Even Cold Hostess Can't Defrost My Love For Pappas Bros. Steakhouse

We celebrated a birthday last weekend, and since we were already way outside the bubble of our urban comfort zone at a previous engagement, decided to venture to another, even more foreign section of the Dallas hinterlands for dinner in the highly praised Pappas Bros. Steakhouse.  There didn't seem to be much risk involved despite the distance from our regular haunts:  I've always thoroughly enjoyed the Pappas family's various incarnations of ethnic cuisine, from sublime Tex-Mex at Pappasito's to Cajun Seafood at Pappadeaux.  (I always thought they should have an Italian concept called Pappapasta and a Chinese place called Pappa-san, but they have ignored my suggestions for years despite their insane brilliance.  Ah well, their loss.)

Pappas Steakhouse is certainly impressive enough on arrival, with swarms of valet parkers maneuvering comers and goers with speed and efficient friendliness.  The building looks like a swanky men's club in Vegas where the dancers climb shiny poles in search of elusive twenty dollar bills.

I approached the reception desk which was being womanned by at least 4 people (this place is big and crazy busy!) and a ten foot tall, strikingly thin woman with platinum blonde hair dressed head to toe in black eyed me rather frostily.  It was 8:29.  I said my name and that we had a reservation at 8:30.  She checked the command center and without looking up suggested we go into the lounge until our table was ready.  This sort of impersonal brush off in a place where I am about to drop a boatload of simoleons does not sit well with me and I tend to correct misbehavior by those in the service industry by kindly pointing out the error of their ways so I said "I have partial hearing loss from going to too many rock concerts as a teenager so I am sure I misunderstood you...did you say 'I am so very sorry but we don't have your table ready yet even though you are incredibly punctual and impeccably dressed.  Please, allow me to rectify our failure to accommodate by comping you a glass of champagne in the lounge while you wait approximately 20 minutes?' "  She looked up in a steely fashion and said something like "shut up and go sit in the bar" but I am sure she used different words that were a tad less harsh.  So much for my prodigious skills for customer service and rudeness intervention training.

That incident, by the way, was the last and only hiccup in an otherwise perfect dining experience.

Our waitron unit, whose name was Erica, was all you ever wanted in a server.  Informative, efficient, unobtrusive, comical and pretty.  She noted that we already had cocktails from our earlier banishment to the lounge and said cheerfully "okay, we are off to a good start!  Are we celebrating anything special tonight other than it's Saturday?"  I told her it was D's birthday.  She went through the off-menu specials which included a clam chowder and a macaroni and cheese dish with blue point crab mixed in.  D said he was allergic to crab and she said they mixed it in last so she could separate it out and just put crab in mine.  We ordered the rest of our meal and (beneath our napkins) unbuttoned the top buttons of our jeans in preparation for the coming attractions.

Tomato Tomahto

Suddenly, an attractive woman holding a clipboard or something appeared at our table and introduced herself as the manager and stated "we take food allergies very seriously here."  She then looked at D and asked if he was allergic to just crab or any other shellfish.  He said just crab.  She told us the clam chowder was made with a fish stock that had crab in it, so he switched his appetizer to the tomato onion salad.  She said the onion rings were fried in the same oil as crab but he said he thought that would be fine.  She then asked me if I had a tree allergy because I looked like a nut. (Not really, I just put that in there to see if you were paying attention.)

Good call on that Tomato Onion Salad. Probably the reddest, plumpest, juiciest, most perfect beefsteak tomato I've ever had and it was crisscrossed with sliced raw onion and a generous dab of roquefort cheese on top.  It was like a wedge salad minus the iceberg.  If salads were in a beauty pageant that baby would have won swimsuit and congeniality.

