Saturday is the day that my family goes out for breakfast. This occurs in spite of the fact that I usually buy good breakfast fixin’s with the intention of cooking them on weekend mornings. We always manage to crave waffles or pancakes or whatever, and then have to make our way out to one of the usual haunts to satisfy that need.

Last week our usual haunt (Old Neighborhood Grill) was closed for Labor Day weekend, so we had to scramble to find someplace new. My companion wanted waffles, so the hunt was on!
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Yucatan Taco Stand
909 West Magnolia Avenue
Map

Note: This review features input from not one, but two West & Clear staffers. The first part of the review is from Pete Wann, and the second part is a vegetarian perspective from me, Kevin Buchanan, along with my photography of the place. Enjoy!

P. W. - There’s been a ton of discussion about the decor of this place. I think it looks like a cross between Gloria’s and Ronin. Not exactly modern — more Mayan Riviera minimalist.

The ordering process is similar to Fuzzy’s or Pei Wei (Or so I’m told — I can’t remember the last time I was in Pei Wei.), where you order your food and get a number, then the yummies are brought out to you.

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You know, it seems like there’s a new restaurant opening in Fort Worth nearly every week. Some open, struggle for a bit, then turn out to be huge successes (Taverna) others open to much fanfare and praise, then fall flat on their faces (Giant).

Today we’re focusing on a restaurant that has survived for 35 years in Fort Worth, despite having a pretty horribly out-of-the-way location and a cuisine focus that’s not exactly “mainstream” anywhere outside of Lancaster County, PA. (And my hometown, which has a very large Amish and Mennonite population, but isn’t as famous as LC, PA.)
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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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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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