Dallas' Most Interesting Restaurants No. 42: Palapas Seafood Bar

Leading up to our annual Best of Dallas® issue, we're counting down the 50 most interesting restaurants in Dallas. These spots bring something unique or compelling to the city's dining scene, feeding both your appetite and soul. 

I can think of many more reasons to come to Palapas than I have room for in my belly on any given evening. That's why I like to come with plenty of friends. If you can get a table on the patio when the weather is nice, and enlist the social enhancement properties of a few margaritas, then you're in for a great time here. You'll eat well, too.

The salsa alone is reason enough for a visit. It's made with chilies that have roasted until their skins are blistered and black and peel away easily. All that char adds a nice smoky flavor that you'll find lacking at many other Mexican restaurants around town. You'll miss it.

You'll have a hard time finding tacos made with fish that's this fresh, too. Palapas goes though a lot of seafood, which means most plates leaving the kitchen have a clean, fresh-from-the-sea flavor. That agua chile pictured above is really the best I've encountered. Ask for tortilla chips to use as a utensil and don't stop until you see the bottom of the bowl. And don't stop with seafood; Palapas serves solid plates made from animals that walk around. The beef nachos rival anything you'll find at a local Tex-Mex restaurant and they destroy your average bar nachos. And if a breeze whips up, rustling the palm thatch as it blows through the patio, you can pretend you're somewhere far, far away until you get to the bottom of your margarita. Not quite Sinaloa, but really close.

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