As I’ve said before, one of my favorite restaurants on the Near South Side is Chadra Mezza and Grill. The food is terrific, but it’s the wonderful people that keep me going back. Heck, my wife and I have even been known to pick up a bartending shift or two at the restaurant… we enjoy being there that much!

Nehme and Christina Elbitar recently added outdoor seating behind their Park Place eatery, so every Wednesday night they are inviting folks to bring their dogs to enjoy a night out on the patio. Dogs get a bowl of water and a treat, while their people can enjoy a full bar and selections from the Lebanese/Greek/Italian menu.

Chadra Mezza & Grill

Lebanese/Greek/Italian/817-924-2372/1622 Park Place Avenue/$$/Reservations advisable on Friday Night/11AM-3PM Mon and Tues; 11AM-10PM Wed-Sat
http://www.chadramezza.com/

The penultimate performance of Fort Worth Opera’s 2008 Festival — Saturday’s performance of Lucia di Lammermoor at Bass Hall — really captured everything I have come to appreciate about this company. Start with perfect staging, add in established stars, then bring in lots of young talent.

Donizetti’s retelling of Sir Walter Scott’s novel about the worst wedding night ever is plenty dark and moody, thanks to director David Gately. Most of the scenes come up with a spotlight on a main character who appears to be this white presence floating in a sea of darkness. Things don’t get much brighter than that for most of the characters.

The audience is much more fortunate. Elizabeth Futral — an international star and one leading sopranos in opera today, really demonstrated what a talent of her magnitude can accomplish.
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You know that bar and grill in every college movie? The place with the nice long bar, cheap beer, bar food, and close enough to campus that you could stumble back to the dorms after closing it down for the night?

That’s what Buffalo Brothers is like.

The difference here is that it’s not in a movie, it’s in Fort Worth, just down the street (easy stumbling distance) from TCU.

Buffalo Brothers is the result of a collaboration between John Bonnell (of, obviously, Bonnell’s Fine Texas Cuisine), and Ed McOwen, chef de cuisine at Bonnell’s. It joins Grady Spears’ Dutch’s Burgers next door as the latest in the trend of local chef-celebs opening lower priced “everyday food” joints on University just north of Berry. (Yes, I’m aware that both have been open for a while, but I like to get to know a place before I write about it.)
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After being stuck in Hamilton for a day because of weather, Bryan and I had settled on an alternate route with overnight stops in Meridian, Whitney, and Cleburne.

On our way to Meridian State Park (which turned out to be the prettiest State Park I’ve been to), we went through the town of Cranfills Gap, one of the few Norse settlements in Texas. There wasn’t much open on a Sunday, but a sign on the way out of town invited us back in September for Septemberfest and in December for Lutefisk. Mmmm…. Lutefisk.

About halfway between Cranfills Gap and Meridian, with our mouths still watering from the prospect of Lutefisk, we saw this German- and checkered-flag-festooned building in the distance ahead:

Bryan deadpanned, “Hey look, Bernie, it’s your people. Wanna stop and schmooze with them?”

From afar, I thought it was an auto dealership with no cars, so I declined. But when we got close enough to see the restaurant sign, there was no way we couldn’t stop.

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Cafe Modern is the type of place that has every right to be pretentious–the food is delicious, ridiculously unique and occasionally downright bizarre (Duck PB&J Sandwich, anyone?) and the view out over the reflecting pond is beautiful. But Cafe Modern is about as far from pretentious as you can get, and in contrast to many arty gourmet type places who serve dime-size portions of confounding concoctions, then charge $50 for the privilege of occupying their establishment, Cafe Modern serves hearty portions of comfort food-inspired cuisine with an artistic twist, and for the caliber of food you’re getting, their prices really aren’t bad.

Since I noticed they changed their menu recently, I stopped by on my lunch break this week. I didn’t even have to wait for a seat, and I got to sit right by the window overlooking the reflecting pond. It was a windy day, so the water was unusually active. It was a lovely sight.

Whenever I go to Cafe Modern, I have to order the iced tea. Their iced tea just might be the best in Fort Worth . . . or no, maybe even in all of Texas . . . and it’s well worth the $4 they charge (the refills are free, so drink up!).