Entrees came out soon after and D was mighty pleased with his steak and lobster special.  It took just one slice of my rather expensive bone-in, dry-aged, USDA Prime New York Strip to understand why this place is so darned packed.  That steak was umami on steroids.  My tongue kind of quivered under the first succulent sliver of exquisitely marbled, dark pink beef.  I literally salivated as I chewed it slowly, savoring the richness, texture, and aroma of the best steak money can buy, Reluctantly I swallowed it, only to be happily excited again as I sliced off another morsel.  I fell in love with that piece of meat instantly and so deeply that I started crooning John Legend songs to it until the people at the table next to us asked me to stop.  I wrote USDA Prime New York Strip in cursive with a Sharpie on the tablecloth  and dotted the i with a festive heart. When I had swallowed the final forkful o'goodness, I took off my wedding ring and placed it alongside the bone and took a picture of it, which I then uploaded to my Facebook page and made it my cover photo.

On a side note, the macaroni and cheese with blue point crab was rich and decadent.  I couldn't finish it all so I asked them to doggy bag it.  Erica-the-best-server-ever noted that and brought the dessert menu over our way but before we could protest that we were too full she said "I want you to pick out a dessert for me to box up for your birthday--you can have it tomorrow for breakfast!"

I wanted to drag her up to the hostess stand and tell the blonde wench behind it "this is why you make $10 an hour and she's walking out with several hundred bucks" but I didn't because I'm too kind hearted.

Surf and Turf

Pappas Bros. Steakhouse

Domenica

We traveled to New Orleans, one of our favorite cities in the world, for a Labor Day weekend full of Southern decadence.  I am not talking about sloshing down beer-puddled Bourbon Street to catch a scintillating spectacle of bored, over-the-hill strippers bump and grind their way through Hey Big Spender, or even standing beneath balconies imploring shy, retiring lasses to bare large parts of their anatomy for strands of cheap, colorful beads imported directly from China. What I am talking about is a four day food orgy which required iron resolve, a soupcon of gluttony, and several pairs of maternity pants I had prudently bought beforehand at Good Will.

Just Like I Remember It But Cleaner

Desire Oyster Bar, Clover Grill, Somethin' Else Cafe, Lucky Dog, and of course Emeril's fantastic NOLA were all hits but the Best In Show was John Besh's Domenica at the Roosevelt, a Waldorf Astoria Hotel formerly known as the Fairmont New Orleans.  Oddly, my first trip to New Orleans was when I was in college when my French class professor sponsored a busload of sophomores to go to Mardi Gras.  Although cloaked in a transparent charade of Francophilia, I believe his motives for transporting nineteen year olds who could legally drink non-stop for 24 hours in the French Quarter were dubious at best.  The Fairmont at that time was a total dump and with four to a room the trip was relatively inexpensive for me--a young guy who rolled dough and topped it with sauce and cheese in a franchised Pizza Inn 30 hours a week.  The lobby was impressive (it still is, and now that the cobwebs have been removed from the chandeliers they are almost blinding) but the room smelled so several parties ago we were forced to drink beer in the morning to overcome it and soldier on.

Mmmmmm, Beignets

Fast forward thirty years a few years and I am back at the Fairmont Roosevelt's Domenica, sitting at a wonderful table in the window overlooking Baronne Street.  There were four of us and we decided to start with the Affettati Misti, "a salumi and imported cheese platter with sweet and savory treats."  Moments later our waitron unit brought out this veritable plank that actually groaned under the weight of all the house cured meats, wedges of smelly cheese, a jar of duck liver pate, interesting condiments like pickled watermelon rind and raisins, and a huge basket of steaming, savory beignets that had just been snatched from the fryer.  The four of us dove into the platter like Tom Daley on steroids and didn't stop grabbing and moaning until the platter was clean.

When The Moon In The Sky...

Our efficient server whose name was either Melissa or Jane forced us into another round of drinks as we composed ourselves from the meat and cheese fest, quickly reconsidering the rest of our ordering options since the appetizer course had been so deliciously daunting. We decided to split a couple of pizzas and they were both perfect.  The Wild Mushroom pie featured tomatoes, fontina cheese, caramelized onions, bacon, and a fried egg while the Calabrese was riddled with spicy salumi, mozzarella, capers and olives.  That one was a repeater for the rest of the night for my three amigos.  I, of course, never burp.

