Category Archives: Food

Kimchee Fries!

Posted on by Bill Chance

On Friday I decided to take the DART train downtown after work. There were all sorts of festivities planned for the Arts District and beyond and I couldn’t think of anything better to waste my time with. I arrived pretty early and had time to walk around watching roadies unload and put together stages, rows of seats, and banks of elaborate lighting effects. There’s nothing better on a late Friday afternoon than hanging around, being useless, and watching other people work.

Looking at all that effort made me hungry after a while so I set out in quest of some gourmet food trucks. One of the festivities going on was to construct a number of mini-parks in parking spaces all over downtown. Between the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Symphony Hall they filled in some spaces with portable turf and set up some dainty chairs and tables – better to chow down on the fare from four trucks set up in the parking lot.

The four trucks were:

Food Trucks

Food Trucks and tables in the Dallas Arts District.

 
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Food Trucks

Four food trucks lined up in a downtown Dallas parking lot.

     

They all looked great, but I was standing closest to Ssahm BBQ so that’s the way I went. I took a quick glance at their menu and ordered a couple of tacos – one chicken, one tofu.

It was great. Really good, spicy food. I sat at the little table in the parking space and ate my tacos.

A nice little meal.

ssahmBBQ Truck

ssahmBBQ Truck

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Tacos

ssahmBBQ Tacos. Really good. I liked the little battery-powered candles on each table. Pretty upscale for a parking lot.

There was only one problem. While I was waiting for my tacos, someone else walked up to the food truck and asked what to get. The guy said, “Well, the Kimchee Fries are pretty much a must, of course.”

Kimchee Fries! Why didn’t I think of that. I looked at the menu.

  • Fresh Hand Cut Potatoes
  • Monterey Jack & Cheddar Cheese
  • Cilantro & Onion
  • Caramelized Kimchee
  • Spicy Mayo

Oh get the hell out! I sat for a minute enjoying the evening, then trooped back to the food truck to place my order of Kimchee fries.

Was it good. You betcha! Now I need to follow that truck around. Or if it’s on the other side of town… make my own.

Kimchee Fries

Kimchee Fries

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Food Trucks
Food Trucks in the Dallas Arts District.

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Cafe Brazil

Posted on by Bill Chance
Deep Ellum Cafe Brazil

Deep Ellum Cafe Brazil

I’ve written recently about vegetarian restaurants in my neighborhood, and about Indian buffets – but today I wanted to mention my favorite restaurant in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, Cafe Brazil.

Despite its name, Cafe Brazil does not offer Brazilian fare. It calls itself a coffee shop – though the food is way too eclectic and too good for that pedestrian moniker – but the coffee is pretty damn good too. Technically, it’s a chain, with eleven locations throughout the Metroplex (they are able to figure out a lot of the cool places: Deep Ellum, Bishop Arts, Cedar Springs, Lower Greenville) but, as far as I know it’s still owned by a local group.

The original Cafe Brazil was in Lakewood (another cool place). Unfortunately that spot is no more. I used to eat there on the way to writing classes at The Writer’s Garret. On a Tuesday, early, right after work, it would usually be deserted and quiet and a great place for a crepe or a sandwich with some strong coffee to keep me going.

I miss that branch. One nice thing about Cafe Brazil is that each location is a bit different and has a nice relationship to the neighborhood it’s in. The Suburban locations are a bit more open and shiny, though they still work on the funky ambiance, while the more urban spots feel cramped and thrown together… perfect. I’ve never been to the Bishop Arts location – have to check that out soon.

I like the Richardson location. It’s in a strange building that must have once been a big Tex-Mex place but is now painted garish primary colors. The walls are covered with local art for sale and there’s a noisy back room that’s a fun place for a group.

My favorite is the Deep Ellum Cafe Brazil. I love to ride my bicycle down there on Saturday Mornings and eat a late breakfast with the cops and the folks that are struggling with repairing the damage from the night before – damage either physical or mental. It’s a big place, a Deep Ellum place, probably once a warehouse or repair shop. Like everything in Deep Ellum the echoes of old blues permeates the brick and dust and adds a bit of spice to the El Gordo Crepes I usually order.

So if you are in the Metroplex go down and try out the nearest Cafe Brazil (or one not so near) – though I’ll bet you already have. The problem is… once you’ve been there it’s hard to think of a reason to go anywhere else… at least that’s what I think.

If you’re somewhere else, don’t despair – I’m sure there is a Cafe Brazil in your city. It will go by a different name but it’s there, with strong coffee, crisp sandwiches, and a menu full of things that don’t seem to go together at first glance but are all the product of passion in the kitchen and skill with the burners.

