I lived in California for 11 years so perhaps I am experiencing the reverse-home-town-food-nostalgia syndrome that affects older people because when I returned from vacation last week, I drove straight to In-N-Out and devoured a DDAS (double-double animal style) like a rabid coyote. EVERYBODY knows you order the fries crispy at INO. Everybody but Andrew.

Anywhoo, where do you go when you re-enter your life in Dallas?

Main dining room (left); screen porch (right) [photos by Micah Nunley)

It’s no secret that I avoid fried chicken like a bad disease. Something about fried chicken makes me want to look, sniff, and throw it back inside the KFC container it came in. Yet Sissy’s fried chicken is something else entirely. Paired with a fresh housemade Sriracha sauce, this Lisa Garza special has that hard-to-find balance you seek in any good ‘ole piece of Southern fried chicken: crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside.

At the media lunch I attended last week, I split a family-style meal with three other persons, and it took no small amount of self control to remember my table manners and share the amazing plates provided by Sissy’s Southern Kitchen and Bar.

Jump for some more Sissy’s love.

Owner Lisa Garza (photo by Micah Nunley)

Owner Lisa Garza explains, “Growing up, Sunday afternoon was the day we’d have fried chicken. And being from the south, this was one of those things I grew up loving. My favorite birthday dinner – when I first started dating my husband – I told him, ‘I want to stay home with you, and I want a bucket of chicken and a bottle of champagne.’ There’s just something about it that takes me back to being a kid and my grandma and Sunday supper after and the whole comfort of fried chicken.”

The lovely lady behind this homey Southern kitchen and bar decided on the name “Sissy’s” because that was the term of endearment her younger brother used to call her. Back when she still owned Suze and her little brother (“Bubba”) attended school in Mississippi, there was this one day when he and his roommate had no food left in their room. Bubba told his roommate not to worry. “My Sissy will feed us,” he said. He drove all the way from Mississippi to Lisa’s restaurant with only a gas card, and left Texas that day with a whole car packed to the brim with food. Sissy made sure her Bubba wouldn’t go hungry for awhile.

Deviled eggs with crème fraiche and tobiko caviar (Photo by Micah Nunley)

Customers can rest assured that Garza and her dear friend, Chef Jeffery Hobbs, will also take care of them. The bar features plenty of old-school Southern libations like the Moonshine Punch (Original Moonshine whiskey, lemon, orange, grenadine, blackberries) and Sissy’s Tequila Sipper (El Jimador, kaffir lime, lemongrass, ginger), while the food consists of staples you can’t afford to miss. Sweet jalapeno jelly accompanies golden-brown squash puppies, the spread trio with pimento cheese and pickle chow chow goes nicely down with angel biscuits, and Grandma’s layered salad is a holy trinity of egg, cheddar, and sweet peas.

Squash puppies with whipped Texas honey guild butter and jalapeno jelly (photo by Micah Nunley)

Smart folks will bring their whole family to share the ten-piece fried chicken bucket for $20 instead of paying $11 for two pieces. Get ‘em house spiced, buttermilk soaked, pressure fried with the choice of sloppy slaw or whipped potatoes; dark, white, or mixed. It’s best to eat them out in the climate-controlled screen porch on a warm spring day, picking them up with two hands instead of using the mismatched silverware that reminds you fondly of your Grandma’s own collection.

“It’s an homage to my family and to my southern roots,” says Garza, “I was like the second mama. By third grade, I was making Sunday supper for my whole family after church. I want people to feel the same love that I shared with my siblings.”

Sissy’s officially opened on Monday, February 27. Brunch service, offered six days a week, starts in about a month.

My Last Supper at Nana: Grilled duck with beets. Photography by Kevin Marple.

This news breaks my heart. Nana Restaurant at the Hilton Anatole, led by the talented and innovative chef Anthony Bombaci, will close on June 9. The restaurant will undergo reconstructive surgery and emerge as an upscale steak house in late September.

