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How many jazz cafes can Fort Worth support?
Maybe four.
At least, that's how it looks after a busy grand opening for Ridglea Jazz Cafe.
Ridglea Jazz is the successor to the former Ovation club on Camp Bowie Boulevard in west Fort Worth. In a market where nearby Buttons Restaurant offers high-energy dance bands and Sardines still offers live jazz, Ridglea Jazz finds its own niche with simpler home cooking and mellow music.
Ridglea Jazz is owned by the Hatcher family (of soul food mainstay Hatch's Corner in Forest Hill), and the menu is influenced by chef Patrick Hernandez, who used to cook and bake at a popular farmers market restaurant.
The fried catfish ($6.95 as a lunch po-boy or $16.95 as a dinner platter) is some of the best, although competition is tough from heralded Drew's Place down the street.
Ridglea Jazz's menu also includes chicken-fried chicken ($10.95 lunch, $15.95 dinner) and Hernandez's version of fried chicken and waffles at dinner ($16.95). Barbecue platters are served with the Hatcher family's signature sauce.
The salads are named for jazz stars (the Sarah Vaughan club and the Dinah Washington spinach chicken). Desserts include a chocolate-chip pecan pie ($4.95).
Ridglea Jazz Cafe is open for lunch and dinner daily at 6115 Camp Bowie Blvd.; 817-377-1722, www.ridgleajazzcafe.com.
(It is not related to the Jazz Cafe sandwich shop on Montgomery Street, which also offers live jazz Sundays at brunch.)
Boo-Ray's of New Orleans has brought Cajun cooking to the Lake Country neighborhood of northwest Fort Worth.
More than that, Boo-Ray's has brought crowds. The Marks family's Louisiana-style restaurant is thriving in a Boat Club Road location where a steakhouse and an Italian restaurant had struggled.
Boo-Ray's had already introduced Parker County to the joys of blackened tilapia with jalapeño cream sauce or steaks stuffed with shrimp and crab. The Boo-Ray's restaurants have moved the boundary of Cajun country a few miles west of Fort Worth.
The new Boo-Ray's is open daily for lunch and dinner at 7255 Boat Club Road, 817-236-1592, www.boo-rays.com.
Free food has come to Cowtown Diner.
No kidding: Dinner is free Monday nights in June, as long as you book a reservation in advance and buy at least one "signature drink" (about $7).
The special menu offers a choice of spaghetti and meatballs, smothered chicken or smoked-chicken mac-and-cheese. (Cowtown's spaghetti is always good. The smothered chicken is a new menu item worth a try.)
It's a good chance to try Cowtown Diner, chef Scott Jones' modern-Southern-cooking hangout; 315 Main St., 817-332-9555, www.thecowtowndiner.com.
And don't forget -- when you're getting a special deal, always tip your server off the regular price, not the special price.
Bud Kennedy's Eats Beat appears Fridays in GO! 817-390-7538; Facebook: "Bud Kennedy's Eats Beat"; Twitter @budkennedy
