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Sunday, 25 April 2010 13:44 |
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ConFusion Lives Up to its Name
By Michony Andenberg,
Your ConFused Law Reviewers
March Madness – when spring is finally in the air and people get ridiculously excited about a team they knew nothing about a week ago who promptly loses and ruins their tournament bracket. This is inevitably followed by April Apathy – when you realize that summer heat is just around the corner and “One Shining Moment” is more fun than the 20 hours of college hoops you just watched. And that pretty much sums up our feelings about ConFusion, the new Asian fusion place near the Bishop Arts District in Oak Cliff.
We were excited because ConFusion has a couple of things going for it, namely the best name for an Asian fusion restaurant in the history of ever and a spot in a funky, hip area of town that north-of-downtown people like us call “funky, hip” because we’d never go there if we didn’t have a restaurant or bar to use as an excuse. Unfortunately, we can’t give ConFusion anything more than a big “meh.” Blame it on April Apathy and the “meh” generation. Just don’t blame us, we’re innocent of all charges (until a final, nonappealable determination of guilt is entered by the highest court of competent jurisdiction). Seriously though, we wanted to like ConFusion, and we gave it a couple of tries and enjoyed its earnest and friendly service, but the food is just too okay-but-pricey to give it more than a lukewarm review and some suggestions for how to fix things up.
Brought to you by the good folks behind Taqueria Tepatitlan (also a great name) in Oak Cliff, ConFusion has a tiny parking lot that quickly fills up. The exterior of the building is all about what brown can do for you and we think the interior has gone a little too far over to the dark side, if you know what we mean (we mean it’s a little too dark inside). The small outdoor patio has a nice zen fountain thing going on. The service was very friendly and prompt, with the only complaint being that no one knew how to make an Arnold Palmer (take one Mr. Palmer and one Mrs. Palmer, add a weekend getaway to Napa, and … THANK YOU! We’ll be here all week!). Finally, the half-tea-half-lemonade appeared, with a nice seltzery twist and we were on our way down the culinary rabbit trail.
ConFusion’s menu lives up to its fusion credentials by offering a variety of dishes from all over Asia – many are conveniently labeled “Cambodian,” “Laotian” or “Thai” in case you aren’t sure. As with the restaurant’s name, some of the menu items have clever titles like Kiss Me Ginger, but for some reason it’s the dishes like Banana balls and Gang Dang that make us giggle. We’d say we’re immature but you already knew that; hey, anyone want to know how to make an Arnold Palmer? Anyhoo, ConFusion’s problem is that the pricing structure is out of whack. Red flag no. 1: no lunch specials (officially, at least). And most of the menu items tend to be more expensive than at comparable Asian restaurants around town. It appears the owners are aware that most other Asian places offer lunch specials with a soup/salad/spring roll option, though, because we were mysteriously given small bowls of soup and mini spring rolls on our second visit (the spring rolls had a tasty curry zing but the soup was pretty bland).
So, how did the rest of the food taste? Starting with the starters, the Cambodian Corn Cakes ($7.50) apparently also contained both crab and shrimp, but we couldn’t really taste either and, while the crust of the cakes was nicely crunchy, the interior was a little on the mushy side. The Laotian Crab Cakes ($7.50) came in fun kid shapes like stars and hearts, which immediately made us wonder if they were purchased at a nearby Whole Foods (and would our kids eat them or just throw them at the dog like everything else). The crab tasted fine but a little pre-fabricated. The Summer Rolls ($7.50) were basically your standard Asian steamed rice paper rolls, but the half slice of shrimp to a roll seemed skimpy for the price. As for entrees, on one visit we tried the Texas and Tan An ($11.95), which is a Texas pecan crusted Vietnamese white fish fillet. Although the sauce could have used more kick, the crust had a delicious crunch and the fish was moist and tasty. On another visit we tried the green curry with calamari ($8.25 + $3 for the calamari). We ordered it spicy and it had a nice creamy, sweet taste but not so much with the spicy part. Pad key mow (ConFusion’s spelling) with tofu ($8.25), or flat rice noodles, with garlic, chilies, tomato, bell pepper and basil, tasted of salt and tamarind (?) and not much else, which was a huge disappointment for a dish that should be slightly spicy with earthy notes from the vegetables.