Here are some of the details I’ve beat out the bushes. The new name has not been selected. (We can certainly help with that. Leave your suggestion below.) The interior, designed by a California firm, will be “contemporary with an LA-inspired design.” (The skyline view will remain Dallas’!) The menu will be “all about steaks and one-of-a-kind sides and desserts.” The executive chef of the steakhouse hasn’t been confirmed, but that person will work under Anthony Bombaci who has been promoted. I don’t know his position at this point.

Oh, Nana. You have been such a blessing to this city. We loved you when Doug Brown was the chef and Jason Foss was the pastry chef. We loved you during the fancy days when David McMillan sent entrees out of Versace and Rosenthal china and general manager and wine expert Paul Pinnell roamed the room. We love you for bringing Anthony Bombaci to Dallas. This news makes me appreciate my last meal at Nana even more.

Make a final visit and pay homage to Nana. You have a little over three months to get your Bombaci fix. Make a reservation now: 214-761-7470. And name the new restaurant below!

I am trying to recollect the name of a restaurant that was operating in the 1970’s and 80’s located on the Circle – it was rather exclusive (and if my memory serves me correctly – required reservations). Probably around 1979, family members took my nephew there for his high school graduation dinner – and recently we were sitting around discussing that event – and guess what?  Not a one of us could recall the name of the restaurant.

Southern Kitchen?

Mission Accomplished: The lowest Greenville Ave. place was Clouseau.,

Anybody remember the name of the small French bistro on Lowest Greenville (at Prospect) that was open for a few years in the early ’80s? I believe it was run by Tom (Stoneleigh P) Garrison’s then wife.

Mi Dia: The best bite I put in my mouth in 2011.

There’s a common sentiment among restaurant critics: We have to eat a lot of poor quality and mediocre food before we taste something memorable. But, oh baby, when that over-the-top bite hits your mouth, you know you’ve found it. Something about the drink, dish, or dessert pushes it above the hundreds of thousands of other bites you’ve taken over the year.

The following items rocked my senses in 2011. In no particular order, and off the top of my head, they are:

1. Italian “English” muffins at Eatzi’s. (Extra points for the McCutcheon’s preserves.)
2. The Scarf Dancer cocktail at Marquee Grill and Bar.
3. Fried avocados at The Commissary.
4. Ox eyes stacked enchiladas at Mi Dia From Scratch. (Blue corn tortillas, beef, cheese, and onion enchiladas, topped with New Mexico red & green chile sauces, crema & fried eggs. (The best bite of the year.)
5. Lemon cake at Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse.
6. Steamed swordfish with a salad of fresh summer greens at Lucia.
7. The salad of chopped iceberg lettuce, diced tomatoes, crumbled blue cheese, avocado, and crispy prosciutto at Maggiano’s. (A good chopped salad is hard to find.)
8. A double-double animal-style burger at In-N-Out Burger. However, the fries are forgettable.
9. I got straight past the pizza and Cane Rosso and dive face first into a Cuban sandwich: a magnificent mess of tender Berkshire pork shoulder braised with beer and onions; layered with prosciutto, baby Swiss cheese, and horseradish pickles; and piled on puffy, hot bread spread with spicy mustard and Calabrian chile aioli.
10. The green curry chicken served in an iron pot at Malai Kitchen.
11. The charcuterie plate at The Grape.
12. The slow-cooked oxtail scented with hoja santa and served with a cob of roasted corn and masa dumplings at Mesa.

Most Pleasant Meal of the Year: Dinner at Lavendou. Sometimes the taste of the food is elevated by the overall dining experience. Usually it happens spontaneously. One cold, rainy evening I went to dinner at Lavendou with two dear friends. The dining room was crowded and festive, but not loud. The service was friendly, but not in-your-face. The food was delicious and the French wine stimulated our conversation for hours. We left full of more than food. We shared a meal that was more than just a sum of its parts on a cold, rainy Monday night.

Lisa Garza juggles relationships to get Sissy's Fried Chicken open.

Although La Garza is all about sisterhood (“I am Sissy,” Garza says. “Sissy is southern slang for “sister” and I am developing every aspect.”) there will be no sissy in the kitchen. La G has plucked Jeffery Hobbs and named him “leader of the kitchen.”

