Dallas Food Blog

Hey, wait a minute...this is a government waste disposal schedule.

Someone posted a comment under our new Veggie Girl segment this week wanting some kind of alert when the column pops up--RSS, we think they called it.

The Burning Question crew, of course, knows nothing about technology...which is probably for the best. If we could figure out our mobile phone camera, crew members would waste workdays in much the same way we used to waste them back when the photocopier worked.

Too smudged to copy--that's what the maintenance guy said.

Because of the reader post (and because we're finally getting a handle on this blogging deal), the thought occurred that we had never actually presented a City of Ate schedule.

So what if our t-shirts pay homage to this guy?

Last evening we ended up at Nick & Sam's Grill for happy hour, largely because we heard a certain prominent DWI lawyer would be there and, well, we need friends in that particular occupation.

Just a precaution, mind you--but a wise one.

As a new place, the junior Nick & Sam's can expect a wave of folks eager to bask in its just opened-ness. But crowds nudging their way into the former Martini Ranch, Stolik, Strong's Everyday Tavern and something else we can't remember (although for some reason we do remember going to what's-its-name with Megan Henderson, late of Fox 4) have been almost unmanageably large.

Spillover from the steakhouse can't account for much of this. The city's famous "fickle 500" probably can--to some extent.

But there's bound to be something else attracting folks to the hard-luck location. Perhaps it's the dressed down, cut-rate venue. Could it be that a city known for pretentious, designer-draped, Mercedes-leasing lounge hoppers has become more casual?
 

Yeah, we've never done this before. Revisiting a topic while the body's still warm and quivering just isn't our kind of thing.

Unless, of course, it involves drinking heavily in the middle of the afternoon.

You see, after we answered this very same question last week, the folks from Macallan called up wanting a second chance. Our young, innocent, non-whiskey drinking editorial assistant Sarah had twitched noticeably after a hearty swig of the esteemed brand's 12 year Scotch and barely suppressed a violent gag reflex.

"Last week was not a happy experience for me," Sarah recalls (through our own Merritt Martin--she no longer speaks directly to any Burning Question crew member). "I wanted to crawl into a fetal position."

Daniel Daugherty

Sarah at the end of last week's Burning Question

So they sent along brand ambassador Jay Liddell with bottles of the Macallan 15 and Macallan 18. And we, once again, delve into the ever-important issue of women and brown spirits.

Candleroom bartender Kevin Stein

A bartender told us years ago that the sexiest thing a woman can do in a bar is to order good scotch and sip it neat.

Hmm...guess we're not the only ones a little past our prime.

We seem to recall hearing this from a staff member at the old Whisky Bar--a rather appropriate setting, but also something we can't seem to confirm no matter how hard we rack whatever remains of our gray matter. Our editor keeps referring to "research"--apparently a well-known concept, for when we Googled to find out just what the hell he was talking about, about 975 million examples popped up.

Oh, well--the question still stands. Most people assume--often with good reason--that women stick with sweeter, fruity concoctions while men evolve (although not in Bible Belt states) from beer to blended whiskey and, finally, the vaunted single malts.

In either case, brown liquor remains an acquired taste. "Most guys don't really get into whiskey until around age 30," admits Kevin Stein, a bartender at Candleroom.

So why do some men eventually lean toward whiskeys and most women cringe at the thought?

Some wag in some diner some years ago posted a clever reminder for guests: "Tipping is not a city in China"--which may have seemed funny, oh, about once.

Nowadays China owns a good chunk of American debt, as well as the power to let us topple into the economic dunking pool...if we weren't doing such a good job of that ourselves. Except for the rare Madoff, rich folk manage to cruise through recessionary times with little trouble. They can afford to beg for more tax cuts, fight any flow of federal funds to us lesser sorts and flip a coin to decide between dinner at Aurora or Al Biernat's.

How bad are things for the rest of us? Well, the Burning Question crew employs a different set of economic indicators than most. For instance, we knew things were really bad when Evan Wolfe, bartender at Vickery Park, told us he had switched to McCormick vodka for home use...when guests drop by--he tucks away a bottle of Monopolowa for himself.

OK, OK--he may have just said that to keep us from crashing a party.

But we would assume bartenders and wait staff experience the effects of a downturn long before the rest of us. So we traversed the city--well, just a few blocks of it, anyway; a question of gas versus another round of drinks was involved--to find out if this was true.

