Lunch Crawl

Hmmm, so what to do on a Friday without the children and your wife is home?  Well, how about lunch?  The problem: which restaurant?  The solution: three of them.

FOR LUNCH?!?

Yes, this would be my first lunch crawl, akin to the bar crawl though with much less alcohol.  In between getting CDs unlocked at the library and visits to the farmer's market and grocery store for a Memorial Day weekend that would start off with lunch, or lunches, so the adventure begins with a little Luck.

The restaurant: Luck.  The score: 4 stars.

Luck was my first choice for where to eat if we were going to dine in a single location at Trinity Groves.  All of these restaurants are in the
Trinity Groves complex located at 425 Bedford Street, Dallas, Texas  75212.

Luck had the most inventive menu overall I would say though that might have to do with my prejudice towards Fried Green Tomatoes which of course is where I started.  Since this was going to be a multi-course crawl meal I wanted to pace myself so this would be both a great appetizer for my palate as well as not to be too filling, except, the chunks of tomato were huge.  Nice job chef with the surprise.

I washed down perfectly textured tomatoes with

Oak Cliff Beverage Works root beer and continued with the Blueberry and Raw Butternut Squash Salad.   (For those of you who know me, I really really did have butternut squash.)  Again, proportions were much larger than expected so half the salad was boxed up for later.  The staff at Luck is attentive without being over bearing and what I had from the menu I found enjoyable.  I wanted to try their beer battered apple fritter funnel cake as I am a fan of most funnel cakes (who isn't?) ice cream, but dessert was to come elsewhere.

My biggest disappointment was Luck is a beer only establishment.  I get the craft beer craze, but I drink liquor if I am going to imbibe.  Other than that, four stars.

The next stop, was Resto Gastrobistro.  A little swankier or wannabe maybe, I almost suggested this place for appetizers as I was interested in how they were going to do their pork belly gorditas.  Crab cakes and roasted artichokes might have been interesting too, but I was now on an entree course which for me meant a lobster corn dog.  The BBQ chips that came with it seemed home made, but the corn dog was just okay.  I am not sure if they just extracted a hot dog from the bun and filled it with lobster.  Again, okay, but not great.  Maybe I came for the wrong part of the menu, but I certainly came at the wrong time of day.

While they were able to make my personal martini I drink, they seemed slow to follow up and unprepared for the bus of folks that dropped off an elderly sight seeing group.  Maybe any Friday night would have been better than Friday holiday lunch, but slow service and okay food yields a forgiving three stars.

Finally, we go to the pop up kitchen with the rotating chef, Kitchen LTO (Limited Time Only).  We are now on second entrees and dessert, except...(I will get to the exception in a minute.)  So again, the starters looked more interesting and since I already had an entree perhaps I should have had another starter as an ender, but I got flatbread.  My date got a chicken salad sandwich.

If you want to talk about boring and unimaginative, have
flatbread with "fresh mozzarella" (is anyone using old mozzarella), arugula, and kalamata olives.  Of course, I had the crazy dish as they chicken salad was less impressive than what I make at home.  Sunflower sprouts do not a $12 sandwich make.

While the service was better than Resto, the communication was not.  Their website advertised a buttered popcorn creme brulee.  Want to guess what I am having?

That's right, the LTOMG! Chocalate Dome because the staff removed the dish from the menu without updating their website.  A chocolate dome with fresh caramel over vanilla ice cream does not normally get me excited, but it was something.  Still, in this day and age, don't advertise it, if you can't do it.  The service and food was underwhelming, but stable so three stars.  I think I would go for appetizers and  desserts next time except who knows what the menu will (or won't) have on it when I get there.

One thing I do know is if you have the time and
the desire, a lunch crawl is a fun way to look at multiple restaurants when they are housed so close together.  You get to try multiple places and figure out who does what, how they do it, and can they provide the service you are looking for in a quicker period of time than usual.  Have fun and enjoy your meal.