Bring it! Let's get this city turned around! (image swiped from ABC)

Dear Mark,

I am addicted to Shark Tank. And because I am too lazy to jump through the hoops to get on the show and present my idea, I’m using the power of my pudgy fingers to reach you. Let’s pick and roll:

I walk on the set of Shark Tank. “Daymond John, you are so out,” I say. “Barbara, if I wanted to sell my cellulite-reducing sous-vide hot dog you’d be my best friend, but I’m keeping it to myself. You’re out.”

I watch the other sharks glance around, really scared at this point, and go for the kill. “Kevin, don’t even open that ugly mouth. You’re out. Robert, you can buy me dinner after the show but, for now, you are dead to me.”

Cameras swing: Close-up of Cuban. Music swells.

Mark. We live in the same city. We love the same teams. More importantly, we eat in the same restaurants. Last night, our city’s finest chef, Bruno Davaillon of the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek, lost Best Chef in the Southwest at the James Beard Awards in New York City to a young chef in Austin who appeared on Top Chef. It has been 18 years since a Dallas chef won this title. We need a local version of Shark Tank geared towards Dallas restaurateurs. That way, you and I can work together to tighten up our game and turn it around. We have the talent, we need the exposure. And that exposure shouldn’t have to come from the Food Network or Bravo.

I propose we put together a panel of experts and ask  restaurateurs to pitch their ideas BEFORE they decide to sink their life savings into an upscale seafood and sushi restaurant in a bad location. Let’s kick the steak house wannabes to Fort Worth. Mark, I’m asking you to invest whatever it takes to help us bring the talent of the Dallas restaurant community to the international scene. In exchange, I offer you fifty percent of my idea. Oh, and you can keep the Mavs.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Nancy

P.S. If this helps illustrate my talent: I promoted women’s basketball in Dallas before the Mavericks were a thought in your brain. Just ask Nancy Lieberman.

Upon arrival at Miami International Airport, I was stunned to find 92 percent of the people attempting to go through immigration, luggage retrieval, and customs while texting. I felt like I landed in a world of zombies. People ran their wheeled Tumi bags over my feet without noticing. They held up lines because they were distracted. I vowed not to go back to that.

Texting at the dinner table is not a new issue. I have a friend, oh we’ll call him Belevan, who texts in the car, in a movie, and at tables in fine restaurants. His defense is that he has to be available at all times. It’s a horrible emotional tornado that whips up when you text, Facebook, Tweet everything you do. I’m guilty. My job is time sensitive and dependent on instant information, but I am drawing the line now at the dinner table. There is nothing worse than talking to the top of someone’s head while they text in their lap.

It must drive restaurateurs nuts. Service people as well. It’s rude and disrespectful to the people you are eating with and the food you are eating. Anybody have a suggestion for how to stop the madness? Perhaps restaurants should add a phone usage charge to the bill.

This is just wrong.

]]> http://sidedish.dmagazine.com/2012/02/21/this-pookies-donut-is-borderline-offensive/feed/ 6 http://sidedish.dmagazine.com/2012/02/16/top-chef-texas-episode-15-recap/ http://sidedish.dmagazine.com/2012/02/16/top-chef-texas-episode-15-recap/#comments Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:04:39 +0000 Carol Shih http://sidedish.dmagazine.com/?p=36314

If you missed this episode, boy do I feel sorry for you. Bev kicked a lot of @$$.

Crazy BRAVO, I guess, was tired of hot-weather Texas and decided to see if the Top Chefs (Paul, Bev, Sarah, and Lindsay) could survive in the frozen tundra of British Columbia. They might as well have been in Siberia. All the chefs, sporting longer hairdos from a couple months off, immediately start hating on Bev the second they reconvene inside Whistler Olympic Park. Sarah’s resolution to “be a really nice person” (… right) turns into a big flop and outcasts Bev from the start. When the final four meet the judges again, Padma begins to explain their elimination challenge, The Culinary Games, which is split into three parts. At the end of each round, one person must die. (Kidding, kidding. Too bad this isn’t “The Hunger Games.”) The winner of each round wins $10,000 and a guaranteed spot in the final three.

Let the games begin!

Round 1: The Gondola

Chefs have 22 minutes to cook a dish on a moving gondola. Paul gets motion sickness, Bev’s scared of heights, and Sarah can’t get it together. But we all know how important it is for the chefs to gain this real-life experience of cooking on a gondola, because one day, who knows, there’s a 0% chance they’ll have to cook for President Obama while he’s riding a gondola up Whistler Mountain.

Unfortunately, mean-natured Lindsay wins this round with her seared salmon and red quinoa. Bev’s salmon tartare comes in a close second, while Sara’s chorizo sausage earns her third place. Paul kicks himself in the foot for not executing his lamb loins with curried mushrooms the way he wanted. It’s okay, Paul. You can’t always be brilliant.

Round 2: Ice Blocks

Judges are preparing Paul, Bev, and Sarah for imminent climate change by forcing them to break big blocks of ice that hold their ingredients. The chefs have to chisel away like eskimos at iceberg sculptures before they can start cooking. Paul goes straight for the king crab that Bev wants, but he’s super duper nice afterwards and helps Sarah and Bev throw ice blocks onto the ground because they’re clearly struggle bus-ing. Apparently, being small and half-the-size of Sarah doesn’t prevent Bev from hacking away at her ice blocks like a madwoman. (I hope I never have to share the same room with Bev and an ice pick. She scares the hell out of me.)

