As usual, last month was a busy one in the Dallas restaurant scene. Read on for the full slate of opening restaurants, and be sure to share tips about restaurant openings or closings in the comments section below or at dish@dallasobserver.com. Openings: Chicken Scratch (2303 Pittman St.): Tim Byres’ new…
If you’re a Baseball Person, walking through the concourse of a stadium and seeing that massive expanse of emerald turf for the first time each year fills your soul with the feeling of potential. For a northerner, baseball invokes the potential for warmer weather ahead; interrelationships of the celestial bodies…
Rex’s Seafood Market was running wide-open, full-throttle on a recent Friday afternoon. Lent and the army of Catholics who adhere to its dietary restrictions might have had something to do with the surge, but I think it was the lobster roll that inspired the droves. Rex’s puts the New England…
Welcome to the return of The Box. Last time, Craig Cottier turned the ingredients from The Box into radass St. Paddy’s Day drinks. This time, we gave our big box of crap to Chad Houser, Cafe Momentum do-er and Parigi cheffer (“Parigi” means “fucking delicious deviled eggs” in French talk)…
Oysters may be nature’s most perfect food. They’re rich and sensual and best served with little intervention: freshly opened and raw, with a few drops of liquid sunshine from a lemon. But April is here, and while oysters can safely be harvested in northern waters year round, Texas oyster season…
With food truck mania showing no signs of letting up, I figured I’d hit up the Arts District at lunchtime and see if there were any viable options for veggie-friendly eating. A rotating group of trucks cluster on Flora Street between Leonard and Crockett (right across from the Meyerson) every…
Call me Nancy NosyPants. I was driving past the building that used to house RedFork on Fitzhugh the other day and noticed some sweaty manbeasts covered in drywall dust. I stopped, sauntered inside and, as luck would have it, Khanh Nguyen appeared. Nguyen was busy, but he stopped for long…
Don’t be fooled by the gratis basket of chips or the enchiladas or the plastic bowls of salsa (which is quite good, loaded with tomato, fresh cilantro and garlic and enriched with oil). Veracruz Cafe is not a Tex-Mex restaurant. Not even close. As evidence, I submit this hearty bowl…
If you’re perched at the outdoor section of the bar at Union Bear on a warm spring day, you may just catch some sunshine on the nape of your neck while you sip on an Anchor Steam draft. Or perhaps a crisp Albarino is more your taste: The Spanish grapes…
When you think of Chinese food, you think of General Tso’s Chicken, Kung Pao Beef, Pork Fried Rice and a Cinnabun for dessert, because you are most likely in a food court. You don’t, however, think about pastries. Unless you’re Chinese. Growing up, my Chinese mother would always tuck into…
Remember when Oscar Mayer came out with the “bun-length” hot dog? They ran a series of commercials featuring white-bread Americans at cook outs wondering what to do with that bit of bun remained after they’d taken the last hot dog bite. This will not be a problem with the new…
I was out running errands in the Old Town shopping center at Lovers and Greenville when I found myself hungrily eyeing the guinea pigs on display at Petsmart. Alarmed by my newfound taste for small domesticated mammals, I checked my watch and realized it was 4 o’clock and all I’d…
If you happen to be in the area Skillman and Northwest Highway, you may notice a bunch of hoopla over at a new CiCi’s Pizza. This newest member of the chain is celebrating their grand opening, throwing a party with balloons, face painting — the usual crap kids love –…
Rice Bowl Express, 11419 Garland Road, is fast and cheap. How could Cheap Bastard not love it? By eating there, unfortunately. Times I was like, “Is that a hooker? Yes. Is that also a hooker? Yes.”: 12 Trucks in the Fiesta Mart parking lot next door count: 21 I’ve driven…
The first lobster roll I ever ate was purchased in a run-down seafood restaurant on Route 12, 60 miles outside of Boston, in a town called Fitchburg. I’d seen the sign on my way to a wedding in New Hampshire: “Lobsters, $3.99 a pound,” it read, and it sat next…
Hypnotic Donuts. Today. For one glorious hour. From 11 a.m. to noon. They’re calling it Lone Star Wednesday. (Because they’re giving away Lone Star beers and also it’s Wednesday.)…
I have no excuse for taking so long to write about this glorious ramen bowl. The soup had been recommended to me numerous times, but the chatter only got louder when I laid into Private Social’s version a whole back. So I ducked in Tei-An for a late meal after…
Chef Tim Byres, chef and owner of upscale meat palace Smoke and the latest recipient of Food & Wine’s People’s Best New Chef award, opened his new fast-casual chicken joint on Monday at Pittman and Fort Worth Avenue in North Oak Cliff. Chicken Scratch is a small, corrugated-metal-and-glass building right…
Jay Jerrier, owner of Il Cane Rosso, put it best: “Santo Merda!” (Holy Shit!) It’s not too often that the best pizza shop in town offers up its authentic Neapolitan red-brick pizza oven to one of the best chefs in the city. A chef whose restaurant takes reservations a month…
(This week, Cheap Bastard hits Dairy-ette (9785 Ferguson Road, 214-327-9983) and finds something better than Sonic and Whataburger. For that kind of digging, we’re thinking of moving her to investigations.) Ceiling leaks: 2 (size large) People actually reading the whole newspaper: 3 Dairy-ette is like a Sonic. Only better. Their…
Hoochies Oyster House (207 S. Bell, Denton) held a quasi-secret soft opening last week to a small but boisterous group of beer-guzzling Dentonites. We checked it out on a perfectly breezy night and have already planned the next few visits just to sit on that magic patio and drink beer…
Mark Cuban has caused me to completely rediscover St. Patrick’s Day. Gratuitous party-givers with no strings attached plays well into the whole theme of “friendliest day of the year.” So I tracked down my favorite Irish lass, Theresa Magee, earlier this week to have her show me how to make…