We finished off sharing a panzanella salad and also a dish called Squid Ink Tagliolini which was black pasta with a generous smattering of blue crab, herbs and olive oil.  Eschewing dessert, we staggered across Canal Street, reeling under an enormous caloric intake and discussing where we would be meeting for breakfast the next morning.

Juicy Jucy Lucy

Silly Wabbit

In honor of my dog Lucy's birthday yesterday I thought I would riff on the Minneapolis/St. Paul phenomenon called the Juicy Lucy or (Jucy Lucy).  Several cities have a particular dish that is craved and cherished by local denizens (and occasionally despised by outsiders, such as Cincinnati's Skyline Chili, bleah) because they grew up on it and it tastes like home.  LA boasts about Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, Memphis adores its Rendezvous BBQ, Kansas City hearts Winstead's burgers and Dallas likes shiny new things.  But the good people of the Twin Cities' love affair with the Juicy Lucy is one boiled rabbit shy of a Fatal Attraction.

Per Wikipedia A Jucy Lucy or Juicy Lucy is a cheeseburger that has the cheese inside the meat patty in addition to on top. A piece of cheese is surrounded by raw meat and cooked until it melts, resulting in a molten core of cheese within the patty. This scalding hot cheese tends to gush out at the first bite, so servers frequently warn patrons to let the burger cool for a few minutes before consumption to avoid injury.

Molten Cheese Food

Since I rarely pay attention to anything else when food is put in front of me my first encounter with a Juicy Lucy resulted in a blackened, blistered tongue and processed cheese lava flowing down my dress shirt and all over my necktie.  This was not a particularly good look for me.  Nonetheless, I understood and shared in the mania almost immediately.

Two bars on the same street in South Minneapolis both claim to have invented the sandwich: Matt's Bar and the 5-8 Club. They differ in how they spell it; Matt's spells it Jucy, while the 5-8 Club uses the standard spelling. Shirts worn by staff at the 5-8 Club have the motto "if it's spelled right, it's done right" while advertising for Matt's Bar says "Remember, if it is spelled correctly, you are eating a shameless rip-off!"

Mmmm, Cheese Curds

A lot of restaurants in Minneapolis have their own versions of the Juicy Lucy.  The 2014 "Best Of MN" feature in the Minneapolis Star Tribune awarded top honors to Fika inside the American Swedish Institute.  I had the pleasure of eating that one too, and appreciated that it was served open-face on a thick slab of rye/caraway bread.  Not surprisingly, I am much more presentable after lunching with a knife and fork.  Fika's JL had a wonderfully nutty Swiss cheese melted inside and it was topped with red arugula, grain mustard, and served with fried cheese curds and lingonberry ketchup.

Food Porn

I brought the idea back with me to Dallas and shared it with talented chef Ryan Nagby at Nicola's Ristorante Italiano. He created an Italian version of the Juicy Lucy, even going to the trouble of hand making processed mozzarella cheese out of real mozzarella cheese for its favorable melting point and because of his fanatic obsession with authenticity. It is only available at lunch or in the bar and it is not on the menu, so you have to say "Juicy Lucia" three times real fast and cross your fingers that Betelgeuse doesn't appear. I think I liked this version best of all but I wouldn't say that to any Minnesotans because I live prudently and try to avoid injuries.

I am surprised that the Juicy Lucy craze hasn't become more widespread, like how the disgusting dish called Poutines has ruined Canada, or the (thankfully departing) nationwide mania over bacon and pork belly. (I'm kinda over kale and quinoa, too.)  There are a few places here in Dallas where you can get one but it hasn't really trended yet.  It's a puzzlement.

PS Happy Birthday Lucy! (And to your twin brother, Buddy, too!)

Say What?

