Food & Drink

The local beer scene needed a place like Craft and Growler. Until husband and wife owners Kevin Afghani and Catherine Kinslow opened up their beer filling station in Fair Park, the only place you could get many locally brewed beers was at a bar. See also: Patent Pending at Craft…

Wednesday, May 8 It’s a culinary showdown at the Dallas Contemporary as Scott Romano battles Matt McCallister of FT-33 in the Iron Fork chef challenge. The King Bucks will perform as guests (you!) sample food from different restaurants along with wine, beer and cocktails. Tickets are on sale at observerironfork.com…

The state health department just released a warning for Texan seafood lovers. Fish examined from the northwestern Gulf of Mexico contained mercury at concentrations that exceed health guidelines. That means if you’re pregnant (or even thinking about it) or under the age of 12 — no more wahoo for you…

Every now and then Food & Think, the edacious blog of Smithsonian Magazine, delves deep into the history of some food thing and the results are usually good. Just a few weeks ago they devoted a column to the history of the kolache in Texas. Today they tackle the history…

Jack Mac’s Swill and Grill opened on Preston Road in North Dallas last year, right on the heels of the explosion in the local craft beer movement. Jack and Amy MacDonald’s restaurant has a strong local focus that supports not only Texas breweries, but wineries and distilleries as well. The…

A few weeks ago I mentioned to my editor a post about Bud’s new flavor of the season, Straw-Ber-Rtia. He said something like, “Not so much, LDD. You’ll need to drink it and tell us about it, not just that it’s happened.” (Editor’s note: Indulging a bent for mild sadism…

Until last summer, low-income people who received federal assistance to purchase nutritious food could use their benefits to buy a Pepsi from the local corner store. A fresh bell pepper at the Dallas Farmers Market, however, was off limits. The Dallas Farmers Market administration couldn’t be bothered with the card…

Buddy Cramer, co-owner of Katy Trail Ice House, and his investment group have officially taken over the old Bandito’s spot in West Plano. We’ve sort of already been teased with this, as Scott Reitz reported a year ago on the Bandito’s Tex-Mex Ice House project. That is officially done now…

It’s almost here. This Wednesday our Iron Fork competition and food celebration will descend on the Design District. If you attended our Artopia event you’ll remember the Dallas Contemporary as a top-notch venue with plenty of space for exploration. We’re excited to fill the same venue with more than 30…

Simple in premise but with endless variations in execution, behold the nacho. When done properly, a plate of nachos becomes an act of excavation, a work of edible archaeology. We set out to explore some of the more interesting nachos in and around Dallas, and so we present the Nachodyssey…

Alice Laussade is now officially the funniest freakin’ food journalist in America. The James Beard Foundation just said so tonight at its 2013 food journalism awards. We knew this already, of course, still it’s nice to hear from other people. Or as Alice put it on Twitter: “Everyone please take…

We had a busy week at the CoA. Scott Reitz endured some bad karaoke at Pop Diner at in Uptown. No matter what the T-shirts may say, pulling off good food is sometimes easier said then done. Unless you’re drunk, then who cares? Exactly … We covered some solid Cinco…

One should never underestimate the power of kolaches. When the fertilizer plant in West exploded a couple of weeks ago, for many, the soft round pastry that put West on the map sprung quickly to mind as a way to raise money to help the blast’s victims. Last weekend, when…

It’s certainly not a weekend for lightweights. Leave your fanny pack at the house and imbibe in many of the options around town as we collectively celebrate General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín’s defeat of the French in 1862 in the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War. Despite the fiesta, many…

This Saturday, Jamie Fulton of Community Beer Co. will open his brewer’s book of secrets for Beer School from noon to 2 p.m. Fulton has an impressive set of credentials and has attended his share of brewing schools, including the UC Davis program, the World Brewing Academy and classes at…

I’m writing a monstrous, toothless, heavy-breathing, drooling, hairy beast of a paper this year. And by “this year,” I of course mean “for the rest of my life.” It’s called a thesis; I call it the reason Pfizer is having a good year. In order to bestow upon the research…

Two highly important pieces of information for you: 1) May 12 is Mother’s Day. Get it tattooed on your forehead. 2) Spoon Bar & Kitchen will open for lunch and brunch on Sunday, May 12. If you want to win Mother’s Day, consider hooking up The One Who Made You…

Wrigley, the grande dame of the gum world, is getting a little edgier with the announcement of Alert Energy Caffeine Gum. It’s about four cups of coffee edgier, since that’s the amount of caffeine in a single pack — eight pieces with 40 mg of caffeine apiece (a cup of…

We asked you which National Food Month should be May’s Official National Food Month, and your answer was loud and clear. While you made jokes in the comments section about wanting Asparagus Month to win, your votes said something much, much meatier. In the least shocking food news in the…