Theatergoers who used to grab a glass of wine at Dali before the show may now have to content themselves with cupcakes. Dimples Cupcakes this week announced it will move into the storefront alongside Tei An. The bakery — Dimples’ fourth location in Texas — will open for business on…
Riding my bike everywhere saves me money and helps me stay hungry. It also means I’m perpetually sweaty. A few weeks ago, a woman in an elevator told me how much she wished she could trade in her car for a bike. I assured her she could do it. “Oh,…
The prohibition on non-local products many farmers’ markets enforce is understandable and fair and — sometimes — discouraging to food entrepreneurs. Steve Smolek uses Canadian oats for his Grapevine Grains, a fantastic product he sells at the Grapevine and Keller markets. There are Texan oats, he tells me, but he’s…
I’ve eaten Tex-Mex and Texas barbecue at least a half-dozen times each since moving here last month, but as my ate-that list was still short a traditional bowl of chili, I set out this morning for lunch at Tolbert’s in Grapevine. Tolbert’s, of course, is a legendary chili parlor, first…
As bartenders working in the exhausted vodka idiom have discovered, it’s hard to mix together a few flavored liquors and fruit juices and not end up with a sugary riff on Hawaiian Punch. To distract the sweet-tooth crowd from the syrupy sameness of their concoctions, some mixologists have begun leaning…
With so many publicists anxious to tell City of Ate about all the free food various restaurants are hawking, it strikes me as a mite unseemly when an eatery heralds a deal that’s just not very good. RA Sushi in Plano wants me to tell you that when the mercury…
Say city regulations never change, and Dallas remains a food-cart desert. Would you settle for a cheery corporate take on the mobile unit fad? Taco Bell’s hoping the answer’s yes, because it’s looking to bring its truck back to town. The bright purple Taco Bell Truck, which made a brief…
The free food frenzy that’s currently gripping Dallas could induce eaters to quit their jobs and loaf full time — or so feared observers during the last era of widespread food giveaways. What’s so scary about Taco Cabana offering free chicken fajita tacos on August 3? As Chris Anderson wrote…
When Dallas’ First Lutheran Church was new, a crowded schedule of community dinners and lifecycle events meant there was almost always someone in the kitchen, frying fish or frosting cakes. The flutter’s mostly subsided now, as hot dog suppers and smorgasboards have been supplanted by professionally catered events. “I’ve noticed…
Chefs are cranky prima donnas. Chefs will tell you — and the rest of the world, if the reality show cameras are running — that they’re overworked, underappreciated and misunderstood. Surely their patron saint would have sympathized. This Thursday is the official feast day for Martha, the traditional defender of…
A press release tells City of Ate that Krystal’s sliders are a “cultural icon,” an “experience that virtually every man, woman and child in the South has shared” and – most important – free on August 7. To celebrate the burger chain’s four years in DFW, Krystal’s giving away squared-off…
Since news about Texas food tends to find its way to my inbox, I know way more than I should about Texas Roadhouse happenings. I don’t usually find too much in the Roadhouse oeuvre that’s worth sharing, but I was oddly riveted by a recent announcement regarding the restaurant chain’s…
The classic culinary loss leader is a supermarket gallon of milk, which is probably why the mondegreen “loss liter” persists. But the poor sap who settles for a sale at the dairy case isn’t taking full advantage of Dallas restaurateurs’ sudden inclination to discount their food. On the right night,…
My counterpart at the Houston Press recently tweeted about how pleased she was when an entrée arrived topped with an egg. Eggs, most culinerati agree, make everything better. Chefs have lately been cracking eggs with abandon. It’s not just burgers and salads getting the cooked egg treatment: There are eggs…
I recently traveled with a contingent of Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference attendees to Archer City, where we were supposed to meet with Larry McMurtry and tour his family’s ranch before speeding back to cocktail hour in Grapevine. But McMurtry was laid up with an aching eye, and our bus’ fan…
Alligator Café, a Cajun restaurant in East Dallas, is dedicating 10 percent of its sales each Tuesday to the Gulf Coast relief effort. “We’re hoping to collect about $15,000,” says Alligator Café manager Stacy Nicholson. The “Fishermen’s Fund” drive began the first week of July; Nicholson wasn’t sure how long…
Texas Folklife, a nonprofit organization that got its start documenting folk art across Texas, has launched its first food-focused research project. The group plans to spend the next four years collecting information about eating habits statewide. “Food is the centerpiece of festivals and celebrations,” executive director Nancy Bless explains. “We…
A co-founder of the Eat Green DFW blog, who earlier this month told City of Ate he suspected the sudden glut of farmers’ markets might prove unsustainable, this weekend announced the closing of another local market. Markets atFirewheel Town Center and West Village didn’t open as usual this Saturday, Brian…
Do you remember eating King Ranch casserole in the 1950s? Can you prove it? The Food Timeline, the ambitious and exhaustive online reference tool maintained by reference librarian Lynne Olver, recently tackled the classic Texan dish and couldn’t find any reliable sources dating the messy meal to before 1966. “If…
Rice 1 Roll’s very slick takeout menu proudly announces the “Indian Chinese Café” serves Indian, Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese foods. It’s a strange claim to make, because there’s nothing but south Indian food on the menu. There’s no half-hearted pho or lackluster pad Thai at this strip-mall eatery in Plano:…
The Lucky Layla Farm Store in Plano is the local hub of raw milk activity. As the only certified raw milk dealer for miles, Lucky Layla sees a steady flow of older milk drinkers who grew up drinking milk straight from the cow and conscientious mothers carrying babies in wraparound…
I’m typically pretty slavish to the seasons: I won’t watch football in July or drink lemonade in January. So I probably should have waited until October — sorry, Oktober — to investigate Dallas’ sausage scene, when the weather’s sure to be more compatible with ingesting mass amounts of pork. But…
