CHOMP! 2107 Best Eats - The Savory Edition

Happy New Year Everyone!

Initially I wanted to do a "CHOMP! 2017 Top 5 Best Eats" until I started going through all my pictures and realized there's NO way I can narrow it down to just 5! I mean, c'mon! I've had wayyyy too much good food this year! So now I've split up between Sweet vs Savory, and it's going to be CHOMP! “Top 10” Best Eats. Hehe. :P (And letting y'all in on a secret... I chose "10" because that's the max number of photos I can include on a single post on Instagram. hahaha. All for the gram, amiright?)

First up! The Savory! I chose these places, some for really obvious reason likes "I go there, literally, once a week", and others because it was just very memorable. And tbh I often don't remember what I ate 2 days ago because it's almost always something new and different. haha.

I don't really want to rank these because they are all fantastic in my book, so I will list them by how often I visit them.

1. Pōk (West Village).
I mean... are you even surprised?! I basically went 1-2 times a week for a good 6 months straight. I literally have 20+ folders on my computer of photos from every visit. I freaking love this place and I actually crave it. They have the BEST poke bowls imo, plus the best matcha drinks… My favorite being the Matcha x Coco. I always build my own bowl.
Here's my go-to combination:
- Base: Bamboo Rice + Kelp Zucchini Slaw
- Protein: Salmon
- Sauce: Spicy Ponzu
- Toppings: Edamame, Kale (no longer on the menu, so I switched to Napa Cabbage), Pickled Ginger, Crispy Onions
- Premium Toppings (+$1): Avocado and/or Seaweed Salad
I rarely deviate from this. It's just TOO good! And guess what? I just had it for lunch today!

2. Pōk the Raw Bar (West Village).
I only had the chance to sit in front of Chef Jimmy Park twice at the 5 seater raw bar. I'm sad he's not at Pok anymore... it was definitely the best sushi experience I've ever had other than when I was in Japan. The Omakase/"chef tasting" was freaking amazing. I got to try many things I've never had before. I anxiously await what he's working on next.

3 & 4. Commissary (Downtown).
This place only opened back in November but is already one of my favorite spots. I started going there weekly as well and each visit would cost me around $50 because I just wanted to buy everything! XD Also, most of the time I’m there by myself so I get a lot of stares from other people. It's just me... and a whole table of food. haha. This takes spot 3 and 4 because I love their Rigatoni (pork sugo, parmesan) and their Pulled Pork Sandwich (slaw, pickles, chipotle BBQ) is the BEST I've ever had, no joke.

5. Oni Ramen (Deep Ellum).
I've only been to this location, which is his second. This location only opened back in Sept but I've been there at least 5+ times already. Each time I go, I take new people because it's so good I have to tell everyone! BEST ramen in Dallas, hands down. All the different broths are super flavorful without being super salty. And most of the bowls come standard with a ton of toppings, you rarely have to add anything else, so it's more affordable than a lot of other ramen spots. My current favorite? The Rich Tonkotsu, plus a soft boiled egg. Yum! If you want even MORE flavor? Get the Kyushu Tonkotsu (with black garlic oil).

That pork belly tho.... 

6. North Italia (Legacy West).
I freaking love the entire Legacy West center. All the eateries there are fantastic. But I have a weakness for pasta and North Italia has got that down! Every single pasta dish I've had there has been on point. One of my favorites being the Short Rib Radiatori (parmesan cream, fresh horseradish, wilted arugula, herbed breadcrumb). The name for the pasta is just like it's shape! Like an old style radiator! haha. But seriously, can't go wrong with ANY of their pastas.

