My 22 hour layover started with Al-Hyderabadi Mandi Biryani, right near Heathrow Airport.
They serve a mash-up of two cuisines nearly unknown to NYC: Hyderabadi and Arabian. It's run by Hyderabadis who've lived in UAE or Saudi. So they make biryani and mandi, the Arabian rice dish. Biryani (especially Hyderabadi dum biryani, widely deemed the best in India) is a festive extreme of textures and flavors, no two bites the same. Mandi is the very opposite: unseasoned rice with a hunk of meat. Both great when done well. And this place does well!
Best dish was actually the baby lamb haleem, i.e. meat mashed within an inch of its life and poured over rice. Hardly exotic, but devastating.
This is a serious place, not for looklyoos. Women are in full burkas, and diners eat, seated upon floor, in curtained rooms. It took effort to convince staff I was serious, but if I went twice more, I'd be family, inshallah.
I didn't take photos (acting like Mr. Influencer wouldn't serve the purpose of putting denizens at ease), but do scope out the link above (here's a repeat) for tons of photos.
Breakfast, next day, was at Bermondsey Corner. This is nobody's landmark, but is in my weirdo pantheon. I've only been twice, but have already discovered:
1. Their matcha is the best I've had. I mostly drink high-end matcha shipped in from the legendary Ippodo in Kyoto, occasionally even their top-of-the-line luxe stuff. This, sourced from Good & Proper Teas, is even better. I have no idea where those guys get it, or why it's priced so low, or what's going on, generally. To scale matcha heights without paying $$$, mail order via link above from anywhere.
2. I'm not a jam guy. I get excited by the idea of it, and keep buying jars, but then I open it and spread it and it's always just jam. But here I bought Puckett's Gooseberry & Orange Blossom jam, and it didn't just sound terrific, it actually made me gasp. I can't describe it in words. And I suspect their other flavors are equally good. Gawd.
3. Top-level cortado (espresso shot with a glurk of warm - not frothed - milk). I'm not a coffee maven, but I know "great".
Wines and cheeses are also lovingly curated. Plus, it's a great hang. A Unesco World Heritage chowhounding gem.
Finally, a quick Frenchie lunch at Casse-Croûte.
It was perverse of me to order cassoulet, coming from Portugal, where essentially the same thing is a national dish (i.e. feijoada). But after many months of primitive soulful deliciousness, I crave touch and skill. And even being the most grandmotherly French dish, this cassoulet was still far more meticulous than anything found in Portugal. (I hate to sound like Mr. Genteel, but no matter how much you love yin, you will, with sufficient deprivation, eventually go crazy for some yang).
Same thing with wine. Portugal is full of amazingly good $4 bottles, but its $14 and $24 ones are no more graceful. Here, I had a glass of 2020 Domaine de Roudéne Jean de Píla Fitou. Grace!
Spotted on the Tube or the Underground or the Perambulator or whatever the hell, this grafitti diptych represented the perfect encapsulation of British wit, being both dryly subtle and broadly irreverent.
Last time, I raved over Parry Avenue BBQ. I'll let you re-scan those bbq porn photos (some of my most remarked-upon food shots ever).
The place never caught on, even though proprietor Leo Morales is obviously, to me, anyway, The Guy right now for central and south Texas barbecue (Dallas is a bit too north to include in "Hill Country").
I had my first Texas barbecue in the mid-1980s, before it had become a hipster sacrament and foodies elevated it to heritage status. Hell, that was before there were even foodies. BBQ then was turned out by older grumpy guys in the tradition of their forebears - German butchers extending via smoke the lifespan of pricy cuts like brisket (as opposed to Southern barbecue, where African Americans transubstantiated scrap cuts like ribs).
It was possible back then to find a lone unheralded genius, but that's seemingly unthinkable in present day. So I was dumbfounded to find the best barbecue cooked a mile from the skyscrapers of downtown Dallas in a place earning a crappy 2.7 stars on Yelp, where I was the sole customer on a bright Saturday afternoon.
One single human being appears to share my assessment. This guy Matthew Shrum reviewed, on Google:
"I live in Austin and regularly get BBQ from the much celebrated Franklin’s, Black’s and La Barbeque. Had brisket from Parry Ave BBQ today. Every bit as good. Maybe better. Plus the potato salad is perfect."Amen, brother.
I was heartbroken to hear about Parry Avenue's closure, and had tracked Leo's progress through a series of other ventures. It was looking unlikely I'd score this time, but after reaching out via Facebook (follow him here), he told me he was doing a pop-up and would save me a couple slices of brisket.
We met at the Dallas outpost of Fraternal Order of Eagles, a sprawling lodge boasting a huge swimming pool stocked with super-friendly bodacious Texas babes and a friendly, diverse crowd of Central Texas characters (I'm exasperated by people calling MAGAs, generally, and Texans, specifically, "racists". I see way more respect and acceptance of Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians around here than I do in the supposedly enlightened coastal metropolises. Folks here are legit upset about undocumented immigration - which doesn't happen to bother me much - but it's not the skin color or culture that bugs them - though of course every area has its idiots).
Leo kindly showed up with this vundertray:
...and it turns out, he's from Elmhurst, Queens. Because of course he is. And he's half-Colombian, which made a lightbulb go off in my head. Last trip, I reported that "finally, I understand baked beans." Trying those beans again (no photo, sorry), I realize that they taste just a little bit Colombian, which, to me, is like home. It takes a genuine TX pit master from Queens with Colombian heritage to make me love baked beans.
