Noble Coyote Coffee Company's Café Momentum Blend Kevin Sprague and his wife, Marta, started Noble Coyote Coffee Company after roasting coffee on their countertop for over a decade. Now roasted in small batches near White Rock Lake, Noble Coyote is regularly featured in other Dallas products, including Lakewood Brewing's Bourbon Espresso Temptress, Pop-Star's Coffee Popsicles and Carnival Barker's Ice Cream.
Their Cafe Momentum blend mixes Guatemalan and Ethiopian beans to deliver an agreeable balance of subtle cherry notes with a cocoa finish. There's a lot of great coffee in Dallas these days, but Noble Coyote has risen slightly above the rest by focusing exclusively on procuring great beans and roasting them perfectly.
Carnival Barker's Ice Cream's Fat Elvis It feels like forever ago (though it's only been about eight weeks) that Sarah Miller and Aaron Barker, the duo behind the best ice cream in Dallas, were informed that they didn't have the required dairy license to continue to sell their ice cream wholesale. To resolve this issue, they could either start using a crappy, artificial, state-certified ice cream base or spend $14,000 on a fancy pasteurizer. They chose the latter.
After a successful fundraiser, they're working hard to get back to churning, and Carnival Barker's should be available again sometime this month. Until then, you can only dream about this handmade, decadently rich and creamy perfection. Their best selling flavor is Fat Elvis, a peanut butter and banana ice cream with honey swirls and bacon pieces.
Bacon? In ice cream? The internet rejoices.
Cita's Salsa's Red Rage Salsa The only thing worse than an overworked salsa with too many ingredients is a weak, national supermarket brand jar of tomato-flavored water. Cita's is neither of those. It's substantial enough to ride out a perilous journey from the community bowl to your face without dripping, but light enough that it won't spoil your appetite for whatever's coming next. Red Rage is grounded in a base of stewed tomatoes and packs some heat, but it's pleasantly mitigated by the sweet and sour flavor of pickled carrots.