In other words, are people tipping less?

So there we were, embedded amongst noisy inebriates from the monied set hanging out at Hully & Mo--and we mean noisy.

Foreigners will tell you few groups announce their presence as loudly as American tourists...although those who've endured a few moments within shouting distance of Brits on a stag party trip would likely differ on this matter. Still, there's a reason so many consider Yanks both obnoxious and ignorant--and it has nothing to do with an incident some time ago after the Burning Question crew found a cart selling cheap gluhwein at the Christmas market  in Nuremberg.

Where were we? Oh, yes--noisy ignorance. To wit: one of the six-figured folks at Hully & Mo insisted the martini was named for the glass. Therefore, he bellowed to the entire room, "you could have a water martini," because anything served in the V-shaped cocktail vessel counts. Shortly afterwards, a beer drinker in their midst informed the group that he won't drink wheat beers.

Never liked them, refuse to touch them, he added--while sipping on a second Blue Moon.

The structure of booze, otherwise known as ethanol

This is a topic the Burning Question crew takes very seriously.

Over the years we've encountered, with great concern, people who waive off tequila "because it gets me too wasted," or those warning against brown liquors and the "mean drunks" that ensue--and so on. Yet they make these claims while slurping martinis, pounding down rum and Coke...It just doesn't make sense.

Tequila to the rescue

"I hear it all the time, mostly with tequila, gin and bourbon," says Danny Versfelt, bartender at Al Biernat's. The phenomenon even affects him. "To this day I can't drink shots of tequila straight."

Could something in tequila or the other spirits really push you over a line you won't cross drinking vodka?

Actually, this question came to us as your basic "who will win the Super Bowl" sort of thing, presumably hoping for some insight from our crew's most recent has-been athlete. (See photo).

Dave Faries almost gets away with an ill-advised spin move during a Prague Lions practice session last spring.

But we're charged with covering the food scene. And since an incident last week--of which we have no recollection but involved alleged calls made from our editor's phone--left us with plenty of time (being barred from alcoholic excursions until we pay for the goods and, more importantly, "services" delivered to said editor), we decided to replay the entire NFL post season.

Our playoff system, however, pits dish against dish: something representative of each competing city with the winner determined by, well, our own personal tastes. So...

The people from Glenliv...Glenlivesh came thish morning wit' foor bottles of Scotsh--foor bottle!!!! An it wash at work, sho our editor jus hadto shut his fat mouf and watch us drink Scotsh. Foor bottle... four. An tol' him to fugg off...Wilonsky too.

[Editor's note: What they are trying to say is that a brand ambassador from The Glenlivet brought four bottles of their single malts, ranging from an 18 year to the spectacular 25, released just last fall. He came in advance of the 250th annual Burns Night celebration--the subject of this week's Burning Question.

Just what is Burns Night? Well, it's a more romantic excuse to party than the usual 'woo-hoo, it's Friday' or whatever other reasons people drum up: a toast to the life of the poet Robert Burns. You know, the guy who wrote...um...oh--the thing about haggis. And the New Year's Eve song, too.

The other day we were sitting around contemplating happy hour options when our editor stomped in to remind us of the morning editorial meeting--for which we were apparently quite late.

Now, one of this job's few perks is that "reading" magazines counts as research. So we hastily reached for the discard stack while blurting something about investigating a story and grabbed...um, The Atlantic.

How that ended up amongst the Burning Question crew's collection of, well, more purposeful magazines eludes us. But, as luck would have it, we flipped to a piece on the resurrection of classic cocktails. According to the article, such painstaking concoctions as the Old Fashioned have become trendy once again in cities like New York, Philadelphia and Chicago.

But is that really so? Has the classic cocktail returned to Dallas?

Long about, oh, a few hours after midnight on New Year's, the Burning Question crew made a resolution.

We felt strongly about it at the time--so much so that we carefully jotted the details in black ink. Apparently, in 2009, we plan to dedicate ourselves to the overthrow of Bhutan, which we will then rule with an iron fist. Either that, or there's a sachem that we plan to look up somewhere near Eugene, Oregon--there's no way of telling from our drunken scrawl.

After a tumultuous 2008, just about everyone can be pardoned for letting loose...and hoping for a more consistent year ahead--especially those in the restaurant industry. We've noted before that over 60 establishments closed during the past twelve months. And many others fretted over a loss of foot traffic as credit wary diners began looking for cheaper options.

