Best Of Dallas® 2007 Winners
Food & Drink
If only all fast food tasted this good. The wraps at Chaat Café are truly innovative. Made with naan bread and tandoori chicken, they are prepared on the spot, like everything else at the restaurant. The meat is marinated in yogurt and spices in a clay oven until it is tender and juicy. The best part, besides the taste? The fast-food prices. Chaat Café, the first fast-food Indian restaurant in the United States, is already well-known in the Bay Area, where there are multiple locations. A second DFW location, in Irving, is coming soon. They get the high-tech jobs, and we get Chaat. That's fair enough.
Ultimately, the purpose of an appetizer is to whet, to arouse, to salivate. It's to kick-start the innards and make them receptive to the more weighty compositions to follow. Mansion Chef John Tesar's crab "scampi style" does this. Six ounces of king crab leg meat is torn from the shell in ropes, flecked with parsley and set in a pool of Riesling butter sauce with touches of garlic and shallot. Riesling creeps to the forefront, launching a fascinating interplay of focused minerality and torrents of fruity acid that seem to reach around the crab's sweet buttery richness, targeting the minerals a few layers deep in the soul of the meat. Here, bitterness kisses the front of the mouth before the butter slides the crab's rich sweetness across the palate. Then the acids clear away a little of that, and it becomes almost floral. All of this is framed in a steely mineral component that is strong in the wine but subtler in the crab. Hence, the complex flavors of the crab instantly become understandable. This is a laser beam of a dish. It is visceral. It has gobs of charisma. It is pure mouth joy.
You know Jimmy's sausage and meatballs (and mortadella and prosciutto) are the stuff of legend, forcing chefs and gastronomes (why does foodie sound like a term for someone with a sippy-cup fetish?) alike to knuckle under its culinary weight in devoted reverence. You also know the wine selection is the best ever brought forth from the entirety of the boot, flowing from Veneto, Compania, Tuscany, Piedmont, Friuli, Sicily, Sardinia, Trentino Alto Adige, Basilicata, Umbria and Marche. Jimmy's even stocks the wines from Avellino bottled by Riccardi's Italian Dining owners Anita and Gaetano Ricardi. But what you may not know is that Jimmy's now has a back room—borne of reconstruction after the devastating 2004 fire that nearly destroyed its circa 1920s building—where wine dinners and wine flights will be launched and indulged and disabused, some hosted by Italian wine experts such as Andrea Cecchi of the Chianti producer Cecchi. More to follow. More to flow. Much to love.
For a third of a century John's Café on Greenville Avenue was one of those chipped mug of coffee places you could go on a Sunday morning and get your feet planted squarely back on planet Earth for the week to come. Then two years ago they deep-sixed it for a bank. Story of our life. But now John's is back from the grave, this time deeper on Greenville, almost at the corner of Ross, and many of the old familiar faces are gathering again for coffee, Greek salad and one of the best big burgers in town. The new location hits it just right, clean and plain, lean and mean—the way Old East Dallas likes it.
There are plenty of bars where you can grab a decent bite in Dallas—Lee Harvey's, the Meridian Room and the Lakewood Landing all come to mind—but the Old Monk is the only one we frequent even when we're not drinking. From the sizable burgers to the awesome fish and chips, everything on the menu is tasty, and it's all better with a side of the best skinny fries in town. And don't forget your vegetarian friends, who'll surely love the renowned (in our world at least) vegetarian Reuben. You'll find us on the large patio, a must in our book since most of Dallas' bar scene still hasn't come around to the idea that food tastes a lot better when it's not accompanied by the smell of cigarettes.
Years ago Sonny Bryan's got rolled out into 10 different Dallas-area locations, and they're all great, but the original on Inwood is proof that part of the barbecue is the shack. Since 1910—that's when Sonny Bryan started peddling his incomparable ribs and brisket from a tumbledown dive near Parkland Hospital—a whole lot of smoke and flavor must have gotten rubbed into the joint's well-worn benches and little school desks. It helps that you can see people back behind the counter pulling those big racks of ribs out of the smoker: You know for sure it's not coming down here quick-frozen from New Jersey. This is real-deal Dallas, the old-fashioned way, and every bite a treat for sure.
It's not always on the menu, but you can get it if you call ahead 24 hours with insistence in your voice. Shinsei's perfectly grilled salmon, polished in Mongolian barbecue sauce, is an astonishing thing. A neatly cleaved square of pink rests on a banana leaf. The thick, sweetish sauce drools from its edges. Sesame seeds and parsley are trapped in the tarry thick of it. It's rich. It flakes easily, sliding into neat shingles on the thin layer of fat that bleeds through its fibers. Sweet is counteracted by smoke. Salt wrestles with tang. Skewers of pineapple, water chestnut and peppers are laid in front of this delicious fish. Catch it if you can.
Popular convention maintains that the appropriate time to consume a Bloody Mary is some Saturday or Sunday morning after a hard night out, perhaps accompanied by a plate of migas. But that's a shamefully short amount of time to dedicate to such tomatoey goodness. So when we discovered that the barmen at the Green Elephant could pour the damn tastiest Mary in town, we welcomed the Bloody Mary into the night, where it belongs, especially given its violent nomenclature. It's hard to say what makes the Green Elephant Bloody Mary so great, but we have a sneaking suspicion it has something to do with the splashes of Newcastle and Shiner Bock that the Bloody Mary connoisseurs at the Elephant add to the drink. And remember, when you're asked "Like it spicy?" make sure you have guts of steel before saying "yes." Because they mean business. Delicious business.
In almost every bowl of mussels served in these parts you'll get one or two that possess the lingering flavors of highly extracted morning mouth. You wince. You cringe. You struggle to spit into your napkin while maintaining decorum. If you narrowly miss a brush with the emergency room, you gulp a shot of vodka and move on to the tiramisu. This won't happen at The Porch, where fruit crisp is the preferred desert and mussels are prepared in Hefeweizen steam. These tiny, clean shellfish rest in an addictive pool of wine, saffron, smoked paprika, tomato and garlic. The broth tosses off licks of smoke thanks to the garlic smoked right alongside the beef for The Porch's chopped brisket sliders, which are good to dip into the mussel broth when the shellfish are depleted—a serving suggestion.
As much as we love Tex-Mex, it's easy to overload on refried beans and queso in this town. So when we want Latin, but are tired of the enchilada platters, we head to Zaguan, a bakery and cafe with a South American flavor. The menu seems to be constantly evolving, but standards include cachapas, sweet corn pancakes with your choice of fillings; arepas, white corn cakes that resemble English muffins, again filled with a selection of meats or cheese; and pabellón criollo, a hearty meal of shredded beef, seasoned black beans, plantains and rice. Our favorite is the pabellón. A freshly squeezed juice (including unusual ones such as watermelon and papaya) completes the meal.
Unlike the Starbucks across the street, Legal Grounds is a cozy neighborhood staple with a regular cast of servers and customers who seem as if they've known each other for years. But the easygoing nature of the place would be for naught if the coffee and food didn't come along for the ride. From the delicious and rich muffin tops to the one-of-a-kind French toast that soaks up a medley of fresh fruit, Legal Grounds delivers one of the best breakfasts in town and that rare Dallas blend of good food and friendly people. You don't have to dress up to eat at Legal Grounds or, even worse, look like a hipster. (AllGood Café, we turn our lonely eyes to you.) Instead you can come in after a bike ride around White Rock Lake or 10 minutes after you wake up and still feel right at home.
This is the sort of place that makes a breakfast that will keep you full well past lunch. Try the huevos rancheros, or any one of their omelets; you can't go wrong. But what this place is known for are its breakfast burritos. Filled with eggs, bacon, sausage and whatever else you want them to put on it, they're the best breakfast burritos in town. Plus, the service here is excellent. Come in one time and they already treat you like a regular, which, if you ride DART rail downtown to the St. Paul station, you may well become.
"Your hometown butcher shoppe, in the city" reads Greg Geerts' business card. The tiny shop isn't much to look at. It's spartan and white, with only a few old Samsonite suitcases and end tables to give it charm. But the infectiously engaging Geerts, who learned his craft at the meat counter in Huntsville after a string of DWI charges before moving on to Tom Thumb, is just the man to trim your rib eyes and New York strips. He prepares steaks marinated especially for indoor sizzling on George Foreman grills (because most Uptown apartment complexes don't allow hardwood charcoal grilling in the bathtub anymore). His fresh pork, ruby lamb chops and the sliced free-range chicken breasts look as fresh and wanton as anything you'll see—or wish you'd see—in your grocer's meat case. The Black Angus beef is mouthwateringly delicious. VG's sells Boars Head meats and cheeses and beef frankfurters and knockwurst. Geerts will sharpen your knives by hand on stone and demonstrate (more like insist on) the proper ways to care for and steel the edges. Geerts will get you anything you want. He just recently secured a 40-pound whole pig and a 20-pound whole goat for a Dallas luau. The pig had real blue eyes, he offers. He didn't say much about the goat's face, though.
