I’m not much on dining at the newest, hippest Dallas restaurants. But I am a big fan of good food, and I kept hearing that Neighborhood Services was a good bet, at a reasonable price (most entrees in the upper teens to mid-twenties).
My husband and I decided to pop in Monday night with some friends before watching the NCAA championship (the DVR at home was recording it, so we could enjoy a leisurely meal then fast-forward through the commercials and not-as-exciting stretches, which wound up being most of the game). We didn’t have a reservation, but the restaurant had a couple of tables available when we arrived around 7:30 p.m. The place is definitely a mix of upscale and casual, with the waiters wearing jeans and monogrammed frat-boy sweaters (which my husband said "annoyed" him) as well as restroom "music" that consisted of a hoity toity voice reading what a hostess told me were chef Nick Badovinus’s favorite recipes.
Badovinus broke away from Consilient Restaurants, where he had been involved with places like Hibiscus, Fireside Pies and most recently The Porch, to create Neighborhood Services. His dishes were just as good as I had been told — I especially enjoyed the steak frites plate, which included a spectacular bourbon-spiked peppercorn sauce for dipping, and my friends liked the Monday night special, veal schnitzel. We all split the Ding Dong for dessert, which is a version of the Hostess classic, but much fancier (again, upscale and casual).
The other fun part of eating at acclaimed Dallas restaurants is the occasional celebrity sightings; more after the jump:
We were sitting next to a corner booth at the restaurant, and soon after we ordered, the hostess ushered someone to the corner table. I glanced up in time to see that Jessica Simpson was sitting down right next to us. (No, Tony wasn’t with her.)
The few people I mentioned this to all asked the same question: "How did she look?" — clearly referring to the Florida chili cook-off photos splashed across tabloids everywhere with not-so-nice headlines about her weight. The first time I saw one of those in a grocery store checkout line, my reaction was: "Those are upshots. Totally unfair." But as my husband pointed out (after we left the restaurant, of course), "Those high-waisted jeans were a bad call. That stylist should be fired."
So how did she look? Let me put it this way: I would be thrilled to be Jessica Simpson’s version of "fat", if that’s what people want to call it. We didn’t stare at her or snap surreptitious camera phone pics or interrupt her conversation, but it was impossible not to glance over a few times, and in the few glimpses I got, she looked great.
I also couldn’t help but notice when the waiter delivered the roasted green chile crab dip to her table. We almost ordered it, and wished we had once we saw it.