 

Destination Dining: Knife Modern Steak

Cutting Edge

You've got to hand it to Chef John Tesar.  He is always tinkering and improving and reconceptualizing food in creative, unexpected ways.  After regaining the fifth star for the dining room at the Mansion on Turtle Creek, he started the craft burger concept in Dallas, opened Spoon Bar and Kitchen to national acclaim, and now has opened Knife Modern Steak at the Hotel Palomar, thankfully ending Central 214's hotel-restaurant-trying-to-be-a-contender's mundane approach to unfocused dining.  It never worked and I am glad it's gone, especially since Knife is so sharp on so many levels.  One note:  this is not just another steak house. Nope, Chef Tesar has invented something more akin to a Palace O'Meat.

We paid our first visit to Knife last night, and instantly noticed the modern touches to the restaurant design that made it relevant and exciting, not the least of which was a huge display of dry-aging steaks in a cabinet near the perky hostess.  It was sort of like those call girls in Amsterdam who pose in windows casting come-hither looks at lustful passersby.  As I walked by the case I swear one of the steaks whispered something naughty to me.

Front Row Center

We were seated at the Chef's Counter, an area reserved I guess maybe for two tops, and lucky for us it was like sitting in the front row of a Broadway Play, because we were practically in the kitchen we were so close to the action.  Dining As Theater!  It was fun watching the chefs man and woman their different stations.  One blonde in particular was fascinating to watch because she moved with such precision and self-assuredness.  All the chefs had little earphones and the expediter was whispering commands from the end of the line like a CIA operative.  (Hmmm...Culinary Institute of America is referred to as CIA too. I wonder if alongside knife skills and molecular gastronomy they practice at the shooting range and engage in Spy vs Spy games.)  It's a high wire act to allow guests this close to the kitchen since you can't always anticipate absent-minded nose-picking and the five second rule allowing food dropped on the floor to be wiped off and served is strictly verboten.  But the chefs were all scrupulous and disciplined and absolutely wordless as they went about their work producing food for this hustling, energetic restaurant.

Garden of Eatin'

I know Chef John from previous business shenanigans, and he thoughtfully sent out a platter of crudites artfully strewn over ice.  Tiny radishes, endive, baby carrots, and lithe stalks of celery were presented with some house-made Green Goddess dressing. (I've always thought of crudites as something a suburban housewife would offer guests in her split level home along with a glass of chilled chablis in the 70's, but this was an elegant, sophisticated and delicious update that proved once again that I don't know everything.)

I ordered a watermelon and heirloom tomato salad (refreshing and cold, with a lagniappe of house-made beef jerky) and Don had the French Onion Soup with about 17 pounds of melty, gooey cheese burnished on top. Yum!  Our waiter brought over a towering stack of possibly the best onion rings I've ever had, and John sent over some cream of spinach that was delightfully light and not overly loaded with garlic and cholesterol.

Tower of Power

The menu is divided into unusual sections:  Raw, Soups and Salads, New School (a selection of less expensive, less familiar beef cuts such as Culotte, Chuck Flap, and Tri Tip), Slabs, Slices (including a five piece bacon flight--quite original!) Old School (Rib Eyes, Lamb Chops, Roast Chicken, Pork Chop) Sides, Pasta, and John's famous Burgers, including the Magic, which is brilliantly served on an English Muffin so the juices can race to and cuddle up in all the little nooks and crannies.  I had one of his Magic Burgers at Cedars Social as well as his late, lamented Commissary, and I still have the napkins I used to wipe my face and hands under the seat of my car as a sort of masculine, meaty sachet.)

We both had the Tri Tip--my favorite cut of beef because although it is lean it is so very flavorful, and when it is cooked right, as it was perfectly done at Knife, it is tender as well.  (In the hands of a lesser chef it can be chewy and stringy but still delicious.)  We were so stuffed we couldn't finish the steaks, which were modestly priced at $25, and the waiter put the remaining hunks of meat in a little brown box inside a giant white, logoed take home bag.  He also brought us a gift wrapped Madeleine since we hadn't had the stomach or inclination for dessert.

Even with a couple of drinks the damage was south of $100, an astonishing deal for food this good. Knife is cutting edge cuisine no matter how you slice it.  Do yourself a favor and get there--you'll get the point.

