Remember when I brought some Sichuan peppercorns into the office to try out on the rest of the Observer staff? I’ve been looking for fiery Sichuan cooking on and off ever since. At the end of that blog post I mentioned Royal Sichuan, a small Chinese restaurant on Greenville Avenue…
This week I took a break from judging the finer points of food construction to talk with Tizeta Getachew. We sat in her restaurant last week as she told me about the events that led up to her quitting a promising career at a domestic violence shelter so she could…
“Should I turn on the sign?” Yemi Lemma asks. Months of preparation have led up to the opening of Desta, an Ethiopian spot far up Greenville Avenue, just inside Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway. Co-owner Lemma was well prepared for her first night of business, but still she was nervous. The…
It hit my desk Monday — the galley of Daniel Vaughn’s upcoming book, The Prophets Of Smoked Meat. For more than 300 pages Vaughn lays out stories about his travels across the great state of Texas interspersed between so much meat porn I’m blushing while I type this. The book…
If you spent some quality time with The Dallas Morning News on your couch this Sunday, you likely stumbled upon the BBQ Posse’s latest piece, which lists a group of journalists’ favorite barbecue places in Texas. And if you saw the map and noticed all of their spots were tightly…
Food & Wine recently announced that Matt McCallister, chef-owner of FT33, and Omar Flores, who chefs at Driftwood have been nominated for the magazine’s The People’s Best New Chef award. See also: – FT33 is Now Open in the Design District – FT33 chef Matt McCallister and Driftwood chef Omar…
Happy Aloha Tuesday, Dallas. There’s a new Hawaiian barbecue place on Lemmon Avenue, and it looks pretty interesting. Aloha Hawaiian BBQ opened just last week with bamboo window treatments, a mural of the Hawaiian mountains painted on the wall, and Hawaiian radio playing over the sound system. I’d tell you…
Lark on The Park, the new Shannon Wynne restaurant that promises to anchor Klyde Warren Park, is open for dinner service this week. If you’ve been to the park recently you know that on sunny days the space is absolutely packed with park-goers, who previously had only food trucks for…
Chad Montgomery, the organizer of the Big Texas Beer Fest, says tickets to this year’s event are now on sale. Brewers from Austin, Houston and other parts of the state will be on hand this go around, in addition to the Dallas-based brewers who participated last year. Ten local food…
For a long time I didn’t love to prospect at farmers markets, if only because I had no clue how to use them. As a home cook, when I wanted to make a meal, I paged through my cookbooks looking for inspirational pictures, wrote down a massive ingredient list and…
When I wrote of Korean fusion in Dallas last year, I spent considerable time with Janice and Terry Song. The two couldn’t seem to get a break in terms of restaurant location as their first, on Inwood Road, was plagued panhandlers who would harass their customers as they waited in…
Dismal weather this weekend. Not the best for farmer’s market shopping but I’ll take what I can get. One of our commenters noted if you plan on hitting the White Rock Local Market this weekend you should go early. By 11 a.m. last weekend several vendors had sold out of…
Back in January we published a blog post that described some tense negotiations between Park Towers residents and the nearby Katy Trail Ice House. Condominium residents had filed a complaint with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, alleging noise from the outdoor beer garden infringed on their otherwise peaceful Park Towers…
If there’s one thing Dallas loves more than a popular restaurant, it’s a second restaurant by the same owner. Side Dish has a short blog post about Richard and Tiffanee Ellman. The owners of the popular Design District restaurant Oak are bringing us another concept early this summer. Pakpao promises…
What the hell is cheesy pasta?Remember pink slime? Remember screwy additives in Gatorade? I always get a kick out of small efforts by consumers and advocates whose issues with large companies gain momentum and lead to changes in our food system. See also: – Former Pink Slime Beef Processors are…
Earlier this week, we responded to a Facebook post that claimed a Starbucks trailer had set up a trailer just around the corner from the downtown location of the Pearl Cup Coffee shop. What’s worse is they were giving the coffee away for free. Crystal Johnson, a manager for the…
Back in January Tre Wilcox, the Top Chef star who cooked at the Village Marquee, announced his departure from the restaurant. Wilcox stayed on till the end of the month in an attempt to ease the transition during which sous chef Oliver Sitrin bolted to join the Blind Butcher team…
I just got a great news release. Not more than two weeks after The New York Times published a story on the science behind the junk food that’s poisoning us, Lay’s has announced a new line of potato chips with 50 percent less sodium and the same great taste. See…
Pupusería La Pasadita may be one of the smallest restaurants in Dallas. It’s a stretch even to call the ramshackle takeout joint a restaurant. This is a food truck without wheels. There’s no seating, unless you count the sad metal bench sitting on the curb out front, and there’s little…
You haven’t lived until you’ve hung out in East Dallas, outside a bustling convenience store, and watched a photographer plate pupusas up on porcelain before shooting them with a camera on a tripod. Lori Bandi went through a lot of work to make these pupusas look pretty for this week’s…
Back in December I started my search for the puffy taco, a deep fried delicacy, which according to popular convention hails from San Antonio, yet is impossible to find just a few hours away here in Dallas. That first blog post kicked off a dialogue with Eddie Dominguez, who says…
Savor Dallas is back for it’s ninth annual dining event. The four-day food extravaganza kicks off in Dallas before making its way to the Irving Convention Center for an International Grand Tasting. I attended last year’s main event and after wrestling with parking and awkward plates, settled in for a…
