Hopdoddy Burger Bar

We had our first "regular" MoFF in quite a while this week. No birthdays, out of town trips, or other special stuff. Hopdoddy Burger Bar located in Preston Center in Dallas won the vote. It is known for great burgers and handcrafted beer. Ryan and I had been hearing about how good it was and we were excited to see for ourselves.

When we went to Austin a few weeks ago, we saw the line for Hopdoddy wrapped around the building, so we decided to head to the restaurant early. It was a good thing because the line was already long at 6:30! We ordered drinks and waited in line to order for about 30 minutes. It really wasn't a bad wait - we socialized and tried a couple of different beers. Ryan was excited to get a 512 Pecan Porter. It's made in Austin and very few places in Dallas carry it. I had a Deep Elum Dallas blonde.

For dinner, I had the Classic Burger with cheese and bacon and Ryan had the Llano Poblano. We shared the truffle fries. I'm of the opinion that anything made with truffle oil is probably amazing.

The classic burger. You really can't go wrong with a bacon cheeseburger.

My feelings on truffle oil was proved correct once again!

Hopdoddy was REALLY worth the wait! This is up there on my list of best burgers in town.  It honestly might be the winner. And the fries were really delicious too. The only I had that I'm not dreaming about was the Skinny Dip cocktail, which is a frozen margarita swirled with St. Arnold's Lawnmower beer. It sounded great - two of my favorite drinks in one glass. Sadly, Ryan and I split it and neither of us liked it much. I did have a taste of a friends margarita on the rocks and it was excellent. There was just something about the beergarita that didn't work.

I want to go back to Hopdoddy ASAP.  Just plan to get there early or you will have to wait.

Kreuz Market - Lockhart, TX

When you stop to eat on a road trip you usually end up at McDonald's, Whataburger, etc. On our recent trip to San Antonio, we decided to stop in Lockhart,"The Barbecue Capital of Texas." It was pretty much on the way from Dallas, and we couldn't miss an opportunity to try some great food (hello, it was Meal of Food Friday).

We ended up at Kreuz Market. It was founded in 1900 as a meat market and grocery store and has evolved as a great BBQ restaurant with one usual rule - NO SAUCE. It was a cool place. You walk up to the meat counter, where you can see and smell the food cooking. They take your order right out of the smoker and measure it out for you. Then you go to a separate line to pick out your sides and drinks.

photo credit: www.roadfood.com

We shared the brisket, ham, and beef ribs, with mac and cheese and German potatoes on the side.

Ham, ribs, potatoes, mac & cheese, and bread. A classic BBQ meal

The food stood up to the Lockhart hype. It was all ready good! I was particularly impressed with the ham. I don't usually go for BBQ ham, but I loved Kreuz's. I have to admit that the no sauce thing was weird for me. Despite how flavorful and juicy the meat was, I really misses sauce. That being said, this was definitely worth a detour! 

We had a few good meals on our trip to San Antonio as well. My two favorites were the giant cinnamon role from Lulu's Bakery, and brunch at Liberty Bar.

As seen on Man Vs. Food

Delicious omelet with potatoes and toast. The toast was soo good (random, I know)

We had a fun weekend away. I'm looking forward to visiting San Antonio and Lockhart again some time!

Celebration

We had another birthday this week for MoFF. Jordan (affectionately known as J-Dog) choose Celebration in Dallas for his dinner. But first, a few of us stopped in at the Meddlesome Moth in the Design District for drinks!

The Meddlesome Moth is known for it's huge selection of craft beers on tap. We had a nice, relaxing happy hour (where select drafts were $4.00). I tried the Southern Star Bombshell Blonde and really liked it. I had a taste of Ryan's Revolver Blood and Honey and liked it as well. I tend to prefer lighter beers or hefeweizens, and both of those fit the bill.

