A couple of weeks ago I headed out to a pub gathering at The Dancing Bear, knowing I was going to multitask by gathering info on an update on The Crazy Horse Grill.
Back at the end of last year, we told you about Crazy Horse, the barbecue-fusion-esque food truck in the back garden of The Dancing Bear. With the new year, chef Nabor Leal introduced a new menu, so that particularly piqued my interest.
On Tuesday afternoon, I suggested to a friend that we meet up at The Elite Cafe for happy hour as I remembered they had good deals last time I was in there.
Little did I know the restaurant was in its last days.
I noticed yesterday that the Texas Food Truck Showdown released its truck lineup for this year's event, which will be held April 2.
We'll obviously roll out more articles on this as the event gets closer, but just wanted to share the list of food trucks with you today. Here's the link.
As I began the year ready to write about college basketball and sustain myself with an endless parade of guacamole tostadas and chicken burgers, I needed to be challenged but wasn’t going to do it myself.
And then my friend Dr. Shawn Skeen asked me to come to a dinner hosted by The Grape chef Jason Rolf and event coordinator Michelle Henkel.
And they put a goat heart in front of me, albeit on a bed of farmers market ragu and beside watermelon radish and Bibb lettuce salad, so it seemed less threatening.
Last week, a friend pointed out that the new building under construction next door to Zoes Kitchen on Valley Mills Drive is going to be a Chili’s.
“Woohoo!” I said, sarcastically.
I mean, I like Chili’s. It’s as good a place as any to have a good conversation with friends and eat chips and queso. It’s just not exciting, especially in the current Waco restaurant landscape.
But then I remembered a simpler time here in our humble burg when the opening of Chili’s was exciting.
In case anyone is unaware, I grew up in Waco. I’ve lived here since 1980 with a gap between 1996 and 2003 when I went to college in Lubbock, then worked in Fort Worth. So I’ve been able to see how Waco has evolved and probably most closely observed how that affected the dining options.
So, for your edification and amusement, I present a brief and inexact history of restaurants coming to Waco.
Alas, it seems our humble burg has once again taken two steps forward and one step back.
It's my sad duty to report that, having visited the mall today to purchase a new belt, I discovered that Hot Topic is gone. For the record, I was not going to Hot Topic to get said belt. But still, where am I going to find a Flogging Molly T-shirt now?
Happy 2016, WacoFork friends.
If the last couple of years are an indication, this should be another calendar full of new arrivals as Waco continues to level up.
The best thing about being known around town as a restaurant blogger is that, every now and then, someone will say, “Hey, come by and eat something.”
On Sunday night, I had stopped in at The Dancing Bear Pub to meet up with a friend in town when bartender Jeremy Mercer introduced me to Crazy Horse Grill chef Nabor Leal. They wanted me to try something from the truck at that time, but I had already hit my calorie number for the day. (If you’re suggesting that I was about to go over anyway because I was at the pub and obviously going to drink beer, well, I have a simple retort. I don’t include beverages in my calorie count.) But I promised to return later in the week.
Zoës Kitchen is open.
I'm tempted to leave this blog at that, one line and roll.
Last night, I made an overdue trip to Saltgrass Steak House.
I am still in charge of this blog, and it’s a new restaurant, so I needed to dine there. I was looking for an excuse, and just needed enough consecutive days in town to get around to it. As it happened, a couple of events inspired such a trip on Wednesday night. I won’t bore you with the details, but it was well worth loosening the wallet a bit.
