A Home Cook's Respite in Dallas Texas
Dallas Texas and I have had a complicated relationship throughout the short entirety of my life, and I think that sentiment can be boiled down into a few common themes. Themes that I have found to be echoed by a others I have had the fortune to come across.
Firstly, children do not often seem to quite enjoy the places they come from. Why is this, you may ask? Truthfully, I couldn’t answer, I can’t sit on my soapbox here and pretend that I have done any real research into this topic. But, if I was forced to answer I would say this, young people always want more, or at least, I have always had the desire for more. More of what? I’ve never been quite sure.
I have embodied this escapism sentiment thoroughly in my time. From running off as far as I could to college only to return shortly thereafter, or again running off as far as I could when I finally graduated with a freshly polished collegiate degree in my hand, only to return yet again.
And so, after my many escape attempts and the undoubted future escapes on the short horizon, I figured I would take a moment today to account for a nice day in the great Dallas, Texas
Anyway, let us get on with the day.
I rose at about 8 am, feeling a bit under the weather with a massive spider bite on my neck stinging a bit and the oncomings of an allergy battle for the ages. Something I will admit, sadly, that afflicts me often during this time of year. (Thanks Punxsutawney Phil, early spring really sucks for allergy-stricken people like me.)
Despite this interesting allotment of aliments, I decided that on an off day, nothing would get in my way of achieving the day I had planned. And we must address something first, on an off day, calories do not count, and a workout is an afterthought if it is even to occur.
And so, to stop one I went. Shug’s Bagels on Lemon Avenue which lies in Oaklawn neighborhood of Dallas. A newish gem of the Dallas-Fort Worth Area, introduced to me by a fellow bagel enjoyer. Oaklawn is an area filled with bright and interesting shops, people, and restaurants. A neighborhood that comes highly recommended by me to any visitor.
Now, I find few things in this world to be absolutely perfect meals, but one that I have found difficult to argue with is a Nova Lox bagel. Heaps of smoked salmon, cream cheese, fresh tomatoes, crisp red onion slices, and gobs of green capers, hucked onto a killer everything or onion bagel. It’s a combo that has transcended time and has been the breakfast of many a smart person in its day.
Well, let me tell you. In a city that has never been known for its bagels. A place in which I must shamefully admit to having often defaulted to an Einstein bagel shop to achieve even a sliver of deliciousness in this combination. Shug’s stands as the hero Gotham needs, head and shoulders above the rest.
Where to even begin with this place… It feels as if you are walking into a genuine big-city bagel shop when you walk in. A line out the door, cars holding up traffic on an always busy Lemon Avenue clambering for a chance at a dough circle with a hole in its center. The valiant employees pumping out orders with precision slabs of cream cheese slapped artfully onto every order. It’s a badass operation, through and through.
I clambered my way to the front of the line and after a short wait found myself a bit discouraged. The sign that my eye usually found hanging above the bagel counter was missing. No lox description sign… Was there no lox today? My heart sank a bit at the possibility of this notion, and I began to look towards my accursed phone to find an alternative direction to take myself if it were to be the case.
Alas, I had made it to the front with only one thing on my mind.
“Do you have lox?” a short pause occurred, and to me it felt like millennia had passed before the kind gentlemen looked up to me and told me. “Hell yeah”.
Morning Saved.
I placed my usual order. It’s rather simple for me at a lot of the places I go to. I go for something. I have explored the menu of the places I love enough to know what I want.
With Shug’s, I will admit the approach was altered slightly. I went to Shug’s to try a lox bagel, and the result had been a mind-atleringly delicious bagel, since that awakening, I have never wavered or gone astray when I am there. If I am going to make the short hike up Lemon, I am going to have a Nova Lox bagel, no questions.
My order is an everything bagel, toasted (of course), plain cream cheese, add onion, tomato, and capers. Bam. I have granted you the not-so-secretive order for the world's perfect breakfast sandwich in all its glory.
Shug’s takes only a few minutes despite its constant onslaught of customers, and the atmosphere is that of an overly busy 7th Street shop in New York, enjoyable if you like a bit of chaos in your days. There is a hustle and bustle in the building that isn’t too often captured in the rather laid-back city of Dallas, and it’s fun to watch and be a passenger off.
The employees themselves are always a marvel to me. It is hard for me to imagine being that busy day in and day out. To know that every day you are quite literally walking into a shit show must be quite harrowing, and I am sure for many of them, quite exciting. There are culinary badasses in there. Efficient as could be, focused, but still allowing the joy of their shared chaos to be written across their faces. I watched them from my usual corner wait spot with a killer cup of drip coffee. Watching as the squadron of culinary masters crafted the great sandwiches whipped together in the blink of an eye.
My order number rang out quickly and I jumped up to grab the brown paper bag labeled with my order number and I ventured to my usual outdoor devouring zone.
