Tag Archives: food

Red Wine, Italian Food and Texan Friends

Posted on December 7, 2008 | Leave a comment

This was a great weekend. In addition to the hikes today and yesterday I got to hang out with old and new friends during the evening.

On Friday Jill and Eric came over from Fort Worth for dinner and drinks. I’ve gone over their way several times so I think they felt like it was only fair to come see me on Friday, and I think they probably were looking for a change from their usual routine anyway. Since Jill was running and I was hiking on Saturday I figured we’d all get carbed up, which gave us a great excuse to have some Italian food at Taverna. It was the third time or so I’ve been there and I continue to think of it as a good standby. The food is solid – not “out of this world good” by any means, but plenty good enough. The wine selection is decent for a casual Friday night and the prices are hard to beat for the Uptown or Knox-Henderson areas.

After we went to dinner we walked around the corner to Bodega Bar (the pictures at this link do not do it justice) and had a final glass of wine to finish off the evening. Every time I go to that place I like it a little better. Amier (the proprietor) was there again on Friday night and I got to catch up with him for a minute about his little girl, now pushing 2 years old.

After my hike at Lake Grapevine yesterday I took a long hot shower and unwound for a little while before crossing the street for a book club meeting at Vino 100. This is the same crew I met with last month at Nikolini’s just a block in the other direction. Love the fact that Tiffany likes to organize wine drinking events that are within stumbling distance of my apartment. We discsuseed Acquired Tastes by Peter Mayle and I had two glasses of Educated Guess cabernet sauvignon. Loved it. I love most cabs of course, but this one was particularly good and reasonably priced considering it’s quality.

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And I really enjoyed the company of a couple of new friends that I’ve made as a result of this book club. That and the discussion of Acquired Tastes gave me an idea for a post I plan to make about my most valuable philosophical observation for 2008. But that is the subject of another post.

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Words and Wine

Posted on November 8, 2008 | Leave a comment

This past Sunday I met up with a group that likes to do two things which I’m fond of – read and drink wine. The topic for this particular afternoon was Hemingway’s memoir of life among the Lost Generation in 1920′s Paris entitled A Moveable Feast. It really was a nice way to spend an autumn afternoon and evening.

The meeting was not only right here in Uptown but not even a block away from where I live at Nikolini’s -  a little organic restaurant specializing in Greek food. Their service is casual – even a bit haphazard – but the owner is a very nice lady who spends much of her time working true craft in the kitchen. The food is simply awesome.

The group had appetizers and, on this night, the wine which we brought ourselves. Nikolini’s is apparently between liquor licenses so it operated a bit like a bottle club that day. I brought a nice French red that was recommended to me and thoroughly enjoyed it. So did another member of the group with whom I did not offer to share, but that’s another story.

As we discussed the book we all shared the same perception of Hemingway’s mood. In a word, melancholy. Though he was describing what sounded like was the time of his life as a young, happily married author in the City of Light, the writing itself was unacountably sad. It must have been related to the fact that he wrote the work in his later years, a time when he was clearly – and ultimately fatally – depressed.

One thing that you couldn’t help but notice as you listened to him tell tales about the rest of the so-called Lost Generation authors was just how forlorn and messed up their private lives were. Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound and many others came across as people who were sad and eccentric. Above them all, however, was F. Scott Fitzgerald. He and his wife Zelda seemed to live in a continual state of chaotic, self-destructive drunkeness. Zelda seemed like the very worst wife you could imagine – jealous of her husband’s success, constantly distracting him with ridiculous drama and outright ridiculing him in private, vicious ways.

You could look back on the tales of those author’s lives and marvel that there could have been such talented and yet unhappy people at that time. But you’d be missing the broader point I think. Those authors were much like our celebrities are today – recall that in the 1920′s not only was television non-existent, but films were silent and even radio was brand new. These writers were the superstars of their time and they were often terribly tragic figures. So it is with our modern superstars, too. There are too many examples of loneliness, frustration, addiction, heartache, misery and death among the Hollywood elite of today to recount. What is it about fame and fortune?

