12 January 30 - February 5, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents It’s in the Water A crazy story about Crazy Water and Micheline-starred sushi. BY HANK VAUGHN A ristotle wrote in Book VIII of Metaphysics that “the totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts.” That mouthful is usually simplified to “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” There is some basic intrinsic truth to this idea: A painting by a master is more than just the collection of individual brush strokes and pigments; great works of fiction transcend a simple hodgepodge of words and phrases written on the page; and symphonies by classical composers become much more than an ordered arrangement of just the same 12 notes repeated over and over again. There is another competing philosophy, however: garbage in, garbage out. While it’s true that the whole can often be more than the parts, that doesn’t mean that those parts should be ignored and taken for granted. This is especially true in the culinary arts, where the individual ingredients are ex- tremely important to the gifted chef, who may travel the globe in search of that perfect component to a dish. Each item must in it- self be of the highest quality. Fresh, locally sourced, if possible, and harvested, grown or raised by people who take pride in their work and give the ingredient the respect it deserves. Only then will the dish have a chance to become greater than its parts in a sort of culinary gestalt wizardry. One ingredient in cooking that can often be overlooked, however, is water. It seems to be a simple and uncomplicated ingredient at first blush, but it can make or break an oth- erwise promising creation. The main vari- able in water is its mineral content, which is usually described along a continuum of hardness and softness. Soft water has lower concentrations of calcium and magnesium than hard water. Both can have different amounts of other minerals as well, such as iron or zinc. Soft water also often has higher concentrations of salt than hard water. Such differences in water can often make or break entire regional cuisines. Bagels and pizza are a perfect example. One often hears that the New York City tap water is why the bagels and pizza taste better there. It’s the larg- est unfiltered water supply in the country, flowing from the Catskill Mountains and pick- ing up unique trace minerals along the way. But low concentrations of calcium and magne- sium make it the second-softest municipal wa- ter in the country, right behind Boston. Oren Salomon of Starship Bagel agrees that water is extremely important in the creation of his bagels, but he isn’t ready to cede bagel superiority to the Big Apple just yet. He has several wins at the New York BagelFest to back him up, among them Best Bagel in 2023. To ensure consistent and optimal water quality, Starship Bagel uses a reverse osmosis system to treat the water it uses in its bagel-making process. Water is obviously an important ingredi- ent in brewing as well, where up to 95% of that glass of craft beer you love is made up of good old-fashioned H2O. Panther Island Brewing in Fort Worth makes hop water with water sourced from Crazy Water, which pro- duces the only mineral water bottled in Texas at Mineral Wells. Crazy Water owner Carol Elder tells us that Panther Island has experi- enced very distinct differences in flavor pro- files depending on the water they use, and that makes sense. Crazy Water produces five “levels of crazy”; the higher the number, the higher the mineral content of that water. “Mixologists will use the Crazy Water No. 4 to make simple syrups,” Elder told us. “The bicarbonates in the water will bring out more of the flavor notes of the spirits with only adding a few drops. Teas and coffees do quite well with a No. 2 or No. 3. The alkalinity of water pulls more flavor from the coffee bean or tea leaves without overpowering the flavor. Same with beer and hop waters.” She tells us that Juice Junkies in Fort Worth also uses Crazy Water. All this seems pretty straightforward. Of course, water would be important when making beverages, and we’d heard New Yorkers yammering on and on about their superior tap water for years, but we were surprised at the importance a local chef placed upon water recently when out cele- brating a milestone birthday at Dallas’ only Michelin-starred restaurant, Tatsu. Tatsu, an edomae-style omakase, has been open for a couple of years in Deep El- lum. It’s the creation of chef Tatsuya Sekigu- chi and his wife, Hiroko. It has won numerous accolades including the afore- mentioned Michelin star, the first and, so far, only restaurant to be so honored in Dallas. Each sitting is presented with a menu of that night’s dishes, as is the norm, but what’s in- teresting