Every year Dallas’ premier restaurants take part in Dining Out In Dallas, an annual fundraiser benefiting The Texas Neurofibromatosis Foundation. DFW chefs each donate a table for 10 to be bid on & the proceeds go to this excellent cause. This year, we had the pleasure of getting a table at Local with family & good friends. In one word, it was delightful. In a lot more words, here’s the rundown of the full menu & how it went down…
Warmed nuts were a salty prelude to the meal & a gentle reminder to never underestimate the goodness of a homemade snack mix. Fried green beans were the first starter & paired nicely with a Chardonnay Terrazas Reserva ‘07 from Spain. The green beans were dipped in a flavorful batter & served with a ranch sauce for dipping. Delicious & unexpected—they’re as salty & addictive as their potato counterparts.
Amuse-Bouche: A cream soup (broccoli?) with crispy fried leeks. Comforting & nice, even though I can’t remember exactly what flavor the soup was. Cream of…cream.
Short Order First Course: Eden Creek baby arugula salad, with brown sugar sauteed asian pears, crumbled Pure Luck dairy blue cheese, toasted pistachios, and a honey-balsamic vinaigrette.
Wine: Riesling Thomas Schmitt ‘04 – Germany
From the description, you can tell this salad was very sweet. It might have been too much so, but the bites of blue cheese & salted pistachios—as well as the wine—added balance. The pears were perfection & everyone at our table was impressed with the honey vinaigrette.
Short Order Second Course: Seared Hudson Valley foie gras, house-made Texas toast, fresh fig and madeira compote
Wine: Rioja Luis Canas Crianza ‘04 – Spain
The surprise of the night. I’ve had foie gras once, possibly twice before this point. I couldn’t remember the difference between pate & foie gras because the two had sort of combined in my mind in the “not great, but you can bear it” category. This foie gras came like a ray of light—a major epiphany. I loved it. With the figs, it was perfectly perched between sweet and salty…incredibly soft and tender…rich and luxurious in texture. Liver? Really? Yeah, you heard me. It’s awesome.
Tall Order: Grilled grass-fed beef tenderloin filet, creamy Anson Mills grits, flash-fried spinach, roasted garlic-butter balsamic finish
Wine: Bordeaux Chateau Mouton Jean Philippe ‘03 – France
Everything in this dish was excellent. My filet was served rare; Brian’s was more medium-rare, so there was a little variance in the cooking. No matter because both filets were supernaturally tender. The grits were creamy & the spinach was a perfect compliment. This dish was the highlight of Local’s skill in the arena of New American cuisine.
Baby Desert Tasting: Warm mini chocolate souffle, brownie cookies, Ovaltine-spiked chocolate malt, spiced cake donut holes
Wine: Moscato d’asti Marenco Scrapona
Whimsical and delicious, it’s one of the best mini-dessert plates I’ve ever had. Usually there’s at least one dessert that falls short, but that wasn’t the case here. The chocolate souffle was rich, indulgent, and actually just the right size. The shake was lovely, the brownie cookies were far beyond what I was expecting, and the donut holes were a playful take on an American classic. I loved the sparkling moscato. So sweet & refreshing, it could stand on its own if served as dessert.
At the end of our meal, just when we thought it was over, a final parting bite arrived at the table: homemade thumbprint cookies with a cranberry-chutney center. One little bite…tart & sweet…it was like a farewell wave & a reminder to come back again for more.
2936 Elm Street | Dallas, TX 75074
214.752.7500
Camden Market is a popular tourist area in London. It’s made up of hundreds of stalls that sell lots of art, kitsch, street fashion, and semi-knockoff handbags. Imagine Canal Street in NYC plus some of the Deep Ellum Arts Festival and State Fair. Take that and then multiply. Not twice, not three times – more. Camden is huge. The part I liked most was the food stalls. Rows and rows of inticing options that all looked really good. This was the donut cart. (It looked tempting, but I resisted.)
Umm… what’s a popover? I thought I knew, but after making these and doing some in-depth research, I realized I’m not so sure anymore. Originally, I thought popovers were fluffy, brioche-ish bread rolls. However, this recipe yielded some very delicious bread-looking things that were more like hollow, fluffy quiche than anything else. Whaaat? Well apparently, this isn’t far off from what popovers are supposed to be (see link above), but I’m still not sure if this recipe can be rated as a great or not. They were incredibly tasty with lots of parmesan cheese, fresh herbs, and herbs de Provence (one of my favorite seasonings). They had a nice texture, albeit a pretty eggy one. If that’s the way popovers are supposed to be, then good job on this recipe, Giada! If not, should we just call these something else next time we make them?
What I would really love is for some popover-loving connoisseur to shed some light on the situation. Do these appear to be good popovers? Is there a recipe you can recommend to really show me what a perfect popover is like? If you got anything on this, let me know!
I’d like to end on this note: this recipe is prepared in a blender, which is awesome for mixing, filling up the muffin tins, and clean up. That is definitely working in its favor–popover or not.
Parmesan Popovers from Giada de Laurentiis
3 eggs
3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp. herbs de Provence
4 tbs. chopped parsley leaves
1 c.s whole milk
3/4 c. grated Parmesan (about 5 ounces)
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
In a blender, combine eggs, flour, salt, pepper, and herbs, milk, and cheese. Blend on medium speed.
Spray a mini-muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray. Pour the batter into the muffin cups, filling each cup 3/4 full. Bake until puffed and golden brown, about 20 to 25 minutes.
Remove popovers from muffin tin and cool on a wire rack. Save in a storage container to take to the picnic.*
*Editor’s Note: Picnic???
