patients (patience) are for hospitals!

after this morning's meeting of MaGaW (Meet A Geek A Week) at the Coit/Campbell Starbucks, I moseyed for awhile.

Since I was already on Campbell, I decided to go east and find the Richardson location of the "Fox and Hound English Pub & Grille". It's been on my list of ABC [Authentic British Cuisine] locations for months, but I've never seen it while driving on Campbell. I found it .. and it's not on the road; it's behind a McDonald's west of Central Expressway (US-75). It's a large place, from the outside: 112 W Campbell Rd, Richardson TX 75080 (972-437-4225).

Stuff in that area can be a bit hard to find. A few weeks ago I found a 40-lane bowling alley (how do you hide one of those?) behind Café Brazil (on the southbound access road to US-75): AMF Richardson Lanes
2101 N Central Expressway, Richardson TX 75080, 972-231-2695 (they have a small Pro Shop called Top Notch where I bought a bowling ball buffer and some "ball juice"). I would lay odds that 99% of the people passing there never notice the bowling alley, which is about 50 yards from the access road; I learmed about it from a strange guy who was collecting grocery carts in the Tom Thumb parking lot one night. He waited for me to unload my bags into Jack's boot, and we talked for a few minutes about his experience riding a mechanical bull in Memphis (he broke several vertebrae in his back). Turns out he's also a bowler: go figure.

Anyway .. after finding the Fox & Hound, I moseyed a bit more, eventually checking out "Big Mama's Chicken & Waffles" .. a funky drive-thru at the corner of Forest @ Audelia. I first spotted that place years ago, but couldn't figure out how to get into their parking lot. btw #1: I think "Big Mama's" is the name of this place (it's hand-painted in script on one side of the building). It has a permanent banner sign draped across the front of the building which says:

• CATFISH BASKET (large letters)


• bbq basket


• pork chop basket


• chicken strip basket

The only entrance appears to be from northbound Forest Lane; maybe you could enter from eastbound Audelia, but it would be a wicked turn. I thought this would be easy to track down on Google. After all, how many places exist in the USA with "Chicken & Waffles" in the business name? (turns out: about 805, and [naturally!) this ain't one of them). Sadly, there were 2 cars in front of me, and no speaker to place your order, so it looked like I'd have to wait my turn and talk to a human being. Needless to say, I waited 10 minutes and the line didn't move, so .. I put Jack in reverse and skedaddled!

btw #2: while searching the web, i ran across a strange little web site: Mr. Breakfast.com (it has a page for Dallas breakfast venues which I'll check out later.

btw #3: while searching the web for Café Brazil (2071 N Central Expressway), I wandered across Frank Campagna's web site (he's a local artist). Turns out he's painted several murals in the area. I also wandered across chefmoz.org which is a roll-your-own restaurant locator. I have found a dozen (or more) web sites specific to finding restaurants; they cannot all hope to survive and a shakeout is overdue.

btw #4: i know about Café Brazil because that's where the Talk-Java/Drink-Java group meets (met?) when Java was getting started.