is the back of that menu, which lists all the ingredients used in that meal along with their specific variety and geo- graphic origin. Examples include: Nori: Takaokaya – Saga, Japan Rice: Yumepirika – Hokkaido, Japan But what caught our eye was the very first ingredient: Water: Crazy Water No. 2 – Mineral Wells, Texas He not only listed water, but listed it first. When asked, chef Tatsuya told us water is the single most important ingredient in making sushi rice, and since that rice was such an important component of all the su- shi, it tops the list. So important is water to sushi, when the couple was first contemplating relocation to Texas from New York, they had to make sure the available water was of the quality they needed. Unfortunately, Dallas-area water was too hard to be suitable in making the rice to exacting standards. They began to search for a replacement and eventually found Crazy Water. This was such an impor- tant and integral part of the puzzle that Hi- roko said that if they hadn’t found a suitable water supply they would not have opened a restaurant here. Water is important, kids. If not for the perfect Crazy Water, Dallas would not have a Michelin restaurant right now. So, yes, by all means, try to find that per- fect artisanal salt from the rocky slopes of the big island of Hawaii. Sure, source the best organic leeks available, and that triple cream Irish-style butter can’t hurt. Just don’t forget the water. ▼ BEER BEER HERE! FRISCO GETS ROLLING WITH A NEW BREWERY. BY AAREN PRODY R ollertown Beerworks started as a small brewery in Celina, and now, af- ter bursting at the seams trying to keep up with demand, they’re expanding to a new headquarters in Frisco that will dou- ble as the city’s next entertainment hub. The brewery co-founders, local radio hosts Ben Rogers and Jeff “Skin” Wade, say Rollertown is much more than a brewery; it’s a movement. With other high-profile backers, including Dirk Nowitzki, Michael Young, Travis Frederick, and Torii Hunter, plus the five guys behind Dude Perfect, we’re certain it will be. The company partnered with the city of Frisco to be a cornerstone of the city’s down- town area and serve as a beacon for commu- nity engagement. This new space will have a small-concert-venue-sized lawn for fami- lies, their dogs, lots of beer nerds and shows; it sits equidistance between Toyota Stadium and Frisco’s historic downtown. A two-level taproom, three brewhouses, a massive grass lawn, a beer garden, an en- tertainment stage, patio space and over 6,000 square feet of indoor hospitality space have been configured into the project. They broke ground in early 2024 and have plans to be finished with construction by June. Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney hopes Roller- town Beerworks’ new facility will bring desti- nation entertainment energy to the heart of this one-time small town. Cheney cites re- search showing residents want live music, brewery experiences and historic downtown settings — all while being family-friendly. Some of the venue’s other Frisco neigh- bors will include the Dallas Cowboys head- quarters, the PGA of America, FC Dallas, the Rough Riders, the Dallas Stars, the Texas Legends and Keurig Dr Pepper’s HQ. They have plans to be brewing in Frisco by July, and expect to be open to the public in October (or possibly even late Septem- ber), a press contact told us. As for the beer, their core beers will follow them to the new space and the massive new brewhouses will allow them to expand their production and variety rapidly to implement barrel-aged and bottle programs, collabora- tions on local and national scales, and most importantly, to meet consumer demand. ▼ COFFEE ONE KILLER BUZZ NEW EAST DALLAS COFFEE SHOP CHANNELS NYC AND LOCAL GOODS. BY AAREN PRODY R apid development is happening all over Dallas, and recently, Old East Dallas got a buzzy new corner devel- opment off N. Fitzhugh and Columbia ave- nues, Killer Joe Coffee (in the same building as Pupusas To-Go). Killer Joe Coffee was started by Christine Sweet and Christian Napolitano, who moved to Dallas in 2022 to land an entrepre- neurial opportunity and to bring a little bit of New York with them. The colorful mural outside Killer Joe was created by Dallas native Anthony Pa- dilla, who emerged from the skating scene before making a name for himself in New York. On the right of the mural is a sign reading “Now Leaving New York,” which is cut off by every Texan’s favorite welcome sign back into the state. The rest of the space is decorated with patchwork drawings of a cowboy boot, skel- etons with cowboy hats and UFO abduc- | CITY OF ATE | ▼ Dish Hank Vaughn Chef Tatsuya has his hands full preparing another sushi course, confident in his water choice for preparation of the rice.