Oh, it’s a tangled tale—an episode of As the Restaurant Turns. Here’s the synopsis: Lisa was married to Chef Gilbert Garza. Together they operated Suze Restaurant, the cozy spot on Midway and NW Highway. At some point, Jeffery Hobbs joined the happy couple to work on the kitchen team as chef and partner. Hobbs and Gilbert ran a great restaurant. Lisa concentrated on catering. Lisa was picked as a contestant on Next Food Network Star. The experience was devastating, as most former TV reality participants will admit is generally the case. The Garzas divorced and Lisa retreated for a couple of years. She emerged as a fancy caterer. Found a new guy. Got re-married and is now pregnant with new restaurant.

After eight years at Suze, Hobbs splits to partner with burgeoning bully restaurateur, Jack “Maple & Motor” Perkins. They’re consulting on taco joints. Then La G calls Hobbs and asks him to be the “leader of her kitchen.” According to La G, Gilbert has given his blessing to the deal. See, there can be happy endings. Or beginnings. Stay tuned.

Oh yeah, it's for real.

We’re suckers for any press release that contains the following sentences:

• Yes, this is really real.
• Don’t you judge us; we all knew it would end up here someday.
• And yeah, your right we probably did go too far this time.
• Sorry, Mom.

It seems a couple well-intentioned entrepreneurs have teamed up with J&D’s Foods to create a little something they’re calling baconlube—the world’s first bacon-flavored, water-based, American-made, personal lubricant.

Billing itself as the “gold standard of meat-flavored massage oils” (natch) baconlube, they say, is like the McRib of sex: it’s delicious, makes men crazy, is here for a limited time, and is in short supply.

If you’re thinking “stocking stuffer!” (let’s stay on track here), we’re right behind you. But the boys only made 3,000 bottles of this pork-flavored nectar. It hit the interwebs yesterday at www.baconlube.com. How much, you ask, for a product that promises such a satisfying holiday season? Only $11.99.

you know you want more. jump for it…Still on the fence? Here’s a little rationalization.

FACT – People are passionate about bacon.  According to a recent survey of Canadians by Maple Leaf Foods, Canada’s market leader in the bacon category, when asked to choose between bacon and sex, more than four in 10 (43%) chose bacon.  Thanks to baconlube, Canadians will never have to choose between two of life’s greatest pleasures again.  So you’re welcome Canada, you’re welcome – we’ve got your back.

Need I mention, we’ve requested a sample?

Good wines gone bad.

Forgive me Master Sommeliers and wine collectors around the world, I have sinned. I am here to confess my deepest darkest wine secret: I improperly stored four bottles of fabulous wine. For nearly 35 years.

Look at the photos and weep with (for?) me. I recently uncovered these bottles in a box buried beneath a pile of old Christmas decorations in my garage. Yes, my garage, where it sat for close to 35 summers, winters, springs, and falls. I am a human species of Phylloxera.

I could have pulled another Billionaire’s Vinegar and called Sotheby’s and claimed the wine was given to me by Richard Nixon and I’ve kept it hidden in a bricked-up Paris cellar. Instead I’m posting pictures of my crime. Perhaps there are others who have committed the same dirty deed.

Full confession below.

Yes, $19.79 before my employee discount.

Self portrait.

I used to collect wine, especially French wine. Specifically those of Bordeaux. I worked at a wine bar in Dallas called La Cave and spent my off time learning about French wine. My former boss, François Chandou, still runs La Cave Warehouse.  He is my witness. I bought hundreds of bottles of French Bordeaux. I wore a laminated vintage chart around my neck and scoured wine shops and wine lists looking for the best.

Eventually, I drank it all. Well, except for these four bottles. Is there anything I can do? Do I even attempt to drink them? (Does anyone want to buy them?)

I would like to take this moment to apologize to Bacchus, Dionysos, the early colonists of Southern Gaul, the concept of terroir, Baron Philippe de Rothschild (and subsequent Barons), James Tidwell, and Drew Hendricks. My deepest regrets to the chateaus: Latour, Mouton-Rothchild, Margaux (oh, sweet Margaux), Haut-Brion, Petrus, Pomerol, St. Emilion, and d’Yquem. Sorrows to you dear Cabernet Savignon, Merlot, and Cab Franc grapes. You gave your lives only to sit in a bottle in a box underneath a pile of old Christmas decorations in my garage. I am unworthy of your grace.

