Single-serving bottles of Beringer on the counter count: 8
People in line in front of me count: 4
Hook Line & Sinker is the clogged artery in the heart of Uptown. And I mean that as a good thing. This beaten-down, piece-of-shit, Christmas-light-colored building is a total eyesore in the middle of trying-so-hard-to-be-cool Dallas. It's the giant mole that used to be on Enrique Iglesias' otherwise mole-less face. It's the ugly Olsen twin. It's me in Ghostbar. When you see it, you just can't help but start singing, "One of these things is not like the other." And you know that when the regular Uptownies drive past it they hiss disapproval, and when they sit on the patio of one overpriced bar or another they gossip about what a slut Hook Line & Sinker is and how Hook Line & Sinker is totally two-faced and wears a weave.
And the beauty part is that all the while, Hook Line & Sinker is belching the alphabet, scratching its boobs and getting digits from all of their boyfriends. Because Hook Line & Sinker is a badass.
When I got to the front of the line, I had my mind made up. I was skipping all the better-for-you grilled-and-skewered shit and going straight for the fried happytimes. Hook me up with a combo platter of fried shrimp and catfish, and let's do this dance. I took the buzzer they gave me and found myself a table. For me, inside seemed like a better time than snorting Lemmon Avenue exhaust outside, but I'm weird like that. You, on the other hand, are welcome to sit on the patio and throw fries at all the Lexus SUVs that drive by (which manages to be more fun than it sounds, I promise).
In 2006, a local newspaper gave Hook Line & Sinker the award for Best Catfish in Dallas. And I think that maybe 2006 Me would have thought that this was the best catfish in Dallas, but because 2008 Me has been to so many other places that have prepared catfish yummily (most recently, it was Alligator Café's whole fried catfish), I give Hook Line & Sinker something more like Pretty Goodest Catfish in Dallas for this year. It was tasty but over-breaded. I loved their butterflied fried shrimp and hushlogs, though. With more tartar sauce, I could've downed about 800 of those things.