For my part I’m glad that I get to do things like enjoy the company of new acquaintances in the golden afternoon sun of November in Dallas, cutting up, laughing, eating great food and making delicious wine disappear. The anonymous life is just fine I think!

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Hubbard’s Cafe

Posted on April 27, 2008 | Leave a comment

In the things that Mike and I did last weekend I was trying to think of stuff that clearly said “Texas” each time, and come Sunday morning there would be only one option for breakfast – go out. After a month gone away my refrigerator had nothing in it that did not require careful handling for disposal. So while winding down the evening on Saturday I was wracking my brain trying to think of what would be a breakfast experience worthy of a visitor’s first pleasure trip to Dallas.

Out of the dark edges of my memory sprang forth a shred of recollection. It was from a business trip I had made years ago. There was an old-school diner that specialized in breakfast business and where the servers were… Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. Yes. That was it. I remembered the place. Gorgeous women waiting on tables – tastefully. This was no Hooters for the morning crowd. The women were not in cheerleader uniform, but just wearing street clothes – jeans, etc. They were just really pretty. And pleasant. And somehow it all had something to do with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader squad. Breakfast here we come.

It wasn’t easy finding the place. As best as I can tell Hubbard’s (at least this Hubbard’s) has no website. Googling things like “dallas cowyboys cheerleader breakfast” and other such strings yielded all kinds of nonsense and but I was finally able to locate an online review from a regular guy who wrote about an “eye popping” breakfast experience at Hubbard’s Cafe in Garland, Texas. It was enough to go on. When we woke up in the morning I called the phone number listed in the review and asked if their’s was “the place with all the pretty waitresses.” You could hear her grin and blush and roll her eyes as she said “Yep, that’s us.” Off we went.

Seems like Mike got what he always does – eggs and toast. I got an omelet with some hash browns and toast. We both got to see a Texas phenomenon. The waitresses – ours no exception – were uniformly very pretty, very polite and very charming. But again, this was no Hooters. Everyone was tastefully dressed and the cafe crowd was no different than what you’d see in any diner – lots of guys out for breakfast, lots of families with kids of all ages, some grandparents on the way home from church.

On the walls near the cash register were about a dozen autographed photos of Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders wishing their former co-workers well. Apparently Hubbard’s is indeed the farm team for some of the most beautiful women anywhere.

Gentlemen, there are plenty of ways worse than this to get your breakfast. And you can enjoy it with a clean conscience. Hubbard’s Cafe (also goes buy Hubbard’s Cubbard) is at 901 Main Street, Garland, TX.

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Silver and Gold

Posted on April 26, 2008 | Leave a comment

When I was a young kid – maybe five or six – my mom would sing a silly little song whenever I talked about the inevitable playground rivalries that come with friendships in early childhood. It went like this:

“Make new friends

But keep the old

One is silver and

The other’s gold…”

I don’t know where that comes from but she was fond of it. I was reminded of that last weekend when I had a full slate of activities with new friends and old.

On Friday night I walked to Black Friar just down the street from the apartment and met a couple of women who are co-workers of mine and their dates. Each of the guys were good people and I had a fine time drinking beers and having dinner with them. The weather was “Northern California Nice” that evening and it was just one of those times when staying in would have been a sad and lonely crime. Being able to meet up with no planning whatsoever was exactly the sort of thing that I was hoping for when I moved to Uptown last fall.

Saturday morning I drove to the DFW airport and picked up my best friend of 21 years at E14. Mike had never been to Dallas for any reason other than business and we had set last weekend for his visit some time earlier this year. As guys commonly do, we entirely lacked any plan other than 1) Mike comes to Dallas for a couple of days and 2) we figure it out from there.

So after dropping his stuff off at the apartment we went to Harry’s and got a little lunch (saving dessert for later) and then found our way on foot to the Katy Trail. We walked almost the whole length of the trail, from Knox-Henderson down to within site of the American Airlines Center and back. Mike’s visit was a great excuse to do that – I had not yet gotten to it even though I’ve been in Uptown since October of last year. The trail is pretty nice I think – arguably on the short side but shady in places and great for pedestrians. When we got back to the top of the trail we returned to Harry’s for custard. Mike was appropriately impressed.

