A good dinner … and a recollection about dining out in Fort Worth

Jordan, Christian, and the French onion dip

Jordan, Christian, and I had dinner at Walloon’s tonight (for out-of-towners, that’s a new seafood restaurant that has gotten a lot of buzz—so much so that Megan in Austin told me she’d heard good things about it). The occasion was Christian’s birthday—which was way back in early August, but we had never gotten around to celebrating. The dinner was a joint gift from Jordan and me.

The birthday boy enjoyed it a lot—and so did we. The restaurant is in a restored bank area, complete with a vault. Christian told me there was a table in the vault, but I was sure I’d feel claustrophobic. Instead we had a nice table by the windows, where I could gawk in admiration at the tin ceiling, old fixtures, and grand columns. It was restoration well done, so that the old and the new blended perfectly. Our table was either really old or a good faux job—wood with a raised pattern. I’m not remembering the floor, but I think it was those old, tiny tiles.

Our waiter, Marco, was charming and efficient but not the hovering kind. We started with an appetizer of French onion dip which was subtly different from the familiar dry soup/sour cream mix we all know. Both Jordan and I had the lobster roll—stuffed with plenty of lobster filling in a delicious sauce. So good, but so rich. It came with fries, which we both swore we wouldn’t eat—they were delicious too. Christian, who came to salmon late in life, wanted to try the roast salmon to see how it differed from what we cook at home. Big difference: it came on a rich (there’s that word again) bed of creamed corn, leeks, zucchini, and dill. I know how good it was because he gifted me with the zucchini—may he never realize what he’s missing by not eating squash!

We absolutely didn’t need dessert, so we ordered one chocolate mousse with three spoons. Again, so rich, but so good. We let Christian eat most of it, but I will say chocolate mousse is one dessert that tempts me.

We came home, overfed and happy. I admit I had to have an evening nap. It wasn’t the two glasses of wine—it was all that heavy food.

Earlier today I was emailing back and forth with the neighbor who does restaurant reviews for our HOA newsletter, which I edit. We both commented on the number of new restaurants and the variety of really outstanding dining experiences now available in Fort Worth, and that got me reminiscing about the past. I moved here in the early Sixties, and in those days if you wanted to go out for an upscale, celebratory dinner, there were two choices: the Carriage House and the Swiss House. I never went to the Swiss House until much later when it had moved and was on a downhill slide.

But my ex and I were regulars at the Carriage House, so much so that we were always seated in the back room which was sort of a private club. In those days, you had to be a member to order a drink, so lots of restaurants sold memberships for a dollar or so. The walls of that room in the Carriage House sported lovely, mostly tasteful paintings of nude women. I’m not sure if that was a fetish of Mac who owned the place or not, but I remember the night we decided our two oldest children were ready for a nice dinner followed by a Gilbert & Sullivan performance. In the private room, their eyes bugged out at those paintings.

There was a waiter named Chad, who would see me come in the door and say, “Dover sole and spinach.” It was my standard dinner (I still love it to this day.) If a patron had a birthday, the waiters would gather and sing “Happy Birthday.” Joel, my then-husband, knew I hated such public attention, so of course he took me there on my birthday—with his mother visiting from the Bronx. The waiters sang, I was embarrassed, Joel was grinning, and his mother kept repeating, “Judy, dear, such a considerate husband you have.” I wasn’t sure which one of them to kick first.

Gradually the dining scene in Fort Worth changed. The House of Mole was almost as upscale as the original two, and when the owners (who included an osteopathic physician we knew) sold it, it became Mac’s House. Yep, McIntosh from the Carriage House. My oldest son, Colin, went to work as a busboy at Mac’s House for his first job, and we all learned to love Mac’s salad and Wash’s fries (Wash was the dishwasher). Never could duplicate either one. And one of the next on the scene was the Merrimac, a river-front restaurant managed by Mac’s son-in-law. It was the first place I ever had ranch dressing.

Those glory days and those restaurants are long gone, and while I love the many choices we have today, I miss the familiarity, the small world sense of those old places and the people we knew there. Another memory to cling to.