The past? Americans just can’t handle the past. Pop culture informs our understanding of the world. The family values myth, much of that stuff about the founding fathers and Christian faith, our hyped-up vision of the greatest generation–all manufactured by the various brokers of mass consumption. Just think how gullible…
By the time you read this, a deal most likely will have been struck to drop a Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steak House into the former Star Canyon space in the Centrum Building, which has been vacant since Carlson Restaurants yanked its plug in mid-2003. Del Frisco’s co-founder and vice…
Why should we pay for home cooking? Hell, it’s the same stuff Mom whipped up free of charge for decades. It’s always a bit perturbing to see people shell out good money for something they could prepare in their own kitchens for quite a bit less. Besides, most places never…
OK, so we succumbed to Danica-mania. Sue us. Or rather, sue our editor. You wouldn’t get much from the Burning Question crew, anyway–‘cept a beat-up Le Car and our treasured photo of Booker Noe, Jim Beam’s great-grandson, bearing his signature and a bit of bourbonly advice: “Stay on the beam.”…
Here, the bartender is savvy. Sit down at the bar and prod him into talking about vodka. Ketel One is good; Skyy is hype. Of course, this could have been concluded without coaching. Note the extra “y.” Glare at the cobalt blue bottle. This is amusing: The Skyy Web site…
For all the big talk about swagger and oversized steaks and all things big in Texas, our city still suffers from an inferiority complex. For example, we swoon over even the most ordinary pop culture figures, such as Colby Donaldson or Kato Kaelin. The presence of a has-been draws hordes…
“At Pandora, a spirit of modernity gives new life to the elemental purity of Japanese tradition. Inside, find the décor is minimal, but spectacular where the emphasis is on fresh taste and artistic presentation of Pandora’s menu. Pandora offers three distinctly different dining experiences–sushi bar, robata grill, and sinfully good…
There’s something fundamentally wrong with the South. Yeah, yeah, we know the obvious stuff. But there’s so much more. Waffle House comes to mind, long-winded authors, too. And sheriffs named Rufus, dry counties, fried okra–that sort of thing. Even worse, good old boys suck down mojitos…no, that’s a lie. They…
Size matters. We all know that by now. In this case, however, even the traditional version of that axiom is irrelevant. Aside from the catchy sophomoric name adopted by the subject of our Burning Question for the week (and we refuse to research the matter further), the guys who founded…
Ron Guest has cut and polished his teeth designing restaurants; swank, sharp–even garish–things from Mediterraneo in the Quadrangle and Taverna Pizzeria and Risottoria, to Aurora and the new Mariano’s Hacienda. Now Guest wants to be commander. So he’s formed Grupo San Miguel, a partnership that includes Jesús Carmona (formerly of…
There was one peculiar thing about Kathleen’s Art Café, the Plano outpost of the original Lovers Lane installment. It wasn’t the legendary desserts. It wasn’t the famous grilled meat loaf sandwich. It wasn’t the art, framed and dangling from straps, prices neatly posted in lower corners. It was on the…
Eating is a form of transport. Think about it. Close your eyes with a piece of cheeseburger from McDonald’s dollar menu skidding on your tongue, and you’re in one zone. Roll a piece of gopchang jeongol (spicy beef intestine casserole) against your inner cheek walls, and you’re on a completely…
As we exited The Cosmopolitan Bistro one Saturday evening, a manager chased us out to the curb and stuffed our fists with a stack of bright gold $5 gift certificates. He apologized because the band that was supposed to play that night stood him up for a higher-paying gig elsewhere…
Tom DeLay recently set a precedent the Burning Question crew is happy to exploit. We figure if the speaker of the House can liken a bit of GOP drivel–1994’s Contract with America–to such history-shattering documents as the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Magna Carta, we could follow suit…
“Join the revolution,” the Web site implores. The capstone of this movement is a 10,000-square-foot nightclub, lounge and restaurant where Costa Rican lush gardens and a dining room serving Latin cuisine pay homage to “Che,” the cultic Argentinean communist revolutionary and grist for the film The Motorcycle Diaries. Che opens…
The olive dominates. It’s a persistent cartoon, a huge green oval impaled by a skewer, slipping through the orifice in the red “O” in Dolce Oliva’s name as if it were a martini glass rim. You can see it above the faux granite bar, where plaques flaunting the words juicy,…
People in the nightclub business often refer to the “fickle 500,” an amorphous group of “pretty people” that descends on a new venue then abandons the place–often for good–when a new hot spot emerges. Bar owners typically impugn this crowd when once-popular spots shut down. The fickle 500 are the…
Sushi in Mesquite shouldn’t be an oddity. Raw fish on rice billets is as mainstream as Vatican smoke gazing. Yet it is. What’s the best-selling entrée at Kamikaze? “Grilled chicken teriyaki,” says manager Shell Stafford. This explains why Isaac, a Kamikaze sushi chef, fawns when you sit down at the…
On Saturday evening, the last meal will be served at Savory. The closing wasn’t caused by the usual suspect–a lack of dollars. Heck, co-owner Joe Hickey (with Jonathan Calabrese) says they turned a profit of $6,000 to close the year. No, they were felled by a legal maneuver. Savory subleased…
It’s not surprising that David McMillan is not intimidated by altitude. His first Dallas stint put him 27 stories up in the sky in the Wyndham Anatole Hotel tower. There he brought maturity to a kitchen coming down from the star power of young chef Doug Brown. Maybe swinging a…
It was only a matter of time before the border fortified its hold on Uptown. Manny Rios, part of the family that crafted Mia’s Tex-Mex, is the culprit. Rios is set to open Manny’s Uptown on May 5–a rendition of Mia’s famed cuisine–in the former Guthrie’s/Rooster location on Lemmon Avenue…
Ron Corcoran says he’s finally done it. He’s rounded up the investors. He’s reached an agreement with iconic Dallas chef Avner Samuel of Aurora. It’s only a matter of time before his 11-year-old Sipango is shuttered and transformed into a Mediterranean restaurant with a menu containing inspirations from Samuel’s defunct…