Ride your bike there, by the way. It makes you even hungrier.

The Deep Ellum Cafe Brazil, with the glass towers of Downtown Dallas rising behind it.

Udipi Cafe

Posted on by Bill Chance
Udipi Cafe

Udipi Cafe

Last weekend I enjoyed trying out the lunch buffets at the bookended Asian vegetarian restaurants in my neighborhood, Suma Veggie Cafe, and the Veggie Garden. I’m compiling a list of family-owned restaurants near my home and the countries and cultures their cuisines represent – it’s a daunting task. I wanted to keep this going this weekend.

A friend suggested, “You might also try the vegetarian Indian restaurant a couple doors down from Party City at 75 and Beltline.” She was referring to the Udipi Cafe, one of several Indian restaurants in the newly remodeled Richardson Heights Shopping Center. Today, at lunch, I decided to give it a try.

Like so many small family-owned spots, it is small and unassuming, but clean and cheerful. The place was full, mostly with families, with a few couples and a couple big tables of young people.

I know very little… nothing really about Indian Food in general. The Udipi Cafe is advertised as “Note that Udipi offers SOUTH Indian cuisine which is different from the commonly found North Indian cuisine.” – which means I know less than nothing. It’s vegetarian South Indian cuisine, which adds another layer of mystery for me.

The buffet was labeled, which didn’t help at all – except I love the look of the words – Poori, Aloo Paratha, Udipi Iddly, Moong Dosai, Uthappam, Aloo Gobi… How can anything with names this cool not be delicious?

At the buffet, I was confused. There were regular plates in a pile, but most folks were eating from these big shiny metal cafeteria style plates with raised areas for different foods. Also, there were all these little metal cups. What do I put in the cup? What is permissible to mix together? What do I keep separate in the areas of the plate? What is OK to soak up with the bread?

I made the mistake of sitting with my back to the buffet. It was nice to watch the big family groups and the young people (I wondered if any of them new Nick or Lee), but in a new place like this, it’s usually a good idea to watch the experts getting their food – learn how it’s done.

All good, though. I just piled it all up and it was all delicious. The Indian spices were more complex than some I’ve had and I really liked it. I especially enjoyed the curried chick peas – Chana Masala (I think), the Jackfruit Curry (I looked at the generous chunk of Jackfruit on my fork, thought about whether caution should be in order, and decided to simply plunge on in), and some sort of a a spicy pineapple something.

They brought a plate of Dosa to my table. These are crepes – mine were probably Masala Dosa – filled with potatoes and onions. Really good but really filling.

It was fun, it was good… I want to go back, but my list of places to go is growing faster than I can cross them off.

Veggie Garden

Posted on by Bill Chance

The other day I went out to eat at the Suma Veggie Cafe near my house.

While I was checking on the web I found a web page for the Veggie Garden – another similar restaurant on Arapaho Road – the same street as the Veggie Cafe. This one is only about a mile to the west. As a matter of fact, for most of the day I thought they were the same restaurant. Luckily, they have pretty much the same hours, menu, and prices, so I was still good to go.

When I first wrote my blog entry, I actually called it Veggie Garden, and it wasn’t until I posted the picture of the place that I realized my mistake. Search and replace is your friend.

Today(Sunday) I had an hour or so before the library opened so I decided to try out the other Vegetarian option.

Veggie Garden is located in another rundown strip on Arapaho road, just west of Highway 75 and the Richardson Library and City Government complex. Araphaho makes an irregular jog to the north at that point and the area is crowded with inexpensive strips that have attracted a number of diverse businesses. The economy has cut through these like a scythe, but there are a few still open. I’ve been to the Salvadorian Pupuseria, but there is a well-known Brazilian restaurant hiding out, along with I Gemelli Italian Ristorante, Olive Lebanese Fusion, Mexican (with the interesting name “Holy Frijoles”), Kasra Persian, and the Peace Pipe Hookah Lounge, with the interesting looking “House of Poets” next door (that is a place I have to check out). In a more ordinary vein, there is an excellent burger place plus the usual bunch of fast-food choices and auto-parts stores. There’s even a car wash called the “Rubber Ducky,” a coin shop, and an inline Hockey Arena.

This is what I found in one drive-through. Obviously, this is an area worth a little more exploration. I think I need to have a plan and write about it. Stick around.

Veggie Garden

Veggie Garden. The parking lot is full of a lot of very aggressive sounding parking signs.

