The Best Burger in Texas....

68 days until we land in Ireland.

$1.00 = €0.74

Kinsale Weather High 50°F -  Low 35° and Overcast

Dallas Weather High 67°F -  Low 49°F and Sunny

So the magazine “Texas Monthly” recently published an article rating the best hamburgers in the entire state.   The winning burger was the “Classic Cheeseburger” in a little French style Bistro in Dallas called “The Grape” and this is what they said about it.

1. Classic Cheeseburger

Not to take the Lord’s name in vain, but if ever there were a burger that could sitteth at the right hand of the Almighty, this would be the one. 2808 Greenville Ave., 214-828-1981

Sounds pretty good?

So my good friend Conor suggested that I cannot leave Dallas without eating this burger so we arranged to meet up at the house yesterday morning to track down this place and the best hamburger in the great state of Texas.

Armed with GPS and a map we set out on foot at noon on Sunday to find this place.  Directions from Google read

1. Head east on Vickery Blvd toward Worcola St  0.2 mi

2. Turn left at Greenville Ave Destination will be on the right  292 ft

Travel time 1 minute

Mmh, so best burger in a state of 267,000 sq miles, with 25 million people is only 1 minute from my house – cool!

One minute later, on a Sunday morning we are sitting down at a nice table, didn’t look at menu and ordered two medium cooked burgers and two beers.    I always thought that good burgers are supposed to be in dive bars playing country music with pool tables so surly we are already off to a bad start.

Well burgers were delicious.  Very simple with good fresh juicy meat, aged white cheddar, two strips of bacon, a little bit of mustard and a good solid Kaiser type bun.  Severed with killer horseradish pickles and really good French fries.  Dam tasty burger as Samuel Jackson once said!

Burgers eaten washed down with a few cold ones we set off for the Dub (next door to the Grape) for a few more beers and to hang out with all the Mods and Rockers on their Scooters and Harley’s.  BTW:  Caroline Brooke, I had no idea you were a “Rocker”!   It was nice seeing you and shiny Union Jack covered Triumph.

Good day out and thank you Conor for organizing.   I have now eaten the best burger in Texas  (according to some random magazine!) so another thing checked off on the to do list before departing.

Gwen – thanks for taking the kids all day and dealing with all the cancelled house showings.  I owe you a burger!

Latest...

73 days until we land in Ireland.

$1.00 = €0.748

Kinsale Weather High 50°F -  Low 37° and Mostly Cloudy

Dallas Weather High 61°F -  Low 49°F and Cloudy

Not much going on.  Still looking for a house in Kinsale but there seem to be a lot of good options now.  Here is a quote from an agent's email from yesterday; "I went to see the house in Ballinspittle this evening. It is in fact a Bungalow on a quiet Farm lane elevated with lovely costal views in the distance. It is currently under renovation. I think you'd really like the location".   How nice does that sound?!

Also working on voluntary health insurance for Ireland and getting quotes from VHI, Quinn and Aviva.   Gwen just  ordered the girls school uniforms yesterday and next step is to buy a car which will be some bog standard saloon (sedan) to get us from A to B.

Our house in Dallas has not sold yet and viewings are quite slow but that's to be expected.  Last day at work is set for 14th May and my replacement has been chosen (great choice) with the transition and succession well underway now.

That's all for now.

Farewell dinner with Anita and Stuart and snowing again in Dallas.

Spring snow in Dallas with about 4 inches falling last night so we got a very early wake up call (6am!) from the girls wanting to go outside to play in it.


Last night we had our farewell dinner at Anita and Stuart's house (thank you Anita and Stuart).   The Thai dinner, wine, blue moons and conversation was great. We are going to miss you and your boys but are pretty sure that you will be visiting us from time to time since we know West Cork is a very special place for you too.


Here are some pictures from last night. Gwen took them all which explains why she is not in any of them (sorry babe!).

Mover has been booked

House will be packed up starting May 29th with all our stuff heading to Houston a few days later to catch a ship to Rotterdam and then onto Cork.  The agent said that we can put anything into the container except for perishable foods, guns and ammunition, alcohol, aerosols or any pornographic materials!

Happy St. Patrick's day

Last one in USA so heading up to the Dub tonight with Gwen to celebrate.

Flights are booked...