After happy hour we preceded on to Celebration, a home cooking restaurant known for all you can eat entrees and delicious fried chicken. It's a We've been to Celebration for Meal of Food a couple of times before, but it is a fun place with great food, so I was happy to repeat.

photo credit: http://www.celebrationrestaurant.com/

The way it works is that everyone at the table orders a salad and an entree. The sides and bread are served family style. If you have the stomach for it, you can order as many entrees as you like, much to the delight of the guys in the group. I ordered the chicken fried chicken, which was essentially a fried chicken breast. An amazing fried chicken breast, that is. We choose mashed potatoes and broccoli with cheese for our sides.

Some of the best fried chicken in town!

The food here is really good. The mashed potatoes are especially delicious. I opted out of a second entree and went for seconds on the sides instead. Our group had a really good time catching up with a couple of friends from out of town and enjoying a delicious dinner. And J-Dog got a birthday dessert! Thanks Celebration!

Baby's First MoFF

A little over a week ago, our good friends had a new baby! We decided to have a special edition of Meal of Food Friday to celebrate. We went pot luck style and everyone brought food and drinks over to their house so that everyone could meet little Ivor.

How cute is he?!?

We had an Italian feast, including lasagna (courtesy of Papa Murphy's), smoked ham, sausage, pasta, green beans, bread, and salad. It was a big success and a fun change from eating out. Plus, it was cheap!

For desert we had birthday cupcakes!

From WalMart. Pretty good!

It was a lot of fun. We all got to meet/hang with the new baby, our friends got to have some company after their first week of parenthood. Welcome to MoFF Ivor!

The Flying Fish

We had another birthday MoFF this past week, and our friend Andrew decided to celebrate at the Flying Fish. The Flying Fish is a casual seafood place in Addison. It's beginning to finally feel like summer in Dallas, but it hasn't gotten too hot yet (the 100 degree heat is coming any day now). The weather was beautiful on Friday night and we had a large group, so we opted to sit out on the patio.

photo credit: http://www.flyingfishinthe.net/index.php

I don't really eat fish. If it comes from the water, I pretty much don't want to eat it. I can't stand the texture of seafood, it really just bothers me. I wasn't overly thrilled about Andrew's choice, but it was his birthday not mine.

I was left to choose between my two seafood restaurant staples: chicken strips or a cheeseburger. I had chicken at the last seafood MoFF, so I decided to go for the cheeseburger this time.

YUM

How can you go wrong with a cheeseburger and fries? My dinner was very tasty. It wasn't the best burger that I've eaten, but it was good and I left happy. The comments from around the table were all positive, so I can only assume that the actual seafood was good too. The birthday boy had a plate of crab legs, which he seemed very happy with!

Happy Birthday Andrew!

I liked the atmosphere of The Flying Fish. You order at the counter and seat yourself. There were no frills, which was just fine with me!

Meal of Food Austin

I went to Austin for a conference for work last week, and it seemed like the perfect excuse for Ryan and I to enjoy a weekend trip visiting friends and all of our favorite Austin places. We are both University of Texas grads and we met in school, so Austin is pretty special to us.

One of the best things about Austin is the amazing food scene. Since we missed our traditional MoFF, I decided to share some of the best spots that we visited on our trip.

Ryan drove down on Friday morning in time to pick me up at the end of my conference. We went straight to Trudy's for lunch. Trudy's is a local chain of tex-mex restaurants that is famous for great Mexican martinis, and it's been one of our favorites for years. There is a location within walking distance of the UT campus, so it was a place that we went often when we were in school. We started out with chips and queso and a martini. A Mexican martini is essentially a variation of a giant margarita on the rocks. The ones at Trudy's are pretty intense - so much so that you are only aloud to order two. I must admit, one is more than enough for me!

Delicious!

We both decided to order the house special for lunch. It's called the stuffed avocado, and it is an avocado, cheese, and chicken mixture that is fried and smothered in suiza sauce. The waiter convinced us to step it up a notch and add seasoned brisket to the top. It was excellent! I've eaten at Trudy's several times, but had never tried the stuffed avocado. It was so good, that I don't think I'll ever order anything else!