Fourth of July Brisket Bash

Why I thought it was a great idea to invite several friends over for brisket on the Fourth of July I'll never know.  I guess I was envisioning a carefree afternoon of idle chit chat, lolling in the sun-dappled pool, perhaps a rousing round of Cards Against Humanity, and then leisurely nibbling on perfectly smoked morsels of the Official State Meat of Texas with a cold brewski or two.  A fun day of friendship, breaking bread, and patriotism on a spectacularly pleasant day.

This is a perfect example of what the word "delusional" means.

I set the radio alarm for 6 o'clock am Thursday night, determining that I'd need to get the 11 pound slab on the pre-heated grill by 7 in order to cook it low and slow for 11 hours.  When I jumped out of bed Friday to the raucous thumpa-thumpa of some alien electronica, my first thought was "self, why did you plan an event requiring rising before dark on day one of a three-day weekend?"  My second thought was "well, because you're an idiot."  I looked in the mirror as I brushed my teeth and an ancient troll with red-rimmed eyes glared back at me.

I had stored the meat out in the garage refrigerator where we keep extra ice, drink mixers, and an unopened 1.75 liter bottle of bourbon-laced eggnog purchased in 2004.  (It is not really an adult beverage anymore; it's more of a science experiment.) Either the dang thing was really heavy or I was physically sapped by utter lack of sleep because I had to use a wheelbarrow to haul the beast up to the patio.  It took me thirty minutes to get it properly rubbed with herbs and spices because I had to hold it in both arms like a squirmy baby while I patted its bum with brown sugar and garlic.  It fell down in the yard a couple of times but I just brushed off the dirt and figured the grass blades would look like parsley.  I finally dumped it on the grill and mopped it with marinade--a task I would do every half hour for my foreseeable future--and slammed the lid shut.

Warning:  May Cause Death

In between meat mopping sessions and fine-tuning the temperature in the grill, I flew around the kitchen prepping all kinds of dishes that had looked easy on paper but seemed complicated and exhausting on what should have been a danged vacation day.  (FYI Paula Deen's recipe for Mini Macaroni and Cheese Pies calls for 14 sticks of butter per serving.  I might be exaggerating a tad, but before tasting it I sort of poked it with a stick to make sure it didn't just rear up and kill me.)  I arranged crackers, cheeses and cured meats in exact parallel lines on a square white platter for reasons known only to those who share my tiny smidgen of OCDness.  I baked a Duncan Hines yellow cake from scratch and spread thawed Cool Whip white frosting on it, then used blueberries and raspberries to create a festive American flag.  (Not really sure you are supposed to eat the most hallowed symbol of our nation's freedom from British tyranny--they didn't really cover that subject in Boy Scouts.)  I dumped a package of Wholly Guacamole some guacamole I had made myself in a matching white bowl and festooned a party tray with tortilla chips and Newman's Own home-made Black Bean and Roasted Corn Salsa.  My world-famous baked beans topped with sliced onions were tossed in a casserole dish.  I covered everything with 25 yards of the most unsportsmanlike Saran Wrap I had ever encountered.

It's A Grand Ole' Flag

Guests started arriving about the time I was cranky for a nap.  I sort of snarled them inside, gesturing vaguely towards the red Solo cups I use on formal occasions alongside mismatched paper cocktail napkins and a tub full of iced-down beer.  After devouring the OCD tray, chips, and salsa, they scampered outside and immediately jumped in the pool because it was 114 degrees and extremely humid.  I continued to baste and prep, arrange dishware and forks, do up some dishes and otherwise act like a surly, unpaid manservant for these so-called friends who had the nerve to show up to our party on time.

Thankfully around 5 o'clock I had a minute or two to spare and joined our guests outside. Just then the sky turned black and a crack of lightning split it in two, accompanied by a thunderous roar of thunder so loud it made both my dogs poop.  Sheets of rain descended in torrents, plunging the temperature down 25 degrees. Everyone checked their iPhones and showed me a tiny blip on the radar indicating it was storming only at our house.

