Dive Expedition: Senor Locos in Plano

Kelly and I have driven past Senor Locos for a while now. We wanted to give it some time to survive, because it's housed in the former home of our favorite dive burger shop, Jake's.

Though we couldn't tell from the outside, the inside was completely remodeled to open the space up to resemble an ice house. A wall came down to install a garage door, allowing the restaurant to have inside-outside space. (I still wish this location had a better patio - but that's another issue. They're kind of land locked.)

And the food? It's really good. Simple, basic Tex-Mex - and there are times that simple basic Tex-Mex is exactly what you want.

Plus, depending on what you order (namely, tacos), you get this assortment of six delicious salsas.

We split nachos and a couple of tacos. It was wonderful.

Staying true to our "Is this a real-deal Tex-Mex joint or not" test, we ordered the sopapillas. They were little pillows of cinnamon-sugar air, served with honey and chocolate.

Senor Locos passed the test with flying colors. We'll be back!

Exploring the Burbs: Lone Star Taps and Caps

I've discovered the best place - the BEST place - to get growlers filled.

What makes it the best?

• It's 15 minutes from our house.
• They focus on local beers.
• They have a ton of beers on tap.

Here's how Lone Star Taps and Caps works.

After entering, you're slightly overwhelmed by massive digital screens displaying everything currently on tap. The screens give the name of the beer, the brewery, flavor profile and a neat graphic showing how much remains in the keg.

Underneath the screens is a cup of write on-wipe off markers and laminated order forms. There's also an ample supply of growlers (32 oz and 64 oz) and crowlers (32 oz) if you didn't bring your own.

Mark what you want on the form, along with your name.

Then hand it over at the counter. Pay or open a tab.

Why open a tab? You can order a pint to enjoy or a beer flight to sample what's available. There was a large crowd doing both the afternoon I stopped in.

The line was out the door, too, which shows how popular Lone Star is. I'm not surprised - it's our new favorite stop if we want to pick up a fill for the weekend.

Feeling Ladytastic at The Beauty Bar

My friend, Sarah, and I wanted to get together the other week for a happy hour and long-overdue chat. She texted and asked where I wanted to go.

I didn't much matter to me - or to her - which meant that it was the perfect opportunity to do something really different. Something like a 101 list item - something ladytastic in Dallas.

That's how we found ourselves at The Beauty Bar in Dallas. It's kind of dive-ish, if dives can be defined by a run-down exterior, laminate floors and 1960s-style furniture. But it's clean and fun and funky, which I suppose makes it a hipster-magnet dive.

Anyway, the deal is this: You can stop in for happy hour and get a martini and a manicure for $10. That's just awesome in my book.

So we both got manicures - nice and simple. A basic clean up shaping of your nails, base coat and two coats of polish (plus a spritz of speed dry, which is why my fingers are glistening...my fingers don't sweat when I have manicures).

And of course we had martinis. The martinis, by the way, were great. You're offered a menu with choices from traditional to girly-ridiculous. I went with my favorite: A dirty martini, extra dirty, shaken not stirred. Perfect.

Since Sarah and I were there for 4 hours, I'd say it was a great place to hang for the evening and catch up.

Fair warning: At some point in the evening/night, The Beauty Bar becomes a nightclub. We are grown women, so we were heading home for a proper bedtime long before that happened.

Dive Expedition: We Have an (Donut) Obsession

Kelly said we needed to try another donut shop.

I said that was the last thing we needed to do. However, I still went with him to Max's Donuts in Allen, Texas.

After all, who would say no to a hot, fresh donut after doing speed work on the track? Running has to have some sort of reward.

The signs were pretty clear that this was a popular donut shop. Not since I lived in England and purchased the occasional Krispy Kreme at Harrods have I ever seen such a long and windy queue.

People waited outside. And this was no small shop either.

Even with our early(ish) arrival, the stock had been picked over. It was easy to understand why - customer after customer were buying boxfuls of donut-y goodness.

