Aside from being situated at opposite ends of the hemisphere, it’s hard to imagine what Brazil and Texas have in common. All attempts to uncover harmonious congruence seem to put a gasket-blowing strain on credulity. Brazil is a geologically integrated nation with a web of rivers and tributaries spread over…
The thing I like most about Americans–about being an American–is that we alone among the world’s cultures really know how and what to eat. We consume food with speed, gusto, and purposeful inattention. For us, eating is nothing more than scheduled maintenance to be performed while immersed in other things…
Maybe grazing is best left to zebras or buffalo or $32 filets that were once West Texas cud chewers. I don’t know. But I remember in the mid-’80s when grazing became the hip way for the young and trendy to eat as well as label themselves gastronomically eclectic. And labeling…
California cuisine was first out of the chute. Then came New Orleans, Southwestern, and Florida. Florida? Yes. The Sunshine State, noted nationally for its European tourist eradication program, has entered the regional cuisine big leagues. Actually, it’s been there since the early ’90s, when it burst onto the scene with…
“Why not?” he fires back. Why not indeed? When you think about it, this response makes a lot of sense. But a lot of us still want to know why Avner Samuel moves around so doggone much. I mean, is he an insufferable prima donna who packs his sauce pans…
Value. It’s become a buzzword–True Value, Value Pac, value-added, Valujet, family values. What the heck does it mean, anyway? Going to a warehouse grocer and buying a pallet of off-brand “Cheerios?” Hocking your diamond navel ring to get a Lexus instead of a Chevy Cavalier? Does it mean cheap, good,…
“I like this place,” said a dining companion on one of my visits to Jungle Red. “It looks like, at the end of the day, you could just hose everything off and let it dry overnight. Don’t you wish you could do that in your house?” I’ve never actually thought…
You have to admit, the French are a pretty daffy bunch. Just when you thought socialism had gone the way of Pia Zadora feature films, the French gleefully gave it political mouth-to-mouth this June, filling the National Assembly and the prime minister’s post with Socialist driftwood. And don’t get me…
My first salmon-fishing expedition in the Pacific Ocean may never have happened if it weren’t for a black-market guide named Jeb. After hearing me and my friend reject a $100-per-person fee from a guide at a local bait shop, Jeb followed us to our car. “I’ll do it for fifty…
One thing you won’t find at Hedary’s Lebanese Oven & Grill is a self-conscious striving for minimalist assemblages of ingredients. Nor will you encounter “breakthrough” juxtapositions of native flavors from, say, El Paso and Uranus. What you will find is a menu that unapologetically adheres to Lebanese culinary traditions reaching…
Editor’s note: Mark Stuertz debuts this week as the Dallas Observer’s restaurant critic. He’s previously written for D magazine and several national wine publications. The question was meant to be a joke. I thought my server would notice the wink, detect the smugness. I thought he’d get it. Instead, he…
Everyone should have a failure strategy, and I believe I’ve developed a good one. In the event of a total professional and personal meltdown, I plan to survive by hanging out at La Madeleine eating mass quantities of their free bread and jam while reading this free publication. Dressed in…
When I was a kid, two events were truly special for my sister and me–eating at a steakhouse and staying overnight at a hotel. Often these situations coincided. When our family vacationed, my father might celebrate the occasion with that working-class ’70s emblem of aristocratic indulgence–the steak. And we kids,…
Pity the poor suburbanite, adrift in a sea of asphalt from which chain restaurants rise like barren islands. Though he has eateries aplenty to choose from, why bother, when the food they serve is manufactured somewhere in the Midwest and shipped to Plano, Carrollton, or Flower Mound in plastic baggies?…
An abbreviated version of a famous joke goes like this: After you die, how do you know whether you’ve gone to heaven or hell? When you go to the great banquet hall of the afterlife, if you’re greeted by the English while the French cook for you, it’s heaven; if…
Driving through the constellation of strip malls on North Belt Line in Irving, you’ll find various Japanese restaurants with names like Hanasho–titles that would seem to scream “authentic” to Western eyes. Down the street from these establishments, however, beside a doughnut shop with a drive-through, is a boxy little establishment…
While recently describing past romances with a friend, I chose a food metaphor. These frustrating relationships, I said, were like eating a big plate of barbecue ribs. As an unrepentant carnivore, I should love ribs, but I’m often as not disappointed by the experience. My mouth watering with anticipation as…
What’s gotten into Fort Worth lately? A few years ago, you could have filmed a sequel to The Omega Man downtown, the place was so deserted. Now you can’t squirt a stream of Copenhagen without hitting one of the hundreds of amiable boulevardiers who pack Sundance Square on weekends. The…
For several years, I have engaged in a one-way, anonymous (he knows my words, I know his food) correspondence with eccentric Dallas restaurateur Gene Street. That is, Gene, like my mother, mails me stuff he thinks I should read. For instance, a few months ago, I received a copy of…
I guess everyone has heard by now that D-Day–the day when Mario Leal’s Chiquita will close–is almost here. Chiquita, pre-Matt, pre-Mi Cocina, was Dallas’ destination Mexican restaurant and the special darling of those whose view of Mexican food went beyond the enchilada horizon. Tacos al carbon, queso flameado, chicken parilla–all…
The simplest criterion I have for rating a restaurant is integrity: Does it deliver what it promises, or not? If all a restaurant pledges to provide is a clean place to eat a decent burger, and that’s all you get, then, in my opinion, it’s a good restaurant. But if…
Where to go for Sunday brunch is one of those frequently asked unanswerables. I don’t do brunch often myself–there’s something depressing about those long, silver-lidded lines of food, and brunch menus tend to be too rich for the time of day. But a raw bar is a natural, so when…
