Repeats with a Twist - Pappadeaux, Dallas TX

My flight from Orlando was scheduled to depart at 4PM.  Not really sure why I did such a late flight, but at the time I booked it, that seemed like a good idea.  I re-evaluated once I got to Orlando, and planned to just fly stand-by.  However, when I got to the airport for the 9:30AM flight, I was told that because of the code of ticket I bought, I had to pay $75...seriously??? Pay $75 to fly standby???  What a racket.  I paid it, because I was already at the airport, I wanted to get home, and I didn't want to sit in the airport all day.  And to make things even worse, there were at least 10 empty seats on the plane.  The gate agent tried to be nice and make it up to me by waiving my bag fee.  But since work pays for that, it really didn't help me at all.

I had a 3-hour layover in Dallas, and was spending the whole time in the A terminal.  Win for me, because that's where Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen is.  With such a long layover I would have gone regardless of what terminal I was in, but this was just a  bonus.  Absolutely love that place, and I've never had to wait to be seated at the airport location.  On the other hand, at the locations in town there's been times the wait has been over an hour, especially on Friday or Saturday evening. But you can have drinks at the bar in the meantime, and the food is worth it.  The seafood is always so fresh, the garlic bread is to die for, and I've never had anything on the menu that I didn't like.  This is one of the very few restaurants in Oklahoma or Texas where I will even order seafood.  The only thing I don't like about Pappadeaux is the prices, as they are a little high.  They have a couple of items on the lunch menu, but everything I always want isn't on it.

Apparently you don't get the delicious garlic bread at lunch at the airport location.  Very sad, but oh well.  After all the food & drinks I had during my conference, not gorging on bread was probably a good thing. The server told me that they now have a lunch buffet, so I checked it out first.  It looked just okay, but there are too many good things on the regular menu. And it looked like it had been sitting there for a little while, which doesn't surprise me because it was well after the lunch rush. I really like buffets, but only just before or during the rush when you know the food is really fresh.  I decided to go with the Crispy salmon, jumbo crab & shrimp. I had seen the picture on the sign upstairs, and it looked really good.  And I'll be honest, it was the smokey bacon & sweet corn that sold me.

crisp, spicy, seared salmon with jumbo lump crab & shrimp,

over sweet corn & smokey bacon in a lemon butter sauce

OMG this was absolutely amazing!  And it was quite a large piece of salmon for a lunch.  But I don't think they have a lunch portion of this item. The server said the salmon is usually served medium rare, and I asked him to cook it to medium.  Bad move, because it was a little overcooked.  But that was the only negative.  The salmon had outstanding flavor.  It had a little more kick than I was expecting, but it wasn't too much and the corn really toned it down.  The lump crab tasted like what you'd get on the east coast.  I was full about 2/3 through, but it was so good that I forced myself to eat the whole dish.

Even though I had to pay the ridiculous $75 and had a long layover, in the end it worked out because my original flight from DFW to OKC was cancelled and I wouldn't have gotten home until almost midnight.  And, the airport is always amazing people watching.