Best Lowbrow Museum 2003 | American Airlines C.R. Smith Aviation Museum | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
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Best Lowbrow Museum

American Airlines C.R. Smith Aviation Museum

Art? Who needs art when you can look at planes? The American Airlines Aviation Museum is the kind of museum that is fun for everybody--even non-museum types. The museum has a variety of aviation-related displays from the airline's past. There is a flight simulator, a movie and even an old DC-3 for those who really want to see what the days of commercial flight were like before bargain fares and unsalted pretzels arrived to the masses packed into coach. It's a great place to take kids, too.

Best City Council Member

Veletta Lill, District 14

Veletta Lill's district is now sort of weird: After redistricting, it wound up cradling the Park Cities, taking in a lot of downtown, covering the part of East Dallas where all the refugees from the real Dallas live, then going way up north to the area around Lovers Lane and Greenville Avenue. Maybe for that reason, Lill winds up bringing a broad perspective to the council. For example, she's strong on historic preservation, but she's always ready to cut deals that will help develop downtown. Always well-spoken, she never shoots from the hip--she's like Laura Miller without the crazy.

Best Amateur Musical Theater

Woodrow Wilson High School

One of those strange little cultural artifacts of East Dallas, the spring musical production at "Woodrow" is a generations-old tradition. Parents start putting their kids through dance, voice and acting lessons while the kids are still in grade school to win them a place in the Woodrow musical. The production standards are high: professional orchestra, backdrops from New York, extravagant costumes. But the main attraction is a chance to see kids who will go from here to Yale drama school, UCLA, USC--serious young talent, wonderful voices, great acting, mixed in with some...well, you know...high school stuff.

Best French Books About Dallas (the TV show)

Dallas Books!

Les Maitres de Dallas! Les Hommes de Dallas! Les Femmes de Dallas! Dallas! Tout Sur Dallas, avec plus de 50 photos. This site also offers an excellent stock of English books based on the very popular 1980s television series. This is your chance to sit around a nationally franchised coffee shop reading a book in French about a television series you never saw based on a totally bogus rendering of your town! The quintessential Dallas experience. And then check a map. Maybe you're not in Dallas anyway! Dallas: the city that isn't real. Be there.

Best Cocktail

Margarinha at La Duni Latin Cafe

Everything about La Duni is magnificent, from the tasteful décor to the incredible pork-loin-filled "slow-roasted lomo." But the attributes of La Duni are made more apparent after you've had several of their signature drinks, especially our fave, the margarinha. It's a combination margarita-mojito, made with Sauza Silver tequila, hand-crushed limes, sugar, Cointreau and crushed ice. And, yes, it's as refreshing as it sounds. Is your mouth feeling dry yet? Is it? Seriously, is it?

Best Piano Bar

Pete's Dueling Pianos

Sound like a dorkfest? Fine, then call us dorks. Pete's is a surprisingly rollicking time: Four top-notch key-strokers attack two baby grands, taking requests and playing favorite tunes by request. Sure, it ain't the Cliburns, but it's a good time and something unique to do on a Friday night in Dallas. Nothing wrong with that.

Best Place to Photograph a Portrait

Dallas Arboretum

Courtesy Dallas Arboretum
With more than 60 acres of incredibly landscaped park to choose from, the Dallas Arboretum can provide a great backdrop to a portrait for anything. The Arboretum has fountains and sculptures, and something is always blooming, so you can wander around until you find a good spot. Even in the heat of the summer, the Arboretum seems like a cool and calming place. Maybe they're growing poppies.

Best Honky-tonk

Adair's Saloon

Sidle up to the bar and order a Lone Star longneck. Then another. Then one for the pretty young thing next to you. Then a round for the people you just met. Fall off your barstool on your way to the restroom. Get lost coming back. Stand in front of the band while it rides herd over a sweet set of C&W, the kind your daddy told you about. Grab another longneck, which is sweating a little bit less than you are at this point. Ask that pretty young thing to dance. Fall down again and come up laughing. Keep doing this until you're out of money and out the door. Come back and do it again next week. That's what Adair's is like. And thank the Lord.

Best Place to Watch Really Bad Drivers

Downtown

In most large cities, the downtown area is a grid of one-way streets. Easy to understand, easy to negotiate. In Dallas, while the streets curve more than their counterparts on the East Coast, the same concept holds true. So why is it that in cities like New York and Boston you almost never see someone going the wrong way on a one-way street but here in Big D it happens almost daily? Good question, though we have no answer. We offer only proof. If you work downtown, we suggest spending your lunch hour camped out on any corner with a one-way street. Wait there for a while. It won't be long before you see some confused, oblivious driver pointing his or her Honda Civic the wrong way. Then you can watch, amused, as other motorists honk and point in vain while the fool in the Honda looks wildly for street signs but continues to drive the wrong way anyway. Ugh. In New York, they don't ticket you for those types of stupid indiscretions; they beat you and leave you for dead.

Best Serene Scene

The Asian Gardens on Saturday morning

Elderly Cambodians, a few Vietnamese and a handful of Thais are still in Old East Dallas, remnants of the refugee tide that came through in the 1980s and quickly dispersed to the suburbs. These are the least assimilable. The ragtag little vegetable plots they keep on Fitzhugh Avenue are their tiny fragment of home. On Saturday mornings they sell water spinach, Asian herbs, wax and loofah gourds, snake gourd, vine tips and more. Unfailingly polite, sad and jolly at the same time, they offer a serene beginning for the weekend.

Best Of Dallas®

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