Nate's is as plain and shamelessly effective as a good swamp cooler; a Cajun kitchen bog sweating the smoky scent of spice that haunts the spaces between the beer signs. Big slices of slick buttered and heavily garlicked French bread; deep and dirty yet exquisitely balanced seafood gumbo with clean spices discernible through grains of fluffy white rice. Fresh fish, grilled or blackened, brims with savor and is perfect in texture. Spread some live blues on that (they do), and you have a recipe for perfect moments.
Sali's doesn't have much of an atmosphere, despite the large mural of Venice on one wall, complete with canals and gondoliers. You'll see lots of big families and kids' soccer teams, usually there for the excellent hand-thrown thin crust New York-style pizza. But if you want a quick gourmet lunch and you have only a tenner in your pocket, Sali's will fill you up. Start with the salad and spicy house dressing. Peel off a piece of the yummy, garlicky bread. Then dig into manicotti, lasagna, eggplant, stuffed shells, spaghetti or fettucine Alfredo, served in individual casseroles bubbling hot straight from the oven. The bill tops out at $4.75 plus tip, $7 if you get iced tea or a soda.
On its face, busting things up is the antithesis of culinary craft. But Little Katana has mastered the art of creative destruction—deliciously. With mango cheesecake, Little Katana starts with the traditional sour cream-topped cheesecake, mingles it with fresh mangos, busts it up and dumps the debris into a sundae glass before topping it off with whipped cream. The beauty of it is that everything is retained: the mango tang, the graham cracker crumb crunch and the smooth velvety cheese, all in an organized mess of disorganization. Wrecking crew cuisine is the new global fusion. Trust us.
Good Chinese can be hard to find in the land of hedge-fund lucre and cosmetic sculpting. Sometimes the marinated chicken gizzards and pork ears and spicy beef tripe just seem so out of context; where such things are fine and good and tingle the adventure sensors, the consistency stumbles. May Dragon presents Mandarin, Hunan, Canton and Szechwan cuisines plus selected regional delicacies and elegantly coalesces them under one strip-mall roof. It has the usuals, the Ming lettuce rolls, the spring rolls, cashew chicken, kung pao shrimp and Szechwan beef, all with pert freshness and assembled with an acute eye to detail. Yet May Dragon also has assorted delicacies: the Peking-style roast pork, the pickled jellyfish, the dried fish with peanuts, smoked tea duck and Peking duck with crisped skin, juicy flesh, supple pancakes and crunchy scallions—as good as we've had anywhere. This is not a jaunt for the thrill-seeking epicure, though it may dazzle them. It has none of the manic thrills and disturbances of the rigorously authentic. Yeah, May Dragon is safe, but it's still dong gong good.
We were at Central Market once this year—and we love Central Market—but we asked for ciabatta and the person behind the counter held up this big black hank of bread that looked like some old lady's work boot. And we thought, "If that's ciabatta, we gotta say notta." But that's also why the smaller, more intimate scale of the city's original Whole Foods on Lower Greenville will be so sorely missed when the store closes some time later this year or early next. The ciabatta loaves at the Greenville Avenue Whole Foods are always fresh and steamy in a little bin right off the bakery. You can tong them into that brown paper bag yourself, and the best thing is they're still hotta. We buy a lotta ciabatta there. You didn't know we spoke Italian, did you?
For a casual restaurant, Houston's is a bit pricey ($17 for a French dip sandwich? Ouch.) And there are places that for a similar price serve a much better steak. But there's one thing on the menu that is well worth the price: the apple walnut cobbler. As one friend put it, "It was the most divine combination of fruit and nuts and crumbly topping and ice cream I have ever laid upon my tongue." That might be overdoing it (just a bit), but the dessert is good. The only downside: The restaurant is usually busy and they don't take reservations, so be prepared for a wait. But remember, you're grown up, so when you do get a seat, no one's going to tell you to save dessert till last.
Here's how you can make a billion bucks in just a few easy steps. First, secure a good supply of cow pies (horse apples will do in a pinch). Next, char those pies or apples (apple pie?) over an open fire until they're black and crisp. When they're done, grind 'em up, force hot water through the grinds, mix the slurry with low-fat soy steam or milk froth and cinnamon, put it in a paper cup, and sell it for a few bucks 'n' change. Then compile music and sell CDs. Bingo, you got a billion. There's a company that actually did this. You may have heard of them. But if you're more into beans than burnt crap in trendy froth, stop by White Rock Coffee. They have a space-age building with rustic rafters. They have a drive-up window and free wi-fi. Instead of CDs, they host live music and open mike Tuesdays, which are more biodegradable. White Rock roasts their own coffee (on the lighter side, keeping the blowtorches at bay) in small batches. White Rock pours certified Fair Trade Coffees whereby farmers are guaranteed minimum floor prices and fair labor conditions. Behold: the ultimate self-congratulatory caffeine rush every morning. The resultant brews are heady, smooth, refreshing and righteous. White Rock also sells cool frills like scones and exquisite, richly colored Chantal teakettles. Praise the bean.
Most people are born with salty meat urges, the kind of meat with generous sequins of fat. Nove assembles them on a wooden board with timepiece precision, tiny slices of red and pink and blood black overlapping their way toward your cravings. The board hosts salamis and ruffles of prosciutto di Parma, sweet and salt tangy; mortadella folds, reeking of delicate pepper and coriander; and wedges of aged cheese with a little blot of seasoned ricotta. There's a mole, an intensely extracted explosion of cured salami musk from Seattle's Salumi Artisan Cured Meats. These slivery wafers are laced with chocolate, cinnamon and ancho and chipotle pepper gently hoisted on wisps of smoke. It comes with pizza bread. But why muck it thusly? Man can live on salted meat alone.
Crab cakes are ubiquitous. Crab cakes are dull, persecuted into monotony by the terror of filler tyranny. Chef Tom Fleming conquers this heinousness. Fleming's Maryland jumbo lump crab cakes have filler, but there is a precise method to his madness: quarter-cup of bread crumbs to 5 pounds of cleaned crab flesh. To this he adds a dressing composed of brandy, mayonnaise and roasted peppers with plenty of cayenne. The cakes are seared until they form a thick mahogany coat. They're loose and topped with fried potato strings. They rest on a bed of wilted arugula and tomato relish in a lively vinaigrette. Lemon is there too, creating a stiff acidic tension that gradually dissipates in the depths of the sweet cake. Relish that.
"Greed is good," says Gordon Gekko in 1987's Wall Street, and damn if the selfish bastard wasn't right. Greed isn't just good, it's down right saintly when it comes to La Duni's cuatro leches cake. Oh, you could share it with a friend, but the noble thing to do is eat it all by yourself, throwing your expanding body on this live hand grenade of caloric excess. According to the menu, this sumptuous confection begins with layered mantecado vanilla sponge cake, which is soaked in tres leches sauce, then topped with caramelized Swiss meringue and dotted with arequipe reduction and served with extra tres leches sauce and arequipe caramel. Yeah, yeah, dunno what all that stuff is; all we know is that if you reach toward our plate, you'll find yourself with tiny little fork holes in the back of your hand. Don't be angry. We're doing it for your own good.
It rests in the thick of the back country, at the end of a twisty driveway, wood fencing lining its flanks. There's a gazebo, a long porch and a few oaks sulking in the breeze plus a 15-acre pond where bass can be reeled in. This is Dallas steak dining as envisioned by Zeus and executed by former Del Frisco's chef Frank Rumoré. Once a ranch house built by former Dallas Cowboys middle linebacker Lee Roy Jordan, Four Winds is a rustic cedar tabernacle with obese shrimp in the cocktail, house-made mozzarella in the caprese and charred steaks that look like hunks of cooled Hawaiian lava flow that get the hot flow going in the mouth. Dab that drool. Perched on an 1,100-acre stretch an hour or so out of Dallas, dining here is like a four-hour vacation. Pitch a tent near the gazebo if the wine gets get the best of you.
