Odd to open a restaurant named after a child’s card game. In the past, chef Chris Svalesen has been more succinct. “Fish” was the downtown restaurant that made him famous. He later went obscure, naming his next restaurant after a Fahrenheit measurement: Thirty-Six Degrees, the optimum temperature at which fresh…
It’s Saturday night in Eden, and the gods are angry. We’re sitting inside the small converted ranch house watching a restaurant in the midst of a serious meltdown. The air conditioning unit malfunctions. Butter melts on the plate, and our waitress, already frazzled, wipes damp wilting hair from her glistening…
Here’s a prediction: Fuse will last as long as a lit fuse. But it won’t go out with a megaton cherry-bomb pop. It will go out with a pfffft. A dud. Then someone will try to salvage it and change the name to Gasket, or some other thing that can…
Things aren’t always what they seem. Take, for example, Main Street Blues Room. At first glance it’s a rustic tin utility building more suited to storing old tractor parts than housing a restaurant. The name itself evokes lurid images of precarious dives, boozehounds slumped at the bar, sultry music and…
Just because you’re upscale doesn’t mean you can’t kitsch. Riccardi’s does it, with flair maybe, but it does it. Riccardi’s is tucked in the space that was once the elegantly flashy Mediterraneo, back in the day when the restaurant was going to be the Benz in the FoodStar restaurant group’s…
Buzz past Manny’s Uptown Tex-Mex Restaurante during prime time on a Saturday night, and you’ll likely glimpse a chaotic scene. Hungry would-be diners mob the entry waiting for a table. They loiter in clusters on the lawn, bump elbows at the bar and mill about the patio. Sometimes people wait…
Nobu has a sake called Devil Killer. Not sure why this brew is branded a demon slayer, but a large slanted bottle of the stuff is $20. Maybe Satan is cheap. Maybe the prices would sever his carotid artery. Maybe Nobu is Hades for the penny pincher, which in a…
Urban provincialism is an interesting thing. Over and over we hear people inside the loop dismiss anything north of LBJ or lodged in the mid-cities. Much more difficult, it seems, to navigate an unbending multi-lane highway than suffer the halting drive on Oak Lawn Avenue. So they miss out on…
One of the fascinating elements of Standard is roadkill. Not on the menu, mind you. Still, if an edible animal is killed by an all-season radial rather than a sharp neck twist, does it really matter? Ultimately, it doesn’t, because the roadkill is in the restaurant as a prop, glaring…
Envision standing beer in hand on a Saturday night, waiting for a table in a place overwhelmed by blubber-laden, hairy men in ball caps and T-shirts. Must’ve sauntered in from a nearby WWF match or truck race. At a dining table near the bar slumps a guy with bulldog jowls,…
As the old Japanese proverb says, if you have the pleasant experience of eating something you haven’t tasted before, you life will be extended by 75 days. Never heard that proverb before, but real or not, Sushi Zushi milks it, turning dining into a full-fledged life-extension process. But for this…
Every little ripple in the landscape bears a name, such as Walton’s Mountain. Good example, really, because some people revered the sappy ’70s family drama while others despised the show. Naturally, the characters suffered through various plot twists the likes of which we can’t describe. We’d rather eat microwave pizza…
Clams, our most popular item, is not even on our menu –Bone Daddy’s vestibule sign The servers at Bone Daddy’s House of Smoke wear a tightly regimented uniform. It consists of Mary Jane shoes, white socks with lace trim folded down and earrings. Stationed between these garments are black hot…
The age of imperialism ended, oh, 50 or 60 years ago. Not a particularly glorious era. European countries exploited distant lands and beat down peoples and cultures. The United States caught on to the trend fairly late in the game. In order to catch up, we had to grab territories…
What is Hibiscus, anyway? Why is this restaurant so marinated in hype? Is it the special effects? Partly. In the beginning there were those black headbands with the bright red hibiscus blooms in the center that were worn by the kitchen crew. They were a chic trademark. They created buzz…
If there’s one thing Asian Mint, Asian Fusion Café does, it is this: It takes its name seriously. You wouldn’t think this, judging from the exterior, a simple metal and glass strip mall storefront. Yet there are telltale signs, even here. Example: The word “mint” is tattooed across the glass…
The past? Americans just can’t handle the past. Pop culture informs our understanding of the world. The family values myth, much of that stuff about the founding fathers and Christian faith, our hyped-up vision of the greatest generation–all manufactured by the various brokers of mass consumption. Just think how gullible…
Why should we pay for home cooking? Hell, it’s the same stuff Mom whipped up free of charge for decades. It’s always a bit perturbing to see people shell out good money for something they could prepare in their own kitchens for quite a bit less. Besides, most places never…
Here, the bartender is savvy. Sit down at the bar and prod him into talking about vodka. Ketel One is good; Skyy is hype. Of course, this could have been concluded without coaching. Note the extra “y.” Glare at the cobalt blue bottle. This is amusing: The Skyy Web site…
“At Pandora, a spirit of modernity gives new life to the elemental purity of Japanese tradition. Inside, find the décor is minimal, but spectacular where the emphasis is on fresh taste and artistic presentation of Pandora’s menu. Pandora offers three distinctly different dining experiences–sushi bar, robata grill, and sinfully good…
There was one peculiar thing about Kathleen’s Art Café, the Plano outpost of the original Lovers Lane installment. It wasn’t the legendary desserts. It wasn’t the famous grilled meat loaf sandwich. It wasn’t the art, framed and dangling from straps, prices neatly posted in lower corners. It was on the…
Eating is a form of transport. Think about it. Close your eyes with a piece of cheeseburger from McDonald’s dollar menu skidding on your tongue, and you’re in one zone. Roll a piece of gopchang jeongol (spicy beef intestine casserole) against your inner cheek walls, and you’re on a completely…