7. Haywire (Legacy West).
I told y'all I loved this area. Haywire is one of the newest additions, only opened at the end of November. The newest member under Front Burner Restaurants who also own winners such as Sixty Vines, Whiskey Cake, The Ranch in Las Colinas, and more! I was immediately impressed walking in. 3 stories high, each floor is decked out in unique Texas decor, and they have a killer patio (and an Airstream) on the 3rd floor. Not to mention the people here are so nice, I felt so welcomed. And the food? Amazing! My favorite dish right now is the TX Whiskey BBQ Baby Back Ribs... it's off the bone tender and comes with the 2 best sides they have... the mac n cheese and the cornbread. OH the cornbread! It's amazing. I will always order one for myself. They're only a buck each! It's absolutely my favorite thing there. In the span of 3 weeks, I went 3 times. Did I mention that it's about an hour drive for me from home to Legacy West? Worth it!

8. City Hall Bistro (The Adolphus Hotel).
Probably one of the most gorgeous spaces I've seen this year. It's hidden inside the newly renovated, and so beautiful, Adolphus hotel. The food is killer and unique. They change up their menu though so my favorite item is no longer on there... Atayef (savory Lebanese pancake, duck confit, pear, black garlic aioli). But that's ok, because everything else on the menu is also amazing. Pasta game is strong!

9. Mudhen Meat & Greens (Dallas Farmers Market).
I was obsessed with this place for a while. Their food is healthy yet tasty and filling. I don't go as often as I'd like because their weekend brunch gets pretty packed so I have to plan ahead and make reservations. My favorite brunch dish here is the New English Breakfast (two eggs, applewood bacon, chicken sausage, sweet potato mash, roasted heirloom tomato, toast, and dressed arugula). So many colors, flavors, and textures on this plate. And it's pretty healthy too. I never feel heavy or overly full after leaving here.

10. Edith's French Bistro (Mockingbird Station)
This is a hidden gem. I never used to go to Mockingbird Station much because there wasn't a whole lot, but I'm loving this new addition. First of all, one of the CUTEST places, decor wise. And secondly, the food is bomb! I've only been there 3 times but I haven't had anything bad. I especially love their sandwiches. I've gotten a different one on each visit. My favorite being The Pastrami (apple fennel sauerkraut, avocado, white american cheese). I always get the Caesar salad as the side. So freaking good!! Also make sure you save room for dessert. They have a crepe station as well as several cases of cakes and pastries on display.

So many other great restaurants and dishes in 2017... I wish I could include them all. It took me several hours today to finally get it down to 10! And here's to so much more deliciousness in 2018!!!

I'll be posting the Sweets tomorrow! Stay tuned! :)

~~ CHOMP CHOMP ~~

Ten50 BBQ

Had a serious craving for BBQ a few weeks ago so my friends and I decided to go check out Ten50 BBQ in Richardson. It's right by my work so I see it all the time, but none of us have ever been. I've actually heard that it's hit or miss, most people saying it's overpriced and not that great. But it was a good middle point for everyone, so why not check it out!

Ten50 BBQ
1050 N. Central Expressway
Richardson, TX, 75080
(972) 234-1050
www.ten50bbq.com
Price: $$

The place is pretty huge. To get into the building, you have to walk through their patio seating area which is almost a restaurant on its own! Pretty cool too. Mist fans since it was still quite warm, a live band playing and outdoor bars set up. Once we walked in, we were a little confused where to order. Apparently, you have to go outside and around the corner, where you'll see the meat stations.

The lines were not so bad, which is good cuz I was starving! Initially we planned on getting several different types of meat and just sharing family style. But then we realized it's more economical to order the 2 or 3 meat combo platter individually. I think the 2 meat, 2 sides was around $12.99~ I was thinking seriously on which meats to order that I didn't take a picture of the menu. haha. So we all ended up getting the 2 meat platter.

I got the Brisket - USDA Prime (fatty) and the St. Louis Pork Ribs. Among the group, we also got to try the Sausage (mild), Chicken, and Pulled Pork.

First, the brisket... Boy was it fatty! A tad much for me, but also made it super juicy. The meat was really tender and I loved the char. My friends' briskets were slightly less fatty than mine. I trimmed off some of the fat and it was sooo good. Definitely hit the spot.

St. Louis Pork Ribs. I always love ribs and usually prefer the ones with dry rub like this. It was ok. It was tender, but I've definitely had better.