Paul’s poached crab with mango chutney helps him move onto Vancouver (someone please tell me why the next episode is STILL not in Texas?), and Sarah’s “split pea soup gone wrong” means she has to battle with Bev in the final round of Culinary Wars. This, remember, is the last thing that Sarah wants. Despite her attempts to play nice, she has been making underhanded remarks about Bev the entire time. Just give up, Sarah. You don’t know how to be nice.

Round 3: Guns and Skis

“This is your last shot,” says Padma.

Bev and Sarah have to ski around a track, stop, and shoot a gun with only 10 bullets for their ingredients. Even though Sarah is feeling cocky because her family owns a lot of guns (Bev, watch out), Bev blasts Sarah to the ground with her skiing and rifle skills. Meek Bev fights like a tiger in the kitchen, whipping up a slow-roasted Artic char with beet compote while Sarah braises a rabbit leg and heart topped with cherries and sauerkraut. At the judges’ table, Gail Simons thinks Sarah’s dish is tough to chew, and baldy Tom notes that Bev didn’t cook Asian this time, but her dish was still overcooked. It looks like a close one.

Padma tears up for the first time this season when she tells Bev it’s time for her to go.

Goodbye, Bev

Sarah turns nice and hugs Bev as she says, “I’m so glad we got to cook together.” Fakkity fake fake. Somebody – preferably Paul – please take her out in Vancouver. That girl needs to go.

UPDATE: I received a voice mail from Richard Chamberlain. “Michael Costa worked for us briefly 16 years ago,” he said. “In his release he insinuates he is associated with us and that is not the case.”

PRESS RELEASE:

In case you didn’t get the memo, The Office Grill is coming to a neighborhood near you…and soon!  Dallas-based veteran restaurateur Michael Costa’s Rainmaker Group (Chamberlain’s, Popolo’s, Mediterraneo, Toscana, Fish, Riviera, and Nobu, to name a few) is in final discussions with a national restaurant consortium whose two chains are a household name and in negotiations with a few other developers to share the Office concept on a much larger scale. On the eve of it’s one-year anniversary, the Office Grill has decided to shut the doors on their North Dallas location to focus on developing the concept for a regional roll-out. “Although we have been so blessed with a great group of patrons, and we’ve made a lot of life-long friends that we hope to see in a few months at our central location, we knew from the onset that this location had some major challenges, if only from the fact that a decade of near-misses preceded us. What this year has given us is the time and the venue to test and tweak The Office Concept into something with broad viability and a strong economic engine. Sometimes it takes pulling back and re-evaluating before you can ramp up for growth of this nature,” says Costa. With an overall vision of closing deals while eating meals, The Office Concept fits perfectly with busy lifestyles, and provides, as one writer put it, “a perfect escape from cubicle hell.” This virtual office offers amenities that allow guests to truly make the office “their own”, such as wifi, printer/copier capabilities, and even a notary to help in sealing the deal. There are also lockers available in the Boardroom for those wanting to leave computers, letterhead, or even their own stapler in-house. “As with any strong brand, the power of the concept is the engine that drives it. It’s no secret that we’ve had a rough year with our lack of landlord support in our present location, but the idea and passion behind the Office Concept has proven consistent with current trending and our culture. People today are busy, and who else is creating a place where one doesn’t mind staying late at the Office?” Costa says. “We are very excited about the opportunity to roll the concept of turning work into play out in more communities in 2012.” Initial plans include the finalization of the locations for an Office Grill near downtown Dallas and in Houston and San Antonio. For more information, contact Michael Costa at 214.402.7357.

I am speechless.

Chicken pot pie at Lady & Sons in 2008. One serving could feed a family of four.

In August 2008, I traveled to Savannah, Georgia where I dined at Paula Deen’s restaurant Lady & Sons. We ran a post titled “Paula Deen Wants to Kill You.” I wrote:

I can still smell the rancid butter that hit us in the face when we walked in the door. I’ve got to find the pictures I took of the food I ate–everything was dripping in butter. I remember the chicken pot pie was big enough for four and almost everything was fried. OK, she admits she’s “not your cardiologist,” but she really is contributing to the delinquency of dieters. The night we went, at least 75 per cent of the diners were beyond overweight–they were obese. It was sad–like people watching at the slots in Vegas–everyone was gambling with their lives.

Last week Paula Deen confirmed the rumor: she has Type 2 diabetes. I wonder how many of her dedicated fans also suffer from Type 2? This really chaps my sass because two members of my family didn’t have a choice: they both were diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when they were young. They have to continually monitor their diet and control their blood sugar. However, Ms. Deen, and other people who put on blinders and continue to fill their body with fat and sugar, had an option. Like not eating a burger made with Krispy Kreme donuts. It’s now rumored that Deen may become the spokesperson for Novartis, a company with a drug designed to treat diabetes. If she personally profits from developing Type 2 diabetes (Hey yáll, I’m your endocrinologist!), I’m going to go berserk. I can already see the talk show circuit lighting up. It makes me sick.