HMart Food Court

Food Court??? Yes, this review is about a food court. I know I know. When I think of food courts, fast, ill-prepared, and cheap comes to mind too. This however is not your run of the mill mall food court overrun by teenagers, cranky shoppers, and screaming babies. This is a small food court inside a Korean supermarket and it is freaking awesome. There, I said it. You don't have to read the review now, just run as fast as you can to the awesomeness. Just kidding; you can read the rest and decide for yourself.

I first heard about H Mart in Dallas from my boss who frequents there quite often. I walked in and was immediately stunned by their enormous selection of fruits and vegetables, of which many I had never seen before. I actually went to H Mart the first time just to pickup some grocery items not knowing they had a food court. I bought my groceries and wandered over to the food counters. There I found eight different counters to choose from serving traditional Korean fare including Bulgogi, Galbi, Kimchi, Savory Buns, sushi, and much more.

Growing up I had a Korean babysitter who was an amazing cook. She cooked sushi and Bulgogi for us and introduced my family to all things Korean. The wonderful smells from all the food counters reminded me of my childhood.

What's really nice about the menus at the counters is that many of the items have pictures; big bonus.

So, back to my first visit. I chose to go with a familiar Korean dish called Bulgogi. This is typically chicken, beef, or pork that is marinated for a day or so and grilled. I chose a spicy pork Bulgogi to go. When I got back to my office, I unwrapped my package of awesomeness and dug in. Along with my Bulgogi, they gave me rice and three different types of kimchi which were all great; one a traditional spicy kimchi, another spicy tofu one, and a third one that was sort of sweet. After tasting my first bite of the pork, I had to close the door to my office because of all the moaning...yup, it was that good. It had the perfect amount of spiciness along with a hint of sweetness. The portion was really big and normally I would have saved half of it for lunch the next day, but I found that to be impossible; had to eat it all!

Since that first visit I have been back a number of times, normally trying different kinds of Bulgogi. But none of the subsequent visits could overshadow the pure enjoyment of that first visit, bringing me back to my childhood.

Check out H Mart, you won't be disappointed.

Square Burger in McKinney

OK, you might start to see a recurring theme here. Once again, my beautiful wife Lori and I were exploring downtown McKinney for a place to eat. And once again, as in Italian food, burgers are not my normal modus operandi. But I must tell you that Square Burger in downtown McKinney is not your normal burger fare. We had not done any research or review-shopping on this location but if we had, there would have been no doubt about us visiting this establishment. I say this because unbeknownst to us, the head cook is the semi-famous Craig Brundege who has spread his talents in a number of top restaurants in San Francisco and Los Angeles including Spago. His sous-chef at this little burger shop that could is Ngoc Ngo who has also worked at a number of notable establishments including Wolgang Puck's steakhouse, Cut.

So again, we were walking around trying to decide where to donate our money and I decided to "settle" on Square Burger. We walked in around 1:00pm on a Saturday and it was fairly crowded. We gave the hostess our name and were told it would be about 25 to 35 minutes which I thought was a bit much but we decided to tough it out. The restaurant is not very large so many people give their cell numbers to the hostess and walk around a bit more. We opted to wait inside and peruse the menu.

Numerous beer specials are written on a huge chalkboard on one side of the restaurant as well as a few chef's specials which change daily. We ended up only waiting about 20 minutes or so before they seated us at a booth by the window.

Our extremely friendly waiter greeted us and after telling him this was our first visit, began to tell us about their appetizers and their prized grass-fed organic beef that is actually dry-aged. He had me at dry-aged...Forgoing the European style kiss on the waiter's cheek, we decided to order. I chose the Bleu Burger and Lori chose the Bacon and Smoked Cheddar BBQ Burger. I almost ordered the Lamb Burger which I heard another customer raving about, but it is always hard for me to sway from bleu cheese. Our waiter convinced us to get half an order of the Spicy Onion Strings and half an order of the Hand-Cut French Fries instead of one order of each because he said that would be way too much for us; a helpful tip that most waiters would not care to mention.

