This year, Observer food critic Brian Reinhart went on a very Eat, Pray, Love-esque pilgrimage around DFW, praying Google listed correct hours of operation while falling in love with strip-mall kebabs and Turkish ezme. In his soul search, Reinhart found a beautiful variety of cuisines and experiences, from Iraqi feasts in Richardson…
2017 will be remembered for a lot of uncomfortable societal change, such as the fact that Dallas barbecue is fancy now. Craft cocktails, mandatory valet, $28 chicken breasts, Ferris wheels: For some restaurateurs, a pile of meat on butcher paper isn’t enough anymore. Smoky Rose opened across from the Dallas…
Assuming you’ve done your Christmas shopping this year — and even if you haven’t — it’s safe to say many of us are a little tapped out right now. Gifts, travel, expensive sequined outfits we’ll wear to one holiday party and then never again — Christmas cheer doesn’t come cheap…
Just after Thanksgiving, you might have seen a sign on the door of Food From Galilee that caused a gravity-drop feeling in your gut. Under a red “help wanted” sign, a handwritten note on a sheet of yellow legal paper read, “Dear Customers: We will be closed due to a…
When you walk into The Statler, a distinctly Don Draper kind of aesthetic will greet you. Think wire-work chairs, marble galore and the kind of midcentury, swanky vibe that makes smoking seem like a reasonable choice. This fashionably vintage setting makes for an ideal brunch spot, and Overeasy — the…
What’s better than sandwiches? Tiny sandwiches, that’s what. The tiny sandwich is finally about to have its day at a big new food festival: Between the Buns, a Dallas Observer Slider Event. From 4-7 p.m. Saturday, March 24, sliders will rain down from the heavens at the Dallas Farmers Market. The…
Once, any talk of Texas’ barbecue belt focused on Central Texas. That belt is now, well, Texas-sized. Good barbecue can be had anywhere between the Red River and the Rio Grande. While Austin and the small towns dotting the Hill Country certainly have the edge when it comes to barbecue…
Pho is the kind of dish that makes people love to argue over authenticity and tradition. But a world without weird pho is a world we don’t want to live in, which is what drew us to the new Lime Bar & Kitchen in Irving to try the restaurant’s already famous…
Within 2 miles of new Highland Park restaurant Sachet, there are, by conservative estimation, more than a dozen Dallas steakhouses serving pricey 22-ounce cowboy rib-eyes and pork chops big enough to derail a streetcar. The well-heeled bits of Dallas, particularly suit-sporting expense account holders, love meat. Not just any meat,…
A revamped shopping center at Central Expressway and Walnut Hill Lane is hoping to become an eco-friendly dining and shopping hot spot in North Dallas. The Hill, a “modern mixed-use development located in a historic shopping center,” opened its anchor tenant, forward-thinking sustainable home goods store TreeHouse, a few months ago…
All-American is a series that looks at beloved, longstanding North Texas eateries and examines their histories while exploring how the food has changed — for the good or bad — over the years. The wax paper carrying the tater tots is translucent. Grease spatters the bottom of the brown paper…
In a city laden with fried chicken, Mike’s Chicken may strike the most perfect balance of crispy skin and succulent meat. Other chickens are too often spoiled by dryness, but the birds at Mike’s are so moist and juicy, they nearly have the texture of a whitefish but with all…
It’s easy enough to miss Top 5 BBQ if you pass through DeSoto. What started as a backyard smoker serving smoked meats to the neighborhood soon grew to a food truck and now occupies a modest storefront in a strip mall adjacent to DeSoto’s City Hall. But driving past Top…
The charcoal lights around 10 p.m. Just off Main Street, on an open-air patio that borders Monkey King Noodle Co., alongside thumping bars and piles of fallen leaves, a keyboard-sized grill glows lava-orange. Steam dances out, nearly spelling out the words in vapor that you’re imagining when you whiff the…
If ever a meal were a conveyor of exclusivity, brunch is it. Farha Ternikar, a sociology professor and author of Brunch: A History, speaks to brunch’s earliest incarnations as being draped in the same fine silks of elitism that we see in our modern iteration of this post-breakfast, pre-lunch meal,…
Citizens of this great city, the state of our beef union is strong, but it has been a madcap year for the cow. We’ve lost and we’ve gained. We’ve torn down the new, and, in a breath, boarded up the old. Only the vegan may be blissfully unaware of this…
Victory Park is in the process of building eight new restaurants slated to open in 2018, and the neighborhood just announced two of the latest: Imoto, “an Asian kitchen and bar” from Tracy Rathbun (Shinsei, Lovers Seafood & Market) and a wine bar called Burgundy Swine. Via a press release: Imoto,…
For chef Jeff Biehler, there was a simple reason for adding a burger to a poultry-themed menu: Customers asked for a dish that wasn’t entirely bird, and the kitchen listened. Oak Cliff/West Dallas food playground Chicken Scratch has been focusing on hulking, patio-style, fried chicken and biscuit sandwiches since January…
It’s happening beneath your feet. You’re standing in line at The Commissary, eyeing the glossy candy apples painted like they were plucked out of a dark fairy tale. Underneath your feet, there’s a frosty basement. You won’t get to see the basement, but one afternoon, we did. Clean, cold air…
At the busy intersection of Oak Lawn and Cedar Springs, The Centrum building has been in the midst of major renovations. As part of those renovations, the Oak Lawn building will get several new restaurants: new locations of local burger joint Pints & Quarts and local coffee shop Mudsmith are…
So you went too hard last night. It’s the holiday season, so we forgive you — but your hangover may not. Assuming you have nothing to do for the first few hours the day, a little hair-of-the-dog with your brunch may be the fastest route to … if not health,…
In a dining rut? Shake the dust off this weekend by checking out one of these new local restaurants. Whether you’re looking for biscuits of baba ghanoush, there’s fresh food out there to try. Overeasy Start your weekend with downtown’s stellar new breakfast spot, Overeasy, tucked into the recently revamped lobby…
