This just in: Mama Fu's has July 1 tentatively targeted for the grand opening of its new Valley Mills Drive restaurant. That will make it the first restaurant to open in the shopping center anchored by Aldi and soon to also include SmashBurger, Jimmy John's and Rusty Taco.
One cool thing about Mama Fu's, which is sort of Asian-fusion casual dining, is that it's an order-at-the-counter deal during the day and table service at night. Click here to check out their menu.
It's looking like we'll have SmashBurger open right around the middle of August.
SmashBurger's Brad Brown told me this week that they're looking at about four weeks until they start outfitting their space, though they're still in that stage where they're waiting on outside factors, so they can't name a specific date yet.
Here's the fourth installment of Tuesday Trivia, which we'll be running all summer.
We're tying trivia to new music, movie and TV DVD releases, since that happens on Tuesdays, so you'll have some framework for my question's origin. But I'm not going to frame the question so that you'll just be able to look up new releases and find the answer. I can hopefully make it a bit trickier than that. For example, John Fogerty released a new album today and I'm particularly excited about it, so the question comes from it.
Just want to let everyone know I did something to help my barbecue credibility over the weekend. In Fort Worth with a little extra time on my hands because of a long lightning delay at the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial, I decided to consult the Texas Monthly BBQ Top 50 and try one of the Fort Worth places on the list.
That took me to Longoria's just off of I-35 in south Fort Worth (only about an hour and 15 minutes from Waco). It was also 2:30 in the afternoon, so I felt pretty confident I would be able to speak with the proprietor if he or she was in the building.
Texas Monthly is stoking the BBQ fire.
Check out this article in conjunction with the magazine's Texas Top 50 barbecue list. It's an entertaining and informative read.
The heavy-metal teen punk in me wants to sit outside the McDonald's location on Valley Mills and listen to "Appetite for Destruction."
I'm not gonna do it, but I'm glad that part of me still exists. The sight of a demolition crew taking down the old McDonald's was enough to get me to pull over and snap a photo. McDonald's is tearing down this old building in order to build a new one in the same spot.
I checked with Cafe Homestead this morning and they still have seats for the June 1 farm-to-table event.
The restaurant began this series calling it "farm to table dinner" and then moved away from that distinction when the menu didn't precisely fit. But this one is going to be a spring harvest farm-to-table dinner. There will be one seating at 6:30 p.m. and the cost is $49 per person.
Here's the third installment of Tuesday Trivia, which we'll be running all summer.
We're tying trivia to new music, movie and TV DVD releases, since that happens on Tuesdays, so you'll have some framework for my question's origin. But I'm not going to frame the question so that you'll just be able to look up new releases and find the answer. I can hopefully make it a bit trickier than that. For example, Darius Rucker released a new album today, so the question comes from the Hootie & The Blowfish catalog.
I'm currently working from Common Grounds for two reasons.
For one thing, I'm unofficially making this "old crotchety guy day" at CG because with Baylor graduation directly in our rear-view mirror and summer school directly ahead, it's the perfect day at Common Grounds for guys like me. That is, guys who like to work in a public space, but want to find that sweet spot where I'm not at my house but also not in a really crowded place. Common Grounds is the right amount of chill today.
See, this is when I'm not sure I want to be known as a food critic. First of all, I'm not. I write a restaurant blog about Waco restaurants and sometimes rave about restaurants from other towns that strike my interest for one reason or another.
If you follow this blog closely, you may have noticed that I never really give a thumbs up or thumbs down. Perhaps I should. Perhaps I just don't have the gumption to do it. But I would rather provide info and maybe a little perspective rather than say "go here" and "don't go there." Of course I'm going to say go to places like Kitok's, Bangkok Royal, Vitek's, Cafe Homestead, etc. But there are several good reasons for that and it doesn't take a food critic to taste that those places deserve your attention.