I ordered the Spaghetti Squash, a surprisingly spicy vegetarian dish. The spaghetti squash was mixed with red quinoa, a high-protein, slightly nutty grain, and topped with Thai peanut curry cream and roasted vegetables. If you’re a fan of super spicy curry, this dish is your dream come true. My nose started running just a few bites in, but the spiciness still didn’t overpower the other flavors in the dish. In the background you can taste the nuttiness of the quinoa and the slight sweetness of the roasted spaghetti squash. There’s also a little smokiness lingering around in there. The squash was served with caramelized pearl onions, grilled carrots, red bell peppers, snow peas and Swiss chard. The caramelized onions were out of this world–soft, sweet and melt-in-your-mouth. In fact, I think the dish would be even better if they’d ditch the snow peas and replace them with more of those sweet, delicious onions. Overall, this is a great dish for a cold day. I had no idea what to expect from it flavor-wise, and I’m not normally a big fan of curry, so all around it was a pleasant surprise.

I skipped dessert on this outing (the Gastrognome still needs to fit in her clothes), but I’ve had their desserts many times before and I’ve never been disappointed. A past favorite of mine was the S’mores Cheesecake - a rich chocolate cheesecake with a graham cracker crust topped with broiled marshmallow gooiness. Amazing! Their current dessert selection includes the Root Beer Float Cupcake and Chipotle Chocolate Lava Cake.

Cafe Modern’s menu changes with each season, so if you see something you want to try, get over there soon before it’s gone. Their current lunch, brunch and dessert menus can be downloaded off The Modern’s website. Their current menu includes the Duck “PB&J” Sandwich (Bernie can vouch for its awesomeness), Shiner Bock Chili, Vegetable Samosa, and Pumpkin-Ginger French Toast. They also have a wide selection of wine and beer to choose from.

Cold Ass Beer @ Fred’s Texas Cafe, originally uploaded by DigitalHowie.

I’m a long-time denizen of Fred’s and I believe that it is one of those places that really defines Fort Worth. In my reckoning, Fred’s owner/chef Terry Chandler is more important than Tim Love or Grady Spears. In fact, I put him up there with local luminaries as Van Cliburn, Bill Paxton, T-Bone Burnett and the old fella from Old School. Yeah, as they say, he’s kind of a big deal.

But why? What has Terry done to set himself apart?

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Piranha Killer Sushi’s downtown digs have been open for a little while now, and owners & chefs Kenzo Tran and Tommy Le have created an outstanding Japanese eatery serving up incredibly tasty dishes in a cool urban atmosphere.

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Since we moved to Fort Worth a year ago, I’ve tried to share my experiences of getting to know the city and what it offers, culturally, politically, and gastronomically. Despite my best intentions, however, there’s one area that I’ve tended to ignore, The Stockyards.

I don’t know for sure WHY I haven’t spent any time there. Maybe it’s that I expected it to be all kitschy and touristy (it kind of is), or maybe it’s my fervent desire to move Fort Worth beyond the “cowpokes and slowpokes” stereotype. No matter what the cause of my neglect, that’s not the right way to truly embrace a city. Cities are like people, they have aspects you truly love (Magnolia Ave., the thriving arts scene), and things that you tolerate because the other things are so cool (cowboy culture, Camp Bowie). For me, The Stockyards isn’t going to be a destination where I’ll be spending a lot of time anytime soon. The rhinestone (or real) cowboy thing isn’t my scene. I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be ANYONE’S scene, just that it’s not for me.

Anyway, enough rambling. Let’s take a look at one of the newer joints on Exchange St., The Love Shack. (Warning: annoying automatic (probably unlicensed) use of “Love Shack” by the B-52’s upon page load.)

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Welcome to Gastrognome, our recurring dining feature that aims to highlight the unique and varied dining landscape in Fort Worth. We’ve all got our own weird dietary quirks, so this will make for some good reading in the coming posts.

We’ll start this feature with a review of a seafood restaurant in Sundance Square, but just because our first restaurant has a couple $$ in the summary doesn’t mean we’ll always be dining with rich folks, drinking coffee and smoking big cigars. You get to read about the places we like. We aren’t food critics; we are folks that don’t mind spending our hard earned scratch on some good food.

So what’s with the name, Gastrognome? I don’t know, man…We have a weird sense of humour and as soon as I can cook up the graphic, it will make a lot more sense.

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Daddy Jack’s New England Lobster and Chowder House
American Seafood/817-332-2477/353 Throckmorton @ 3rd/$$$/ Reservations seem like a good idea
http://www.daddyjacks.org/

I dunno…I guess it was the understated exterior or the juxtaposition of red gingham tablecloth and fine tableware, but I wasn’t sure what to expect from Daddy Jack’s, a New England-ey seafood restaurant near Sundance Square in Downtown Fort Worth.

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