Dallas Food - Chicken-fried Steak Countdown, Part 1 (#50-46)

The worst chicken-fried steaks in Dallas have a lot in common. They're born and breaded in a factory, then frozen hard for shipping and storage. No care. No love. Just brutal economy. We begin at the bottom of the Dallas chicken-fried steak scene. On to the food (such as it is)...

50. Norma's Café. 1123 W. Davis St.

Norma's has been in Oak Cliff (with various ownership) for decades. I'd only been here once before this visit and, on that basis, was not looking forward to returning.

Though Norma's chicken-fried steak is relatively inexpensive, this is definitely a situation where you get what you pay for. The CFS is not an actual steak, but a preformed puck of processed meat--uniform in shape, size, and thickness. While other places may fudge by using cube steaks that are knitted together from smaller pieces of meat, Norma's "potted meat-esque" patty was unique, and not in a good way. It was mealy. It had the characteristic freezer burn odor and flavor so common in frozen chicken-fried steaks. Most unpleasant. The best gravy can't salvage a CFS when the fundamentals are so far off the mark, and Norma's gravy was far from the best. The sides didn't sink quite so low, but were undistinguished. Light, fluffy-textured mashed potatoes came off flat. The watery corn was typical of canned/bagged produce.

Norma's seems to keep busy, though I'm not sure why. Sense of community among the locals? Desire to support an "independent," irrespective of quality? Appreciation of Norma's self-consciously "retro" presentation? I'm not sure, but it definitely isn't the quality of their chicken-fried steak. Grade: F.

49. Hickory House. 600 S. Industrial Blvd.

Some may have read a prior report on the barbecue at Hickory House. For those who haven't, the synopsis: "not good." Once again, the parking lot was full of trucks. Once again, the parking lot was full of craters. And, once again, the craters were full of water. (If fate takes me back there, I'm bringing a cane pole.)

Five bucks and change bought mashed potatoes, side salad, an additional veggie, rolls, and the CFS. Yes, it was a bad chicken-fried steak--a frozen, factory-breaded job, further debased in the fryer. The waitress seemed genuinely wounded when I left so much of it on the plate.

Looking around the restaurant, this was an "eat to live" crowd. And there's nothing at all dishonorable in that. Food isn't always an end-in-itself. In fact, it rarely is, and the majority of the world's population can't afford to make it so. To review a place like this verges on being a category mistake, since the proprietors of Hickory House don't share the same aims as a restaurant that boasts of serving "the best chicken-fried steak in Texas." It would be easy to make fun of Hickory House's chicken-fried steak, but I won't do it. The ranking, letter grade, and (above all) photo tell the story. Grade: F.

48. Purple Onion Restaurant. 1838 Irving Blvd.

Purple Onion is on Irving Boulevard, just down the street from Mama's Daughter's Diner (which we'll discuss in due course). There's a polish to the restaurant's appearance and a style of menu-writing that seems to indicate this might be a solid home-style cooking spot.

For as long as I can remember, I've ordered my chicken-fried steak with the gravy on the side. A good CFS should be able to stand on its own merits, without a distracting blanket of sog-inducing gravy. So I was a little surprised when the waitress presented a plate with the meat smothered in gravy. I drew her attention to this and, as she was picking up the plate, she pointed to the ticket ("86 gravy"), as if to say, "I got my part right." (Service 101: While it's important to accurately communicate an order to the kitchen, it's more important to bring the right food back to the table.) Roughly ten minutes later, she returned with another plate, this time with gravy on the side. Cutting into the peculiarly shaped meat confirmed my suspicion: it was chicken-fried chicken. More delays as I tried to get the waitress's attention.

It was not worth the wait. All the symptoms of Frozen Patty Syndrome (FPS) were present: (1) perfectly consistent pebbled texture (as depicted in detail at the top of this article); (2) uniform thickness; (3) no asymmetry between upper and lower sides of the patty; (4) ultra-thin meat with inconsistent grain, no grain, or jigsaw-assembled pieces; (5) near impossibility of separating meat from breading; (6) that smell (heaven help me!); (7) peculiar crunch of the breading when bitten into; (8) that flavor; and (9) a quasi-chemical je ne sais quoi that sets the teeth on edge and lingers on the palate far, far too long. Smooth, characterless mashed potatoes (from flakes?), mushy black-eyed peas, and soupy, generic corn. No, thanks. Grade: F.

47. Charco Broiler Steak House. 413 W. Jefferson Blvd.

Charco Broiler has an extremely promising vibe. Great food neighborhood. Life-sized steer statue on the roof. The smell of charred meat as you walk in. Grills front-and-center in the cafeteria-style queue, with sizzling steaks, chicken, burgers, and even bacon. I thought this might be a solid base hit.

As I looked past the grills, my heart sank. Sitting there under a heat lamp were a sorry pair of chicken-fried steaks. Even from a couple yards away, I could see the consistent pebbled texture. A closer look, and the inevitable smell and taste, confirmed the diagnosis: FPS. The baked potato (with butter, cheese, and stabilized sour cream packets) was serviceable, as was the simple salad. At a little under $6 (tax included), at least I wasn't out much money on this one. Grade: F.

46. Peggy Sue BBQ. 6600 Snider Plaza.

I've been to Peggy Sue BBQ many times over the years, usually at someone else's insistence. But for some reason I never ventured away from their disappointing barbecue...until now.

Peggy Sue's menu described their chicken-fried steak as "buttermilk battered round steak." Sounded okay. But what you see above is what I got. Watery corn from a can or bag, dense skin-on mashed potatoes with zero richness (think pureed cardboard), two slices of toasted white sandwich bread, and the Platonic Form of the Frozen Patty.

I'll cut Hickory House some slack in peddling bad food, since they're serving it cheap and they're not putting on airs about it. But Peggy Sue's CFS is not cheap. And the place is stem to stern with attitude, from the puffery (if not outright dishonesty) in the menu to the t-shirts the waiters wear, with the words, "'Unique' is not spelled C-H-A-I-N."

Some restaurants in this series of reports over-promised and overpriced their chicken-fried steaks. But in almost every case (judging from the results), it seemed like they were at least trying to make a good one. Not so, with Peggy Sue. That rankles me. I would have taken great pleasure in placing Peggy Sue's CFS 50th in this ranking, were it not ever so slightly less awful than some of the others. Grade: F.

Links to other CFS reports: Introduction; Part 1 (#50-46); Part 2 (#45-41); Part 3 (#40-36); Interlude in Austin; Part 4 (#35-31); Part 5 (#30-26); Calibration in Fort Worth and Suburbs; Part 6 (#25-21); Part 7 (#20-16).