The Fonda Blog

Pop-up phenomenon: Here this week, gone the next

By Sarah Gish, The Kansas City Star – Mon, Aug. 22, 2011

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Port Fonda — a cross between a food truck and a mobile restaurant — has since become one of the city’s hottest foodie destinations.  On Friday and Saturday nights, Ryan parks it in a lot at 20th and Main streets and starts selling $3 tacos out the window. The chef also accepts reservations from customers who want to dine at the cozy table inside Port Fonda. A four-course meal for six people costs $250.

“We started joking when we opened, telling people this is the hardest table to get in Kansas City,” Ryan says.  Now that might be true: Reservations are booked through September, and Ryan won’t even accept reservations for October until Sept. 1.

Port Fonda embodies planned spontaneity: It’s parked at the same location every Friday and Saturday, but because it’s a food truck, eating there feels spur-of-the-moment.

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Port Fonda Food Truck

Written By: Around the Block – June 05, 2011

Wow. What a treat. I stopped by the Port Fonda food truck last Saturday afternoon to sample chef/owner Patrick Ryan’s Mexican fare, cooked to order at the truck’s stove.  I had been reading for months about Ryan’s project, a retrofitted airstream trailer. And this is not any old trailer. The interior is wrapped with gorgeous wood and has a chef’s table to match (more on that below.)

The truck is only open on weekend nights, with the exception of Saturday afternoons when you can usually find Port Fonda in the Rieger Hotel Exchange and Grill parking lot for about a 14 hour stretch. During the day the menu is limited to a few items, but when evening comes another handful of offerings take shape in the kitchen, ranging from tacos to tortas (Mexican sandwiches.) With our ever-increasing reliance on social media, the best way to discover where the truck will be parked and what will be on the menu is to follow Port Fonda on Facebook or Twitter.

I had the great fortune of going to Port Fonda on a day when they were serving chilaquiles– tortillas layered with a tomatillo/habanero sauce and chorizo verde, and topped with a fried egg.  I’m a big fan of Frontera Grill in Chicago, and when I heard Ryan used to work there, I knew this was going to be good. Even with high expectations, it blew me away. I haven’t been this excited about a dish since I first had a pizza at Pizza Bella and dreamt about it that night.

Ryan nailed the salsa. It sang with the roasted flavor of the chiles and had a marvelous kick to it. The tortillas had been softened by the sauce but weren’t soggy, as tends to happen if the dish is allowed to cook too long. And the egg was perfectly cooked, its runny yolk melding with the other ingredients to complete the happiness in my mouth.  The pozole was also authentically prepared. Red chile base, chunks of hominy, topped with radish and lime. A hearty and warm soup for a chilly, dreary day.

I wanted to try a taco and the only one they were serving that day had a tripe filling. For those unfamiliar with tripe, it’s part of a cow’s or pig’s stomach and is the main ingredient in a traditional Mexican soup called Menudo. Not a fan of Menudo, I was not overly enthused, but I ordered it anyway. It came in crisp strips and had I not been acutely aware of what I was eating, I may have mistaken it for meat. It was simply garnished, as are most street tacos, with pickled onions and just a touch of sauce. Not my favorite taco ever, but worth sampling.

Within the truck is a cozy table for 6, with a U-shaped banquette. The dining room (known as el comedor) is available by reservation only on weekend nights. Ryan is offering a 3 course meal centered around a pork shoulder and served with all the fixings to roll up in tortillas. I’m excited for that experience– based on my initial visit to Port Fonda, it should be a blast.

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Also see: Port Fonda, KC Magazine, Eldo Recommends, Yelp, Fonda History

More Updates: Patrick Ryan is ready to get rolling with Port Fonda in Westport (June 18, 2012)

Mexican restaurant Port Fonda now has a home in Westport (June 18, 2012)

Port Fonda Restaurant Set to Open Tuesday, June 26 (June 18, 2012)

written by admin \\ tags: Dining, Merchants, Midwest

Fondas celebrate 50th wedding anniversary

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Bruce and Yoshiko Fonda of Radcliff will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary June 1, 2011.  They were married June 1, 1961, in Okinawa.  Mr. Fonda is a retired Sgt. Maj. from the U.S. Army and retired from service as a loan officer at Fort Knox Federal Credit Union.  Mrs. Fonda is very active in a bowling league and Soka Gakai International.  They have two children, 13 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Mr. and Mrs. Fonda then

Mr. and Mrs. Fonda now

written by admin \\ tags: Events, Marriages, Midwest

Student finds his soundtrack to success

The past few weeks of Grant Fonda’s life would not make for a very stirring motion picture.

