Stephen Montoya
Eazy Monkey chef/owner Andrew Dilda.
Not every restaurant in town has a wall lined with skateboards. Or serves cheeseburger fried rice. Or incorporates rock-and-roll posters into its design scheme.
But different is what Andew Dilda wanted for his first restaurant, Eazy Monkey, an upbeat, inventive eatery that cleverly meshes together the flavors of American and Asian cuisines. It opened earlier this year on the Near Southside, in the cool, old W.F. Laurence building, which most recently housed another restaurant, Fixture.
Eazy Monkey could be considered the “Boyhood” of local restaurants. In both its menu and atmosphere, it is greatly inspired by the chapters in Dilda’s life story, from the time he was a kid to now.
A California native, Dilda moved to the Fort Worth suburb of Saginaw when he was 13, immersing himself in the local skate/punk scene, as he had done in Cali. While attending Boswell High, he started hanging out with musicians and soon became a part of Fort Worth’s local alternative music scene.
“All my high school friends were in bands,” he says. “And I was the guy who had the truck, so I started transporting band equipment and helped bands get set up for shows. If you have a big truck, everyone wants you to help them move their stuff.”
That slice of time in his life can be seen all over the walls of Eazy Monkey. From the cool rock-and-roll posters to the wall of skateboards in the main dining room to the colorful murals and arty photographs, there’s a bit of Dilda’s life and loves everywhere you look.
“Growing up, we had a room over our garage that inspired the restaurant’s design and decor,” the 43-year-old, self-taught chef says. “Band posters, skateboards, my grandfather’s radio — it all created this chill space that we’d hang out in whenever friends came over or we had a party. Just a real cozy space.”
Even the music played, a mix of punk, pop, and classic hip-hop, reflects the tastes of Dilda and his wife, Angie, an aerospace engineer, whom he credits for turning him on to many of the punk bands he digs.
“When I was a kid in California, I listened to a lot of hip-hop,” he says. “When I moved to Saginaw, I got into local bands. Then, slowly I started getting into national punk bands. That music had always been there in my life, but I didn’t really know the bands. I knew Operation Ivy’s music but not the band. My wife turned me onto a lot of stuff and so did Brian Olenjack when I started working at Reata. It all made a lasting impression on me.”
Eazy Monkey started out as a collaborative effort between Dilda and another Andrew, Andrew Chen of Dallas’ Monkey King Noodle Company, where Dilda once worked as director of culinary operations. The two developed Eazy Monkey’s menu, a wildly eclectic but still very much approachable hybrid of American and Asian cuisines (Chen is no longer affiliated with the restaurant’s day-to-day operations).
Dishes include crab Rangoon nachos, bao buns stuffed with barbecue brisket from nearby Brix BBQ, Dan Dan sloppy Joes, and orange chicken and bubble waffles.
The dish that perfectly illustrates the coming together of Asian and American cuisines is the popular cheeseburger fried rice, in which an expertly cooked burger patty is served on a small mountain of fried rice and fried pickles, zigzagged with a special zesty sauce. It’s one of the city’s best dishes these days.
Many of the recipes were inspired by Dilda’s international travels. He spent time in Beijing, where he helped open a brewery and barbecue restaurant called Jing A Brewery, and Estonia, where he consulted on another beer and barbecue concept called Pohjala Brewery & Tap Room.
His food also takes inspiration from his time spent in other North Texas restaurants. Over the years, he has worked in, and oftentimes led the kitchens of, some of the area’s most well-known restaurants, including Neighborhood Services and CBD Provisions in Dallas and Lonesome Dove and Reata in Fort Worth.
“We spent a lot of time thinking about the dishes and making sure the flavors of the ingredients complemented one another,” he says. “Some of the menu sounds a little crazy, but we didn’t say, ‘Let’s throw these two things together and see what works.’ We’re not interested in doing weird things for the sake of being different. We’re interested in bringing out the flavors of each ingredient, but also making sure those flavors work very well together.”
Dilda’s team at Eazy Monkey includes Tia Downey, who developed the restaurant’s cocktail and mocktail programs and also serves as general manager, and Sean Malek, who serves as head chef and was last seen in the kitchens of Gemelle and Ellerbe’s.
Although still in its infancy, the restaurant has already caught on with locals who understand the world Dilda is coming from.
“One of the things I’ve noticed is that families are coming here with their kids, and the parents are showing their kids these posters or skateboards and saying, ‘This is my life, too,’” Dilda says. “I didn’t institute some rule where you have to wear a jacket and we take away your phone — people are just engaging with each other here naturally. It’s a place where you can be engaged and be a part of what’s going on. I think that’s what’ll keep people coming back.”
