Saturday and I still haven’t totally recovered from the nastiest cold that I have had in decades. There is a lot of stuff to do at home, plumbing problems mostly, but Candy and I headed across the river to a couple of Estate Sales in Kessler Park. Both were in beautiful, old brick homes that are so rare in Dallas. Kessler Park has to be the prettiest part of the city with its historic one-of-a-kind homes, steep hills and thick stands of ancient trees. We bought a bunch of crap we never knew we couldn’t live without at the second sale, which was literally across the street from the house I lived in when I first moved to Dallas, thirty years ago.
After our time spent digging through dead people’s stuff we drove down to the Bishop Arts District – my newest favorite spot in Dallas. There are a bunch of places we want to eat at down there, but the other day I had stumbled across a blog entry written about the best Enchiladas in the city and had read about a semi-fast-food place down in Bishop Arts called bee – which stood for Best Enchiladas Ever. It looked like a plan.
It looks like bee is the brainchild of Monica, of Monica’s Aca y Alla – one of the most loved eating spots around. Monica quality enchiladas with fast food speed and prices sounds really good. Now, Oak Cliff is lousy with Tacquerias and other home-style Mexican food – and I’d like to try them all – so I guess a gentrified gringo invader may be politically incorrect… but I don’t care, I just want something good to eat.
Sorry for the poor photographs - I forgot my camera and had to use my phone.
Bee is a bright and clean little place near the corner of Davis and Zang. You get a little card and fill it out before ordering from the counter, like a sandwich place. The guy at the counter recommended the two enchilada special.
Build your own – starting with tortillas.
Choices:
- corn,
- blue corn,
- wheat,
- flour,
- or cabbage leaf wrap.
Then filling:
- chicken tinga,
- pork carnitas
- beef picadillo,
- beef brisket,
- tilapia veracruz,
- spinach and mushroom,
- quinoa and tofu,
- vegan special,
- cheddar cheese.
Finally, you add a sauce:
- sour cream,
- con carne,
- queso blanco,
- poblano crema,
- chipotle crema,
- oaxaca mole,
- ranchera,
- tomatillo,
- avacado verde (cold).
Folks deciding what to get and filling out their cards.
My order, two enchiladas, rice and black beans
So you mix and match. Pick your sides and then when the food is ready they have a selection of toppings and cheeses. The back side of the little menu card is full of other options… burritos, tacos, salads… but you could spend a year working through the options of the different enchilada combinations.
As promised, the food was fast, reasonable, and very good. I had forgotten my combinations by the time the order came up, but I don’t think you can go wrong with anything I did especially like the poblano crema and the vegan black beans. They have a cooler full of beer and soft drinks and a margarita machine, so I suppose you could pretty well just live there if you wanted.
We finished our lunch and walked on down to Bishop where I picked up a coffee at Espumoso, hung out, and wrote this while I sipped on a coffee. Better than crawling around on the bathroom floor fixing the pipes – though I’ll still have to do that sometime.
Link-o-rama:
Bill Chance 