Here's the reason for our visit: A single glazed donut that Kelly swore was the closest Krispy Kreme-like donut he'd ever eaten (a coworker had brought some to the office the day before):

Our donut came right off the glazing line - just like a Krispy Kreme. That was a good start.

The donut was tender, flaky, lightly glazed and slightly crispy. Delicious!

Because we drove all that way, we also tried their sausage rolls. The jalapeno sausage roll was ok. But not as good as Sonny's. The same was true of their standard sausage roll.

The cinnamon roll was outrageously huge. Good, but (you guessed it) not as good as Sonny's.

So will we go back to Max's? Probably - but probably only when we want a Krispy Kreme type of glazed donut.

Dive Expedition: Lockhart Smoke House

Holy moly - Lockhart Smoke House, one of Texas Monthly's top 50 BBQ joints, decided to open it's second Dallas metro location in downtown Plano.

That means we have fantastic smoked BBQ just 15 minutes from our house. No more trips downtown.

There's no better way to tell your wife that she's loved than to arrange to meet up in our fair city's historic downtown on Valentine's Day eve for an after-work drink at the Fillmore Pub (our favorite) and a dive expedition to the just-opened Lockhart Smoke House.

It's amazing how lived-in the place looks on just its third day open. I guess it's an "instant joint."

Everything is a la carte and when it's sold out, it's sold out.

The Dallas location's pit master is overseeing the new shop until things are running smoothly. That man knows how to smoke - and slice - a great brisket.

Here's how it works:

• You tell the pit crew what you want.
• We ordered a 1/2 lb of brisket - mostly dry (meaning with little fat) and medium bark (meaning a good, but not overwhelming amount, of outside smoked crust).
• We also ordered two links of the jalapeno sausage. Each link is 1/3 lb and we planned to take a link home for leftovers.
• The pit crew will ask you if you want bread on the side.
• Your meat order is wrapped individually in butcher paper, then all together in a larger paper wrap.
• If you want cold sides, you grab them out of the cooler. The counter staff will dish up hot beans.
• At this point, you pay and head to the fixings bar.

The fixings bar has spicy pickles, peppers, jalapenos, onions and sauce. Dip up what you'd like. There are plastic bags hanging on a hook if you want to take your food to go. If you plan to take your food to go, make sure you ask the counter staff for a styrofoam container to carry home sauce.

But the food...here's our brisket:

And the jalapeno sausage:

White bread, pickles and sauce...essential for a good BBQ meal:

There's nothing better than brisket wrapped in bread, dipped into sauce:

The potato salad has a slight kick:

The cole slaw has a major kick - it's one of the best I've ever had:

The beans were loaded with jalapenos, onions and bits of BBQ beef:

Deviled eggs...oh, my. These had small chunks of smoked BBQ chicken. Amazing:

Even more amazing - the line! We're glad we were there early. We went 15 minutes before they started serving at 6 pm. The line at that point was 10 deep, but better than it was at 7 pm.

By the way, they didn't start serving at 6. Why? As they told us:

BBQ tells us when it's ready.

Not the other way around.

Welcome to town, Lockhart. We're going to be good friends.

Dive Expedition: Sonny's Donuts

We've found a new favorite donut shop. One that's close to our house - no more longing for the too-far-to-go-for-a-casual-donut-fix donut shop near our very first apartment in Richardson.

Behold the bounty of Sonny's Donuts in Plano:

 



Some lucky Sunday School class will be happy.

 

One of my former bosses told me about Sonny's years ago. I can't believe we waited so long to check them out. Not only are these donuts super-hot and super-tasty, but the owners are super-super-nice.

They compliment you on your donut selection, praise you for selecting fresh-from-the-oven jalapeno rolls and then they give you complimentary donut holes. And complimentary mini-cinnamon rolls. Who does that?

 

I'll tell you who does - our new favorite donut shop, Sonny's Donuts.

