Why do the munchies that are served with belts of booze have to possess culinary panache? They don’t, or maybe shouldn’t. After all, such craft is ultimately pulverized into an alimentary ooze mere moments after creation and hustled through yards of plumbing. Sure, the same thing happens during a fine…
There’s a lot of indignant rant in the culture these days over the knee-jerk, Glock-click tendency of many of us to associate anything Italian with mobster chic–and maybe baked ziti. In April 2001, the American Italian Defense Association filed a lawsuit against the producers of the popular HBO series The…
No one really knows much about the origins of eggnog. It’s difficult even for the most skilled historians to fathom the circumstances that led someone to whisk eggs, cream, sugar and ale into a mug. Nor does anyone spend much time researching the association between the spiked milk shake and…
At first glance the link between Roy Orbison and wine isn’t obvious. He did record the song “Lonely Wine,” and the tune “All I Have to Do Is Dream” does contain the line “I can make you mine, taste your lips of wine, any time…” But it’s hard to imagine…
Like the burger and onion ring, Tex-Mex has become a tavern staple, and it’s no surprise why. It’s salty, which generates the thirst that generates the cash from drink sales. This cuisine is highly absorptive, which means it serves as a stomach-lining hurdle: a bean-cheese-tortilla-salsa speed bump that keeps your…
Like most contemporary Asian outlets, Green Pepper is replete with high-tech touches, subtle though they are. Plastic chairs in black and yellow surround dark tables. Walls washed in subdued yellow hover over dark wallpaper wainscoting imbedded with Chinese characters. And Green Pepper has a motto: “We are a BYOB restaurant…and…
Celebrity chef Stephan Pyles, who has spent the past few months drafting and spit-polishing the food-service operation for Hotel Zaza and its restaurant Dragonfly (and has just signed an agreement to stay on for another year to keep the polishing spit flying), has found himself in the middle of a…
This is just an assumption, but it’s probably valid. Chicken-fried steak played a key role in President Bush’s recent policy victories at the United Nations. Without the Texas delicacy, inspection teams would still be idle and Saddam Hussein, that old nemesis of the Bush family, would be doing whatever it…
Hibachi Rock’s vestibule is crammed with Japanese dolls, and Polaroids paper the wall. A manager says these photos were shot some three years ago when this Allen restaurant opened. There was a steady racket rumbling just beyond the dolls and snapshots. As we moved toward the glass inner door, it…
Henderson Avenue nightlife necromancer Tristan Simon–whose Cuba Libre Cafe and private club called Sense have been generating more buzz than a two-speed nose hair trimmer–has purchased a big chunk of Genghis Grill, a Dallas chain of create-your-own-stir-fry Mongolian barbecues. Consilient Restaurants L.P., Simon’s command and control umbrella, picked up 50…
When Voltaire opened in 1999, it was billed as one of the most expensive restaurants ever devised in the city of Dallas. Owner Scott Ginsburg never disclosed the total cost, but it most certainly ran into the several millions considering the chandelier by famed lighting designer Ingo Maurer valued at…
Not so very long ago, the Burning Question crew created quite a disturbance at Paris Vendome. Geez. Invade France, nothing happens. Send them Jerry Lewis films, they just beg for more. Ah, but sip an aperitif after dinner and they explode in dismay. “In Europe, every drink has its meaning:…
Not everything Phil Romano touches turns to gold. We Oui slipped off the landscape on a trail of French kitsch greased with red lipstick. Lobster Ranch got caught in a chowder undertow. Eatzi’s nearly succumbed to a vicious bite by the Big Apple. But gold isn’t what’s important. What’s important…
Call it Shakespeare in modern garb. Over the past several years, Hollywood presented us with Othello set on a high school basketball court, Hamlet wandering the aisles of a Blockbuster store, Romeo and Juliet cowering from the prying lenses of security cameras and Prince Hal wandering the streets of Portland…
The name Noodles Kitchen is a jarring composite of a plural and singular noun. It sounds more like a culinary lair for a Dick Tracy nemesis than a peddler of doughy strands. The décor takes that tiny jar and amplifies it: art deco new age Asian contemporary with a huge…
It’s no surprise that a North Texas bedroom community would turn a California fascination into a viable business. After all, California is the American birthplace of dreams, fantasy and personal computer wizardry. Everyone wants to touch its gloss, to be a part of its vanguard, to have a grab at…
Pub is a word derived from the term “public house,” which is “an establishment licensed to sell alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises and often serving meals as well,” according to Webster’s. It’s touching to consider that proprietors who make their living with liquor licenses are so concerned about…
Peter Tarantino, who with the help of his brothers tried to plant his sophisticated brand of Mediterranean cuisine near Fair Park with Tarantino’s before that project was undone by a backed-up and bubbling sewer line, is champing at the bit to get CAVA launched. CAVA is Tarantino’s traditional Spanish restaurant,…
Who doesn’t get a bit choked up when the first strains of “Impossible Dream” rise up during a production of Man of La Mancha? There’s just something compelling about those who struggle–vainly–toward the summit where greatness awaits. Evel Knievel completed hundreds of risky motorcycle jumps, but we remember him for…
Shannon Wynne, reformed night crawler extraordinaire and founder of such long-gone nightclubs as Fast and Cool and the “o” haunts (Nostromo, Rocko, Tango and Mexico), once had an uncanny touch for detecting the faint pulse in Dallas’ mediocre nightlife. But who would have thought Wynne also possessed an uncanny prescience…
There’s a prominent sign on the wall in the rest room foyer at Duke’s Original Road House. “Coming soon,” it reads, “brand new, bigger, better restrooms just for you.” Now it may seem strange to generate excitement by pre-announcing an impending john remodel, as you might an upcoming Rolling Stones…
Corporate public relations often highlight the unending sweaty grunt work involved in key personnel search and acquisition missions. Makes for good copy. That’s why Rosewood Hotels & Resorts no doubt called attention to its “lengthy search” when it announced it had come upon a replacement for Jeff Moschetti (now at…
