Best Commute to Dinner 2004 | Goodhues Wood-Fired Grill | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
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Best Commute to Dinner

Goodhues Wood-Fired Grill

Goodhues is not, in itself, a reason to move to McKinney, but it's sure worth the occasional drive. This former RC Cola bottling plant just off the town square provides a wonderful antidote for the franchises that have infested this booming community. The charming interior, with its exposed brick and long antique bar, is welcoming, casual and heartily American, and one can say the same for the food. Start with the roasted garlic with fresh goat cheese or the perfectly seasoned roasted poblano chicken corn chowder. Or try the surprising Erin's Salad, baby greens, blue cheese, oranges, strawberries and spiced pecans in a honey shallot vinaigrette that pulls it all together. The roast duckling, chicken Goodhues and sautéed tilapia in a champagne-cilantro sauce are all standout entrées, and the steaks, chops and baby back ribs are generous portions of excellent meat. Be sure to check out their small but select wine list. The first surprise at the end of the meal is the mixed berry crumble with ice cream, a perfect balance of flavors and textures. The second is the check. Goodhues costs 25 percent to 30 percent less than a comparable Dallas restaurant.

Best Box Deal

Bento box at Reikyu

Reikyu says it features "contemporary fusion," but what that means to us is damn fine sushi. It's a great place for people-watching--if the moon and stars align, you can see the yuppies in the Mock-Station lofts wandering about their chic pads in their underthingies--but not so great for watching your checkbook. Getting full at Reikyu is fun but not cheap. That is, unless you try the bento box. For about a sawbuck, you get shrimp tempura, a California roll, sautéed beef or chicken, salad, soup and a bowl of rice. Add some good cold sake and you have yourself a meal you and your wallet can stomach.

Best Thai Restaurant

Royal Thai

The lunch crowds here tell you all you need to know about the food. Expect a 10- to 20-minute wait during peak lunch hours, but go ahead and put your name in. It's worth it. Just tell the boss you had a flat on the way back from lunch (or come back for dinner). We like our curry dishes and pad Thai fiery, and Royal Thai can turn up the heat--but only if we ask for it--while preserving the many layers of flavors that make Thai distinctive. Tulip dumplings stuffed with shrimp and pork and served with a spicy soy dipping sauce will kick-start your meal. If you're hungry, follow them up with one of the varieties of whole fried fish, which come with sauces both fiery and spicy sweet, or try one of the mixed seafood entrées with basil. Fried cubes of catfish and a mildly sweet sauce put a delicious spin on a bland fish, and Royal Thai has perfected the art of cooking squid without turning it into vulcanized rubber.

Readers' Pick

Royal Thai

Best Ice Cream

Paciugo

They say they use only fresh ingredients to make their gelato, or Italian-style ice cream. They say it's lower in calories, fat and sugar, smoother and more velvety than American ice cream. We say they're sneaking heroin into the mixer. Yeah, that must explain why we can't pass a Paciugo shop without stopping in for a piccolo cinnamon or, when the season's right, a dish of tart and sweet mango or delicious black cherry packed with fresh fruit. C'mon, Paciugo, 'fess up. We're inveterate dieters and had given up ice cream until you came along. How did you get us hooked again?

Readers' Pick

Marble Slab Creamery

Various locations

Best Urban Cheesemaker

The Mozzarella Co.

Soft, smooth, ivory-colored snowballs of fresh mozzarella move out the back door of Paula Lambert's The Mozzarella Co. headed for local groceries including Simon David, Whole Foods Market, Tom Thumb, Albertson's and Fort Worth's tiny, exclusive Roy Pope Grocery. Some of these cheeses are headed for the salad plates at The Mansion, too, where they might be sliced and alternated with juicy, red slices of ripe tomatoes, drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and topped with racked black pepper and a chiffonade of fresh basil leaves. "I love Paula's cheeses," executive chef Dean Fearing of The Mansion says, "and we were the first restaurant to carry them." Mozzarella was the first and only cheese Lambert made for a while, but now she's added a unique "Deep Ellum Blue" to her bill of fare. It's stacked in a cooler behind the small retail counter at the front of the shop, along with mozzarella rolls stuffed with prosciutto, green olives or sun-dried tomatoes; goat's milk ricotta; and goat cheese rolled in black peppercorns or chopped herbs. Lambert's first cookbook, The Cheese Lover's Cookbook and Guide, contains 150 of her favorite recipes plus textbook-quality, comprehensive sections on cheese history, nutrition, types of cheese, storing, serving and cutting cheese, and even a chapter on making cheese at home.

