Dallas Food Alert: Jose's
Mondays are the pits, and everyone knows it. Hopefully lusting after these food photos I promised you on Friday will help you forget that you forgot you spilled coffee on yourself and you left your lunch at home (oh wait, that's me. I did those things).
Following up from my Friday teaser post, I got to experience the wonderful that is Jose's food and drinks last Thursday as a part of an event with my social group, Circle Seven Five. If you haven't heard me go on and on about how much 'CSF' has increased my social life (since my best friend moved to England and left me forever - thanks, Crumps), and upped my opportunities to try new things and places, it's worth a check out, even if you're just scrolling through their Instagram to up your FOMO - The fear of missing out is real, folks. It's really real.
Potato camera is back at it again.
Back to Jose's, in all their tequila flavored glory! I do have to give you a forewarning for two things, only one of which I had to deal with:
1. They do not have a parking lot, so it's either valet or parking on the street. They highly encourage taking a Lyft or Uber on their website, so if parking your car on the street gives you the scaries, get a car service to pick you up. On the plus side if you do that, you can drink all the drinks you want and boom, safe ride home!
2. Crazy wait times. One of our CSF unicorns, Jordan, got there super early and scored two large patio tables for us, so it wasn't a long wait for us (5 min tops), but unless you call ahead, you may be looking at a 2 hour wait time because this place is that popular.
PS. Dress to casually impress. You'll see what I mean when you walk in the door. Or through the parking lot.
Drink:
This drink is brought out as a 'mix your own', with a baby bottle of Topo Chico and lime juice on the side of your tequila on the rocks.
Everybody in the pool!
I've already talked about the wonderful that is 'The Usual', but I do have an update from a goof in my last post: their drink 'The Usual' is not a margarita. I repeat, it is not a margarita! I have no idea where "I drank a margarita" came from, but sorry y'all it's a absolutely delicious mix of lime juice, Topo Chico, and Casamigos tequila on the rocks. You should definitely order it anyway, because it's refreshingly awesome, especially if you're hanging out on their outdoor patio on a dog day in Dallas heat.
Eats:
Sneak peek of their appetizer portion of the menu since it's not on the website. Also, I have no idea why these are blue. Blood, sweat, and photoshop aren't fixing it for some reason.
Eats:
We received the below appetizers complimentary via Jose's as apart of our event, but I'm 100% sure that whenever I make it back I'll be ordering their guacamole since it was "I'm-going-to-shove-all-of-this-in-my-face kind of good (I'm pretty sure there's some magic in there too, because I don't even like guacamole).
Their elotes, while tasty, definitely needed some hot sauce and extra crema, mayo, or cheese.
The magical guac. Notice there aren't any visible onions or tomatoes (but a bunch of corn instead). I'm going to claim that's why I liked it. A couple people had already attacked it by this photo, so yours will probably be prettier than this photo. Whoops.
This is another potato camera photo, but I don't care because I LOVED THIS TOMATILLO SALSA. It's free with the chips and other salsa (as all chips and salsa should be), but I'm putting a spotlight on this instead of its red counterpart because y'all, no joke, I ate the one in front of me, and the one belonging to the person next to me it was so good. Eat it. Eat all of it.
The soft shell crab appetizer, in all it's glory. I didn't get to taste this wonderful creation, but I did stare at it longly, so it's kind of the same thing, right? Walking past the inside tables, I saw of few orders of these makeshift tacos, so I'm going to make an assumption that these are a pretty hot item on their menu - add on that my friend who actually ordered these said they were delicious
Oh boy oh boy oh boy, here's my plate! Behold, La Plancha: Pork belly and cheek, served with green tomatillo sauce, Mexican cream, chile de árbol sauce, and guac. And it comes with a side of corn tortillas. For $9 I would order this over and over and OVER again, hands down. The flavors went above and beyond what I thought I was going to get in an appetizer, especially with the pork and sauce combination being just so dang good!
Patio shots:
After buttoning my pants back up (no shame), I finally go to walk around take some photos of my dinner time surroundings. I have no idea what it costs (of if you even can do this), but with a little imagination, it looks like the perfect setting to have an engagement or rehearsal dinner, or company all-drinks-are-on-the-boss type of shindig.
The one photo I managed to get of the inside. It was so packed and we were headed to our table so I couldn't get a good shot of the bar, but there's the booze, ceiling, and two TVs. I should be a professional photographer, I know.
These little cacti plants were so cute, until I realized I wouldn't be able to sneak it out in my purse (I am kidding. Kind of). It was really hard to not stare at this wall illustration instead of holding a conversation with the people next to me, since there were so many things to look at. You're missing out if you sit in the booth, just saying.
Another shot of the wall.
Here's the beautiful outside patio where we sat. There's more to the right down some steps, but I didn't get a good shot of it (on point photography skills to blame). Instead, look at that cool as hell pinecone fountain!
A small shot of the patio extension (shame), but check out these chairs I was mildly obsessed with. They look like avocados!! Clearly these would not fit in my purse. Damn.
Overall, I had a great time at this spot - the vibe was fun, the drinks were great, and the food was even better! They're slated to have a standing brunch available at some point (I'm so helpful, I know), so I know I'll definitely try to get my butt into those avocado seats and enjoy whatever brunch options they send my way.
Cheers!