Review: Luna de Noche

Luna de Noche’s Gourmet Tex-Mex in Victory Park is the sixth location for the chain helmed by Lisa Galvan-Cuevas. She started the first of the restaurants in 1998, and with this one has expanded the menu to include four “nuevo gourmet” dishes and additional items in various sections on the…

I Got Your Burger Right Here

Lunch special: Burger, fries and a drink for $6.36 Tiny, tiny building count: 1 Burgers on the grill count: 7 bazillion Either a car just backfired or that was a gun shot count: 1 Every time you drive your car through a Wendy’s, you’re cheating yourself. Every time you order…

Review: Fearing’s at the Ritz Carlton

Fearing’s is a well-oiled machine. Service is prompt. Water is chilled and filled. Wine recommendations are astute. Skipping through the list, wanting a light-to-medium-bodied red to successfully straddle the orders of fish and red meat at our table, sommelier Paul Botamer talked up the Peltier Station Petite Syrah from Lodi,…

Rathbun Leveraged

Chef Kent Rathbun finally released a statement confirming what was reported here last week: He and former Ruth’s Chris Steak House CEO Bill Hyde have put their heads and resources together to acquire the Abacus and Jasper’s restaurant interest from the estate of the late Robert Hoffman, Rathbun’s longtime backer…

Eat This, Jared

Lunch special: No. 1 hero plus chips and a drink for $8 People behind the counter looking like they’re moving fast, but really moving kind of slowly, but at least they’re smiling count: 100 Hovering straw caddy count: 1 Empty table count: 0 Why is Jared the Subway guy still…

Review: Dallas Fish Market

In Dallas, seafood is the black sheep, a gangly, stinky stepchild that doesn’t take to wood-fired grates or high-degree broilers with the same gusto as a corn-fed steer. It’s a placeholder on steakhouse menus, a light alternative for those who don’t relish beefy bloodlust or the burden a fine steakhouse…

Strike Two

Heck, it’s a regular alias pile. That downtown hotel on Main Street formerly known as Joule Urban Resort has shed yet another “otherwise known as.” It was to be called Hotel Elan. No more. “It’s not going to be that,” says Caroline Lerner Perel of Juno Development, the luxury hospitality…

Small-Town Celebrity

On Main Street in Rowlett sits a florist and other storefronts, a few park benches, a grassy median and Big Star Burgers. The town square vibe is lost out on the pavement—it’s forced and a bit awkward. Only once the Big Star’s large glass and wooden doors are breached does…

Cheese Pleased

Lunch special: Wednesdays, get two beef enchiladas plus rice and beans for $4.25 or two fajita tacos plus rice and beans for $5.55 Sweet-ass wooden chair count: 50 Taco Loco Late Night Taqueria attached to the side count: 1 I recently had lunch at Taco Diner in West Village. What…

Naked Dinner

Every once in a while—not often, but often enough to prompt a sensory readjustment—you come across a dish with a glaring hole in the flavor profile that somehow fills itself. The sharp edges are there—a razor line of salt or a burst of sour or the balm of sweet—counterpoised with…

Bum Bo No

Big orange fish count: 12 Empty table count: 10 Lunch Special: $5.99 buffet Vietnam Restaurant on Bryan Street isn’t very inviting from the outside, but the sign painted on the dark window says “$5.99 buffet.” And the parking around the place is always totally filled up at lunchtime, so I…

Cast-Iron Stalk

Things haven’t gone well for chef Kevin Ascolese (once of Sfuzzi, Mi Piaci, Salve! Ristorante and Ferre) since he vacated Breckenridge, Colorado, where he flipped patties at Empire Burger, for Dallas. Ascolese left the slopes to upgrade the Patrizio’s restaurants (Highland Park, Plano, Highland Village near Flower Mound) for owner…

Yippee ki-yay, Mother Clucker

Lunch Special: Two pieces of rotisserie chicken, two sides, a wheat roll and a drink for $4.99 The good kind of peppermints count: a million Hot sauce in a Coke bottle count: 1 Wedged in between the Condom Sense and Condoms to Go, the Cowboy Chicken at Lovers Lane and…

The Haunting

The things about Tradicion that stick in the mind are the remnants, the leftovers. Tradicion is the work of Ricardo Avila. Avila grips the reins (along with his mother) of Avila’s, a Tex-Mex staple on Maple Avenue for more than 20 years. Tradicion penetrated the odd space that was once…

Pie Quagmire

Olivella’s is outrunning its headlights. Its mouth can’t keep pace with the speed of its mind. Or is it vice versa? It’s not hard to pick up the flavor of chaos. Step into the restaurant. Muscle a path between the people seated at tables and on plush stools at the…

Tinsel Town Toppings

Urban Bistro, the stunted Mediterranean concept chef Avner Samuel developed (with investors) in the defunct George Restaurant location, formerly the Riviera at Inwood and Lovers, closed August 24. Consilient Restaurants head Tristan Simon grabbed the assets (furniture, fixtures, equipment), scratched out a new long-term lease and will transform it into…

I’m on the All-Carb Diet

Lunch Special: $3.95 for an entrée and two sides. A/C count: 0 Rumor that Bonnie and Clyde met here count: 1 I almost walked right past the Record Grill. No, not because it’s so scary from the outside that you think crossing the threshold of the building could give you…

How Sweet It Is

Specials: Wednesday is Burger Day with a burger and drink, plus fries, tots or a cup of soup for $5.89. “Sweetie” count: 3 Booth count: about 6 or 8 Grease-up paper napkin count: 2 Generally, I’m really un-OK with people calling me “sweetie.” I swore to myself that I’d beat…

Grecian Yearn

Kavala is like a finely chiseled face with a crooked nose or a chipped tooth or maybe a misshapen beauty mark. There’s a lot to love here. The trick is to separate those things that will make the casual peruser swoon from those only a mother could love. Though the…

Enchiladame

Lunch specials starting at $5.29 Small margarita: 99 cents Monday-Friday Free chips and salsa count: 1 Hairy eyeball count from the hostess: 3 “Do you want some more water?” count: 22 I was driving around Oak Cliff looking for a place to eat for cheap (I know Oak Cliff is…

Empty Nets

I admit it. For approximately one month, every time I have driven by the new Dallas Saltwater Willy’s Seafood & Steakhouse location I’ve laughed…for two reasons. For one, it’s the name. Another, I like to imagine Willie Nelson replacing the “shotgun” of his iconic “Shotgun Willie” with “saltwater.” This was…

Guilty Pleasures

There’s something about good ol’ American traditions like co-ed sporting leagues and state fairs that lend themselves naturally to ingesting copious amounts of the grilled, griddled and fried. We here in the land of grand portions enjoy our concessions, our tailgating and our comfort food. Like a good neighbor, Tilley’s…