I found a nice little cafe in the Bishop Arts District. It’s a latin inspired coffeehouse called Espumoso Caffe. Inside, it’s a dark, relaxed place with an inviting couch and window seating – I’ll have to try that place as a writing location sometime. Today, though, I bought my coffee and settled in to a little table on the sidewalk to sip and do some people watching. They were playing some awesome latin jazz on a speaker over the door.
I sat there looking at the posters on the clothing store next door. Let’s see, what do we have going on in the big evil city… Salsa Lessons, Music at the Granada, Blood and Black Lace at the Texas Theater, and Roller Derby…. I’d like to see me some Roller Derby.
A couple doors down is the Oak Cliff Bicycle Company. It’s a little bike shop with an attitude. How can you not love a place that wins the Best Vigilante Justice award from the Dallas Observer.
Out in front was the usual display of bikes for sale. One, in particular, really caught my eye. Not an ultralight racing machine, this was an urban bomber sort of bike – a beautifully utilitarian ride. It had chrome mudguards, nice canister shaped pack containers in back, a useful double kickstand, and best of all, a luscious, gorgeous, classic Brooks leather saddle. There is nothing better than a Brooks saddle.
As I watched a couple guys came out of the shop, pumped up the tires, and went off for a ride. I tipped my coffee cup a little bit – some folks get it exactly right.
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.
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.
There are some really cool places in the Bishop Arts District. One of them is The Soda Gallery. It’s the place where you can hang out… and it gives the phrase “pop art” a new double meaning.
It’s a little art gallery and it’s a soda shop… it’s both.
So you can go inside and make a selection from their extensive collection of soft drinks – 30 kinds of root beer, Dublin Doctor Pepper, Nesbitt’s, Ramune (the Japanese stuff with the marble), and so on and so forth. They have a nice little table out on the sidewalk and I watched some groups buying sodas and sitting there drinking them. What a nice idea! I am so down on alcohol right now – it’s cool to find another option for social interaction other than booze or coffee.
And inside they do have art displayed on the walls. They had some really good stuff – screenprints of superheroes or comic book panels and other examples of local pop art.
I wish this place was in my neighborhood – but I’ll go visit when I can.
On the Soda Gallery’s website they have some examples of interesting soft drink ads… here’s some for your enjoyment.
Nesbitt’s Orange, from the 70’s. There is a lot of Robert Crumb psychedelic stuff going on here.
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)
Bill Chance 