Walk into a restaurant and you want to feel welcome, wanted. There’s something to be said for a chic, modern dining experience or traditional white linen eatery, sure, but there’s also value in a warm, friendly café. A place to hide out and nurse a coffee when you should be…
Wednesday Lunch Special: $6.39 for a meat, a veggie, a roll and a drink. Add a peach cobbler for a buck. Corona bottles filled with barbecue sauce and sitting on a warmer count: 30 Guy yelling your name when your food’s up count: 1 Free pickle bar count: 1 In…
It has the look of a speakeasy, or a port of ill-repute where scruples are scarce commodities. The entrance to The Club is in the quiet, expansive alley-like causeway that drains into the central courtyard at the Centrum building. The frame around the large door is black and leather-like. Gas…
Lunch special: Every Day Special, $4.99 for one slice of pizza, a salad and a soda Fake plant count: 50 Chicks in short shorts and heels count: 0 You ever been to Fireside Pies? The pizza there is outstanding. It just sucks that you’re out standing on the porch for…
Luna de Noche’s Gourmet Tex-Mex in Victory Park is the sixth location for the chain helmed by Lisa Galvan-Cuevas. She started the first of the restaurants in 1998, and with this one has expanded the menu to include four “nuevo gourmet” dishes and additional items in various sections on the…
Lunch special: Burger, fries and a drink for $6.36 Tiny, tiny building count: 1 Burgers on the grill count: 7 bazillion Either a car just backfired or that was a gun shot count: 1 Every time you drive your car through a Wendy’s, you’re cheating yourself. Every time you order…
Fearing’s is a well-oiled machine. Service is prompt. Water is chilled and filled. Wine recommendations are astute. Skipping through the list, wanting a light-to-medium-bodied red to successfully straddle the orders of fish and red meat at our table, sommelier Paul Botamer talked up the Peltier Station Petite Syrah from Lodi,…
Lunch special: No. 1 hero plus chips and a drink for $8 People behind the counter looking like they’re moving fast, but really moving kind of slowly, but at least they’re smiling count: 100 Hovering straw caddy count: 1 Empty table count: 0 Why is Jared the Subway guy still…
In Dallas, seafood is the black sheep, a gangly, stinky stepchild that doesn’t take to wood-fired grates or high-degree broilers with the same gusto as a corn-fed steer. It’s a placeholder on steakhouse menus, a light alternative for those who don’t relish beefy bloodlust or the burden a fine steakhouse…
On Main Street in Rowlett sits a florist and other storefronts, a few park benches, a grassy median and Big Star Burgers. The town square vibe is lost out on the pavement—it’s forced and a bit awkward. Only once the Big Star’s large glass and wooden doors are breached does…
Lunch special: Wednesdays, get two beef enchiladas plus rice and beans for $4.25 or two fajita tacos plus rice and beans for $5.55 Sweet-ass wooden chair count: 50 Taco Loco Late Night Taqueria attached to the side count: 1 I recently had lunch at Taco Diner in West Village. What…
Every once in a while—not often, but often enough to prompt a sensory readjustment—you come across a dish with a glaring hole in the flavor profile that somehow fills itself. The sharp edges are there—a razor line of salt or a burst of sour or the balm of sweet—counterpoised with…
Big orange fish count: 12 Empty table count: 10 Lunch Special: $5.99 buffet Vietnam Restaurant on Bryan Street isn’t very inviting from the outside, but the sign painted on the dark window says “$5.99 buffet.” And the parking around the place is always totally filled up at lunchtime, so I…
Lunch Special: Two pieces of rotisserie chicken, two sides, a wheat roll and a drink for $4.99 The good kind of peppermints count: a million Hot sauce in a Coke bottle count: 1 Wedged in between the Condom Sense and Condoms to Go, the Cowboy Chicken at Lovers Lane and…
The things about Tradicion that stick in the mind are the remnants, the leftovers. Tradicion is the work of Ricardo Avila. Avila grips the reins (along with his mother) of Avila’s, a Tex-Mex staple on Maple Avenue for more than 20 years. Tradicion penetrated the odd space that was once…
Olivella’s is outrunning its headlights. Its mouth can’t keep pace with the speed of its mind. Or is it vice versa? It’s not hard to pick up the flavor of chaos. Step into the restaurant. Muscle a path between the people seated at tables and on plush stools at the…
Lunch Special: $3.95 for an entrée and two sides. A/C count: 0 Rumor that Bonnie and Clyde met here count: 1 I almost walked right past the Record Grill. No, not because it’s so scary from the outside that you think crossing the threshold of the building could give you…
Specials: Wednesday is Burger Day with a burger and drink, plus fries, tots or a cup of soup for $5.89. “Sweetie” count: 3 Booth count: about 6 or 8 Grease-up paper napkin count: 2 Generally, I’m really un-OK with people calling me “sweetie.” I swore to myself that I’d beat…
Kavala is like a finely chiseled face with a crooked nose or a chipped tooth or maybe a misshapen beauty mark. There’s a lot to love here. The trick is to separate those things that will make the casual peruser swoon from those only a mother could love. Though the…
Lunch specials starting at $5.29 Small margarita: 99 cents Monday-Friday Free chips and salsa count: 1 Hairy eyeball count from the hostess: 3 “Do you want some more water?” count: 22 I was driving around Oak Cliff looking for a place to eat for cheap (I know Oak Cliff is…
I admit it. For approximately one month, every time I have driven by the new Dallas Saltwater Willy’s Seafood & Steakhouse location I’ve laughed…for two reasons. For one, it’s the name. Another, I like to imagine Willie Nelson replacing the “shotgun” of his iconic “Shotgun Willie” with “saltwater.” This was…
There’s something about good ol’ American traditions like co-ed sporting leagues and state fairs that lend themselves naturally to ingesting copious amounts of the grilled, griddled and fried. We here in the land of grand portions enjoy our concessions, our tailgating and our comfort food. Like a good neighbor, Tilley’s…
