The catfish industry is targeting Texas as the next state to adopt country-of-origin labeling legislation. The Catfish Institute’s president Robert Barlow is now in Texas, rallying support for a bill introduced by state Senator Glenn Hegar. The proposed law, modeled after similar legislation already on the books in five Southeastern…

Garden & Gun magazine yesterday stirred up the soda world with news that Cheerwine can now be ordered online, a development that should excite the drink’s many fans in Dallas. “Every single day we have someone asking about Cheerwine,” says Scott Causey, who staffs The Soda Gallery in the Bishop…

The first observances of Texas Independence Day were relatively sedate affairs: The semi-centennial in 1886 was marked by readings of the Declaration and a sprucing-up of Sam Houston’s grave. In Brenham, a congressman gave a speech that the local press deemed “eloquent and appropriate.” Many Texans didn’t bother with the…

The people have clicked, and Smoke’s Tim Byres is the winner of the Southwestern division of Food & Wine’s People’s Best New Chef contest. But Byres didn’t rack up enough online votes to claim the People’s Best New Chef crown, which belongs to Jamie Bissonnette of Boston’s Coppa, a new…

Forget paint colors and place mats: When professional architects analyze a restaurant’s ambiance, they’re generally most interested in how their colleague successfully dealt with fire codes and ductwork regulations. Non-architects are invited this Thursday to the Dallas Fish Market for what should be a revealing discussion of restaurant design, sponsored…

The key to enjoying crawfish, according to chef Michelle Carpenter, is patience. Carpenter, of Zen Sushi, is advising attendees at Mardi Gras Oak Cliff’s first-ever crawfish boil this Sunday to accept there’s no quick way to peel a mud bug. Carpenter, who’s preparing 500 pounds of crawfish for the event,…

You know what’s understood in every language? A check presenter. I’d wager there’s not a diner from Dubuque to Dubai who’s surprised by what he finds when he opens the leather-bound book that appears at the end of every meal. No competent restaurant-goer wastes time wondering if he’s been given…

Texas wine enthusiasts seeking a better way to convey to consumers which local wines deserve their attentions are broaching the possibility of creating a wine quality program. Russ Kane, a wine writer who’s moderating a panel on wine quality at this week’s Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association conference in…

More than a century ago, there wasn’t any such thing as a “gulf oyster.” Oysters were offered under specific place names — a tradition revived this weekend at the first Foodways Texas symposium in Galveston. The program wasn’t devoted entirely to oysters: Kelly Yandell, one of a few Dallas food…

There’s something comfortingly retro about the east-west collision that occurred this month when Chili’s opened its first Russian location. When the Iron Curtain fell, our comrades apparently didn’t race to learn about margaritas and tortilla chips, which is why the lengthy menu offered at Chili’s in Moscow includes this helpful…

Our sister paper in Denver today reports the M Crowd Restaurant Group has settled its lawsuit with a small Northwest Denver restaurant operating under the name “Mi Cocina”. According to the settlement’s terms, Saul Sierra may continue to use the name in a limited area of Colorado, a result that’s…

While almost every Super Bowl visitor was told a different story, it looks like Dallas is still very much a steak town. A full six months after KRLD Restaurant Week, organizers have released numbers from the charitable event. The annual fundraiser raised a record $605,000 for the North Texas Food…

SeaWorld in Orlando this week announced it had invited local smokehouses to participate in its annual “Bands, Brew & BBQ” festival, an innovation that would make even more sense at the theme park’s South Texas location. But a spokesperson for SeaWorld San Antonio says the park has no plans to…

Del Taco’s signed the first franchisee it plans to recruit in its drive to open 80 restaurants around the Dallas area. Guillermo Perales’ Sun Holdings, which operates Popeye’s, Golden Corral, Burger King and CiCi’s Pizza restaurants, has added Del Taco to its portfolio. “We wanted to add a Mexican QSR…

Dallas’ deep-frying ways have drawn the attention of a 200-year-old mix and meal manufacturer from North Carolina, which recently introduced its products to Texas. “We just wanted to expand our brand outside of the Southeast because of the prominent frying that’s going on there,” explains Keith Vines, House-Autry Mills’ vice…

A manager at Matt’s Rancho Martinez this afternoon categorically denied a report by The Dallas Morning News that the Lakewood fixture’s closing next year. “We’re not going anywhere,” he said. “There’s no truth to it.” The manager, who identified himself as “David,” says he’s heard rumors about the restaurant’s impending…

Gloria Corrall, the author of the newly self-published Barbecue Lover’s Guide to Austin was happy to talk to me when I called this morning: She just had to finish chewing a piece of smoked turkey first. Corrall’s eaten plenty of smoked meat since she moved from San Francisco to Austin…

The Texas Department of Agriculture is compelled to promote all the permitted wineries in Texas, a mandate that doesn’t resolve the thorny issue of how to address varying degrees of quality within the industry. But a recent event proposed by industry members has allowed the department to discern without discriminating:…

With one voting weekend left in Food & Wine’s People’s Best New Chef online poll, the Southwest category’s shaping up as a three-way contest, with DFW darlings Casey Thompson and Tim Byres leading the pack. As of this morning, Thompson and Byres were locked in a vise-tight race, with Thompson…