El Pollo Regio. Riverside Drive.

Yesterday around lunch time I was in the Riverside Drive and Belknap area so I thought I'd try one of the restaurants near there. Mamma Mia is there, Sammys Bar B Que, and a few others. I was alone so I was looking more for fast food and I noticed a place called El Pollo Regio. Man did I get lucky.

I ordered the half-chicken special. For $5.99 you get a half chicken, baked with Mexican seasonings, beans, rice, tortillas and a drink. It was delicious.  The pico de gallo looked and tasted homemade. I would go back just for that.

There is nothing fancy about the place. I thought it was just a single owner restaurant. But I was wrong, there are twenty or so Regio's in DFW area. I had never noticed them before.

There are only about six small tables indoors and a few outdoors, so they must do a big take out business. The chickens are all pre-cooked and held in a warmer. 

If you try it, tell me what you think. For six bucks I don't know of a better deal in town.

The Annual Ice Cream Issue. 2010.

I love ice cream.

Every year, when the temperature nears one-hundred, my thoughts turn toward a scoop of Rocky Road. I treat myself to a cone at Braum's every once in a while. 

How anyone can not love ice cream is incomprehensible to me. It is akin to not loving chocolate, or strawberries, or sunsets, or Gina Lollobrigida. Indeed, Americans have a long history of ice cream love, going back to the first Gelateria (ice cream shop) established in New York in 1770 by an Italian emigrant.

Locally, Blue Bell ice cream is a favorite. I also like Braum's. Both Braum's and Blue Bell do their own manufacturing, which I like. A good and inexpensive grocery store ice cream is the Archer Farms Brand, sold by Target. It scored high in a recent Consumer Reports on ice cream, as did Haagan Daz and Ben & Jerry's, but the latter are expensive and I don't care for the high fat content ice creams.

My wife makes our ice cream at home these days. It is easy and quick, and tastes great. We leave the ice cream mixer-bowl in the freezer until ready for use. It takes about thirty minutes to get good fresh ice cream. My first ice cream maker was a hand churn. I used it twice, I think.

Ice cream by the scoop in Fort Worth:
The new ice cream shops are Sweet Sammies and Paciugo, both off 7th Street. Sweet Sammies sells Blue Bell and Paciugo the homemade Italian gelato. I love them both.

The old stand-bys are:  Braum's, drive through and get one scoop of for about $2. My usual choice. And Marble Slab. Not my favorite and it is expensive. And Baskin Robbins.

And just in case you are on the East Coast this summer, my favorite ice cream shop in the world is the Royal Treat, in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Something about ice cream, a cool summer evening, boardwalk sounds, and salt air that works well together.

Frozen Yogurt: Ice cream has the advantage of taste-memory in most of our minds, but frozen yogurt is a refreshing summer treat, especially when it is served with fresh fruit. There are almost too many frozen yogurt vendors to mention this summer, but we have to include in our favorites, Yogolait, Menchies, and Pinkberry.

Finally, I like ice cream so much I worked as a ice cream salesman one summer. I drove an ice cream truck not unlike the one in this picture. The biggest seller was the Bomb-Pop. My favorite was the orange creamsicle.

Qdoba or not Qdoba.

(My apologies to Will Shakespeare.) 

I can thank Qdoba for at least one thing.

If it weren't for their restaurant on Walnut Street in Philadelphia, my son's college diet would consist of beer and tortilla chips. Thanks to them it is tacos, queso, beer and tortilla chips. He might even add a little lettuce to the tacos, so that's one vegetable serving a day. Like I say, for that I am grateful.

He's back for a while this summer so we visited the Qdoba restaurant in the Tower Building downtown. I like Qdoba it for the most part. The best menu item is the queso, it's as good as you can get in a fast food restaurant.

I was pretty excited the first time I visited the Qdoba-concept restaurant a few years ago. Now, and dozens of visits later, I have one main complaint and one minor complaint.

The biggest problem I have is with the food temperature, especially their signature burrito. Hot food should be served hot and cold food should be served cold. Simple. Qdoba's food, by the time I sit down, is luke-warm, and that keeps me from giving them high marks.

The taste is good, the service is good, but the food-warming basins are not kept hot enough, probably for insurance purposes, the rice is often cool, and then, by the time your food sits in the prep line and you wait to check out, the burrito's way too cooled off for me.

The other thing, and this is a minor point, but it seems expensive for what you get.

Now, I am happy to go to any restaurant of my children's choosing because a good meal is more than the food. We all know that. But if I could get that burrito served piping hot I'd go back, on my own, a lot more often.

Free Donuts. June 4.

National Donut Day?

Yep. According to their websites,  a free donut can be had today at Dunkin Donuts, Shipley's, and Krispy Kreme.

https://www.dunkindonuts.com/Donut/

http://www.krispykreme.com/

http://www.shipleydonuts.ws/

Let's have a vote. Krispy's, Shipley's, or Dunkin's?

I am Dunkin Donut guy, myself. And you?

(I believe Krispy is a no-purchase-required promotion, whereas Dunkin and Shipley require a purchase.)

Talking Jack. In the Box.

I have never been a big fan of the food at Jack in the Box except for the deep-fried, guilty pleasure they call a taco, which tastes fantastic -- especially at 1:00 in the morning.

And I have liked their commercials.

Sidenote: I will frequent a restaurant because of a good commercial. J/Box has them. And stay away from a restaurant with annoying commercials. Burger-King has them (that Burger King character is annoying and creepy).

My problem with J/Box has been the continual change of food and focus. One day the jack-in-the-box character was in, the next day they were blowing him up. Now's he's back. One day they were selling cheeseburgers, the next day, strawberry shakes and pita bread sandwiches. It's all too confusing for me. Jack in the Box has tried every conceivable food fad in the hopes of gaining some separation from the other hamburger places, but at times they appear to have given up on the hamburger altogether. The deep-fried taco is the long-standing menu exception and surpasses anything in fast-food-dom. (Have I said they are great at one o'clock in the morning?)

All of the above is a long introduction to a small point, which is, my son is a Jack in the Box lover and suggested I try the latest iteration. So I did, this morning. I ordered a steak and egg burrito and I loved it. It looked and tasted like real egg and steak on a slightly too-thin and too-crispy flour tortilla, but it was mmm-mmm good, for about $2.75.

Jack. I'll be back. Just keep this breakfast burrito a while. Please.