Sausage. They didn't have the jalapeno cheese available. This was good. Pretty standard.

Chicken. Or maybe it was turkey... I have no idea. hahaha. :P It was fine. I don't come to a BBQ joint to eat chicken. haha. 

Pulled Pork. Pretty good. Not dry like pulled pork can be sometimes. I'd say it's my 2nd favorite after the brisket.

With each of our platters we also got to choose 2 sides each.
Coleslaw. I enjoyed this. Not made with mayonnaise and wasn't so rich.

Potato Salad. I always love potato salad. This was pretty dang good. 

4 Cheese Mac n' Cheese. Not too bad. Pretty standard, so it's good. I loved the breadcrumbs on top.

Roll. The rolls are free. I really wish I had gotten more than one because it was awesome. Perfectly warm and fluffy on the inside. Paired so well with everything. I made my own stuffed roll. haha. With a bit of everything in one bite!

They also had some free condiments for you, like butter, onions, jalapenos, and pickles. The pickles also had a kick to them. Nice compliment to the BBQ.

And... we didn't know beforehand, but it was Ten50's 1 year anniversary. Happy Birthday, Ten50!! So they were giving out free Banana Puddings to all the guests. It was really good!!! Lots of banana, light, and yummy. :) Yay to free food.

Totally satisfied my craving. Not the best BBQ I've had in Dallas, but it wasn't bad either. I would go back again if I'm in the area. :) Oh.. and seems like they have a pretty good bar? Craft beers, and their mixed drinks were pretty cheap.

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~~ CHOMP CHOMP ~~

The Latin Pig

Wow.. it's almost been a month since I last posted! It's been busy busy as always. And I've actually been cooking more! Gasp! :P haha.

About 2 weeks ago I went to go see Chef, the new movie by (and starring) Jon Favreau. I was soooo excited about this movie. The trailer looked fantastic. And it's about food! I made time on a weeknight to go watch it with some friends. It was so good. I already had high expectations and it totally exceeded it. It had passion, humor, struggles, and of course food. The food prep/cooking/plating scenes were orgasmic. I was drooling through the whole movie. GO. SEE. IT.!!! Just do it. But don't go on an empty stomach! :P

Anyways, they featured a lot of Cuban flavors in the movie, since the food truck was a Cuban food truck. haha. And they made tons of Cubanos (cuban sandwiches), just one after another. With that crispy toasted bread, the slow roasted pork. OMG! I'm drooling again!

Since I saw the movie, I had been craving a Cubano like no other. I finally made it to a Latin restaurant a few days later.

The Latin Pig
3131 Custer Road, Ste #165
Plano, TX 75075
(972) 985-9760
www.thelatinpig.com
Price: $-$$

This place was on my radar for a while but then I kinda forgot about it. In my search for a Cubano, it came up again. The reviews seemed very positive. And they've got all the things I wanted to try!

It's a tiny little place in a strip mall in Plano. Only about 4 booth for seating, a lot of people came in for to-go orders. You order at the counter and they bring the food out to you. There's a bit of a wait since they seem short staffed. But the guy was super friendly so it's all good. He even took the time to come check on us once all the food came out. :)

I got an order of Maduros (fried sweet plantains) $2.50~ Love me some plantains. For $2.50, this was a pretty good portion. The plantains were soft and sweet. Yummy!!

Cubano (roasted pulled pork, ham, swiss cheese, pickles and Mojo de Ajo; served on toasted Italian bread) $7.99~ 

Of course I got this, duh! The whole reason I found this place. haha. It had a great crispy crust and the size was good. It was pretty good, but didn't live up to my expectations and the hype I got from the movie. Mainly because it seemed a bit dry. The pork wasn't that juicy. The flavors were good but it was missing something. I took half of it to go. At home, I spread some whole grain mustard on it and voila! it was sooo much better! I realized they didn't put mustard on their Cubano. Isn't that a required ingredient?

We also got the Rabo Encendido (slow stewed oxtail) $14.99~ I chose to pair it with Arroz con Gandules (yellow rice and Latin peas), per the staff's recommendation. 