Before getting back in the car I hooked Mike into the Apple Store long enough to get him to hold a MacBook Air and check out the new iPods and iPhone. Like I once was, Mike has been a do-it-yourself PC guy forever. He got a big chuckle out me switching to to a Mac last year. But I can tell that the BS you have to go through dealing with Windows at times is wearing on him a little. When we were in the apartment later checking email and stuff I used my MacBook and let him use my work PC for terminal services back into his machines in Atlanta. Our user experiences were…different. My MacBook, of course, connected to the Internet just about instantly when I opened it up. The Dell? Well, somewhere between 30 and 60 seconds after we jarred it awake from standby it finally became useful.

We both sat there wondering why the hell it’s so hard for Microsoft to make that better. Come on guys! My Dell is a dual core machine with 2GB of RAM and a brand new Windows installation. What’s the excuse? The thing almost takes longer to get an IP address when you switch networks than it takes my MacBook to cold boot. I know Microsoft’s engineering problems have had much broader scope due to the open OEM model but jeez – it’s been more than 25 years now since that got started – sure seems like they’d have a better recipe at this point. I’m betting that Microsoft is making their own hardware within the next few years, but I made and lost that bet a few years ago too. We’ll see.

Anyway, after we got rested up we went out to Chuy’s. I had intended to get Mike some good TexMex (it’s a lot better here in Dallas than Atlanta for sure) but honestly Chuy’s disappointed. My chimichanga was overdone. Mike liked his well enough though, and I guess that’s what counted.

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Le Cafe Crepe

Posted on March 22, 2008 | Leave a comment

This week has been a gourmet tour of Atlanta’s northern suburbs. On Wednesday night I took my dad out to Amalfi Ristorante, a great Italian place just south of Roswell square. You may recall that he has run out of things to remodel at home and so now he’s driving to Atlanta and giving my house the do-over. I pay for the materials and subcontractors, he does all of the work, and I take him to dinner whenever I happen to be in town at the same time he’s there. Anyway, Amalfi is a good spot. If you like better Italian food I think it’s one of the standout options outside of the perimeter. I had the veal with mushrooms. Very nice.

Thursday I met a couple of my old Atlanta friends at Aspens, a great steak house that’s part of the Sedgwick Restaurant Group. All of their places are excellent in my opinion. I had the fish special this time, a mahi mahi filet on onion & mushroom risotto. Awesome!

But last night was the best stop. For more than ten years I’ve dropped in on a little place hidden away on the fringe of Marietta Square called Le Cafe Crepe. Now this is a place you just have to experience. Quiet, candlelight, intimate. I honestly can’t think of a better place to go if it’s a good slow meal with conversation that you are after – there are a total of maybe 12 tables in the whole place. A real live Frenchman named Alfred Carraz is chief cook and bottle washer, and sometimes waits the tables too. Last night, however, it looked like business had picked up a bit from the last time I visited several years ago. He had a little Vietnamese woman waiting tables and a big teenage looking kid helping him in the kitchen. I had what amounts to a ham crepe with cheese sauce and it was just as excellent as everything I’ve ever had there. My date liked her choice too, a chicken and mushroom combination. We split a nice bottle of French wine. She’s a pretty neat woman – a mutual friend has been trying to set us up for a while and we only just got to meet. We closed the place down – great conversation. Doesn’t hurt any that we have a love for public speaking in common. First time I’ve ever gotten to know somebody with that kind of background.

Anyway, if you’ve ever found yourself missing that European cafe experience when you are in Atlanta, you could do a whole lot worse than Le Cafe Crepe. Now I just need to put the &$%@ brakes on my fine dining before I outgrow everything in my closet….

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Lalibela and the ScatMat

Posted on March 13, 2008 | 2 Comments

A few weeks back I met the Inmans over at yeswehavenobananas. We’ve gotten to do a thing or two together since and last night we met up with a few other Uptown-area folks at Lalibela. No, we did not fly to its namesake Ethiopian city of ancient rock hewn churches. We just drove over to Forest Lane and ate as though we had.

