Me, your mother, that frickin’ grabowski over there, and those other asswipes are goin’ ta Gino’s fer a nice deep dish dinner, ya know? That’s just how Chicagoans talk; it’s been widely documented. Luckily, and educationally, the installation of Gino’s East Chicago Pizzeria, off of I-30 near Six Flags and…
Michelle learned to love ramen as a teenager, growing up in Singapore and traveling around Asia with her family. Brian is newer to the scene: He didn’t even try instant ramen in college. Together, they’re hunting for DFW’s best ramen. The Shop: Chino Chinatown The Atmosphere: Yuppie fusion chic. Chino…
If there is one thing you need to know about CiboDivino it’s that they aren’t serving Neapolitan pizzas like they claim. I mean this as a compliment, really; Dallas already has enough “authentic” Italian pizza, and it was time for something new to spin through the air. What’s most important…
Campestre Chula Vista, in Fort Worth, is a massive ode to Michoacan cooking, the work of the same guys that brought you Revolver Taco and are expected to open a new restaurant in Deep Ellum later this year. The Deep Ellum location is still a ways off, though, and back…
Strip malls are the stigmata of suburbia: bland architecture filled with non-descript businesses that you only patronize because they’re convenient to your dull drive home. When space aliens first land in the suburbs, they’ll assume we’re a species that loves donuts and manicures and lacks the ability to do our…
All that has been written about Heim Craft Barbecue in Near Southside Fort Worth to this point has buried the lede. Sure, the brisket, smoky with a pitch black bark, might be better than Pecan Lodge’s. Do not sauce Heim’s brisket. And, sure, the line outside the black trailer in…
CocoAndre is a shop on West Davis Street in Oak Cliff that sells all manner of chocolate. Like many chocolate shops, you can get fancy chocolate bars studded with nuts or fruit or both. You can also get tiny truffles in no fewer than one million flavors. CocoAndre also sells…
“What is that abomination that looks like your kid dropped it on the garage floor?” Aside from the abomination part, I’d have a hard time disagreeing with the comment left on my Blue Bell alternatives post. The ice cream creation pictured above may have many desirable attributes, but beauty is…
The first rule of Ten Bells Tavern is: You should actually really talk about Ten Bells Tavern. There’s the smoky, saucy wings studded with blue cheese, the woodsy patio (complete with roving, fuzzy cats), the focused beer menu, and the new-Star Wars-trailer-good short rib fries. Ten Bells Tavern has won…
There were rows and rows of food and booze at the Dallas Observer’s Iron Fork event at Fair Park’s Centennial Hall last night, but the chef competition was easily the best part, aside from drunkenly taking ridiculous photos in the photo booth. This year, two-year reigning champ Matt McCallister of…
Every year I get to Iron Fork, the Dallas Observer’s annual tasting event, as soon as the doors open, I do my best to eat everything available and pick my top bites. I’m always pretty sleepy after the event, but this year’s featured more restaurants than any year before it…
Follow the Cheap Bastard as she scours the city, looking for a good — or at least non-lethal — lunch for less than 10 bucks. You’re pretending to work on a rainy day. So, you go to White Rock Coffee (10105 E. Northwest Highway). When Duncan Sheik begins to play…
For as much as texting has taken over our lives, there are a few human interactions where spoken dialogue is still standard. We may text friends a happy birthday message, but we don’t — we can’t — text our service provider, “WTF Time Warner?” when our bandwidth seems low and…
The Observer’s food critic, Scott Reitz, said recently that there’s no such thing as a good ice cream sandwich. He said this in private, but I am making these statements public, because they deserve examination. His take: The cookies are too hard, the ice cream squishes out when you take…
Just like Oak and Pakpao, the two Aphelia Restaurant group restaurants that preceded it, El Bolero makes an exceedingly good first impression. There’s stone and tile work everywhere in the new Design District space, with each installation lending color and texture. The front patio is wrapped in cinderblock walls, with…
Who knew this writing-about-barbecue thing would lead to shoulder-rubbing with the upper-most layer of Dallas’ upper-crust elite this quickly? I was invited into the secret cabal of about 30 judges for Friday’s Big D BBQ Battle, which regrettably had to be cut short due to rain at about 7 p.m…
See if you can count the red flags in this sentence: A Detroit native wanted to clue Texans in on authentic Mexican tacos, so eight months ago he opened a joint in Southlake called Frezko, where 80s rock and pop greets the lunch crowd alongside an Aztec Sun Stone mural…
Zero Hour was for typing. It was middle school in the ’90s, and a couple of days a week I was in “zero hour” class, which meant it was before-the-sun early, and involved typing meaningless phrases to bolster my words-per-minute score. A sheet of paper rested over the tops of…
Strip mall restaurants rarely make great first impressions, but the recently resurrected Mr. Max in Irving seems to go out of its way to ward off all but the most determined diners. The tiny restaurant is tucked behind a doughnut shop and a computer repair store in an under-lit and…
Gavin Cleaver is the former web editor and clueless barbecue correspondent of the Dallas Observer. He lives in England Great Britain the UK somewhere over there ——> Hello from overseas. I hear you’ve been having some weather. Well, I’m here to inform all of you that you are now considered…
When we first announced that Omar Flores was going to take on Matt McCallister at this year’s Dallas Observer Iron Fork event, the event was already shaping up to be a great one. El Come Taco had signed on as a participant for the first time, and some of my…
A specific hook carried me into Longoria’s on my last trip to the corrugated-metal meat mansion in Everman. Owner David Longoria added pulled pork to his eclectic menu a little over a month ago, and by this time had mastered the new offering, making it time, once again, to check…