What was it that your sorority sisters told you when you were packing on that freshman 10? A grilled chicken sandwich is lower in fat and calories than a burger? Right. If they said that at Snuffer's, they were lying to you. Don't feel bad. They'll get theirs eventually. For now, revel in the fact that you saved enough Weight Watchers points to blow on the chicken club sandwich. A savory grilled chicken breast gets raunchy with some deli-cut ham (yay, pork!), smoked turkey, American and Swiss cheeses (that's right, the best in fake and true) and some mayo, plus lettuce and tomato for good measure. Put it in a burger bun and sink right in. It's oozy, it's wrong and it's so right. Pair it with one damn fine chocolate shake (waitstaff tells us shakes depend on the bartender, but we've never had a bad one, no matter what hour or flavor) and you've got a bit of guilt and a lot of pleasure. Fries too? Hell yes. But not the cheddar fries. That'd just be way too sinful. Right?
Local is a slowly evolving organism, one that seems to thrive creatively on the cusp of its own extinction. Chef/owner Tracy Miller brought forth her restaurant in 2003, an offshoot of the catering operation she's nurtured in Deep Ellum's classic Boyd Hotel since 1997. Miller opened with the commitment to shepherd and develop Local in deliberately managed increments so as not to outrun her culinary (and financial) headlights. Since that time she has added a sleek yet comfortable wine lounge and is unfolding plans to subsume the Boyd's courtyard with garden dining in the spring. Yet through all of this inching, Miller has never relaxed her snug embrace of American flavors, distinctly teased with her own earthy flair. Try her urbane steak and eggs twist, two fried quail eggs on a drift of steak tartare. Or wallow in her meticulously harmonized hazelnut- and mustard-crusted halibut in Chardonnay thyme broth accompanied by grilled country bread and a young spinach salad—pure haute meets homey. Or surrender to the rib eye in a mushroom sauté with onion risotto. Miller is a virtuoso who whirs the salivary glands with clean flavors that mingle and marry and juxtapose in well-composed essays. That it sits in the Deep Ellum urban frontier means your adventure never has to suffer the irritants (noise, parking, neglect) of the stunning and the trendy.
Spike Global Grill and the Angelika have a movie-and-dinner deal that for $22.95 per person gives you fresh mint basil salad, skewered tapas and strawberries-and-cream parfait, plus a movie ticket to any film at the Angelika. Since movie tickets now cost $9.25, the three-course dinner is fresh and tasty and a real bargain. Spike also offers two other movie packages: a wine-and-cheese tasting with three 3-ounce flights of red or white wine for $24.95, or a four-course meal (dishes selected by the chef) for $39.95. See the movie first or see it after you dine. (The ticket is good for up to one year.) It's a perfect first date—the movie gives you something to talk about when conversation lulls, and Spike stays open until 2 a.m., great for long getting-to-know-you conversation if you hit it off—or plenty of time to get really wasted if your date won't shut the hell up.
We knew the service at Central 214 was attentive when our waiter surreptitiously noted our preference for Splenda and brought a single packet with each tea refill. And the food sparked oohs and aahs too, especially the hanger steak and the "mac and cheese our way" (their way is rigatoni with a garlic cream sauce and Parmesan). But if you're really on your game, you'll parlay the delicious dinner into a suggestion of dessert...brought by room service. The chic Hotel Palomar offers sumptuous rooms to sleep off your gluttonous meal or, you know, whatever. Our tip: Request a room with a soaking tub.
Unless you really, really love Dairy Queen, the Crandall Cotton Gin is one of the last outposts for a hearty meal between Dallas and Tyler. Next time you're truckin' out to the Piney Woods, stop here for an $8.95 daily dinner special, which gets you more food than any person should eat in a single sitting. About as "fusion" as it gets is the grilled ham with pineapple on Sundays, but expect solid down-home entrees such as liver and onions, roast beef and chicken-fried steak. Just pray you've no occasion to travel east on a Monday when the Cotton Gin is closed.
Named after Dallas lawyer Steve Stodghill, the Stodg Burger at The Porch, a lively hot spot in the Knox-Henderson neighborhood, is not only politically incorrect—high-calorie, high-fat, honest-to-God red meat—it might be a good idea to look over your shoulder for the food police while eating it. The combination of flavors would probably get you thrown out of culinary school. Here goes: the Stodg is a thick burger topped with a slice of cheddar cheese, which is topped with applewood-smoked bacon, which is topped with a fried egg, all of which teeters on a bun spread with foie gras. That's the final killer touch. Does it taste great? Yep. If you decide to order it, alert the local paramedics first or make sure your dining companion knows CPR.
It's a gangly, lowly beast with a thick crunchy stalk and curled, rippled leaves. It was once honored by the Greeks and Romans for its medicinal attributes, a weed that calms with spinach essence even as it teases with a pungency followed by a fierce, if tiny, lick of salt. In the hands of the Craft magicians this natural militancy is wrung out and somehow coaxed into harmony. Have it sautéed. The leaves are blanched and chilled before they're heated in olive oil in which garlic has been sautéed. Leaves are cooked until the leaf edges are slivery crisps. This is compelling simplicity, a kind of nourishment that if finished as a child earned you dessert with two scoops. At Craft, eating it is its own reward.
Despite its title, there is very little French in the French Room—save for the furiousness of its kitchen technique. It's more of an Italian-New York mash deliciously henpecked with Asian pinches and California thumbprints. The glory of it, aside from the paunchy flushed cherubs romping among the ceiling clouds and the gilded arches and explosive floral formations teasing the chandeliers and the greenish marble floor, is how the plates launch the senses into transcendence. Steam coiling and licking from the plate is enough to make you drool. Every thin smear of coulis or gastrique, every smudge of gelee, every emulsion stain, is of the perfect texture and temperature. Every protein—fish, scallop, fowl, meat and the decadent-and-soon-to-be-banned-at-a-PC-automaton-restaurant-near-you foie gras is as impeccable and ample as the cherub love handles in the cloud puffs. So you know the service will knock you dead. But you're in heaven. So it's OK.
You may likely encounter a different version of this embattled dish (foie gras has been banned in Chicago and California) as the Craft menu is a living document. Our fowl liver delicacy was roasted and rested in gooseberry gastrique, ornamented with tiny crouton-like cubes tumbled across its surface. It's served in a dual-handled metal roasting implement with the lobe occupying the center. Berries and a few bright green herbs are strewn here and there. It's packed with glory, delicate and texturally perfect with a slightly leathery veneer embracing the velvety cream within. The slight sting of the gooseberry cuts and eases the weight of the richness, scrubbing the palate for the next forkful—all of this from a lowly filtration organ that spits bile. The beauty of Craft foie gras is that it has none of the cumbersome culinary baubles and blings often used to dress up this gland—the heavy fruits and thick port reductions, the mounds of greens that bury it, the thick brioche or potatoes. It's just there in a pot, stark naked, hiding behind a few berries, the garden of culinary Eden before the politico snakes began to attack with their numbskull prohibitions.
The whole fried catfish at Alligator Café never ceases to inspire envy in other diners who didn't have the sense to order it. First, it's large. The breading is perfect: fried golden cornmeal so fresh and crisp the meat inside is still steaming. Dip each yummy piece in cocktail sauce, tartar sauce or alligator sauce. Just when you think you've gotten all the juicy morsels, you discover there's a whole 'nother side o' fish to tackle. The catfish basket comes with crispy French fries too. If you are really feeling frisky, go on Friday or Saturday night when the Alligator Café has live music. Close your eyes and you could be in Lafayette Parish.
We know: You like Bubba's, and they're great and all. But we just can't love a place that once somehow charged us $1 per organ for an order of chicken livers. What were they fried in, rendered unicorn fat? So give us Celebration. For around $11 bucks, we get fresh bread and muffins, all we can eat of juicy-not-greasy chicken, plus three sides or the freshest veggies available. The coating is crispy but not oil-sodden and we swear they must either marinate or brine, because the taste of herbs comes steaming out of the meat. All this is served in a comfy warren of wooden booths and tree-shaded patios by some of the friendliest servers in the city. (Scary friendly, sometimes. Really, can anyone be that cheerful on a Sunday afternoon after the post-church rush?) Compare them to the surly bunch occasionally found behind the counter at other chicken shacks. The folks at Celebration seem like they're actually celebrating something, or maybe they're just glad they're not the ones standing over the fryer.
They retain just enough heat from the hot oil. Piled high into a berm, these are thin fries, house-cut, desperately crisp; some golden, some bronze, some with mahogany tips. Sea salt covers them like scalp flakes on Brooks Brothers. You pick up a little tuber sweetness on the attack, but it's quickly cleansed by a gentle whoosh of vinegar that invigorates the palate, resetting it for more. Hence the addiction. That little vinegar trounce is also why they mate so well with fish—fish and frites. They go well with oysters too.
