The Royal Chef

One my of good friend, Kay Lynn, has one of the most beautiful houses that I have ever seen. She and Kevin built their dream home last year and it is truly a dream come true. She has a fantastic decorator who has come of with so many great ideas that I have never seen before. Every time I go to Kay Lynn's house, Lawanna has added something new.

This past weekend, her house was one of five on the "Tour de Chef" home tour. Each home featured a chef cooking samples. At Kay Lynn's house, the featured chef was Darren McGrady. He was a chef at Buckingham Palace cooking for the royal family and eventually was Princess Diana's private chef for the last four years of her life.

Since my mother's 75th birthday was yesterday, I decided to have him autograph a copy of his book for her. I got me one too. He was very personable and his bread pudding sample was so good. The picture is of Janelle and I after our autograph.

Hibiscus

We finally had a chance to get together with Tom and Donna and Jim and Kathy. This was the first time for all six of us to go out since Las Vegas. They had never been to Hibiscus, so we decided to eat there.

The food was so good and we had a great time. Of course, we started out with the Crab Dip. It's the best that I have ever had. Pops and I spilt the Ribeye and we had the creme brulee for dessert. It was all great.

We had a great time planning our next trip together. Next summer we are going to London for a few days and then spend a week in Scotland at Craigsanquhar House (Tom and Donna's castle). We are so excited and can't wait to go. Tom, Donna, Jim and Kathy are going a few days earlier than we are and going to Geneva. Since I am a 3 night trip person and I am already stretching that, we decided to fore go that leg of the trip.

Since I am usually the travel consultant, this is really going to be great because Tom is planning the whole thing. He has a chauffeur who will drive us all around Scotland and the countryside.

Jim and Kathy are going to renew their wedding vows and Pops is going to be the preacher. There is only one little glitch. Tom says they don't wear tux's in Scotland. It is only kilts. Jim says "no way" so we will see what happens. Tom is doing this up just like a real wedding, so it should be a blast.

Chef Point And Paula Deen

We decided to go visit an old favorite this week, Chef Point Cafe, aka "the gas station." It is part of a large operating gas station with several gas pumps. It doesn't look like anything fancy at all, but it is very upscale food. They have everthing from Shrimp Scampi to duck.

Justin and I had the stuffed chicken. It is a blackened chicken breast, stuffed with crab stuffing and pepper jack cheese. It was served over angel hair pasta with an incredible sauce. The sauce was lots of heavy cream, butter, spices and I don't know what else, but so good. I tried not to eat too much sauce because my estimation was that the whole dish was at least 5,000 calories.

Justin had never eaten bread pudding so we ordered one to split. This is the first place that I tried bread pudding about 1 1 /2 years ago. It tasted like a gooey cinnamon roll. Delicious!

Chef Point has opened up a second location about 2 miles down the road. It is in a nice restaurant with a bar. The bar seems to be attracting a lot of people. The parking lot was crowded when we drove by. Our location only had two other tables occupied, but it was 8:00 on a week night which is a little late.

Our waitress told us that they are expecting the crowds to increase because Paula Deen had recently visited and she is writing about it in her magazine. I knew Paula would love it because if it is made with cream and butter, she is hooked.

Simply Burgers

Jordan came by yesterday to have lunch with me. After much deliberation, she narrowed her choice down to seafood or a hamburger. Since we had Pappadeaux last week, we decided to try a new hamburger place that I had seen advertised, Simply Burgers on N. Industrial in Bedford.

To my surprise, it was very good. The 1/2 pound patties will seasoned to perfection. The buns were toasted and tasted almost like they were homemade (slightly sweet). They were served with grilled onions, shredded lettuce, tomatoes and pickles. My only complaint is that they are very messy. There was a lot of mayonaise and mustard and combined with the slippery grilled onions and the heavy pattie, it was sliding around all over the place.

There are a lot of extras that can be added on from grilled mushrooms, chili, house-made guacamole to hickory smoked bacon. Several items on the menu were labled house-made or homemade and of course that really impressed me. They have housed-mixed ranch dressing for the salads and fries.

The menu also has several chicken sandwiches and salads. The sides include fresh cut fries, sweet potato fries, cajun fries, fried okra, tater tots and more. We tried the sweet potato fries and they were cooked to the perfect crunch, but I had a little problem with the texture. The onion rings were delicious.

I will definitely be back. The kids cheeseburger is 1/4 pound and I might try that next time as I prefer a smaller amount of meat.

Flying Fish

Flying Fish opened up in Ft. Worth a couple of months ago and we were so excited after reading reviews that a new fish restaurant was in town. We love fish and are always looking for something new and GOOD. That is hard to find.

Unfortunately we didn't have much luck. It really had a neat atmosphere. It looked like it was in an old convience store, pretty rugged on the outside, but it was very clean and neatly decorated. The rugged look is part of the decor. The inside is decorated with "Billy the Fish" decorations.

First I ordered the Crawfish Chowder. It was cold (and I mean biting into refrigerator cold potatoes) and had a strong sour cream taste. If it had been hot and a little less creamy tasting, it would have been pretty good. It had a strong spicy flavor.

I had the catfish and shrimp combo. It was okay. Not horrible, but not great. I always want great. The fries were better than average and the coleslaw was okay. Pops had the red beans and rice and they were covered in green onions. By covered, I am more onions than bean. I love green onions, so I wouldn't mind too much, but being that he hates them, he didn't even touch them. Hushpuppies were also just okay. I doubt we will go back. That is disappointing because I really wanted to like it.