What is it that makes a chef great? If we allow that anyone (almost) can buy a fresh ahi tuna steak, sear it and toss on a few grains of sea salt, is it really a matter of a kitchen preparing good ingredients with requisite skill? Or is it something…
Houston’s8300 Preston Rd.214-691-8991Houston’s is a habit. Not a bad habit, like meth or American Idol, but one that does call into question several sacred culinary beliefs.Most obvious is our tendency as gourmands to dismiss chain restaurants–something we put up for discussion last week. Hillstone, the parent company of Houston’s, lists…
Each week in ‘Knockers’ we order from a different delivery restaurant, assessing their efficiency and keeping a running score.Thai 2 Go 2222 Medical District Drive 214.484.2161 Promised delivery time: 30 minutes Actual delivery time: 16 minutes Scoring Summary: Seeming lack of authentic Thai employees: -3 Kal-El lightening fast delivery speeds:…
Ordinarily we wouldn’t get too excited about the opening of yet another convenience store in Dallas. It’s hard to remember the last time we griped that we had a hard time finding a place to grab a bag of Funyuns, a hot dog or a bottle of Mountain Dew (or…
Stepping into the big white tent next to Grapevine’s Embassy Suites, the first thing you noticed last night was that it smelled great inside. The air hung thick and fruity, and as more than 400 people in white plastic ponchos chattered and paced across a spotless new carpet, you could…
Sure, Houston’s is better than, say, Applebee’s or Red Lobster, but it’s still a nationwide chain. And if you admit to dining at Mi Cocina or Taco Diner because of the quality of their cooking, you might also like Chili’s.So what’s going on? If we love one and hate another,…
We’re already stockpiling prizes that we probably won’t give away until the end of the year, if at all. Great prizes, too–such as 8 oz. flasks with the Dallas Observer ‘Best of’ 2006 logo (which kinda makes them collectibles and thus quite valuable). And if we can ever find someone…
I must confess that Booker’s is one of my favorite bourbons, so buying a bottle for this piece was hardly a chore.Part of the Knob Creek line, it is aged up to 8 years and bottled uncut at its natural proof, generally around the 125 mark. This makes Booker’s an…
This is mostly for Amy S., but a few others were interested so I asked mom to send the recipes. I’ll just leave her to explain:I am sending 3 gooey butter cake recipes. The first one was in this week’s St. Louis paper, from their files. This is not the…
It’s hard to say 2009 was a pivotal year in Dallas dining. The city did, however, tally a surprising number of new restaurants. We also saw a few venerable locations shut down.If it weren’t for the recession, this would all seem unexceptional. Establishments open and close on a regular basis,…
Now that yesterday’s Epiphany has come and gone, even those who hold onto the holiday spirit well past New Year’s Day have to admit that it’s time to get back into the workaday routine. But that doesn’t mean the spirit doesn’t linger a bit, at least when it comes to…
In 2006 we witnessed the death of a good friend in The Green Room. The classic gem of Deep Ellum was brash and ripe with imagination for its time. Since then, the diaspora of the alum that made the kitchen great helped rock the Dallas restaurant landscape. Now, as Green…
Canary Cafe5100 Belt Line, Addison972-503-7080I seem to remember a time, shortly after engineer-turned-chef Mansour Gorji bought the Canary Cafe space, when he served sushi at lunch.The previous occupant had been a Japanese restaurant and so many of that venue’s regulars dropped by hoping for a raw fish fix, Gorji couldn’t…
Recipe Demonstrated by Chef Chris Hughes of Tre Amici Prime Steakhouse & Seafood It’s a new year, and you know what that means: time for resolutions. People are signing documents for a new gym membership, throwing away their cartons of Marlboro Reds and eating more greens and less deep-fried tacos…
Some people insist a diet of fatty foods not only rounds out the waistline, it also invites a series of almost certain future ills. If they’re right, then Blaine Staniford must want to kill us—although with his arsenal of bacon, butter, cream and slabs of richly marbled red meat, ours…
Thanks to a deadline timing fluke largely of my making, this was my birthday dinner: half a bag of supermarket French fries.You know–those freezer burnt sticks one pops in the oven, checks after the recommended 15 minutes to find a batch of glossy, flaccid, half-baked things. So you leave them…
Few people write songs about pizza and beer, chocolate and peanut butter, or gin and juice. Foie gras and Sauternes? Forget it.Yet dozens–just a rough estimate–of hits and near hits have referenced the combination of tooth-decay inducing sugar water and tooth decay-inducing chocolate-covered marshmallow creme-filled cookies that became a Southern…
Weekend brunch exists, in my estimation, to assuage the appetites of those who have slept in past the breakfast hour and now must hunt down food as quickly as possible to alleviate the hangover. To have brunch on a weekday might be a meal worthy only of derelicts and food…
On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.Steamed, not smoked. According to Rick Bayless, chef extraordinaire and author of Mexico: One Plate at a Time, that’s the primary difference in preparing Mexican barbacoa and traditional Texas barbecue. True, barbacoa is slow-cooked like…
Country Burger401 S. Hampton Rd.214-330-4743Dude Factor: 3, or Buckethead, on a scale of 1 (Axl Rose) to 10 (Slash)Last night in choosing a place to eat, I decided to stick to my New Year’s resolution. Fortunately, my resolution is to eat more bacon-cheeseburgers, which is a pretty easy promise to…
If Memory Serves chronicles moments from my dining past, perhaps explaining what’s wrong with me.Every year around the holidays, my mom sends a tin of what she calls “Secret Toffee.”Actually, I learned the name of this chocolate-toffee cookie thing just last week, having spent a few decades requesting it by…
The holidays wreaked havoc on my dining schedule these last few weeks, so today’s post is going to be a tad shorter. Gathering backup participants for fulfilling my cravings in faraway lands like Garland or Carrollton proved rather difficult. Reactions from my family and friends ranged from annoyed eye rolls…
