Lots–maybe the majority–of people are convinced that restaurant reviewers live in the advertisers’ pocket. Many times I’ve been assured by “people who know” (but don’t know what I do for a living) that all restaurant reviews are paid for by restaurant advertising, that no review is an unvarnished, honest opinion,…
Advertising would lead you to believe that Americans are living in a fat-free zone. Everything that can be is touted as less fat, low-fat, no fat. Even products that never did have fat in them have “No Fat” blaring from the bag. Tortilla chips are misguidedly baked, not fried, in…
What a prix fixe! For $35 (half of which is tax-deductible), you can sample food and wine from Star Canyon, Mediterraneo, Gaspar’s, Parigi, Dakota’s, Cafe Margaux, The French Room, Blue Mesa Grill, Laurels, and dozens more of Dallas’ best restaurants. Plus–the reason food industry events are such profitable charity–you’ll be…
Cake check: A good cake, as I point out frequently, is hard to find. Celebrity makes a decent divinity icing; Highland Park Cafeteria makes good chocolate cake. But Sweet Endings in Deep Ellum (or Plano) takes the cake. Their whole cakes start at $25 and they recently came up with…
And another nostalgic note: I went back to Los Vaqueros recently, Pete Dominguez’ retrenchment restaurant in Snider Plaza. Pete Dominguez has been serving “Austin-style” Mexican food in Dallas for over 30 years, the 30 years that Dallas grew from an ambitious town on the prairie to the mess it is…
Along with the return to mythical “family values,” an old-fashioned emphasis on the three “R’s” in school, and, of course, the Wonderbra, comes another look backward through rose-colored glasses: the renaissance of that original American meal, steak and potatoes. Even back before the Revolution, there was a “Beef-Stake Club” in…
I was just saying that what Deep Ellum needs is some basic businesses, like grocery stores, when I hear that the G-spot has opened on Main Street. That’s “G” for groceries, mostly, although you can rent X-rated videos from Jules Armstrong while you’re picking up a box of mac and…
Interpreting is a dangerous business. My trusted friend Hisashi (whom you’ve met before in this column) recently spent a lot of time following the baseball wonder boy Nomo around for Japanese television. He endured the day-from-hell at Arlington Stadium and he says it’s absolutely true that Nomo’s interpreter either didn’t…
Preston Road North is the unlikeliest new dining strip. It’s totally not fashionable, totally not a place to hang out, but evidently the neighborhood is totally filled with hungry diners. Have they just been discovered or was everyone between LBJ and Oak Lawn on a diet until recently? Lately I…
Menu writing should be taught (or maybe it is) in those culinary academies that turn out all our chefs. Or perhaps, along with the health inspection, a spelling and grammar test should be required. To read the menus in many restaurants, you’d think there were no rules of writing, in…
One of my favorite food memories is eating a cucumber on the street in Istanbul. It was hot, we were tired out by haggling in the Grand Bazaar, discouraged by the experience of being blonde in Turkey, and tired of avoiding fresh fruit for the sake of our guts. A…
Diana, a Renaissance woman. Baker par excellence, farrier, seamstress, and dietitian. Vegetarian. Bakes the cakes and cookies for Street’s Famous Sandwiches because she knows Gene’s mother. What better recommendation could there be? –Mary Brown Malouf Street’s Famous Sandwiches, 4246 Oak Lawn, 526-2505…
There’s a lot of discussion about what Deep Ellum needs. More residential space, more retail, better restaurants, fewer kids, a grocery store. What KJ and the donut lady decided it needed wasn’t on anybody’s list, but there’s certainly not another one in the neighborhood: 24-hour coffee and donuts. The donuts…
People think in categories when it comes to restaurants. The typical dinner out begins with a conversation: “I don’t feel like cooking. Want to go out? Want to eat Mexican? Italian? Pizza? You feel like Thai? Vietnamese? Wanna just get a Tombstone and a video? Steak? Seafood?” For most of…
The last time I wrote about Dakota’s was several years ago, for another publication. I remember on that particular weeknight visit that I was just about the only woman there–the whole restaurant was populated by pinstripes, with a very few power powder puffs with jabots on theirs. But on my…
“Oh hi, Arthur.” What else was there to say? The waiter and I went way back. No point in dragging out the wig and shades now. It’s one of the dangers of attempting to review restaurants anonymously in the town where you grew up–you run into yourself coming and going…
One giant step for fast food: Wendy’s on Lemmon Avenue is determined to serve it your way. Now, when you pull up and order, the menu board verifies it as you speak. Say you want a single burger with cheese, no onion or tomato, and a big order of fries…
Your mama told you right: you can’t judge anything by appearances. Jade Garden has as unpromising a facade as you could hope to see. A converted convenience store, with leaky ceiling tiles, vinyl booths, cheap tables, and chairs–this place has absolutely no drive-up, and the inside is no more encouraging…
You’d think it was Six Flags in summer–the line snakes through the tables and right out the door at noon. Fairmount St. Bakery Cafe is a lunchtime phenomenon. And the question for me–as always–is why? Why is this place making it when so many restaurants are not? These days it…
I get a lot of press releases and a lot of voice mail, but I gather a good deal of my restaurant information from that most professional of sources, my car. Like everyone else in Dallas, I spend half my waking hours behind the wheel, and cue in to changes…
You don’t see wings as often as breasts, and they’re not as big here as in Buffalo, but chicken wings are a coming thing–one part of the bird that still has bones. Wingstop serves ’em hot, mild, covered in lemon pepper or garlic and parmesan, coated with Hawaiian or atomic-strength…
Maybe I’m being supersensitive about this–after all, I’m still terrified by that chapter in Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles where the earthmen climb out of their rockets on Mars and everything and everyone looks precisely as it did back home in Sioux City, Iowa. Only, of course, they’re not…they’re really Martians…
