Well, Chow, Baby can’t find the perfect analogy on Internet Movie Database – Tony Curtis in Boeing Boeing is the general idea but not quite right – so it’s going to have to invent one. Let’s pretend for a few minutes that there was a 1960s mad-cap comedy starring Rock Hudson as an airline pilot who has a different fiancée in each hub city.
Rock has a great life for a while, enjoying each fiancée’s unique qualities – doting blonde, spunky redhead, sultry brunette – without any of them knowing about the others. Of course, everything goes horribly and hilariously wrong when two of the girls (that’s what women were called back then) move in next door to each other. Busted!
That made-up movie is exactly Chow, Baby’s situation! Except with burgers. When in Southlake, for example, Chow, Baby’s one-and-only is Johnny B’s (2704 E. Southlake Blvd.) quarter-pound sliders, dusted with seasoned salt and topped with Thousand Island dressing.
Johnny B’s doesn’t need to know that Chow, Baby murmurs the same sweet nothings at the other end of the county, where Tom’s Burgers & Grill (1530 N. Cooper St., Arlington) serves a delectable wood-grilled cheddarburger on a lightly buttered brioche. It’s the best in the county! Unless Chow, Baby is downtown, pitching woo with Reata’s buffalo burger, or in the TCU area, where its one true love in all the world is Dutch’s (3009 S. University Dr.) bacon & blue cheese burger with chipotle mayo. Thus Act I of Chow, Baby’s fantasy remake of its fantasy movie begins with Rock Hudson (played by Chow, Baby) in a montage of dreamy moments with burgers all over town, none of them knowing about the others. Yes, juicy burger in my hands, I only have eyes for you.
Act II begins with Rock/Chow learning from its best friend, Tony Randall – played by Kevin Buchanan of Fort Worthology, the blog where Chow, Baby first came across this rumor-news – that Tim Love is planning to open a Love Shack in the SoSeven development on West 7th Street. Uh-oh! The burger love of Chow, Baby’s life (when Chow, Baby is in the Stockyards) is going to be neighbors with the Fredburger, the burger love of Chow, Baby’s life (when it’s in the Cultural District)! For the rest of Act II, Rock/Chow prepares to make a difficult choice. The Dirty Love Burger ($5.77) is gourmet-amazing: a combo of prime tenderloin and brisket topped with love sauce and a (largely symbolic) fried quail egg. Outstandingly delicious. But at Fred’s (915 Currie St.), the classic Fredburger ($8) really was Chow, Baby’s first burger love in Fort Worth; even though Fred’s prices are climbing into the truly absurd (bacon mushroom burger, $12.80!), this dive still feels like home. Which to pick?
SoSeven is still under construction, so decision time is a ways off – if it even comes at all, given that Tim Love’s fantasy-into-reality track record is almost as lousy as Chow, Baby’s. So who knows what will happen in Act III. Maybe Chow, Baby could change the fake-movie setting from the 1960s to the 1970s and fall into a polyburgerous relationship, where it could eat wherever it wants with no jealousy allowed … until things go horribly and hilariously wrong, of course. Call it Bob & Carol & Fred & Dirty Love. Chow, Baby gets to be Carol.
Contact Chow, Baby at chowbaby@fwweekly.com.
