Tourist traps are supposed to be something you outgrow, like a passion for peanut butter and marshmallow creme sandwiches or a fascination with belching. Theoretically, anyone over the age of thirteen should be able to pass by a tourist trap souvenir palace like Shell City (yes, I was recently in…
“If you live to be 80 years old, you have 29,200 days to live.” That’s food for thought at the Dallas cafe that tries to combine both more often than almost anyone cares to. In addition to the blackboard menu of coffee and tea and the one listing daily specials,…
Evangelists proliferate here in the Bible belt, no matter what the precise nature of the good news they’re spreading. Perhaps that’s why the chain restaurant is the only aspect of dining we’re really notable for. I’d hesitate to insult a genuine barbecue purveyor by implying it was but a link,…
Once upon a time, there was a natural foods store called Harthomp & Moran on lower Greenville which grew and grew and grew until it blossomed into a natural supermarket called Bluebonnet and was eaten by a giant called Whole Foods. That’s no fairy tale, it’s real life in the…
Coffee bars, sports bars, home meal replacements, steak houses, bagel shops, and specialty theme restaurants–these were the hottest concepts in the food business in 1996, and it looks like 1997 will serve up some more of the same. Places like Planet Hollywood, Hard Rock Cafe, and Margaritaville (a parrothead’s paradise)…
Flan, like tiramisu, is one of the constants on the modern dessert menu. Usually it’s a bland option–turgid milk in a thin pseudo-caramelized syrup, faintly sweet, food suitable for convalescents. At its rare best, it’s a transcendent jelling of cream into a texture as luxurious as the taste of caviar…
The American Institute of Wine and Food, which loves to dine and dither about such things, focused on fusion food at its big deal Conference on Gastronomy last October in Seattle. Teapot tempests are nothing new to foodies, who characteristically delight in discussing the merits and demerits of what they’re…
Thank God the holidays are over and we can all recover, not just from overindulgence, cold-weather flus, colds, and the other deleterious effects of close contact with too much family, but from related holiday maladies like homesickness. Holidays hearken to home in the most primitive way, and even when we…
Ham I Am! is a little Dallas company which sells smoked hams, smoked peppered hams, smoked chickens, smoked brisket, smoked bacon, and, slightly incongruously, Brie. All these products are delicious and delivered to your door, but the product to put at the top of your list is the Ozark Trails…
“She was a good cook, as cooks go, and as cooks go, she went.” Occasionally a cliche loses all relevance–this line (supposedly of S. J. Perelman’s) makes absolutely no sense at all now that nobody has a personal cook and there’s only one place that even claims to want to…
When I was a student, to use the term loosely, at the University of Texas in Austin, the well-respected classics professor Dr. Douglass Parker taught a (very popular) course called “Parageography.” The point of the class was, believe it or not, to explore “the geography of imaginary countries.” That’s what…
Navigation may confound you at Tarazza, but at some places, you know exactly where you stand. Natalie’s, the little cafe with the heart-warming story behind it (it was started by a school principal and dietitian) has flourished by doing precisely what everyone would expect. Natalie’s is open for dinner, but…
Mandibles across Dallas should thank Natalie’s for their homemade cinnamon rolls, a welcome break from the bagel workout most of us call breakfast. Of course, they have more sugar and more fat than a bagel–they also have more flavor. Soft as a pillow, sweet as a dream, drizzled with sticky…
It’s been 15 years years since Alberto Lombardi, the man who invented Italian food in Dallas, opened a restaurant here. After his trattoria “concept” hit pay dirt, he took the show on the road, and in the past 20 years, he has opened restaurants in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Miami,…
Kazy’s may be called a “food mart,” but it’s really a center of local Japanese culture, with a supply of magazines, videos, Japanese-style chopsticks, and toys, all for much less than they cost in Tokyo. Kazy’s has been Dallas’ premier Japanese grocery store for years, supplying culinary essentials like nori,…
The hostess headed the parade of women through the restaurant to the corner table, a string of groomed, polished (need I say blonde?) trophies trying to preserve their prize, their cheekbones high, their skin tanned and tight, their outfits as unnaturally stylized and contrived as only couture can be. One’s…
There’s a natural relation between spirits, fine food, and fine wine. Every diet expert will tell you that the first leads to the second and every gourmet will tell you that the second calls for the third. Unfortunately, there have been few places in Dallas where you can purchase a…
Preparation: To season two cups of cooked and finely shredded fish, take one small chile ancho, remove its seeds and veins, put it in a pot with some water, and simmer it gently for five minutes. In a molcajete, grind together 12 peppercorns, some cumin seeds, and a piece of…
Everyone knows The Gingerman is the epicenter of Dallas’ brew culture: It’s not anywhere near as big as a brewpub, but what these people know about beer and are dying to tell you is everything–they’ve been drinking beer a long time. The beer, cigar, and wine tastings at The Gingerman…
I was invited to a “cutting of the cheese” party last weekend. Obviously, the teenager inside my friend Mickey named the event, but Mickey the man was grown-up enough to realize that he’d spent hundreds of dollars a year (in $16 dollar-a-pound or so increments) on imported Parmigiana-Reggiano cheese and…
The thing is, it doesn’t have to be this good. Casa Rosa owns its neighborhood; it has its niche clearly carved. Trapped between Highland Park Village (Mi Cocina’s territory), Preston Center (Mi Casa’s stake) and Snider Plaza (Los Vaqueros’ land), the Miracle Mile’s Tex-Mex category clearly belongs to Casa Rosa…
There’s a reason Piggie Pies specializes in delivered pizza. You get a substantial discount if you dare to pick up your pie, but honest, Piggie Pies only looks like it’s being run by a bunch of bikers who turned in their hogs for Piggie. The truth is that Jesse, pizza…