Barbec's may have cheesy décor, but you gotta love a non-chain restaurant where you can eat breakfast any time of day. There's not really anything low-fat or healthy here, but what's that old saying, "Eat breakfast like a king"? Well, we figure that still applies, whether breakfast is the first or fourth meal of the day. The beer-batter biscuits are a must, but hey, scoop a mess o' eggs and ham on there too, wouldya? We still have some unclogged arteries.
An original pick this is not; our readers anoint Ziziki's just about every year, and that's because it feels and tastes like upscale Greek, with attention lavished on top-notch ingredients, inventive touches, a warm atmosphere and polished service. This isn't your stereotypical Greek joint with gyros—they aren't even on the menu here—and laminated travel posters on the wall. The Preston Road location is our favorite, with its warm browns and yellows and sleek but non-stuffy décor. Lamb is the way to go here: The rack of lamb, grilled and nestled in a pool of red wine-and-oregano-accented gravy, is possibly the best in town. Super-tender, gently flavored lamb can also be found in the souvlaki and stuffed lamb loin, a special. Ziziki's has modestly upscale prices as well. So if you're looking for traditional favorites prepared the usual way, pick someplace cheaper. This is Greek cuisine for the gourmand.
We've been to 'em all: Snuffer's (every one), Scotty P's (Plano location, legendary), Chip's, Twisted Root, Adair's, Who's Who, Balls, even Perry's, since a honest-to-goddamned steakhouse is where a real man oughta get a burger every now and again. And on any given night, any one of them's the best in town; hell of a place we live, where someone's best burger is a legit contender from any corner. But some of us old farts around here are feeling nostalgic, surrounded as we are by newcomers for whom "classic" is an imported Steak & Shake, so we're digging out a classic here, a 56-year-old institution where son and father and grandfather can bond over a $3.70 double cheeseburger, a basket of the special-seasoning fries (best in town, till death do us part) and a "real" cherry coke. The Burger House, we call it "Jack's," 'cause we've been around, has five locations now, one in Austin (no foolin'), but the Snider Plaza location is our fave. Meat just tastes better in Highland Park, most likely.
We were sad to see that the elk sausage and fried mac 'n' cheese were off the menu on our last visit to Twisted Root, but you can still get a buffalo burger and sweet potato chips (with a dusting of cinnamon), which are tops on our list. Pretty much everything is handmade here, including the mustard and ketchup. And if you're adventurous enough to drink cinnamon banana root beer, they've got that too (they change the root beer flavor on a regular basis). And don't be offended if they call you Hugh Jass or Dr. Evil—they're just letting you know your hot-off-the-grill burger is ready.
Norma's Café, which has been open since 1956, has everything you'd hope for in a diner: bar stools and booths upholstered in cherry red, breakfast served all day and a waitstaff that greets you like family. That's the thing at Norma's: It pretty much is family. It's the sort of place where customers come every single day, where the waitress doesn't even have to ask some of the regulars what they want. You really can't go wrong at Norma's (if you like 1950s-era diner food), but try the lemon meringue pie. It's not fancy, but chances are, it's just the way mom made it. And that's the whole idea at Norma's—it's like going home.
For years, we've longed for a decent hot dog joint to open in Dallas. Sure, some love Wild About Harry's, but we know better. We've been to New York. We've been to Chicago. In other words, we have standards, and when Big D's finally came along, it met the criteria and then some. Try this on for size—a quarter-pound kosher beef dog (or a killer veggie dog, if you're, like, a Communist or something) grilled up and served on a substantial potato bun (also grilled), topped off with basics like mustard and cheese or fresh-made toppings like Shiner chili and sauerkraut. Add some incredible hand-cut French fries and a mouth-puckering limeade and you've got a dog experience that rivals anything they've got up north. And just in case you're not sold yet, Big D's is open till 3 a.m. on the weekends, and you might even see the likes of Jerry Stackhouse chowing down if you play your cards right.
This hummus is not only authentic and tasty, it's gorgeous, and the family that runs the place works hard to make it that way. When they bring out takeout orders, they open the box with a flourish to reveal a perfectly shaped mound of chickpea delight. The cooks are careful to pool just the right amount of olive oil on top, sprinkle it with paprika and garnish their work with a couple sprigs of parsley. The baba ganoush and tabbouleh are just as good, as is the array of Mediterranean meat dishes. The wide dining room of blue-clothed tables is a pleasant place to spend the evening, and there's a patio that fronts on Greenville. Just remember, it's BYOB.
Best Ice Cream
Beth Marie's Old-Fashioned Ice Cream & Soda Fountain
We'll bitch about gas at three bucks a gallon, but we've got absolutely no problem burning $30 to drive up Interstate 35 for absolutely the most delectable ice cream we've ever laid our lips upon. It's that good. Almost a decade old, Beth Marie's makes more than 60 flavors of ice cream right in the storefront location nestled on the Denton square. Flavors span classics such as peppermint and rocky road to unique tastes such as apple pie and cupcake (with little bits of real confetti cake in it). Scoops are available in ounce increments so customers can go whole hog or opt for a golf ball-sized bite to avoid extending the belt. More than 40 flavors can be blended into malts and shakes, and requisite soda jerk creations such as floats and limeades are also available if cones (waffle ones are made fresh at the counter) ain't the order.
Somewhere deep in Whole Foods culture, Whole Foods still thinks of ice cream as a sin. Now, it's a sin Whole Foods will tolerate and forgive, but only in moderation, like Catholic sex. At Central Market there is no moderation. Central Market offers you every kind of ice cream, sorbet, gelato and other frozen excess that mankind has been able to scheme up since the beginning of ice cream, which, as we all know, was invented in Texas. More or less. Central Market's idea is definitely more. Their selection runs a gamut from better chocolate than we ever thought was possible in this life to something we didn't think was possible—ice cream that isn't good. Yeah, they've got some handmade niche varieties that somebody needs to put back in the niche, including one that tastes like it has little pellets of sod or something in it. We love the Earth too, but please, not in our ice cream! Anyway, if you want to expand your ice cream awareness, Central Market is the joint to visit.
Though no longer in Highland Park, the legendary cafeteria, founded on Knox Street in 1925, reopened this spring and has reconnected with devoted customers at its new location in Casa Linda. Face it, sometimes you need a cafeteria. Maybe grandma's visiting and the discussion about where to eat Sunday dinner took an ugly turn. Or maybe you're just in need of a little comfort food. Smothered steak, macaroni and cheese, squash casserole and other cafeteria classics like baked fish fillets can appease. Don't forget HPC's famous baked goods such as zucchini muffins and chocolate meringue pie. Walk down the line and pick up a little of this, a little of that. Jell-O! Sorry, "lime whip congeal." The line may move kind of slowly—hard for some gray-haired diners to hustle on their walkers—but that's part of the charm.
Founded in Austin in 1998, Clay Pit is a modernization of this ancient exotic cuisine of hundreds of potent and sultry aromas and flavors somehow subdued into harmonious beatitude. Indian cuisine is a marvel that sorts through coriander, fennel, cumin, cilantro, turmeric, saffron, cinnamon, cocoa, nuts, garlic and chilies, somehow keeping them from erupting into Diet Coke-Mentos chaos. Chef and managing partner Tinku Saini once slandered his creation, referring to it as the P.F. Chang's of Indian cuisine, but Clay Pit is not as overtly mainstream as all of that. Sure Clay Pit has a Caesar and naan pizzas; it has naan wraps busting seams with lettuce, rice, cilantro and onions plus either chicken or lamb; it goes Indie-Mex with naan quesadillas with three cheeses. But it also has well-crafted tradition such as moist tandoori chicken that is more bird than burlap; mushroom and pea paneer simmered in smooth onion curry; moist beef vindaloo; and samosas and pakoras along with match and mingle curries and sauces for the meats, which include a nicely done bone-in goat—a thing P.F. Chang's wouldn't touch with 10-foot training chopsticks.
