At Hypnotic Donuts early Sunday morning, creator James St. Peter had a big tease: next week he will debut the “no-more than 2,500 calorie” biscuit sandwich. What makes up the 2,500 calories? Fried chicken, honey bacon and a honey pickle. Besides it being the caloric equivalent of Sarlacc, the sandwich…
Tucked discreetly into a nondescript industrial park in the middle of nowhere is one of the best-kept winery secrets in Dallas. Bob and Darlene Leiker run Crossroads Winery, and the largest room in the warehouse space houses casks, tables, tasting bar and the occasional forklift. John Otis is the winemaker,…
As a countdown to the Dallas Observer’s “Best of Dallas” 2010, City of Ate is serving up 100 of the favorite dishes we crave, savor and hope to scarf down again soon. These dishes are in no particular order. Some are little known, others celebrated. Some are pricey, others can…
This week’s Dallas food blog coverage is a sampling of Vietnamese feasts and uncommonly bad food, a stolen can of Whoopass and stale popcorn, an elaborate post-Gospel Last Supper and vegan barbecue, and more highlights. Check out this week’s Sloppy Seconds. The Week in Review(s): Your own Dallas Observer: Hanna Raskin dubbed…
We’ve gotten sort of nostalgic this week. Not sure if it’s hormonal or the fact that we at pizza yesterday and haven’t gotten a whole helluva lot of sleep, but something made us start reflecting on all the old eateries we luuuuuuuuuuved going to as a young adult/teen/kid/infant/speck, but can’t…
Toque to Toque has made strides this year, delving into various cultures and cuisines. Some of our favorites included the mussel challenge, the soup dumpling debacle and the souffle cook-off where we met a former president. A chef friend recently told me that we shouldn’t call this Toque to Toque…
In the third part of our look at Second Floor chef J. Chastain, we go into the kitchen where the chef shows shows us how to create one of his menu items at home. Chastain enjoys combining fresh ingredients with simple techniques to create complex flavors. We wanted something to…
Earlier this week, City of Ater Kristy Yang told you about her less-than-stellar experience dining at the new 99 Ranch Market’s food court. Since the market is a grocery store, not a restaurant, we thought we’d have her come back with a separate review of her shopping experience at the…
Theatergoers who used to grab a glass of wine at Dali before the show may now have to content themselves with cupcakes. Dimples Cupcakes this week announced it will move into the storefront alongside Tei An. The bakery — Dimples’ fourth location in Texas — will open for business on…
As a countdown to the Dallas Observer’s “Best of Dallas” 2010, City of Ate is serving up 100 of the favorite dishes we crave, savor and hope to scarf down again soon. These dishes are in no particular order. Some are little known, others celebrated. Some are pricey, others can…
We all know how hard it is to remember what it’s like to be up-close in a room with plants, so Dallas-based Frito-Lay’s doing us a solid this summer, along with lucky folks in five other cities, trucking around a 70-foot mobile greenhouse through the thick of our urban core…
Riding my bike everywhere saves me money and helps me stay hungry. It also means I’m perpetually sweaty. A few weeks ago, a woman in an elevator told me how much she wished she could trade in her car for a bike. I assured her she could do it. “Oh,…
The prohibition on non-local products many farmers’ markets enforce is understandable and fair and — sometimes — discouraging to food entrepreneurs. Steve Smolek uses Canadian oats for his Grapevine Grains, a fantastic product he sells at the Grapevine and Keller markets. There are Texan oats, he tells me, but he’s…
I’ve eaten Tex-Mex and Texas barbecue at least a half-dozen times each since moving here last month, but as my ate-that list was still short a traditional bowl of chili, I set out this morning for lunch at Tolbert’s in Grapevine. Tolbert’s, of course, is a legendary chili parlor, first…
Bring out the politicians! Well, I wish they hadn’t, actually, but they did. And man, do those people smile and nod, smile and nod. It’s really sort of infuriating. In the beginning — during the requisite mourning time of the last man lost — everyone was talking about Tamesha leaving and…
In part two of our three-part series, we lob a few questions at Second Floor chef J. Chastain. CoA: What is your favorite Dallas restaurant? Chastain: I can’t pick just one but I mainly enjoy restaurants that are chef-driven, highly creative but maintain a casual atmosphere. CoA: What is your…
As a countdown to the Dallas Observer’s “Best of Dallas” 2010, City of Ate is serving up 100 of the favorite dishes we crave, savor and hope to scarf down again soon. These dishes are in no particular order. Some are little known, others celebrated. Some are pricey, others can…
Lean Cuisine tastes like butt covered in butt cheese. I’d rather go on the Mary Kate & Ashley Let’s Look Dead Together Anorexia Diet than put that nasty shit in my face hole. When you microwave Lean Cuisine at work, you ought to be able to do a mercy flush…
As bartenders working in the exhausted vodka idiom have discovered, it’s hard to mix together a few flavored liquors and fruit juices and not end up with a sugary riff on Hawaiian Punch. To distract the sweet-tooth crowd from the syrupy sameness of their concoctions, some mixologists have begun leaning…
With so many publicists anxious to tell City of Ate about all the free food various restaurants are hawking, it strikes me as a mite unseemly when an eatery heralds a deal that’s just not very good. RA Sushi in Plano wants me to tell you that when the mercury…
Say city regulations never change, and Dallas remains a food-cart desert. Would you settle for a cheery corporate take on the mobile unit fad? Taco Bell’s hoping the answer’s yes, because it’s looking to bring its truck back to town. The bright purple Taco Bell Truck, which made a brief…
The free food frenzy that’s currently gripping Dallas could induce eaters to quit their jobs and loaf full time — or so feared observers during the last era of widespread food giveaways. What’s so scary about Taco Cabana offering free chicken fajita tacos on August 3? As Chris Anderson wrote…
