Wine, cigars, sausage, and long lines. Emphasis on the wine and long lines. That’s what you would’ve found if you attended Bastille on Bishop in the Bishop Arts District last night. The largest French festival in Dallas started at 6 p.m., but by the time I got there around 7:30 p.m., a couple food tents had already sold out by 8 p.m. Most of the stands, except desserts, were selling out between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. (This is also something that happened last year.) Unfortunately, this meant I didn’t get to try everything.
Inside its tent, Boulevardier was selling a smoked Toulouse-style pork sausage on a stick or in sandwich form. The sausage on a stick was $4 and served with house-pickled sweet peppers. The $8 sandwich was sausage on Empire Baking Company‘s baguette, topped with greens and the pickled sweet peppers with a house made garlic aioli and a spicy beer mustard.
At the crepe station called Oak Cliff Crêperie, you could pick from a menu of lemon and sugar, Nutella salted butter caramel, strawberry jam, or grand marnier and sugar, and they made the crepes right in front of you. La Madeline had chocolate and vanilla parfaits, and strawberries topped with Romanoff sauce. Emporium Pies was open, but planned to close at 8 p.m., so we got cut off in line. Other desserts included beignets.
Village Baking Company was selling fresh bread, but they were giving out their last offerings when we stopped by. Chicken Scratch was sold out of the coq au vin by the time we stopped by that tent, but they still had paletas (fresh fruit popsicles). Nova was also sold out within an hour and a half of duck confit sliders with Asian slaw.
Eno’s Pizza Tavern’s $5 drunken mussels had the longest line for savory food. Bolsa (no line for this one) had country pâté with Dijon mustard on a pistachio, dried fig, and cherry baguette. Jonathon’s Oak Cliff dished out a chicken apple sausage link on baguette with gruyere cheese, a Dijon mustard sauce, and braised greens.
About every person, of age, was carrying around a special Bastille on Bishop wine glass. The wine glass was $10 and you got the first token with that purchase. However, if you wanted more drinks you would have to purchase more tokens for $6 each. There were at least five stations for drinks with wine, champagne, and a gin-based drink. By the end of the night, a few people had gained the courage to start some dancing. Il a vraiment senti comme une nuit en France.
Marley Dablo is a D Magazine intern and will be an online journalism senior at the University of Oklahoma in the fall. She plans to attend culinary school upon graduation in hopes of combining her writing and culinary skills to ultimately have her own cooking show one day.
