I get to Fort Worth a handful of times a year, usually to check out a performance at Bass Hall or to putz around the museums. Last summer my infrequent visits became permanently appended with a mandatory visit to Melt Ice Creams. I won’t leave Fort Worth until I’ve had…
When that hollow voice from my GPS instructed a turn onto Menefee Avenue and announced the final destination was a mere 1,000 feet away, I assumed I’d made a wrong turn. A thrift store, a vacuum cleaner repair shop and a collision center were all within sight, and the road…
If the Dallas bar and restaurant industry has one attribute that stands out, it’s a sense of community. If a chef, cook, waiter, bartender or any other service worker is met with an unforeseen challenge in this town, he or she will have a whole city’s worth of restaurant employees…
Nooooo! News broke Monday that the original Off-Site Kitchen location would be closing for good. There is some comfort in that the new location in Trinity Groves will carry on the Off-Site legacy, but the change tacks on about two miles to a round-trip lunch commute from Observer headquarters. The casual burger…
If I didn’t know what I’d ordered, I would have assumed the plate contained freshly sliced tuna. The fish was a deep and rich crimson, not from myoglobin stores, which tuna and other red fish have plenty of, but from beets. The fish was salmon that had been cured with the…
The other day Nancy Nichols wrote a post on Side Dish complaining about too many burger restaurant in Dallas (just after a list celebrating 20 local burgers was published on the same blog). “Do we need more mac and cheese, burgers and braised short ribs?” she asks, prompted by an announcement…
The second of many more to come Top Pot Doughnuts opened recently — this one’s on Greenville Avenue. Customers can slip in for a cake doughnut and an Ovaltine latte, or a massive bear claw if more sugar and calories are required. They cannot, however, grab a seat at a…
What time is it? It’s time for hops if you’re listening to that bad-ass can pictured above: Big, bold, bitter hops, with those floral, fruity notions pushed to the wayside. Meet Community Brewing’s Sundial, the end all, be all summer beer for hopheads who don’t want to feel like they…
You may, genetic makeup depending, occasionally find yourself with the need to entertain large groups of friends, from the office or otherwise. You could invite everyone over to your place, but then someone might hang out longer than you want them to. You could drop in at any old bar, but…
See that ornate bowl of soup pictured above? It’s an ajo blanco (almond gazpacho), and you should be very excited about it. Chef Vijay Sadhu created the bowl, which features halved red grapes, neat cubes of cucumber and flower blossoms that might leave you with at a subtle peppery flavor,…
According to the calendar it’s summer time, and soon the celestial bodies will agree. The shelves at your favorite beer-buying store have followed suit, spilling over with light-drinking citrusy things. If only the weather would play along. Lucky for you, Lakewood Brewing has figured out how to bottle up sunshine, and…
When Jeana Johnson and Colleen O’Hare announced they would be turning over the kitchen of Mot Hai Ba to a new and unheard of understudy, panic swirled in East Dallas. They had made a similar move to open that very restaurant, turning over the kitchen of Good 2 Go Taco…
Steel City Pops will open its third location in the DFW area, this time in Garland’s Firewheel Town Center. Vending and logistics manager David Pressley says he hopes the storefront will be open sometime in June, just in time for the peak summer heat. Customers who enjoy watching the pops…
East Dallasites are already getting to know their new late-night dining option. Buzzbrews, the 24-hour diner with three additional locations in the Dallas area (and another planned for Victory Park), recently opened its doors and let customers into a colorful dining room. On a recent weekday morning, the space was…
Highland Park Village has decided to go in a different direction with its latest restaurant. After the departures of Patrizio’s, which moved to Uptown, and Village Kitchen, which was jettisoned down the Trinity River, a new, more casual dining experience has risen from their ashes. It has burgers, but you…
Though it’s not directly associated with Trinity Groves, I think Phil Romano can mark the first success of his incubator project. Blythe Beck’s lengthy stint at Kitchen LTO has yielded Pink Magnolia, a pop-up permanent restaurant that will open in Oak Cliff later this summer. Casie Caldwell’s involvement, on the…
I have seen the future of marketing, and it is terrifying. Not long ago I paid Chili’s a visit, after hearing about their new campaign to make their food more shareable on social media. The company is hoping more customers will take selfies with burgers in hand, so they spent…
Tucked away in a residential neighborhood, on Stults Road just off Forest Lane, the Buddhist Center of Dallas sits quietly six days a week, providing a solemn refuge for area Thai Buddhists looking to get closer to enlightenment. There’s a manicured garden out back, and down just a few steps,…
The Highland Park location of Patrizio’s, which closed earlier this year after 25 years of service, reopened quietly in Uptown earlier this month. The restaurant will host a grand opening party Thursday, and then make an attempt to create 25 years of additional memories in the space that held Private Social…
Velvet Taco can be a lifesaver if you attend a lot of concerts, crash a lot of parties or indulge in any other number of activities that that can push you dinner hour close to midnight. An increasing number of restaurants have been keeping later hours in Dallas, but Velvet Taco’s…
It’s likely the most anticipated restaurant opening since Remedy doused Greenville Avenue for the first time last year, and it’s certainly the most hyped. Uchi has announced a June 1 opening date, giving Dallasites another reason to celebrate this Memorial Day Weekend. In just days, Dallas will be the newest…
With all the rain we’ve had recently, you might not have considered that summer is coming, and with it the loving embrace of triple-digit heat. It’s hard to get motivated for outdoor dining or a drink on the patio when the sun is blaring on your back like a blistering salamander…