Opening a Shug’s Nova lox is an experience in itself. I have most often found that places will serve their Nova Lox bagels in an open-face style. Not here my friends. Here we are given the glorious sandwich in exactly that, sandwich form. At first, an experienced Nova Loxer may be slightly taken aback by this conundrum of delivery, I however have never blinked.
The cream cheese serving is generous, to say the least (again, please remember, Fridays off and Weekend Calories do not count), and this is the first key to this fantastic concoction. It is so much cream cheese, that cream cheese management quickly becomes a serious factor in your eating experience. After the first bite, you are inevitably going to have some serious cream cheese-related problems arise, gobs of the stuff hanging by a thread off the ends of your perfectly toasted everything or onion bagel, but alas, fingers are great tools in this case. Get in there, get a little dirty, and mend, ensure the next bite will be as good as the last.
I will now hit on the veg action we have going on in this thing. Crisp red onion semi-circles permeate throughout the ‘wich. I don’t know where they are sourcing or storing these but damn if I tell you they have the perfect crisp oniony flavor each time. And the tomato, don’t even get me started on the tomato. It has not once disappointed, it too comes crisp but with enough give to not cause the double take a pre-ripe tomato can cause. The most important tomato-related aspect to me however, is the fact that it never has the sort of sandy texture that an overly ripe tomato can result in, it is simply perfect, every time. Capers will need a paragraph of their own.
Fine, to the capers then. Caper ratio. If you were to take only one thing from this rambling mess, then I would ask it to be this. Capers are awesome. Salty, briny, bright, and delicious on just about anything. However, there is a fine line between the perfect amount, too many, and too little. The latter being the most sinful of the two cardinal caper offenses. Shug’s (unsurprisingly) does not have an issue with their caper ratio. It is again, dare I say, a perfect caper ratio. It melds with the cream cheese perfectly to give it that bright and briny salt flavor that I am looking for, while also being readily available in its berry form for each and every immaculate bite. Again Shug’s, I really must tip my cap to you all.
And we must not forget the key ingredient in this entire sha-bang. The nova lox. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy some greatly smoked protein? I have met very few, especially in my Lone Star state who don’t, so please tell me if you don’t and I can ensure your removal from this mailing list.
The perfectly orangeish-pink salmon that is presented on this bagel is dastardly good. The portion size on this smoked protein is scientific in its perfection and is certainly far too much for them to be making a killing on the margins of this bagel, but man is it good. It is perfectly smoked in a way that does not overwhelm the party of flavors coming from the veg and cheese aspects, in fact, I would argue stiffly in any court of law that it brings the entire sandwich together in a way that completely and seamlessly melds the flavors together.
Fuck man. It’s a good bagel.
Bagel devoured and caffeine levels rising I was fueled for the continuation of the day.
On the docket, I had two dishes in mind that I wanted to both prep for and prepare. First, was a hollandaise sauce test, the perfect entrance sauce for any person looking to learn about the weird world of emulsion techniques.
Emulsion is in its essence combining two liquids that cannot be combined. So, it is a method in which you basically disperse the liquids between each other so rapidly that they can maintain a façade of being a melded sauce for a short period of time.
Hollandaise is easy on paper, it is raw egg yolks combined with heaps of butter and whisked furiously until the emulsion process is completed. You use the double boiler technique in which you boil a pot of water and place a bowl above the heated water to introduce a light heating element to the creation of the sauce. The key is not to cook the egg yolks too much. If you do you will create a separated sauce (a mess).
To finish you include a squeeze of lemon juice and season with salt and pepper, adjusting the butter and acidity levels as you taste to ensure a great hollandaise for your liking.
Mine thankfully turned out well enough. Granting me enough confidence to whip it out during a true egg’s benedict cook in the near future. So, box checked there.
The second action was preparing some beef short ribs.
This recipe is great as a make-ahead, a create-and-forget-about meal that can be demolished later in the week.
The sauce consists of red wine, beef stock, carrots, celery, and a white onion to create a ridiculously delicious, reduced sauce for serving with your beef short ribs. So, all that is required in terms of prep is to chop these ingredients up to prepare to stew and to brown your beef short ribs until they have a nice sear on each and every side. The searing process creates a fantastic Maillard reaction which in turn brings out the deep beefy flavors of the short ribs in your stew/sauce.
Once you have everything combined into a pot simply turn your oven to 275-300 and shove in your dutch oven and let it go for 4 hours.
Once completed remove all the components separately, short ribs to one container, vegetables to another, and lastly the sauce strained and introduced to a deli container with some ice cubes in the bottom. The ice cubes are a great trick for ensuring much of the fat in the sauce will coagulate toward the top of your container and be easily scooped out and removed when you are ready to serve.
You can serve the day of, but I have heard that letting these ingredients rest for a day or two after your initial cook is the true play. This will allow all those flavors to meld together fantastically.
When you are ready to serve just take your sauce and reintroduce it to heat along with your short ribs, as you do so reduce the sauce until you have a nice consistency that can coat the back of a spoon. This process will remove the extra water we utilized in the ice cube method and make a great topping for your short ribs.
