Little known fact: A home-cooked feast on Dec. 25 is not a requirement. Leave it to professionals. It’s fine. Sure, cooking all day and doing dishes may be a great way to escape family drama or a televised sporting event, but it might be just as rewarding to leave a…
Fifteen years ago, Fat Straws was one of a handful of boba places in North Texas. Today, boba is a staple in almost every neighborhood, but the market for boba wasn’t always like that. The drink became popular in Taiwan in the 1980s before it spread to other Asian countries…
A holly jolly ladies night is coming to the Statler this Thursday. Head to Scout for some cocktails, a photo booth with holiday props and DJ Blake Ward. No cover. What: Christmas Ladies Night When: 6-10 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 20 Where: Scout in the Statler, 1914 Commerce St. (downtown Dallas)…
In an unexpected hail Mary, Stephan Pyles has hired Tim Byres, formerly of Smoke, to help ‘casualize’ and ‘reimagine’ the Dallas Arts District fine dining establishment Flora Street Cafe.
Last week I published my list of the Top 100 Dallas Restaurants. That list was based on my meals at over 400 eateries in Dallas and its suburbs, but it was also based on my own judgment. This new ranking is an alternative. Not content with building my own list,…
Few are the foods with such power over the imagination that just hearing their names can stop your stream of thoughts and send you off to the internet to look at restaurant menus. They tend to be celebration dishes — whether eaten at a celebration or cause for one. When…
Merry Christmas, burger aficionados: Burger chain Shake Shack is opening two more DFW locations at 11 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 23. In Southlake, a 3,166-square-foot restaurant is opening at 125 Central Ave., with ample patio seating, the standard Shake Shack menu and “a unique selection of frozen custard concretes in collaboration…
The bells on the front door jangle awake. The griddle crackles from hot beef fat, a sound that bests any jukebox on earth. It should be early. That’s when it’s best at Hunky’s: Be there right after the doors unlock for lunch. The sputter of rendered fat on a flat…
The French Room at the Adolphus Hotel is a long-standing institution in our city. It’s also one that’s seen some frequent change over the last two years. The newest change arrives in the form of chef Anthony Dispensa, who has hired a new back-of-house staff and revamped the menu. It’s…
Haute West Dallas barbecue joint Smoke, which we recently named one of the Top 100 Dallas Restaurants, has been sold to the Belmont Hotel. Restaurant founders Chris Jeffers, Chris Zielke and Tim Byres opened the restaurant in 2009 “at the request and partnership of former Belmont Hotel owner, Monte Anderson,”…
At the Shops at Legacy’s newest eatery, Bellagreen, the worlds of fast-casual and environmentally conscious collide and manifest in fun, healthy fare. The new Plano location, which opens Friday, is the store’s eighth. The restaurant also has six locations in Houston and one in Dallas, at 8041 Walnut Hill. Bellagreen employees…
The Grape’s cocktail, the Grape 72, is a light remix of the classic, subbing brandy for gin.
A healthy fast-casual restaurant — from Sam Fox, the restaurateur behind True Food Kitchen — is coming to Rosewood Court in Uptown: Flower Child, which will occupy 4,800 square feet facing Cedar Springs, according to a press release. Opening in late 2019, Rosewood Court will expand a 1,500-square-foot patio in front…
Today, our Top 100 Dallas Restaurants issue hits newsstands around DFW, and you can read the list in its entirety online. In the interest of science, Food Critic Brian Reinhart, the author of the Top 100, did a breakdown of the list and the neighborhoods, cuisines, suburbs and even streets…
Tomorrow, our Top 100 Dallas Restaurants issue hits newsstands across DFW – and it’s already online in all its lengthy, delicious glory. Tonight, Observer Food Critic Brian Reinhart, a prolific local Reddit user, will host an informal AMA (also known as an Ask Me Anything, or for those over the…
A cheesy four-day showcase is going on in Deep Ellum, spotlighting the best macaroni and cheese the neighborhood has to offer. No tickets are needed; just pay as you go around to various restaurants. You’ll find some mac and cheese at AllGood Cafe, BrainDead Brewing, Brick and Bones, Bucky Moonshine’s…
Dallas may have a reputation as a steakhouse city, but in 2018, we saw more new vegan and vegetarian options than ever. Hell, even some of the aforementioned steakhouses are offering vegan menus now. We’ve explored a bevy of vegan and vegetarian Dallas restaurants this year — here are our…
We researched our Top 100 Dallas Restaurants the old-fashioned way: by eating. I dined at over 400 Dallas-area restaurants for this ranking, ranging from a $150-per-person tab at Flora Street Cafe to a Tibetan dumpling counter located inside a gas station. Deciding the top 10 required even greater scrutiny; I…
When asked if “eat the fucking cookie” — Cookie Shop’s attention-grabbing slogan — was her idea, owner McKenzie Mitchell giggles a bit before owning up to it. “We have a good time doing our job,” she says. “Nobody’s pissed when you hand them a cookie.” Her theory checks out. The…
The challenge was elegantly simple: How do you toast the divot left in the crown of a hollowed-out bun? They asked themselves: Do we jet a flame right into the buttered dent? A top bun glazed in butter, the white bread’s sugars charred from grill heat, toasting until a blackened…
At the start of this year, Anastacia Quinones took a high-profile position as chef at the Cedars Social, the struggling Cedars restaurant that was to become a haven for Quinones’ modern Mexican cooking. Just a few months later, she was out, and she spent the last few months hosting pop-ups…
Grassroots Kitchen, in the Elmwood neighborhood of Oak Cliff, is a humble and homey place. Like the other businesses around it, there are security bars on the doors and windows. Don’t let that dissuade you from going inside, where you’ll find the menu posted by the door, printed in black…
