Lucille's

Do you remember back to college when you were hanging out with your friends and one would say, "hey lets get together over the summer because some of my high school friends throw this really big bash that is always a blast"? Do you remember how your friends would tell you how awesome they were and how you'd get excited to meet some more cool people? Then do you remember meeting the friends and thinking your friend must have really low standards? Then you wonder about his or her friendship with you. Remember that? But you still had a good time because you got drunk, right?

Thats sort of how I feel about Lucille's. Everybody I've talked to has made this place out to be the Holy Grail of restaurants. There could be no better place. Except that everybody sort of curbs their review a little so as to not totally brown nose the restaurant. They always put in a catch like, "yeah its really good, but just kind of heavy" or "its great, but not for lunch". My review, if somebody asked, which nobody will, would be "I would go to The Original instead."

The building and the interior are cool. I really like that it fits the lot and has a nice dark interior that makes it feel intimate and neighborhood-ly-esquei-sh (geniuses routinely use more than one suffix - i read it on the internet). By dark interior, I'm referring to the lack of lights. The restaurant is probably very light during the day.

We ordered a couple dishes and some fried green tomatoes. I'm not a big FGT eater but I do like them. These were enhanced mainly by the fact that they were fried and came with a side of ranch. The tomatoes were hard and a bit sour. I was hoping they would have used a fresher tomato.

The pasta dish I had was very dry. It was the cilantro pesto pasta with salmon, or something similar to that. It was dry and you couldn't really taste any of the flavor in the pesto. My wife had a salad with salmon in it and it tasted fine. The salmon was cooked nicely (as was mine) and the salad was nice, but there was just something off about it all. It was like the high school friend of your college friend who seemed to be hitting on you, but maybe was drunk. Very similar experience. Couldn't tell if the lack of flavors were intentional or uncontrollable (maybe the vat of flavor in the back didn't spill into my dish). By vat of flavor, of course I mean queso.

I'm willing to give this place another try because they had some other items on the menu that looked good. That was actually an initial problem. The restaurant has so many items that look good that picking one was kind of difficult. Seeing as how so many people give restrained glowing reviews, I figure it deserves another shot. It will probably be awhile, but I can't give up on such an institution this soon.

If any Lucille's-aholics are out there, please let me know if there is something else I should be ordering. As you all know, I'm pretty easy going in my reviews and I'd like to have a reason to give the place a glowing review without any restraints.

On a positive note, this place has an awesome location and the food wasn't horrible. It just wasn't what I expected. I'm sure to other diners there, the food was great. They, however, don't run the most powerful hole in the wall blog in the Universe, dedicated to Fort Worth hole in the walls, that uses the hole in the wall picture, and is written by a lawyer...who is me (is that specific enough to prevent any other competitors for that category?)

On a side note, thanks to everybody for all the BBBBQ suggestions. I think I've got enough to make a good review of Fort Worth. I will happily take your reviews on places you like and include them in the final review. Please email me at fortworthholeinthewall@yahoo.com if you would like more information or would like to send in your reviews.