For dessert, the ConFusion white cake with milk ($6.50) was really expensive for what tasted like a standard tres leches cake that we suspect was brought in from the nearest Mexican dessert commissary. The Great Wall of China Chocolate Cake ($6.50) was also really pricey and they missed an easy clever dessert name – Great Wall of Chocolate Cake! – but at least it was thick and chocolatey so it didn’t feel like as much of a rip-off.
Ultimately, ConFusion lives up to its name by providing an okay but frustrating dining experience that’s just too pricey for what you get. If they’d lower their price points a smidge, add an official lunch specials menu and focus on doing fewer dishes really well then we think they’ll be just fine. On our over the top college basketball announcer five-gavel scale, where five gavels is Gus Johnson going crazy over a first round buzzer beater and one gavel is Dickie V going all Diaper Dandy over his beloved Dukies, we give ConFusion two and a half gavels or Billy Packer coming back from the grave to grump through another blowout finals game (What’s that? He’s still alive? Oopsies!).
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Wednesday, 17 February 2010 09:28 |
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“Dr.” Andrew Bell, PhD, BBQ, NoMSG
By The Law Reviewers, M.D., Anthony LowenMcDreamy and Michael AnderMcSteamy
Downtown is filling up with some mighty fine and swank restaurants, whose “chef driven” menus (we have no idea what that means either), truffle oils, and valet parkers await your fickle taste buds. That’s because said fickle buds will be at Dr. Bell’s BBQ getting their ‘Q on, at least twice a week. See, we had another restaurant all ready to go for this month’s review, but then Dr. Bell’s came along and Pretty Woman-ed us with its Lamborghini brisket, smoked turkey polo match, and a future guest spot on Friends. We’ve heard it all before, Dallas is not a barbeque town, there’s too many corporate chains, you’re within 100 feet of me and violating the restraining order, yadda yadda yadda. But Dr. Bell’s is the real deal, and we hope the chefs driving Smoke a couple of miles away take notice, for their own sake. You heard it here first: Dr. Bell’s will be around in a year, and Smoke will be but an odor in your clothes that you can’t get out (Curse that $4 pickle plate – curse it all to Houston!). |
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Saturday, 09 January 2010 11:59 |
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Maple and Motor Doesn’t Need a Catchy Headline
It’s That Good, Says the By-Line
By The House-Ground Law Reviewers
There have been two recent developments in the sometimes wonderful and always artereosclerotical (note: made up word) world of hamburgers. The first was a not-so-Earth-shattering-but-still-kinda-frightening article in the Sunday New York Times several months ago about the dangers of some types of ground beef. This disturbing and revealing article got us to put down our ground beef hamburgers for a couple of days and subsist solely on lamb kebabs and turkey burgers (which taste great for breakfast, btw), just to be safe. Less noticeably, your Law Reviewers have been on a mission for the past five months to rate the best burgers in the area, and invited some of our hard-core followers (the ones who go through our garbage and have Law Reviewer tattoos) to join us. We call it Burger Court, and you can read all the rules, rankings and summary judgments here. Unless you enjoy a thorough grilling on cross-examination, you do not want to be held in contempt of Burger Court! Burger Court would be a total success, except for the fact that our two choices rank near the bottom of our burger rankings so far. We blame the NYT article. |
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Wednesday, 25 November 2009 14:22 |
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The 2009 Golden Gavel Awards
By Michael Anderson and Anthony Lowenberg
Your Undiscovered Law Reviewers (Hey, we’ve been here all along!)