There's a joke among Dallas' culinary gentry that the best place for decent Italian is York Street, Sharon Hage's jewel where only the holy spirit of Tuscan cookery haunts her menu. That's why Riccardi's is such a surprise. It not only serves distinctive cuisine from owner Gaetano Riccardi's hometown of Avellino (near Naples), it bottles three of its own wines from the province of Avellino: a Greco di Tufo (white); the oldest variety of Avellino, the nutty and fruit forward Fiano di Avellino (white); and the rich and earthy Riccardi Taurasi, a red wine made from the Aglianico grape that is flush with food-friendly sharpness that unravels layers of balanced complexity. The menu includes spectacularly executed crimson sheers of carpaccio strewn with capers, and a creamy risotto mare blooming with plump shrimp, sweet lobster and tender calamari rings. It also has the unexpected, like the sausage- and pistachio-stuffed quail in a rich brandy sauce. Savor this in understated elegance that pools crisp contemporary edges with smooth traditional slopes and curves expressed in frescos, columns and wrought iron loops.
You can get a heart attack just reading about it: A baked ham and Swiss sandwich soaked in rich cream sauce. But La Madeleine's Croque Monsieur, which is French for "Mister, you're going to croak if you eat this," is worth the year or two it will take off your life. All the main ingredients work perfectly together; the ham doesn't overwhelm the Swiss, which co-exists peacefully with the sauce, which seeps just right onto the warm bread. Like most of La Madeleine's fare, the Croque is a little pricey, but, then again, it's also filling enough to tide you well past the dinner hour.
We've neglected our old friend of late, and it has made us sad. Long ago, during the beginning of Bill Clinton's age of prosperity and peace, this place was our home-away-from. Late at night, the din of Deep Ellum still ringing in our ears, or early in the morning, on the way to our battered former HQ on Commerce Street, this diner—its seats sparkly red, its walls wooden brown, its surfaces covered in a fine sheen of...something—this diner would be our coffee-and-cigarettes-and-big-effin'-grin be all and end all. Bacon and eggs and burgers and fries and ham and steak and everything else, that was extra, the greasy solutions to the hangover brewing all over. But the coffee...it was good, cheap, something with which you washed down the Chess Records blues and the occasional slice of radio cheese squawking out of the jukebox. There's nothing better than 2:52 a.m. coffee, couple of sunny-side-ups, three sticks of crispy bacon, a mound of greasy potatoes and a biscuit or two. Nowadays, course, you can't smoke at the Metro, but it's still there, still surviving and thriving despite the demise of Deep Ellum and the expanse of DART-board construction threatening to drown the joint in rebar and torn-up concrete. Nothing fancy here. Just home.
There's nothing wrong with trendy upscale pizza restaurants, but sometimes all you want is a classic, simple slice that doesn't stray from its roots or require an hour-long wait and valet parking. Carmine's, like any self-respecting New York pizza joint, has red and white checkered tablecloths and pizzas displayed on those round silver platters by the register. Best of all, of course, is the pie itself—the crust is relatively thin but incredibly soft, with just the right quotient of chewiness. We recommend the cheese and pepperoni, which is flavorful, a little spicy and a lot garlicky. And since there's rarely a wait, you can grab a slice on the run.
Forty-five bucks worth of mindless tribute, that's what it is. Named after "famous for being famous" Dallas "barrister" Steve Stodghill—who gained fame partly by investing in Mark Cuban's Broadcast.com and partly by flaunting the demeanor of a cuddly pit bull of a lawyer—the Stodgerita is billed as the ultimate margarita experience. That isn't all bark. The Stodgerita is formulated with Herradura Seleccion Suprema, fresh lime juice, agave nectar and a touch of Red Bull. It's surprisingly silky and refreshing with remarkable balance. It goes down so smooth and easy, you'll find yourself ordering another just to make sure you're properly refreshed. But isn't that the idea in the rarefied world of billable hours?
There are innumerable ways to formulate a martini. Fuel it with vodka, gin or tequila. Treat it with green apple, cranberry, chocolate or whatever chick drink accoutrement you can dream up; or kick it with pickled okra and a Nicorette patch for the ultimate anti-Dean Martin refreshment. But to really finesse the martini, skip the hooch and go sunomo. Yutaka's martini sunomo salad arrives in billows of fog dissipating from the frosted martini glass. Underneath is a meticulously assembled medley of vegetables and fresh catch: octopus, shrimp and fish huddled in the cool fog with seaweed, daikon sprouts, pickled carrot, cucumber and crab. Real crab.
Chalk it up to climate change—everything else is—but it's getting increasingly difficult to stir up deft authentic Mexican cuisine in Dallas. Most of the stuff that tries passes muster, but it won't spark the Pavlov reflexes. That's why Trece—or thirteen—is just our luck. Here you can get the most virile tableside guacamole known this side of the Minute Men; at a place where haute Mexican regional cooking unfurls in fresh clear flavors, from the "mucho frio" grilled green tomato gazpacho, to the pepita-crusted Alaskan halibut in tangerine hoja santa sauce, to the shrimp, spinach and goat cheese stuffed chile rellenos in clean, refreshing tomato broth. Trece is where good Mexican lives in Dallas. Here's hoping the others catch up. And fast.
Our favorite foods include eggs, fried potatoes and bacon. Did we mention we love breakfast? And, yeah, we're from Texas, so all the better when you wrap up those breakfast classics in a flour tortilla. Sadly, many taquerias don't serve their breakfast tacos during the day, but Tin Star does. Whether you favor the traditional bacon, egg and cheese taco or you're craving a migas taco or Taco Blanco (egg whites, mashed black beans and pico de gallo), Tin Star has only one question: Do you want one taco or two?
OK, so it's a chain, but Fish City has its roots in Dallas (originally called Shell's Oyster Bar) and it hasn't expanded past Oklahoma or Louisiana, keeping it unique enough to make our list. But even if Fish City were to expand to McDonald's-like proportions, there's no denying the mind-blowing goodness of the oyster nacho. We know, it doesn't sound good, but there's something entirely unexpected, yet delightful, about these nachos. It's tortilla chips topped with fried oysters, pico de gallo and chipotle tartar sauce. It's truly Texan and truly delicious.
Words fail at Bijoux. Eat. Let little bites speak to you. Let thoughts go where they may. Observe how you feel, how your face sometimes vibrates and your toes curl. Notice how a gastrique tangos the sex out of foie gras. Revel in the caramelized surface of a seared scallop, how it is like leather if leather could be shaved into sheer lingerie. Mark how sweet and tender is the skate wing. Make note of the lush and rich pan-seared fillet and the chewy Kobe short rib marinated in wine and herbs and braised until it frays into silky fibers. Bijoux is the dream weave of chef Scott Gotlich, who composes these short concertos within the context of an eight-course tasting menu, a three-course prix fixe or in à la carte fragments from the menu. He does so with such garish impeccability, you go mute from the force of it. Don't speak. Eat.
Unleash your inner gourmet with a trip to Flavors From Afar, an "interactive" food boutique where you'll learn from owners Gary and Nancy Krabill the arcane and complex art of making balsamic vinegar and quality olive oils. Did you know balsam has nothing to do with this incredible vinegar ("black gold") from Modena, Italy? The Krabills will lead you through a tasting of balsamics from the skinny 7-year-old variety to the thick and luscious 30-year-old vinegar that tastes heavenly enough to drizzle on ice cream. They'll show you how to anoint your pulse points with samples of olive oils from Tuscany, Portugal, Sicily and Napa Valley, and breathe in the aroma. Then toss back a tiny cup of the stuff and roll it around in your mouth. Hack! Hack! Astringent, a true two-cough oil. The store also stocks Italian ceramics, specialty pasta, bread dippers, pestos and grilling sauces. Don't leave before you check out the "salt bar," with smoky sea salt, Hawaiian pink, Bulgarian black and French fleur de sel. Go condiment crazy! Schedule your own tasting party. But be careful. The Krabills will tell you about their most unusual offering: a September food and wine trip to Tuscany, where you can eat and drink and harvest olives, returning home with oil made from your own efforts. That'll set you back a few bucks.
The best onion rings achieve a perfect harmony of onion, batter, grease and sauce, filling your mouth with the sweet, sweet flavor of short-order cook tears. It's almost as if you can taste the chef's hopes and dreams, and at Lee Harvey's, we taste the tears of a giver. Served thick and crunchy with a side of zesty chipotle aioli, these rings are top-notch grub, and most important, the batter holds fast to the onion, so you never end up slurping translucent cellulose and wondering what might have been. Hell, in a pinch, we'd even propose with one.
So you find yourself in Terrell. Maybe you're on your way back from First Mondays in Canton, or maybe you're on the long haul between El Paso and Longview. Either way, you're hungry and you don't want fast food. So sit down and cool your leadfoot at Carmona's Tex-Mex Cantina, right next to the Tanger Outlets. This place is famous among Terrell residents, and who doesn't want to eat where the locals eat? And there are good reasons they keep coming back: fast, friendly service; frequently replenished chips and salsa; solid Tex-Mex entrees and warm sopapillas dripping with honey.