Sugar ruuuuush. Rise and shine! Nothing like starting the morning with a tasty bit of frosted cake! I don’t do donuts for breakfast very often, but I love the complete affront to nutrition that they symbolize. It’s a breakfast for rebels. It says: “I’m not concerned about sissy things like calories or insulin. I eat what I want for breakfast because I’m an adult and I can. Take that, Mom!”
So if you’re going to basically eat cake for breakfast, you want to make sure it’s really tasty. Yummy Donuts is a luxe version of your local donuts shop with specialty offerings like the Candy Bar Donut and the Birthday Cake. The majority seem to be a version of a super soft cake donut finished with a whipped frosting and toppings. Their frosting is the standout. In fact, I really feel like if the breakfast market doesn’t work out for them, they should start a cupcake shop because this icing puts Sprinkle’s to shame. My favorite of the day was the Strawberry Hug: a blueberry cake donut with strawberry frosting and sprinkles. (As you can see in the picture above I was really excited about it and forgot to wait for the photographer to do his thing. Oh well.) But really, what kind of person couldn’t love a strawberry hug?
We also had to try the large cinnamon roll (in the name of being through food writers, of course). It’s a brioche type roll, very sweet and not incredibly remarkable. Wasn’t bad though; I’d eat it again.
Yummy Donuts seems to be really busy; by 10:00 a LOT of the varieties were sold out. (Damn early risers.) We’ll have to go back early because there were definitely some out-of-stock flavors I would have tried. They also carry some pretty good savory breakfast sandwiches, etc. that look a LOT better than the little kolaches that are standard fare. So there is an option for those of you who don’t like cake before noon.
4355 Lovers Ln. | Dallas, TX 75225
214.520.7680
So I have been uncovering some damn fine french toast lately. You can say I’m a connoisseur. It used to be the only thing I would order for breakfast as a kid, which has turned into an obsession to find the best there is, wherever I am. It’s hard to order though because I’m rarely up early enough to get a breakfast menu. So my french toast endeavors are limited to the all-day-breakfast type places, or come few and far between.
These past two occasions have been at both: at an all-day breakfast place and a trip early enough for breakfast food. Both occasions were wonderful; the first resulting in the best french toast of my life, the second being the most unique french toast to date. You’ll have to wait for the former, but welcome to the latter.
Hattie’s serves a brunch menu on Sundays and if you read the little dish, you are already aware of this. We previously reviewed their take on Chicken and Waffles, and were delighted. Sadly I was not in attendance on that last visit, so this was my first experience with the Hattie’s brunch. I was surprised at the moderate pricing and was expecting a possible drop in quality, but by the look of everyone’s food as it arrived at our table, I knew there was nothing to worry about. There were five in our party and everyone was extremely pleased with their meals. I (of course) ordered the french toast with bananas foster sauce, which turned out to be the best $6.95 I have ever spent on breakfast. I continually go back to our review of the $10 Dream Cafe pancakes and am baffled at how they get away at charging such a price in a mediocre cafe type setting. Hattie’s is brunch at a white linen restaurant where I can get these far superior, delightful french toast slices with bananas, strawberries and a delicious sauce for $7. Who are Dream Cafe kidding? Ridiculous.
The only fault I found with the french toast was that it was extremely rich. The bananas foster sauce, while a welcome rendition of the usual unadventurous staple french toast recipe, became a bit too much about half way through. I would recommend sharing this with someone else and ordering a more traditional omelet or sandwich to balance out the sugar/carmel overload. But that’s it. There’s nothing else to gripe about here. Hattie’s is a fine place for a Sunday brunch with great service, a welcoming atmosphere, moderate pricing, and most importantly, quality food that tastes superb. Go get it!
Price: $6.95
418 Bishop Avenue | Dallas, Texas 75208
214.942.7400
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So, this isn’t a dish or recipe review, but we recently had a food adventure so lovely it would be a shame not to share it…
I love Unwrapped. Watching one (or two) episodes before bedtime has become nearly a ritual. There are some wonderful subtleties of the show that are quite amusing, but the very best part for me is the factory footage. I hate the episodes when they feature a candy collector or some burger festival in Ohio. Those segments are usually tangental and unnecessary. What I want to see is conveyor belts of food, 30 foot long ovens, and gallon-sized batches of boiling high fructose corn syrup. Sublime. Following this love of the food factories, I decided that we really needed to visit one. Luckily, history is on my side. In 1908, Mrs. Baird’s Bread was founded in Ft. Worth by Ninnie Baird.
Their Ft. Worth factory (now one of several) offers complimentary tours on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. It’s open to the public (not just organizations and schools as I might have guessed). You just have to plan ahead (two-week notice required) and fill out a little paperwork.
The greatness that’s inside is totally worth the effort. The little video they show in the beginning of the tour is (obviously) juvenile, but I know twenty-somethings aren’t really the bread tour’s target market. After the video, you receive your hard hat with built-in headset and enter the factory. You really get to see everything and get a close view of dough being kneaded in large troughs, rolling through a gigantic oven, cooling on rolling racks, and being sliced. The day we visited they were baking whole wheat bread and hamburger buns for Wendy’s. (This development was a big surprise—the factory makes baked goods for lots of other companies too. Chili’s, Oroweat, and even some store brands were among the companies our guide listed.)
The tour concluded with some good old fashioned carbo-loading and we got to eat the just baked bread and hamburger buns. Great experience and I think it’d be especially fun for kids. It’s like Unwrapped, but for real!
These are all the great things we got in our gift bag. Everyone loves stickers!
Mrs. Baird’s Bread
7301 South Freeway | Ft. Worth, TX 76134