Serve with polenta or some mashed potatoes, and you are golden for a great and relatively simple meal. This one is great, it’s foolproof.
So, with my short ribs in the oven, it was time for the true moment of glory in the day.
Hudson House happy hour.
Hudson House is an upscale seafood/steakhouse on Lovers Lane in the North Dallas area. It is known for its classy cocktails, fresh daily shipped-in oysters, and the 10-dollar cheeseburger deal from 3-6 on weekdays.
I have a great time heading here on rare occasions when I have no obligations at around 3 o’clock on a weekday. It’s a fun experience filled with quite a few different types of people you will find in the Dallas area; I have been lucky enough to spark great conversations with complete strangers in this spot.
Sand Art friends, as my dad calls them.
I went into Hudson House this day with a plan. Twelve Oysters, an extra dirty Martini (half off), and a cheeseburger.
The first thing was though, get a drink. I ran into a friendly bartender I had met before and requested my very, very, very, dirty martini. I have discovered in drinking martinis that I may really just enjoy drinking olive brine; the gin and vermouth are just a sideshow for me. And of course, if you are presented with the option of bleu cheese-stuffed olives, you take it.
It arrived quickly, ice cold (as they should be), and half-priced, perfect for a Friday finisher (or starter). I pulled back on the pace here and examined their killer dining room and bar area with a friend I had not seen in many moons. This maneuver was off to a great start.
Last time I had gone I had backed off from the twelve oysters and gone with only six. I must tell you fellow oyster enjoyers that this is a mistake that I hope to never make again. Get twelve. Twelve gives you enough to enjoy and doesn’t feel like a tease. Twelve lets you have some with cocktail sauce and others with mignonette. Or all with a cocktail or all with mignonette, I don’t know your pallet.
My inspiration for this sentiment is best surmised in a quote by the late great Anthony Bourdain.
Eat an oyster. Have a Negroni. Have two. Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you, but have a drink with them anyway. -Anthony Bourdain
And so, equipped with this mantra for the day, I submitted my order for 12 oysters.
Oysters in Texas can be a bit of a risk I will admit, however, if you can find places like Hudson House that will charge you an arm and leg you are safe to sail. Hudson House procures their oysters daily, they arrive fresh and cold on a bed of ice. As they should be.
The oysters were great with a fresh-tasting brine and a good variety of types, all of which I was sure to share with my “not hungry” friend, whom I even convinced to try the mignonette. One slight complaint, too many pink peppercorns in the mignonette. But that doesn’t deter my encouragement to always have at least twelve oysters.
Now, oystered up, down to half a stiff martini I ran into a problem. I had eaten my two olives before finishing my martini. Rookie mistake you may say, but at Hudson House, as I discovered on this day, it may actually be a tactic. A simple request to the bartender for a few more resulted in a spear of four more this time, not the measly two that are offered when you first order. Bang. Back in business. Service masterclass.
With these lubricants flowing through my stomach and brain, it came time for another star to emerge in the Hudson House experience. The $10 dollar cheeseburger.
The cheeseburger is what rounds out this happy hour extravaganza. A thick patty seasoned well with loads of melty American cheese and house-made pickles. They even create a burger sauce similar to the one you might find at In-n-Out, the pinkish orange sauce that I dislike slightly at the California burger chain is somehow morphed into something delectable by the chefs of Hudson House.
Explaining the eating of a good burger is difficult. Especially for me, somewhat of a burger connoisseur. My chagrin with the landscape of modern burgers is as follows: Thin patties are bullshit, fancy sauces, and topics are bullshit, and the lack of thought or care about the temperature of the cooked patties is bullshit. These are all things I have seen far too much of in the modern burger landscape. A total disregard and lack of respect for the true food of foods.
Hudson House manages to avoid all of these travesties in its burger. When I tell you it gives off the vibe of a high-class and well-made McDonald’s burger you may scoff at me slightly and I will grant you this dismay only momentarily. But Hudson House has the seasoning down to a science, making the meat itself the star of the show. And as shit and disgusting as McDonalds is, you cannot tell me with a straight face that their burgers do not pop with some semblance of delicious artificial seasonings. Thankfully, Hudson House uses real ingredients, and yet still manages to pull it off.
Their side, if you don’t go for the fries, which I have not, is a house-pickled pickle with a light sprinkle of old bay over the top. The dilly sour pickle serves as the perfect in-between bite pallet cleanser as you demolish the perfect burger that has blessed your bar zone. Old Bay on pickles is a great combination.
Good Bagel. Good cooking. Good drink. Good oysters. Good Burger. Hard to beat a day like that.
After laughing at the bar and making a few friends from Baltimore and giving them shit about my Texas Rangers vanquishing them from the 2023 baseball playoffs the happy hour adventures came to their conclusion. My friend and I departed, and I prepared to continue the rest of Friday.
Eat, drink, and enjoy well. Otherwise, what the fuck is the point of it all. Sounds like a Target home sign, but its true.