Tag Archives: food

Oddfellows Chicken and Waffles

Posted on by Bill Chance

On the extremely rare occasions that I watch certain films or especially certain television programs featuring fashionably cool people (Sex and The City come to mind immediately) I am always gobsmacked by the amount of time these people spend leisurely sitting around cute round tables at outdoor sidewalk cafes, sipping mimosas and chatting away. It appears these people are able to enjoy several hours every afternoon with their dearest chums completely relaxed and rested, exercising their witty bones: a little tète-à-tète, a little repartee, topped off with a dollop of vicious gossip and a viscous ice cream sundae.

Do real people actually live like that? Of course not. Life is not leisure and conversation. Lunch is a short brutal orgy of quick gobbling, if it exists at all. Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so (Douglas Adams). In Texas at least, the weather is only conducive to al fresco dining a handful of days each year.

Still, you do drive by these places and see people sitting outside… sometimes. There they are, take a quick glimpse before you plow into the car in front of you and are late for whatever unpleasant task awaits at the end of the drive. They seem happy enough. Who are these people?

I’ll never know.

At any rate, the other day while we were visiting that pleasant oasis of interestingness in the desert sea of the big evil city, The Bishop Arts District, we realized that the weather, while a tad coolish in the shade and a bit sweltry in the sun, was bearable and we had an opportunity to dine out in the open. After considering a number of opportunities (most establishments had at least a couple tables out on the sidewalk) we had an appetizer tray in a couple of very well-worn comfortable Adirondack Rocking Chairs in front of Eno’s Pizza and Tavern and, as the sun set, headed on down to a place called Oddfellows for dinner.

Oddfellows seems to be gathering a following and I can see why. It is an open plan, with both sidewalk tables and an innovative and attractive set of open bench spots along the windows. It must be a popular hang out in addition to a place to eat as a number of folks had their laptops out and seemed to be settled in for the duration.

The bar dining spot at Oddfellows - a wooden bench, metal pipe for a backrest, and a log for a footrest. Our waitress has my wheat beer and Candy's wine.

The restaurant was attractive and had a good attention to details. While I was waiting in a corridor for the men’s room, I saw they had their larder on display (This may have been a fake shelf meant to impress… it doesn’t really matter) with such things as a dozen boxes of Cafe du Monde Beignet mix, gallon jugs of Frank’s Red Hot Wing Sauce, and large boxes of Bisquick, all comestible ingredients of necessity and quality. When they serve tumblers of water, they leave behind a glass bottle (like an antique quart milk bottle) of the cool stuff.

Candy ordered the Macaroni and Cheese with Buffalo Chicken. It was very, very good (I ate the leftovers later) – the Mac N Cheese was flavored with Blu Cheese which was great and the chicken was really spicy (Now I know where all that Franks’s Wing Sauce goes).

Looking over the menu, I was quickly drawn to the Chicken and Waffles. Who wants to live forever?

Chicken and waffles, a bottle of water and a wheat beer. This is truly the best of all possible worlds.

The waitress said that was her two favorite things. I’ll bet she always says that.

Now, recently, I have traditional Chicken and Waffles at a soul food drive in, and a modern take at a local food truck. Now was the opportunity to try some at a real restaurant.

The chicken was spicy and crispy, the waffles were nice and fluffy. What more do you want?

They come with butter, syrup and white southern gravy. I ate every scrap. My only complaint was that I was too full and stuffed and sleepy on the way home.

I’ll get over it.

3 Men and a Taco!

Posted on by Bill Chance

Again, today, I consulted my twitter feed to see where the various gourmet food trucks were distributed around the city. A truck I had never tried before, 3 Men and a Taco, was set up on Davis Street in Oak Cliff. I have wanted to visit the Bishop Arts District, only a few blocks down from there, so I decided to make the drive clear across town.

Cutting across north of downtown I drove through the tunnel that the Woodall Rodgers Freeway has become. They have decked over the road for the new five acre park that is going in overhead. I was working downtown when the freeway was dug – it seemed like an enormous undertaking at the time – I can’t believe that they are now building a wooded park over the top of it. It will be very cool when it is finished – a nice addition of some nature to the edge of the Arts District.

I cut across to Oak Cliff and drove down to Davis Street. This brought back a lot of memories for me. When I first moved to Dallas in 1981 I lived with some friends that were remodeling a house in Kessler Park for a while. I remember riding the bus on those streets to my new job in the skyscrapers of downtown. For a kid that had been in Kansas for years this was really exciting and every day I would look out of my bus windows with excitement, wonder, and anticipation at the amazing future that was sure to come to pass. Well, I was young and didn’t know any better.