Not surprisingly, it was very similar to the Veggie Cafe. A small buffet offering Vegetarian versions of standard Asian dishes. This one was a little more intent on duplicating the taste of meat dishes – for example some of the dishes were labeled as “chicken” or “beef” though they were made of tofu or other soy.

I like it, the service was friendly and very good (no table piled with papers, no grumpy owner). I guess, to sum up:

Advantages of Veggie Garden

  • Friendly Service
  • More ordinary tasting food
  • Closer to the library
  • Better beverage selection

Advantages of Veggie Cafe

  • Slightly more adventurous food
  • Closer to my house
  • Very slightly better prices
  • Parking is less of a hassle

The same:

  • Decor (not very good)
  • Customers (interesting and diverse)
  • General idea/concept
  • Everything else

Are two choices better than one? Why eat meat again?

Cooking Pasta like Risotto

Posted on by Bill Chance

The other day I came across an expensive pot and a technique for making pasta that I had not heard of. You cook the pasta like risotto – sautéing it in a little olive oil and then adding liquid slowly, which it adsorbs as it cooks. The oil combines with the starch in the cooking water to make a thickened sauce, and the pasta adsorbs the flavors as it cooks. A quick, one pot meal, no hot boiling pasta water to throw away.

Learn here:

I can’t afford an Alain Ducasse pot, but I dug out a medium sized dutch oven.

I didn’t want to risk any expensive ingredients, so I made do with what we had on hand. The other day, Candy and I were waiting for Microcenter to open so we could look at netbooks and to kill time, we moseyed over to a Mexican Grocery store nearby. I bought a little packet of Mexican wagon wheel pasta – they have a whole slew of little shapes, all semolina pasta (high semolina content is important to keep the pasta from getting soggy), for thirty cents a bag. I also bought some Mexican cheese to go with it, and a can of chipotles.

I figured I’d use the technique of cooking pasta like risotto, but with a south-of-the-border twist. When looking at cooking stuff, it’s the techniques that you want to learn, not the recipes.

So I threw a little splash of olive oil into the dutch oven and cooked up some onion and garlic in it. For flavor I chopped in a chipotle pepper and its adobo sauce from the can. Be careful with this, I know from experience a small amount of chipotle adds a big kick. I dumped in the package of pasta and cooked it a bit. Then, in went a can of tomato sauce.

Pasta

I pour a can of tomato sauce over the pasta, garlic, one chipote pepper (only one!) and onions that I have been cooking in olive oil in a medium dutch oven.

I cooked this for twenty minutes, slowly adding water as needed. I ended up adding right at two tomato sauce cans full of water. Stir it constantly, add it slowly, and be careful. If you don’t add enough water, it will burn on the bottom. If you add too much, the pasta will get mushy. This seems hard, but if you pay attention, it’s a piece of cake.

Water

Add the water slowly, not too much, and don't stop stirring. It stuck a bit while I was taking this picture.

Right at the end of the twenty minutes I added some vegetables. One article suggested broccoli, and that would be good, but I have this big ol’ bag of frozen peas, carrots, and beans mixed… so I dumped about a cup and a half in. The article stresses out about how long to cook the broccoli – if I had been using fresh vegetables I would steam them a bit ahead of time and dump them in at the end – no problem. Since these were frozen, all I had to do is let them warm up.

Then, in with the cheese. I had bought the wrong kind of Mexican cheese and it didn’t melt. So I left the chunks in for protein and added some shredded mozzarella. That seems kind of a weird mixture, but it was delicious.

Cheese

In goes the cheese, Unfortunately I bought the wrong kind of Mexican cheese and it didn't melt. No problem, I pulled out some shredded mozzarella and it was all good.

To serve, you plop the dutch oven down on the table on a trivet, and dig in. It’s sort of a one-pot meal, but a salad is nice along side.

Done

Ready to serve. It tasted a lot better than it looks in this picture. The pasta was just right and adsorbs the flavor of the chipotle (only one!), the garlic, and the tomato sauce.

So now I have a new technique for cooking pasta. The only downside is that you have to stand there stirring while it cooks, but it’s only twenty minutes. Pasta sauce is almost as much trouble by itself, and this way there’s no boiling water.

I like it.

What I learned this week – August 5, 2011

Posted on by Bill Chance

I’ve been fighting through some nasty bouts of writer’s block and finding help where I can.

How to Overcome Writer’s Block

By SUSANNAH BRESLIN

From Forbes Magazine

Stuck on what to write?

Try something different.

The only way to beat writer’s block is to write your way through it.

TIP #1: Write anything.

A decade ago, a friend of mine told me I had to stop writing short stories and write a novel. I’ve spent the last 10 years trying to do just that. I’ve had agents, finished drafts I decided I didn’t like, and given up on more than one occasion.

