Where’s the dart board? That’s what I kept wondering when I first went to a brew pub. During the past few years, the country has been flooded with these places. Almost without exception, they’re large, noisy barns, where it’s impossible to have a conversation along with your beer. It was…
I remember the first time I was confronted with a Jell-O shooter: Served in a little pleated paper cup, and brightly colored, it reminded me of the first polio vaccine. I thought then that the drinker’s search for sensational weirdness had reached its end. But now, nearly needless to say,…
A few miles north of Thomas Avenue, the management crew that is doing wonders with the Thomas Avenue Brewing Company is tending to another of the neighborhood’s needs. The Green Elephant is a college hangout–this is where the Thomas Avenue bunch might have hung out while they were still going…
I have heard of restaurants complaining that a positive review put them out of business because they were unprepared for the ensuing success. And I’ve always had a tough-love attitude about that “problem.” A visit to Thai Country after another critic had recently reviewed the place didn’t change my mind,…
It’s been the observation of those who keep an eye on society–philosophers, professors, and people who watch a lot of television–that America’s domestic ideals have changed. Some say, deteriorated. It’s true that, when I was a kid, the Nelsons (Ozzie), the Reeds (Donna), and the Cleavers (the Beave) were the…
In England, it’s trifle; elsewhere, it’s charlotte, bread pudding, tiramisu. Every country’s cuisine has them–nursery sweets constructed from leftover bread or cake, and eggs, milk, and sugar. The bread pudding at new Toscana combines two great comfort foods into one great dessert. The restaurant’s dessert borrows something from bread pudding,…
I have a “friend” who just last week told me he absolutely and without question knew where the very best sushi in town was served. All the sushi chefs go there, he told me as proof of truth, but he would not tell me where the place is. “You’ll just…
The long middle table at John’s Cafe was full last Saturday morning, and there was only one newspaper, so it made the rounds of the table, handed to the next person down as each finished reading. There aren’t very many cafes like John’s left; Greenville Avenue used to be lined…
There’s been entirely too much discussion about the nature, needs, and future of Deep Ellum. Deep Ellum needs more residents; Deep Ellum needs fewer pawn shops. Deep Ellum needs more retail; Deep Ellum needs fewer tattoo parlors. Deep Ellum needs a grocery store. Deep Ellum needs more parking meters. Wait,…
It looks a lot like Kool-Aid, or maybe a Shirley Temple, up—a delicate pastel petal-pink, cool and frosty-looking, like Sugar ‘n’ Ice lipstick in a stemmed glass. But the Encantado Margarita at Monica’s Aca y Alla is made with mescal, a so-called beverage which most of us are too nice…
The whole city knows the secret now: There’s no sign, no listed phone. The painting on the outside is your only clue that you’ve arrived at no place. Against a lurid Texas sunset, a bunch of tough, gun-toting, duster-clad hombres ( I think that’s the correct term) are staring out…
The words “happy hour” bring to my admittedly middle-age mind a loud vision of elbow-to-elbow gatherings around chafing dishes of Mexican food, with too many cheap drinks leading to a blurry evening. How nice to instead perch on a barstool at Pinot’s in the early evening, sipping a glass of…
Many years ago, after a lovely wedding in an old chapel in Baton Rouge, we were given a Cajun feast of crawfish and wedding cake. The favorite drink of the day? The liquid refreshment with which the bride’s father fortified himself (and disabled his guests)? He called his concoction a…
It seems significant to me that the billboards and mailers advertising the long-awaited opening of Toscana don’t picture mouth-watering veal and mushrooms, or lemon-roasted chicken, but instead look like a lineup straight out of a Milanese fashion shoot. What are we selling here? Against a blank white background, debonair, white-haired…
The club sandwich is an all-American institution open to anyone. Food historians tell us that the club sandwich has been around since the last century, and then argue about what goes on one, and whether it’s properly made with two pieces of toast or three. I say, ‘Who cares?’ The…
Around the corner from Vitto’s is Mi Familias, a new little Mexican restaurant that is Vitto’s exact opposite in substance and style. Vitto’s is trying to carve a little niche of unexpected chic in old-fashioned Oak Cliff; Mi Familias is precisely what we’ve come to expect from Oak Cliff eateries,…
Brand-new from Mother Nature: Del Monte Gold pineapples. Del Monte began developing this new variety of pineapple more than 10 years ago in Costa Rica, which is evidently the Alaska of pineapples: They just naturally grow bigger and sweeter in Costa Rica. But Mother Nature’s little helpers at Del Monte…
It occurred to me, as I walked into Vitto’s, that the last time I reviewed a restaurant in Oak Cliff, it was at this same address. Maybe not. But it’s certainly true that off the top of my head, I can name four or five restaurants that have held this…
Improbably, one of the best Italian restaurants in the city has settled solidly into the suburbs. Popolo’s packs them into Preston Royal Shopping Center every lunch and dinner, and every diner devours the fresh bread, dipped into a dish of olive oil. Now, around back of the restaurant, you can…
Just a guess, but I suppose Daddy Jack isn’t planning on moving after all. The last time I talked with Jack Chaplin at any length, he was considering pulling up stakes and going back East where he came from, instead of swimming upstream (so to speak), making a living as…
French food is the mother of all Western cuisines; the whole vocabulary of Western cuisine is French. The French fries (pommes frites) at Chez Gerard remind you that even the ubiquitous French-fried potato is something to take seriously, if you want to be rewarded. Greaseless but buttery, colored a pure…
“When a vegetable is as beautiful as this asparagus, you’ve just got to take it seriously.” I can’t remember now whether Julia (Child, of course) said that in a magazine interview or during an episode of The French Chef. I’m not really even sure whether it was asparagus or artichokes…