The street the house was on, Edgefield, is as beautiful as ever. It looks unchanged in thirty years, except the trees have grown almost together overhead and they were orange with fall colors – georgeous. The house itself was a bit of a shock. It still looked the same in the front, the classic Kessler Park Tudor Revival brick – but the entire back yard was filled with a massive two story addition – making the humble cottage into a gigantic mansion.

The truck was set up at Davis and Edgefield, in front of Urban Acres. I was a little late, so many of the choices were crossed off their menu board, but I chose a Coconut Mango Chicken (with Thai Pepper Slaw) and Sweet Potato Portobella (roasted and topped with an orange balsamic reduction). They don’t call these food trucks “gourmet” for nuthin’ – these were not your mama’s tacos.

As usual… it was very good.

3 Mean and a Taco - Gourmet Food Truck

The board with today's selections, next to the "Tip Monster"

The key to a Food Truck's success is to communicate with their customers. The Twitter feed and Facebook Pages have to be kept up, minute to minute.

Coconut Mango Chicken

Sweet Potato Portobella (this was really, really good)

Bánh mì at Walgreens

Posted on by Bill Chance

Nammi Food Truck at Walgreens

I had a day off of work and was being lazy when I began to feel a mite peckish. I checked my twitter feed and discovered that the Nammi Food Truck was setting up in a Walgreens parking lot on Beltline in Addison – not too far from my humble home. Some Bánh mì would hit the spot, so off I went.

One of the tough nuts to crack as gourmet food trucks become more and more common is where do they find a place to park. Restaurant owners tend to be powerful political players and always work to restrict their competition – especially mobile cavalry type competition that can swoop in on a moment’s notice and gobble up valuable customers.

Now I realize how difficult it can be to run a restaurant and sympathize with their plight. But I also don’t think that competition is always a bad thing. The more options people have the more they will eat out and the more business will be driven to restaurants in general. I’m in the minority on this, of course.

So the food trucks have to fight restrictive ordinances to find a place to set up. It is rare to find them out in the suburbs, so I was glad to find one at a Walgreens.

Addison is lousy with restaurants and all the parking lots were full with folks out for lunch from work. There were only a couple spaces left in the Walgreens lot. A steady flow of customers, about two or three deep were ordering at the little window at the bright blue truck. Everyone would order, then stand around typing on their smart phones while their sandwiches were put together. I waited my turn, ordered a grilled pork Bánh mì and pulled a cold Diet Dr. Pepper from a mound of ice in the front of the truck.

“Hey, I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to sell you a Dr. Pepper here,” the guy in the truck said. “It’s a deal we have with the location.”

“Oh,” I said, “I guess they want me to come inside the drug store and buy my drink there.”

The guy nodded. I guess that’s fair. They give up a bit of their parking lot in exchange for customers that come inside for drinks and maybe some ibuprofen while they are at it. I almost went inside, but didn’t want the hassle.

I had writing to do, my first strong idea for a story that I had had in weeks, so I carted my sandwich off to the library, and filled my water bottle from the drinking fountain.

It was very good, by the way.

 

What I learned this week, November 11, 2011

Posted on by Bill Chance

Looking around the shelves at a used book store I came across a copy of 500 Essential Cult Books. I’m casting around for something to read right at this moment.

I didn’t buy the book, but I did sit down with it, some index cards, and a Parker 21 that I carry, and sat down at a table to go through most of the 500.

My first impression is that I was shocked at how many of the books I had already read… somewhere around half. The books were divided into categories and some I had read almost all of the selection.

At any rate, I filled a couple cards with books that I had not read and that looked interesting. Some I already have in my library or Kindle, most I do not. Here’s the list, in no particular order:

  • Generation X – Douglas Coupland
  • Nausea – Jean Paul Sartre
  • Been Down so Long it Looks Like Up to Me – Richard Farina
  • Cathedral – Raymond Chandler
  • A Feast of Snakes – Harry Crews
  • Perfume – Patrick Suskind
  • The Sheltering Sky – Paul Bowles
  • VOX – Nicholson Baker
  • The Wasp Factory – Ian Banks
  • We Need to Talk About Kevin – Lionel Shriver
  • Almost Transparent Blue – Ryu Murakami
  • Bad Behavior – Mary Gaitskill
  • Cocaine Nights – J. G. Ballard
  • The Ginger Man – J. P. Donleavy
  • Atomised – Hichael Houellebecq
  • Young Adam – Alexander Trocchi
  • Wonderland Avenue – Danny Sugarman
  • A Hero of Our Time – Mikhail Lemontov
  • How Late it Was, How Late – James Kelman
  • Of Love and Hunger – Julian Maclaren-Ross
  • D. B. C. Pierre – Vernon God Little
  • Nelson Algren – A Walk on the Wild Side

