Tag Archives: Dallas

Dallas Part Two

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Continued from the previous post, here are a few more notable places we visited in Dallas:

The Chesterfield

El Diablo and Bottle Rocket

The Chesterfield is, first and foremost, a cocktail bar. It has a great menu of classic cocktails and artisan creations. While we didn’t care much for hanging out on Main Street in general, The Chesterfield was certainly a highlight of the downtown area, and we ended up there more than once to meet up with friends and colleagues for a drink.

We also had dinner there one night, and while the service was definitely lacking, we did enjoy our food. Tom and Holly both had the mushroom tagliatelle “carbonara,” which featured a very distinctive unbroken egg yolk on top.

Tagliatelle “Carbonara”

The Zodiac Room

Located on the 6th floor of Neiman Marcus, The Zodiac Room was a hidden gem, tucked away in such a way that it successfully transported us away for lunch. As we sat down, we were greeted with elegant silver table settings and an amuse bouche of chicken broth served in small tea cups. The bread wasn’t just any bread, but a delightful, puffy popover, served with strawberry butter. Holly’s grilled vegetable wrap was unremarkable, but Tom’s grilled cheese with corn and shrimp chowder was drool-worthy. We wrapped up with some wonderful coffee before heading back to our meetings at the conference.

Popover

Grilled cheese and chowder

The Ginger Man

We scoped out The Ginger Man for its craft beer selection and its uptown location closer to our hotel. It was a nice enough afternoon that we were able to sit outside on their outdoor patio, enjoy a beer or three, and make a light lunch out of their artisan cheese plate. Tom enjoyed several beers from (512) Brewery out of Austin, TX, including their IPA and Pecan Porter. In between those two, he also had a taste of home with Victory’s Yakima Glory (Downington, PA). Holly had her own taste of home with Green Flash’s West Coast IPA (San Diego, CA), followed by Ska Brewing’s Modus Hoperandi (Durango, CO) and Boulevard’s Single-Wide IPA (Kansas City, MO).

Artisan cheese plate

The Cedars Social

The Cedars Social was probably the highlight of our dining in Dallas, but it was rather dark so we didn’t end up taking any pictures. We walked there from the convention center, which was a big mistake, as the area in between was not pedestrian-friendly and felt unsafe at night. Once we got there, though, all was well. It had a cozy, lodge-like environment, complete with an indoor fire pit.

We started off with the chef’s daily preparation of scallops, which were served with some kind of foam (we didn’t get a description) atop a large scallop shell. We also had a side of grilled asparagus, in order to make sure we had some vegetables. For our next course, we had a charcuterie plate and an order of truffled macaroni and cheese. We finished the food portion of our meal with a pork belly, which was just melt-in-your-mouth delicious and tender. All of this was accompanied by some rather generous pours of wines by the glass. For dessert, we had some of their artisan cocktails for good measure. Then somehow we ended up back at The Chesterfield, but *cough* that’s another story.

We were glad we were actually able to find so many blog-worthy places to eat and drink in Dallas, but boy were we glad to get home to Philadelphia!

Welcome and Eating in Dallas

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We’ve been talking about starting a food blog for a while, and we starting making some more serious plans at the end of 2011. While we didn’t really need anything unique to kick off the blog, we did know that we would be heading to Dallas, TX for a conference late in January and thought that might be as good a reason as any to launch the blog.

So here it is, our food blog. We have no specific plans other than to write about our food adventures. We live and work in Philadelphia, so our observations certainly will skew toward places there.

And the name? Well, Tom’s brother has this washing machine that has three load sizes: small, medium and super plus. We’ve been amused for awhile that it skips large altogether and goes straight to super plus, so anything that is particularly good, we deem “super plus.”

We arrived in Dallas on a Friday afternoon and were starving. We needed to eat before getting involved in the conference. Our hotel was about a mile and a half from the convention center area and we looked on Yelp to find something between our hotel and that area. Luckily, we found Medina Oven & Bar, a Moroccan restaurant in Victory Park, a planned community on Houston Street.

We walked over and were immediately struck by the unique decor. The restaurant is rather small, but it was not crowded when we arrived. The waiter was super friendly and seated us promptly.

Everything we had was quite delicious. We started by sharing the Med-Rim Salad, which is a beautiful concoction of spinach, poached figs, toasted almonds, cinnamon-spiced orange, feta, and a honey-lemon vinaigrette.

We followed that by sharing the equally delicious oregano-fennel famb sausage pizza with tomato, feta, peppers, red onions, mozzarella, and olives.

We finished with some outstanding cinnamon-spiced coffee and the orange blossom creme brulee.

In fact, we enjoyed Medina Over & Bar so much, we made sure to get there one more time before we left. Often, we return to a place we really like at the end of a trip to make sure our last meal there is a good one. We were trying to make plans with friends for dinner the last night and tossed around a few ideas before coming back to the idea of bringing them to Medina. We were a party of five, so we made reservations, knowing how small the place is. Thankfully, Medina is on Open Table, which I find hugely convenient.

Again, the experience was outstanding.

I began with one of their specialty cocktails: Marrakesh Mint Tea Martini, which consists of vodka, mint tea, lemon and orange blossom water.

Our table shared an appetizer plate which included marinated olives, garlic hummus, roasted peppers & tomatoes, harrisa, eggplant, and pita bread.

For dinner, I had the Imperial Fez Seafood Couscous, which came with scallops and shrimp over a bed of couscous that had cinnamon-spiced apricots, asparagus, toasted pine nuts, and golden raisins.

Needless to say, we were thrilled to have discovered Medina Oven & Bar. The atmosphere was relaxing and the service exceptional. The owner was present the night we were there for dinner and he was very welcoming and friendly.

The Dallas Adventure…Continued!