Best Park Building 2007 | Big Thicket Recreation Building, White Rock Lake East Lawther toward the Mockingbird Lane end of the lake, across from the Corinthian Sailing Club | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
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Best Park Building

Big Thicket Recreation Building, White Rock Lake East Lawther toward the Mockingbird Lane end of the lake, across from the Corinthian Sailing Club

The Big Thicket Recreation Building, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, is a classic example of "WPA Rustic" architecture, made of natural materials and designed to meld handsomely into a natural setting. It was in pretty tough shape a few years ago when Home Depot and the all-volunteer Friends of the Lake took on the task of restoring it. They replaced a wrap-around porch and persuaded the grandson of the original artisan to come back and replace the light fixtures, among other tasks. This year the building won an award from Preservation Texas. You can rent it for about 60 bucks an hour by calling the number above. Holds about 50 people. Great place for a party.

Best Patio

Iron Cactus

This downtown rooftop is a must for anyone who enjoys fresh air and quality tequila. As the business day winds down in the summertime, the bar fills and the Herradura starts to flow in time with the large fountain near the stairwell. The place has more than 80 types of Mexican tequila. To sample it, order the tequila flight, three half-ounce glasses of silver, reposado and anejo. The names are as rich as the tastes: Cabo Wabo, El Conquistador, Corazon, Don Julio. And if you're not up for the straight shots, there's a wide selection of margaritas. They've got all the usual fruity varieties, but our favorite is the Cactus Juice, with Midori melon liqueur and blue curacao. Just watch your step on the way down the stairs at the end of the evening.

Best Place for a Kids' Party

Ridgewood/Belcher Recreation Center

Ridgewood Splash Park is one of the few public places in Dallas (besides your garden hose) to cool off for free. True, you can't practice your backstroke, but you also don't have to worry about your kids wandering off and drowning, or teenagers doing annoying cannonballs onto your head. Though the park is obviously geared toward kiddos, we saw several adults enjoying the cooling ground and arch sprays while their tots frolicked nearby. An adjacent playground and covered pavilion with picnic tables offer shade and entertainment for kids who don't want to get wet. But honestly, what kid doesn't want to get wet? Stake out your party table early (the park opens at 10 a.m. May through September) as the park can get crowded in the hot midday hours.

Best Place to Camp

Cedar Hill State Park

You can shut out the hum of Interstate 20 in the distance and pretend you're ensconced in an urban prairie wilderness at Cedar Hill State Park, situated on Joe Pool Lake. Some parts of the 1,800-acre park, such as historic Penn Farm, have swaths of prairie grass like the area's earliest settlers would have found. The biggest attraction here, though, is the more than 350 wooded campsites, perfect for a quick retreat from city life. The state park also features mountain bike and hiking trails, swimming in Joe Pool Lake and fishing, which is free with state park admission. (Not that we've ever caught anything.) Oh, and the occasional tarantula or scorpion.

Best Place to Catch a Yankee Game

The Ballpark at Arlington

So much for those who root, root, root for the home team. There's a reason why Yankee fans call Arlington the West Bronx. Not only do the New York Yankees almost always win here, they do so in front of adoring fans dressed in Yankee pinstripes. Typically, when the Yankees play the Rangers, there are about twice as many fans of the away team as there are of the home team, and that ratio only increases every time a Rangers pitcher gives up another home run. It can be a little unsettling actually, watching and hearing Derek Jeter et al. garner lusty cheers each time they drive another runner home, but then again you can't blame the Rangers fans for staying quiet. They haven't exactly had a lot to cheer for recently. But hey, at least they don't have to drive to the Bronx to catch their team.

Best Place to Improvise

Ad-Libs

Ella Wheeler Wilcox's quote began, "Laugh, and the world laughs with you." At Ad-Libs, it would be more appropriate to say, "Laugh, and it's probably because you suggested a topic, the cast took it and ran and turned out something sidesplitting that no one was expecting." Such is the magic of improvisational comedy. So often, we flip channels and hit Whose Line Is It Anyway? (British and American versions) and end up glad Dallas has its own live version just downtown...and since 1986. The cast includes voice actors of kick-ass cartoons and a guy who actually worked with Charles Nelson Reilly (God rest his brilliant soul). The shows are high-energy and pretty painful considering the ab workout from laughing so hard for an hour and a half. Director Phil Larsson says more than 750,000 audience members have provided funny fodder and laughed at the cast of Ad-Libs. If we didn't tell you it's worthy entertainment, that number should. Anybody got a line?

Best Place to Pretend You're in Vegas

Grand Lux Café at the Galleria

As soon as you walk through the enormous double doors, you may as well be at the Venetian in Vegas. In fact, that's where the flagship location is. The restaurant is designed to evoke the opulent Old World cafes of France and Italy, which fits well with the Galleria, which was modeled after a center in Milan. Yet this is a quintessentially American restaurant, just as Vegas is a quintessentially American creation. The portions are vast, as is the dining room, with high, sweeping ceilings, elaborate fabrics and mosaics in the style of a Venetian carnival. Surrounded by marble and well-dressed folks toting shopping bags, it's easy to pretend you're on the strip, making your way from the Venetian to the Bellagio.

Best Place to Shoot a Bride

Wooden Bridge, Lakeside Park

Photographers love this verdant spot overlooking Turtle Creek. Magic time for photography on the pretty wooden bridge in Lakeside Park is just before sunset. With the sky lit up with streaks of pink and orange behind the cottonwood trees, a light breeze off the water gently ruffling hair and veil, brides strike portrait poses that will fill family scrapbooks. On almost any clear night, joggers and walkers at this busy park have to detour around young ladies in flowing white gowns, standing like beautiful apparitions above the water. That's OK. They perfectly complement the azaleas and water lilies.

Best Place to Spot a Cougar

Dragonfly at Hotel ZaZa

At the Dragonfly, a poolside bar at Hotel ZaZa, located on the edge of Uptown, cougars roam wild, relentlessly stalking their prey. There, dressed in short skirts, barely longer than a Post-It note, and blouses exposing everything but the nipple, the over-tanned cougar chats idly with her friends until a young male, typically dressed in pleated khakis and a sleeveless tee, wanders near her den. Then she'll strike, typically with an alluring look or a coy joke delivered through her whisky-soaked pipes and the young man is unable to resist her charms, unluckily oblivious to the aged hide of the cougar, thanks to the soft lighting that barely pokes through the evening air.

Best Place to Take the Marquis de Sade

The Libertine Bar

Are you morally unrestrained? Do you believe in extreme freedom? Can you defy social and religious norms? Above all, might you love gourmet macaroni and cheese? If so, you're probably a libertine, which means you should drink at the Libertine Bar with your libertine friends, ordering copious amounts of delicious Fin du Monde beer. The Lower Greenville outpost, founded by the owners of the equally impressive Meridian Room, features a debauched European theme complete with a giant painting of a naked girl, an extensive collection of specialty beers and some of the highest quality bar food a liberated soul could want. And since the bar's name sounds like something out of history class, indeed, because it is something out of history class, the clientele tends to be a little more intellectual than, say, the ones doing tequila shots down the street at the Tiger Room. Vive la revolution!

Best Of Dallas®

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