Heads up, friends, tomorrow is kind of like Christmas and the moon landing all on one day.
Tomorrow, for the first time ever, you’ll be able to look an out-of-towner in the eyes and say, “Yeah, we have three Chick-fil-As — the one in the mall and two freestanding stores.” And then you just sit back and watch their amazed expression.
Among the many things I love about fall, sweet potatoes are high on the list. Baked in bread, simmered in stew, thinly chopped fries with rosemary, roasted and slathered in butter and cinnamon….they’re delicious and nutritious and pair well with chicken.
You can imagine my excitement when I read the menu for Café Homestead’s fall farm dinner, which includes sweet potato rolls with sorghum butter and sweet potato pie (YUM!) for dessert. The Café’s staple sweet potato jalapeno soup is near and dear to my heart, and I can’t wait to taste what else they make with my favorite fall vegetable.
Remember that time I told you I’m a socially conscience vegetarian? Well really, I’m a most-times pescatarian.
I grew up on the coast and I can’t quit seafood, and I’m out on a limb about fish having feelings. As a self-aware seafood snob, there aren’t many places in land-locked Waco where I’ll partake of our slippery friends. And let me just say that catfish and crawfish, though tasty, do NOT count as seafood. They do not live in the sea and are therefore river food. Or creek food. Something like that.
I snooped around the new Kim's on Waco Drive on Tuesday afternoon and ended up speaking with co-owner Darla Page for a few minutes.
Page said they're hoping to reo-open the historic Waco restaurant by the end of the month, tentatively targeting Oct. 18, but she expressed the usual misgivings about setting an opening date. Since we've been publishing WacoFork the last three years, we've noticed there's usually significant lag time between when restaurateurs hope to open and when all the necessary documentation is finished and they actually open.
I stopped into Firehouse Subs this morning to check on their status and learned, in more ways than one, that they're close to opening.
For one thing, the inside of the restaurant already looks like an operational Firehouse (the restaurant, not the municipal service dedicated to putting out fires, saving lives and getting cats out of trees). And, of course, I spoke with the a gentleman who looked as if he was working hard to get the sandwich shop closer to opening for business.
Usually I don’t specify Mexican food as a food group in Texas, but refer to it simply as “food,” with other genres required to clarify. Don’t read this as a complaint; in my opinion the absolute best thing about Texas is breakfast burritos.
Today’s vegetarian picks: Mexican, aka regular food.
A new family-style restaurant called Bronc's and serving breakfast, lunch and dinner is planning to open in October next door to Cavender's in the Valley Mills-Waco Drive shopping center.
My friend Tate Barrett reminded me of this place today. I'd seen the sign and figured it would be a bar, but Tate asking about it prompted me to go inside and learn more. I'm glad I did as co-owner Johnny Miller gave me the inside scoop.
Tofu. There I said it.
Meat-eaters, don’t stop reading! I am not a fan of fake meat; it’s a poor substitute and anyone who says “you can’t tell the difference” hasn’t eaten a hamburger in like … ever. BUT tofu in Asian cuisine is treated like the vegetable it is, marinated and fried and full of flavor in all the dishes below. Don’t knock it till you try it!
To clarify, in case you see me dining around town, I’m not strictly a vegetarian. However, “vegetarian” is much easier to say than “socially conscious local-tarian who champions animal rights by boycotting factory farms that rampantly abuse animals and pump our food full of harmful crap and bad juju.”
But whatever your reason for choosing a plant-heavy diet, Waco has some great vegetarian options!
