Firehouse Subs Fire pole count: 0 At Firehouse Subs, it’s clear that dudes decorated this place. They were like, “OK. Fireman theme. What says firehouse? Go!” and that’s when they came up with the Dalmatian-printed tables and hanging axes and multiple fire alarms on the walls because that totally goes…
In a windowless, climate-controlled chamber on the third floor of the Dedman Life Sciences building at Southern Methodist University, thousands of fruit flies are on a diet so someday you won’t have to be. The crumb-sized insects, weighing just 1 milligram each, live in slim glass and plastic tubes—100 flies…
This is the tale of two restaurants. Not one of those Dickensian best of- worst of- dichotomies, mind you. No, this is a story about strange but not completely off-putting flaws on one hand and a playful sophistication that turns out extraordinarily well on the other. Just what the hell…
Nearly 4 inches long, the “Sand Dune” oyster from Prince Edward Island was so plump, it was bulging out of its shell “like a large breast in a small brassiere,” as Rodney Clark, the owner of Rodney’s Oyster House in Toronto, put it. Intensely briny and wonderfully sweet, the big,…
OysterSpecies Guide There are five species of oysters eaten in the Western world. Crassostrea virginica (C. virginica) Common names: Eastern oyster, Atlantic oyster, Gulf oyster, Blue Point, Malpeque This is the great American oyster, the species that occurs naturally from Canada down the East Coast to New York and Chesapeake…
Stroller count: 3 Dude count: 1 I heard that the chicken salad at Zoe’s Kitchen was The Shit, so I stopped by the Lovers Lane location to check it out. And when I got there, it was clear to me that I hadn’t been fully briefed on the dress code…
Does Dallas need another steakhouse? Well, it’s not as if we’ve really added one, as Fruia’s Tre Amici merely fills in a gap vacated by Rick Stein’s—covering, fortunately, some of Stein’s bordello red paint scheme in the process. But the massive new restaurant’s opening brings up a more interesting debate,…
Eric Clapton to Vietnamese pop on the playlist ratio: 1:1 Ways I’ve pronounced pho wrong count: 250 Iheard about Lá Me recently, and after a quick visit to their Web site (which features tons of hot chicks on their patio), I decided to go. When I got there, though, I…
Cadillac Ranch Three different servers interrupted my lunch, each seemingly desperate to know what I thought of the fried oysters. One even admitted that these crusty half shell bites represent the best thing on their menu. The only break in this cavalcade of overtly beaming faces was a comment I…
Pieces of chicken I ordered but did not eat count: 0 Glass wall between the chicken and me count: 1 Recently, a chicken place opened on Abrams Road right next to my favorite doughnut shop. And since chicken and doughnuts is my dream meal, I’d been waiting for it to…
Neighborhood Services Temperatures had begun to settle from a tolerable peak of 50 degrees one evening when a man strolled intoNeighborhood Services decked out in fur. Pan-roastedmussels $8 Bacon andover-easy egg $9 Fennel sausageflatbread $10 Lobster fritters $14 Seared scallops $19 Berkshire ribsand rings $23 Yep, a guy—and not a…
It’s no mystery that we’re a fan of sweet treats around these parts. And thanks to our last Best of Dallas issue, it’s also no mystery that we dig on the Natsumi gelato. We’ve given props to the organic partially-organic gelato purveyor for hand-cranking flavors that taste so much like…
First impressions lead me to believe Steven Sohn is one of those larger-than-life, whoop-it-up Texas characters of legend. The Hibashi Teppan Grill and Sushi Bar owner shelled out close to $3 million—a very Dallas-like sum—on his place, filling some of the wall space with appropriately ostentatious sculptures. He reserved a…
Turquoise rings for sale in the restaurant count: 20 Free Three Wise Men bilingual storybook given to me on my way out count: 1 Driving back from Austin on Interstate 35, I saw a billboard that said, “Nueva Casita. Best Tex-Mex in Dallas.” I was like, “Damn Nueva Casita—that’s a…
Several years ago, in a somewhat disturbing trend, relatively affluent 20-somethings began donning Von Dutch trucker hats and crowding into the contrived environs of places like Double Wide. Downing cans of beer in a staged version of Podunk apparently made privileged urban types feel more real, more down-to-earth—a kind of…
Insanely short straw count: 1 Probably hookers count: 12 Thank you, Sal’s, for being a pizza and pasta place that has more than just pizza-by-the-slice as a lunch special. I’ve got nothing against the slice. The pizza at Sal’s is otherworldly. It’s made from raindrops on roses and whiskers on…
This has been, by any standard, an interesting year. Americans made history by living up to—finally—the “regardless of race, creed or color” principle we ostensibly cherish. That President-elect Barack Obama came from the usually disheveled ranks of that often-pointless party known as “Democrats” makes our national break with the past…
If, thanks to Hollywood, one is likely to compare the seeming randomness of destiny to a Whitman’s Sampler, what then stands in for life’s certainties? Perhaps it’s too local to gain large-scale popularity, but I would suggest RJ Mexican Cuisine. When you ask waitresses at this popular and longstanding West…
Tortilla chip bucket refill count: 4 Gallons of mouth-on-fire salsa consumed count: 2 Sometimes you just feel like eating something shitty good. Something you know is going to stick to your insides and probably shorten your life by just a little bit, but it tastes so good it’ll be worth…
Years ago, in response to a seeming onslaught of prepackaged goods and quick-service chain restaurants, a few activist gourmands began spouting the moral superiority of “slow foods.” Not just organic or free-range, mind you, but also locally grown and “sustainable.” Forgetting that in the days when people ate natural foods…
Not having seen 300, Hollywood’s beefcake version of the ancient grievances between Persia and the Greek city-states, I must settle for a more dated image of Turkey’s once-great warriors. On stones unearthed over time by scholars—you know, those sullen experts we’ve preferred to ignore ever since popular culture turned to…
How often must MBA recipients prove their “worthiness” before we finally stop listening? And before you many upstanding business folks finish that “hey, wait just one damn minute” thought, keep in mind what MBAs have wrought lately. There’s W, for example—whom the conservative media once lauded as our first such…
