Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - The Landmark

The Landmark
3015 Oak Lawn Ave.
Dallas, Tx 75219
 

The Melrose

The Landmark is a restaurant inside another landmark. The Melrose hotel...A brick Chicago style apartment hotel designed by Dallas architect C.D. Hill. It has been a visual and social focal point for the Oak Lawn neighborhood since its opening in 1924.
Several years ago it was completely renovated.

The other cool place inside is a piano bar called The Library. It's literally set up to look like a library. I used to go there all the time in the 90’s.. which is another long story... ANYWAY, The Landmark.

The Library

This is a beautiful, tastefully decorated place. It reminds me of Chez Quis, that snooty french restaurant in "Ferris Bueller’s Day Off" where he poses as Abe Froman the sausage king. Lol

I thought it was oddly empty, but that might be common on Tuesdays.

Jennifer was our server, and she's excellent. If you go, request Jennifer!

This is copied directly from their website: “The Warwick Melrose Hotel, Dallas culinary team has been honored with the AAA Four Diamond award the prestigious DiRoNA award and the Wine Spectator award.”.. so.. .the food is award winning! Word! 

Drinks to start. We're usually needing a drink by the time Tuesday rolls around.

Valentina and I both had their special, which is an appetizer, an entrée, a dessert, and a glass of wine for 30 dollars.

To start, Valentina had the Tuna tartare, and I had the wedge salad. The wedge is bacon, tomatoes and blue cheese dressing over a lettuce wedge. Anything that has bacon in it ranks pretty high up there in my book.
 
Val can tell you about the tuna, because I don't do raw tuna, thanks.

Tuna Tartare

 Wedge Salad


For dinner we both had the Angus filet, with potato pierogi, roasted mushrooms and a cabernet demi glace. OMG.. lovely.

A nice table

 Angus filet and pierogi


We had the Penfolds Merlot to go with that.

Pierogi. One of my favorites. Seriously. I can eat my weight in these things. These were good but not quite what I am used to. They’re usually made of potato dough and these were pasta.

Dessert was the “My adult cupcake” for both of us.
It’s a chocolate cupcake filled with vanilla ice cream and topped with chocolate mousse. This was wonderful chocolately heaven!

My Adult Cupcake

Throughout the evening Jennifer was bringing us little things to taste. One she called an "amuse-bouche"  Which was a little spoonful of fruits and bacon if I remember... something like this:

Amuse-bouche  (ours didn't sit there long enough to be photographed)

This was along the same line.. a little after dinner macaroon.

 Macaroons.

All in all, a wonderful experience except for the muzac. Which. Was. Bad.

Really bad.

Really REALLY bad.

Like A Summer Place and Dr. Zhivago, bad.

Like 60 years out of date, bad.

Can you tell we thought it was bad? ;)

Afterwards we weren’t ready to leave so we headed to the Library for a couple drinks, and bribed the piano player to play a couple songs for us. I think it was Erik Barnes. :)

The Library


The Landmark..  4 1/2 out of 5 stars.


Afterwards we went back to Valentina's office, where I had the brilliant idea to add more RAM to her laptop. Not realizing the one that needed replacing was in the middle of the machine and I'd completely have to take it apart.
It's done though! :)

David, up to his usual hijinks.

Because I just don't know when to stop. :)

Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - The Angry Dog

The Angry Dog 

2726 Commerce, Deep Ellum
Dallas, Texas, 75226

This one of those little Dallas dive bar landmarks that’s been around forever. The building, not the restaurant. The building is old.. it looks like it’s from the 30’s at least, but I couldn’t find any information about what it was originally used for.

Eatin at the Angry Dog.. it’s hard to say that with a straight face.
Apparently their claims to fame are the “men’s room art”, and 100 different kinds of bottled beer. I couldn’t check out the men’s room obviously, so if any of you guys out there go, I’d appreciate some photos. Lol
 
They had all sorts of promo items too. I thought about buying a T shirt, because they’re cool. But my stomach bloated up and constricted my brain and I forgot.