An hour passed whilst we huddled beneath the gazebo watching the streaks of light rip across the almost night black sky and marveling that the loud thunder hadn't broken anyone's eardrums yet.  Finally, the storm subsided and I scurried over to the stone-cold grill to find the internal temperature of the brisket had returned to an almost raw zone.  Several hours later I had to backhand a few people who were whining about when dinner would be ready, reminding them non-verbally that Mother Nature can alter the plans of even the most accomplished cook.  As the stars came out we finally sat down to enjoy the perfectly cooked brisket slathered in KC Masterpiece Barbeque Sauce, polished off the macaroni pies (no one died) dove into the baked beans and a thoughtful friend's delicious pasta salad.  In a very considerate way I thrust pieces of flag cake on paper plates at them as I shooed them out the door.

It was time for a little Independence Day of my own.

Our Friends  Know I'm Kidding--Twas A Great Day

Destination Dining: Michael's Genuine Food & Drink, Miami

The Yolk's On You

One of the perks of my job is that I get to travel all over the country dining and drinking in great restaurants--all in the name of research.  We are always looking for new concepts, potential chef partners, menu items we can steal that inspire us, etc.  I know I am lucky I get paid to indulge in my passion for food, but it does present a challenge maintaining this chiseled, slim physique. My secrets are small portions, no dessert, lots of exercise, and on occasion, a wee bit of purging. Easy Peasy!  I have a wonderful comrade named Joe who sometimes says "it does not suck being David Wood."  In all matters culinary, love, friendship and the two best dogs in the universe, I am in total and grateful agreement.

Suction Cups

This week was a long one away from home, with three days in Orlando and two in Miami.  Worse, I woke up with a rotten cold on Thursday, the day we traveled to Miami, and had to walk around with toilet paper purloined from public toilets in my pockets all day to staunch the tide.  So it is a testament to how truly fine Michael's Genuine Food & Drink is since it was one of the most memorable and enjoyable meals I can remember even though I was very sick and really tired.

We drank a couple of doses of medicine at the bar before dinner and I felt almost human.  We were seated at a small two top next to an equally small two top.  Approximately one inch of space separated the tables, but as in NYC, that inch apart creates a Berlin wall of isolation for each dining couple (as long as voices are kept in moderate, dulcet tones and you never, ever make eye contact.)  Our cheerful waiter welcomed us with a wide smile and asked if we knew what we wanted as he tap watered us.

Peaches On Pizza--
Who'da Thunk?

We had been studying the menu at the bar so we knew we were going to try a bunch of items.  The menu is divided into sections called Small, Medium, Large, and Extra Large, and we had figured out that meant the plates, not the body size of the intended recipient.  (That medicine in the bar had obviously made us absolutely brilliant.)

We started off with a couple of Puffer's Wellfleet Oysters with classic mignonette, plump and briny, and a terrific item called Wood Roasted Double Yolk Farm Egg with cave aged gruyere, roasted tomatoes, chives and a sourdough crostini.  It came in a ramekin, and it was sort of like a cheesy omelet spread.  The gruyere had melted over the top of the vessel in the oven like you sometimes get with the best French onion soup.  We spread it on the crostini and sank our teeth into its gooey goodness.  I felt like taking two Crestor tablets and just eating the rest with a spoon.

Beet Me Up, Scottie

Loved the Beet and Quinoa Salad with grapefruit, mint, pistachio, heart of palm and zesty orange dressing.  (Quinoa is top trending at the moment, surmounted only by kale. Thankfully, the everything bacon and pork belly fad is quickly fading.)

Then a perfectly Chargrilled Octopus atop a salad of gigande beans, roasted peppers, tomato harissa, green olives, and torn herbs slithered out of the kitchen and suctioned onto our faces, like that scene in Alien. Yum.

