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…
The Greater Dallas Restaurant Association has released the results of the study it commissioned to examine the impact of the March 1, 2003, smoking ban in restaurants. And like a day-old Pall Mall butt dangling from the bright red lips of a hardened professional, the findings aren’t pretty. Drafted by…
“Food is life.” Promo materials for George Restaurant attribute the above quotation to George Brown, the lauded Dallas chef who just opened his own restaurant in the spot that was once home to the Riviera. Not only that, he has adopted the words as his personal motto. Though Brown may…
We’re mostly hostile to Dallas versions of Italian cuisine. It’s all so…Stouffer’s. But we had sappy soft spots for Rick Robbins of the slowly bled Eccolo and Kevin Ascolese, who turned fine Tuscan tricks at Mi Piaci and the euthanized Salve! He later found himself in the kitchen of Ferré…
Oh, boy. Over the past several years people often wrote in urging us to dine on organ meats, find a cocktail we couldn’t stomach or sit down to haggis and scotch. This week’s topic, we thought, would finally give us the opportunity to amend our impish raconteur persona and describe…
Café Pacific is a cliché. This is heresy. Shuffle into this bosom of Highland Park culture (Highland Park Village) and blurt such a thing, and you’ll quickly be felled by a 2-carat marquise bullet right between the eyes. But look at the place. Your feet are surrounded by black and…
Henderson Avenue dinner and late-night cocktail conquistador (Cuba Libre, Sense, Candle Room, Fireside Pies) Tristan Simon has dumped his interest in the Mongolian-inspired Genghis Grill, the “create your own stir fry” concept he gulped from founder Jeff Sinelli two years ago. He sold the 10-unit chain to a franchisee that…
Take a quick walk through the museum-like produce wing of Central Market and you will notice a frightening thing: brussels sprouts. The terror stems not so much from the sprouts themselves, which, in addition to liver, take top billing in most childhood meal traumas. It’s how they are showcased. The…
Taverna is ear-piercing. This is odd, because thought has been given to sound. While Taverna has a concrete floor, it has cloth-covered baffles in the ceiling to minimize sonic glare. Still noise sneaks through, leaving one to wonder what the roar would be if the ceiling were baffle-less. There would…
Kent Rathbun leaned back in his chair, glanced in our general direction and ran his fingers over a case, which we knew contained a set of razor-sharp knives. He then suggested this week’s topic. The frustrations arising from a finite number of seats, the uncertainties of weather and traffic, capricious…
CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNIQUE TO: Stent Industry Shareholders and Venture Capitalists FROM: Stent Manufacturers Association of America President Arturo E. Bloc RE: Meat First let me congratulate you on our bold investments. Your significant funding has driven one of the most innovative medical devices ever devised: the stent, that expensive (yeah!) wire…
