Best breakfast 2000 | Bread Winners Bakery & Café | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
Navigation
Support Us
Search

Best breakfast

Bread Winners Bakery & Café

Now that the weather's cooled down--oooh, that 89 degrees gives us goose bumps--what better way to bring in the morning than by sitting on the Bread Winners' patio drinking a little java, eating some French toast (a real highlight), and reading the morning paper (we take The New York Times, which makes it easier to digest)? The food's always excellent here (so it tastes a little better on Sunday mornings), and the ambience puts the exclamation mark at the end of the experience. The first time we took our wife here, she thought she had moved to another city--like, a really nice one that had some ambience.

Best place to buy a peach

Hunter's at the Farmers Market

Jerome Hunter's family farm in Gilmer produces the best peaches around--far better than those California croquet balls masquerading as fruit at the supermarket. Each of Hunter's beauties is a globe of tender, meaty pulp that virtually explodes when you bite it. Take a towel for your wrists, which will be slimed by waves of peach juice pouring from the bite mark. Hunter's hangs its shingle in Shed 3 at the Farmers Market, where it is flanked by other delicious fruit vendors. They're good, but Hunter's peaches remain the Elvis of the shed.

Best Place to eat alone

La Madeleine French Bakery and Caf�

The tables are filled with them: lone gnawers, grazers, and nibblers fiddling with cell phones, flipping through newspapers, or fumbling with Palm Pilots. With so many solo gourmandes taking down plates of Caesar salad, soups, sandwiches, rotisserie chicken, and daily specials (all obtained cafeteria-style so you don't have to feel like a lonely shmuck while a server takes your order with one of those ridiculing gazes), no one will notice you. Which, for once, is just what you want.

Best feta cheese selection

World Food Warehouse

What do you want? Bulgarian, French, or Greek? For those who make such distinctions, the differences are obvious, with the Bulgarian being the richest and creamiest. At this import shop, you can have your choice, and the proprietors will reach down into the water- and cheese-filled containers and pull out a chunk of bright white cheese that, when served with watermelon--the way the Bulgarians eat it--is unbeatable.

Best steak

Pappas Bros. Steakhouse

Strip and rib-eye steaks at Pappas are dry-aged prime, and it shows, though not on the plate. You won't find any vertical architecture emerging from the meat; no swirling threads of brightly colored, pleated sauces. The preparation here is unapologetically minimalist, with just a sprinkle of kosher salt, a dash of pepper, and a little butter to pull out the richness. A dusting of chopped parsley completes the presentation. This is the brute force of beef in all of its firm, juicy, tender, bold glory. We're waiting for the Pappas Bros. triple-bypass quick mart to round out the experience.

Best cheap dinner

Bangkok Inn

Taryn Walker
The last time we went out for pizza, we rang up a $30 tab splurging on four toppings. The price of cheap eats is going up, except, that is, at Bangkok Inn. Nearly everything on the menu is $6.95, and their curries--from mild yellow to spicy hot red panang--are some of the best we've had. How do they do it? Well, let's just say they didn't break the bank on decor, which hasn't changed in the decade we've been going to this East Dallas mainstay. The lighting is bright, direct, and sort of weird, which sets a certain mood: cheap and good.

Best rooftop patio

Milkbar

Maybe this place sounds like a happy hour hovel for the Pokmon set, a spot where udders serve as taps. But Milkbar is a take on the watering hole in A Clockwork Orange, which is why it has fake fir banquettes (they cause nasty hairballs), zebra-striped walls (they cause more dizziness than tequila shots), and mannequin limbs (they make terrible buffalo wings). So skip the interior and head straight for the roof, where you'll find the most imaginative rooftop patio in Dallas, with potted trees, a stone fountain, and ottomans for lounging around. Just don't spill your milk on the fabric.

Best view

Chaparral Club in the Adams Mark Hotel

This thin-air refuge of exceptional cuisine is perched on the 38th floor of the skyscraping Adam's Mark tower. Here, it's easy to mingle among the shimmering mirrored and green luminescence of Dallas' skyline--a welcome respite from the Cheesecake Factory gothic-inspired architecture in Plano, which you can also see from this perch. Peering through the Chaparral Club's expansive floor-to-ceiling windows is heart-pounding, especially when you aim your telescope at the non-reflective windows.

Best barbecue restaurant

North Main Bar-B-Q

We'll give you the onion rings at Sonny Bryan's. We'll spot you the cole slaw at Solly's. We'll even throw in the beef at Red Hot & Blue. But put them together and what do you get? A helluva lot of driving around. Make one trip to North Main Bar-B-Q, the belt-busting, rib-hugging, reflux-inducing pride of Euless. For a 10 spot (tax included), you get tasty ribs, chicken, pulled pork, beef (sliced and diced), slaw, potato salad, beans, etc. Go back for seconds if you have a mind to, thirds if you're downright suicidal. The place, which has a colorful history (started by some hungry auto mechanics who couldn't wait to go home for supper), is only open weekends. Of course, you can eat enough to keep you satisfied the entire week.

Best Indian restaurant

Swarna Palace Indian Cuisine

The cuisine at this bowling alley-sized Indian dining room is lush, colorful, and laced with clean flavors. Virtually everything, from the spinach pakora (batter-fried spinach leaves) to the shrimp birani (shrimp with basmati rice) to the chutneys is brisk and tasty. Plus a huge TV screen surrounded by assorted monitors beams in programming from India: a cornucopia of televised entertainment such as action chase scenes featuring steam locomotives and grizzled criminals who sing and dance. Must be the lentils.

Best Of Dallas®

Best Of

Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our terms of use, our cookies policy, and our privacy policy The Dallas Observer may earn a portion of sales from products & services purchased through links on our site from our affiliate partners. ©2024 Dallas Observer, LP. All rights reserved.
Do Not Sell or Share My Information
Powered By Foundation