Let us admit something right off: As kids, we hated equations of any kind. We barely passed “math for athletes” in high school and found a loophole in college that allowed us to slide through four years…well, technically six…with nary a course involving numbers. At least our school featured a…
Some of us have peculiar habits. Some of us suffer under peculiar rules. Abstaining from wine with dinner is a peculiar habit. Dry is a peculiar rule. This was brought home to me on a recent visit to Coppell when I stepped into Siam Thai Cuisine, a tiny strip mall…
A facile reading of the Dallas bar scene might draw upon the primeval hunt as an appropriate metaphor. After all, the urge to pursue and capture is evident throughout American culture, from literature to cartoons to homeland security. Be the prey road runner, white whale, red baron or sloshed babe,…
It covers some 22,745 acres, but its maximum depth is just 40 feet. Normal water clarity is murky, even turbid. Yet Lake Ray Hubbard is regarded as a swell recreational depot with lots of good fishing (bass, catfish, crappie) and sailing, though there are no camping areas, beaches or swimming…
Joseph Gutierriz’s inauguration into the kitchen was spiritual. And short. At age 5, he was shipped off to seminary where he learned to cook for monks. “In Spain, in Catholic families, when you have a son that is a priest, you have a safe gate to heaven,” he says. In…
Perhaps the greatest piece of wisdom Voltaire never said was uttered by Confucius: “I have never seen one who loves virtue as much as he loves sex.” Which has absolutely nothing to do with restaurateuring unless you sub virtue with great food and sex with money. Bamboo Bamboo, a casual…
Sociologists who from time to time peer into the American psyche invariably describe a selfish, avaricious people. Yet clearly they’ve failed to probe far enough, for tactless one-upmanship is only the most visible layer of our culture. Deep down, we’re a people more inclined to self-immolation than self-love. Who among…
It’s always an iffy proposition to wander into a dining room as desolate as a godforsaken rock formation. Sure, it could be an undiscovered sliver of raw sublimity, a hidden bit of dazzle. But it could also be a puff of culinary stench of such potency that it keeps diners…
Our range guide was a veteran of the first Gulf War, so it wasn’t hard to steer the conversation to the lingering mysteries of the sequel. Saddam? “Dead,” he said tersely. WMD’s? “Buried deep in the desert,” came his reply. The paltry resistance of the vaunted Republican Guard? Only a…
Monica’s Aca Y Alla can be called a lot of things. But hell? Yet that’s how owner Monica Greene describes it, as she attempts to compare the new soundproof room she plans to open in August in a former furniture store next to the restaurant. She calls the room Raziel,…
A few millennia ago, the Spartans settled a dispute by sending a single warrior to face the enemy’s fiercest man in what ancient texts called “the battle of the champions.” To the victor went control of the Peloponnisos. We devised a similar test in response to this week’s Burning Question:…
At the heart of Smith & Wollensky is this slogan: “A steak house to end all arguments.” This comes clipped from a headline over a 1997 New York Times S&W steak house review by critic Ruth Reichl. The piece centered on an annual argument in her family over three New…
Right now, it’s a ghost town. Not one born of death and abandonment, but of birth and anticipated growth. There are a few things: a children’s store, an Asian fusion restaurant called Café Beignet and a toy store. But more is on the way. Much more. Above the storefronts rest…
Imagine a film set in the badlands of Japanese cattle country. Our movie follows a bunch of tough hombres–John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Randolph Scott–fending off Mothra and the occasional kamikaze, massaging the herd after a few beers and gathering around the campfire to sing karaoke while “Cookie” whittles up a…
It wasn’t long ago that chef Tim Byres was tugged from New York City into Dallas to fiddle with noodles at Tom Tom Noodle House, the casual West Village Asian restaurant developed by Triple R Group. But Byres, who also crafted the menu for Triple R’s Nikita, wasn’t able to…
He pulls it out from a manila folder stuffed with other old photographs. “This is me,” says sushi evangelist Scott Melton, pointing to one of three boys in short-sleeved white shirts with slivers of black ties slicing across their surfaces. “It’s kind of Lee Harvey Oswaldish, isn’t it?” It was…
It takes a peculiar form of eccentricity to staple a gelato hut, a Hawaiian fast-causal joint and a nightclub into one concept, but that’s what Dallas entrepreneur Ben Dai did. By mid-July, Dai and general manager Lon Goodwin will be operating a triplicate joined at the hip in Mockingbird Station:…
There are three of them in Dallas. Thai is one. Indian is another. And Italian. OK, there’s Chinese, but that’s an easy one to decipher: no Chinatown. The former are three types of cuisine that, with rare exceptions, stumble in Dallas. No matter who inspires the food or where they’re…
Etymology really bothers us. We should first mention that etymology has nothing to do with insects and everything to do with the origins of words and their transformation through common use–although when we expressed our feelings toward this particular field of study, our editor admitted he, too, disliked bugs. (Editor’s…
Indian cuisine is experiencing a mini-boom of sorts, what with the recent openings of Clay Pit Grill & Curry House in Addison and Dawat in Richardson. Now Saffron House, another Addison entrant, stuffed with “the finest replicas of Indian art,” makes it a trio. At Saffron House, “master chefs…transform meals…
The first set arrived at our table riddled with little pockets of grease. Pools, really, shimmering gold, some shallow, some preposterously deep. Pappadam is like horribly scarred skin with creases and sharp ripples and craggy divots carved from an adolescent scourge. These flat, fried lentil flour discs from Southern India…
It’s rare that you see buffet spreads this enormous outside of places where slot bells provide the background music. But Osaka Steak & Grill’s all-you-can-eat Japanese terminal is big–aircraft carrier big. Get in there early before the dinner rush reaches its fever point, and you’ll discover a din of world…
