Doors held open for me count: 2 Temperature of restaurant: 30 below zero with a slight chance of “holy crap my nose just froze off of my face” So, yesterday my stomach and I were having a debate about what I was going to eat for lunch. My stomach was…
Takes some nerve to open a restaurant in the westernmost flatlands of Frisco and call it BayGrill. It doesn’t even have a bay window, this bistro, much less proximity to a body of water. It is a pretty little place, however, sitting on the edge of oblivion at Legacy Drive…
Chinese cuisine, with rare exceptions, is a mongrel of conformity in these parts: a risk-averse version of the intensely risky food. It’s transmogrified, morphed, tamed and sanitized, made pliant and meek. Sometimes you can barely recognize the stuff. Oh, there are the disheveled spaces here and there, hollowed out of…
People sitting in truck beds: 18 Motorcycles: 2 Times I wondered if someone would come to my car to take my trash or if I should just drive off with a tray attached to my car: 5 Have you ever seen the blinking lights of Keller’s Drive-In as you cruise…
You can see the curving steel beams rise like a bump in the distance, cranes hovering over them like mantises, the spine arching out of a wave. Olenjack’s Grille rests in the thick of it, or what is likely to be the thick, standing ready to exploit intermittent captive audiences…
There are plenty of ways to get a good cheap lunch in Dallas. You can use the old, “I paid last time.” You can sign yourself up for a homemade cold-cut guiltwich at Mom’s. You can yoink somebody else’s lunch out of the work fridge—there are countless options. But, I…
The Fish can be summed up in two words: sex and death. Not dead fish and bootylicious servers, but fish of death and high-backed banquettes done up in bordello-red suede with square portholes to draw out the sweaty voyeur in all of us. The Fish was founded in Houston. Its…
Lunch specials: too many to mention When you mosey into Woodway’s Café, your attention is immediately focused on the 50 million menus up on the wall. There’s the giant menu, there are letter-sized paper menus that hang from above the register listing specials and then there’s a white board with…
If there’s one slap-in-the-face quality to Bob’s Steak & Chop House in Grapevine, it’s unabashed masculinity—even more so than at the cozier, well-worn 15-year-old original Dallas location. From décor to dishes, it’s a man’s world. Or at least, it tries to be, with high-backed booths and wood details, old photos…
Lunch special: Small cheesesteak combo with fries and a drink for $5.99, or Buffalo cheesesteak, fries and a drink for $7.50 Q: What does one do when faced with the choice between Buffalo wings and a cheesesteak? A: Buffalo cheesesteak, bitches. Why? Because instead of making difficult choices, I say…
Zen has something in it which makes it stand aloof from the scene of worldly sordidness and restlessness.” —D.T. Suzuki, May 1953 What strikes you immediately is its rigorous simplicity. Zen Sushi isn’t simmering a scene or riding a trend. It has clean, near-barren walls and stark wood tables and…
Other places with the word Joe’s in their name near Joe’s Burgers count: 3 Watery ketchup packets received with my order count: 15 Sonic claims to be your “Ultimate Drink Stop,” and I do appreciate their ridiculous syrup selection and the fact that they have Sprite Zero—but where’s the beer?…
James Rowland is a turnaround artist. He has taken rusted junkers, loosened stuck bolts, tightened loose nuts and finessed it all with a little salt and pepper. He’s turned greasy, grimy watering holes into coifed and tucked spots with manicured menus. Rowland breathes life into culinary afterthoughts, or more accurately,…
Lunch Specials: Two enchiladas, rice and beans for $5.75; two tacos rice and beans for $5.75; three tamales, rice and beans for $5.75; two 2 fajita tacos rice and beans for $6.75. Step 1: Drive to Deep Ellum. Step 2: Drive down Main Street past Monica’s Aca Y Alla. Step…
There’s something to be said for loose paper menus. Unlike the leather-bound ones, they’re easy to manipulate. You can fold them and slip them into your coat or purse without arousing suspicion. They’re easy reference points that can be consulted again and again—as the food arrives, as you eat, as…
“Darlin'” count: 1,298 Homemade pies on the counter count: 5 Holy shit,” I mumbled, a mouthful of spicy fried chicken sandwich in my mouth, “this is fuckin’ stupendous.” No, I wasn’t at Wendy’s, you dumbass. I was scarfing down a sandwich and Texas fries (for a mere $9.64, and I…
Because a year ago the courts shut down the last two slaughterhouses in Texas that turned horses into meat for human diners, most people think American equines are no longer being killed to satiate appetites in Europe and Asia. Yet thousands of horses are being exported to Mexico and killed…
My favorite dining companion put it this way: Urban Taco sounds like something you’d order from the J. Peterman catalog. He’s onto something. Think cute but functional. Trendy but not pushy. A little on the pricey side. But you want it anyway. Urban Taco fits all of those categories, and…
Lunch special: $5.25 buffet 7 days a week. As I was pointing and laughing at the bright orange Oompa Loompas who were leaving the B-Tan Tanning Superstore with their totally natural mid-winter radiation-kissed tan, my bitchiness made me hungry, so I walked next door to the Szechuan Chinese Restaurant, and…
Victory. It’s the biggest Dallas dining story of 2007—maybe of the new century, until some wily engineer figures out how to transform the Trinity River project into a profitable floating sushi buffet. Victory has it all: the steak; the wonderfully convenient parking chaos; the Swiss chard; the crowds in designer…
Lunch special: Cheese enchilada with meat sauce, beef taco, rice, beans and a drink, $7.95 Parking spots out front count: 4 Front door that makes them look closed even when they’re open count: 1 My New Year’s resolution is to stop going to restaurants in Dallas that blow. Next time…
You don’t get the pinks or the sheers, the lavish brasses or the visages of Shiva. You don’t get the busy pungent fogs of a hundred spices ground and goaded to cloak the hearty smells of protein buried deep within: lentils and lamb, shrimp and chicken. At night the Bukhara…
