The French Room and Chesterfields: A Dallas Adventure in Cocktails

One thing that I've reiterated is that Dallas's cocktail menus (at least the ones that we've seen) are definitely nod-cheers-and-drink worthy.  On Saturday night, we visited the French Room at the Adolphus Hotel.  The hotel was alright, but probably not high on my list of favorites.  I booked it because I bought a stay from a deal site.  The French Room's menu was pretty tasty with the crab cake being one of my favorites.  It is (if you can't tell from the pics) one of those extremely dim restaurants) with prim and proper service.  I did notice that the desserts here were quite large.  See the soufflé below.  That's a giant dessert for single person, so we decided to just split one.  After a full dinner, we trotted down to Chesterfield's (literally behind the hotel) on the recommendation of Plinio Sandilio.  Plinio did not let us down.  Chesterfield's Aaron Howard showed us a great time.  All cocktails we had were interesting, creative, and darn well executed.  I noticed that there was a giant block of clear ice on the counter.  I asked Aaron if he could carve me one of those elusive Japanese ice spheres.  And he said yes.  See pics below.  I had never seen someone carve the ice by hand in person, only on YouTube previously.  It was served in the Gentleman's Companion....... which I guess was me.  The crab cake was quite nice, with no bread crumbs in it.  A palate cleanser.  This was a GIANT soufflé.  I'm not sure how a single person could stomach it, but the people at the table next to us did.  Here's the line up of Chesterfield's bitters.  Aaron Howard chisels the ice.  By hand no less. Tada.  Magic. Here it is served in the Gentleman's Companion.  I'm not sure what happened to the drink, but the ice is still there.