This list is here to be a little devil sitting on your shoulder whispering unhelpful thoughts into your ear. These are 10 supremely unhealthy foods from in and around Dallas, dishes sure to wreck that Paleo diet for good. Read it and test your willpower — or be honest, say “fuck it” and start making dinner plans. The weight loss can start after you’ve learned that deep-fried meat-stuffed hot-sauced mashed potatoes are a thing.
The ultimate carnivorous hangover brunch
Independent Bar & Kitchen, 2712 Main St.
Soft-boil an egg, wrap it in sausage meat and deep-fry that sucker — that’s how Independent Bar & Kitchen makes Scotch eggs, and they’re just getting warmed up. The full English breakfast, served at brunch, is a glorious almost-all-meat sunrise with American bacon, English bacon, a link of sausage and two eggs vying for space on the plate. The tomatoes are grilled, the beans are curried and the mushrooms are, of course, fried. There’s a griddled potato pancake hanging around to wipe out any remaining pockets of healthfulness.
Deep-fried burgers? They’re real at Dallas Beer Kitchen
Dallas Beer Kitchen, 1802 Greenville Ave.
This new burger features a chicken-fried patty that’s 32 percent fat, with cheddar and Sriracha ranch dressing. And then there’s the I Love You Bacon Burger, which makes up for its lack of deep frying with a latticework of bacon. Need we mention the huge, perfectly-cooked onion rings that arrive alongside? Yes, we need mention them.
Deep-fried, meat-stuffed, hot-sauced mashed potatoes
El Tesoro del Inca, 733 N. Belt Line Road, Irving
Sounds like a State Fair food, right? But deep-fried, meat-stuffed mashed potatoes are, in fact, a traditional Peruvian food called papa rellena, available at several restaurants across the Dallas suburbs. At El Tesoro del Inca on Belt Line in Irving, papa rellena is served as an appetizer, but the potato fritter — stuffed with ground beef, chunks of hard-boiled egg and an olive — is big enough for a full meal. Be sure to add El Tesoro’s dazzling, scorching, mouth-destroying but curiously beige hot sauce.
Fried chicken, hold the sides
Rice Chicken, 2558 Royal Lane
One of the refreshing things about Korean fried chicken restaurants is that they don’t even pretend to offer a balanced diet. Collard greens? Nah. Mashed potatoes? No way. You’ll get a few slices of pickled radish and a tiny cup of coleslaw, if you’re lucky. Rice Chicken offers those sides with its spicy-battered fried chicken. Most restaurants will also supply the only side dish fried chicken needs: a ridiculously cheap pitcher of draft light beer.
The D.F. torta at El Rincon del D.F., in a gas station on Walnut Hill near Harry Hines. That's chorizo, hot dogs, cheese, peppers, avocado, lettuce, tomato, onion and who knows what else.
Brian Reinhart
El Rincon del D.F., 2630 Walnut Hill Lane
This gas station counter’s namesake D.F. torta is jam-packed with chorizo and “sausage,” but the sausage is, well, hot dog slices. The torta is so long it’s served with one end of the loaf tucked underneath the rest of the sandwich. When the cashier asks if you want “everything,” answer yes to get cheese, avocados, jalapeños, lettuce, tomato and onion. El Rincon has several dozen tortas, all the size of small children, including a Cubano that’s described as having a little bit of every ingredient they possess.
Catch up on State Fair snacks at Walmart
State Fair entrepreneur Isaac Rousso, the madman behind deep-fried cookie fries, opened State Fair Treats inside a Plano Walmart in September. The menu features fried Oreos, fried Twinkies, the fabled “bluebonnets” (fried blueberry muffins) and a slew of slightly less crazy savory dishes, like nachos and “cowboy corn crunch.” Be advised, however, that the corn dogs are not from Fletcher’s.
Matchbox decided that sliders would be better under a foot-tall mountain of onion rings
Matchbox, 7859 Walnut Hill Lane
Matchbox has taken the slider to the next unhealthy level with a small mountain of onion rings. These are paper-thin onion rings, the wispy kind that are all about crispy batter and loads of salt. Excess salt and pepper from those rings trickle down on top of the sliders, coating the buns with grease and seasoning. Oh, and did we mention that Matchbox intends this as an appetizer before your pizza?
Ready for the poutine crawl?
Ten Bells, 232 W. 7th St.
C Señor, 3300 W. Davis St.
Uncle Uber's, 2713 Commerce St.
The Blind Butcher, 1919 Greenville Ave.
Snuffer's, multiple locations
We're going to go meta here and do a list-within-a-list. With a car, a decent map app and some planning, you can spend a day testing out our list of the 11 Best Damn French Fries in Dallas. (The 12th has disappeared with the closure of Luscher's Red Hots.) Start in Bishop Arts with Ten Bells' short rib fries doused in cheese sauce and served on a cast iron skillet. Walk around the corner for the amazing yucca fries at C Señor, with their crisp crust and butter-soft interior. Swing by Deep Ellum for an enormous pile of salty fries from Uncle Uber's on your way to Greenville Avenue, for one (or all!) of the Blind Butcher's bold piles of poutine. The tour ends just a few blocks up Greenville, with cheddar cheese fries from Snuffer's.
The eight-flavor cheesecake sampler at Cheesecake Royale.
Kellie Reynolds
Cheesecake Royale, 9016 Garland Road
On Garland Road, Cheesecake Royale is producing 20 different kinds of cheesecake, from Black Forest and Key lime to Nutella and Amaretto. The sampler pack comes with eight different slices of cheesecakes arranged into one colorful pan. We’re especially fond of chocolate swirl with chocolate shortcake crust. For cheesecake-hating grinches, there are cakeballs, rocky road brownies, layer cakes and tiramisu, too.
Or there’s bacon cheesecake
2626 Commerce St., Dallas
At Free Man Cajun Café in Deep Ellum, the cheesecake comes topped with bacon crumbles, caramel-bacon syrup and whiskey sauce. If your New Year’s resolution can survive bacon, caramel, whiskey and cheesecake sharing a single plate, it can survive anything.