If you haven’t tried Ethiopian food before you are missing out. It’s reminiscent of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern cuisine in some ways, but it’s definitely got its own flavor and style. Lots of good spices and some very brightly colored dishes. Just get used to the fact that you don’t eat with utensils. You scoop up your food with lots of spongy flat bread. And don’t think Lalibela will provide some kind of white table cloth version of Ethiopian dining all scrubbed up to the point you can’t tell it from any place else. You won’t. Chances are you will find yourself all alone except for a handful of real live Ethiopians that come there to feel at home.

With all of that as a back drop we had some hilarious dinner conversation. A couple that is friends with Matt & Erin came along with one of their college roommates. They had their fair share of funny stories. Did you know that there was such a thing called a ScatMat which uses very powerful static electric shocks to train pets not to sit on sofas? Do you know what happens when your unwary friends sit on the ScatMat? Can you guess what might happen when you put the ScatMat in your room mate’s bed before he stumbles home drunk? The Ethiopians might have been confused as to why the Americans were laughing so hard, but they didn’t seem to mind too much.

After that we drove over to Wild About Harry’s where I finally got some of Mr. Conley’s very fine custard along with everyone else. I had the coconut with hot fudge on top. Awesome.

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Chateau Wine Market

Posted on February 16, 2008 | Leave a comment

Last night I joined one of my colleagues, his wife and a couple of their friends for some drinks and dinner in the Knox-Henderson area. It’s a nice part of town that I’ve visited on several occasions, including multiple trips to the Apple Store there and one stop at Wild About Harry’s which I posted on here.

We started off at Cretia’s but left for dinner not long after everybody had shown up. It was getting smoky anyway. Are you guys as baffled as I am when you see a beautiful, well-dressed, obviously together woman in her thirties smoking? I can’t help but think “This grown up has a lot going for her, what the hell would she mess that up for?” but I know that’s a little shallow. I digress anyway. I’ll post separately on this enigma.

After Cretia’s we walked across McKinney and down to Taverna, which was a nice spot. I’m a sucker for Italian food of any kind though. My dish was good and the prices were a bargain considering the location and atmosphere. It wasn’t what I would call top-shelf but it was solid – I can easily see going back some time.

But enough warm up. The real experience of the evening was the Chateau Wine Market, which is a fantastic wine shop that has an awesome wine bar called Bodega Bar in the back. If you enjoy wine at all I have one word for you: Go. It’s great. The selection is like nothing I’ve seen before, Amir (the owner) is very pleasant and helpful, and Bodega Bar is a perfect spot for sipping away the evening. I tried a let-me-show-you-who-is-boss Chianti and before I had drained the glass I’d walked back out front and bought the last bottle on the rack.

I would never have found this place without Billy dragging us there after dinner. It’s tucked away on the quite side of some shops near the dead-end of Travis Street. Like I said – go.

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Blame the Pie

Posted on February 9, 2008 | 2 Comments

Speaking of Heaven and Hell, I should tell you about the pie that my daughter and I ate tonight. Wow.

Today we shopped at Whole Foods for the groceries we used to make tonight’s awesome dinner. Rosemary roasted chicken, green beans with sauteed shallots and brown rice. I really enjoy cooking and she loves learning how with my help. It’s one of the things we really enjoy doing together. Wholesome and heart warming yes, but let’s get back to the pie.

While crossing perfectly innocent things off the list we came across an apple pie in the baked goods section that was a must-have for dessert. We don’t get to eat things like this very often. She has a deadly peanut allergy and most store-bought baked goods these days make a blanket statement about the risk about cross-contamination. Eat at your own risk basically. Allergen info was very clearly marked on this pie, however, and there was nothing to be concerned about. We jumped at the chance and took it home. This was the real deal folks. I don’t know how many calories per slice it has and I don’t care. Real shortening used to make the crust and all the other details that make an awesome apple pie.

While necessity may be the mother of invention, serendipity is often the author of bliss. We had a cup of heavy cream left over from the last time she was in Atlanta. It would expire before our next time together. Perfect excuse. After the pie was warmed in the oven I brought out the Kitchen Aid and we whipped the cream into the genuine good stuff. Not Kool Whip, not Ready Whip, not any whip. Whipped cream.

