Savor, Dallas

Copper Topper

We attended the annual food orgy of gastronomical proportions called Savor Dallas this past Saturday.  The "International Grand Tasting" was held in the Irving Convention Center, aka the Big Copper Trapezoidal Structure You See On Your Way To DFW Airport.  To me, it looks less like a convention center than a Mayan Pyramid designed in the Bronze Age by Pablo Picasso during his Cubism phase.  And I don't say that like I think it's a bad thing.

A good friend of mine works part time on Savor Dallas and has talked about it for years so this time, which I think was the ninth annual, we decided to go. I wasn't sure what to wear but briefly considered maternity pants in the off-chance I would savor dishes from every one of the approximately 50 food purveyors.  At $110 plus tax per ticket, I planned on getting my money's worth.


Thumbthing Very Useful

We entered the center at ground level, and were directed to the registration area, where we picked up our Savor Palettes, a plastic painter's palette contraption with a small hole in one end for your thumb and a larger whole in the other end for your crystal souvenir wine glass.  (Not sure I would actually call the souvenir a keeper since it had a giant Kroger logo etched on the front of it.)
Though somewhat awkward at first, I soon got the "hang" of it as it allowed me to carry both food and wine and still have a free hand with which to gesticulate animatedly, which is my wont.

A beautiful spring night found us on one of the center's many terraces overlooking the flat, treeless expanse of Irving, Texas.  We approached the first food stall, Urban Crust out of Plano, and thoroughly enjoyed their artisanal pizzas and cheerful good humor.  We also had a chicken taco from Blue Mesa Grill and a tiny, one-ounce sip of wine before heading into the main ballroom, which was named Bedlam.

There were like 1,000 wineries, beer crafters and distillers of fine spirits crammed into the ballroom space along with about 50 more food booths, a silent auction, live cooking demonstrations, folk dancing and a petting zoo.  Okay I made that last part up, but it was definitely 500 pounds of cashews in a 100 pound bag.  We started approaching restaurateurs randomly and at first it seemed like everyone was serving some sort of a taco or some kind of pork belly or just pork belly tacos.  Then we became more strategic and looked for the longest lines and jumped in those (cutting whenever possible due to the inebriated state of the savory revelers.)  We had Paula Lambert's Mozzarella & Co.'s terrific house-made goat cheese on Empire Bread's succulent olive loaf.  We had an out-of-sequence but truly tasty Toffee Torte with Bookers Bourbon Anglaise, Spiced Pecans and Whipped Cream from Whisky Cake, also out of Plano. We had an umami-bursting medium rare slice of steak from Dakota's Steakhouse and something totally delicious from Parigi that was my favorite dish of the night although I can't remember what it was, perhaps from the frequent two-ounce pours of wine we had between each course, if course is what you call a miniature tasting of edible goodness served on a black plastic disposable saucer with a spork.

Then disaster struck.  All those dieting tips about eating small bites very slowly proved absolutely, heart-wrenchingly true when we realized between the tasting portions and the long lines, we had become Thanksgiving-Day-Full-As-Ticks.  I tried to sort of move the food around in my stomach, pressing down on my abdomen so I could free up some room at the top, but it was a non-starter.  I'd tried 6 restaurants and 4 wineries, which totalled $11 per tiny tastebud tingle, not counting the $8 for parking.

Although we left somewhat despondently, feeling like we'd gotten the short end of the skewer, everyone else seemed to be having a grand tasting time.  Maybe with more practice you get better at it.  I do have one suggestion for the organizers, though: punctuate.  Since the event is in Irving and the vendors are from all over the metroplex, Savor Dallas seems like a misnomer.  Adding a comma would then be a more commanding Savor, Dallas (with a sinisterly implied "or else!") 

I am not sure we will return but I bear no ill will despite the sponsor-embossed stemware and the plastic palate palettes.  Call me old-fashioned, but when I drop close to $250 for an evening out I want a brigade of servers bringing me full-sized portions of awe-inspiring dishes emanating from a chef-driven kitchen.  I want a whole glass of wine.  And I don't want to eat with a spork.