I love oxtail. It's pretty hard to find around here. The only other place I've had oxtails (other than at home) was Buttons, a southern restaurant in Addison. Needless to say I was pretty excited. Plus my bf had never had it before and wanted to try. A bit pricey for this plate since oxtails don't have that much meat. FYI, they only have this dish on Fridays-Sundays. It was served on a bed of rice. I wish there was some side of veggies or something too. But the flavor of the oxtail was really good. The meat itself was not tender enough, but sometimes it's fun to gnaw on the bones to see how much meat you can get off of it. haha. The rice turned out to be the icing on the cake. It was a really good pairing with the oxtails. We both liked it a lot. And we scraped the plate clean. My mom's oxtail is still better, but she doesn't prepare it in Latin flavors of course. I'm still glad we tried it. And my bf really enjoyed it! He'll try pretty much anything. I'm so proud. :P

Guava Pastry $1.75~ 

 

I got this to go for dessert later. Hard to find guava around here too. Although I prefer the guava we have in Taiwan where it's white in the inside green on the outside. I think latin guava is pink. It was guava past inside flaky puff pastry. It was good. Needed more guava paste though.

All in all, it was a good little find. They have some other dishes I'd like to try as well. And if I get the Cubano again, I'll ask them to slather some mustard on there!

And... GO SEE CHEF!!!! Trust me, you'll love it! :)

Quality of Food:

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~~ CHOMP CHOMP ~~

Uncle Uber's Sammich Shop

We had an event to go to Saturday afternoon in Deep Ellum at the Kettle Art Gallery. Naturally, I looked up food options in the area for dinner after. I saw that Uncle Uber's was just around the corner. In the past week or two, I've been hearing about this place a lot. And the pictures I saw looked really tasty.

Uncle Uber's Sammich Shop
2713 Commerce St.
Dallas, TX 75226
(214) 653-8237
http://www.uncleubers.com/
Price: $

It was surprisingly empty around 7:30PM on a Saturday night but oh well, that just means we get our food faster! You order at the register then find your own seats.

The place looks like a dive bar. Dark lighting. Lots of TVs around if you want to catch a game. And on Friday and Saturday nights they have live music. (It got kinda loud though once that started so we left soon after eating. Couldn't hear anyone else talk.)

My bf got the Shaved Ribeye Steak (angus beef topped with grilled red onions, bleu cheese crumbles, romaine lettuce, tomato, roasted garlic mayo on a warm baguette) $8.99~ 

Everyone who's had it, highly recommended it. It was one of their best sellers. I wanted to get it too but opted for something else since I always want to try different things. This didn't disappoint. The bread was toasted but not too hard. The ribeye was juicy and tender and full of flavor. I loved it. The only complaint is that I got a couple mouthfuls with too much bleu cheese. Next time I might ask them to put less or just omit the bleu cheese all together. But yea, it's legit!

I got The Cuban (slow roasted pork, Boar's Head ham, swiss cheese, pickles and Uber sauce in a hot pressed baguette) $7.29~ 

My bf wanted to try that one as well. Plus I love pressed sandwiches. The bread was nicely pressed, crisp top but still soft. The pork had tons of flavor and the pickles and mustard provided just the right amount of tang. I enjoyed it a lot and my bf ended up liking this better than the shaved ribeye. We should've switched our order! haha.

I also got to try some of my friend's Fries $1.99~ 

Pretty damn good. And you get one dipping sauce with an order of fries. Each additional sauce is 25 cents. He got the Uber's Special Sauce (mayo, bbq sauce, sriracha) and some sort of Habanero mayo sauce. Both were good but the special sauce was awesome. Paired really well with my Cuban. The habanero sauce was not spicy at all but still good.

Really good sandwiches. The hype is valid. I'll definitely go back to try more sammiches in the future.

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~~ CHOMP CHOMP ~~

ArtOfficial & Food Trucks

I went to an art event downtown yesterday. ArtOfficial at Zouk nightclub featured many local artists, musical artists/DJs, live performers, and food trucks. It was also a charity event with a portion of the proceeds towards local nonprofits: ALS Association, Art Hunger and Dress for Success.