I’ve been reading a lot about the “Bubble in Higher Education.” One of the interesting articles in that vein is called, Where Have All the Chemists Gone?   It links to a New York Times article – Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It’s Just So Darn Hard)

You can read both of these articles and decide what you think about it on your own, but it does bring back an experience of my own, one I’ve talked about ad nauseum – but still…. I think I’ll write it down here. This is something that happened almost forty years ago… so maybe the trends identified in the articles aren’t so new after all.

I remember my first freshman chemistry class at the generic big Midwestern public university. It was held in a large old gothic auditorium (since burned down) where they played the basketball games back in the twenties and thirties. The professor walked out on the first day and said, “This is Chemistry 301, Introduction to Chemistry for Chemistry Majors. You should only take this class if you are going to get a major in Chemistry. There are three hundred and fifty students in this class. We graduate about forty chemists a semester. You need to do the math. If you don’t think you can make it through this class, drop as soon as you can to minimize the damage to your academic career.”

I was stunned when about a dozen kids walked out at that point. How low must their self-esteem be to give up at that point (or maybe they realized they were in the wrong classroom). The first exam took over half the class. The mid-term dropped half of those that were still left. At the end of the semester the class was well under a hundred. The really bad thing was that, three years later, Physical Chemistry took a third of those that had made it that far (I still believe that P-Chem is one of the absolute evils in the world – I know if any other chemists are reading this – I just gave you a nightmare).

A few years ago I was at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Arlington (I remember there were three Nobel Prize Winners at the dinner) and the the topic was improving chemistry education. I was talking to a professor afterward about how to increase the enrolment of chemists and he said, “Actually, in my experience, most of the student that can be chemists, are chemists… what we need is to increase the understanding of some of the basic tenets in the non-chemist population.” This was a guy that should know what he was talking about.

Oh, and the article talks about how grades are lower in STEM classes than in, say, business or liberal arts. No shit. My goal in chemistry was to graduate, that was it (I consider my bare C- in P-Chem I and II to be one of the greatest accomplishments in my life. I managed to pass two semesters in a subject where I had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on at all). In the decades since, I don’t think I have ever had anyone ask me my GPA. I have hired a few chemists in my day and if I ever had a job applicant with a 4.0 and a major in chemistry (In reality I never have seen or heard of such a thing) I would not hire them. To get a 4.0 in a chemistry curriculum you would either have to be too smart to be in the same world as I am, or some sort of mutant that could not relate to ordinary human beings in any meaningful way.

Another list of “Must Eat At” places in New Orleans.

New Orleans – A Foodie’s Paradise

  • Gumbo at the Gumbo Shop
  • Crawfish Etouffee at Chartres House Café
  • Jambalaya at Coop’s Place
  • Red Beans and Rice at Joey K.’s
  • Muffulettas at Central Grocery Co.
  • Beignets at Café Du Monde
  • Bananas Foster at Brennan’s
  • King Cakes at Sucre
  • Po’ Boys at Parkway Bakery & Tavern

I’ve been to six of the nine… though some were a long time ago. I wrote about Joey K’s the other day. Last year I set out to find the best Shrimp Po-Boy in New Orleans, and Parkway was the best, IMHO.

How to make pancakes from scratch

Wallet Pancakes

Why imitation syrup is better than the real thing

How to make the best diner pancakes in america

a new word for our time
ineptocracy

Man, I would love to snag a 2011 Rangers World Championship Cap. I wonder what impoverished tropical hell hole I’d have to go to so I could buy one of some poor dude’s head.

Where does World Series Runners-Up Gear Go?

A few more Scopitones. Starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

I used to Love the Tijuana Brass, back in the day. This song and Scopitone is not why.

Great Hair… terrible rock and roll.

There have been some very good versions of Telstar over the years. This is not one of them. Plus odd and wildly inappropriate footage.

Petula Clark… one of the greats. There was “Downtown”, “I Know a Place”, “My Love”, “Colour My World”, “A Sign of the Times”,  and “Don’t Sleep in the Subway.”

Oh…. and this:

And, last but least… The absolute worst:

Joey K’s

Posted on by Bill Chance

One of the challenges of visiting your children once they are off to school is that you have to adapt to their schedule – which is chaotic, involved, and long. It means that you never get anything done on time.