The future is the undiscovered country. At least, that's what Star Trek VI told us, and Star Trek movies never lie! Never mind what Hamlet had to say about it, he never had to escape from a Klingon ice planet prison by sleeping with a shape-changing alien who looked like David Bowie's wife half the time and a blue skinned iguana-man the other half, now, did he? Anyhoo, now that our obligatory random intro is out of the way, let's get to this year's Golden Gavel Awards V: The Undiscovered Country. No, this year's theme is not which places around town serve the best Romulan ale and tribble pie (that's next year's theme). Instead, we’re giving awards this year to the undiscovered/underrated food and food-serving establishments that fly under the radar in our fair city. You won’t see these dishes or places listed on the annual ‘Best of’ listings in other “publications” around “town” cuz they ain’t the sexy, popular picks, but they’re all good eatin’. And the Undiscovered Gavelies go to… |
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Sunday, 01 November 2009 21:38 |
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Taj Mahal II: Electric Vindaloo
By: The Law Reviewers
Thanks to globalization, there is finally Indian food in the Central Business District (or the CentBizDiz to those of us who just made that up), let’s hear it! Nope, we’re not talking about Stephan Pyles’ latest foray into East Asian/Middle Eastern/WhateverSideoftheBedheWokeupon fusion, but the cleverly-named Taj Mahal, which is the bold newcomer to the West End/El Centro/Creepy Empty Parking Garage cheap lunch scene on the west side of downtown (711 Elm St., (214) 741-4225, sorry, no web site, we looked). This is not to be confused with the beloved and longtime Taj Mahal restaurant located at Central Expressway and Meadow Lane, or with the other 5,421 Taj Mahal restaurants located in every country but India.
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Monday, 21 September 2009 16:31 |
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What Were They Smoke-ing?
By Michael Anderson and Anthony Lowenberg
Your Mesquite-smoked Law Reviewers
So many snarky titles, so little time… Some other ones we considered were: “Smoke-ing Is Hazardous to Your Wallet”, “Mind If We (Criticize) Smoke?”, “Smoke Is an Expensive Habit”, “Please Don’t (go to) Smoke”, “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Price-Gouging”, “Smoke, Um, Don’t Got ‘Em”, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes… And Your Clothes and Hair" and “Thank You for Not Smoke-ing”. That should give you a rough idea of what we thought of the place. It’s not that Smoke is entirely bad, but it sure feels like yet another example of an over-priced, over-done restaurant concept that will appeal to the right (read: Paper City) crowd for about six months before they move on to the next big flashy streetlight along the highway. We hope that Smoke will turn out to be better than that, but it needs to make some changes for us to want to go back anytime soon on our dime. |
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Sunday, 09 August 2009 11:36 |
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The “Passion and Panache” of Fedora… Oh, and Pasta and Pizza Too.
By The Law Reviewers, who remember the Sicilian (or was it Klingon?) proverb that Revenge is a dish best served cold.
The Law Reviewers are big Godfather fans - we've seen all three movies 10 minutes at a time and out of order on the AMC channel over the years, and we want you to know that someday we may ask you for a favor you can't refuse before Michael kisses Sonny at a toll booth. Fedora Restaurant & Lounge wants you to remember that it’s not just a Godfather-inspired Italian restaurant, it’s also a Lounge. Aw hell, let’s just quote the cheeky website and let the in-your-faceness that is Fedora explain for itself (for best results, use your inner “The Most Interesting Man in The World” voice): |
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Sunday, 19 July 2009 00:00 |
Sushi World: Definitely Tastier than SeaWorld
By Michael Anderson and Anthony Lowenberg,
The Often-Imitated but Never-Duplicated Law Reviewers
Ah, the dog days of summer are here and, as Norm Peterson would say, we’re all wearing milk-bone underwear. But, fear not, gentle denizens of oven-baked downtown Dallas! If you live or work anywhere near the corner of Ross Ave. and Griffin Blvd., then you finally have a nearby dining option where you can coolly enjoy a meal in the air-conditioned confines of a new sushi restaurant. You just have to walk a couple of blocks through the scorching heat to get there. Or drive there if you prefer, you Earth-hating, gas-guzzlers! Anyway, Sushi World is the newest establishment from the owner of K-Tokyo on Lower Greenville, and it serves some decently-priced sushi and other assorted Asian dishes in a location that has sorely needed a food establishment for a while now. |
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