If this third link in the Nuevo Leon troika is any indication, this “Mex-Mex” restaurant is getting a little tired. Fatigue first strikes with the chips. Sure, they’re warm, which is more than you can say for most Mex or Tex-Mex spots. But they’re thoroughly uninspired. They’re bland. There’s no…
Down but not out Despite the hasty reopening plans proffered by Tim Hager, who was fingered to keep FoodStar Restaurant Group from withering into oblivion, PoPoLos restaurant remains locked up. And it probably won’t reopen anytime soon, at least under the FoodStar moniker. Former PoPoLos owner Maury Jaffer of Jaffer…
There’s a seminal point reached in life’s greatest endeavors — art, sex, drinking Miller High Life — where the experience is so profound, so touching on so many levels, it becomes transcendent. The act and the actor become one, and the interplay dissolves into something greater than the sum of…
Silenced partner You could call it a classic case of biting the hand that feeds you. Or maybe the hand that wants to take over. It seems Chris Svalesen and his undisclosed lone investor in Copper River, his new seafood restaurant slated to go into the former San Simeon space…
Is Italian Café a contemporary hole-in-the-wall with red-and-white checked tablecloths serving superlative Italian grub, or is it a sports bar? It doesn’t take many chews to score this one. Once you’re finished gnawing on the basket of fresh, moist knot bread, it’s evident that the best thing this place serves…
Like everything in Dale Wamstad’s “III Forks Territory,” Buttermilk Café & Market is a puzzle. Is it a down-home country café pitching platters of chicken-fried steak and liver and onions? Or is it a Park Cities estate sale? Whatever it is, it’s curious to behold. Buttermilk is joined at the…
Near-death star FoodStar Restaurant Group’s demise has been rumored for months, but just before it slipped into a coma, the firm that operates Mediterraneo, Toscana, and PoPoLos got a cash infusion from Chicago-based Clever Ideas Inc., a firm that drives the Diners’ Club discount dining card program. The move was…
You’ve got to hand it to Gilbert Cuellar. He sure knows how to make a venture reek with the sweet smell of success. A former El Chico Corp. executive, Cuellar is the brain behind Texana Grill, the massive new Texas memorabilia lodge in Arlington that doubles as a restaurant. And…
Don’t expect to drink here, because there’s no beer or wine. Though there is, kinda. Bihn Mihn Market next door sells both, and they opened the place up for us one night, drawing back the steel gate barricading the doors so I could get a sixer of Tsingtao (Chinese brew)…
Grapes of glory This year’s GrapeFest — billed as the largest wine festival in the Southwest — not only saw the unveiling of medal winners from the Lone Star Wine Competition, but also glimpsed the official birth of the sixth Grapevine tasting room: Lone Star Winery. Lone Star is the…
Jean-Michel Sakouhi leans against one of the murals in his new restaurant. He’s wiry, with a relaxed demeanor that’s rippled by seemingly nervous laughs that leak past his thick French accent. Though he appears even-tempered, he has an independent streak. Maybe that’s why chef Dean Fearing dubbed him the Parisian…
Kent’s count Former daní foods chef Kent Rathbun finally has an opening date for Abacus, his new McKinney Avenue restaurant. Sort of. “It would be reckless to give an exact date,” he says. “But I’m standing on carpet right now.” He hesitatingly adds that Dallas should be able to sample…
A far cry Texan boasting to the contrary, Texas wines are a ways from world-class status. In fact, despite a respectable showing from a few wines at the Lone Star Wine Competition in Grapevine last week, some were downright hard to swallow, plagued with striking flaws such as badly browning…
If there’s anything Texans like to do it’s revel in their history, jubilate in their provincialism, bask in their brashness. In short, they like to brag. “We wanted a name that sounded epic,” says Brinker International restaurants alumnus Tye Phelps when asked why he named his new restaurant Love &…
It’s amusing to ponder, but a collection of cork dorks have wrapped themselves in the Constitution and may cause the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down a Texas state law. This past spring, a troika of Houston wine aficionados, including former state rep. Roland R. Pennington, filed suit against state…
When I first told a friend over the phone I was hitting an Irish pub called Slattery Rand’s, she came unglued. “Why the hell would anyone name a restaurant that?” she asked. “That’s disgusting.” It’s not so much a restaurant as it is a pub, I said. “So what?” she…
There was a mustachioed man in shorts, wearing thick plastic glasses and sitting on a chair propped against the back wall. On the table in front of him, two TV remotes were parked next to a phone book. The remotes worked a large television tucked behind the counter. The screen…
Dragonfly wash-out All the ingredients were there for a really sudsy soap opera: greed, sex, back-stabbing, courtroom battles. But now it appears the frothy Dragonfly saga is coming to a close, or at least changing course. Charlott Norman, the limited partner who wrested control of the shuttered nightclub from general…
It twirls around once every 55 minutes, like clockwork. And you can time your meal and thus the quality of service to its creeping revolutionary swirl. When we put in our order at Antares high atop Reunion Tower, we were staring deep into Dallas’ downtown core. It wasn’t until we…
Scott Ginsburg leans forward in the booth and tears a piece from the crisp white butcher paper covering the table. He has left his wallet in the car, he explains to the waiter, so he asks whether it’s OK if he just writes out his American Express card number to…
Years ago, in faster times, my friends and I frequented a Thai restaurant on Chicago’s North Side, a place I’ll never forget, though I can’t seem to remember the name. But the decor and ambience stick in my mind. Seat backs loosely attached to the chrome chair frames were gouged,…
Thai Garden has a one strike against it from the outset: It doesn’t have a liquor license. That makes it difficult to enjoy some dishes to their fullest. It makes others hard to swallow. Take the lunch buffet ($6.50), for instance, which mingles Chinese and Thai fare. Under normal circumstances,…