TIP #2: Forget everything else.

A few years ago, based on the first 30 pages of my novel, I was signed by a big Hollywood talent agency. That led to me pitching an HBO drama sort of based on my novel to Mark Wahlberg’s production partner and ended not long after that.

Eventually, I decided to forget agents, publishers, and pretty much every dream I ever had related to the novel other than making it into something I liked.

TIP #3: Never give up.

I finished that draft earlier this year, but then I got stuck in the revisions.

One problem with writing is that it is a solitary act.

Also, writing a novel is a marathon, and I am a sprinter.

TIP #4: Do what scares you.

In order to deal with my rewriter’s block, I decided to revise my novel in public. This requires a daily act of bravery. Every day, I post a revised section of my novel on a blog I set up to do just that. (The blog is here. The novel starts here.)

TIP #5: Write what you know.

My novel is about a federal agent looking for a missing adult film star. (This is what I know.)

As far as overcoming a block, this is what’s working for me.

The battle over our constitutional protections has now reached the point where our god-given right to hang huge plastic bull testicles from our trailer hitches is being threatened.

Truck Nutz Hooters

Truck Nutz Hooters

From Fox News

On July 5, Virginia Tice, 65, from Bonneau, S.C. pulled her pickup truck into a local gas station with red, fake testicles dangling from the trailer hitch. The town’s police chief, Franco Fuda, pulled up and asked her to remove the plastic testicles.

When she refused, he wrote her a $445 ticket saying that she violated South Carolina’s obscene bumper sticker law.

…

David Hudson, a First Amendment attorney and scholar, says laws banning these types of decals, emblems or bumper stickers are problematic, but often someone just hasn’t challenged them.

Hudson believes Tice and her lawyer can make a good case the South Carolina law is “unconstitutionally vague and unconstitutionally broad, and it violates the First Amendment.”

Hudson detailed many cases where law enforcement officials cited individuals for the content of their bumper stickers, and in the majority of those cases, a judge tossed them out because “the First Amendment protects a great deal of offensive expression.”

Hudson also cites the Supreme Court’s opinion that “the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”

Read More

I’m not too happy this case is going to court … it is sure to result in a hung jury.

Here in Dallas, the question has been asked and answered.

I learned that there is a way to cook pasta that looks really good and really easy. Unfortunately, it takes a pot that I can’t afford.

Alain Ducasse - Pasta Pot

Alain Ducasse - Pasta Pot, by Alessi

From the New York Times:

Alain Ducasse and the designer Patrick Jouin have created a pasta pot for Alessi that perfectly shows off Mr. Ducasse’s pasta-cooking method.

First the pot: it is slope-sided stainless steel with a mirror finish. The well-balanced cast aluminum handle stays fairly cool and serves as a nesting place for the melamine spoon that fits it. The flat lid has a steam vent, and the set comes with a melamine trivet for stove-to-table service. A recipe booklet is included. It is $238 at the Alessi store in SoHo at 130 Greene Street (Prince Street) and at the new store that opened two weeks ago at 30 East 60th Street.

Now for the pasta: Mr. Ducasse said he learned this all-in-one technique from traditional olive oil makers in the Ligurian region of Italy. Instead of boiling pasta, making a sauce and combining them, he sautés aromatics, including garlic and onion, in the pot, stirs in the pasta, then slowly adds stock, so the pasta absorbs the liquid and softens. It is an effective method, like making a risotto, that takes about 20 minutes for delicious results. The starch in the pasta, which is not discarded in boiling water, thickens the stock, making a lush sauce. The process is for short macaroni cuts like penne, not spaghetti.

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But there is hope, my friends. I think I can make this recipe in a Dutch Oven. Man, looking at this is making me hungry.

More Pasta Information. From Malcolm Gladwell, the genius, via the TED network (which is chock-a-block with interesting lectures and… stuff, thanks, Carrie).

Malcolm Gladwell on Spaghetti Sauce

To a worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish.

I think I know what’s wrong. We’re all stuck in an Army Ant Death Spiral.

Fish Fry

Posted on by Bill Chance

Last week I cooked up a bunch of Kingfish that Nick brought back from a deep-sea fishing trip off Galveston. I had no idea on how to cook Kingfish, so I cut some into steaks and grilled them and fried the rest up Cajun-Style, dredged in spicy cornmeal. The steaks weren’t great, but the fried stuff was fantastic.