Although Fonda participated in an international contest that tested his skill and resolve, there was no final scene of victory, only quiet affirmations. No triumphant hoisting of a trophy over his weary head, only subtler moments to be cherished and worthwhile lessons to be tucked away for a future date.

University of Missouri graduate student Grant Fonda recently traveled to Poland to compete in the Transatlantyk Instant Composition Contest.

The graduate student at the University of Missouri School of Music traveled to Poland earlier this month to compete in the Transatlantyk Instant Composition Contest, a compositional pressure cooker that tested his ability to write emotive music for motion pictures. Although Fonda did not achieve a level of glory worthy of having his own tale captured on celluloid, he came home with a better understanding of what it means to be part of the film industry.

Fonda applied to the competition — founded by Oscar-winning composer Jan Kaczmarek (“Finding Neverland”) — almost as an afterthought, engaging the process between finishing a commission and heading to his native California for vacation. In addition to submitting previously composed works, he was required to score two short film clips that were distinct but equally daunting. The first, a climactic scene from the 2009 film “Get Low,” included a stirring soliloquy from Oscar winner Robert Duvall; it was an “intense” and “delicate” moment with dialogue that needed to be preserved, not drowned out, he said. The second was from a “bizarre” French cartoon in which a young girl, among other things, falls into a bowl of alphabet soup and is attacked by zombies.

For the Duvall clip, he evoked themes of mystery and absolution through the use of unresolved dissonances, inverted chords and pedal tones; Fonda balanced “menacing” and “childlike” themes for the latter. For his work, he was selected as one of 30 participants, which meant trekking to Poland, watching a short film, and composing and performing an accompaniment before a panel of American and Polish judges on the spot.

Fonda was shown a five-plus-minute piece called “Walking,” produced by a Canadian travel commission decades ago; the work was bizarre and psychedelic, with no discernible plot or dialogue, he said. Immediately upon leaving the screening room, he sat at the piano and performed his level best. His strategy: attach a winning theme to the film’s central character and balance out its more extreme elements with a relatively accessible, melodic score. Ultimately, Fonda did not take his place among the 10 finalists. He received praise from the American panelists but was told the European judges wished he’d taken more risks; other contestants incorporated elements of prepared piano or relied on a more serial, clustered set of tones.

Although Fonda did not advance in the competition, his compositional sensibilities were advanced by encouraging, “invaluable” interactions with the likes of composers Christopher Young (“Spider-Man 3,” “The Grudge”), George S. Clinton (the “Austin Powers” films), Bruno Louchouarn (“Total Recall”) and producer Roy Conli (“Tangled,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”); these professionals offered lessons on life and art in master classes and specific feedback in personal conversations.

Among the comments Fonda received were praiseworthy pronouncements on his ability to convey mood and character and his capacity to musically captain viewers through a spectrum of emotions in a short period of time. Clinton remarked on his remarkable capacity for suggesting and creating color through orchestration. Additionally, he was told he had a fitting temperament for composition and was encouraged to stand up for his abilities, even while avoiding walking on others in collaboration. Ultimately, he was deeply encouraged by Young’s comments on the relationship between a composer’s maturity and the potency of his or her music.

“He said, ‘You’re not going to be able to evoke the right emotion for a romantic scene if you’ve never been married,’ ” Fonda recalled. “ ‘You’re not going to be able to evoke the right emotion for a funeral if you’ve never witnessed somebody close to you die.’ He said there’s just a certain advantage that being older in the industry has than being younger. … All this time I had been thinking,” as someone who’s closer to 30 than 20, “I’d missed my stride.”

Fonda said he’s likely to reapply next year — this year’s contest might not have provided a feel-good movie ending, but, as he exercises his talent and applies messages received an ocean away, there’s little doubt a sequel is in the works.

Reach Aarik Danielsen at 573-815-1731 or e-mail ajdanielsen@columbiatribune.com.
Copyright 2011 Columbia Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
This article was published on page C2 of the Sunday, August 28, 2011 edition of The Columbia Daily Tribune.

written by admin \\ tags: Achievements, Arts, Midwest

Photo album from family of Hamilton Giles Fonda of DuQuoin, IL:

Album Cover - 4" x 6" - 26 pages - purple velour with gold trim	Enclosed letter from Charles to family from Camp Reynolds, Angel Island, CA written in 1867	Hamilton Giles Fonda and Elizabeth Steele
Wesley H. Fonda and Florence Donnell	Frank and Charles Fonda	prob. Charles A. Fonda
Wesley H. Fonda	Frank L. Fonda	prob. Julia C. Fonda
Hamilton Fonda?	Elizabeth Steele Fonda?

written by admin \\ tags: History, Midwest, Migrations, Portrait