So why does Chow, Baby strut into Sensational Tony’s (7373 Ederville Rd.) and order “Shrimp po-boy, dressed”? Because it can! “Dressed” is the New Orleans idiom for lettuce, tomato, and sometimes pickles; it’s a handy term, but one that if used here will get you looked at funny. Chow, Baby, who likes its roast beef po-boys with everything, learned that one the hard way.
Tony Landry, who is indeed sensational (yes, Chow, Baby’s in love again), used to own a snowball stand with a sideline of gumbo, red beans, and other homecooking in a Big Easy neighborhood that was frayed even before the hurricane. Post-Katrina, he’s reopened his kitchen (except for the snowballs) in a frayed storefront in East Fort Worth, and Chow, Baby is very grateful. Where else around here can you get yakamein ($6), a Cajun-Chinese roast-pork soup with spaghetti for noodles? Or jambalaya, crawfish étouffée, and gumbo ($6 each) that taste like they’re supposed to, and not as if they’ve sat in the fridge for three days? No oyster or hot-sausage po-boys here, not yet, but Tony’s catfish are jumping and the shrimp are piled so high they spill out of the sandwich ($6). Don’t look for anything remoulade or almondine here – touristy Creole dishes aren’t on this menu. But if you can handle real bread pudding ($3), come on down to Sensational Tony’s.
Eine Kleine Nosh Music
Mozart’s 250th birthday was back in January, but Chow, Baby finally got around to celebrating it last week at the Grapevine Public Library, where members of the Fort Worth Symphony and Dallas Opera Orchestra performed some of Wolfie’s greatest hits. Lovely, lovely. Even better, Chow, Baby got to put a face to correspondent/Northeast Tarrant legman/librarian Steve A., and it’s a handsome face, so he’s forgiven for not bringing a picnic basket of sachertorte, kaiserschmarren, and other Austrian delights to suit the theme. Hence our evening of Mozart kultur (as Weekly writers are now forced to spell the word) continued at Café Italia (505 W. Northwest Hwy., Grapevine), on the impeccable logic that Mozart wrote operas and lots of Italians did too, and Italians generally eat Italian food.
Though Café Italia was packed on this Thursday night, service never seemed rushed and the noise level wasn’t annoying. The décor (warm and traditional) and menu (long and traditional) both were Nice-Neighborhood Italian, a classy step up from Neighborhood Italian. This being our first date, Chow, Baby refrained from eating off of Steve and his beautiful wife Mary’s plates, but they looked happy with their angel hair pomodoro and manicotti (each $8.95). Chow, Baby’s chicken and shrimp Sunrise ($15.95), in a nicely balanced pink vodka sauce, was good to the last drop. Chow, Baby’s own house musician, knowing that Chow, Baby has recently gotten an expense-account raise, went for the spicy zuppa di pesce ($24.95), worth the price for the half a lobster tail atop shrimp, mussels, clams, fish, and linguini. Good music, good company, good food: Chow, Baby was so full of kultur it actually forgot to order the housemade tiramisu.
Contact Chow, Baby at chowbaby@fwweekly.com.