Valentina and I both had cheeseburgers, and we split an “Angry Dog”, which is their signature entrée. It’s basically a big smothered chili cheese dog.

 Cheeseburger. With bacon. Just because.

 Valentina gets to be the cheeseburger eatin' subject of this photo. :D

 The Angry Dog. Greasy Heaven.


We had terrific service, but our waiter looked like a tropical fish. (think big fin on his head)

Everything was really really good. I should have ordered the Angry Dog instead of the burger, because I liked it better even though the burger was great.

Note to self: DON’T help eat another entrée when you’re already full.

After that, we went and walked around a little because personally I thought I was going to split in half and die. 

Val had only eaten once that day though, so she decided she had room for ice cream. (There was that empty space in there somewhere near the end of her leg).  ????????


We walked to a place across the street so she could order a milkshake. I’m not going to be specific about where, because it’s on our list of places to visit another time.

Some kind of Amaretto milkshake..which I will probably be having when we review this place.


I was a little nervous, because no matter where you seemed to walk down there, someone was trying to hit you up for money. As you can see, it's kind of a craptastic neighborhood.

We also stopped in to check out Adair's. It's a little bar that has been open in Dallas since the 30’s or 40’s.

Adair's
 

And then there's a weird little taco bar.

 Sol's Taco Lounge

I was trying to figure out what they're selling here.. filet of arm?


Ah lovely Dallas. :)

 Dallas skyline viewed from Deep Ellum.


The Angry Dog  3 out of 5 stars.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010 - Cafe Izmir

Cafe Izmir

3711 Greenville Ave.

Dallas Tx, 75206

214.826.7788

I liked this place. They say it's "Mediterranean" food, but it reminds me of greek food. It might mean the same thing for all I know.

Tuesday night they have discount Tapas and 15$ pitchers of Sangria. The Tapas were great. Don't waste your time with the Sangria. It tasted like wine flavored water. We drank an entire pitcher.. about 3 glasses each and I didn't even get the slightest buzz. I'm never looking to get flat out drunk, but I like the alcohol to relax me a little, and I don't think there was alcohol in that at all.
 

We were seated at a tiny little table in the very back. The waiter was great and seated us earlier than we thought we'd get in. The tables are tiny though, and you're packed in... practically in other people's laps. The noise level isn't bad.
I took a photo out from our little cubby, and this Aussie guy next to us was like "WTF"? lol

Slightly annoyed Aussie guy. lol

We started off with an order of Hummus.. which Valentina swears is the best Hummus EVER.

After we annihilated the Hummus, we ordered an array of Tapas, which are like little appetizers.

Greek Olives, Tabouli, and Russian Chicken Salad


I ordered: Greek Olives, Russian Chicken Salad, marinated Asparagus, Chicken kabobs, and Piroshki.

Valentina ordered: Greek Olives, Tabouli, Grilled Vegetables, Chicken kabobs, and Piroshki.

Piroshki, Chicken Kabobs, Asparagus, Greek Olives


Those Piroshki are HEAVEN on a plate. Meat and vegetables in a thin fried crust. They're very similar to egg rolls. I ordered extra and took them home for lunch for the next day.

The chicken kabobs were tasty and a little spicy.

The asparagus were good but slightly undercooked.

Greek olives, always a winner. Valentina has to weigh in on the grilled veggies. She took those home, so I never heard if they were any good.

Grilled vegetables

After dinner we had two Turkish coffees and something called the Izmir dessert special.

Turkish Coffee


The coffees were lovely.. sort of chocolatey. And the dessert was great. MmMM..
It was ice cream layered over cake, baklava, and strawberries. We shared one, and it's a good thing, or we wouldn't have made it out alive.

Izmir Dessert special


Oh that dessert was terrible.. we sent the leftover back to the kitchen. ;)

Seriously though, we probably would have licked it clean if we hadn't been in public. ha!



3 1/2 out of 5 stars.