We’re mostly hostile to Dallas versions of Italian cuisine. It’s all so…Stouffer’s. But we had sappy soft spots for Rick Robbins of the slowly bled Eccolo and Kevin Ascolese, who turned fine Tuscan tricks at Mi Piaci and the euthanized Salve! He later found himself in the kitchen of Ferré…
Oh, boy. Over the past several years people often wrote in urging us to dine on organ meats, find a cocktail we couldn’t stomach or sit down to haggis and scotch. This week’s topic, we thought, would finally give us the opportunity to amend our impish raconteur persona and describe…
Café Pacific is a cliché. This is heresy. Shuffle into this bosom of Highland Park culture (Highland Park Village) and blurt such a thing, and you’ll quickly be felled by a 2-carat marquise bullet right between the eyes. But look at the place. Your feet are surrounded by black and…
Henderson Avenue dinner and late-night cocktail conquistador (Cuba Libre, Sense, Candle Room, Fireside Pies) Tristan Simon has dumped his interest in the Mongolian-inspired Genghis Grill, the “create your own stir fry” concept he gulped from founder Jeff Sinelli two years ago. He sold the 10-unit chain to a franchisee that…
Take a quick walk through the museum-like produce wing of Central Market and you will notice a frightening thing: brussels sprouts. The terror stems not so much from the sprouts themselves, which, in addition to liver, take top billing in most childhood meal traumas. It’s how they are showcased. The…
Taverna is ear-piercing. This is odd, because thought has been given to sound. While Taverna has a concrete floor, it has cloth-covered baffles in the ceiling to minimize sonic glare. Still noise sneaks through, leaving one to wonder what the roar would be if the ceiling were baffle-less. There would…
Kent Rathbun leaned back in his chair, glanced in our general direction and ran his fingers over a case, which we knew contained a set of razor-sharp knives. He then suggested this week’s topic. The frustrations arising from a finite number of seats, the uncertainties of weather and traffic, capricious…
CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNIQUE TO: Stent Industry Shareholders and Venture Capitalists FROM: Stent Manufacturers Association of America President Arturo E. Bloc RE: Meat First let me congratulate you on our bold investments. Your significant funding has driven one of the most innovative medical devices ever devised: the stent, that expensive (yeah!) wire…
Just last week the Burning Question crew stumbled upon a major scientific discovery. We noticed that as Americans become more selective in their choice of cuisine, they lose their ability to discern skill in, say, leadership and moral stature. Once upon a time, people went out for “Chinese” food–which back…
Saltimbocca’s! is billed as a bistro. A bistro is a small cafe, usually serving down-to-earth food and wine. But let’s look a little further: The Food Lover’s Companion says the word is also deployed to describe a small nightclub (the French bistrot means pub). Let’s scan the place. The main…
Everyone who plunks down a significant amount of change to open a bar or club wrestles with this week’s question. Popularity means sales, which translate into success. And success…well, we had to look it up, but it sounds worthwhile. Yet according to our American Heritage dictionary, achieving success is never…
L’Ancestral is an icon, a dignified one. It’s among the first slices of French to braise its way onto the Dallas landscape without the excessive continental puffery. An elderly man sits alone at one table, his back against the wall. He wears a coat and tie. His shirt is tucked…
I’ve been to the Ritz. The Ritz was a hangout of mine. And diner, you’re no…So Ritzy’s is back. You remember Ritzy’s, don’t you? Of course you don’t. It’s been wounded and moaning for more than a decade (and it’s horses they shoot?). But in the early 1980s, back when…
Let’s set the scene, because this particular incident took place about 10 years ago. We were running a bit late, our timetable disrupted by a few extra drinks “accidentally” ordered by a member of the crew not yet known by the Burning Question moniker. Meanwhile, a female friend waited for…
The best way to beat the Dallas restaurant smoking ban is to pay homage to it with bricks and mortar. Build yourself a smoking bunker; seal if off from the rest of the dining guests. Make sure those prone to long stints in nicotine fog pass from bunker to restaurant…
Chefs and restaurant owners often whine about those paid to critique their establishments, contending that reviewers should have some kitchen experience before they ever start writing. Of course, we suspect very few chefs stun-gunned cattle at a slaughterhouse prior to a career grilling steak. Fortunately, the Burning Question crew can…
Maybe the prognosticators were right, those who said the next great wave in restaurant trends is Indian fast food. This is counterintuitive on its face. Indian cuisine is by nature complex, a jet stream of reverent aromas that blast the mind into reflection in a way a sub with provolone…
Joseph Gutierrez likes doubles, or so it seems. After all, he earned his big “D” fame as chef at the helm of Voltaire before it went Bamboo Bamboo before it went bust. Then he opened Rouge. Now Gutierrez is taking over the Watel’s space (Watel’s shuttled over to Allen Street)…
Thousands of restaurants and bars in this city vie for attention from a small number of media outlets and journalists. Now throw in the PR types, paid to spread the word about this event or that new drink…or to insist that it’s normal for guests to experience searing stomach cramps…
Paradise means different things to different people. To some, it might mean grains of white sand speckling the lime slices in your umbrella beverage. To others, it might be a 38D casting shadows over your Bud Light. To a select few, it might mean drinking expensive gin from a Ferrari…
Think of Little Katana as the Dallas version of a city hot-dog cart. You’ve seen them in some urban locales: steam tables on wheels with potato chip sacks clipped to a riser; beverage bottles displayed in a row just above the bin where franks and sausages swelter in caged clouds…
Figaro Café was Le Paris Bistrot for several years. It tanked. Owner Jean Michel Sakouhi blames it on the freedom fries syndrome: the point in time after the start of the Iraq war when the French were getting drunk on anti-American condescension and Americans were pouring Bordeaux down the bidet…
