Gourmet dining in Watauga, Texas

I went to Fort Worth to visit my family Monday-Tuesday. Mom and I went shopping and when we were done, we were looking for a good Mexican restaurant. We were getting hungrier and hungrier. Suddenly, she veers into a Conoco station. "We'll eat here!" She's been turning up her nose at every Mexican restaurant for 8 miles. "A gas station?" I asked. "This place gets written up all the time. It's a great place," Mom assures. Okee doke.

Welcome to the Chef Point Cafe. It's in a Conoco station on Watauga Road between Rufe Snow and Denton Highway in beautiful Watauga, a Fort Worth suburb. There's not much else around except neighborhoods. It's been run by a couple since April 2003. He's a bigtime chef who grew up in Nigeria. Inside, amid the usual trappings of Budweiser and beef jerky, is this light African music.

The board of specials hits you when you walk in. Obviously, something's up: Duck a l'orange. Escargot. Yup.

You just know there are a thousand stories about how people first react when they read, " ... in a marsala wine sauce ... " when they're on their way in to pick up some Skoal and a Slurpee.


I had the crab cake appetizer and a small Margherita pizza. An odd combination, but when you're in a Conoco station gourmet restaurant, you go with your instinct. Mom had the chicken scallopini, the one serving of which could have fed the Birdville High School football team. The crab cake was fresh. It had not been frozen. And it had not been microwaved. But it got to the table in about five minutes. The pizza was fresh. The scallopini was delicate, creamy and tart. We ordered some bread pudding with cognac sauce to go. As amazingly wonderful as the rest was, the pudding was the stunner. I think he uses croissants because the flavor of fresh butter permeates. The cognac sauce is delicate and superb.

I don't know how the guy manages to keep fresh crab cakes on hand -- there can't be that much call for them in land-locked Watauga can there? But that is part of the mystery of this place.

According to assorted online articles the chef, Franson Nwaeze, worked at a top hotel in Tulsa and was a top chef with the Macaroni Grill at one time. He came over from Nigeria with some buddies in the '80s to go to flight school, only to find the school scammed them -- closed up and ran off with their money. He's been cooking ever since.

Nwaeze and his wife, financial planner Paula Merrell, have this little place now. There's a nice article here that will fill in a few gaps.

Anyway, if you're ever in Wautaga or nearby, you'd be a fool not to go in here and at least get some bread pudding.