Steamed Mussels were also perfect, if perhaps the least imaginative item we ordered. We finished up with a Salumi Pizza--what a great idea!  House-cured meats on Fontina with roasted peaches, red onions and arugula on a wood-fired blackened and blistered cracker thin pizza crust.  O sole mio!  I was too full to eat more than two wedges so I scraped the toppings off the crust and crammed them into my mouth with my fingers.  (Not really, but I wanted to.)

My grammarly sister saw my check-in on Facebook and scoffed that I was eating "real" food.  In this case "Genuine" food means authentic, free from pretense, affectation, or hypocrisy; sincere.  Those awful Kardashians are real but certainly not genuine.  If you find yourself in Miami, hie thee to Michael's, it's the real deal.

Destination Dining: Villa-O

I don't usually write about restaurants we operate since I don't want to compromise my enviable status as an amateur, unpaid, wannabe food blogger by expressing opinions that could be viewed as slightly less than impartial.  Although I pride myself on integrity and truthfulness, I also need to get paid at my real job so reviewing our own concepts could find me tiptoeing up a slippery slope of stifled snark--or worse, scribing an overly enthusiastic paean to the glorious creations whipped up by the dazzlingly talented Bronwen Weber at Frosted Art Bakery & Studio. (See?  I just Freudian slipped that one in out of sheer force of habit.  I love Bronwen, and if you haven't seen her work go to Facebook right now and like her page, then prepare yourself for amazing displays of pure-D genius.)

This week we had a group of managers travel to Dallas for a training class, and on Tuesday night we made a caravan down crowded McKinney Avenue, with its hip boutiques and millennial bars to the slightly more laid back Knox Henderson area of town and arrived at our newest acquisition in the Dallas dining scene, Villa-O.

I was not a fan of Villa-O when it opened several years ago.  We tried it a couple of times, and while it wasn't bad, it was just meh and we let it wander off our radar like a an old high school acquaintance we never had much in common with (and with whom I am still not confirming as a Facebook friend all these years later.)  But the company I work for bought the place late last year and we've tinkered with recipes and presentations and now there's only one word to describe the food there:  wowza.



You Can Tune A Piano But You Can't Tuna Fish

Able-bodied assistant manager Mark and his trusty sidekick Heather took great care of us.  They brought out several Fred Flintstone-sized heaping platters of appetizers for us all to share which included crispy portobello mushroom fries, spicy calamari, some aromatic wood-oven baked focaccia and ice cold tuna crudo with avocado that was as good as any I've ever had.  (I snuck a hunk off the platter and stuck it in my pocket for later.  That's probably a better ploy for tater tots than sushi-grade raw tuna.)

After we ordered entrees, I looked around the handsome

Mmmm, Chicken Lasagnette

room and noticed a plethora of UDYPs (Uptown Dallas Young Professionals.)  They all have the same overall appearance regardless of gender: blemish-free, sun-burnished skin, tousled hair, 6-days-a-week-at-the-gym bodies, designer labels, and really, really  smart phones.  Phones so smart they were texting each other without instructions from their owners, who were too busy gesturing "hashtag" before saying something to notice.

My entree was so good it made me want to develop an eating disorder.  It was Fennel Crusted Sea Scallops with Wild Arugula and Sweet Basil Vinaigrette, and I wanted to binge on it and then purge forever in an endless cycle of fulfillment and regret.  Another standout was the Chicken and Artichoke Lasagnette with Italian Cheeses, Pesto and Bechamel Tomato Sauce.  Decadently rich but you could sort of pretend you were eating healthily since there was chicken and vegetables in it (admittedly smothered in high fat dairy products.)  The only other dish I sampled was Beef Short Rib braised in Red Wine & Vegetables with White Polenta, Portobello and Porcini Mushrooms.  Mamma Mia!  Somebody kiss the chef for me pronto!

I skipped dessert but my tablemates shared a ridonculous platter that included a layered chocolate cake (so tall it had earned an honorary membership in the mile high club), an almond cheesecake and a tiramisu.  From the decibels of the audible moans around me, I finally understood why the restaurant was named Villa Big-O.