Chop House Burgers, Arlington, Texas. The Best?

First, let me thank Lynn for the suggestion. I don't first-time-try Arlington restaurants much these days and wouldn't have found the Chop-House if Lynn hadn't said something.

The Chop House Burger is as good as you can get. Period. I could stop there, give you the link, and say, next time you are in Arlington, stop by.

But for those interested, Chop House Burgers is the venture of long-time steakhouse chef Kenny Mills, who, among many other things, ran one of my favorite steakhouses in the country, The Capital Grille, in Washington, DC. I mention that because after you have tasted one of the Chop House burgers you know that this is a hamburger that has had some thought put into it.

The "Best" burger in the area? I don't know, but it should be an entrant in any DFW competition. If you have been, or you go, PLEASE, tell me your opinion. Am I missing something or is that a great burger?

The fries, by the way: medium-thin cut, fried perfectly, hot, and delicious. One order is enough for two people, at least for Marian and me. The prices are similar to any of the better hamburger places in the area, about $10 per person for a meal. They do have soups and salads, as well.

Chop House Burgers is in a little strip shopping center at the corner of Park Row and Fielder.

I'll be going back. What else can I say.

Chop House Burgers Link: Here

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Zestfest, 2011. Irving, Texas.

I'm not sure why they moved Zestfest to the Irving Convention Center. No offense, but Irving...Zestfest? Something wrong with that.

Anyway, here are a few reminders from my last year's visit and some general information. It is a great show for taste testing and for buying.

1. There is a $10 entrance fee but you can come and go all day.
2. It can get crowded, if you want more space, ask when the "down" times are.
3. There are drinks to purchase, including Coors beer, but no food except 1 concession stand serving hotdogs and such. Of course, there are hundreds of sauces, salsas, and relishes to try with plenty of tortilla chips.
4. Try the super hot peanuts. Wow.

DETAILS:

Friday, January 28, 2011 11:00-3:00 TRADE ONLY
Friday, January 28, 2011 3:00-7:00
Saturday, January 29, 2011 10:00-5:00
Sunday, January 30, 2011 10:00-4:00
--------------------------------------------
Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas
500 W Las Colinas Blvd.
Irving, TX 75039

http://zestfest2011.com/

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Super Bowl XLV. A Few Random Thoughts.

Super Bowl XLV at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium, on February 6, in Arlington, Texas will be the biggest sporting event in the country in the year 2011. That's saying something. Super Bowl numbers are staggering: the number of people watching, the number of pizzas consumed, rooms and cars rented, the list is endless.

In the video, they say that 150,000 people will be visiting North Texas Super Bowl weekend. I hope they all feel welcome and that North Texas looks good.

We have no single-ticket draw here. No mountains, beaches, or slot machines. No French Quarter, or Colosseum, or natural wonders of the world. We do have amenities that match nearly every city in the nation. Great restaurants, hotels, parks, lakes, rivers and the like. And lots of wide open space.

In many ways, I think Fort Worth has more to offer SuperBowl visitors than Dallas, even though it is smaller in scope. Fort Worth has a model downtown with plenty to do and see. Traffic is a little lighter, it's closer to the Stadium and it's not quite as overwhelming as Dallas. Plus, it has an authentic western quality to it. We like the nickname, Cowtown.

I know many people are opposed to the intrusiveness of events like this and maybe the cost is a little daunting. But in my mind, the end does justify the means. The benefits are not just the immediate monetary bump, but the exposure that brings people and businesses back for years to come. Billions of people watch the Super Bowl on TV and they all will be seeing the mural at Sundance Square as ESPN plays SuperBowl host. We couldn't get that kind of exposure with twenty years worth of advertising.

I love the Super Bowl being right next door to me. Love it. And anything I can do to make it come off a success I will.

Oh, and Jerry, have your people call my people. I might have time to stop by your luxury suite on Sunday.

Sprouts Farmers Market. New in Fort Worth. Opening Wednesday.

Remind me never to go into the grocery business.

I'm serious.

The competition begins with the old-line Albertson/Kroger/TomThumb stores, and is followed by Walmart and Target super stores, Sam's and Costco bulk-discount stores, plus, Whole Foods and Central Market on the high end, and Aldi, Trader Joe's, and a cast of thousands on the low end. It's a tough world for selling a can of beans these days.

Entering this not-so-friendly fray: Sprouts Farmers Markets.

Spouts fresh produce department

Sprouts is a grocery store devoted to fresh foods, some local, some organic, but not solely so, and healthy-living products, like vitamins, supplements and skin care products.

I visited my first Sprouts store Saturday, at the Hulen and I-20 store's pre-open. I liked it and for what my opinion is worth, I think they will do well in Fort Worth. Healthy living and environmentally safe products are the new normal. And the lower prices at Sprouts makes shopping there very attractive.

Sprouts has a meat department with some grass-fed beef selections, a fish department, a bakery, fresh produce, and two hundred bins of fresh nuts, grains, beans, chocolates, etc. They also have their own private-label products, peanut butter and spaghetti sauce are two that I saw as I walked around. And they have special sale days every Wednesday. I noticed raw almonds for $3.99 a pound, on sale, and granola for $1 a pound, again on sale. Coffee beans normally at $8.99 a pound on sale days will be $5.99 a pound when they are on sale.

