Heart Attack of the Month - Jumbo Chili-Cheese Hotdog Breakfast

Jumbo Chili-Cheese Hotdog Breakfast at Norma's Cafe Farmers Branch

Definition of Irony [ahy-ruh-nee, ahy-er-] –noun, incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.

I admit to being slightly confused by the existence of Norma's Cafe on Beltline in Farmers Branch.  There are other Norma's Cafes in the metro area, with the same basic theme (that of a 50's diner) but not the same.  The menu's are different, the quality of the food is different, so I chose to visit this version out of convenience.

Adventurous eaters are willing to take a risk by eating foods of questionable quality in hope of finding a gem.  Tacos from a street cart in Tijuana, meat on a stick from a vendor in a street market in Shanghai, Bbq roadkill from a bubba in West Virginia, but after seeing this conglomeration of goo I declined to attempt culinary suicide.  So I enlisted my brother, Kirby Hoover, who is well known far and wide for vaccuuming up anything vaguely edible and storing it in his cast iron gut. 

Let me describe this beast (the meal, not my brother)...start with two grilled weiners (all beef?  who can say? at least they are probably all meat) smothered with their 'home made' chili.  Top that with strong, raw onions and cheese.  Yummy, right?  But hells bells, that's not breakfast food, so they added hashbrowns to the mix.  Still not breakfast enough?  Ok, then they add 2 eggs cooked just the way you like them...greasy.  Something is missing....hmmmm...what ever could it be?  Oh yeah..hotdogs need buns!  But this being breakfast and not lunch, they just give you toast on the side (make it wheat to take away the guilt) but you can just as easily get biscuits, after all it is breakfast.

Now as I watched 'the vaccuum' destroy this lovely dish, I ordered a normal, simple breakfast...biscuits and gravy with a side of sausage and watched the show with morbid fascination.  Dry biscuits with not too bad gravy and some rather odd tasting sausage.  Here is the irony...Kirby pushed the plate back and proclaimed that the Jumbo Chili-Cheese Hotdog Breakfast was superb and he was happy that he was able to help while I was blessed to have gotten food poisoning from the rather odd tasting sausage and spent the next two days in misery.  The gods of Karma were saying that I should have been the adventurer rather than the observer.  Point taken.

I cannot in all good conscience recommend Norma's Cafe in Farmers Branch and will not return.  But if you wish to be a culinary Indiana Jones give it a try.

Norma's Cafe
3330 Belt Line Road
Dallas, TX 75234
http://normasbeltline.com/display/home.asp