Brisket taco with cheese, pico, salsa, cilantro, sour cream

The Palindrome (pronounced oh-ka-taco) by Maple and Motor’s Jack Perkins officially opened last Thursday for lunch. Even though the menu is short, it’s good for people like me who can’t really decide what to order. Three meat options – tender brisket, pulled pork, and chicken – are plenty enough, thank you. And, of course, I’ll take mine with a side order of chips and salsa.

Jump for more ocaTacocaTacocaTaco.

Store front

My lunch buddy and I were rather pleased with the array of toppings we could add to our tacos. Everything we could ever want and ever need (pico, guac, cheese, sour cream, cilantro, pickled jalapenos, onions) was just a fingerpoint away. Both of us ordered two tacos because we didn’t want the three-taco combo ($7.75, comes with a 32 oz. drink) and opted to pay $2.35 per taco instead.

One black cherry Dublin soda (32 oz.) and four greasy tacos later, we sat contentedly eating our chips and salsa ($1 extra, booyah). Chunks of onion floated in our peppery, warm salsa, which was the real winner of the entire meal. The creamy chipotle sauce came in a close second.

If you’re not exactly sure how to find ocaTaco, let me direct you to taco heaven. If you’re going north on Harry Hines, turn right on North Exchange Park St. at the Chase building before you hit Mockingbird. There’s a visitor parking lot to your left and ocaTaco’s inside a food court behind a door labeled “6333.” It’s not too hard to locate once you get there. Once you see a bunch of firefighters, policemen, Chase people, and Southwestern workers piled into one place, you know you’ve made it to Jack’s kitchen.

Current taco hours: Mon – Fri, 10:30 AM – 2 PM. Hours will expand as time goes on.

Slow-cooked pork covered with caramelized onions and peppers.

Nick Badovinus and chef Dan Riley have been hunkered down for over a year developing the menu and creating all kinds of delicious roasted meats for Off-Site Kitchen. Today he is finally opening the doors!

Now, hold your horses. The dining room is tiny. Off-Site Kitchen is basically a take-out restaurant with a few stools inside and some picnic tables outside. Here are some pictures of what you can expect. The food, inspired by “what line cooks eat,” is basically simple sandwiches and breakfast burritos made from quality roasted meats. Roll the Badovinus quote of the year:

“It’s light industrial food,” he said. “It’s the kind of food you want to eat before you go solder something.”

Off-Site Kitchen will be open for lunch only from 10:30AM until 3PM for the next two weeks. Then the breakfast menu will kick in and they will begin serving at 7AM and will remain open until 7PM. “After we hit our stride, we’ll start rolling out the meat-by-the-pound program,” Badovinus said. “I’m so excited. This place is a real man cave.”

The original date for OSK’s opening was February 14, 2011. After Badovinus missed his mark, he decided to workshop the place and open on Valentine’s Day this year. “You see how many financial sacrifices I made to pay for my original vision,” Badovinus said. “I mean I’ve got a wheelbarrow of pork rinds down here. Who doesn’t love that?”

Badovinus was only half-joking about the Valentine’s Day opening. He and chef Dan Riley have used the Off-Site Kitchen space to tweak the menus of Badovinus’ other restaurants (Neighborhood Services, Neighborhood Services Tavern, and Neighborhood Services Bar & Grill). They also use the huge kitchen as a commissary for the other restaurants. The receive, portion, and distribute all of the meat and seafood at Off-Site Kitchen.

SOLDER, EAT, REPORT. No call-in orders. Plan to show up and wait.

[Also, Neighborhood Services Bar & Grill in Preston Royal will open for lunch in two weeks.]

The menu and photos are below.

Wheelbarrow of pork rinds.

Cherry cola pie.

Green chile cheeseburger.

First customer.

Hippie donuts will be served in a groovy setting.Photography by Desiree Espada.

SideDish photographer Desiree Espada roams the roads with her camera looking for good things to eat and shoot. Check out her photo essay of Bolsa Mercado. Then feast your eyes on what to expect when the Jerry Garcia of donut making, James St. Peter, opens Hypnotic Donuts on Sunday, January 29.

Glory be to the donut.

Interior seating. Kate Nelson of Piecurious makes curious donuts. Photography by Desiree Espada.

James St. Peter rings up a sale. Photography by Desiree Espada.

The Zoo Ropa with iced animal cookies. Photography by Desiree Espada.

Jenni's evil Elvis: peanut butter with banana and bacon. Photography by Desiree Espada.

Greek yogurt parfait and The Hypnotic. Photography by Desiree Espada.

The Canadian Health Care. Photography by Desiree Espada.

The Biscuit Board. Photography by Desiree Espada.

Biscuit with peanut butter and jelly. Photography by Desiree Espada.

Fried chicken biscuit and gravy. Photography by Desiree Espada.

Hypnotic Donuts: Inside out. Photography by Desiree Espada.

Team Hypnotic: Rachel Villarreal, Kate Nelson,and James Baker. Photography by Desiree Espada.

My initial response is: if you can circle the earth twice, why don’t you just drop off a few million pounds in places where one chicken for a village causes more excitement than the Super Bowl.

