La Paisanita: Gas-Station Art With Gusto

At an independent fashion-and-crafts art show/flea market in the Essex Street Market in Lower Manhattan, my wife chastised me for taking photos of some of the finer products available for sale — noveau velvet paintings of the latest Brooklyn It band, shirts with images of unicorns sectioned into cuts of…

Uptown Pub Doesn’t Feel So Uptown, Thankfully

Each week City of Ate will give you the lowdown on a local happy hour in Quittin’ Time, with the details and why you should or shouldn’t take up the featured bar or restaurant on its drink specials.Where: Uptown Pub, 3605 McKinney Ave., 214-522-5100When: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday…

The Top-Six Anime and Manga Food Babes

Manga and anime, Japanese comics and cartoons, respectively, have a long history of sexually objectifying female characters. This extends to food, specifically in the food-themed manga subgenre, which is unofficially called mangia manga. Among the popular series in that subgenre are Food Girls, Kitchen Princess and Oishinbo, of which the…

100 Favorite Dishes: Brunch at La Duni

As a countdown to the Dallas Observer’s “Best of Dallas” 2010, City of Ate is serving up 100 of the favorite dishes we crave, savor and hope to scarf down again soon. These dishes are in no particular order. Some are little known, others celebrated. Some are pricey, others can…

Offshore’s Nextdoor: Happy Hour Begins at Nap 30.

I was thinking about hitting up Offshore’s Nextdoor for a late lunch, so I perused its menu online. As soon as I came across “nap 30” on their menu, I knew I had to check the place out. Unfamiliar with the term? I’ll school you: “What time is it after…

Dinghy Bar & Grill: Where Would-Be Parrotheads Flock.

With an abbreviated schedule tailored to the weekend sailing crowd, Dinghy Bar & Grill doesn’t have much trouble maintaining the lively Parrothead vibe that’s critical to the success of a restaurant most patrons reach by boat. The deck bar’s crowded with fanny-packed sailors fleeing midlife crises and old salt-ettes, droopy…

Rahr Rises Again With Brewery Tours, Beer And Food Beginning Tonight

As teased last week, after months and months of waiting (and false starts), Fort Worth’s Rahr & Sons Brewing Company is finally ready to reopen to the public with regular brewery tours, beginning today from 5 to 7 p.m.Tonight’s featured specialty beer is a cask-conditioned take on Rahr’s Blind Salamander,…

100 Favorite Dishes: Cheese and Charcuterie Plate at The Grape

As a countdown to the Dallas Observer’s “Best of Dallas” 2010, City of Ate is serving up 100 of the favorite dishes we crave, savor and hope to scarf down again soon. These dishes are in no particular order. Some are little known, others celebrated. Some are pricey, others can…

Naga Thai is a Rare Winner in Victory Park

Despite living down the street from the restaurant, I’d never ventured into Naga Thai. There are only a handful of Thai restaurants at which I will eat, and something about a Thai restaurant in Victory Park created images of high-priced, bastardized ethnic food in my mind. My stance softened when…

Five Fast-Food Breakfast Staples That Should Go Away — Now.

Most important meal of the day, right? The Associated Press announced Burger King’s new business plan recently to add nine more breakfast items to their masterpiece of all-things-obese menu. The Sun-Times reported that Burger King’s breakfast menu provides 12 percent of the chain’s revenue, while McDonalds gets a whopping 25…

Spice & Tea Exchange Offers Everything Nice, Except its Secrets

A new spice shop opening this weekend in West Village stocks sugars, salts and 150 types of spices, but a company spokesman says most customers come for their blends. The top 10 sellers at The Spice & Tea Exchange, which has 14 locations nationwide, include “Tuscany Blend,” “Signature Blend” and…

Maker’s Mark 46: Line Up, Bourbon Fans

Balcones Distilling’s True Blue corn whiskey, which City of Ate told you about yesterday, is not bourbon. “I accept that criticism,” says head distiller Chip Tate, who’s proud that he uses copious amounts of blue corn in his mash bill and uncharred oak barrels for aging. Bourbon, of course, sloshes…

Down on the Farm: Are Women Being Denied Credit for Changes to Eating Habits?

Ms. Magazine took on food politics this month, arguing in a cover story that women aren’t getting enough credit for their contributions to the changing culinary landscape. Author Jennifer Cognard-Black fingers a “fantastic foodie four,” an all-white, all-male group of food thinkers she claims are “eclipsing the many women in…

No-Cook Prune Whip Is Plum Tasty
(Ike Liked It, Too)

Discovering a collection of old recipe booklets my late grandmother saved and used for decades has inspired me. Can I replicate some of those now-forgotten dishes the way they used to make them? First up: Prune Whip. It’s a chilled dessert, or at fancier tables way back when a palate…

Time Swallows Dean Fearing

​Josh Ozersky, not so long ago the subject of this open rant from a sister paper, has a new crush: Dean Fearing. The author of The Hambuger: The History visited Fearing’s Ritz-Carlton namesake for Time and decided it’s the bestest restaurant in all the land when it comes to haute-cuisine…

Balcones Distilling Unleashes
Uncut Blue Corn Whiskey Under the Radar

Balcones Distilling has released the blue corn whiskey it’s always intended to make, but head distiller Chip Tate’s been too busy fixing broken equipment to tell too many folks about it. Asked whether the cask strength spirit has been well-received, Tate says: “It has, and it hasn’t. Every person who’s…

100 Favorite Dishes: Brisket Tacos at Mia’s

As a countdown to the Dallas Observer’s “Best of Dallas” 2010, City of Ate is serving up 100 of the favorite dishes we crave, savor and hope to scarf down again soon. These dishes are in no particular order. Some are little known, others celebrated. Some are pricey, others can…

Drink or Appetizer: Sorting Out the Definition of Lobster Shooter

Although the staff at Abacus doesn’t consider the restaurant’s lobster scallion shooters a beverage, the Food Network this week featured the liquid dish on its drink edition of The Best Thing I Ever Ate. “It’s not actually a drink,” Kent Rathbun’s assistant Abir Sower said. “I don’t know why they’d…