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Restaurant Review: Loro

Restaurant Review: Loro

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Windmills Is a Brewery, Indian Restaurant, Jazz Lounge, Library and Almost Everything Else

By Brian Reinhart
Sep 21, 2021

I’m at the chaat cafe. I’m at the brewery. I’m at the combination chaat cafe and brewery. And that’s not even half the story at Windmills, the Dallas area’s most eclectic new venue for eating, drinking and, well, everything else...
Review: Roots Southern Table Is the Restaurant of the Year

By Brian Reinhart
Sep 7, 2021

The last two years have been bleak for restaurants. Just about everyone lost a bit of hope counting bills and waiting for government aid that never comes. Everyone except maybe chef Tiffany Derry.
Review: Meridian Upends American Expectations of Brazilian Food

By Brian Reinhart
Aug 23, 2021

It’s an anchor for a gleaming new development inside the sprawling apartment complex The Village. It’s a clear bid to attract food tourists from across the country. It’s a bold attack on Americans’ stereotypes of Brazilian food, and a creative reinvention of Brazilian culinary tradition.
Review: Asian Fusion Foods and Street Snacks Collide at Metro Dallas’ Hottest Restaurant

By Brian Reinhart
Aug 9, 2021

Let’s talk about the hottest new restaurant in the Dallas area. It’s so popular that on weekend nights reservations are required to get in the door. It’s so trendy that even midweek the line for a table piles up at the door.
Review: Petra and the Beast Serves Delicious Inventions Without Pretensions

By Brian Reinhart
Jul 20, 2021

Four years ago, chef Misti Norris told me about her idea for a temporary pop-up restaurant, which would go on a trial run for six months. “I want to do charcuterie and noodles,” she said then. “The perfect pairing, right? Everyone’s favorite things.”
Review: Krio Celebrates a Year of Asian-Cajun Classics in the Bishop Arts District

By Brian Reinhart
Jun 29, 2021

The Bishop Arts District is endangered by its own success. All around its historic handful of eclectic, walkable city blocks, hulking new high-rise apartment buildings are sprouting up.
First Look: Pinpoint Burger Bar Has a Cake Shake, Poutine & Global Burgers

By Lauren Drewes Daniels
Jun 21, 2021

Pinpoint Burger Bar recently opened on Lemmon Avenue near Mia’s Tex Mex. It’s a flash of new in an otherwise drab-ish strip of stores. As its name implies, the focus is burgers, some of which are locally appointed, like the Red Coat which is British-inspired.
Review: Apsara Brings Cambodian Family Recipes to Grand Prairie

By Brian Reinhart
Jun 15, 2021

“No one knows what Cambodian food is,” the Cambodian-American chef Joseph Be says. “But if Thai food, Vietnamese food and Lao food can be popular, why can’t Cambodia’s food?” Good question.
Review: On Taquero’s Huge Menu, Mexican Tradition Is the Star

By Brian Reinhart
May 18, 2021

What a difference a location can make. Taquero started in West Dallas, in a building with no room for indoor seating and hardly any room for cooking. Chef-owner Fino Rodriguez served meals out of a window to customers who sat at bar stools or on parking spaces which he’d converted into a patio.
Review: An Oak Cliff Barbecue Joint Where the Stars are Ribs and Rhythm

By Brian Reinhart
Apr 27, 2021

On an ordinary day, in an ordinary world, someone would probably be singing at D Jackson BBQ right now. Music flows through this shoebox-sized dining room and kitchen in the southwestern reaches of Oak Cliff, just off Cockrell Hill Road.
Review: Encina Is a Sequel Restaurant That Beats the Beloved Original

By Brian Reinhart
Mar 22, 2021

The pressure’s on at Encina. This new restaurant a few blocks west of the Bishop Arts District opened in October, seven months into the pandemic, with high expectations. It replaces Bolsa, a beloved neighborhood hangout that drew crowds into the same space for almost 12 years. Now Bolsa is gone,...
Review: In East Dallas, Invasion Serves Massive Sandwiches with a Generous Spirit

By Brian Reinhart
Mar 2, 2021

Invasion was supposed to be primarily a sandwich restaurant, with occasional side gigs doing good for the community. Instead, in its first year this tiny East Dallas diner became a hub for goodwill, volunteering and feeding the needy. All that charity started the day before Invasion opened. On Monday, March...
Review: Ngon Vietnamese Kitchen Might Be the Pandemic Year’s Most Exciting New Dallas Restaurant

By Brian Reinhart
Jan 25, 2021

I have a simple, attainable New Year’s resolution for the year 2021: I want to eat every single thing on the menu at Ngon Vietnamese Kitchen. Ngon, which opened on Greenville Avenue last summer and is pronounced “non,” is maybe the most exciting new restaurant to hit Dallas during the pandemic...
Here's How We Chose the Top 100 Dallas Restaurants During a Pandemic

By Brian Reinhart
Dec 16, 2020

Twelve months ago, the Dallas restaurant scene was riding high on a wave of national recognition, including being named the “Restaurant City of the Year” in Bon Appétit. Our chefs were starring in splashy magazine profiles and raising funds for exciting new openings. Diners were falling in love with bold...
Review: Luna 23 is a Oaxacan Culinary Embassy in Garland

By Brian Reinhart
Nov 24, 2020

“I like to describe Oaxaca as the Texas of Mexico,” Leslie Luna says. Texans might think that’s big talk, but Oaxacans can back it up with a unique centuries-old heritage that sets their state apart from the rest of Mexico in culture, history and cuisine. “There is just so much...
Review: Edoko Omakase Brings Texas Flair, and Tacos, to the Sushi Bar

By Brian Reinhart
Oct 19, 2020

Some of Tokyo’s best sushi bars feel like secrets. They’re hidden away down alleys, inside multistory buildings or in bustling shopping centers. A few don’t have formal names. Only the most devoted sushi lovers know where to find them. It’s hard to get away with a nameless restaurant in the...
Review: A Chef with African Roots and Global Training Brings Fine Dining to Garland

By Brian Reinhart
Sep 21, 2020

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but ambitious young chefs looking for big opportunities to show off their skills should consider the suburbs. This goes against everything an urbanist Oak Cliff dweller like me should believe. But the thought was inescapable as I walked into Pangea, a triumphant new Garland...
Review: A Melting Pot of Central Asian and Russian Cuisines at Bubala Cafe

By Brian Reinhart
Aug 24, 2020

There's not a lot of Central Asian food in the Dallas area — and there is a lot of it, at the same time. The Silk Road, threading its way across mountain ranges and deserts between Europe, Persia and China, carried recipes along with its cargo for centuries. Turkic peoples...
Review: Smokey Joe’s BBQ Is an All-Star Team of Different Texas Barbecue Traditions

By Brian Reinhart
Jul 28, 2020

Even before a global pandemic arrived, this was a year of change at Smokey Joe’s BBQ. Last spring, after 34 years of takeout-only service, Smokey Joe’s finally opened a dining room. Owner Kris Manning, whose father, Kenneth Manning, co-founded the restaurant with Joe Melton in 1985, hoped some of his...
Review: Damasita Is a Beautiful Survivor in Dallas’ Beleaguered Korea Town

By Brian Reinhart
Jun 29, 2020

Damasita’s dining room has changed dramatically in the last six months. The restaurant opened in early 2018 as a Japanese izakaya, serving tempura platters and agedashi tofu. But without changing its name, new owners arrived in December 2019, remodeled the whole space and converted the menu to a list of...

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