Kingfish

Nick and a Kingfish caught in the Gulf of Mexico

This week is the kids’ softball team’s last game so I fried up another frozen batch of the Kingfish. Since there were so many hungry kids coming by I needed to stretch the fish as far as I could, so I decided to make hush puppies and fritters to go along with the fish, and to make po-boy sandwiches to serve up the fried Kingfish, if anyone wanted one.

Frozen Kingfish

One of the packages of frozen kingfish Nick brought back. This is a big mess of fish.

Skinning the fish

The Kingfish has a tough skin. Cleaning it and cutting it into fry-sized pieces is a job. It takes a couple sharp knives and patience.

Frying

I like to use a cast-iron Dutch Oven on the stove for frying. It takes a while, but gives good control over the frying temperature. The fish is dredged in seasoned cornmeal and fried.

Plate

Last week we ran out of fish so I made a bunch of cornmeal hushpuppies, corn fritters, and served fish po-boy sandwiches.

I cooked up a big mess of fish and a big pile of hush puppies. We had plenty of leftovers… y’all should have come over to eat.

Taqueria – La Marketa Cafe

Posted on by Bill Chance

Lee and I were driving downtown yesterday, later than I had wanted to go, it was Texas nuclear hot, and nobody had eaten. Lee announced that he had to have something to eat before we went to the Nasher. When a college boy says he has to eat, he has to eat.

I threw the criteria in to my head…

-We were headed downtown (not a lot of action downtown on the weekends – shame on Dallas)

-We were in a hurry (no sit down restaurants)

-No chain-type fast food (general rule of mine, whenever given a choice, I choose local, privately owned – have to support the peeps)

I did not have much of an idea until an old, musty memory came bubbling up. I was at the Dallas Farmer’s Market, buying vegetables, and I saw a Taqueria in a run-down stand right in the middle of things. I remember wanting to eat there in the worst way, but we had other plans that day.

Tex-Mex is not my favorite, but I love Taqueria food. Incredibly unhealthy, probably not too sanitary – but fast, spicy, and good. What can be better?

“I think there’s a taco stand in the Farmer’s Market, Lee. It’s not too far from the Nasher, can you handle that?” I said to Lee.

“Go for it,” he said. So I exited on Good-Latimer and threaded my way through the giant glass canyons of downtown to the Farmer’s Market.

The place was hopping. The ragged field that serves as a parking lot was filling up – groups and families were wandering around with bags of vegetables, flats of bedding plants, and carts with Mexican clay pots and sculptures. A street musician was playing wildly inappropriate music (I have never heard Steve Miller’s Swingtown done by a busker before) and they were setting up a stage for a cooking demonstration.

I love the Dallas Farmer’s Market and am glad that it has become so popular (at least on a Saturday morning). I’ve been going there ever since I worked downtown twenty years ago and would walk over for a bag of tomatoes before taking the bus home to Lower Greenville.

It has grown quite a bit since then – the area is now surrounded by condominium urban-hipster type developments and the city has built a new air-conditioned “shed” to accommodate more retailers than the traditional farmers and wholesalers that still line up in the lines of stalls in the old open sheds.

La Marketa Cafe in front of Shed 2 at the Dallas Farmer's Market

La Marketa Cafe in front of Shed 2 at the Dallas Farmer's Market

We walked up and in front of the new “Shed Number 2” was, sure enough, a run-down, rounded, concrete building with a sign that said, “La Marketa Cafe” and a big, hand-lettered menu board.

I asked if it was still early enough for breakfast and it was. The menu was complex, but we quickly settled on tacos and burritos – corn and flour – and the options:

chorizo
potatoes
ham
sausage
bacon
beans&cheese

“Two tacos, one corn, one flour, one sausage, one beans&cheese, one burrito…, bacon and two bottles of water.”

I had to repeat it twice, but I didn’t really care if they got it right. It’s all good. They asked if I wanted “everything?” and I said, of course, “Sure.”

The food wasn’t very fast (there were a lot of people ordering and waiting), but it was very, very good. Large, full of eggs, onions. and peppers and “everything.” The best was the sauce (that’s the most important thing isn’t it?). Two paper ramekins – one with a hearty red, the other a wonderful spicy guacamole (I hate wimpy guacamole).

Lee getting ready to attack a breakfast taco

Lee getting ready to attack a breakfast taco

La Marketa Cafe (I have no idea where the Cafe come from) has now risen to the top of my extensive list of approved taquerias.

Now I want to go back, early, when there is a little cool morning air left wafting around, have some tacos, watch some people. I might even pick out a bag of tomatoes before I go back home.

Eating al fresco in front of the taqueria

Eating al fresco in front of the taqueria - HDR