So there we were: six martinis into an evening, bleary-eyed, beer goggles at full fuzziness. We mean “Janet Reno looks good to us” fuzziness. That’s when clarity struck. It came in the form of Misty, a friend of Linda. We were at a bar flirting with Linda–we think; the night…
Every once in a while a dining experience is of such a piece that the food is almost beside the point; you’re just content to revel in reality gone slightly askew, maybe with a drink. You-Chun Korean Restaurant doesn’t serve alcohol, but it does serve water. It’s dispensed from a…
Big Fish Little Fish Restaurant and Boathouse, the seafood shack on Henderson Avenue that managed to stay afloat since its 1998 launch before sinking last fall, will be raised in mid-April and reflagged Vickery Park. “It will not be a seafood restaurant, and it will not have the Big Fish…
Whither steak? Haven’t we had enough already? Are any arteries left in North Texas that don’t proudly wear the badge of sclerosis crimp? Is there a credit rating nearby not creaking under the strain of prime beef? Are you vexed by the under-representation of creamed corn, sautéed mushrooms, mashed potatoes…
Here’s to those few pioneers willing to confront the impossible, challenge the unknown and find the answers that unleash human progress. Only the fearless defy prudence in a quest for great truths: Is the earth round or flat? Can we split the atom? Why does Michael Jackson exist? Yet curiosity…
An Open Appeal to Dr. Robert Rey: You may find this hard to believe, but before last week I had never heard of you. I had no idea you were one of the pioneers of the transumbilical procedure, which sounds suspiciously like a financial instrument designed to skirt Securities and…
A couple of housecleaning items seem appropriate before we address this week’s topic. After all, in less than two months we’ve managed to…well, let’s just get right down to the mea culpas: Sorry, Greg, but Kinella is the correct spelling after six martinis; we entered Shade, Cuba Libre and Mick’s…
Italian stares at us perpetually, teasing with promise. It draws us with its sassy Latin vibrato and Ferrari-like lust with hints of Fellini-esque expressiveness. But the stare is an empty leer. What you get is Ed Wood warbling Lou Reed while tooling down the road in a Kia Sorrento. Italian…
Sabatino’s restaurant and sausage company in North Dallas, after a short but robust life, has been killed off by a keg of worms. This according to Peter Sabatino, who operates the 17-year-old Sabatino’s in Newport Beach, California. The story: Sabatino’s brother, who launched the Dallas version of the restaurant and…
Here’s a twist: accidentally stumbling into the restaurant business and finding love. Usually the love comes first, spawned by the illusion of glamour inherent in the prospect of running your own canteen. A short time after the buzz wears off, these once spellbound operators start tearing their hair out by…
Hail the new celebrity class: chefs, sous, de cuisines, sauciers, prep cooks–maybe even dishwashers if they can lip sync. They may not get paid like 50 Cent, or have Dimebag-like memorial services when they bite the grease trap, but that’s because the blizzard of recipe rap CDs and videos hasn’t…
It’s surprising at first. Bartenders insist that knowledge of particular drinks is of minor significance compared with traits such as personality and consistency when measuring success at their craft. It’s akin to universities hiring faculty based on fashion instead of academic reputation, football coaches stepping in front of ESPN mikes…
Out there in the cyber yards there’s a place called slick.com (political satire at its best!), a repository of assorted detritus and tripe. Here’s something useful: “The Code of Dalton.” “The Code of Dalton” lists a number of felonies and misdemeanors, outrages not covered by criminal codes. For example, under…
Sherry Maddox works behind the bar at Nikita. She’s also a student of urban culture, apparently. During a quiet moment before the hedonistic “Naked Sunday” onslaught, she addressed a bedeviling topic. Americans, you see, have long struggled with ideals such as segregation and equality. And while we spend decades attempting…
The sushi bar is serpentine. It also has an interesting endpoint set piece: a waterwheel. Yet the most fascinating element in this Japanese restaurant squatting in a former Uptown video rental outlet rests on the bar surface. It’s there, between the grout lines framing the large black ceramic tiles: The…
What can you say about Greek food? It’s hard to say, because there is so much to say. People tend to forget that Alexander the Great, well before he matured into an Oliver Stone gigabuck cinema dud, spread Greek culture, including cuisine, via brilliant military campaigns. Greeks are credited with…
The Landmark Restaurant has been in the Melrose Hotel for a long time, so it’s easy for it to tumble out of your dining awareness. Perhaps you spend most of your Melrose time in The Library bar, trying out different martinis while women of varying abilities croon to piano (put…
For us the year 2004 began in a drunken stupor, surrounded by the equally drunken and stupefied masses gathered at Sense. It ended in much the same way. This week’s Burning Question, however, concerns the in-betweens, the dismal months of 2004. Any literary recap of the year just past must…
Over on Travis Street, a man wearing a sandwich board stands on the sidewalk in front of Samba Room. He advertises dollar sushi and sake. This is how far we’ve come: a Cuban bar shilling sushi and rice brew for a buck. The city shudders, sobbing great streaming tears of…
Chaucer’s is what happens when investors have lots of money and space on their hands. You’d never know it from the outside, though. A few metal chairs and tables outside the front doors constitute a patio effort. Near the edge of the window is a lighted “open” sign, the kind…
You can hear it, if you listen closely enough. Not the din of chitchat hanging in the high ceiling caverns like a thick blanket of smog, not the staccato of clashing flatware, but the jingle of coins muffled in plastic cups and the near-melodious throb of slot-machine bells. “No, it’s…
There’s art and there’s math. Great lovers of the past–Casanova, Mae West, Pepe Le Pew–approached sexual conquest as an art form. They practiced persistence, with longing glances, languid eyes, bits of conversational intrigue, engaging mannerisms and a leisurely buildup to the moment when resistance crumbles. But who has time for…