These guys definitely have it down for pizza that's just oily and rich enough to taste great without turning into tomato soup on a tortilla. Crusts here are done the Old World way—tossed and flopped and smushed around the way dough ought to be done. It used to be called just "Brothers Pizza," but they added the "Primo" after a bunch of other brothers decided to go into the biz at various locations. Nothing against the other brothers, some of whom are pretty good too, but Primo—well, they were the first brothers. Try their calzone and stromboli too. Very delicious.
Why is it that even long-timers here don't know about Chinatown, just north of Dallas off Main Street and Greenville Avenue? Sure, it's a strip mall, but it boasts the best Asian grocery store in town, some of the best Chinese food in three states (you ain't lived till you've soaked up the garlicky, greasy goodies at Mandarin Garden, which, alas, we hear isn't as good as it used to be) and a huge row of bubble tea dispensaries. But we come up here, thanks to the advice of Royal China's owner Kai-Chi Kao, for one specific reason: the dim sum at Maxim's, which is served seven days a week—rare enough, as most Chinese restaurants bust out the dumpling, noodle and soup carts only on weekends. Do yourself a favor and make sure you order the Pu-Erh tea, which cuts the grease and keeps you from feeling a little bloated, sage advice for those who, like us, can't get enough of the shrimp-and-scallion dumplings, easily the best thing on the menu for those who like their Chinese food a little less risky. For those who do, there's the thousand-year-old-egg soup; tried it once—not bad, but never could go back for seconds. Eat, eat and eat—then wonder how your bill's only $49 for six people what with all that food.
One week a month, St. Martin's Wine Bistro, an East Dallas staple, offers a four-course dinner paired with wine for $39.95 per person. Chef Georges DuBoeuf dreams up a perfect meal: for a starter, seafood Newberg, paired with a Côtes-du-Rhône white wine. The second course: country French with herbs and apple-wood smoked bacon-infused corn cake on mixed greens, accompanied by a nice Pinot Noir. And for the entrée: tournedos of beef à la bourguignonne, au gratin potatoes and haricots verts, washed down with a Côtes-du-Rhône red; and finally, for dessert, French chocolate mousse paired with Champagne framboise. You don't have to think, just eat, which is good planning after that second glass of wine.
Here's a swell parlor game: try pairing a nice full-bodied red wine with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Notice how the tannins complement the evil darkness enshrouding the land of Hyrule; revel in how the rich ripe cassis notes harmonize with the young farm boy Link as he awakens his hero and rabid inner animal. Also, don't the subtle acids and nice long finish complement a frontal charge on the dungeon boss as you pound him with clenched fists and open-palm blows? This is just one of the culinary escapades you and your family can enjoy at Bin 555: a post-modern entertainment centaur that is half wine bar, half video smorgasbord. While you savor sips of Byron Pinot Noir, Santa Maria Valley, in between bites of rustic Italian asparagus Milanese—as dangerous as Zelda since asparagus murders red wine—your kids can savor Xbox 360, Wii and Playstation amusements in the "Kids' Lounge," or the wired play space with Net Nanny-filtered Internet access and ever-changing movie showings. It's a nutritious playground for post-toddler first adopters and midget attention span development. So while you glory in the Bin's rustic Tuscan cuisine on small plates coupled with a wine list featuring 55 bottles for $55, your kids can digest Zelda and Link. Feel the family inner animal stirring?
Ali Baba serves a succulent, melt-from-the-bone golden chicken with a spicy garlic sauce and pita bread, or you can ask for hummus instead of the garlic. If you're like us, you eat too much rotisserie chicken anyway, because you tell yourself it's not as bad as fried chicken, and that's true. And fried chicken is not as bad as fried beef. But no matter what Ali Baba's golden chicken really does for your cholesterol, it's a refreshing break for the palate—a hint of the Middle East, a whiff of barbecue, what could be better? Ali Baba has lunch hours, a midday closing and then evening hours, but it gets a little complicated. Best is to call ahead. Or live large and take a chance.
This classy neighborhood eatery turns out down-home cooking with an upscale flourish, and the menu changes with the seasons. You can count on delicious entrees such as the tender and juicy grilled pork chop, as well as unique sides like smoked Gouda grits and warm blue cheese potato salad. The salads are especially masterful. The 24 Chopped Salad, with tomatoes, shallots, blue cheese and avocado has a delectable fusion of flavors and the perfect amount of poppy-seed vinaigrette, and you can enjoy all of it in a cozy, upscale atmosphere complete with a bright mural of Lakewood on the far wall.
Some like it hot. They're sissies. We normally want our salsa spicy enough to serve as a paint stripper in a pinch. The salsa verde at Taco Diner, however, is a different animal. We're not sure exactly what they put in this magical sauce, but it's unlike any salsa we've had in Dallas, creamy smooth and iridescent green, with a tangy flavor that's great on the restaurant's mouth-watering tacos. It's flavorful enough to satisfy fans of heat, yet mild enough to appeal to even Yankee palates. Luckily, the service is top-notch, so if you want to go through four or five bowls (and you will), it's not a problem.
Among pleasures we've missed in our long adventures in gluttony is the joy of pink salt from the Himalayas. Say what? Yeah, the pink unrefined fossil marine salt formed some 200 million years ago in the mountains of the sherpas. It has a pinkish shimmer, a swell granulometry and crunch, and a slightly bitter flavor on the finish—everything you want from the pink in your life. This is just one of the many wonders to be found at Central Market Southlake's Salts of the Earth salt bar. There's hibiscus salt and salt with Mediterranean herbs, black olives and Sri Lanka curry. There's fleur de sel, hand-harvested sea salts from the Mediterranean and Atlantic. There are various grades of smoked salts, including one smoked from incinerated Chardonnay oak barrels. There are red clay salts that seal in meat juices when roasting, Hawaiian black lava salts and Cypress black sea salts with activated charcoal to provide relief from flatulence, among other things. The Central Market salt bar has 23 salts that you can taste, buy in bagged bulk or purchase in small plastic samplers if you're worried your blood pressure may launch your cerebral cortex through your nostrils. It's history, one lick at time.
If it swims, it flies. The Oceanaire has fresh fish—arctic char, Shetland Island trout, barracuda, red mullet, smoked sturgeon, thresher shark, blowfish—flown in from every conceivable global spot, including Iceland, the East Coast, New Zealand, Panama, South America and Hawaii. The menu is driven by freshness and reshuffles daily—even hourly—as the market dictates. Have your catch prepped the way you want: simply grilled, broiled, sautéed, steamed or fried. There's a raw bar jammed with marine-misted lobsters, crab, clams and shrimp; an oyster selection of Wellfleets from Massachusetts, Malpeques from Prince Edward Island and Kumamotos from Oregon, or whatever else can catch flight. No other Dallas restaurant does seafood as varied or as fresh or racy and unbridled. And so far it seems no one ever will.
For much of the last couple of decades, two sisters "of a certain age" have been serving meatloaf and attitude to customers at competing diners. In the process they have won fans and even a bit of fame. Barbara Woodley, 70, in her signature oversized sunglasses, works the crowd at Mama's Daughter's Diner, while little sis Natalie, 66, in oversized barrel-curl up-do, serves the masses at nearby Original Market Diner. The fare is similar at both spots: chicken-fried steak, mac and cheese, biscuits and gravy, etc., but the girls are definitely different. Everyone agrees that Barbara is the more conservative sister, while Natalie is the more flamboyant. Both have legions of admirers who eat with them daily. Expect a wait if you want to sit in either of their sections and also expect to hear their banter dotted with "hon" or "darlin'" or "sweetheart." The girls are comfortable financially, but both have decided not to give up their day jobs. Lucky for us. Big smiles. Big hair. Big hearts. Come on, who doesn't need to be called "hon" every once in a while?
There's a reason why, shortly before this writing, Rudy Mikula was poached from Nove Italiano by Consilient Restaurants to become wine and beverage director for Hibiscus, among other Consilient duties. No surprise. Mikula is a walking comfort zone, a wine geek whose easy style and bone-dry wit melts inhibitions, making diners susceptible to Mikula's unique brand of vino evangelism. Listen to him. He plumbs and probes for the world's great sacramental blessings like the best of them. He'll pour you sips of his favorites. Like a particular wine and want to avoid the painful restaurant mark-up flaying? He'll soak off the label and secure it in a Ziploc so you can bring your bagged prize to your favorite retailer. Mikula is an intensely sincere steward, at once discerning, eager and shrewd. He'll usurp your finger and lovingly lug it through the wine list, helping you pinpoint the hidden ones that won't scare the Quicken out of you. If he can do this with Italian wines, with all of their confounding indigenous grapes and regional obscurities, imagine what craftiness he'll pull with the far more mainstream Hibiscus list. Just wait. And watch.
