My dearest friend, whom I have known since middle school, met me for Italian food in South Kansas City the last week of June. I was excited to see her and to try North Modern Italian Cuisine, but I’m afraid it wasn’t much fun for her. She was supposed to have a temporary crown replaced by a permanent one and thought her appointment would take all of 30 minutes. But instead the dentist got to drilling, I forgot about her appointment and kept texting her about why she was late, and she ended up having dinner with a sore mouth.

It was still great to see her, and the food was pretty good too, definitely better than Brio Tuscan Grille, the other chain Italian I’ve sampled in Kansas City (both, only once), but not as authentic as Il Posto in Denver. North is owned by Fox Restaurant Concepts, which also started the Bloom restaurant chain; I ate often at the location in Broomfield, Colorado. There is a North restaurant in Cherry Creek in Denver.

The waiter, who knew my friend from the many Wednesday nights she spent at the restaurant drinking half-price bottles of wine, brought us pretty butter whipped with red pepper. My friend ordered the zucca chips, which were a little soft (like the focus) but good.She then moved on to pizza, which apparently didn’t do anything to make her mouth feel better as she took most of it home. I ordered the scallops with corn risotto infused with white truffle oil. The scallops were perfectly moist and tender, with no grit, and the risotto was good. I was impressed by the number of scallops in the serving and by the fact that the dish was not too heavy.Thanks for meeting me for dinner, my friend. I hope you’re feeling better, and I’ll check out your new kitchen in November.