Noodles Ave. has a slightly ratty feel to it. Not that this counter-order-deliver-by-number-table-service is actually a ragamuffin dressed up in colorful ethnic garb. It’s just that there are little things that lead to head-scratching. On one visit, a brood of Noodles Ave. counter workers and kitchen jockeys–presumably on a break…
Greenville Bar & Grill owner Terri Russo recoils when it’s suggested that her refurbished old bar (established in 1933) borders on upscale. Yet with its clean looks, white-tablecloth demeanor and 51-bottle wine list (called GBG Juice), it would be hard to call it anything else but a stab at a…
Margarita Ranch serves margaritas in more weird incarnations than congressmen come in. You can have them prepped with any tequila you want from a huge list, or you can try one of the Ranch’s special margaritas, which range from the cactus flower (tequila, lime and Tabasco) to the Cuba libre-impersonating…
It’s always risky hunting down Asian restaurants in strip malls. Either they’re bad, or more often, they’re so mind-numbingly inoffensive that you worry about falling asleep facedown in a puddle of panang curry. Much less often a killer Asian restaurant is discovered, in all of its searingly honest ethnicity, leaving…
Bistro Latino is a cave. The long narrow space is a hostel of darkness and a bungalow of noise. The dense carpet of diner gibberish and the impenetrable curtain of clangs and tinkles from flatware, glassware, dinnerware and tabletop spanks makes it impossible to tease out the background music in…
It’s hard to get a sense of what The Gulf Coast is trying to be. Maybe it’s a consignment store that serves free étouffée with the purchase of two pink flamingos. Or maybe it’s a fried seafood hutch that lets you leave behind all the stuff that was refused on…
Thai restaurants in Dallas generally fall into two categories: mediocre and great. There isn’t space between the two designations to accommodate gradients. Maybe it’s the water. Maybe it’s the obsession with steaks and frozen margaritas. For some reason Dallas has, with few exceptions, a hell of a time giving birth…
Pei Wei (pronounced pay way) Asian Diner is a restaurant based on a fictitious Chinese chef. The menu says the young Pei Wei used to go to bed thinking of recipes from China, Thailand, Vietnam and Japan while living in Taiwan. Indeed, Pei Wei the restaurant is a mix of…
More fascinating than the food and the thirst-quenching, electric-blue margaritas are the architecture and interior design at Blue Mesa. Both–at least at the Blue Mesa on Northwest Highway and the new Blue Mesa off the Dallas North Tollway in Plano–dazzle with unexpected little flourishes. The Northwest Highway installment has a…
It’s hard to figure out exactly what Stratos is. The word sounds Greek, but it isn’t a Greek restaurant. The menu is packed with sushi, but it isn’t a Japanese restaurant. There’s a dance floor, but it isn’t exactly a club. The three televisions in the bar broadcast sports, but…
It was originally dubbed Buddha Bar, and the name was intended to signify a sense of serenity, a mode of contemplation, an evocation of composure. It’s not clear what the enlightened one would have thought of this. Maybe he would have tossed it into the same category as sex, which…
“It’s better to look good than to feel good.” The adage works in most social settings and perhaps the occasional funeral. The inverse works for most sporting events held in a stadium. But no matter how you play with the words–reversing them, putting an umlaut over the vowels, converting a…
On the surface, the most compelling reason to dine at Tabouli’s, a restaurant serving Middle Eastern fare, is the tent room. And if you dig deeper, it turns out to be the only reason. Not that the food is necessarily bad outside the confines of the tent (though it is…
Though born in New York, Billy the Kid was a New Mexico outlaw doing most of his treachery (he had been charged with 12 murders by the time he was 18) in and around Lincoln County, New Mexico. Lincoln County is also the home of Smokey Bear, at least according…
Fondue is dangerous. The special forks are long and sharp with rippled tips that function almost like fishhook barbs, though not as effectively. After piercing cubes of beef or chicken or shrimp, the forks are plunged into hot oil or boiling broth, the moisture from the food exploding in a…
In many ways, Perry’s is just another steakhouse. The steakhouse formula has been perfected for so long in the Dallas restaurant crucible that it seems any competent restaurateur can sleepwalk through the execution. Perry’s dubs itself a classic Dallas dinner house, which could mean several things, from Black-eyed Pea to…
Scented Geranium suffers from an affliction that strikes restaurateuring neophytes and veterans alike: culinary inconsistency. Granted, getting what are often complicated dishes singing on the same note time and time again without fail is a tough thing to accomplish, especially on days when the kitchen staff hasn’t shown up or…
Norman Abdallah says it’s narcotic. He says it more than once during a short conversation, so it must be something he really believes. He has another restaurant concept with Fired Up Inc., the company he founded with fellow Brinker International alumnus Creed Ford, and he doesn’t say this about its…
Left in the hands of suit types, cuisine often fuses, blurs and finally melts into a stain on a spreadsheet, homogenized beyond recognition. At least that’s how it tastes sometimes, after some “hot” cuisine trend has been mainstreamed and sanded into milquetoast. It might not be fair to characterize Z’Tejas’…
If there was ever a year that bulged with ups and downs, ebb and flow, mood swings and yin-yang fluxes, 2001 is that year. Only instead of a series of peaks and valleys, 2001 was more like a time line of troughs with the summits sheared off, leaving depressions that…
Just as bachelor cooking makes liberal use of ketchup and fire, Irish cooking makes liberal use of beer. Certain foods are simmered or soaked in Guinness or ale to add interest to everything else, which is boiled. Trinity Hall, the Irish pub in Mockingbird Station, is no exception to this…
Movies are for popcorn, lots of yellow-oiled, oversalted puffed kernels in a bucket the size of a Freightliner with a side tank of Coke. And some Twizzlers and Goobers to chew on as the credits roll by while you try and figure out what the hell David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive…