We waited patiently, OK maybe not patiently since we were both starving, until our food arrived. As some others have written about Square Burger, the food takes a little bit long when they are busy and they were extremely busy that day. But it was definitely worth the wait.

I ordered my burger medium rare and it was cooked to perfection. The Bleu Burger is topped with a caramelized onion marmalade, baby arugula, and homemade bleu cheese all sandwiched between a ciabatta roll. I literally moaned after my first bite and all subsequent bites. I was having a "When Harry Met Sally" moment and I was not too embarrassed to hide it. After that first awe-inspiring bite, I told Lori that this was the best burger I had ever had, hands down. The Spicy Onion Straws were also extremely good along with the Hand-Cut French Fries. Lori's burger was no run of the mill meat on a bun either. Hers was topped with Old Rasputin Imperial Stout BBQ Sauce, Apple Smoked Bacon, and 6 Year Aged Cheddar. When Lori "forced" me to take a bite, I was able to deduce that the BBQ Sauce was outstanding as was the combination of everything together.

As of this entry, we have not yet made it back to Square Burger but I can promise you our next visit will not be too far off.

Rugerri's Ristorante in McKinney

My wife Lori and I were once again exploring downtown McKinney trying to find another great place to eat. I wanted to eat at a little French Bistro we had passed about a month ago, but they were closed for a family vacation or something. I wasn't really in the mood to eat at one of the pubs there downtown so we bypassed them. We tried to get into a Steak place, without reservations once again, NOPE....not gonna happen. We walked back to the lounge/bar area to see if there were any tables and of course there were not. Once again we were told they were solidly booked for three more hours but we saw tons of open tables; their loss.

We walked passed an Italian restaurant and checked out the menu which was displayed in the window. Again, I'm not a huge Italian food fan but the menu looked very promising. Not that I was going to order it, but seeing sweetbreads on the menu definitely piqued my interest.

The apparent owner of the restaurant greeted us with a thick Italian accent and was somewhat dismayed when we said we did not have reservations, but much less so than the other restaurants we had visited sans-reservations. We were shown almost immediately to a table and were immediately greeted by an extremely friendly waitress. The menu was ginormous and the choices abounded. I saw a nearby table devour the calamari and it was recommended by our waitress so I chose to start with that and Lori chose a house salad. The calamari came out piping hot with a side of homemade marinara sauce. The sauce was perfect and very fresh and complimented the perfectly cooked calamari. Our waitress set a plate in front of Lori for the calamari which we both quietly giggled at since anyone that knows Lori knows that she does not like seafood at all. The waitress came back after a number of minutes and noticed that Lori had not used her plate. She was extremely kind and apologized for putting the plate in front of Lori assuming she was going to partake in the calamari awesomeness. Lori's salad was topped with an in-house made vinaigrette which was also surprisingly good and not your normal salad dressing. I sampled a bite and was very impressed with its flavor complexity.

After mulling over the many choices in my head, I decided on the veal saltimbocca for my main course and Lori went with the chicken alfredo. I've had saltimbocca before as mentioned at Kenny's Italian Kitchen and that was kind of what I was expecting. This was very different from that version, albeit very good. The veal at Rugerri's was extremely thin and very tender with a small layer of prosciutto on top covered in a very light sauce consisting of wine, butter, and tomato sauce. It did much more to enhance the veal flavor than it did to overpower it; making it really a somewhat light dish. Lori's chicken alfredo was, according to her, the best chicken fettuccine alfredo she had ever had. Now that statement is normally the kind of statement I make so I was really impressed when she said it. She let me sample a couple of bites from her huge plate and the sauce was obviously made from scratch; rich and creamy and quite decadent. Lori was able to finish about half of her plate. I was really not horribly hungry but mysteriously all the veal on my plate vanished, along with the remainder of the sauce with the help of some bread.

