Editor’s note: Mark Stuertz debuts this week as the Dallas Observer’s restaurant critic. He’s previously written for D magazine and several national wine publications. The question was meant to be a joke. I thought my server would notice the wink, detect the smugness. I thought he’d get it. Instead, he…
Everyone should have a failure strategy, and I believe I’ve developed a good one. In the event of a total professional and personal meltdown, I plan to survive by hanging out at La Madeleine eating mass quantities of their free bread and jam while reading this free publication. Dressed in…
When I was a kid, two events were truly special for my sister and me–eating at a steakhouse and staying overnight at a hotel. Often these situations coincided. When our family vacationed, my father might celebrate the occasion with that working-class ’70s emblem of aristocratic indulgence–the steak. And we kids,…
Pity the poor suburbanite, adrift in a sea of asphalt from which chain restaurants rise like barren islands. Though he has eateries aplenty to choose from, why bother, when the food they serve is manufactured somewhere in the Midwest and shipped to Plano, Carrollton, or Flower Mound in plastic baggies?…
An abbreviated version of a famous joke goes like this: After you die, how do you know whether you’ve gone to heaven or hell? When you go to the great banquet hall of the afterlife, if you’re greeted by the English while the French cook for you, it’s heaven; if…
Driving through the constellation of strip malls on North Belt Line in Irving, you’ll find various Japanese restaurants with names like Hanasho–titles that would seem to scream “authentic” to Western eyes. Down the street from these establishments, however, beside a doughnut shop with a drive-through, is a boxy little establishment…
While recently describing past romances with a friend, I chose a food metaphor. These frustrating relationships, I said, were like eating a big plate of barbecue ribs. As an unrepentant carnivore, I should love ribs, but I’m often as not disappointed by the experience. My mouth watering with anticipation as…
What’s gotten into Fort Worth lately? A few years ago, you could have filmed a sequel to The Omega Man downtown, the place was so deserted. Now you can’t squirt a stream of Copenhagen without hitting one of the hundreds of amiable boulevardiers who pack Sundance Square on weekends. The…
For several years, I have engaged in a one-way, anonymous (he knows my words, I know his food) correspondence with eccentric Dallas restaurateur Gene Street. That is, Gene, like my mother, mails me stuff he thinks I should read. For instance, a few months ago, I received a copy of…
I guess everyone has heard by now that D-Day–the day when Mario Leal’s Chiquita will close–is almost here. Chiquita, pre-Matt, pre-Mi Cocina, was Dallas’ destination Mexican restaurant and the special darling of those whose view of Mexican food went beyond the enchilada horizon. Tacos al carbon, queso flameado, chicken parilla–all…
The simplest criterion I have for rating a restaurant is integrity: Does it deliver what it promises, or not? If all a restaurant pledges to provide is a clean place to eat a decent burger, and that’s all you get, then, in my opinion, it’s a good restaurant. But if…
Where to go for Sunday brunch is one of those frequently asked unanswerables. I don’t do brunch often myself–there’s something depressing about those long, silver-lidded lines of food, and brunch menus tend to be too rich for the time of day. But a raw bar is a natural, so when…
Chip’s, long known for the best burger ‘n’ fries meals in town (at least, that’s always been my opinion) is now turning those griddles to another good use–breakfast. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, biscuits, you name it, in any number of combinations, with a cup of plain American coffee, are all served,…
It’s appropriate that Paul Draper based his design for Sevy’s Grill, chef Jim Severson’s new restaurant in Preston Center, on prairie style, the peculiarly American form of architecture associated with Frank Lloyd Wright. It has been said (was said to me in an art history class, if I remember correctly)…
The place was packed, as places usually are the evening following their first review. The waiters’ gait quickened to an invisible trot, that parallel-to-the-ground shuffle that’s adopted when you’re in a desperate hurry but don’t want anyone to perceive that you are actually panicked. Because one of the absolute rules…
Every spring the Dallas chapter of the American Institute of Wine and Food presents the “Ethnic Market Tour,” a chef-guided bus ride to some of Dallas’ secret sources for unusual foodstuffs. Guests ride from Indian grocery to Vietnamese market, loading up on nuac mam and samosas along the way. Considering…
I took a friend who’d been fired recently over to Legal Grounds in Lakewood for some coffee and legal advice, but once we settled into easy chairs with cups of Colombian and a cookie, unemployment didn’t look so bad. Certainly, it seemed better than trying to write about another coffee…
I’ve just about had it with home cooking. Dallas is awash in catfish and collard greens, filled with chicken-fried menus in homey digs manned (yes, that is the word I want) by substantial waitresses who should be named Mabel and call you honey, with places that are supposed to gratify…
Plenty of women attend the prestigious CIA (that’s Culinary Institute of America, the country’s premier culinary training ground) in Hyde Park, just outside New York City. But if you count the high-profile women chefs in Dallas, you won’t need all your fingers. It’s strange but true that although women still…
Most Dallasites already know what aroma they’ll encounter when they order food flavored with “kah” or “kaffir,” because Thai food has become a neighborhood option, like Mexican food or Vietnamese. (If you don’t know, “kah” is similar to ginger root–it’s also called “laos” or “galangal.” The leaves of the “Kaffir”…
Remember Grandpa Stupid in that classic children’s book, The Stupids Die? “This isn’t heaven, it’s Cleveland,” he explains to his descendants who can’t tell the difference. It’s so easy to mistake one place for another, but thankfully someone’s almost always there to set you straight. So I’m here to remind…
Unlike many of us, Dallas chef Jim Severson has had more than one good idea. His classic American food philosophy made Dakota’s a favorite for years (and suggests success for his own new restaurant, Sevy’s). Severson was also the brain behind the ever-popular Farmers Market Cooking Classes, a series of…
