Pangaea has a beautiful fish tank lodged in one wall. Crowds of orange, purple, and striped cichlids (perchlike freshwater fish found in South America, Africa, Sri Lanka, and India) swim among the plants and reddish rocks. They look like submerged Carroll Shelby hot rods: low-slung and flat with large mouths…
Star shuffle Star Concepts–the group Carlson Restaurants Worldwide created to absorb Star Canyon and AquaKnox after the T.G.I. Friday’s parent (presumably) gave owners Stephan Pyles, Michael Cox, and TCBY Enterprises President Herren Hickingbotham enough money to choke a herd of Texas steers–announced several position changes last week. Star Canyon Executive…
Disturbing news hit the papers the day after Thanksgiving. The hog market collapsed. “Hog Market Collapses on Glut of Animals,” read one headline. “Swine prices at the farm are at their lowest level in 27 years,” said one report. Farmers are shipping a record 2.2 million hogs weekly, stretching slaughterhouses…
Carrollton lights up Barely two weeks after the Dallas Environmental Health Commission held hearings exploring whether Dallas should toughen its relatively permissive public-smoking ordinance, the city of Carrollton eased its ban on smoking in public places last week. By a vote of 6-1, the Carrollton City Council approved amendments to…
Old San Francisco Old San Francisco Steak House, the San Antonio based restaurant chain featuring the “girl in the red velvet swing” where a young woman boards a bar swing every 45 minutes and kicks a pair of cow bells attached to the ceiling, has been snapped up. Almost. A…
There are many reasons to love carpaccio. First, the word rolls off the tongue with such musicality, it’s impossible to avoid a self-satisfied smirk once the final vowel is successfully squeezed through puckered lips. Second, the dish is drenched in simple exuberance–thin slices of raw tenderloin or sirloin carpet the…
Restaurant crash? The Wall Street Journal recently reported that stock market fluctuations are sending shivers through the New York restaurant scene. The Big Apple’s dining frequency is in decline, high-end spending growth is flat, and restaurant closings have increased sharply. Will the same fate befall Dallas? According to the Texas…
Dining at Pappas Brothers Steakhouse left a question weighing heavily on my mind: What the hell has happened to cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and red meat phobia? The stench of such concerns doesn’t pollute Pappas’ ambiance. It’s as though it’s been siphoned off by the immaculately efficient ventilation system in…
Beverly Hills wine retailer Dennis Overstreet is animated. He enters the dining room of Lone Wolf, the restaurant-cigar lounge he operates with Texas television and film star Chuck Norris and actor Jim Belushi, wearing a dark suit with a long scarf hanging from his neck. He stops by one table…
Butt ban? Members of the Dallas Environmental Health Commission put the screws to the restaurant industry late last week, and well they should. During a hearing considering toughened city smoking regulations, representatives of the Greater Dallas Restaurant Association and the Hotel/Motel Association of Greater Dallas asserted that restaurants and bars…
Food isn’t everything. Other elements play a significant role in a successful dining experience. For one, there’s service that delivers clean forks with every course instead of placing the dirty one from your finished plate next to your white shirtsleeve. There’s dining-room music that isn’t Kenny G. There’s friendly valet…
I have a theory. The necessary evidence has not yet been assembled to prove it, but the more I dine out, the more the world seems to conform to its basic premise. The theory is this: The quality of a restaurant’s food and service is inversely proportional to the number…
Wolf refugees start anew After bowing out of Lone Wolf Cafe in late October, former Mansion maitre d’ Wayne Broadwell and Sipango partner and founding chef Matthew Antonovich are planning to launch a new upscale restaurant in Dallas. The restaurant will be an American grill with gourmet take-out and fresh…
The Japanese lust for fugu, or puffer fish, is one of the most fascinating yet perplexing obsessions in the culinary universe. It’s served thinly sliced as sashimi or in nabemono, one-pot meals cooked at the table in broth or oil. Yet for all its culinary attraction, fugu, if consumed following…
Help wanted After six years as assistant general manager, Scott Shoenberger ended his stint with the Melrose Hotel, home of the Landmark restaurant, last week. He’s off to Hartford, Connecticut, where he will head the 271-room Hastings International Conference Resort, operated by Colorado Springs-based International Conference Resorts. Apparently, Melrose executives…
Wamstad’s big beef If you think III Forks owner Dale Wamstad–and his 257-year-old alter ego, Capt. Bob Cooper–is a little off his T-bone, you may be right. Apparently incensed at the steak-house ad Richard Chamberlain of Chamberlain’s ran last week in The Dallas Morning News, Wamstad responded with his own…
A group of men was leaving through the thick, beveled glass doors–large, beef-eating men in casual business attire. They were grunting, jabbing. Several minutes later, one of them returned in an anxious flurry. He approached the hostess. “Oh, yes. Yes, we did find it,” she said, moving over to a…
As an example of “fine dining in an upscale, yet comfortable and inviting atmosphere,” as the press release describes it, The Winds Bistro is a noble stab. Its chief instigators–Tom Whittaker, former manager of the original Rusty Pelican in Orange County, California, and chef Bruce Stein, formerly of The Cock…
Antonovich does Lone Wolf Former III Forks chef Matthew Antonovich, a.k.a. Chisholm, has just completed the new menu for Lone Wolf Cafe, an American grill with continental touches. Set to open at the end of October, the cafe will feature a $4 million wine cellar assembled by new Lone Wolf…
There are at least five indicators that tell you a new restaurant is not just another place to eat, but a major seismic event: 1) you need a reservation to get in on a Monday night; 2) every Mercedes in the parking lot has a model number of 500 or…
Doolittle’s does less Doolittle’s, the Addison eatery and Martini hole spawned last year by Deep Ellum Cafe partners Mike Sakuta and Patrick Davis, has been shaken, stirred, and shuttered. Longview-based Restaurant Teams International, Inc. (formerly Fresh’n Lite, Inc.) has a deal in the works to turn the space into Street…
Nuevo Leon hits Oak Lawn Slipping into the Oak Lawn space that was most recently an offshoot of the Oak Cliff Italian restaurant Vitto, Nuevo Leon owners Luis Ramirez and David Trevino will open their third location in mid-October, joining the “Mex-Mex” restaurant’s outlets on Lower Greenville Avenue and in…