Our friendly waitress offered, but both of us were way to full to order dessert, deciding instead on a to go container for Lori's food.

This authentic Italian eatery was an extremely pleasant surprise tucked away in downtown McKinney and both my wife and I highly recommend this restaurant.

Kenny's Italian Kitchen in Addison

Our first trip to Kenny's Italian Kitchen was a complete surprise. I myself am not a huge pasta and/or Italian food fan and typically don't go out of my way to eat it. My wife and I were in Dallas on one of our numerous discovery trips trying to find a place to live since my company was moving from Oklahoma down to the Dallas Metro area. We decided to get a little dressed up and check out the Addison area which most know abounds with a plethora of restaurant choices.

We drove up and down Beltline Road trying to find something that sounded good with not much luck. We ventured into a little shopping center just East of the North Dallas Tollway off Beltline. We found a number of restaurants back there including Kenny's. It was around 6:30pm on a Saturday night and being from Oklahoma, we were not used to having to make reservations very often. We walked in and told the hostess that we did not have a reservation. We thought it was not a big deal since we saw a number of open tables, no big deal right??? I looked at my wife Lori extremely worried that she might have a gaping flesh wound of some sorts, because that is how the hostess looked at her and I. But, to our surprise they were able to seat us at a table within just a couple of minutes. Side note, a friend of ours was on a trip to Dallas about a month later and he and his wife tried to get in to Kenny's at the same time on a Saturday and they told them it would be about a 2 hour wait. So, long story short, the food gods were looking upon us clearing our paths to be able to eat here.

The tables were covered in your traditional white a red checkerboard tablecloths and the walls were decked out with Sinatra-ish pictures of all kinds; Italians, rat-packs, etc... All the waiters and staff were extremely friendly and we felt at home almost right away.

My wife Lori ordered a glass of Chardonnay and I ordered a Scotch on the rocks. Our waiter asked if I wanted one or three ice cubes with my Scotch, as if those were the only choices for a true Scotch drinker...I asked for three by the way.

We decided to forgo an appetizer and dive right into our main courses. I convinced Lori to get the fettuccine carbonara over the fettuccine alfredo telling her she would not regret it. I decided on the linguine with white clam sauce. Like I said I'm not a huge pasta guy but linguine with clams is one of my favorites.

We saw who appeared to be the restaurant manager talking and greeting almost everyone in the place as if they were all regulars, which they might have been...another good sign.

After only waiting 15 minutes our so, our food arrived. They set my wife's plate down in front of her and it was just a hair shorter than an aircraft carrier, I kid you not. She literally got enough fettuccine carbonara for three meals. My plate was no less small and even more awesome, complete with freshly steamed clams still in there shell, freakin sweet! My clams were perfect and succulent. Lori's fettuccine was amazing, creamy, and rife with pancetta. Ya, this was a great meal!

My second trip to Kenny's was a couple of months later when I was in Dallas again working on my company's new office. I met my brother and a friend of his at the restaurant that were in town for a banker's conference, exciting stuff I know :) I really cannot remember what they ordered because I was too enthralled with my meal. Once again we bypassed the appetizers and headed for the deep end. This time I ordered the veal saltimbocca. I had never had this dish before so I thought I'd try it out since it sounded really good. Well guess what, I was NOT disappointed! Saltimbocca normally includes prosciutto and some sort of cheese. This dish was again the size of an aircraft carrier; including a ton of linguine and even more veal. The luscious veal was topped with real prosciutto, then copious amounts of fontina cheese, and then all of it was covered with a velvety Marsala wine sauce which just happens to be one of my most favorite sauces. I was only able to finish about half of my veal, but oh my gosh it was so good!

So needless to say, Kenny's Italian Kitchen is a great and amazing restaurant that I would highly recommend if you are ever in the Dallas area.