Solo or Sweaty, The Katy Trail Ice House is Welcoming (and Worth the Calories)

But don't shirk those potato chips. They're made in-house as well, shaved impossibly thin with a mandoline and fried to perfection. Each chip retains a ring of potato skin around the edges. Order these and a side of that same blue cheese, and taste your couch-bound Lays binge sessions being ruined forever.

The chili is a flop, tasting more like a condiment than a hearty beef stew. Maybe that's why it's on the burger; that's really where it should stay. The guacamole falls flat too. It's missing sufficient lime to brighten things, a surprising omission considering the execution elsewhere on the menu.

Sara Kerens

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Katy Trail Ice House

3136B Routh Street
Dallas, TX 75201

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Uptown & Oak Lawn

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• Willie Nelson
• Ryan Bingham
• Merle Haggard
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• Eating Out

"Chicken-salad salad" is not a creative name, but it describes what you'll get: two ice-cream scoops of bird, dressed in mayo laced with dill and propped up with crunchy walnuts and sweet, dried cherries on a bed of greens with sliced avocado. Employ the balsamic dressing here. It's got a lot more kick than your standard Italian varieties.

Tucked against the trail, this place can feel more Austin than Dallas, and on weekends, a massive trailer smoker that turns out ribs and sandwiches only further evokes Longhorn Land. It's like hanging out in someone's backyard, only you have to buy your beer and someone else has to pick up the cigarette butts.

Things slow down some during the week, but even on a Tuesday evening, the parking lot is full of cars, plus an '03 Softail with ape-hangers and a Sportster-turned-cafe-racer. Pedal power represents as well. Bicycles line two racks and total near 20, quite a sum for a summer night in Dallas. You can hear the planes out of Love Field grind out altitude overhead, while the sun releases its stranglehold on the mercury, the sky darkens and customers shift outside. This isn't a place to come for a quick beer. It's meant for a longer session. An outdoor space for lounging when the weather's kind, though people linger even when the heat is in the triple digits.

The owners would do well to replace that big blue billboard selling beer with an outdoor movie screen showing casual, social movies, Real Genius or maybe Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Movies you've seen a hundred times, that you can dip in and out of and catch a funny soundbite while maintaining conversation with your friends.

Not that you need them here. I've come alone to the Katy Trail Ice House a few times now, and I find someone to talk to every time.