Story, in PV: giving huge value at KC Restaurant Week. Just needs to frost their front windows

Of 184 restaurants participating in KC Restaurant Week this year, Story has the certifiably best food in JoCo--and they're practically giving it away.

The special dinners are just $33;  Lunches are $15.  IF you can get in.  Always use OpenTable.com for a reservation.  In this weather, wusses often cancel at the last minute, so do not give up.  Keep checking--you might score a top tier restaurant that will provide the meal of the year for you.

What does one get from Story for $33?  When the rest of the year, prices are higher?  I loved the Mahi Mahi.  A seasoned broth so special, the Bush Bean Dog is stalking Chef Carl on Twitter and Instagram, hoping he will reveal the secret recipe.  On the regular menu, just that course alone is $28.

Plus I quietly slurped up my choice of the starter, a creamy white bean soup, perfect for January--which the regular menu lists @ $9.  (I could have had the salad, a value of $8.)

Plus the world's most sensational bread basket--like a trip to Paris. Without the Muslim riots outside. The perfectly hard crust that so many restaurants cannot achieve.  I always feel a bit like a wolf on the prowl when I tear into really good French bread.  Do you?

And for dessert, merde---I adored the cardamom flavored Panne Cotta.  With two citrus pieces on top--like lazy cats curled up in the sun.

Wiki describes Panna cotta:   (Italian 'cooked cream') is an Italian dessert of sweetened cream thickened with gelatin and molded. The cream may be aromatized with rum, coffee, vanilla, or other flavorings.

Story is not a French restaurant.  It's that new breed of New American cuisine and craft bartending. The chef is Carl Thorne-Thomsen.  He might be the last of the hypenated husbands.  But he is first in my book of award-winning chefs in JoCo.  Just named to 100 Restaurants Worth Traveling To.  The only one in the metro.

And they weren't talking about just guiding your Lincoln up Mission Road from Leawood. They meant: fly into town, hail a cab (hard to get Uber at KCI) and head to 3931 W. 69th Ter, in the very middle of the Prairie Village Shops, next to Standee's Theatres and across from the great Cafe Provence.  

Now I love Story.  Went there for my birthday.  But I have two suggestions.

One:  Someone please go buy Chef Carl some black plates.  All of his are white.  But when you serve a Panne Cotta, which is ivory, on a white plate, even tho it has those fancy drips orbiting the dish, like Neptune's 14 moons, well, it would be  breathtaking if it just was served on a black plate--so this "out of this world" dessert could really stand out in the culinary firmament.

And Two:
Frost the windows on the east side of their front door.  Or get reflective tape.  Because there you are, swooning with delight, until some SUV pulls into the parking space with their headlights on, and sits there.  No doubt texting or calling or catching up on Facebook.  An eternity.   If you are seated in any of the first four tables, the lights are right in your eyes.  Six feet from the window!  Think doe in the headlights.  Or the raid in Benghazi.  It completely ruins the moment.  In Gitmo, they use that kind of a surprise on the guys we are torturing to elicit confessions.

Why isn't this fixed??  I know the market research says show people inside dining, to attract folks from the sidewalk.  But really.  Perhaps Chef Carl and the waiters are always standing up when they stroll thru the dining room.  If they EVER sat down, after dark, where they seated me, trust me, they'd be fixing this.  It's bad enough that the view all the time is the Chico's sign.  Story has cute faux drapes of stringy yarn.  They fail to cover the windows nor cut the glare.  Please.  Design a better solution.  You'll rocket from one thumb up--because my other hand was rummaging for my sunglasses.  To two thumbs up.