Sides are usually buried on some lower quadrant of the menu, only noticed after every appetizer has been fawned over and every entrée debated. Only when a particularly hungry member of a dining party asks, “Do you think we should get something for the table to share?” do eyes turn…
For whatever reason, desserts are very much an afterthought in discussions about chef-driven cuisine. Savory chefs get plenty of creative for their innovative uses of meat and veg, but it is less often that we see praise for the enterprising pastry chefs that create the perfect endings to those meals…
This weekend, the folks at Tupps Brewery in McKinney opened their doors for the first time. For those who live in the northern suburbs, Tupps provides a family-friendly place to drink craft beer while you teach your 8-year-old the bimini ring toss game. Tupps is located next to the historic…
Me, your mother, that frickin’ grabowski over there, and those other asswipes are goin’ ta Gino’s fer a nice deep dish dinner, ya know? That’s just how Chicagoans talk; it’s been widely documented. Luckily, and educationally, the installation of Gino’s East Chicago Pizzeria, off of I-30 near Six Flags and…
Michelle learned to love ramen as a teenager, growing up in Singapore and traveling around Asia with her family. Brian is newer to the scene: He didn’t even try instant ramen in college. Together, they’re hunting for DFW’s best ramen. The Shop: Chino Chinatown The Atmosphere: Yuppie fusion chic. Chino…
Today is Cinco de Mayo, but you already knew that. Not because you’re some kind of expert in Mexican history, but because you really, really like to drink. In this fair city, we celebrate this joyous occasion in the most American way possible, by ignoring Mexico’s history and tradition in…
If there is one thing you need to know about CiboDivino it’s that they aren’t serving Neapolitan pizzas like they claim. I mean this as a compliment, really; Dallas already has enough “authentic” Italian pizza, and it was time for something new to spin through the air. What’s most important…
Campestre Chula Vista, in Fort Worth, is a massive ode to Michoacan cooking, the work of the same guys that brought you Revolver Taco and are expected to open a new restaurant in Deep Ellum later this year. The Deep Ellum location is still a ways off, though, and back…
Strip malls are the stigmata of suburbia: bland architecture filled with non-descript businesses that you only patronize because they’re convenient to your dull drive home. When space aliens first land in the suburbs, they’ll assume we’re a species that loves donuts and manicures and lacks the ability to do our…
We’ve been pretty hype about the restaurants opening at Sylvan Thirty, the brand-new, multipurpose development just south of Downtown, and for good reason. In just the last few months, a great creperie has opened, Teiichi Sakurai started serving up reasonably-priced (and stellar) ramen, and there are plenty more planned for…
All that has been written about Heim Craft Barbecue in Near Southside Fort Worth to this point has buried the lede. Sure, the brisket, smoky with a pitch black bark, might be better than Pecan Lodge’s. Do not sauce Heim’s brisket. And, sure, the line outside the black trailer in…
If you’re like me, you left your recent visit to The Cultured Cup in an upbeat mood, with a bag of Don Fang Mei Ren in your hands and the hopes of finding stone fruits in the bottom of your next cup of oolong tea. But at home you read…
If you doubt for a second why Afrah is building a massive, new restaurant right next door to the original in Richardson, you only need to show up on a sunny day during buffet service. The lunch buffet is a long-standing tradition in office-worker, daytime-calorie maximization, but what happens at…
CocoAndre is a shop on West Davis Street in Oak Cliff that sells all manner of chocolate. Like many chocolate shops, you can get fancy chocolate bars studded with nuts or fruit or both. You can also get tiny truffles in no fewer than one million flavors. CocoAndre also sells…
Dallas debatably has a handful of celebrity chefs: Dean Fearing and Stephan Pyles, the two founding fathers of Southwestern cuisine, along with the notoriously cranky John Tesar of Knife, among others. Yet among these luminaries’ elite culinary training and their restaurants’ $$$ and $$$$ price ranges, there’s a chef in…
“What is that abomination that looks like your kid dropped it on the garage floor?” Aside from the abomination part, I’d have a hard time disagreeing with the comment left on my Blue Bell alternatives post. The ice cream creation pictured above may have many desirable attributes, but beauty is…
Sriracha, the pleasantly spicy chili concoction, has lost much of its underground cool by going corporate. Global bread landfill Subway even offers its own wretched spin on the stuff as an option to slop across whichever sandwich your depression has driven you to eat, goblin-like, on any particular day of…
It isn’t easy to gulp down a drink that is literally designed to punch you in the face, but it is always so very worth it. Cocktails like the Negroni have introduced me into this entire new world of drinking, even if I did have to choke down the first…
The first rule of Ten Bells Tavern is: You should actually really talk about Ten Bells Tavern. There’s the smoky, saucy wings studded with blue cheese, the woodsy patio (complete with roving, fuzzy cats), the focused beer menu, and the new-Star Wars-trailer-good short rib fries. Ten Bells Tavern has won…
I’ve never met a luchador in real life, but I’ve read a little about them. And after drinking a few beers for this story, I feel as though that’s plenty to make me an expert. The stories I’ve read tell of two-faced men, quiet and reserved in the real world,…
There were rows and rows of food and booze at the Dallas Observer’s Iron Fork event at Fair Park’s Centennial Hall last night, but the chef competition was easily the best part, aside from drunkenly taking ridiculous photos in the photo booth. This year, two-year reigning champ Matt McCallister of…
Every year I get to Iron Fork, the Dallas Observer’s annual tasting event, as soon as the doors open, I do my best to eat everything available and pick my top bites. I’m always pretty sleepy after the event, but this year’s featured more restaurants than any year before it…