It may look like a mess, but I promise it's good!

For breakfast the next morning, we ventured out to another old favorite, Taco Shack. They have amazing breakfast burritos. My personal favorite is called The Burnet Road, which is a tortilla stuffed with eggs, cheese, potatoes, and bacon. And it was just as tasty as I remember!

Is there a better breakfast than a breakfast taco/burrito? I think not.

Before we left Sunday, we met a couple of friends for brunch at Kerbey Lane Cafe, another favorite of UT students. Kerbey is famous for queso, pancakes, and for being open 24 hours. Kerbey queso is perhaps my most favorite queso in the world. It's white cheese, guacamole, tomatoes, etc. and it's pretty great. We were there for breakfast, but we couldn't pass up the queso!

Nothing like a bowl of cheese to start your day!

We had omelets and apple whole wheat pancakes for our meal. The omelet was good, but the pancakes were better. They are huge! Kerbey sells their pancake mix, so we stopped by the H-E-B and picked some up (along with some Whataburger ketchup!)

We brought back gifts!

Our weekend in Austin was a lot of fun! It's great to be able to see friends and to visit some of our favorite places. Here are a couple of other places that I hit while I was in town - I'd recommend them all!

- Rudy's BBQ - super casual and super delicious! Each location is attached to a gas station convenience store. There are a few locations in DFW as well.

- Serrano's - another tex-mex spot with great margaritas. I had quesadillas and they were great, and you get a huge portion.

- Esther's Follies - this is not a restaurant - it's a comedy club that I had the chance to visit with the conference that I was attending. It's very funny and a great activity if you are looking for something to do while visiting Austin.

- Stubb's BBQ - somehow, neither Ryan or I ever ate at Stubbs while living in Austin, despite the fact that Ryan only buys Stubb's BBQ sauce at the grocery story. It's also a cool concert venue.

What's your favorite Austin spot?

Taste of Addison

We did something totally different from our usual Meal Of Food this week and went to the annual Taste of Addison festival. Taste of Addison features over 60 restaurants selling samples of their food, live music, and general festivities. Also, several booths sold 16oz beers (mostly Dos XX which was the event sponsor) for only $3.00. Pretty good for an event like this one!

Thanks to MoFF, I had actually already tried food from many of the participating restaurants. In the spirit of Meal of Food Friday, Ryan and I tried something new and started out by sharing snacks from Taste of Cuba. We shared the Cuban sandwich, fried potato ball, and a beef empanada. The sandwich was really good. The other two items were just okay. It's a little hard to judge the restaurant when you are getting food in the festival setting, but the empanada really didn't do it for me. Maybe just because I've had much better - if you like empanadas, you have to check out Casa Vieja. The potato ball was mashed potatoes with seasoned meat inside. It would have been better it if had been really hot - it was a little cold, which really took it down a notch.

Cuban sandwich - it was easily the highlight of the meal

The empanada was fine - just didn't measure up to Casa Vieja

How can you NOT order something called a fried potato ball?

Our second course was a slice of pizza from Johnny's Pizza House. My pizza was good, but it was also a little cold. I can see this being much better at the actual restaurant. The Johnny's booth had the additional advantage of offering a nice selection of beers. Ryan tried the St. Arnold's Lawnmower, and we both liked it so much that we bought some on Saturday for another event.

pizza was a good choice for a festival - no fork needed!

For desert, we got chocolate chip cookies and a brownie from Tiff's Treats, an amazing cookie delivery service that was founded in Austin, TX by a couple of UT students. Naturally, we had to support our fellow Longhorns!

We had a really fun night, enjoying food, music, and friends.  I highly recommend checking out Taste of Addison next spring. Here are some tips if you do:

1. Buy reduced price admission tickets at Albertson's
2. Do not pay for parking - free parking is available near the Addison Circle Fair Grounds
3. Bring cash - there are ATMs, but you might as well come prepared
4. Share food with friends so that you can try more things - that's the point!