A friend of mine works for the ALS Association and invited me. So I brought a few of my friends to check it out. I have to be honest though, the main draw for me was that they said there will be free food from various food trucks from 5:30-7:30PM for all paid attendees. haha.

One of my friends and I arrived super early... Trying to bypass the after work traffic. But that just means we were first in line for the food trucks. :P Most of the trucks were still setting up so we didn't really get started until about 5:40 or so.

The first truck we hit up was the Dough Boys Pizza Truck.
www.doughboypizzatruck.myshopify.com/
facebook.com/doughboyspizzatruck
twitter.com/PizzaTruckin

We decided on the Margarita (olive oil, fresh mozzarella, fresh tomato and basil). 

They are 8" pizzas, freshly baked. It took longer for us to get it because they were just firing up the oven. But it's all good. Worth the wait since the pizza came out piping hot! It was a pretty good size. I would definitely get full if I ate the whole thing. I thought it was a really great pizza. I especially loved the crust. It was not too thin but the outside was super crispy and inside was still soft and slightly chewy. It was a white pizza, so no marinara, which I liked. The toppings were all really fresh too. I would get a pizza from them any day. :) Oh yea, the guys on the truck were super friendly too!

Overall:

Rockn' Ricks Truck
www.rock-n-ricks.com/
www.facebook.com/pages/Rockn-Ricks/355779484454846
twitter.com/rockn_ricks

They were only offering one thing during the free food time period. Pulled Pork Sandwich (smoked daily for 14 hours, pork pulled off the bone). 

Normally it's topped with red onion, pickles and bbq sauce but for the free samples, it was plain. The service was night and day compared to the pizza truck. We didn't know if they were taking orders because it took awhile for someone to talk to us when we're standing outside the truck. But the sandwich itself was decent. The pork was tender and slightly sweet from the sauce. A slaw topping would've been nice. Not bad, but nothing spectacular either.

Overall:

OinknMoo Truck
www.oinknmoodfwbbq.com/
facebook.com/OinknMooBBQ
twitter.com/oinknmoodfwbbq

This was the other bbq truck. The free samples they were offering was the Pork & Green Chile Hominy (homemade, infused with crispy bacon and chunks of pulled pork and roasted Hatch chiles). 

I wanted to try this so yay! It was very good. Hominy is a kind of corn, but it doesn't really look or taste like it... I like it though. And this was really good. The pork was really tender and the flavors and textures with the chile and hominy worked together really well. With a little squirt of hot sauce, it was even better. haha.

By about 7pm, they had apparently ran out of all their free options so my friends bought some food:
Bacon Mac n Cheese (homemade mac & cheese infused with crispy bacon) $3~

Loaded Bacon Mac n Cheese (1/2 pint of Bacon Mac w/ your choice of meat chopped on top) $6~ He got it topped with brisket. $3 extra just for a bit of brisket? We were all expecting the loaded mac to be a bigger size since it's double the price. Oh well. At least it was good. The brisket was finely chopped and added texture to the super rich mac n cheese. I didn't see much bacon inside but it was already rich enough!

Overall:

I saw Bobaddiction twice this week!
www.bobaddiction.com/
facebook.com/bobaddiction
twitter.com/bobaddiction
I got to try more samples. The passion fruit green tea is super refreshing. Especially since yesterday was uber humid. Also tried the Thai Tea again. It was yummy. The sample cups were just too dang small! :P Oh, and I still need to try the boba. I guess next time! :)

Overall:

Campisi's Catering was set up inside the venue. They were serving some sort of Pasta (penne with chicken, artichokes, tomato). I only ate a few bites. It was not good. That little scoop was half grease. XP Eeeeeks.

Overall:

It was a fun event. I hope they made lots of money for the charities. And I got to try a bunch of food. Some great, some not so much. But still a fun experience! :)

~~ CHOMP CHOMP ~~