Because it's considered a simple tomato soup, people tend to think gazpacho is easy to make. So wrong. Often you order the cold Spanish dish only to be served a bowl of chopped tomatoes, onions and peppers, as if they can just whip up some pico de gallo and change the name. RJ's gazpacho is the real deal, though, a cool, refreshing blend of tomato, cucumber, bell pepper, Spanish onion, cilantro and Haas avocados. It has just enough spice and soupiness and exactly the right amount of garlic, which let's face it, is the most important of all.
Big slabs of red beef alive with juice and char are the essence of Dallas cuisine. Diners full of lust and sweat and drool are the essence of the Dallasite. All of this is found in a maze-chambered dining room appointed with meticulous elegance for the indulgence of the well-appointed paunch. Pappas' prime meat is dry-aged, hung out to dry for 28 days (or so) to maliciously extract the deep rich flavors and heighten the impact of its evenly distributed fat. Natural enzymes break down connective tissues, creating a sublime cut—rich, silky, seasoned simply but with mind-bending effectiveness. The nutty dry-aged finish elegantly unravels and loiters with exquisite persistence, loosening only when sluiced with a strapping, gripping Cabernet or one of those assertive Australian Shirazes. So pass the bacon-wrapped scallops, some turtle gumbo, the thick asparagus needles and maybe a few lettuce wedge layers. Meat lust must be tempered. Then again, you may choose to lose consciousness in a fit of carnivorous bliss.
The minute you take your first bite of a Jimmy's Italian sub, you realize what all those chain places are trying to do but don't. Jimmy's uses the best capicola, mortadella, provolone, pepperoni and Genoa salami with finely diced fresh lettuce, cherry peppers and Jimmy's own secret sauce all on fresh white or wheat loaf. It's fresh, sure, but you know what else it is that's a good idea for an Italian sub? Italian. You can drop by Jimmy's and pick one up to go or grab a little table and eat it there. Word of advice, though? It's not what you'd call a fast food place.
As sushi restaurants spread like black mold across DFW, blooming in strip malls and grocer cases, transforming sushi rolls from the exotic to the silly (with names like crazy, mermaid, grasshopper), rolled with fake shellfish, it's easy to forget that sushi is an art form rendered from precisely forged steel, years of drilling and the rigors of near insane meticulousness. Such craft is articulated at Yutaka—in the smooth cool hamachi, shedding its nutty layers as each strip of fish fumigates the mouth with its clean marine scents; in the octopus so delicately sliced you can almost feel the weave of the flesh as it unravels in the jaws; in the slightly roughened, shimmering uni; in the squid that feels like a piece of perfectly cooked rigate once it passes between the lips. This sushi is so ripe with tenderness, so discreet in revealing the savagely honed technique and relentless spirit that wrought it, you almost forget this is sushi—a craft slapped so senseless by its commercial ubiquity that it may as well be a glazed doughnut.
True story: A cupcake fell on the floor in a friend's kitchen. We were busy cleaning up the icing mess, while the majority of the cake carnage lay in a heap on the counter. The husband walked in. "What happened?" "Cupcake casualty." "How long was it down?" "More than 5 seconds." "Where's it from?" "Delicious Cakes." "I'm all over that." He scooped up the broken mound and savored it with reverence due a sacred relic. We've since experienced the Delicious Cakes greatness at a wedding and two other special events. Every time the baked creations have been perfectly moist and light, with just the right amount of icing—never any sugary overkill. The name seems simple and presumptuous, but it's an astute description of what the bakery has to offer in various forms (wedding, bridal, groom, personal party and bundt). Recommended flavors included Italian cream, red velvet, Mexican chocolate and fresh strawberry.
Like other cuisines—Italian and Chinese creep to mind—unearthing good Thai can be confounding. It can be listless. It can be sloppy. It can be uninspiring. Royal Thai shakes up the ennui, not only with fresh cuisine, but with its Thai elegance and sophisticated staging that includes a wine list fraught with clear thinking (acid lush whites and reds along with the usual Chard-Cab brigade). Tom kha gai, a soup of galangal, coconut milk, chicken, mushrooms, lemongrass, kaffir lime and chilies is an opus of tart and spicy. Tender, juicy satay begs for dunks in an appropriately spicy peanut sauce (these choosy mothers didn't choose Jif!). Salads, like the searing yahm plah meuk with calamari, lemongrass, mint and lime, or the brisk chicken lahb bedded on clean iceberg lettuce shreds, can be meals, humming as they do with flavor you can feel all the way down to your hangnails. Smooth curries are here, as are the whole fried fishes (cat and snapper), battered and brittle and moist and spiced like the best of them. Which they are.
The atmosphere at this spacious restaurant is both relaxed and elegant, with simple black décor that makes the enormous crystal chandelier hanging from the middle of the ceiling pop. Yet the prices are fairly low, with tasty wonton and eggroll appetizers at $3 to $5 and noodles, stir-fries and Thai curry dishes for $8 to $10. The Massaman red curry is fantastic, as is the spicy peanut sauce and cashew stir-fry. The owners also have a humanitarian component to their business plan—according to their menu and Web site, one penny of each dollar spent is donated to the global, New York-based Hunger Project.
Atop a lunch line tray sits a simple work of gastronomical delight. Delicate, crispy crust (the best kind if you ask us) spread with a thin layer of pesto bright with basil and just a touch on the salty side. Fresh mozzarella is ooey gooey in an intimate cuddle with a diced trio of red onion, grilled chicken breast and fresh tomato. The edge pieces of the thin, rectangular pie are sparse on melty goo, so you have a retreat from the middle, more heavily topped squares. It is, dare we say, a perfect exercise in balance. Scalini's neighborhood joint already had us for its dark, friendly retreat-like atmosphere, but it keeps us coming for the pesto pizza.
In our vegetarian phases, the thing we missed the most was breakfast meats. While we've still never met a truly satisfying bacon replacement, the faux breakfast sausage is doable. Even then, it's difficult to find at restaurants—unless you're at Buzzbrews Kitchen. This tiny shoebox of a diner, nestled in a motel parking lot, offers veggie sausage as an alternative to the delicious but dead pork flesh on most of its plates. Not a fan of meat analogs? Try the Hare Krishna—a breakfast of eggs stuffed with avocadoes, covered in cheese and served with "garlic marbles" (small seasoned potatoes) and grilled tomato.
If you need a break from the corporate humdrum and find yourself craving some killer meat-free food in a Zen atmosphere, this isn't just your best bet, it may be your only one. The atmosphere is decidedly bright and colorful, with a building reminiscent of a Buddhist temple, complete with prayer flags, Krishna statuettes and brightly painted walls. There are hearty soups, appetizers like hummus and samosas and a well-rounded menu of "big-bang entrees." You can't go wrong with the Cosmic Stir, a tofu and vegetable stirfry, or the Socrates Plato, a pile of flavorful portobella mushrooms over basmati rice. It all comes with naan, a fluffy and delectable Indian bread, and you can select a refreshing herbal cooler or hot chai tea to accompany this meditative smorgasbord of culinary bliss.
Like any good ethnic restaurant, Quán Kiên Giang has a near inscrutable menu; one that helpfully offers color photos embedded in the plastic-coated, spiral-bound menu. Here you'll note spring rolls as plump and virile as kielbasa; stir-fried Alaskan crab, red and bulbous; pinwheels of stir-fried frog legs dipped in fish sauce; and catfish steaks in a clay pot. On the table you'll see the pho ensemble. Pho, the traditional Vietnamese beef rice noodle soup, is served with a plate of vibrant multi-leafed stalks of basil, crisp bean sprouts, thin slices of jalapeño and half a lime, plump and dripping. Its broth is rich, the beef as thin and puckered as seersucker, the noodles separate and tender. Squirt bottles of sriracha, chili sauce and hoisin sauce saddle up for more intensity. Charred beef is served over tender rice noodle cakes hugging a mound of mint leaves topped with slivered carrot, cucumber and jicama. Ladle the strong fish sauce condiment over all of it and watch the rice drink it in as it adds an extracted fishmonger fume and tangy bite. In the dining room you'll see streamers and a mirror ball hovering over high-backed chairs upholstered in patterned bordello red. Their motto: "In order to respond affection and enthusiastic support from you, we have been using up ability, 5-year experience to serve you with satisfied and delicious meals." Because ultimately, a meal that isn't satisfied isn't worth the plate it is written on.
