Good thing I had dinner at Tillman's Roadhouse the other night to re-spark my interest.
Tillman's is one of the many great restaurants currently inhabiting the Bishop Arts District in south Dallas. I know when anyone from Dallas or surrounding areas sees the two words "south" and "Dallas" placed next to each other, they immediately cringe. But not I. I'm sure I've said this before but my favorite thing about Dallas is its wealth of great, great restaurants. I've spent a good amount of time in New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas and Dallas beats out all three in the restaurant business. I know that's weird to hear, but trust me it's not easy to say. There are an abundance of celebrity chefs who open their restaurants in these three cities and they are all great. The thing about Dallas is, there is an abundance of independently owned, small restaurants that are doing so many innovative things with food, presentation and atmosphere. Of course there are these types of establishments in the other cities, but I'm not talking about hippy food trucks and Jewish Deli's, although those are both great as well. I could talk about this for awhile but this post is about Tillman's.
We entered the eclectic/postmodern/southwest designed restaurant through the gas lamp and candle lit front porch. The first thing you get a whiff of is black truffle. Or any kind of truffle really. I only say this because I later found out it was black truffle so I now have some insight. We had to wait a little bit for our table which was fine with me because I wanted to hang out in the bar for a little bit anyways. They had old western movies projected up on the wall and tables were all made from tree stumps. I knew from the get go that this was another restaurant who took as much pride in their drinks as they do in their food. Jessica ordered the "87 ways" which is pictured above. I took all these pictures from their website by the way. I have learned that I am a better writer than photographer, plus I got tired of always taking pictures of my food at restaurants. Anyways..I ordered some type of bourbon drink similar to an old fashion and my mother ordered a Sassy something or other that was made with vanilla vodka and garnished with jalapenos. They were all good.
The tablescape was great, a very rustic "down-home" feel. Lots of wood with little medal bird figurines. As soon as we sat down the culprit truffle smell was presented to us in the form of buttered popcorn dusted with black truffle sitting in a giant silver spoon. One of the best "bread and butters" I've had in a restaurant....next to the fried calamari that was brought to our table in Paris, but that's another story. So we finished our drinks and jawed on for a bit while munching popcorn before we even looked at the menu. My mother had been perusing the Tillman's website for about a week, so she basically had the entire menu memorized and had already picked out what she wanted to eat about 3 days before our reservation. The one thing we HAD to order was the trio of fries.
Three different kinds of potatoes with three different kinds of seasonings and two homemade sauces. How much better does it get? Parmesan black pepper kennebecs, chili dusted purple peruvians and smoked salt sweets were all fried perfectly crisp and paired well with the homemade ketchup and horseradish pickle mayo. We also ordered the fried pickles which were equally good. Cornmeal horseradish batter with a spicy tomato ranch. They presented the fries as you see above and the pickles were brought out in a way that made it look as if the paper cup they were in had tipped over and most of the pickles had fallen out on the plate. Pretty cool looking if you ask me. By this time Jessica and my mom were, as usual, already full. But they powered on like champs.
Pictured above is my entree, the ribs and mac and cheese...you know I had to get the mac and cheese. It was pretty good. Similar taste to my own recipe, but there was no crispy top, which was disappointing. The ribs were good. They didn't fall of the bone, but that's the way I like them. They had a good bark and flavor and weren't over sauced, the way Texas ribs are made and how all ribs should be made. My mother ordered the scallops which were made southern style, placed on top of fried green tomatoes and roasted pepper grits. She wasn't too pleased with it but I found it to be quite savory. The scallops were good size and cooked absolutely perfect. The oil that the tomatoes went into must have been too hot because the batter on them was a bit dark and the inside a bit raw, but they still gave a good textural contrast to the dish. Jessica ordered the special. I have to give her credit. Usually it is I who places the best order of the night, but that achievement went to her on this occasion. The special was a butternut squash ravioli with fresh figs, swiss chard and pancetta. This was a complex dish with great flavor..when the chard was left out. I don't know what happened, but it had a very fishy taste and ruined the whole dish. But a bite of the ravioli with the fig and pancetta was heavenly.
Apart from the trio of fries, my mother insisted on this restaurant because of the table side s'mores. So naturally we ordered them. All the ingredients were house made. The dark chocolate bark, the graham crackers and the orange, maple and coffee flavored marshmallows. They brought it all out on a board with some sort of contained fire in a black kettle looking device. They were divine. I don't know if I'll ever want a store bought ingredient s'more ever again.
All in all I am adding this to my list of favorite Dallas restaurants. I've also heard good things about Bolsa and Oddfellos which are all in the area. I will have to try them as well.
Thursday night plans...$1 beer bowling...not really my cup of tea but for some reason sounds unequivocally intriguing.
Also
Frying turkeys for the Baylor/OU game this weekend, maybe a post on how to do that properly.
And my New York Thanksgiving trip is coming up very soon. More to come on that indeed.
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