The Rise of the Il Cane Rosso Empire

Pegasus News reports this morning that Il Cane Rosso is putting down roots in Deep Ellum. Owner Jay Jerrier couldn’t be reached for comment, but Teresa Gubbins has posted a photo of the tip-off TABC window sign at 2612 Commerce Avenue. Jerrier last week confirmed on his Facebook page that…

Lettuce Wrap Up: The Fried Goods and Austin’s Food Trucks

Stephen MaskerSome churros and…something close to vegetables?​It would’ve been embarrassing if the week’s blogs hadn’t been All Fried, All the Time. Luckily, they spared themselves the shame and stepped up to the plate, almost every one giving their own take on State Fair food. Your Own Dallas Observer – Hanna…

Maple & Motor vs. Torchy’s Tacos: The Breakfast Taco Battle

There is simply nothing simpler and more delicious than the utilitarian taco. And they seem to be everywhere days. You can’t turn around in Dallas without seeing a taqueria, gringo stand or renegade gas station selling these tasty morsels. Another advantage: The taco is generally cheap, selling for about the…

Adam Carolla Makes Time for Pie… Between Rants

There are cake people and pie people. Adam Carolla, headlining a special two-night event at the Addison Improv Tuesday and Wednesday (October 5-6), is a confirmed pie man. More about that in a minute. If all you know of Carolla, 46, is from the 1990s on cable’s The Man Show…

Tim Byres Big Reveal: How the Sausage Gets Made

As we learned from Smoke’s Tim Byres earlier this week, he enjoys making his own charcuterie. The day we visited the chef he had just finished carving up half a hog for use in the restaurant’s various barbecue recipes. And that was just for a single day’s use. We were…

Sampling the Fair Foods, Part 3

Check out part one and two of the State Fair food Reviews. The Observer this week set out to sample all the new fair foods that didn’t make the Big Tex competition finals. Here, part three of our deep-fried review:…

Texas Steak Not Good? Them’s Fightin’ Words.

There are probably single-subject food books still to be written. Nobody’s yet taken on cucumbers, walleye or pumpkin preserves. But travel writer Mark Schatzker recently tackled steak, and I’m glad he did. Schatzker’s written a terrifically entertaining romp through red meat that focuses not on the history or politics of…

Smoke’s Tim Byres on Why Good Barbecue Is About More Than Just the Food

Yesterday, we profiled Tim Byres, chef at Smoke, the restaurant in the Belmont Hotel that serves what Byres describes as “heritage inspired cuisine.” (Traditional style cooking, smoking, canning a preserving updated for modern palates, served with a touch of Southern friendliness.) In the second part of our interview with Byres,…

Does Size Matter to the Food Network?

Rahm Fama, host of the Food Network’s new meat-centric show Meat and Potatoes, wants you to know he’s not fixated on oversized meat – but that’s what brought him to Texas. In an upcoming episode entitled “Oversized Meat,” Fama pays a visit to Fort Worth’s Cowtown Diner to tackle the…

Fried Beer To Cross State Fair Lines and Go National

Fried beer has started its march to the sea, with the much-publicized snack scheduled for a second outing at Savannah’s 27th annual Oktoberfest this weekend. “Believe it or not, fried beer will be available,” the Savannah Morning News reported today. Fried beer has not been universally beloved by State Fair…

Drink Up, You Cheap Winos

You’ve heard of Two Buck Chuck? How about three-buck Wink? The $2.99 Winking Owl Merlot is found exclusively at Aldi, the deep discount grocery store. Bottled by Gallo, it’s a thoroughly respectable little bottle of grape with hints of cherry and other sweet fruits. I dare you to put it…

Dijon Chefs Visit Land o’ the Fried. Will They Survive?

School lunch reformers this past weekend salivated over a CBS Sunday Morning dispatch from Paris showing schoolchildren munching on ratatouille turnovers and mussels. Fresh, organic, local produce is the norm in French schools, says the city of Dijon’s spokesman Fabian Forni, who’s in town with a cadre of chefs to…

Chef Tell: Wedding Cakes and Cliques

At the start of last night’s Top Chef Just Desserts, Princess Dexter was not really lamenting his huge blow-up — wait, make that blow-ups, plural, because he clearly didn’t remember all of them — on last week’s episode. Others were sad that Mama Bear Tim had been kicked off, and…

Hopefully This Isn’t a Hollow Man

It was bound to happen. Here we are hurdling hurtling through space, and no one has created a bust of Kevin Bacon, made of bacon yet? Wait no longer! From the people who brought you “bacon salt,” partnered with “What Would Bacon Do?,” it’s bacon Kevin Bacon! More literally: “Statue…

Chef Tim Byres Goes in Search of Himself and Finds Smoke

Walk into Smoke early on any Saturday afternoon and you’ll get the sense that the year-old restaurant hums along effortlessly. Simple preparations, a small, amiable kitchen crew, a mastery of the menu. Truth is, the food takes hours to prepare and there is meticulous care in the execution of what…