Single-serving bottles of Beringer on the counter count: 8 People in line in front of me count: 4 Hook Line & Sinker is the clogged artery in the heart of Uptown. And I mean that as a good thing. This beaten-down, piece-of-shit, Christmas-light-colored building is a total eyesore in the…
Upon hearing I had been assigned the duty of reviewing Al Amir, a Lebanese restaurant way up on Belt Line, I decided to study the restaurant’s Web site. This, after all, was no casual trek to the corner diner. Nope, it was to be a foray into a foreign land,…
People eating fried whole catfish with tails and everything count: 4 Cop count: 3 When you’re driving around Dallas looking for a place to eat lunch on the cheap, you’ve gotta know what you’re looking for. If the place has fancy freakin’ awnings or a shmancy revolving door or a…
I’ve never made a crêpe. Well, I’d never made a crêpe until recently, that is. Often, I go into restaurants to review them and I can say, “OK, I’ve made that.” I have an idea how difficult or how easy it is to pull off at least a variation of…
Times I got yelled at: 1 Slices I wish I had been able to eat: 40 I used to go to this place on Main Street called Café Ravenna, which served a nice slice and had a surprisingly large set of pasta options. It’s now called Ravenna Pizza & Bar…
There’s a wonderful scene in an episode of Mad Men, AMC’s drama about early-1960s New York ad execs, in which a character orders some sort of old-school cocktail that involves an egg white—probably a silver gin fizz. Actually, we see him order his second round; the first one is implied,…
Beer posters with boob girls on them count: 3 Creepy, anthropomorphized jalapeño with gloves on the menu count: 1 Known scientific fact: Mexican food is tasty shit. And it becomes even tastier in the summertime. So, when I saw the sandwich board outside of Galindo’s that read, “Beer Blow Out…
Screen Door bills itself—in the parlance of some of the finest whiskeys—as a blend, a melding of modern culinary wisdom with decades of tried-and-true grit from the hot, sticky South. The result is the modern Southern kitchen. But what does this mean? That’s hard to decipher. The food isn’t so…
Fuddruckers-esque decorations count: a million and seven Patio count: 1 Sonics within a 2-mile radius count: 5 It’s summer, and it’s not too late to fit into that bikini, guys, so let’s go running in the 112-degree heat and work off some of that winter weight, right?! Or, let’s accept…
A scene in 2003’s Lost in Translation depicts Bob (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) ordering shabu shabu from a menu that is basically a photo essay of various arrangements of raw meat. Bob, a bit frustrated for various reasons, looks at the waiter, points to the photo and fingers…
Buffalo head on the wall count: 2 Dishtowel napkin on my lap count: 1 Just down the street from Commerce’s burgerville, a nice little saloon just opened up. It’s run by the people who brought you the tastegasmic Twisted Root Burger, and it promises to be equally yummy at the…
Ponder the paradox. The more we flee the grit of the city, the more we crave its talismans. We crave them so much we recreate them in the metropolis’ own image—the urban villages, the revitalized town cores, the lofts. Yes, the lofts. And where they can’t be molded out of…
Buffet rounds I survived count: 2 Chicken lo mein burps per hour after eating count: 142 Located right next to a DART rail station (which is obviously always a good sign), the Jumbo Super Buffet sits tucked away in a parking lot corner just seconds away from a funeral home…
Years ago, well before cigarette smokers were forced to take their leprosy to the gutter, the American grill was an unpretentious place of hearty food washed down unapologetically with frothy brew. Steaks untrimmed of gristle. Burgers fat, pink and weeping greasy ooze. Pork with no pink and no “sustainable” upbringing…
Hot sauce packets I got with my order count: 10 Times I thought they might sell Canadian boner pills to me in a back room if I said the secret code word count: 2 When you walk up to Miss Chicken downtown on Elm Street, it looks like it might…
Ah, Dallas, the town with no history. Think about it: We tear down centuries-old buildings so we can erect temples built of fake bricks and paper-thin sheetrock. We desecrate beautiful old churches by cramming them full of rock memorabilia, and then we tear down the church. We pick and choose…
I planned out a vacation. It was an ambitious world tour touching down in various European, Mediterranean and South American countries. I would pack a wardrobe that would allow me to fluctuate a good 10 or 20 pounds, since my itinerary would be heavily food-focused. Then I calculated airfare, cat…
Tropicana Fruit Punch at the fountain count: 1 SMUchebag count: 5 Jersey Mike’s has a line out the door and zero parking. It also has a sub, drink and chips for less than 10 bucks, so I smoosh my Sucking Unleaded Vehicle into a motorcycle-sized spot and find a place…
Bolla is Italian for bull. Bolla is headed by Bull—chef David Bull, fresh from the Driskill Hotel in Austin, youngest sous chef ever to whip and sauté at The Mansion, James Beard Award nominee, CIA grad, Food & Wine magazine Best New Chef (2003), Iron Chef gladiator. At Bolla, Bull…
Pig head shaped out of ground pork behind the meat counter count: 1 I went up to the counter in Jimmy’s Food Store, the lady asked me what I wanted, and I said, “I’ll take the Italian Stallion. 6-inch.” For a second I felt like I was ordering a man…
The soft cheese taco I got with the “Special Mexican Dinner” at El Fenix on McKinney Avenue in downtown Dallas a couple of months ago mystified me. It was stuffed with cheddar and onions like a cheese enchilada, but the tortilla was steamed instead of fried and covered with chile…
Think, for a moment, on these known establishments: Roscoe’s House of Chicken ‘n Waffles, Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs, Katz’s Delicatessen, Cheesecake Factory. Consider, even, a lesser-known vendor with “taqueria” in the name. When faced with the “What’ll it be?” at these places, you don’t pussyfoot around the menu. You dive…