Dive Expedition: Big Momma's

We stopped for lunch in Sanger, TX while we were on our first round of geocaching adventures. We drive past the interstate signs for Sanger every time we head to Kansas to visit my family and, in particular, the sign for the original Babe's restaurant. Eating at the mother ship had been on my list of things I'd like to do for some time.

And this is when I (re)learned an important lesson: Never assume that the original small town location of what is now a very popular regional chain restaurant will be open for lunch. You are, after all, in a small town.

So Babe's was off the list and we were hungry geocachers needing to eat. Just a few feet away, tucked into a typical small town storefront was Big Momma's Catfish and Pies. I suggested we eat there.

I told everyone: I've never had a terrible experience eating at a diner in small town America.

As we walked in, I glanced around the room and spotted two local police officers eating near the front door.

I added: And I've always had an excellent experience eating at a diner in small town America frequented by local law enforcement.

Big Momma's is big on food, but not as much on space. And that's ok. It was festive and welcoming inside, staffed with probably the nicest people on the planet.

The food was amazing. Kelly and I both ordered the fish lunch basket - fried catfish, fried shrimp and hush puppies. In retrospect, we probably should have shared but I'm not ashamed to admit that I ate it all. I'm just saying that we should have shared.

And that fried feast? It wasn't greasy or lacking in flavor. It was delicious.

If you thought the fish basket had a healthy portion, take a look at the chicken fried steak. The size of a dinner plate - the way a Texas chicken fried steak should be.

Even more astounding was the grilled chicken - also the size of a dinner plate. That was a little unexpected. But the truly remarkable thing was that the size-of-a-dinner-plate chicken was juicy and flavorful. I don't know many restaurants that can successfully pull that off with a 5 oz serving of chicken.

All of our meals came with two sides. Kelly ordered the okra (more fried!) and the mashed potatoes and gravy. I was jealous of those potatoes - more so after I stole sampled a bite.

I also had the okra, but chose green beans for my second side. Savory, satisfying and, thankfully, not greasy - a problem that plagues many a homecooked green bean.

We really struggled on the dessert decision. We'd opted to share our dessert (a mistake!) and had way too many delicious pie options. Not only did they have several different types of pie, but the very nice people at Big Momma's also gave us the choice of ordering a piece of pie out of the front cooler or from a fresh-from-the-oven batch.

Holy cow.

After much debating, we picked a slice of fresh-from-the-oven chocolate cream pie. The meringue was impossibly high. And, because they are the nicest people on the planet, Big Momma's gave us a slice of our second choice, coconut cream pie, to enjoy.

It was delicious. And it also meant that I didn't really have to share. And the slices were so big that because I didn't really share, I actually ended up eating about 1/3 of a full size pie by myself.

I don't care.

Would we go back? Yes.

Would we make a special trip to Sanger to go back? Yes.

Would I make a special trip to Sanger to buy an entire pie? Definitely yes.

Dive Expedition: Chateau Snow

An extraordinarily hot late summer day (105F? NO THANK YOU!) calls for extreme cooling measures...like a trip to a local snow cone shop.

And, as is usually the case, the more dive-ish the snow cone shop, the better the snow cone.

That's why we stopped by Chateau Snow in Marshall, Texas for a cool treat.

My banana fudge bomb "sno cone" tasted just like a Blue Bell banana fudge bomb.

The Boy's root beer float may not have looked like a root beer float, but it definitely tasted like one.

Our only complaint was that Chateau Snow uses a little too much syrup - instant sugar coma instead of refreshing cool treat. If we stop by again, I'll ask them to put on half as much syrup (and I bet I'll enjoy it twice as much).

Ironically, our friend S got a sno cone with not-enough-syrup.

I guess that's what happens at a dive - you never know exactly what you're gonna get.

(And hey - I've visited six dives this year! Yay for another 101 list item checked off! However, The Boy and I have a list of several others we want to try in the months to come, so be on the lookout for more Dive Expeditions!)