Final somewhat random observation: the store seems more set-up for the female shopper than your average grocery store. I don't know if that is the intentional vibe or just my reaction from shopping at Home Depot too much lately.

Anyway, Sprouts' stores are in four states and based in Phoenix, Arizona. They currently have fifty stores, this is the first in Fort Worth. There are four in Austin (weird). They are a privately held corporation.

To the folks at Sprouts Farmers Markets --- welcome to Fort Worth.
---------------------------------------
Store Details
Opening day: Wednesday, January 26. (Special prizes for first 500 visitors)
Website: Sprouts
4650 SW Loop 820
(NW corner of I-20 and Hulen the old Albertson's)
Fort Worth, TX

Disclosure: at the end of the tour I was given a "thank-you" tote-bag with a few treats like berries, puffed rice chips and lotion samples. It was thoughtful and appropriate.

...

Cost of gasoline adjusted for inflation.

I noticed gasoline over $3.00 per gallon today. And I hear talk of 50 or 75 cents more per gallon by the summer.

Painful? Yes, especially for long-commuters.

But when adjusted for inflation the price is not not much different than other "above average" times in the last 90 years. Gasoline was 25 cents per gallon back in the '60's, but when adjusted for inflation, that is, when adjusted to the buying power or value of the today's dollar, the price today is not wildly different from the price back then.

That being said, 2011 prices at $3.00+ a gallon are on the high side of the mean.

Want to feel better? In London, gasoline works out to be over $8.00 a gallon, US.

Inflation Adjusted Average Gasoline Prices, from InflationData.com

Chart: © Copyright 2010.  Timothy McMahon and InflationData.com
For more information on this chart please go to: InflationData.com

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The Wall Street Journal's New Books Section

Some readers will not find this post very interesting -- but, since I have yet to write anything very interesting anyway, I thought, why change now.

If you haven't picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal's Weekend edition, you should. If you haven't seen one in a while, and you like newspaper reading, you ought to give it a try.

The Weekend Edition is especially good, partly because it is new, and has started with a "clean slate" of ideas, and partly because it has taken parts of the old Friday edition, my old favorite, and expanded them.

Within this Saturday edition, the one section I would like to talk about is the Books Section. In the old Friday edition, the Books section was barely a page, last week the Books Section was a full eight pages. Here's a sample of what they covered.

1. The Greatest of Them All -- a review of three books on Alexander the Great. A summary of eight other books of the same subject.

2. Mysteries Chronicles -- Dorothy Sayer's, Lord Peter Whimsey lovers will be glad to know that the Sayer's estate has deputized someone to finish her last novel. There's a brief essay on that.

3. Joseph Brodsky. A Literary Life. A full review of a new book on the Russian poet and writer.

4. Growing Pangs. A half-page review on the Maud Hart Lovelace books.

5. Five Best: Fury and Terror at the High Seas. Each week WSJ does a brief review of the five best books in a field. This week, they reviewed the five best books on sailing and the high seas. Coincidentally, I had just downloaded one of them for my Kindle. Free.

So, if you like books and book reviews, including the classics, you can't do much better than the Wall Street Journal Saturday Books Section.

(While I am at it, and just in the off-chance somebody from the basement level of the WSJ reads this: if you are going to publish a magazine once a month, do you think you could broaden the appeal to more than the NYC crowd? Thanks.)
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..

For Want of a Bar of Soap.

I have lived in my house, "lo these many years."

I have paid for my house, or contributed towards its payment, I have painted its wood, mowed its lawn, and washed its windows. I have, for over thirty years, added my sweat and equity to this house in which my wife and I have lived. And she has turned out rather nicely, if I do say so myself.

Yet . . . yet, when I am searching, in this modest little house of ours, for a bar of soap, a simple, little bar of shower soap -- I can find not a one.

Oh, we have soap. We have soaps in many colors and shapes. Soaps wrapped in fancy papers, bearing fancy names. Some even wrapped in rough, corrugated paper with hemp bows tied around them. Impostors. Wolves in sheep clothes. I do not want these soaps.

I do not want to smell like oatmeal, or wheat, or honeysuckle, or shea butter. I do not want soap made from goat's milk or peaches. I do not want sand, or salt, or pieces of maple bark in my soap, and I certainly do not want lavender. But, right now, in my house I find all of the above and not one that bears the old names in which I am familiar.

Dial, Irish Spring, Zest . . . oh we few, we happy few . . . I know you are out there somewhere . . .

,,,,,

Best Of Fort Worth. 2010 (updated to 2020)

It is 2020

We're all beaten down by the Covid and its effects

But  it did give me some time to update the Best of.

Food and Fort Worth's 

Best of Fort Worth(

(2020)

Best new retail and restaurant development: The West 7th and So7 (South 7th) developments have to be the biggest, and in my opinion the best, mixed-use development we have seen for many years. What the Target area south of Montgomery Plaza did wrong, West 7th has done right. The area south and west is developing now and adding to the whole cool vibe. Sundance Square, if I may say respectfully, feels a little touristy compared to what's going on at 7th Street.