So how do restaurant owners plan to cope? Are they looking forward to 2009?

Scene, 62 Main, The Club, Nove Italiano, Metro Grill, Sushi on McKinney, Martini Park, Brothers..

The roll call of restaurant closings throughout this embattled year makes 2008 sound like a culinary Iwo Jima. We can almost picture John Wayne poised on the black volcanic sands, reading off the names: Bice? Didn't make it. Riccardi's? Not that The Duke survived, either--not that particular film.

"The stench of death," as Nick Badovinus of Neighborhood Services puts it (sounding very much like the Kilgore character in another fictional war), "is never pleasant."

Of course, if you just accept the stench as part of the natural odor of things...sorry. So in a year that left 60 unpleasant carcasses of Dallas restaurants in its wake, it seems appropriate to ask: how do restaurants cope when a neighboring place shuts down?

Sean Avery's not the only one who has a problem with leftovers.

"I hated them as a kid," admits James Neel, chef at Tramontana. "I didn't want the same thing two days in a row."

Wait...are we talking about the same thing? Maybe not. Fortunately, cooks in the city treat sloppy seconds with a little more respect than certain hockey stars. Every day of the year, just about, kitchen staffers save the random ounce of meat trimmed from a steak, the misshapen end of a carrot--that sort of thing--and toss them back into walk-in.

Yeah, yeah. Red state, blue state, Sunni versus Shiite, McCain battling against his "maverick" past--big deal.

These are but minor little spats compared to the one issue that threatens to rend our social fabric, set brother against brother and perhaps even topple our sacred devotion to progress: in these troubled economic times, is it okay to drink from the well?

Earlier this fall, chef Nobu Matsuhisa passed through for a well publicized book signing...and rare visit to his restaurant. Sometime in the next few weeks, Wolfgang Puck's people--not the great man himself--holds a meet and greet session for the real chef at his soon to open Dallas venue. 

At least that's what our web guy tells us. Puck's PR machine sent him the invitation, apparently hoping to keep us away from the festivities. Not that the Burning Question crew would, say, take undue advantage of all that free booze.

Nobu and Wolfgang Puck are, of course, nationally ranked brands, culinary idols in charge of franchises spread across the country. It would be impossible for their ilk to run kitchens in Miami, Vegas and Dallas at the same time. But even the local names gallivant a bit. Kent Rathbun jaunts off for an appearance on Iron Chef America. Pyramid's J. W. Foster joins the line up for Stephan Pyles' celebrity chef dinner--every week some event begs for the services of well known cooks.

So how much time do top chefs really spend in their kitchens?

Set aside for now the question of whether valet parking represents an indulgence leftover from the pre-collapse heyday or a convenience necessary in congested parts of town. There are larger issues at stake.

For instance, there we were at The Mansion on Turtle Creek waiting for the guy to bring our, um, classic bit of Americana around and mulling over plausible excuses. You see, we forgot to pick up some cash before pulling up to the valet stand. And although members of the Burning Question crew spread out to search the restaurant entrance and bar area--mostly the bar area, as it turns out--for an ATM after dinner, we still ended up with only our plastic and a lame apology.

As it turns out, we're not the only ones who rely on those handy debit cards for day to day transactions.

Lobsters are easy.

We mean that in a culinary sense. Bind up the pincers, drop them in water and commence to melting some butter. Likewise steak: a dash of salt, another of pepper and a crackling grill—that’s all there is to it, pretty much. In fact, when you think about it, some of our most account draining meals require about as much effort as Waffle House hash browns, maybe even less.

Yep, chefs love surf and turf. But which ingredients do they really, really hate to work with?

Yeah, yeah—we heard the rumors. The Burning Question crew played one too many pranks involving Nair on our editor and found ourselves on a one-way flight to Central Europe and involuntary exile.

But while we can neither confirm nor deny our, shall we say occasional, digs at management, stories suggesting we hightailed it out of town to avoid editorial wrath simply aren’t true. First of all, several members of the Burning Question crew remained in the city. Of course, we favor a democratic “every man for himself” ethic over the Marine Corps’ “dive on a grenade” philosophy. Besides, some of our editor’s hair grew back.

In patches, mind you, but its there.