Ellerbe Fine Foods

I have driven down Magnolia Dr. in Ft. Worth a few times lately, and this really neat restaurant keeps catching my eye. Friday night we wanted to try something different, so we headed over to Ellerbe Fine Foods.

Oh, how I want to LOVE this restaurant. The atmosphere is fantastic. It is in an old gas station that has been revamped. It reminded me of a restaurant in Europe. It has a marketplace attached to it that will soon have prepared dishes. In front, there is a great patio with huge water troughs filled with wildflowers. The restaurant is multi level with white table clothes with brown butcher paper on top and wild flowers and herbs on the table. This is the best atmosphere that I have seen at a new restaurant in a long time. I was hoping the food would be great and I would want to make this one of my favorites. The best descriptive words I could come up with are quaint and charming.

I must say, the hostess at the front door was a little snooty for my taste. She asked if we had a reservation and then looked a little put out that we didn't. It was not a problem because when we were there from 7 - 9, only about a third of the tables were full.

The concept of this restaurant is that their dishes are prepared with fresh seasonal local ingredients. My understanding is that the menu changes regularly. My thoughts on the food are that the chef worked so hard on trying to incorporate the local fare that the taste was lost in the translation. The presentation was very beautiful, if only the food had matched up with the looks.

For an appetizer, I had the corn soup. It was good, but needed a little more salt for my taste. It had an interesting texture because it was pureed and strained. I wanted to try a salad, but they were a little "funky" for my taste. I would love to see a lettuce wedge or a basic salad for those that don't want to go too far from the norm. For my entree, I had the glazed pork shank. It was served on top of black eyed peas and creamer peas with a little bit of fried okra. While the pork was so tender that you could cut it with a fork, it was very bland. It was supposed to have a stone ground mustard sauce, but I did not see or taste any sauce. It got the punch it needed when I dipped in it some ketchup.

Pops had the Chef's Choice Steak served with Herbed French Fries and Sicilian Candy. What is Sicilian Candy? Roasted garlic to spread all over your meat. The steak was a sirloin and it was pretty tough with a pretty good size piece if gristle. Although it tasted like it was cooked over charcoal, it had very little, if any seasoning. The french fries - some of the best I have ever eaten. They were delicious!!! That is where the ketchup for my pork came in.

The dessert was great. We split Maw Maw's Bread Pudding. No raisins or pecans, just a bunch of rich goodness. When you are given the check, you are also served some wonderful tiny sugar cookies with cajeta filling and dusted with powdered sugar.

As I said, I Loved Loved Loved the atmosphere. With a little tweaking, I think it could be a great restaurant with a long history in Ft. Worth. I would love to see some of the dishes that are frequently at other upscale home cooking places. Great mashed potatoes, shrimp and grits, gourmet meatloaf, etc. The bread was good, but nothing special. I would love to see a bread basket with a variety of homemade breads.

As I said, I will definitly go back and give it another shot and hopefully it will turn into one of our favorites.