The moral here is that Texas barbecue is not an "efficient market", after all, where all the good stuff has been sussed out. Slamming greatness remains undiscovered. And Leo Morrales just gets better and better. Like all my favorite chefs, he's all about making the next batch his absolute best.
Note that you can just show up at the Fraternal Order of Eagles; a $15 guest pass lets you enjoy the pool and drink cheap beer! This is not my photo (it's stolen from the above link), but it's the same table where I scarfed my brisket:
I've been eating extremely well all along, but hadn't had anything remotely like soul food for nearly two years. As I lumbered back to my car, with a big dopey smile plastered across my face, my body, oddly, began to sob. I hadn't realized I was so deprived. I'll need to be more liberal about traveling.
There are several big shiny gringo-friendly mega Mexican food restaurants here, most of them quite good. But my instinct is always for the grandmotherly hole-in-wall, and here are two great ones completely off-radar:
La Estrella is a bakery serving a limited food menu, just one or two rotating dishes. Cabeza tacos, on proper small tortillas, were a pure breath of Mexico. Cabeza is misunderstood; it's not some weirdo cut from the sinuses or something, it's essentially pork cheeks. Nice tender pork cheeks. Friendly!
If I lived here, I'd be a regular. Nothing high-energy. No blasting happy mariachi. Just mega-chill. The real thing.
Pambazos are a holy grail of mine. I've had them in several regions of central-ish Mexico, and abroad. The version at La Hechizera Tortas is one I've seen a lot - comically over-sized, the saddle-shaped bun lightly dipped in red sauce and the choripapas (chorizo + potatoes) filling very delicately doled out. A paradoxically delicate gut bomb:
It's not my favorite style. I prefer the kind where the bread is actually fried in the chorizo, not just french-dipped in sauce, and with a heartier, sloppier, more seared choripapa filling. That sort usually comes on more modest-sized rolls (lest they face manslaughter charges). But, hell, I'll take this any day. La Hechizera Tortas is a chain. Rule of thumb: Mexican-owned, immigrant-facing chains in Texas are GOOD. Especially if no one ever heard of them.
Note: don't read Wikipedia or food blogs or shiny books to try to better understand stuff like pambazos. World food has not been figured out. People - including natives - make confident claims which inevitably apply only to one certain style, and then others glom on to the assessment, building Jenga towers of dubious - or even flat wrong - conventional wisdom.
For example: mentally block anyone claiming to define "quesadilla". As I explained in my app, the same food words are used up and down La Republica, but mean different things in different states/counties/villages/homes. Be skeptical and eat widely. You become the expert!
I hadn't had a bite of Chinese food, either, in 18 months (aside from a single meal of dull faux-Shanghai in London). I needed it badly, so I surfed online and settled for a place called, lord help me, "Bushi Bushi". All indications, from the name on out, were suspicious. But no matter. I'm not chowhounding here. I'm satisfying long-stifled yens.
I entered a place that could have passed for an airport steakhouse and plonked myself down at the bar, where I was greeted with this ill omen:
Yeesh! Also, I'd read about their system of automatic ordering and robot serving. Yikes! And the place had no vibrancy whatsoever. Ugh!
I ordered dim sum. The price was very high. But look what I got (brought out by a smiley Cantonese grandma):
I'm sure it's because locals never finished normal-sized cups,
so the thrifty Cantonese owners cut the portion size.
The automatic ordering system appears to be an artifact of 1. COVID plus 2. a thrifty Cantonese gambit for not paying waiters. I still don't fully understand how it all works. It's weird. But after the first bite, my attention was otherwise occupied.
I left unexpectedly touched and delighted. I'm a big admirer of anyone working this far up the curve of declining results. It's quite underrated, so add it to your list.
Breadhaus in Grapevine is still excellent (see, once again, my last Dallas report for lots more info). Last time I was puzzled by an unidentified pastry. Got it now: it was an almond square.
Click these to expand:
Old West Cafe in Grapevine (strenuously raved about here and here, and reported seriously downhill here) appears to have leveled off into good-not-great. By Grapevine standards, that is. It's more than good enough for the likes of us.
I had migas again. I hadn't previously noticed how good their flour tortillas are. I try to force myself to go flour in Southern Texas and Northern Mexico, though I'm really more of a cornhound.
...alas, has closed. A real nail in the heart of old-timey border cooking. Sigh. See, yet again, previous report for details.
In my eclipse report, I mentioned hanging out at great Haitian-owned Val's Cheesecakes, which created a special chocolate black-out cheesecake for the occasion and also made griot (fried goat). Here you go:
I try not to be a reverse snob. I really do. I like expensive food just fine when there's value. But so often extra cash buys shininess rather than deliciousness.
I hit up Encina for their famous blue corn pancakes.
Also, it's hard to forgive stingy portions when it would cost them another seven cents per order to double that stack, or expand diameters to normality. I suppose the small-ish serving size telegraphs luxeness or whatever. My cocktail ("Mokonuts": mezcal, velvet falernum, lime, cream of coconut) was...sweet. This meager and not-bad breakfast, served by a bartender too cool to spend even a moment engaging with the likes of me (I'm not sure he ever quite stood still to take my order), cost gobs of money. My only regret of the trip. Still tasty, though. God bless Dallas, the food paradise Austin only poses at being.
Previous Dallas reports:
2022 Dallas Trip
Bolero and Breakfast
West Texas Breakfast Insights / The Deeper Meaning of Salt
Southwest by South Trip Installment #1
Austin/Dallas Trip
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