We all love national recognition. We feel so blessed when a big glossy mag celebrates a little local restaurant and showers it with praise. It just feels so good. But a recent pick by Food and Wine has me really questioning the magazine's knowledge of Dallas food culture. It has me questioning my purpose in life.
They picked Smoke's bacon burger as one of the best in the whole country, and look at the thing. It doesn't even resemble a burger. It looks like a bust made from a sandwich with a fatty bacon tongue with a whole jalapeño on top like one of those ridiculous tiny hats I see ladies wearing these days. Can you imagine actually trying to put this thing in your mouth? A python would shy away.
You want a burger?
This is a burger.
I have my problems with Boulevadier, which you'll get to read tomorrow if you're inclined, but some of their dishes are outstanding. This burger is at the top of that list.
Crisp bacon that cracks like glass and melts away in a haze of salt and smoke tops not beef, but Beef. The meat is raised locally and cooked on a wood-burning grill till its black and charred on the outside and still bleeding on the inside, if that's what you ask for. Instead of arriving like a meat tower of Babylon it makes a much more humble approach. It actually looks like a burger. And you can actually eat it.