We pushed the flights out a week as our original departure date fell over Memorial weekend so options were limited and really expensive.  We are now flying out on 4th June 2010 on Delta Airlines via Atlanta.  Never booked one way tickets before and hopefully Homeland Security do not think there is anything dodgy about us!

Landing in Ireland at 8:30am on the 5th and then straight to Kinsale.


Housing options are now looking up as we have a good local agent who is finding us all sorts of great options. 


The other big news is that we have chosen a relocation company.  We like Mayflower the best and they came in the cheapest with a guaranteed price.  All the others were "estimates only" and none as professional as Mayflower.   


so it is now...


81 days until we depart


US$1.00 = EUR0.73


Houses sold in Dallas = Zero


House rented in Kinsale = Zero (but starting to look good)


Mayflower estimate on the weight of all our stuff = 11,000lbs


Weather in Dallas = Stunning!


Weather in Kinsale = High 10°C | Low 3°C and Mostly Cloudy
(with a chance of meatballs!)


Thanks all for now.

West Cork

Some pictures taken during our vacation in Clonakilty last summer.

85 days to go

85 days until we land in Ireland.

$1.00 = €0.7338

Kinsale Weather High 42°F -  Low 32° and Sunny

Dallas Weather High 60°F -  Low 53°F and Thunderstorms

Houses Sold in Dallas = 0

Houses Rented in Cork = 0

It was all a lot easier in our early 20's just picking up and moving.  We both left Ireland in the 90's with a suitcase and a plane ticket and are returning now with a 40' shipping container and three daughters.   That's a lot of stuff in 15 years.

Not much to report on since last post.  We did another open house on Sunday and it sounds like our Realtor got a few good leads from it.  We are not doing one next week as it is St. Patrick's day block party on Greenville Ave so probably not a good idea to open our house up to all the tipsy stragglers walking by.

What we are going to miss about Dallas?

Another question we keep getting asked is what we will miss about Dallas and USA.  Obvoiously there are plenty of things as Dallas and America has been very good to us but there are somethings we would love to take back with us.

some that come to mind are...

Whiterock Montessori School - this is the fantastic school that Anna and Sarah attend and the one they will be going to in Ireland has a tough act to follow as this is really a very special place.  Anna started here when she was just three  (a baby!), Sarah when she was four and both have since blossomed and developed into such a intelligent, smart well rounded little girls.   All their friends in the school are also beautiful little kids with great manners, respectful to one another and generally all very pleasant children for ours to be palling around with.   Gwen and I have the up most respect and admiration for how well the teachers have taken care of them during these critical years and the other mothers and fathers are generally all great "craic" and we will miss them too.

Our Friends - we have so many good friends in Dallas from all walks of life.  The diversity of the people we know here is definitely something we will miss a lot and it's the diversity of the population in West Cork that was the biggest factor is our choice for moving there.  The good news for the folks we leave behind is that they now know someone who they can come visit in one of the nicest parts of Ireland.

My job - I have a great job working for a great company alongside so many very smart and fun people.   On 1st April I will be with them for 8 years and I really have enjoyed going in every day (not many people can say that).  No question it is a bit weird walking away from a perfectly good career!

Jimmy's  this gem of a food store is going to be missed..   Best Italian Sausage period, delicious meatballs and great Italian cheeses.  Jimmy's Italian wine selection is second to none and we have enjoyed many a good Chianti from here (too many in fact!)

Restaurants and Pubs-  Going to miss Abacus (lobster shooters!), Hatties (fried green tomatoes!),    Daddy Jacks (where Gwen and I had our first date) and Cafe Madrid (where I proposed to Gwen) to name but a few.  Many more great places too but the Dubliner (The Dub) where we first met will also be a very special place to us and still probably the best bar in Dallas.

Texans - The locals here are generally really nice very friendly.  Terrible drivers but all good people and have always been good to us.   I bought a big metal Lone Star that is coming back to Ireland with us and I intend on proudly hanging in our home.

I was going to add Terilli's as our favourite place for a nightcap but it burned down this morning.  Gwen and I had a few glasses of wine at the bar there on Saturday night on our way home from dinner (as we usually do when we go out) but I guess that this too is another sign that our time us up here.

I know there are plenty more things that we will miss and I am also sure there will be other things we will not miss but I will leave that for another time!  (the insanely hot summers come to mind!)

That's all for now.

Darren

My new toy!

There will be some serious out door cooking going on at our house in Cork as this beast of a Grill/BBQ is coming home with us.