Tulane’s homecoming weekend is also parent’s weekend and there are a lot of activities and entertainments planned to occupy parents while their spawn are busy studying or whatnot. I looked these over and marked the ones that looked interesting. We didn’t do any of them.

There was a trip planned for all the parents to go to Joey K’s – a fairly well-known traditional New Orleans eatery on Magazine Street. I thought it would be fun to sit down and commiserate with some adults in the same condition as we are, but it was not to be.

Much, much later, however, Candy and I found ourselves seeking sustenance and casting about for ideas. She wanted Rice and Beans, so we decided on Joey K’s. We took the Saint Charles Streetcar down to about sixth street and walked to Magazine, passing the little cluster of shotgun houses that I like on the way. Walking in this part of New Orleans is always a treat, even in the dark.

We didn’t have to wait for a table and the food was delicious. Hearty, traditional, New Orleans style home cooking. Candy had her red beans and rice and I went with a bowl of Gumbo and the Creole Jambalaya. I have had a soft spot for Jambalaya ever since I worked a train derailment in Livingston, about twenty years ago. A large group of us were out there working for a long time and they hired a local man, Jambalaya Joe to do the cooking.

But the gumbo was the star. Gumbo isn’t really a single dish – everybody does it different.

Joey K’s does it just right.

The late night crowd gathers outside Joey K's on Magazine Street in New Orleans.

Order Here

Posted on by Bill Chance

The order window at the SSahmBBQ food truck. Get you some Kimchee Fries!

Carrie, thanks for the TED talk suggestion.

Big Mama’s Chicken and Waffles

Posted on by Bill Chance

It wasn’t very long ago that I had some gourmet Chicken and Waffles from the City Street Grille Food Truck. I ate it and it was good.

But it left me with a powerful hankering. I wanted some real chicken and waffles. I wanted some of Big Mama’s Chicken and Waffles.

I had been driving by the spot – a long abandoned drive through burger joint on a shady corner of the diciest intersection in my section of the city – but I had never actually stopped by. Now it was about time.

Big Mama's Chicken and Waffles

Big Mama's Chicken and Waffles. Does anybody know what this building used to be? It was a drive-through burger joint in the ancient past - but I don't know which one. I'd love to know.

I had to drive past the place and do a U-turn at an apartment complex to get into the drive-through. As I went through the intersection, the smell hit me. The wonderful smell of fryers and soul food. It floated through the neighborhood like a greasy cloud of deliciousness. The miasma of saturated fat was enough to give you coronary artery disease before you ever pulled up to the barred ordering window… but who wants to live forever?

I leaned out my window and looked the menu over.  They don’t have an intercom so I drove to the window to speak directly to a live human being and ordered a “three piece regular, with waffle.”

There are several things that separate a place like Big Mama’s from the vast conspiracy of corporate franchise clone grease-heaving locations.

  •  The prices on the board include tax. It said five-fifty, it cost five-fifty.
  • Your order comes in a plain brown paper sack. This adds a subtle flavor, in addition to the visual appeal of grease soaking through brown paper.
  • Heavy black iron bars welded on the drive-through and walk-up windows.
  • A confused history of decorations. The crumbling tower overhead boasted two old clocks, hands long gone missing. A big banner proclaimed, “Under New Management – Same Great Taste.”
  • Cash only.
  • Friendly, human service by people that give a damn.
  • They even serve Kool-Aid.

I paid my cash and collected my brown paper bag. There were two little metal tables on site, perched over a muddy drop down to a stagnant creek hidden back in a thick stand of trees, but I had some errands to run so off I went, eventually gulping my meal down in another parking lot.

Brown paper bag

You know something is good when it is delivered in a plain brown wrapper.

There is something terribly primitive about eating fried chicken in a car.

The food was great. The chicken spicy, but not too much. The waffle was big, soft, and waffle-y. They drop little tubs of Country Crock and Chef’s Quality Breakfast Syrup into the bag. There’s no way to keep from getting a little sweet syrup on the chicken… and that’s a good thing. If you don’t know any better, you might be a bit confused by the combination of Chicken and Waffles. Get over it. Waffles and Fried Chicken go together like grits and greens.

Big Mamas Chicken and Waffles

Big Mamas Chicken and Waffles. Three pieces chicken with waffle.

Everybody knows that.

Tacos!

Posted on by Bill Chance

I had been eating all day, but I had also been walking a lot, so I was developing an appetite. Not too hungry, but I wanted something… and there are still food trucks I haven’t tried.