I wrote that in 2010. In 2020, I would say that the hottest area of development is the near Southside and South Main. Restaurants, bars, coffee shops, apartments, etc. It's booming. Second to that in the "developing fast" is the number of young people moving to the Meadowbrook area on the eastside. Watch that. New start-ups like Coffee-Folk are doing very well.

Sundance Square is the realcenter of downtown since they made a formal square with fountains. It still tend to draw the corporate/tourist crowd but with the shopping, restaurants, entertainment, hotels, and bars are right there it is a great place to spend an evening
 
Best Mexican Restaurant / upscale:

2010: I still think Mi Cocina's downtown is the most enjoyable upscale Mexican restaurant, when you look at it from food quality, service, location and price. Their recent corporate problems notwithstanding, I like to go there. Cantina Laredo is a pretty close second, but doesn't have quite the buzz of Mi Cocina's. Chuy's is a step down in atmosphere, but I liked their sauces and will be returning.

2020:We still go to Mi Cocina but for the money Benito's is the best in town. Their pork verde asada is spicy and delicious. It's not in the upscale category but for good Mexican food it's our favorite. Also, Lucita's on 1st Streetat Beach is good.

Mexican Restaurant / small building.

2010: Salsa Fuego was selected 3 of 50 in the "Best Mexican" in Texas Monthly magazine and it too deserves the praise it gets. It's a long way from my house so I have been only twice. But it's good. Melis, on Vickery is good for a quick taco or burrito. And El Pollo Regio on Belnap is really good -- okay it's not going to win any restaurant design awards but I love the half-chicken with beans and rice.

2020: "Street tacos" like Fuzzy's" are everywhere. Personally, I think they're overpriced and I prefer to take my chances with the taco trucks that sell the same thing at half the price. Want good inexpensive Mexican food? Go to the grocery stores like Mi Tierra get in line with the locals and you'll get pretty good food at a great price.

Fajitas:

2010 and 2020:

The best fajitas in town, in my opinion, are at Pappasito's. Their Wednesday night two-for-one fajitas is a ridiculously good deal. Many of Pappa's dishes, including the cabrito and shrimp, are really good, as well. Uncle Julio's is a Pappasito's knock-off. It's good and well attended but it's just too noisy for me.
Still the best fajita meal in town.

Worst Mexican:

2010: Last year, I criticized the Yucatan Grill. They are, by all appearances, surviving well without me. This year we are giving the You call this Mexican food? award to Habenero's in south Arlington. It makes Yucatan Grill look good. God-awful food, with guacamole that I swear was made without an avocado. 

2020: Yucatan Grill is under new management. I'm not sure if it is being renamed.

Pizza:

2010: Cavalli's in Irving is the best in the DFW area. Il Cane Rosso, is a very close second. Patrizio's is good. Many of you like Rocco's. It's okay by me. The great thing about Cavalli's is that it is the least expensive and it is the best. Fireside Pies? Well, we won't go there for now. All of the above are southern-Italy style thin-crust pizza. The New York style pizza which I like is getting harder to find.

2020: We go to Picci Pacci. It's the best New York style pizza in town.

Bread:

Good luck. In my opinion there is not anywhere in Fort Worth that you can get an honest Artisan loaf of bread. So, I started making my own.

Burgers: 

2010: My current favorite is M&O Grill. Consistently good hamburgers. Five Guys on Hulen is new, and also one of my favorites, Smashburger is good, they are new, on University and in Arlington, and, drum roll please, In-N-Out Burger will be on 7th Street in 2011. I have not been to an In-N-Out, but everyone tells me they are good. Not new, but still good: Fred's, Kinkaids, Tommy's, Love's, Jakes. My least favorite "gourmet" burger is Dutch's and Pappas. Sorry, nothing personal, but that's the way I see it.

2020: When we want a good burger we go to Five Guys.

Coffee:

2010: Buon Giorno. New, with very good coffee. Buon Giorno roasts their coffee beans at their store in Grapevine. The Grapevine location has been operating for several years, in contrast to most independently owned coffee shops which have the lifespan of a tsetse fly. They must be doing something right. Avoca on Magnolia opens soon. Aduro Bean is a local roaster with excellent coffee for home brewing. Cafe Brazil will be coming to Fort Worth at TCU, soon. More on that as it develops. I still like McDonald's coffee in the morning. Starbucks: I have loved you, but please bring Sumatra back. Pike's Place is nasty.

2020: Coffee Folk and only Coffee Folk. The best cappuccino in DFW. I kid you not.

Italian Restaurant:

2010: My father and grandfather owned and operated an Italian restaurant. It's hard for me to get spaghetti and meatballs out even today, probably because I want to to taste my grand-pops sauce and never do. Nonna Tatta, La Piazza, Ruffino's (under new management) get good reviews. I have heard good things about Taverna, downtown.

2020: I don't even try to buy Italian food in Fort Worth.

Congratulations, TCU. Rose Bowl Champs, 2011.