It’s Halloween weekend, and orange cones jut out of the Cedar Springs pavement like little fluorescent warheads peeking from their silos. The street is wet, and droplets of drizzle swirl like gnats. Maybe that’s why we didn’t make reservations. Who goes out to eat at a fine restaurant on a…
Swimming from the goldfish Do managers at AquaKnox fear the glare of public life in a Fishbowl? Fishbowl is the new hip “’60s pan-Asian” (don’t ask us what that means) noodle-wok-sushi joint set to flood the AquaKnox lounge later this month. But shortly after the concept was announced, Executive Chef…
PoPoLos reanimated PoPoLos is getting mouth-to-mouth. And once it’s breathing, it will get a desperately needed facelift and tummy tuck and will reopen in mid-December. At least that’s what old/new owner Maury Jaffer plans. Jaffer just purchased the Preston-Royal restaurant after selling it to the now desperately troubled FoodStar Restaurant…
Emerald Mist seems little more than an Irish pub that’s been homogenized and stuccoed; stuffed with burgers, Caesar salads, and pastas; and slapped into the ‘burbs. Yet it’s more than that, though you’d never know it from owner Patti Russell. Wedged into a former Street Talk Café location at Campbell…
In 1981, when Laura and Oscar Sanchez opened their Mexican restaurant in an old house on 12th Street in Oak Cliff, few people traveled to the neighborhood, recalls Jesus Sanchez, Laura’s brother. Still, La Calle Doce (Spanish for 12th Street) mowed a certain swath of culinary distinction, even if it…
Beeson goes After nearly two years as The Mansion’s wine-cellar master, Darryl Beeson was shown the door. Well, maybe not shown the door. Beeson says the decision was mutual. (The Mansion did not return calls for comment). But a day or so after his departure, the thing that struck Beeson…
One of the most successful dishes served at Susie Priore’s restaurant Suze (it rhymes with ruse) was pilfered. “I stole it from this restaurant in Santa Fe,” she admits. She figured she had no choice but to lift it, once pleadings cloaked in compliments didn’t work. So she wrestled a…
It was Scout Day at Old City Park. Lots of kids were running around in uniforms, and ugly ones at that. Why do we make kids dress like soldiers from a third world Junta and then force them to sell us cookies and garbage bags? No wonder they’ve discovered lawyers…
Under new management Alfredo Hinojosa, owner of the Latin night spot Club Babalu on McKinney Avenue, has decided not to move his club to the vacant Arcadia space on Greenville Avenue. Instead, he’ll recast the Arcadia, most recently run by bad-boy club operators Steve and Bruce Kahn, as an upscale…
Michael Cox is 40 years old, and that’s hard to swallow. His face is full and smooth, his movements infected with adolescent bounce. He shows none of the harsh etchings the restaurant business often mercilessly carves with its acidic stresses and pointed pressures. It seems there should be at least…
Down but not out Despite the hasty reopening plans proffered by Tim Hager, who was fingered to keep FoodStar Restaurant Group from withering into oblivion, PoPoLos restaurant remains locked up. And it probably won’t reopen anytime soon, at least under the FoodStar moniker. Former PoPoLos owner Maury Jaffer of Jaffer…
If this third link in the Nuevo Leon troika is any indication, this “Mex-Mex” restaurant is getting a little tired. Fatigue first strikes with the chips. Sure, they’re warm, which is more than you can say for most Mex or Tex-Mex spots. But they’re thoroughly uninspired. They’re bland. There’s no…
Those swashbuckling servers briskly pacing Texas de Brazil’s dining room with huge sword-like skewers and vicious knives may as well just pike you with one of their weapons and get it over with. This would, it seems, be preferable to the creeping coronary carnage wrought by 14 cuts of slow…
Silenced partner You could call it a classic case of biting the hand that feeds you. Or maybe the hand that wants to take over. It seems Chris Svalesen and his undisclosed lone investor in Copper River, his new seafood restaurant slated to go into the former San Simeon space…
There’s a seminal point reached in life’s greatest endeavors — art, sex, drinking Miller High Life — where the experience is so profound, so touching on so many levels, it becomes transcendent. The act and the actor become one, and the interplay dissolves into something greater than the sum of…
Near-death star FoodStar Restaurant Group’s demise has been rumored for months, but just before it slipped into a coma, the firm that operates Mediterraneo, Toscana, and PoPoLos got a cash infusion from Chicago-based Clever Ideas Inc., a firm that drives the Diners’ Club discount dining card program. The move was…
Like everything in Dale Wamstad’s “III Forks Territory,” Buttermilk Café & Market is a puzzle. Is it a down-home country café pitching platters of chicken-fried steak and liver and onions? Or is it a Park Cities estate sale? Whatever it is, it’s curious to behold. Buttermilk is joined at the…
Is Italian Café a contemporary hole-in-the-wall with red-and-white checked tablecloths serving superlative Italian grub, or is it a sports bar? It doesn’t take many chews to score this one. Once you’re finished gnawing on the basket of fresh, moist knot bread, it’s evident that the best thing this place serves…
Grapes of glory This year’s GrapeFest — billed as the largest wine festival in the Southwest — not only saw the unveiling of medal winners from the Lone Star Wine Competition, but also glimpsed the official birth of the sixth Grapevine tasting room: Lone Star Winery. Lone Star is the…
Don’t expect to drink here, because there’s no beer or wine. Though there is, kinda. Bihn Mihn Market next door sells both, and they opened the place up for us one night, drawing back the steel gate barricading the doors so I could get a sixer of Tsingtao (Chinese brew)…
You’ve got to hand it to Gilbert Cuellar. He sure knows how to make a venture reek with the sweet smell of success. A former El Chico Corp. executive, Cuellar is the brain behind Texana Grill, the massive new Texas memorabilia lodge in Arlington that doubles as a restaurant. And…
Kent’s count Former daní foods chef Kent Rathbun finally has an opening date for Abacus, his new McKinney Avenue restaurant. Sort of. “It would be reckless to give an exact date,” he says. “But I’m standing on carpet right now.” He hesitatingly adds that Dallas should be able to sample…
