Best Place to Live in Plano 2004 | Eastside Village | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
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Best Place to Live in Plano

Eastside Village

Lofts in Plano? Strange but true. Eastside Village offers apartment living above street-level retail shops in the middle of "historic" downtown Plano. The nearby DART station makes zipping to work in downtown Dallas or Mockingbird Station for a movie at the Angelika a breeze. Residents can walk to nearby restaurants, bars, a small farmers market and antique stores, and the ArtCentre of Plano and two theaters are within strolling distance. The apartments range in size from efficiencies with 466 square feet, lofts with 700 square feet to two-bedrooms with 1,300 square feet finished in urban style, with high ceilings, hardwood floors and interior brick walls. Our favorite amenity isn't found in too many urban settings: a courtyard filled with hammocks. Still, the idea that you don't need a car to live in Plano is revolutionary.

Best Mini-Museum

Condom Sense

We're way too young to remember when there were no vibrators, only "massagers," and no condoms, just "prophylactics." We suppose that it's just a nitpicky matter of terminology, but a visit to Condom Sense's antique massager and prophylactic display reminds us of a more discreet time. Before Trojan Twisted Pleasure Condoms, men carried Sheik Rubber Prophylactics. Before the Rabbit Pearl, women relied on Dr. Macaura's Blood Circulator or the Handy Hannah massager to "relax tired muscles." The collection also includes items distributed to servicemen, such as booklets on the dangers of unprotected sex, matchbooks with the reminder "V.D. can be prevented" and the Dough Boy Prophylactic Kit. One of our favorites is the 1930s-era Texide Rubber Sheaths--the box depicts helpful natives tapping rubber trees (thanks, guys!). We doubt you'll find anyone to custom-make your rubbers nowadays, but while you're sneaking a peek at the old stuff, you can discreetly pick up some, uh, modern protection.

Best Line Overheard in a Bar

Republic

Overheard from a conversation between two women standing at the bar on a Tuesday evening: "I'm just gonna have one drink. I don't have the breasts to hang out here."

Best Nature Outing

Dallas Arboretum

Courtesy Dallas Arboretum

It is a little slice of heaven in our urban hell, isn't it? The Dallas Arboretum with 66 acres of variously manicured green spaces and forest-y wilderness, plus 11 display gardens, which bloom and change with the seasons. The Arboretum is a "let the kids run wild" place, and stay-at-home moms use it liberally for those summer afternoons when the only alternative activity for a houseful of kids is homicide. For more things to do, adjacent White Rock Lake offers practically limitless venues, and under calmer adult supervision, kids can fish, feed the ducks, bike, bird-watch, paddle and sail. There are six great playgrounds and Dallas' first dog park. The Arboretum and White Rock Lake may actually be the best place to abandon your children for short stretches while you regain your parental sanity.

Readers' Pick

White Rock Lake

Best Place for a Kid's Party

Gymboree

Guess it depends on the kid, doesn't it? A 9-year-old certainly isn't going to be swinging from a miniature jungle gym or crawling through a Technicolor tunnel--and if he or she is, we're really sorry. So if the kid's older, maybe you oughta think about SpeedZone or Stone Works Climbing Gym or Dave & Buster's. But if you're needing a place to entertain a bunch of really young ones, between the ages of 1 and 4, there's no better place than Gymboree, which you can rent out for a party and not have to worry about the cleanup later. One of their instructors will lead Mommy and Daddy and the young pup through an hour's worth of activities, including everything from a little Hokey Pokey to games beneath the parachute. You can then retire to a smaller room for cupcakes and other goodies, and there's always the goody bag you get on your way out that usually has a coupon for a hefty discount at one of Gymboree's clothing establishments, which comes in handy after your child rips his pants at a Gymboree birthday party.

Readers' Pick

Chuck E. Cheese's

Various locations

Best Bar

Sense

At some point, people in this city must come to terms with pretension. It works both ways, you know. Denizens of downscale hangouts such as Duke's or Champps scorn people decked in the latest Michael Kors. Folks slurping drinks at Republic or other Uptown joints refuse to accept guys with shirts tucked in. The infamous membership list at Sense is just another way to define the audience. What makes this place a great bar is the vibe. In many bars, friends enter in pairs or groups and form separate fortresses throughout the room. At Sense, people mingle--as individuals or groups. Suburbanites chat with Uptown types, professionals with students, white with black. Even birthday gatherings with reserved seating invite strangers to join in. The list (if your name's not on the clipboard, entry can be a bit more challenging) generates that vibe: Insiders accept other patrons equally, simply because they entered the room. By setting itself up as a pretentious place, Sense created the least conceited atmosphere. Can't get on the list? 'Bout time you ditched the old tank top and khakis.

Best Euro-Style Neighborhood Hang

Nodding Dog Coffee Co.

On a picturesque little corner in Bishop Arts, with a generous awning over the sidewalk and small round tables inside and out, Nodding Dog is a sophisticated hang-out for Cliffies and their dogs--a place whose every battered folding chair and aging sofa calls out for you to take a load off, sip some java and relax. The name is apt: Watch this place long enough, and you will pick up the pattern. First the dogs begin to nod off. Not too much later, their masters start to droop and snuffle in the midafternoon quiet. Where else can you do that? Fall asleep at a table on Lower Greenville and Avi Adelman will put a picture of you on his Web site! Not so Nodding Dog--the epitome of life on the cooler side of the river.

Best Dance Club

Lizard Lounge

For thumping beats and bangin' bodies, the Lizard Lounge is the still-reigning king of the Dallas dance scene. For one, some of the country's hottest DJs spin here when they come through town, and house DJs include such Zen masters as DJ Merritt, host of 102.1's legendary Edge Club, and drum 'n' bass maestro DJ Titan. For another, the place is usually packed--the young, the younger and the just barely legal show their moves (and their midriffs) on the humid dance floor. Third, Lizard Lounge is host to both "Neo Gothic Industrial Electro Crash" nights and the Porn Star Ball. Finally, a place to wear our pasties and our black nail polish.

Readers' Pick

W.W. Fairfields

147 N. Plano Road, Richardson

972-231-3844

Best Jukebox

Lakewood Landing

Lauren Drewes Daniels

Of the many reasons to love the Landing--the dark wood, the great blue cheese-and-bacon burgers, the cold bottled beer, the no-nonsense bartenders and waitstaff--its jukebox is certainly one of the top three. Yes, it has plenty of cool, funky youngsters, and it has lots of old-school country, à la George Jones. It has a great sampling of rock and/or roll, it has Elvis, it has it all. But most of all it has the seemingly never-ending wails of the late, great Johnny Cash, and hearing "Ring of Fire" belt out of the Landing around midnight is one of the truest East Dallas experiences that can be had.

Readers' Pick

Cosmo's Bar and Lounge

1212 Skillman St.

214-826-4200

Best Things That Go Buzz in the Night

Passion Parties with Andrea Spencer

Stuck at that in-between age where we're old enough to have purchasing power but not old enough to want to go to Tupperware parties, we revel in Passion Parties' slightly naughty in-home presentations. The women-only party begins with the "sensual" products--romantic body lotions, massage oils, a "Bed of Roses" rose petal kit. As the evening progresses, the featured items are less bath time and more battery-powered. The hands-on approach (products are passed around for all the guests to examine) makes even novices in the world of "novelty items" feel at ease, and the product names--Chocolate Thriller, Glow Boy, Honey Dipper--always elicit a few giggles. And when we held a $140 multispeed, pearl-filled, vibrating, rotating, "top of the line" contraption, we realized that, until that moment, we didn't know what we'd been missing.

Best Of Dallas®

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