Friendly, curvy waitresses in tiny outfits are hardly a unique restaurant theme. Or a good one, honestly. But if you like Hooters, you're going to love this place. Why? Hi-def plasma TVs on the wall. Free wireless Internet. Expansive menu. Modern music. And, most important, hard liquor. Look, it's your choice. But if it's batter-fried chicken wings and a pitcher of flat beer served by a girl in pantyhose to the beat of Mack Rice's "Mustang Sally" vs. pulled pork nachos and a vodka tonic delivered by a girl in a lumberjack flannel midriff top to the beat of U2's "Beautiful Day," then, really, do you have to choose? Use your imagination and you can probably come up with two bigger reasons.
A winery inside the city limits? Times Ten Cellars is the venture of three men, Christopher Lawler, Rob Wilson and Kert Platner, who took their love of wine to the next level and beyond. Walk through the wine-tasting rooms decorated with an eclectic mix of modern and antique furniture and local art and check out the barrel room where the trio makes wine from grapes grown at vineyards in California and, starting this year, at their 100-acre Cathedral Mountain Vineyard near Alpine. When the right moment of perfect fermentation arrives, a mobile unit backs up to the building, an old post office, and the bottling begins. The bottles get labeled—all the labels feature different chairs, the better to imply a relaxing experience—and are served either in four-wine tastings or single glasses. Visit Times Ten Cellars before dinner for an appetizer such as pâté, gourmet cheeses and smoked salmon, or visit after dinner for wine and desserts made by Doughmonkey. On a recent Saturday night, the place was hopping with wine lovers there for the select wines by the glass or bottle, all half-price.
DRINK ME. EAT ME. These are the words Alice confronts down the rabbit hole. All of the other thickly woven strands of logic and nonsense and satire and the criminal court packed with cards are mere Wonderland sideshows. Just after Alice falls down the rabbit hole, she finds a bottle with a paper label marked DRINK ME in large, beautiful letters. She examines the bottle, and after noticing it has no warnings or impenetrable child safety caps, she opens the bottle and drinks. She savors the complexity of the bouquet and palate as it courses through essences of cherry tart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, toffee and hot buttered toast. She finishes it off. "What a curious feeling," she says. Next she stumbles upon a small cake. The cake is marked with the words EAT ME scrawled in currants. She finishes that off too.
When you boil it down, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is little more than a gourmand guide.
One Arts Plaza breathes a similar essence; it's a kind of rabbit hole in reverse, a retreat from the typical downtown netherworld of empty retrofitted old buildings and sterile, glassy new ones. The 24-story, $150 million structure rests on the eastern edge of the Dallas Arts District. It has spaces for retailing and dining. It has expansive office space, 68 plush modern residences and a six-story cube traced in lights to illuminate the outline of its penthouses. The cube can be programmed to display colors and patterns—a ticking clock for instance. To mark teatime.
One Arts Plaza is the new U.S. corporate headquarters for Southland Corp., the mother ship of 7-Eleven convenience stores. Taking shape in its front yard will be the Winspear Opera House, the City Performance Hall and the Wyly Theatre plus Booker T. Washington High School.
"Piazza is not a real Texas word," developer Lucy Billingsley of the Billingsley Development Co. says. Yet a piazza it will have. It's filled with fountains and green spaces. It will be threaded with caricature artists, mimes and saxophone players, species that are as foreign to downtown Dallas as talking caterpillars and dancing lobsters are to English pubs.
"What we've got the chance to do here is to create a downtown place for humanity," Billingsley says. "I've been calling it the living room of the arts district. I should be saying it's the dining room for downtown Dallas."
EAT ME, DRINK ME blooms. This fall, One Arts Plaza will introduce a strange troika of restaurants. These will not have cherry tarts, roasted turkey or pineapple. But they will have niche wines from all over the world, pot pies, signature mint juleps and soba noodles.
Enter former actor and famed restaurateur Paul Pinnell, last of Nana atop the Hilton Anatole. Pinnell will introduce Dali Wine Bar & Cellar, where California wine country cuisine will blend with contemporary urban food. Café Italia founder Scott Jones and former Melrose executive chef Joel Harloff will open Screen Door, a contemporary take on classic dishes from Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and the Carolinas. Indirectly launched from Tokyo, Tei An will also take shape in the plaza. It's a soba noodle emporium from Tei Tei Robata Bar and Teppo creator Teiichi Sakurai.
Sakurai studied at Tokyo's Tsukiji Soba Academy to master the art of crafting buckwheat soba noodles by hand. "Handmade soba is very fashionable in Tokyo right now," Sukurai says. He notes Southland CEO Toshifumi Suzuki is an avid soba noodle aficionado, thus making Tei An in One Arts Plaza hand-in-glove snug.
Named after Wonderland-ish artist Salvador Dali, Dali Wine Bar & Cellar aims to turn wine bar rituals, as they have been practiced in Dallas, on their ear. Dali will house a custom wine cellar designed to mimic the sensuality of floating Champagne bubbles. The bar itself will be illuminated from within to fill the glassware with light. Thus the serious geek can gauge wine color and clarity. Rather than a parade of pricey brand names from California and France, Dali will feature elusive wines at approachable prices.
Designed to mimic a thoroughly modernized Southern mansion, Screen Door will take Southern staples and breathe into them Euro-style vivacity.
But what is DRINK ME, EAT ME without some SEE ME, especially in Dallas? Praeda Ultra Lounge, a private VIP room-laden night club by former Candle Room manager Aaron Latus, will feature a 360-degree viewing screen with projectors that can scan your visage and insert it in the middle of the Sahara desert, a sloshing ocean or in free fall from a cliff. Also gracing Praeda will be a massive aquarium stocked with sharks. The creatures. The looking glass. The Clock. The drink and cake.
When Alice drinks from that bottle, she shrinks down to 10 inches. When she finishes off the cake, she grows so tall her feet disappear from view. Distraught at the disappearance of her feet, she sheds gallons of tears. Hence Alice personifies Dallas. For who among us doesn't sob out a full reflecting pool when we can't see our Jimmy Choos and Guccis? — Mark Stuertz
Thai noodle houses and sushi bars are popping up around Dallas as if this were California or something. But Asian Mint is a different kind of café. The atmosphere is modern and bright, stylish with nary a travel poster in sight. The fusion cuisine leans toward Thai, with Chinese dishes second. But whatever the dish, it's reinterpreted in way that brings out subtle flavors that can sometimes get overwhelmed in hot and spicy dishes. Asian Mint's specialty is usually ignored by most Vietnamese and Thai restaurants: dessert pastries married to Asian flavors, like green tea ice cream cake and pa tong ko, Asian beignets. Try the jasmine crème brûlée. Heaven.
While men on stage blow altos and beat snare heads, women and children moisten their lips in crawfish etouffee with a creamy sassafras sauce. Their lips purse. Their eyes close. Their jaws do an Elvis swivel. Why is this so ridiculously good? Is it the perfect cook-down of onions and celery and peppers blended into roux? Is it the serrations of cayenne left on the tongue as the silken stew rolls down the throat? Is it the plump tight curls of crawdad tail? This etouffee has terrific balance that leaves the mouth pulsing and then quickly, somehow, lets it reset, readying for the next spoonful. It's nutrition for jazz ears.
Africans eat here—from both north and south. Middle Easterners eat here. On Sunday, you'll find an after-church Anglo crowd. During Ramadan, the place packs at sundown for multi-course specials. What brings these disparate populations together is Moroccan home cooking in the form of rich, warmly spiced stews, or tagines, and excellent couscous and kebab dishes. The proprietors are exceptionally welcoming; everyone feels comfortable at one of the booths or metal tables, housed in what used to be a 7-Eleven store (a recent re-decoration has exorcised most of the convenience-store vibe). We love the royal couscous and its mélange of earthy flavors: roasted vegetables, couscous steamed in broth and a tender braised lamb shank. Kasbah is also one of the few places in the area where you can get the traditional Moroccan dish bastella, which is a phyllo-dough pastry concoction with ground chicken, eggs and almonds topped with a sprinkling of powdered sugar and cinnamon. C'mon, there's a reason why it's a national delicacy; this odd mingling of flavors somehow creates an exotically spiced, savory whole. All this, plus there's a good chance you'll get out of here for $10 a person or less.
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