As Americans, we know how to pick our nostalgia. We pluck the good, fleshy bits from the bones of our memories and leave the gristle to decay on its own. We hold onto the good stuff, and the rest floats away. After all, in the fun, heady days of a…
Toilets in the women’s restroom that are on a platform that makes you feel like your peeing onstage count: 1 Credit cards accepted count: 0 People ask why I’m such a cheap ass. They’re like, “Why do I have to pay for your lunch all the time, Alice?” and “How…
Sometime around second grade, with kiddie fat starting to fade into just awkward kid, I got my first taste of the Orient. My dad worked for a Japanese company. I had pen pals in Nagano. I got my first kimono, and I was working on mastering the chopsticks. Our family…
It began with a chicken. Or to be more precise, dreams of a chicken. I wanted a plump red bird with a healthy sheen, a thick neck and green tail feathers. I would build it a coop, give it crushed corn and keep its water clean. And then, when the…
Jalapeño ranch and salsa bar count: 1 Times I was amazed by how good crispy tacos could be count: 50 Urban Taco can suck one. A big fat one with a tattoo that says, “Mockingbird Station ain’t effin’ urban, and real tacos are big as yo’ face.” If you want…
Parking in front of Naan Korean Grill & Sushi Bar isn’t free unless you drive a hybrid. They actually have meters in front of every primo spot in front of the restaurant (just like all the other establishments that are a part of the newish Watters Creek outdoor mall in…
Other people in line in front of me count: 10 Minutes before I got my food count: 5 I’ll say it. I love Wang. When I get a craving for Wang, nothing else will do. And yeah, it sucks that I have to pay for it in cash and that…
At first glance, Dali Wine Bar & Cellar is a 7-Eleven. You drive down Routh Street, take a left at the 7-Eleven corporate offices sign and after a few seconds of, “Is this the right place?” you finally see Dali. Me plus three walked into Dali, ready to drink. Oh,…
Single-serving bottles of Beringer on the counter count: 8 People in line in front of me count: 4 Hook Line & Sinker is the clogged artery in the heart of Uptown. And I mean that as a good thing. This beaten-down, piece-of-shit, Christmas-light-colored building is a total eyesore in the…
Upon hearing I had been assigned the duty of reviewing Al Amir, a Lebanese restaurant way up on Belt Line, I decided to study the restaurant’s Web site. This, after all, was no casual trek to the corner diner. Nope, it was to be a foray into a foreign land,…
People eating fried whole catfish with tails and everything count: 4 Cop count: 3 When you’re driving around Dallas looking for a place to eat lunch on the cheap, you’ve gotta know what you’re looking for. If the place has fancy freakin’ awnings or a shmancy revolving door or a…
I’ve never made a crêpe. Well, I’d never made a crêpe until recently, that is. Often, I go into restaurants to review them and I can say, “OK, I’ve made that.” I have an idea how difficult or how easy it is to pull off at least a variation of…
Times I got yelled at: 1 Slices I wish I had been able to eat: 40 I used to go to this place on Main Street called Café Ravenna, which served a nice slice and had a surprisingly large set of pasta options. It’s now called Ravenna Pizza & Bar…
There’s a wonderful scene in an episode of Mad Men, AMC’s drama about early-1960s New York ad execs, in which a character orders some sort of old-school cocktail that involves an egg white—probably a silver gin fizz. Actually, we see him order his second round; the first one is implied,…
Beer posters with boob girls on them count: 3 Creepy, anthropomorphized jalapeño with gloves on the menu count: 1 Known scientific fact: Mexican food is tasty shit. And it becomes even tastier in the summertime. So, when I saw the sandwich board outside of Galindo’s that read, “Beer Blow Out…
Screen Door bills itself—in the parlance of some of the finest whiskeys—as a blend, a melding of modern culinary wisdom with decades of tried-and-true grit from the hot, sticky South. The result is the modern Southern kitchen. But what does this mean? That’s hard to decipher. The food isn’t so…
Fuddruckers-esque decorations count: a million and seven Patio count: 1 Sonics within a 2-mile radius count: 5 It’s summer, and it’s not too late to fit into that bikini, guys, so let’s go running in the 112-degree heat and work off some of that winter weight, right?! Or, let’s accept…
A scene in 2003’s Lost in Translation depicts Bob (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) ordering shabu shabu from a menu that is basically a photo essay of various arrangements of raw meat. Bob, a bit frustrated for various reasons, looks at the waiter, points to the photo and fingers…
Buffalo head on the wall count: 2 Dishtowel napkin on my lap count: 1 Just down the street from Commerce’s burgerville, a nice little saloon just opened up. It’s run by the people who brought you the tastegasmic Twisted Root Burger, and it promises to be equally yummy at the…
Ponder the paradox. The more we flee the grit of the city, the more we crave its talismans. We crave them so much we recreate them in the metropolis’ own image—the urban villages, the revitalized town cores, the lofts. Yes, the lofts. And where they can’t be molded out of…
Buffet rounds I survived count: 2 Chicken lo mein burps per hour after eating count: 142 Located right next to a DART rail station (which is obviously always a good sign), the Jumbo Super Buffet sits tucked away in a parking lot corner just seconds away from a funeral home…
Years ago, well before cigarette smokers were forced to take their leprosy to the gutter, the American grill was an unpretentious place of hearty food washed down unapologetically with frothy brew. Steaks untrimmed of gristle. Burgers fat, pink and weeping greasy ooze. Pork with no pink and no “sustainable” upbringing…