My secondary response is actually a question: How many chickens does it take to make 25 billion chicken wings. Hah! You say: do the math dummy; one chicken has only two wings. But your assumption would be wrong. I turned to the Wing-onomics department (true!) at The National Chicken Council for an answer.

You’ll have to jump because you, like chickens, cannot fly.

Wing-onomics

The vast majority of wings, especially those destined for foodservice, are disjointed, with the third joint (the thin part known as the flapper) being exported to Asian countries and the meatier first and second joints being sold domestically.  The wing is usually split into two parts or portions, known as the “drumette” and the mid-section or “flat” and sold to food service or retail outlets.

A chicken has two wings, and chicken companies are not able to produce wings without the rest of the chicken.  Therefore, the supply of wings is limited by the total number of chickens produced.  When the demand for wings is stronger than the demand for other chicken parts, the price of wings will go up. Wing prices always go up in the fourth quarter of the year as restaurants stock up for the Super Bowl and prices usually peak in January during the run-up to the big game.

In the Midwest, for instance which includes Indianapolis, home of Super Bowl XLVI, the price of wings (whole) for the week of January 16-20, 2012 was $1.96/lb wholesale, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Poultry Market News Service.   This represents a 50 percent increase in price from six months ago in July, 2011.

“The good news for consumers,” said NCC’s Roenigk, “is that food service and retail outlets generally plan months in advance for the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl Sunday, meaning that increased wholesale costs for the most part aren’t passed on to consumers’ plates.”

That’s great news. You might find this interesting as well.

According to NPD Group data, not all regions of the country are equal when it comes to eating wings.

This year’s Super Bowl matchup between the New York Giants and New England Patriots should hold wing consumption relatively steady compared to last year’s levels.   That is because New Englanders and Patriots fans are six percent less likely than the national average to order chicken wings at a food service establishment, but fans of the New York Giants and those others in the Mid-Atlantic region are 24 percent more likely.

A New York Giants – Baltimore Ravens match-up would have produced maximum wing consumption out of the four possible Super Bowl match-ups.   Those in the South Atlantic region, including Ravens fans, are 27 percent more likely than the national average to order chicken wings at a food service establishment.

Should the San Francisco 49ers have won in overtime and faced the Patriots, wing consumption would have taken a hit. Those in the in the Pacific region are 34 percent less likely to order wings.

I didn’t have the balls (that’s another story) to ask what would have happened if the Dallas Cowboys had made it to the Super Bowl, but my guess is that sales at Wingstop, based in Richardson, would have quadrupled and they would have probably had to rely on duck or grackle wings to meet the demand. As it is, Wingstop, with 500 locations, plans to “sauce and toss 5.6 Million Wings on Super Sunday.”

Sigel’s + Tesar + free Tequila + multiple locations = an outcome that’s anybody’s guess

On August 18, chefs John Tesar and Phillip Vorkoper of The Commissary, along with Camarena tequila, will host a free tequila and taco tasting from the Camarena Tequila Taco Truck parked first in the lot at Sigel’s Greenville store then moving on to the Addison location. Here’s the skinny:

Camarena Tequila is a premium tequila, double distilled in small Alembic pot stills from 100% Jalisco highlands grown Blue Agave by a sixth generation Camarena family member master distiller. To highlight the affinity of this fine Tequila with great food, Chefs John Tesar & Philip Vorkoper of The Commissary will craft handmade, artisan tacos to accompany the free tasting.

jump for the menu and times…

Sample Camarena Tequila Taco Menu
Beef Tongue Tacos with Roasted Onion and Avocado
Short Rib Tacos with Charred Tomato Salsa and Jalapeno Crema
Pulled Pork Tacos with Roasted Pineapple and Poblano
Smoked Chicken Quesadilla with Avocado Relish and Pico de Gallo
(Tesar says the menu will change though out the month but this is what you might expect)

Camarena Tequila Tasting
Sigel’s-Greenville 3-6pm
Sigel’s-Addison 5-8pm

Camarena Tequilas to be tasted:
Camarena Tequila Silver
Camarena Tequila Reposado
Sale $17.99, reg $19.99

Camarena Taco Tasting
Sigel’s-Greenville 3-5pm
Sigel’s-Addison 5:30-7:30pm

After many months of looking, much saving, and even a little groveling, Trent and I have finally purchased a house. It’s a beaut. Well, not yet, but it has serious potential. All it needs is a lot of elbow grease and a lot of vision. In week-one, I scraped four layers of wallpaper off the kitchen walls. In week two, I scraped four layers of wallpaper off the hallway and bedroom. In week three…well, you get the picture. The bottom line is that, by then end of every 12-hour shift, I am both extremely happy—and extremely hungry.

The problem is twofold: I’ve DIY’d myself into both exhaustion and some pretty significant tendonitis, otherwise I’d whip up a batch of my go-to rigatoni. But both my and Trent’s whip-up hands are smollen and on the fritz. But they are still capable of dialing the phone. Unfortunately, I don’t know my new neighborhood at all.

Please ask your readers to help me find the best takeout for these evenings when I am so exhausted I can barely see straight. Just tell me who to call and what to order.

So, SideDishers, it’s our duty to help this poor girl out. The neighborhood is Spring Valley and Hillcrest. Ready, set, suggest!