A suited staffer circled the room, his tray laden with warm slices of olive, rosemary and raisin breads, crusty and fragrant. He bestowed each of our plates with a different variety, and placed between us a ramekin of butter so pristine and smooth it looked like you could ice skate…
Two simple words possessed me to fight rush-hour traffic and patronize loathsome valet parking for a Friday happy hour in Uptown: Skittles Sangria. Perusing Yelp for a new-to-me drinking spot, I’d stumbled on the Common Table’s drink menu, and my inner alcoholic child was awakened by the promise of a…
“This right here is the epitome of a hipster palace,” my boyfriend so eloquently put it. We had just stepped through the front doors of Hid In 2612, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it pop-up bar located at 2612 Commerce in Deep Ellum for just four nights. The brainchild of bartenders — excuse me,…
Weary of soy protein and veggie burgers from Meatless Mondays gone by, I had set my sights this go around on exotic flavors and spices. My search for bargain vegetarian nirvana took me to Mumtaz, an Indian restaurant located in a generic Richardson strip mall at Campbell and Central. I’m…
When a friend in Oak Cliff mentioned that a doughnut shop down the street from her place had delicious bacon donuts, I figured it was worth setting an alarm for. I dragged myself out of bed at 9:45 this morning (the horror!) and pointed myself toward Lone Star Donuts. Lone…
On my first pilgrimage to Deep Ellum’s Black Swan Saloon, I walked right past the place, thinking the small, windowed room was just an extension of La Grange. There’s no sign to speak of; I had to consult my iPhone (“Siri, where the fuck am I?”) and double back to…
This week’s drinking dispatch is brought to you courtesy of my complete inability to pass up dollar drinks, particularly when said bargain drinks involve the words “gimlet” or “Collins” rather than “McCormicks” or “Bud.” While performing my morning ritual of catching up on the latest in Food Blog-Land over coffee,…
“No regular potato fries? Goddamn hipsters.” So spoke the quintessential Meatless Monday opponent, also known as my boyfriend. We sat across a bar-height table at Sundown, the new restaurant/beer garden situated next to the Granada Theater, on a stretch of Greenville Avenue that’s also home to seafood shack Aw Shucks…
The West Village isn’t typically a favorite destination ‘hood of mine unless I’m seeking fro-yo or a sale on cardigans, but a Yelp search pointed me in the direction of Thai-Vietnamese spot Malai when I found myself in dire need of a drink on a Sunday evening. I have zero…
Booze correspondent Whitney Filloon is experiment with going meat-free once a week. Here’s her latest animal-fat-less dispatch. “How can you hate on a joint whose tagline is ‘We Love You’?” This is what I thought to myself as I walked through the door at Oak Cliff vegan destination Spiral Diner…
A search on Amazon.com for “Chicken Soup for the Hungover Soul” quickly reveals that there is no such title in existence (I smell an e-book opportunity!), most likely because no one wakes up with a pounding headache and the taste of bad choices lingering in their mouth and reaches to…
Along with food critic Scott Reitz, resident booze correspondent Whitney Filloon is giving Meatless Mondays a shot. They’ll both be sharing their experiences in the coming weeks. I couldn’t quite stomach the idea of tofu or any new and therefore strange meat substitutes on my very first attempt at a…
This week I was looking something different, my palate weary from ringing in the new year with an excess of cheap California champagne. So I headed to Baboush in the West Village in search of new flavors. Situated between sushi haven The Fish and Cork wine boutique, you might forget…
Happy belated birthday, sweet infant Jesus! Now that all that trimming the tree and wrapping presents is over, all Santa’s cookies have been eaten, and all the stores are ready to mark down all the stuff you just bought by 60 percent, we can look ahead to the dawning of…
Walking through the front doors of Whiskey Cake on Christmas Eve, my father says it best: “I feel like I’m in the movie Deliverance.” The abundance of rustic wood, plaid and whiskey barrels lend a backwoods-stillhouse vibe that’s further reinforced by our handsome blonde server, who sports suspenders (mandatory) and…
You may have heard of this whole Meatless Monday thing. It’s a simple idea: to abstain from eating meat for just one day a week. It’s not a radically new concept; the term was coined during WWI as a slogan (along with “Wheat-Free Wednesdays”) to encourage voluntary rationing of staple…
Whitney Filloon, our resident pastry chef/booze correspondent, took the week off from drinking to bring you these winter cocktail ideas. We have her assurances that she was sober when she wrote them. I enjoy a $12 cocktail as much as the next Dallas girl, but I decided I better trim…
Private Social bar manager Rocco Milano is like a young redheaded Santa, ready to grant all your alcoholic Christmas wishes, or maybe the fourth Wise Man, bearing obscure aperitifs and rare scotches in place of frankincense and myrrh. Perched at his silver and white bar in the space’s “Social” wing,…
The barman procures a large glass jar from underneath the bar and pours in a few ounces of Sobieski vodka, followed by fresh-squeezed lime juice. Hickory chips are scooped from a glass jar and loaded into a hand-held smoking gun, then ignited with a small torch. Smoke fills the jar…
It’s a Tuesday night in the O.C., and Mesa is abuzz with a low murmur of conversation. Three couples and a group of four populate the soft brown velour banquettes and chairs; with only 40 seats, four tables is enough for the place to feel alive. We take a seat…
Editor’s note: Whitney Filloon, a trained pastry chef, is also a trained drinker. She’ll occasionally write for City of Ate about cocktails and general booziness. “Tastes like pickles.” My shaven-head drinking companion wrinkles his nose slightly and slides my tall glass back across the copper-veneered bar at the People’s Last…