Do you like ice cream on warm apple pie? I do – and let me tell you – that’s nothing compared to what we tasted tonight. One slice of that pie loaded up with a big glop of fresh whipped cream surely exceeds all the glory of heaven. The big problem with that fact is this – having already tasted paradise I’m now left with far less incentive to behave well in this life. So should you ever be disappointed in me know this: I blame the pie.

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Gui

Posted on February 2, 2008 | Leave a comment

One of the reasons that I chose Uptown as my home here in the Dallas area was the vibrant city life. There really is a walking lifestyle here (at least in the cooler months there has been!) and within a few blocks of my apartment building there are literally dozens of bars and restaurants. I’ve resolved to not eat in any one place too often so that I can sample what the area has to offer. It would take years to get really familiar with it all.

Very close to my apartment is a new place called Gui that opened up around the time that I moved in. It is a Korean / Japanese restaurant right on McKinney avenue next to the tiny strip mall housing a Chipotle and a couple of other places. I would point you to their website but I’m not sure that they have one, which would be bizarre if true. A few hundred bucks of professional photography and a little more on some professional web design would make this place very appealing to the average web surfer. The decor is great.

The food was very fresh and of good quality. I’m no Korean food connoisseur but it seemed a cut above the average Asian dish to me. I decided to go with the “Chicken Run”, a Korean style barbecue chicken served with a few small sides including kim chee. I’ll try their sushi some other time. The prices were no bargain. For my entrée, a bottle of Kirin and a 20% tip my bill was about $40. I don’t know what their rent and other costs are there – their remodel job had to be costly – but overall I presume that their operating expenses are high owing to the location.

The staff was very friendly and professional. For their sake and the owners’ I wish them all the best. From what I can find on the web their location has housed several doomed restaurant before them.

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Twelfth Night

Posted on February 2, 2008 | Leave a comment

Although I’m now back in Dallas I was in Atlanta through Thursday. I worked such long hours that I had no time to post anything until this morning. Despite all that hard work I did have a little time for fun in Atlanta, and that experience was worth a post.

Between midtown and downtown Atlanta there is, of all things, an Elizabethan theater. It is the New American Shakespeare Tavern, which most locals call simply “the Shakespeare Tavern.” I went out on a date there this past Thursday with a woman I first met at Rice a couple of weeks ago. This week’s entertainment was her idea, and it was a great pick. I had checked out a couple of other theater and movie alternatives before getting her suggestions, but this one looked most interesting. It was the perfect night for Shakespeare. Even the weather was in character. Thursday night in Atlanta was fifteenth century England with sky scrapers – very cold and very wet with terrible traffic.

The play for the evening was Twelfth Night, one of Shakespeare’s comedies that I had never seen before. I won’t recount the plot here, but suffice to say with a combination of drunkenness, cross-dressing, gender-confused love triangles, puritanical snobbery and mistaken identity all woven into one plot there was plenty of opportunity for some good laughs. The cast delivered. In particular, Matt Nitchie’s performance of Malvolio was very, very funny. His pattern of speech reminded me a bit of Alan Rickman in some of his better villains-that-you-love-to-hate roles.

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Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and the Fool.

As I suppose real Elizabethan Shakespeare comedies at The Globe might have been, there were plenty of other laughs to be had in comedy that was alternately bawdy, smart and physical. Speaking of that, the proprietor of the place has a pretty darned good essay on the subject of “keeping it real” in the performance of Shakespeare here. I wish I could tell you that it’s still showing, but it’s not. Sunday was the last night – for now. Suffice to say that I highly recommend a trip to the Shakespeare Tavern if you enjoy live theater and find yourself in Atlanta. The entertainment is great and the prices are hard to beat. The only qualification I can offer you is that you might want to eat somewhere else if you are finicky about your food. It’s far from terrible but it’s not fine dining.

As for the date, I’ll continue to say little in consideration of her privacy and mine. I will offer that the company was once again very enjoyable and I wish the night out had not seemed so short. With entertainment like this toward the top of her list, she’s got a lot going for her in my book.

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