Friday, October 24, 2008

Best Bites: Dining out in Dallas-Fort Worth October 24

By Teresa Gubbins

Offshore's Nextdoor Cajun Grill and Patio Bar chose its location wisely: Situated at the intersection of KingsleyWalnut Hill and Audelia in what used to be an unremarkable barbecue joint called Hog Wild, it's in Lake Highlands -- one area of Dallas that seems under-served in terms of restaurants.

Offshore's aspires to be a neighborhood spot with a Cajun menu, pretty patio, prices not too high, and a few beers on tap, including Coors Light, Shiner Bock, Stella Artois, and Sunset wheat beer.

"It's Cajun food, but we call it seafood because we don't want to scare people who are afraid of things on the spicy side," says Christina Cass, one of a quartet of owners. "We've got a lot of things that are not so spicy, like the grilled salmon with shrimp and crawfish in a wine-cream sauce. We have fried catfish but we don't use cornmeal, we use a flour mixture, which is a little different. The fried asparagus with Habanero ranch dressing is popular, plus calamari, and crab cakes."

Cass' partners include George Elson, who helped open the Metropolitan, City Tavern, Thomas & Leggitt Tavern, and the Barley House, plus Blake White and George "Smiley" Morales, who runs the kitchen. Most of them worked together at Bandito's Tex-Mex Cantina in Snider Plaza.

"We built this great patio where we'll have crawfish boils, oysters on the half shell when the water gets cold," Cass says. "Most of us live in the neighborhood. I’ve grown up in the area. Most of the servers went to Lake Highland High, so they recognize everyone that comes in. There's a lot of heart and soul into this place."

Nuts and buttons

• Austinuts, the Austin-based company that sells - duh - nuts, is opening a store in Snider Plaza, probably next week, at 6915 Hillcrest in Snider Plaza, in a former flooring store. You can hear the thinking: "Oh, just in time for holiday gift season." Hopefully, these will be fresher than the Austinuts sold at the grocery store, which I've seen on shelves past their sell-by date. (OK, which I've unwittingly purchased without looking at the expired date, then discovered once home that said nuts were rancid. Who has the energy to dig out the receipt and take it back to the grocery?)
• The Fort Worth Star Telegram started up a food blog called -- the food blog! Clever. Contributors include Food Editor Amy Culbertson, Life Editor Stephanie Allmon, columnist Bud Kennedy, and Online Editor Rick Press. They're posting all sorts of things on it including rumors such as the one that a Hooter's could possibly go into the downtown Fort Worth area.
• Speaking of rumors, it looks like the space vacated by the now-closed BLT Steak will be taken over by a new branch of Maguire's.
• Speaking of Fort Worth, Keith Hicks, formerly chef at Ovation, will open a restaurant-combination-old-school-music-venue called Buttons sometime this winter. Buttons is Hicks' childhood nickname.

John Meyer contributed to this story.

Related stories

• Best Bites: Dining out in Dallas-Fort Worth December 12 (Dec. 12, 2008)

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• Food and Drink > Dining / Restaurants > Best Bites

Comments

Billusa99 Anonymous

TG... thanks for the shout out for our little seafood gem in our 'hood. Correction needed: Kingsley has been renamed Walnut Hill Lane in Dallas for at least 2 years now.

1 year ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

DC Anonymous

Do any DFW food related blogs have a 'restaurant death watch' going yet?

1 year ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Teresa Gubbins Staff

billusa - TRY TELLING GOOGLE MAPS THAT!!!

ok i'm sorry. i'm sorry for that little outburst. i don't know what came over me. please forgive. i've fixed the story. thank you. thank you for pointing out my ERROR. it's perfect now. i hope you're happy. have a great day. no hard feelings.

1 year ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Billusa99 Anonymous

You can't tell Google anything.

1 year ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Scott Doyle Verified

I'm fairly certain that if I were Google, I'd do whatever I want too...

1 year ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )