It takes a peculiar form of eccentricity to staple a gelato hut, a Hawaiian fast-causal joint and a nightclub into one concept, but that’s what Dallas entrepreneur Ben Dai did. By mid-July, Dai and general manager Lon Goodwin will be operating a triplicate joined at the hip in Mockingbird Station:…
There are three of them in Dallas. Thai is one. Indian is another. And Italian. OK, there’s Chinese, but that’s an easy one to decipher: no Chinatown. The former are three types of cuisine that, with rare exceptions, stumble in Dallas. No matter who inspires the food or where they’re…
Etymology really bothers us. We should first mention that etymology has nothing to do with insects and everything to do with the origins of words and their transformation through common use–although when we expressed our feelings toward this particular field of study, our editor admitted he, too, disliked bugs. (Editor’s…
Indian cuisine is experiencing a mini-boom of sorts, what with the recent openings of Clay Pit Grill & Curry House in Addison and Dawat in Richardson. Now Saffron House, another Addison entrant, stuffed with “the finest replicas of Indian art,” makes it a trio. At Saffron House, “master chefs…transform meals…
The first set arrived at our table riddled with little pockets of grease. Pools, really, shimmering gold, some shallow, some preposterously deep. Pappadam is like horribly scarred skin with creases and sharp ripples and craggy divots carved from an adolescent scourge. These flat, fried lentil flour discs from Southern India…
It’s rare that you see buffet spreads this enormous outside of places where slot bells provide the background music. But Osaka Steak & Grill’s all-you-can-eat Japanese terminal is big–aircraft carrier big. Get in there early before the dinner rush reaches its fever point, and you’ll discover a din of world…
The Web site claims his knack for choosing an appropriate dinner wine was one of his responsibilities as “a board member for a worldwide corporation.” And we wonder why the Enron and Tyco debacles snuck under the board of directors’ schnozzles. The site goes on to explain that Eddie Merlot’s…
It’s a curious turn of events. First, we’re told men and women emerged from the same body about 6,000 years ago, diverging in aptitude only after an unfortunate encounter with fresh fruit–a chronology approved by three of the past four presidents. Now, we learn from the more credible talk-show circuit…
Wine bars and Dallas don’t mix well, at least not as seamlessly as silicone and trial lawyers. A sweep through Dallas’ wine-bar experiments–Tony’s, Cork, Cru, the flight deck near the vestibule in Nick & Sam’s–reveals half-hearted execution or an emphasis on wine as fashion accessory. Maybe that’s why Mercy is…
Southlake is one of those formerly odd communities that had restrictive liquor laws. Now that they’ve been relaxed, some entrepreneurs are taking advantage in the new Town Square development in the heart of the town, a kind of shake-and-bake downtown for the bedroom community. Into the Glass is one of…
What Dallas lacks is a truly tight, sophisticated dining and lounge experience on the level of New York or Paris or London. How many times have we heard that? And there’s no shortage of budding and established operators who insist they have the formula to finally fill this niche. Yet…
At first, veteran restaurateur Charlie Venis says Opa! is the Greek equivalent expression of hee-haw. “Well,” he corrects, “what it really means is ‘let’s enjoy life.’ Get excited.” The latter is what we did when our server shouted “Opa!” as he flicked his Bic above the saganaki, setting it ablaze…
At one point or another, our political, moral and cultural leaders have all become concerned with the beer goggle effect. Former President George Bush referred to it in his inimitable fashion as “the vision thing.” The once great and now dead Jerry Garcia spoke of those with “two good eyes”…
Eat at Café Danielle and you’re forced to shop, or at least urged to browse. The space is divided into settings that come across like tradeshow booths. One nook is a hovel of Buddhas: heads, lotus seatings, fat jolly postures. There’s a case with Faberge egg replicas and a couple…
Fishbowl, the Pan-Asian restaurant on Knox Street developed by Carlson Restaurants Worldwide, was shut down suddenly this past Tuesday night. Sources say retailer Pottery Barn, just two doors down the street, will sweep into the space or install a new retail concept where sushi and sake once trod, though neither…
Jeffrey Yarbrough’s separation at birth from actor Edward Norton isn’t the only significant detachment in his life. He’s also split from his lucrative club business, which he characterizes as a distraction from his true calling. “My focus in my life is food,” he insists. “I have gotten sidetrack after sidetrack…
Authenticity is hard to acquire. The acquisition is especially difficult when the object of desire is a series of lush tropical volcanic bumps and coral atolls pimpling the South Pacific and you’re landlocked on a stretch of concrete and bricks near an overpass on the North Texas prairie. But never…
Ernie’s is a trip. But to where? Is it a trip back to a Dean Martin-Charo roast skit where the main attractions bob like anchovy-stuffed buoys in a gin lagoon? Or is it a timeless Vegas burp, skillfully outfitted with a Liberace henchwoman tinkling spent pop syrup on a stunted…
Restaurant concept development is difficult for diners to comprehend. People like Phil Romano appear to function solely from gut instinct followed by blunt execution. Then there’s Henderson Avenue czar Tristan Simon, who seems to germinate his concepts on a bed of meticulously plowed spreadsheets fertilized by heaps of financial and…
It’s curious that disgruntled foreigners always dismiss Americans as weak-willed and comfortable types likely to fold when threatened. Just why they confuse us with France, we’ll probably never know. Before characterizing Americans as soft and passive, terrorists and their ilk should first check out the brutal events dominating our culture:…
Few things are more quintessentially American than our ability to cast each and every individual into a compound so dense that it squanders uniqueness and identity. We stereotype Southerners as lazy and dim-witted–so incogitant, a professor of ours once said, that “whenever two Southern teams play football, there’s always some…
Orson Welles has managed to resuscitate his badly decomposed reputation and promise from the grave. Since etching himself in our collective memory as the butt of fat jokes and the intoner of the unforgettable line “we will serve no wine before its time” in television commercials for jug wines by…