The Yum Yum Food Truck spends most of its time in Fort Worth, so I wanted to be sure to try it while it was handy. I took a look at the menu… Tacos… perfect!

Yum Yum Food Truck in the Dallas Arts District.

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Notice all the sauces in little plastic cups. It makes me hungry thinking about it.

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The menu. Simple, but a lot of choices. I didn’t try the hamburgers, but I’ll bet they are good. Look at the sauces… Habanero, Chipotle, Red Chile, Green Chile…

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Chipotle Brisket with cheese and Green Chile/Tomatillo Salsa. It was delicious – as good a taco as you are going to get. The meat was tender spicy and juicy.

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Bánh mì!

Posted on by Bill Chance

Oh, and it was food truck heaven in the Dallas Arts District! I was hungry and the trucks were arranged all up and down Flora Street. So much food and so little time.

Mae West said, “When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ve never tried before.” That always seemed to be good advice to me. So in choosing between six food trucks, I decided to eat one I’ve never tried before (by the end of the day, I had tried three).

The Nammi Food Truck down in the Dallas Arts District

I picked out The Nammi Food Truck. I wanted some Vietnamese food! I wanted some Banh Mi.

No Fried Egg Today

A BBQ pork sandwich and a drink was the ticket.

Waiting for her order.

There were plenty of customers hanging around, but the food came quick.

They had some sauces in squeeze bottles down in the ice in the front compartment – spicy mayo, cucumber (I think), and Sriracha. I filled ramekins with cucumber and rooster sauce.

Banh Mi from the Nammi Food Truck. Giant sandwich with rooster sauce and ... some other sauce.

The sandwich was huge and stuffed with stuff. One woman at another table was gesturing at her sandwich and yelling, “It’s bigger than my arm!” My only complaint was that I didn’t open the paper carefully enough and too much stuff fell out. It was really good. I want to go get another.

A couple sat next to me eating their Banh Mi. The sandwiches are on the messy side. Some of the good stuff spills out and falls on the ground.

Luckily the cleaning crew is right there to hop on things right away and fly away with the leftovers.

Trailercakes!

Posted on by Bill Chance

It was a long beautiful afternoon down in the Dallas Arts District. It was the first Saturday in the Art in October thingy and I had been hanging around for a while, visiting the museums, taking some photographs (I have my Nikon back from the shop and it seems to be working better than ever) and scarfing down some food truck food. I was sitting right off the sidewalk finishing off a pair of chipotle bar-b-que tacos when a couple women with children dressed in white t-shirts that said, “Trailercakes,” on them came by passing out menus.

“We’re down another block,” they said, “come on down and try our cupcakes.” Their menu looked impressive – I’ve never been a huge cupcake fan – but my idea of a cupcake was a stale cylinder of dry cake slathered with some oversweet food-colored goop passed to you at some underfunded church luncheon. These Trailercakes looked like treats of an entirely different sort.

I had seen the silvery glint of an Airstream trailer down in front of the Meyerson Symphony Center. At first I thought of getting some dessert for myself, then decided to hoof by there on the way home and get something for Candy.

So once I was ready to head homeward I walked over to the Meyerson. The main thrust of the festivities and the rest of the food trucks were all down Flora Street towards the Nasher. I hope some folks were able to wander down to the other end – it’s a nice spot, actually.

The Trailercakes Airstream “Bubbles” sitting down in a grove of bald cypress trees in front of the Meyerson. From this picture, you would think it was camped out in a rural park somewhere.

Bubbles!

Customers looking at the selection of cupcakes while the bubbles float by.

Working on an order.

One of the things I like about the whole food truck thing is the interaction between the chefs and the customers (me). I bought six mini-cupcakes to take home and we talked about what to get. They asked about peanut butter and jelly cupcakes. I hesitated and they said that was their specialty. They gave me one to try and I gobbled it down.

It was pretty darn good. So I had them include one.

Here’s what I walked away with. Clockwise, from the top, ending with the peanut butter one in the center:

  • Hitched (white/white)
  • Slap-Your-Mother Chocolate (chocolate/chocolate)
  • Bananarama (I think) (banana/cream cheese)
  • The King (banana/peanut butter)
  • Happy Days (white/white/sprinkles)
  • PB&J (white/grape jelly center/peanut butter fluff)

I had to ride home on a crowded DART train with this in my lap. It was full of kids coming back from the Texas State Fair. They all eyed that tray of cupcakes the whole way – I’m lucky I wasn’t attacked.