Destination Dining: ACME Food and Beverage

Dynamite, anyone?

According to www.dictionary.com the word acme is defined as: the highest point or stage; also: one that represents perfection of the thing expressed.  So when you name a restaurant ACME Food and Beverage, you better make sure it is the finest example of its craft, at least in its own category, like Starbuck's is to coffee or George Clooney is to suave.  So as we bounded into ACME for the first time Saturday night, I was expecting something a hundred times better.  I probably would not have been so disappointed if they had named the place LACKLUSTER Food and Beverage.  Or if that is too harsh, perhaps MEH Food and Beverage would suffice.  But ACME made me think of FT33 or Cane Rosso or the mail order house where Wile E. Coyote bought TNT and anvils in his fruitless quest to exterminate the Roadrunner.  Sadly, none of these notions proved prophetic.

The two chirpy hostesses smiled and greeted us in unison and seated us at a nice corner booth, or what I thought was a nice corner booth until my teeth started chattering and my lips fell off in the non-stop assault of Arctic blasts from their evil seven-ton A/C unit positioned directly over our heads.  It was a balmy 72 degrees outside so I had worn a sporty, short-sleeved Polo which proved completely incapable of keeping frostbite at bay.  I tried using our cloth napkins as emergency sleeves but they were so stiffly starched they kept falling off and clattering to the floor.  Despite the frigid conditions, I lived.

Pull-eeze

Starters were troublesome.  D had the Warm Mozzarella with Grilled Toast, which was a big disc of bland fondue swimming in olive oil.  If I were to compliment it I would say it was stretchy.  I had the Tuna Tartare, which looked like a bright pink, mealy meatloaf garnished with micro greens and pears.  It was enough for a family of four if they liked their tuna raw and sweetened with fruit.  I didn't.

Entrees were equivalent to a meal grilled at home when you've had one too many glasses of wine and it's getting dark and you can't see or tell or care what you are doing.  My Berkshire Pork Chop with Sweet Potato Puree was good the first bite, okay the second bite, and dry as Mitt Romney during Happy Hour at Hooters on the third.  The puree was sickeningly sweet and glowed with a weird, alien orange color the exact shade of Ronald McDonald's hair.

D had the burger and he said it was good except we couldn't figure out why they said it came with

You can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish

"redneck" cheddar. There was nothing redneck about that cheese; it knew several foreign languages and loved opera and had been to Paris twice.  The fries were delicious.  (I ate more of them than the desiccated pork chop.)  D had also ordered the Mac N' Cheese (also slapped with that loathsome redneck label) and they were okay except for the unctuous topping of sticky sweet chutney.  I then realized the kitchen had this thing for complicating savory dishes with inexplicable cloying and distracting sugary flourishes.

The braying of the bottle blonde next to us, the frigid, Icelandic conditions and the unremarkable, childishly sweetened food had us outta there faster than Kim Kardashian's greed-induced but perfectly legal wedding which upheld the long-standing, accepted belief that true marriage is between one man and one gold-digging, 15-minutes-of-fame sex tape entrepreneur.  

At ACME, I wish I could have at least scored some of Wily's TNT since the food itself was definitely not dynamite.

Destination Dining: Lark on the Park

So, when somebody names a restaurant Lark on the Park you can't help but think to yourself, "Gee, this is going to be fun and innovative and even a bit cheeky, mate" unless you're not from Australia, like me, so it was more "let's see what's up with this quirky new place by the deck park named after some rich kid named Klyde Warren." Therefore, imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be a by-the-book, paint-by-numbers dining spot in muted colors with zero personality.  "Lark" congers images of frolicsome madness tinged with unfounded joy, like rolling down a big hill in a tractor tire or spinning cartwheels on a beach at sunset.  With that in mind, I would have called this place something a lot more boring like "Beige" or "Neutral" or maybe "Kim Kardashian."

Logo Sans Serif

There's nothing really wrong with Lark.  There's just not anything particularly right with it either.  It's the bottom floor of an office building or a condo building perched beside the feeder road of a highway and it feels just like that.  On a Saturday night at 8:30 the mostly empty bar had the forlorn, antiseptic atmosphere of an orthodontist's waiting room minus the Highlights magazines.  The three interchangeably blonde hostesses were bored and the pleasant bartender polished glasses that were already sparkling since they'd rarely been used.

As we were being seated I noted that most of the tables were occupied by well-dressed, mature individuals deep in conversations about city council candidates and the unpredictable weather.  We were watered but not breaded and our generic waiter handed us plain menus with all the usual suspects typed in an unchallenging font. We could share Cheese, Charcuterie, Antipasto, Carpaccio or Curry Pillows (the only original item in the line up but the accompanying English Peas and Ginger Chutney made the whole dish sound confusing.)  So we skipped the apps.  Next.

Ho Hum

Four Salads and a Cauliflower Soup.  I ordered Grilled Leeks with Mustard Vinaigrette, Vital Farms Poached Egg and Frisee because it sounded tangy but they had "just run out."  So I had an unremarkable Escarole and Radicchio salad with under ripe slices of Apple and Pear plus some Toasted Walnuts and a whisper of the blandest blue cheese I've ever tasted drizzled with an unremarkable vinaigrette dressing.  D had the soup.  He said it was good.

Oh, Rob

Entree choices included straightforward renditions of Scallops, Haddock, Mushroom Pappardelle, Duck Breast, Lamb Shank, Hangar Steak and weirdly, Coq au Vin.  I say weirdly not only because it seemed kind of Julia Child in Pleasantville, but also because it had an incongruous notation below it that said "When Laura Petrie cooked this for her husband Rob it was "code" for what was to happen later." This was the only item on the menu tagged with the slightest bit of irony or humor, making it feel rather lonely and forced.  It was as unexpected as Texas Junior Senator Ted Cruz saying something without sounding smug and superior.  I had it and it was fine but nothing I'd order again and certainly never suggest as code for some between-the-sheets revelry. Also, smack in the middle of this made-in-America tribute to the Eighties was Moo Krob, a smoky Thai Pork dish with Sticky Rice and Chili Garlic Sauce.  It was like some rogue ninja chef had snuck in to inject a southeastern Asia-influenced menu item and then departed quietly on little cat feet without anyone noticing.  D had it and enjoyed it--repeatedly throughout the rest of the night and the next morning.  And now a moment of silence to honor the soothing pinkness of Pepto Bismol.

I know the comfy chairs were chartreuse and there was a bunch of stainless steel but I can't remember many other details of the restaurant because of the astonishing lack of creativity therein.  The plates were round and white.  The glassware was clear.  The salt and pepper shakers were non-threatening.  The background music had been borrowed from an elevator in a now closed Dillard's department store in Wichita Falls.  But rising above all the monotony were hand-drawn, white chalk murals by local artists depicting snakes and bears and cityscapes.

And those were pretty cool, for a few minutes anyway.