Best Bakery Samples

Central Market

Decisions, decisions. Can't make up your mind between the cheesecake and the chocolate raspberry truffle cake? Central Market knows that these are hard choices and makes it harder still by putting out hefty samples of both, so cruise by the bakery counter and conduct your own taste test before buying. (We vote for the chocolate every time.) Then try to get out of this carb-counter's nightmare without checking out the chunks of fresh zucchini muffin and slithers of toothy sourdough offered as samples on your way to frozen foods. If you can come out of this department without buying something sweet or yeasty, you have more willpower than we do.

Best Middle Eastern Restaurant

Caf� Istanbul

Trust us, we've tried virtually every Middle Eastern restaurant in the area, and there are a few that get repeat business from us: Hedary's, which has Dallas and Fort Worth locations; Byblos in Fort Worth, run by a member of the Hedary family; and King Tut's in Fort Worth's Hospital District. But the place you'll see us at most often is Café Istanbul, a pretty cafe near the Inwood Theatre. Here, chef-owner Erol Girgin clearly attends to the details, because everything comes together each time we visit: presentation, service and, above all, the excellent quality of Café Istanbul's Turkish cuisine. Istanbul Doner is one of the house specialties--kind of like gyros, but meatier--served with pickled red cabbage, rice pilaf and small peppers. It's a perfect ensemble of tastes and textures. The Islim Kebap--lamb shanks--are fall-off-the-bone tender and are served with a single, draped slice of grilled eggplant and a rich sauce of tomatoes and onion. If there were a category for best lentil soup, Café Istanbul would win it hands down for its slightly spicy version, and every meal comes with outstanding fresh-baked bread speckled with sesame seeds. You probably haven't experienced a Middle Eastern restaurant in Dallas with such high standards for service and surroundings. Try this place; we know you'll be back.

Readers' Pick

Cafe Izmir

3711 Greenville Ave.

214-826-7788

Best Sidewalk Cafe

Greenz

Dogs are welcome at the outdoor tables lining this unusually broad and colonnaded stretch of sidewalk along the trolley part of uptown McKinney Avenue, a sure sign of a cool and civilized spot. In fact, everything outdoors and indoors about this smartly designed, smartly run cafe whispers cool in the kind of voice that Miles Davis might have had if he'd been a chick. The style of the place attracts women, and the dogs provide the ideal conversation starters, abetted by Greenz's small but select, reasonably priced selection of wines. Greenz features live music on Thursday evenings and offers free delivery in the neighborhood.

Best Place to Spend a Lot for a Little

Lola the Restaurant

Everyone serves tapas these days. Boring. Lola takes the small-plates idea a step further, designating an entire room as a chef's tasting room. They even hired a second chef, David Uygur, to handle the space. Diners choose between a five-course, 10-course or 15-course meal. Not to worry: Each plate contains about two bites' worth. Granted, everything from the description to the presentation to the unexpected flavors of the food itself is par excellence. (Means either "brilliant" or "don't shoot" in French.) Yet a 10-course tasting menu paired with wine will set you back between $75 and $100, depending on how much wine you choose to consume. See, over the two to three hours required to serve a series of tiny samples, you'll need a few more than five glasses of wine. After enough, it's all worth it.

Best Raw Deal

Blue Fish

On Fridays, Blue Fish makes a startlingly generous offer: $1 draft beers and sake. Our man goes for the rice wine (a taste to which we have never grown accustomed), but we go for a frosty pint (or three) of Kirin Ichiban--a crisp Japanese pilsner that has become one of our favorite drafts in the city. It goes perfectly with Blue Fish's excellent sushi, which runs from the traditional to the fusion-eclectic. And though we are huge fans of the salmon sashimi, we appreciate the fact that Blue Fish offers cooked dishes for those customers who feel less comfortable with, you know, raw flesh. Of course, we always encourage newbies to relax and have a few drinks before they dive in. At $1 a pop, we could stay there all night (and sometimes do).

Best Of Dallas®

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