Frank Underground: Dallas’ best kept secret

If you’re one of the lucky ones to receive a spot at the table for Frank Underground‘s exclusive dining experience, you’ll receive an email with a confirmation, an address, a time, and a menu.

You’ll know your dinner companions, because they’re the ones lingering apprehensively by the callbox. But once you’re buzzed in and you reach the location, everyone’s awkwardness melts away as Jennie Kelley and Ben Starr (you may know these names from Season 2 of MasterChef) invite you in to their world of food and travel.

Each course comes with a story– a produce-eating pig, an Italian waiter, a $200 dog treat, or an unlikely duck farmer. And each course is served with love. Love of food that comes from local farmers who know exactly what it takes to make the sweetest watermelon. Love of the unique, as portions of the meal are imported from faraway lands.  Love of travel, as the menu took us around the world, and the chefs reminisced about discovering their favorite local flavors. Love of simplicity, because Frank is food… to the point. They “don’t believe in flashy tricks to confound or befuddle your palate.” And love of story, because an egg is just an egg until you hear the process that made it exactly the same consistency from the white to the yolk.

And by the end of the evening, the strangers who sat across from you are your new best Facebook friends. As courses are served, the story-telling is balanced perfectly with time to let the new relationships form. All around the table, commonalities bubble to the surface, mimicking the champagne in the Texas grapefruit and blood orange mimosa.There are a couple ways to earn one of the 18 spots around the table:

• Sign up for their email list. You’ll receive invitations to their unique dining experience, and when you send in your RSVP, you’ll be entered into a lottery for one of the spots, and notified if you won.
• Here’s your best bet: like them on Facebook, and use the dropdown that says “Following” to choose “See it first” so posts by Frank show up first in your newsfeed.  Occasionally, people can’t make the night they requested, and spots open up. If you’re the first to claim them when they’re posted on Facebook, you bypass the lottery and you’re in.

They’re doing one more week of “Brunch After Dark,” so go like them on Facebook RIGHT NOW and watch for cancellation seats, because once that week is over, this menu is going out the window and will never be used again. And I promise that you don’t want to miss the gorgeous items on the menu.

Cheers!