Market in Dallas

Aso Rock Market carries groceries and culinary items from across Africa. It's sister store 18110 Midway Road has authentic house-made food.

It’s fitting that a city as geographically large as Dallas has a market and eatery that claims a whole large continent as its inspiration; their “About Us” blurb states on their website states, “As a market, we operate within the African Food and Grocery space, offering produce and the best-branded products from across the African regions.”

This location, named for the Aso Rock formation in Nigeria, offers not only dry good groceries such as spices (asiko thyme), oils (akabanga chili oil), and grains (akanozo amasaka flour), but also has a fresh meat section, produce and a sizable frozen area of prepared food and/or perishables. They also have several varieties of bottled beverages, including their own branded natural spring water and sorrel juice. While not overly large at about three aisles of Afrocentric products, it offers a lot more than the local international aisle at our local national chain grocery store, where, at best, if we’re lucky there might be half of one shelf offering anything comparable to what Aso Rock Market has in plentiful amounts.

This location also has a kitchen and provides daily prepared food presented cafeteria-style at a hot bar, which they refer to as “the joint." All the varieties offered at the joint can be a bit overwhelming to those not familiar with African cuisine, but the staff is helpful by answering questions.

Dallas’ best red-sauce Italian joint serves classics like spaghetti with meatballs, fried calamari and veal Parmesan and does them right. Save room if possible, because the tiramisu (made with espresso) and cinnamon-cream-filled cannoli are as close to perfection as you’ll find. Carbone’s is a more casual alternative to owner Julian Barsotti’s two fine-dining establishments, Nonna and Fachini, and it even includes a retail section that sells wines, frozen ravioli and one-pound tubs of Sunday gravy to go.

Top pick: The big, beautiful slab of lasagna bolognese, with its perfect, slightly burnt cheesy edges, can cause years-long cravings. But the pasta with Sunday gravy, a half-day-simmered sauce with a mixture of beef, pork, veal and sausage, might be even better.

Fun fact: Like a wine from the list? Buy a bottle to go for 45% off the menu price. (No, Carbone’s is not BYOB, so you cannot create a loophole by buying wine “to go” and then opening it in the dining room.)

Celebration feels like a vacation. It has the smell of a hunting lodge, with lots of wood, stone and simple copper-topped tables. There are no appetizers, so decisions are focused. There are no reservations. Just rib-sticking meals you used to get at your great aunt's house before she discovered Emeril and sank your inheritance into a Viking range. You can even get seconds if you want them. Salads come in big bowls with tongs and an armada of croutons. Mashed potatoes, cheesed-out broccoli and squash come, too, plus rolls with a bowl of butter. Dessert? Berry pies and coconut cream are waiting to inflate your spare all-season radial. Take a whiff and wolf down.

One of the best options in West Dallas for casual dining by a mile. The market, café and bar is serving up some of the best Neapolitan-inspired pizzas available in Dallas right now. Order a pizza at the register and then spend some time walking through aisles filled with pasta, oils, condiments and other ingredients you can use to turn your home kitchen into a mini "cucina." If the weather’s nice, grab a seat at the bar. The windows open up to a massive patio, creating an indoor/outdoor space that will inspire much vino consumption. Go with it, and be sure to order another pizza for the road.

This isn't the type of café where you can meet your friends for a post-dinner Americano (Corner Market closes at 8 p.m.), but if you want a tortellini plate as high as the Dolemites, then this is your café. Walk in and get overwhelmed by the variety of salads and sammies, among them the Mockingbird Turkey or the Mom's Meatloaf sandwich. Go for the cauliflower or Waldorf salad. The fedora-donning counter workers will take care of you.

If that whole pink-slime fiasco has scared you off of ground beef (and we certainly wouldn’t blame you), perhaps you ought to consider taking your business to a proper family-owned butcher shop like David’s Meat Market rather than the local megamart. David Harris and his family have been slinging steaks, chops, house-made sausages and jerky for more than 30 years now. Whether you’re seeking a dry-aged prime rib-eye, all-beef hot dogs, short ribs or something more obscure like marrow bones or a surplus of chicken hearts, David’s will hook you up with friendly service and a smile. All beef is corn-fed and raised in Iowa, so you know exactly what you’re getting -- no mystery meat here. There’s also a wide array of marinades and sauces to ensure your purchase gets cooked to delectable meaty perfection.

Popular isn't a sufficient adjective to describe this shop specializing in chef Jay Valley's prepared eats. During lunch, Eatzi's seems to be nothing but lines. There are long lines at the counter; there are long lines for the cash register. Yet, the customers brave it all, deeming it all worth it. The Box Lunches are worth it. The entrées, like the Kobe meatloaf and the salmon croquettes, are worth it. So are the cakes and pies. Salads are big with customers in need of a quick, light lunch. But it's more than a midday meal spot. Breakfast see folks stopping in for the cherry cheese pinwheel, carrot pecan muffin and platters to share with their office mates.

While predominantly a meat market, Kuby's is as close as you can come to experiencing a stripped-down, Old World delicatessen. It also offers customers a dining experience. Among the most popular is wurst teller, a sausage plate with homemade sauerkraut, German potato salad and red cabbage. The dinner menu also includes a rotating selection of monthly specials-along with beer flights! Opened in 1961 by Karl Kuby and still a family operation, the first Kuby's shop was located in the Fatherland. And for those hunters looking to have someone else butcher and prep their elk, antelope or fish, Kuby's will process game. The Snider Plaza mainstay is a longstanding hit with the SMU crowd and Park Cities-ites.

An Oak Cliff hole-in-the-wall situated behind a potholed strip-mall parking lot is the source of some of Dallas’ best Thai and Lao food, including superbly fiery drunken noodles that might be among the best, and most basil-packed, in the whole state of Texas. If you’re tired of sweet, samey-tasting pad Thai and mild-mannered curries, the Southammavong’s family recipes are a hugely flavorful, brilliantly balanced antidote. Dishes get served from a small window in the back of the market, but customers order at the cash register in the front grocery section. The family that runs Ly Food Market is Laotian, not Thai, in origin, which means menu items like larb have an extra spicy-sour kick.

Top pick: Grab an order of Lao sausages and chop them up for a surprisingly great addition to eggy breakfast tacos.

There are few seafood markets in Dallas as good as TJ’s. So go ahead and ogle the counter cases, with their beautiful and impeccably sourced cuts of fish, scallops, crab, lobster and more. Yes, shopping here can be more expensive than a trip to Tom Thumb, but that’s because TJ’s buys from ethical purveyors and sells an exceptionally high quality of product. Oh, wait, we’re supposed to be talking about the restaurant side. If you’re feeling lazy, sit down at a table and have them cook the fish for you. The philosophy at TJ’s is exactly what it needs to be: Keep the recipes simple, stupid. Let the spotlight shine on the ingredients.

Top pick: Swing by for lunch and grab a salmon patty burger — it’s more indulgent than it sounds — or a roll stuffed with tuna salad, which is made, as the menu says, “not from a can.” The difference is clear.