Albania. Where’s that? It’s not a country most Americans–let alone Dallas residents–have much familiarity with, and for good reason. Locked into obscurity and solitary confinement throughout most of its history on account of its rugged, mountainous topography, Albania nonetheless has had a tendency to incite violent intrusions. This is because…
Like a pair of tectonic plates, itching to lurch forward but frozen into place by geological procrastination, Watel’s changes little before making sudden leaps. It was in place on McKinney Avenue and Harwood Street for more than 10 years before scrambling up the avenue not far from Allen Street in…
His business card is simple: Chef Joseph. His trajectory is not. He trained at La Gastronome in the Basque region of France and Spain. He practiced at the Arizona Biltmore L’Orange and the Ritz Carlton in Spain. He was installed at the hip upscale Voltaire before it became that downscale…
Every once in a while a dining experience is of such a piece that the food is almost beside the point; you’re just content to revel in reality gone slightly askew, maybe with a drink. You-Chun Korean Restaurant doesn’t serve alcohol, but it does serve water. It’s dispensed from a…
Whither steak? Haven’t we had enough already? Are any arteries left in North Texas that don’t proudly wear the badge of sclerosis crimp? Is there a credit rating nearby not creaking under the strain of prime beef? Are you vexed by the under-representation of creamed corn, sautéed mushrooms, mashed potatoes…
An Open Appeal to Dr. Robert Rey: You may find this hard to believe, but before last week I had never heard of you. I had no idea you were one of the pioneers of the transumbilical procedure, which sounds suspiciously like a financial instrument designed to skirt Securities and…
Italian stares at us perpetually, teasing with promise. It draws us with its sassy Latin vibrato and Ferrari-like lust with hints of Fellini-esque expressiveness. But the stare is an empty leer. What you get is Ed Wood warbling Lou Reed while tooling down the road in a Kia Sorrento. Italian…
Here’s a twist: accidentally stumbling into the restaurant business and finding love. Usually the love comes first, spawned by the illusion of glamour inherent in the prospect of running your own canteen. A short time after the buzz wears off, these once spellbound operators start tearing their hair out by…
Out there in the cyber yards there’s a place called slick.com (political satire at its best!), a repository of assorted detritus and tripe. Here’s something useful: “The Code of Dalton.” “The Code of Dalton” lists a number of felonies and misdemeanors, outrages not covered by criminal codes. For example, under…
The sushi bar is serpentine. It also has an interesting endpoint set piece: a waterwheel. Yet the most fascinating element in this Japanese restaurant squatting in a former Uptown video rental outlet rests on the bar surface. It’s there, between the grout lines framing the large black ceramic tiles: The…
What can you say about Greek food? It’s hard to say, because there is so much to say. People tend to forget that Alexander the Great, well before he matured into an Oliver Stone gigabuck cinema dud, spread Greek culture, including cuisine, via brilliant military campaigns. Greeks are credited with…
The Landmark Restaurant has been in the Melrose Hotel for a long time, so it’s easy for it to tumble out of your dining awareness. Perhaps you spend most of your Melrose time in The Library bar, trying out different martinis while women of varying abilities croon to piano (put…
Over on Travis Street, a man wearing a sandwich board stands on the sidewalk in front of Samba Room. He advertises dollar sushi and sake. This is how far we’ve come: a Cuban bar shilling sushi and rice brew for a buck. The city shudders, sobbing great streaming tears of…
Chaucer’s is what happens when investors have lots of money and space on their hands. You’d never know it from the outside, though. A few metal chairs and tables outside the front doors constitute a patio effort. Near the edge of the window is a lighted “open” sign, the kind…
You can hear it, if you listen closely enough. Not the din of chitchat hanging in the high ceiling caverns like a thick blanket of smog, not the staccato of clashing flatware, but the jingle of coins muffled in plastic cups and the near-melodious throb of slot-machine bells. “No, it’s…
“Food is life.” Promo materials for George Restaurant attribute the above quotation to George Brown, the lauded Dallas chef who just opened his own restaurant in the spot that was once home to the Riviera. Not only that, he has adopted the words as his personal motto. Though Brown may…
Café Pacific is a cliché. This is heresy. Shuffle into this bosom of Highland Park culture (Highland Park Village) and blurt such a thing, and you’ll quickly be felled by a 2-carat marquise bullet right between the eyes. But look at the place. Your feet are surrounded by black and…
Take a quick walk through the museum-like produce wing of Central Market and you will notice a frightening thing: brussels sprouts. The terror stems not so much from the sprouts themselves, which, in addition to liver, take top billing in most childhood meal traumas. It’s how they are showcased. The…
Taverna is ear-piercing. This is odd, because thought has been given to sound. While Taverna has a concrete floor, it has cloth-covered baffles in the ceiling to minimize sonic glare. Still noise sneaks through, leaving one to wonder what the roar would be if the ceiling were baffle-less. There would…
CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNIQUE TO: Stent Industry Shareholders and Venture Capitalists FROM: Stent Manufacturers Association of America President Arturo E. Bloc RE: Meat First let me congratulate you on our bold investments. Your significant funding has driven one of the most innovative medical devices ever devised: the stent, that expensive (yeah!) wire…
Saltimbocca’s! is billed as a bistro. A bistro is a small cafe, usually serving down-to-earth food and wine. But let’s look a little further: The Food Lover’s Companion says the word is also deployed to describe a small nightclub (the French bistrot means pub). Let’s scan the place. The main…
L’Ancestral is an icon, a dignified one. It’s among the first slices of French to braise its way onto the Dallas landscape without the excessive continental puffery. An elderly man sits alone at one table, his back against the wall. He wears a coat and tie. His shirt is tucked…
