The Bloody Mary continues its descent from cocktail greatness to the most abused drink of all time. As if olives, celery stalks the size of tree trunks (sometimes complete with leaves), cocktail shrimp and pickles weren’t enough to make the drink eat like a buffet, now come straws made of…
When I interviewed James Childers and asked him how many people got sick eating at restaurants in Dallas, his answer begged the question. He said his department received 117 complaints, in the last year but noted they were only complaints, not confirmed food-borne illness outbreaks. So I asked him how…
It was months ago that a small white bag of insane whoopie pies were dropped off at my office. Since we don’t typically write about things that appear at our office unsolicited (it happens a lot), I tossed them out to the staff and watched them disappear. Now I have…
Tales of the Cocktail might be four months away, but Dallas-area mixologists are already well into planning for the event. Each year New Orleans hosts the event, which draws from an international base of cocktail enthusiasts who gather to talk booze, cross-pollinate creative ideas and get bombed. I talked to…
What a week, with the rats and the meatless eating and Alice being Alice and all. I’m about to find a spacious patio, order a beer and a burger and kick off my weekend, but before I go, there’s a week to wrap up — I’m going with mesclun. This…
Durian [Door-ee-uhn]: This larger-than-life fruit of the Malaysian tree can weigh up to 10 pounds, has a brownish-green semihard shell covered with thick spikes and is slightly larger than a football. So starts the durian entree in my trusty Food Lovers Companion. The book goes on to describe this notorious…
Early this week, NBC 5 DFW reported that hundreds of Dallas restaurants have not been evaluated by city inspectors. The story cited an understaffed department, mismanagement and budget concerns for the failure. Specifically, 241 restaurants that fall in the inspection department’s jurisdiction have not been checked out for more than…
I wanted to sign up and pin nothing but hoagies. I found buns, “hoagie dip” and earrings instead…
Delia Pisarro is a meat eater. She’s also a business woman. So when she opened Pure, her small Greenville Avenue Cafe in 2003, it wasn’t for her love of coconuts and kale. It was because she saw an opportunity. “Nobody else was doing it,” Pisarro says. On the coasts, sure:…
A woman drove her car into Jimmy’s Food Store Wednesday afternoon, crushing two tables, smashing a few bar chairs and tearing a hole into the side of the the Italian deli. While nobody was hurt, customers were enjoying a meal at an adjacent table in the same dining area. I…
This weekend I celebrated my birthday at brunch. I’m not much of a bruncher, but there I was at Canne Rosso, a glass of water in hand listening to my waitress offer me a choice of mimosa, Bloody Mary or michelada. Hearing the great beer cocktail mentioned immediately brightened my…
[jump] [page] [page] These are 16 random photos from my iPhone that took me about two minutes to select and drag to my desktop. It took only two minutes because probably 20 percent of my food photos are of either a burger or a Reuben. I didn’t include Cubans, chicken…
I have a confession. When I first got to Dallas, I wrote a post for National Tequila Day. I said Dallasites could celebrate this holiday with particular fervor because the frozen margarita was invented here. I said we could celebrate the day the margarita died in the city that killed…
Back in December, we pointed out a podcast posted on NPR, which declared meatballs the next big trend. At that time meatballs were taking New York City by storm, and a standalone ball shop had taken root in D.C.’s Chinatown. Then in January, The New York Times reviewed a place…
Back in January, Mark Bittman penned a little number highlighting various reports that indicated reduced meat consumption in America. He said we were all eating less meat, and I thought that was pretty great. I even tweeted about it. “Is Meatless Monday working?” I asked, and added a link to…
Listen, I know I have a problem. This whole Tex-Mex thing is getting really out of hand, and it’s all rooted in my deep-seated affection for what is really a rather trashy menu item: the sour cream enchilada. I’m obsessed with these bundles of joy and am determined to find…
Nearly every time I knock the food at a chain restaurant, a few commenters jump to and tell me why chains are great. Often those comments brand me as a chain-hating snob who only wants to eat trendy food, served by a waiter with bad facial hair and a fedora…
Over the weekend, the sad news came in that Travis Henderson, the former chef and co-owner of the Place at Perry’s, was shot to death by Dallas SWAT officer Samuel McDonnold. According to reports, the Carrollton Police Department was told on February 24 that Henderson planned to harm himself and…
Some winter, huh? I’m wearing short sleeves and it’s still February. That means we’re going to be eating peaches a little sooner, so long as a hard frost doesn’t come in and burn those little blossoms. Before you get out there and enjoy the beautiful weekend weather (I’m ready for…
Back in January, chef John Tesar announced he was kind of over the whole Commissary, One Arts Plaza thing. He was pulling out and shifting his focus to a new restaurant on Westchester Drive in Preston Center. Spoon was what Tesar called the space, and bloggers got to blogging, and…
Steak steak steak steak steak steak steak. The Dallas Morning News published a Pavlovian steakhouse slideshow the other day, with pictures and a link to a story published two summers ago that ranked Dallas’ best steakhouses. There are some sexy shots in that slideshow, but they invoked deja vu: D…
Just three weeks ago, we reported that Horne & Dekker had closed abruptly, on the heels of other failed restaurants in the area. H&D, Redfork and Alma all closed in less than a year, and I wondered if Knox-Henderson was a tough neighborhood for the service industry. Or maybe their…
