The cure

It's that time of year, when the sky clouds over, everything gets damp and everyone's immune systems start to fall apart. The clerks at CVS are fronting the NyQuil section every other hour, noses are red and taste buds are shot. It's inevitable that either you or someone you know will succumb to a cold, the flu or some other cold-weather funk, and when the sniffles commence and Kleenex becomes a commodity, the gift of soup can be a godsend.

If you know someone who's got the funk, you can be their savior. Show up on their doorstep with a steamy container of chicken noodle soup and you'll have someone in your back pocket should you fall ill yourself or ever need a ride to the airport. And the best place to pick up soup for delivery, should you find yourself in need, can be found in Deep Ellum at Monkey King Noodle Co.

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An obvious choice, really.

Even for restaurateurs, Josh Yingling and Matt Tobin are incredibly busy. When they're not running their successful restaurants and plotting new ones, they can't just survive on artisanal sausages and brisket-topped burgers alone. Despite their insane schedules, they still manage to make it out for a meal from time to time, even if they're not dining at fancy joints like The Mansion most of the time.

If you've eaten at either The Blind Butcher or Goodfriend, it's clear that these guys have pretty good taste in food, so you should probably listen to them when they say that you should be eating at these five Dallas restaurants.

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Robert Strickland

Want your turkey smoked in this?

In theory, Thanksgiving is the time of the year when you get together with your family to be grateful, watch football, and eat yourself into a coma. Unfortunately, though, this holiday often ends up being more about listening to your racist Aunt Edna rant about ebola and Obama, and worse, eating Grandma's desert-dry stuffing and those weird sweet potatoes with the marshmallows on top.

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Can Turkyilmaz

Matt Tobin and Josh Yingling -- beer lovers, not snobs.

The past three years have been kind to Josh Yingling and Matt Tobin. After opening Goodfriend Burger House in East Dallas to rave reviews and a dedicated neighborhood following, the duo struck gold a second time with Greenville Avenue gastropub The Blind Butcher. Whether it's the unlikely ascent of the craft beer scene, a renewed focus on bar food that is actually edible or simple luck, these guys have been able to make a good business out of serving up great food and booze.

But not without an unbelievable amount of hard work, and probably a lot less money than you're thinking. I sat down to talk with Tobin and Yingling about the rise of the local craft beer movement, building the perfect neighborhood restaurant, and improving the palates of Dallas' beer drinkers.

I may be wrong here, but it seems like you guys were among the first in Dallas to really put an emphasis on pairing food with beer. Does that just come from liking beer a whole lot?

Tobin: We're beer guys. That's been our focus as long as we've been doing this. It started at Vickery Park with the beer selection there. When we got this place for Goodfriend, we knew we wanted to do a beer bar, but had no idea what kind of food we wanted to do. It took a trip to Chicago and eating at Kuma's Corner to really figure out that we wanted to do burgers. The beer was always a no-brainer, but I guess we figured that a lot of people do burgers, but how many do them unbelievably well and have an incredible beer list to pair with them.

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Kathy Tran

Specials typically have a less-than-savory connotation within the restaurant industry. If a chef orders too much meat for Friday and Saturday night dinner services, he might throw what's left in the grinder the next morning, creating the makings for a meatball special for Sunday brunch.

Day-old fish covered in a thick and creamy sauce is special, as is chicken simmered in heady spices. Anything mysteriously braised in a stewpot is a special. Very special. Specials are the last ditch effort to squeeze a few more dollars out of less-than-fresh ingredients before they're hauled out back.

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This is just awful for you

Just looking at this bowl of Halloween candy has my stomach in knots. There was a time when I could be found traipsing around my neighborhood collecting candy like a pro. Screw that lame plastic pumpkin pail, I rolled with a pillow case over my shoulder and I was out to collect as much of the stuff as I could. I remember coming home, upending the bag and sorting out the premium sweets from the garbage, eating every other piece as I went. Now I'd have a hard time making it through a king-sized candy bar.

The reality was I didn't need any of that candy back then, and surplus bounties are surely plaguing American families everywhere now. Now five days after Halloween night, kids might be through their Baby Ruth bars and peanut butter cups, but there's surely still a lot of sugary excess laying abound.

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Proceed with caution

Last week, Goodfriend Beergarden and Burger House announced a new menu was in place. Owners Matt Tobin and Josh Yingling worked with chef Eric Salome, who used to work at the Omni Hotel, to develop new menu items that include a number of new burgers, a changing seasonal salad and a cheese board. Other menu items were refreshed, and there are new cocktails, too. It's like our old, favorite beer and burger bar in East Dallas went on vacation and came back with a tan.

There was one more change I found after pouring over the menu on a recent visit. Beer is making its way as an ingredient into many of the dishes. And in addition to the cheesecake with beer in its crust, and hot dogs wrapped in pancakes with beer in their batter, there are chicken wings coated with a sauce that's laced with beer. It's these wings, though, you're really going to want to pay attention to.

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Jimmy Ngo

The whole trotter at Meddlesome Moth.

In a week or so, you'll be able to order a pig's foot that's been stuffed with ground pork parts at the Meddlesome Moth. Trotters, as they're called, can be found on a few menus across the country, but they're hardly commonplace, especially in Dallas.

Chef Robbie Lewis says he was inspired by his time cooking at Texas Spice in the Omni Hotel, where he helped break down a whole pig every week and the kitchen was tasked with using as much of the animal as possible. Cooking nose to tail made an impression on the chef, and soon the fruits of that effort will be available alongside one of the better beer lists in Dallas.

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The folks behind Fireball whiskey are in damage-control mode after European countries issued a recall, saying one of the spirit's ingredients is also used in anti-freeze. Food-grade propylene glycol is safe for consumption, according to the FDA. But that didn't stop Norway, Sweden and Finland from pulling their product from the shelves, as rumors spread that Fireball is actually made with automobile fluids.

For now, Fireball is still going down smoothly in the States. But beware, Fireball fans, of Food Babe. She's attacked Kraft because of their use of artificial dyes, skewered Subway because their rolls were made from yoga mats, and even attacked Budweiser when they refused to release the ingredients in her beer. Food Babe, otherwise known as Vani Hari, has proven successful with the largest corporations; if she sets her sights on Fireball, all bets are off.

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Nick Rallo

Thanks for meeting me, Short Rib Frites

Short Rib Frites is one of the share plates at Ten Bells Tavern. Crispy fries are topped with gravy, a velvety Mornay (basically a Bechamel cheese sauce), and a pile of juicy short ribs. The short ribs have a light crisp to them, and a shower of chives give it a little bite.

We sat down with Short Rib Frites on the sun-stroked patio of the Oak Cliff bar to talk crispy fries, why sharing was a goddamn mistake, and how Nick envisions the dark future that is not being able to eat Short Rib Frites every day.

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