DFW.com Burger of the Week: Brunch Burger at The Theodore in Dallas
The (sesame) seed was planted in my mind, shortly after learning about The Theodore’s very existence: I needed to go there — as soon as possible.
It’s not your average mall restaurant, but then again, NorthPark Center is hardly your average mall. The Theodore, from restaurateur Tim Byres (Smoke) and his Turn the Tables Hospitality, actually revels in the notion of “reinventing the mall restaurant,” marrying weird decor straight out of a Wes Anderson movie (emphasis on a compulsive collection of curios) with a kitchen that pumps out bistro-esque food that’s equally as precious and idiosyncratic.
Add craft cocktails to a tableau that includes Crab Louie salads and bread baskets with in-house baked bread, and show me an unhappy person.
The Brunch Burger ($10) sounded just my speed on a recent Saturday, having already done a quick shopping lap around the mall’s lower level. I needed the sustenance that only a hunk of red meat plus an over-easy egg could provide. And its reasonable price tag seemed to offset the damage I had already done at Nordstrom.
The burger: The Brunch Burger is a behemoth, to be sure, that exploits all that is good and decent about The Theodore. Using house-made bread as the bun and employing simple-yet-tasty ingredients like thick-cut tomatoes and bread-and-butter pickles, it is a tangy, savory and utterly decadent marvel.
The patty: Executive chef Scott Romano goes with an 80/20 mix of ground sirloin, which yields a dense, satisfying bite. Shallots, thyme, mustard oil, Worcestershire and a salt blend called sel gris add earthiness, and bring out the beef’s inherent spiciness, he says. All I can say is that this was one flavorful hunk of meat.
The bun: I lied: No sesame seeds were harmed in the making of this bun, which is actually a house-made sweet yeast roll. Cut thick and bearing marks from the flat-top, it proved an ideal vehicle for the overabundance of toppings (see below).
The toppings: Is it just mere coincidence that, in the shadow of the George W. Bush Presidential Library — a few exits down the highway — this burger would have “Amuricah-n” cheese? Dallas is famous for conspiracy theories, you know.
Other ingredients are similarly intuitive, from the house-made bread-and-butter pickles to the sliced red onion, bibb lettuce and tomato. The over-easy egg and pieces of thick-cut, luscious bacon connote that this is a burger you eat for brunch, while the liberal schmear of garlic aioli says, “It might not be a bad idea to eat cereal for dinner.”
The sides: A bounty of crispy, salty shoestring fries comes with, and disappears fast. My dining companion, my Dallas-residing recently ex-vegetarian sister-in-law, suggested that we also order the vegetable crudité, which was served with creme fraiche, harissa and hummus dips ($9). The fresh pickled veggies — radishes, cauliflower and broccoli among them — were a lighter complement to the burger’s heft.
The verdict: The Theodore’s burger is a welcome addition to the “rich” landscape that is NorthPark. For reasons both financial and physical, I probably shouldn’t be hanging around the mall or this restaurant as much as I desire. But, then again, spring sales beckon — and so does that bacon.
Brunch hours: 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Inside NorthPark Center, 8687 N. Central Expressway, Dallas. 469-232-9771; www.thetheodore.com.
This story was originally published April 28, 2016 at 10:50 AM with the headline "DFW.com Burger of the Week: Brunch Burger at The Theodore in Dallas."