There is about a half inch of sediment in the neck of this bottle.

Sorry lion-guarded fortresses of France.

This wine was my first true love. We sold it for $4 a glass at La Cave. At one point I owned two cases.

Heinous. Painful. Wrong.

I feel horrible. Mai Phom was Dallas’ primary Vietnamese cuisine evangelist. She opened the city’s first popular Vietnamese restaurant in 1980. The original restaurant in East Dallas still bears her name but she moved to the tiny spot in Snider Plaza where she could be found every day. My former colleague Mary Brown Malouf once wrote:

“Those were the days when ethnic food meant Mexican food, unless it meant Szechuan. Now Vietnamese is practically mainstream and even has at least one almost upscale representative. Mainly, it has become habitual; many of us go out for Vietnamese as often as we go out for Mexican. So it seems strange to me that Mai, who was a pioneer, is now relatively unknown. Her little restaurant in Snider Plaza is practically a secret.”

I tried to reach someone with the restaurant to get a clear picture of what has transpired, but they have already closed and there is no voicemail. If anybody out there has the story, I’d love to know it.

UPPITY DATE: Jiang’s Cuisine has moved.

New Herrera's on Maple. (photo by Kevin Marple)

In 1971, I spent most of my Sunday mornings in a line around the original Herrera’s on Maple Avenue. My friends and I would sit under a dripping window AC unit for hours, waiting for our turn at one of the nine tables inside the tiny, lard-based Tex-Mex restaurant. Once seated, you popped open the six-pack of Coors you brought with you and watched founder Amelia Herrera hand-pat flour tortillas by the front door. The food was such a religious experience for me that, 17 years later, I got married at Herrera’s, which by then had moved into a bigger building across the street and expanded into more locations all over Dallas. Recently, they moved into a newer building down Maple.

Jump for more.

Hey, Nancy! I just moved here from Atlanta and I am hungry for the onion rings served at The Varsity. What place in Dallas has onion rings like these?

The rings at The Varsity are fairly thin, crunchy, and greasy. Kinda like the ones served at Peggy Sue BBQ or Sonny Bryan’s.

The space, designed by JonesBaker, has been completely redone into a sort of contemporary Texas-Tuscan farmhouse. The ceilings have been raised and I loved the rustic basket “chandeliers.” The room is light and open. I feel like the bar area may prove to be too small once word hits the surrounding neighborhood. Two flat screen TVs can be seen from any spot in the house. (Not so Tuscan.)

However, the food was classic Ascolese which translates into finer versions of “safe” Dallas Italian food. I could eat the tagliatelle Bolognese every night. The sauce was barely a sauce. The light, house made noodles were tossed with fresh tomatoes, basil, small bits of meat, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Not a drop of liquid pooled on the bottom of the plate. Which I guess is a good thing because there would have been nothing for me to sop it up with. No bread. Patrick, you hired David Brawley and don’t serve bread on the table?  Yes, he can make pizza dough; he proved that at Fireside Pies. And Princi does have a wood burning pizza oven. I guess I’ll eat pizza next time.

I almost choked on a salad of rapini and arugula. The greens were blanched and formed a tangled salad of soggy leaves and stems which were topped with a salty, in a good way, blob of burrata cheese. Once again I yearned for bread. The broth beneath the weed was a drinkable liquid of olive oil, specks of red pepper, and lemon. The plates of Italian “specialties” such as grilled Colorado trout, veal Slatimbocca, and grilled wild Alaska salmon going to other tables looked interesting. The portions are just right and priced from $13 to $20. The list is full of nice Italian reds, whites, and sparkling wine most of which are in the mid-$30 to $50 range. You can order a carafe of several interesting wines for $15 to $31 (12 ounces).

Princi reminds me of Popolos when they first opened—it’s a perfect fit for the demographics of the nearby neighborhood. However, times have changed and Princi is much more casual. Shower shoes and shorts and school uniforms were the norm last night.