strang Hall spans 13,000 square feet on the first level of the new Edison District. It features six stand-alone kitchens by local chefs and offers options for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It also has a coffee shop and full-service bar with a dining hall for all the concepts. The floor-to-ceiling windows on the west side look out to a patio now under construction.
The chefs signed one-year leases and work for themselves. So they will be able to change up their menus as the mood hits.
Customers choose a kitchen, order and pay. If they are dining in, they receive a text when their order is ready for pick up. Employees, dubbed hall monitors, also will be available for additional help and to bus tables.
“We have a little bit of something for everybody,” said Joe Follett, director of operations. “Order a couple different dishes from each concept and try things out. It’s a really nice culinary adventure.”
Who: Anourom Thomson named it after his late brother. Thomson immigrated from Laos as a 6-year-old in 1980 and has more than two decades of experience in the restaurant industry, including 18 years with the Anderson Restaurant Group where he was executive chef at Pierpont’s at Union Station and Hereford House.
Menu: Southeast Asian comfort food. Items include Khao Poon (pulled pork in a red curry coconut broth with bamboo shoots, served on a bed of vermicelli noodles, shaved cabbage, snake beans, banana blossom, bean sprouts and fresh herbs).
Chef’s must try item: The Sticky Rice Plate (grilled beef with roasted tomato sauce and bang bang sauce garnished with papaya salad). “It defines what the Southeast Asian diet is all about,” Thomson said.
Who: Jon Ponzer earned a degree in mathematics, then taught in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. Since returning to Kansas City about a decade ago, he has worked at casual restaurants, fine dining and private clubs.
Menu: Fried chicken, grilled chicken, hot chicken sandwiches, chicken salad, fried tofu, and fried cod. Sides include B’s Bites (buttermilk fried chicken breast cutlets served with honey mustard).
Chef’s must try item: Togarashi fries with salsa brava, mayonnaise and scallions.
Who: Mark Dandurand started out washing dishes in a family friend’s restaurant and then went on to culinary school. He had a stint at a Wyoming dude ranch. He has been working at Kansas City restaurants for the past six years, including chef de cuisine at Stock Hill steakhouse.
Menu: New American style cuisine, “classic dishes with a modern twist,” Dandurand said. Small plates include meatballs and pork stew. It has such entrees as salmon (with carrot puree, smoked chili grits, almond crumb and compound butter), and grilled chicken thigh (on black garlic rice with curry cream and split peas).
Chef’s must try item: The Arancini (beet risotto croquette, blue corn, spinach puree and 1,000 day Gouda).
Who: Remy Ayesh attended the French Culinary Institute, then worked for catering companies, resorts and fine dining restaurants in such cities as Chicago and New York. Most recently she was chef at Lazia in the Crossroads Hotel.
Menu: Ayesh named her restaurant for the Spanish word for nest, and Nida also was her grandmother’s nickname. It offers street tacos with a variety of ingredients, including seven pepper chicken with garlic tomato sauce, confit shoulder and belly, with grilled pineapple salsa.
Chef’s must try item: Black Gold brisket tacos topped with chimichurri crema.
Who: Chad Tillman was a butcher for nearly 20 years, mostly with Hen House Markets. He said customers would even follow him from store to store. While he isn’t a classically trained chef, he started creating a menu for private events. Strang Hall asked him to pitch a concept.
Menu: The Italian-inspired menu features craft sandwiches and pizzas (made with a 72-hour cold fermented process), as well as sides such as marinated olive salad. He focuses on high-quality ingredients, sourcing his meats from Paradise Locker Meats.
Chef’s must-try item: The Jersey Butcher with pulled pork shoulder, garlic sauteed greens, Pecorino Romano cheese, and lemon zest.
Who: Erin Bassett worked in fine dining after culinary school, but most recently was food service director at NourishKC, a community kitchen.
Menu: Seasonal menu — fresh produce, minimally cooked and processed, healthy food. Items include hummus, falafel bowls, tarragon tofu salad wraps, and butternut squash panzanella salad.
Chef’s must-try item: Grilled citrus salmon bowls (ancient grain mix, arugula, avocado, fennel, grapefruit and pomegranate).
Brock Schulte, bar director at the Monarch Bar, created craft cocktails for the Strang Bar.
Strang Hall is named after William B. Strang, founder of Overland Park.
The new Edison District, at 7313 W. 80th St., has 100,000 square feet of office space on four upper floors with the food hall on the ground floor.
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This story was originally published December 21, 2019 at 5:00 AM.