People in the nightclub business often refer to the “fickle 500,” an amorphous group of “pretty people” that descends on a new venue then abandons the place–often for good–when a new hot spot emerges. Bar owners typically impugn this crowd when once-popular spots shut down. The fickle 500 are the…
Sushi in Mesquite shouldn’t be an oddity. Raw fish on rice billets is as mainstream as Vatican smoke gazing. Yet it is. What’s the best-selling entrée at Kamikaze? “Grilled chicken teriyaki,” says manager Shell Stafford. This explains why Isaac, a Kamikaze sushi chef, fawns when you sit down at the…
On Saturday evening, the last meal will be served at Savory. The closing wasn’t caused by the usual suspect–a lack of dollars. Heck, co-owner Joe Hickey (with Jonathan Calabrese) says they turned a profit of $6,000 to close the year. No, they were felled by a legal maneuver. Savory subleased…
It’s not surprising that David McMillan is not intimidated by altitude. His first Dallas stint put him 27 stories up in the sky in the Wyndham Anatole Hotel tower. There he brought maturity to a kitchen coming down from the star power of young chef Doug Brown. Maybe swinging a…
It was only a matter of time before the border fortified its hold on Uptown. Manny Rios, part of the family that crafted Mia’s Tex-Mex, is the culprit. Rios is set to open Manny’s Uptown on May 5–a rendition of Mia’s famed cuisine–in the former Guthrie’s/Rooster location on Lemmon Avenue…
Ron Corcoran says he’s finally done it. He’s rounded up the investors. He’s reached an agreement with iconic Dallas chef Avner Samuel of Aurora. It’s only a matter of time before his 11-year-old Sipango is shuttered and transformed into a Mediterranean restaurant with a menu containing inspirations from Samuel’s defunct…
This one’s pretty basic. Barbacks set up, close down, replace empty bottles, fill ice baskets and pour an occasional drink. Well, that’s how we’d answer this week’s Burning Question if someone hired us to write daily briefings for, oh, a world leader with little tolerance for nonlinear expression who doesn’t…
“Nothing here is spicy.” This declaration from a Little Havana server, after a question on the heat level of the beef tips, is perhaps unintentionally tone-setting. After all, Little Havana is pure poseur: A bar in search of a theme, it settles on a Caribbean Island long led by a…
There are two great things about Jaden’s: The restaurant’s Web site does not use the words “hip” and “urban.” It doesn’t use “trendy” or “chic” either, so this restaurant gazelles out of the starting blocks–at least on paper (though there is a Jaden’s talking points memo that says it’s “one…
Move over, Jerry Falwell. Take a hike, Jimmy “I have sinned” Swaggart. Stow it, Ned Flanders. The Burning Question crew chooses not to follow false prophets. For yea, we say unto thee, chef Russell Hodges preaches the apocalyptic vision America needs in these dark times. An example of a fiery…
Sure, you could call Deep Ellum a car wreck. Crime and petty harassment are universally perceived. Ladies–the mother’s milk of nightlife–are leery of riveting in the tongue studs, buckling on the strappy sandals and heading down there for a night of primping and puckering. Bar and restaurant owners are suffering…
Urban bistro. It’s a familiar culinary idiom, but what does it mean? Maybe Paris. Paris is urban. They love bistros in Paris, where the word means “pub.” They love dogs there, too. Sidewalks groan under the accumulated evidence. Leashes are woven through the cafe tables–kinky culinary bondage with a bark…
The first entrepreneur who opens a démodé rum hole and beanery downtown will probably make a killing. We say this because every time we turn around someone is sinking a fistful of boodle into some restaurant-lounge baptized “hip.” We ask: Doesn’t all of this edgy fashionability get redundant? Look at…
Recently, Ben Caudle, bartender at Hibiscus, challenged the Burning Question crew to shatter centuries of cultural indoctrination, shred the very ideals that define our country and ignore billions in advertising dollars. Well, actually he mentioned something about inexpensive liquors comparing favorably to more popular and costly bottles, but we recognized…
Albania. Where’s that? It’s not a country most Americans–let alone Dallas residents–have much familiarity with, and for good reason. Locked into obscurity and solitary confinement throughout most of its history on account of its rugged, mountainous topography, Albania nonetheless has had a tendency to incite violent intrusions. This is because…
We’re big fans of restaurant critic anonymity. It protects us from getting salads where fried capers have been intentionally replaced with bunny pellets, or having our Visa card number slipped to a Moldavian porn site after a review hits the street. That’s why we go to great lengths to protect…
Like a pair of tectonic plates, itching to lurch forward but frozen into place by geological procrastination, Watel’s changes little before making sudden leaps. It was in place on McKinney Avenue and Harwood Street for more than 10 years before scrambling up the avenue not far from Allen Street in…
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from our current leadership, it’s the infallibility of America’s worldview. We characterize the French as weak-willed surrender monkeys because they are–simple as that. Russians drink to excess; Brits need a lesson in proper dental hygiene; and Africans, well, they just serve as safari guides…
Nine years is an eon or two in kitchen dog years. “About three or four chef eternities,” clarifies Green Room chef Marc Cassel. Or as of this writing, former Green Room chef. After nine years steering the Green Room “feed me, wine me” stove, Cassel has packed his Deep Ellum…
His business card is simple: Chef Joseph. His trajectory is not. He trained at La Gastronome in the Basque region of France and Spain. He practiced at the Arizona Biltmore L’Orange and the Ritz Carlton in Spain. He was installed at the hip upscale Voltaire before it became that downscale…
So there we were: six martinis into an evening, bleary-eyed, beer goggles at full fuzziness. We mean “Janet Reno looks good to us” fuzziness. That’s when clarity struck. It came in the form of Misty, a friend of Linda. We were at a bar flirting with Linda–we think; the night…
Every once in a while a dining experience is of such a piece that the food is almost beside the point; you’re just content to revel in reality gone slightly askew, maybe with a drink. You-Chun Korean Restaurant doesn’t serve alcohol, but it does serve water. It’s dispensed from a…
