Erraticism is underrated. Pathological restlessness isn’t a character flaw; it’s a gift, maybe even a mark of genius. Take the late Seymour Cray, the legendary supercomputer architect. Cray devoted his life to spinning miracles. Though his canvas was silicon and his medium sheer number-crunching fury, his supercomputers were nonetheless sculpted…
On the surface, this week’s Burning Question is all too simple. Of course people congregate at sports bars for the big game; that’s why they’re called sports bars. Right? Much like the distance between residents of Oklahoma and proper dental hygiene, however, a lag exists between nominal sports bars and…
Two things occurred to us while working on this week’s topic. First, the Burning Question crew should never be allowed to roam unsupervised through O’Hare airport in Chicago. Second, the English language needs more words. How else can you explain it? There’s simply no way to describe the intonation of…
On the second visit we ended up next to the same car we slipped alongside on the first trip: a red Plymouth Sundance with Tweety Bird slip covers over the front buckets. This was weird: two Warner Bros. canaries leering out at me from a cheap MOPAR on two separate…
Nothing will dampen the spread of the Dallas steak house: not mad cows, not prime beef at triple-bypass prices, not heinous visions of “downer cow” kielbasa (who has the spine for that?). And nothing will throw a bucket of A-1 on Dallas’ lust for blue-blood beef. In fact, the steak…
No municipality on earth is a better locale for a restaurant pushing backyard cuisine than Plano, bedroom community to the world. But what exactly is gourmet backyard cuisine? If my memory still serves correctly after years of alleged cabernet abuse, backyard cuisine once consisted mostly of Oscar Mayer tubes, Durkee…
It was the year of smoke. So many Dallas restaurant landmarks went up in the stuff in 2003, and so many Pall Malls and Partagas Churchills didn’t, at least not within restaurant walls. And walls will be the most crucial culinary consideration in Dallas from now on, thanks to the…
It was a year when even the ups left us feeling down. In 2003 Americans heard phrases like “jobless recovery,” splurged on duct tape and plastic sheeting and dutifully scorned French foods. It took a bloody occupation of Iraq to finally dislodge Ben and Jen from headline news. We toppled…
What is hip? Like a cube of lime Jell-O, hipness is hard to grasp without making a mess. Yet everybody craves this elusiveness, so much so they want to eat it, thinking it will impart some sort of penetrating insights. We all know where to get it, too: New York,…
There’s no greater threat to democracy (other than Congress) than drinking and voting. But what about voting and drinking? In North Texas, it’s becoming as all-American as German car leases. Witness McKinney, Allen and the mother of all American suburbs, Plano. Groups from each city are racing (or have raced)…
It sounds easy, but operating a successful neighborhood restaurant is tough: ingratiating yourself with a cadre of regulars, serving decent food, enticing nomads from foreign neighborhoods and protecting the comfort zone you’ve created (never invite assassination attempts by pulling a menu staple after it’s become an icon). To understand the…
Pool cues or bamboo sticks? Chopsticks or billiard chalk? These were once the riveting questions posed up the Dallas North Tollway. But plans to plop a Cool River Café in the former Voltaire/Bamboo Bamboo space appear to be snuffed, though Consolidated Restaurant Operations Chairman Gene Street holds out a chance…
Flowing water is said to provoke soothing meditation, especially among those with feng shui (the art of furnishing a room to harmonize with its spiritual forces) on their dumbwaiters and incense residue on their lapels. Moving water has an almost-primordial appeal–aesthetic, psychological, physiological–perhaps hearkening back to the days before we…
While (some) restaurants are evacuating Deep Ellum–East Wind Vietnamese Restaurant and the much-rumored but unconfirmed flight of Sambuca Jazz Café to the former Salve! space on McKinney Avenue–some battle-hardened mavericks armed with taps and pearl onions are actually moving in. Nick Hidi, who earned his nightclub stripes operating a spot…
B movie actor…excuse us, Governor Schwarzenegger scored a respectable second in the coveted Foot in Mouth contest for his astute assessment of gay marriage. It “should be between a man and a woman,” he said. Wonder how the big guy explains Michael Jackson. It’s disturbing when those with an actual…
McCormick & Schmick’s used to be a toy store: FAO Schwarz, that ages-old chain purveyor of toddler titillation. FAO was bled into anemia by Wal-Mart and Toys “R” Us and is now suffering just as the season of shopping psychosis intrudes. This is the sort of pressure that popped FAO…
Liberty Noodles is dead, shuttered little more than a year after the 7-year-old concept evacuated its Lower Greenville spot for more expansive digs on Lovers Lane. What did it in? Advanced weapons. Creator Jeffrey Yarbrough says business boomed out of the chute. But when General Tommy Franks and the 4th…
No wonder people crowd into Hooters. It has a pert name, firm menu, low-cut prices and a revealing window to the kitchen. We can’t think of anything else necessary for success in the service industry. Oh, yeah. There is one more thing: babes. “Sexism runs rampant,” says Glenn Hartzell, bar…
“Hi, my name is Arthur King. I’m one of the owners of Gingko Tree China Bistro in Flower Mound. We have been open since May 24, and we are very excited to be here. As far as information goes, we are a Chinese Restaurant…We have a lot of different menu…
Rumors have been flying that Nikita, the Cold War Eastern Bloc vodka depot/diner, is about to be sold. Or close. Or crumble like a bad wall in schizophrenic Germany–all after a breathless run of fickle lust that once strung endless and eager lines around Nikita’s West Village loins. Not so,…
Everywhere there are the fakes, the counterfeits, the phonies. They make their way to our wrists (my Rolex impersonation suffered band failure, fell to the pavement and was crushed by a real Toyota Corolla), our wallets (keep an eye on those new Andrew Jacksons) and our lips (please don’t bite…
When the Nasher Sculpture Center opened its doors not long ago, some bozo said, in a televised blurb, “This will put Dallas on the map.” Now, we’re not certain who made the comment, nor are we quoting verbatim. One of our favorite pastimes involves consuming massive quantities of bourbon while…
