ENTERTAINMENT

03/01/2010

Chefs donate time, talent to raise funds for charity at Oak Cliff pop-up eatery

COURTNEY PERRY/DMN

Called 48 Nights, the restaurant was created by the team behind Smoke at the Belmont Hotel.
Restaurant review: Smoke
Blog: Eats
More restaurant reviews

02/24/2010

Best in DFW: French Restaurants

Mona Reeder / staff photographer

Scallops du chef, an appetizer on the menu at Saint-Emilion in Fort Worth.

Most of the area's French restaurants are very old-fashioned French restaurants. In the past 12 months, Leslie Brenner's dined in every French restaurant in Dallas, as well as most of the French restaurants in the rest of the D-FW area. See what she calls the best.
Eats blog: Share your favorite area French cuisine spots
Get a map of the Best French Restaurant locations on GuideLive.com
Follow Leslie Brenner on Twitter

Restaurant review: Totoya Sushi and Tempura Bistro
Landlocked we may be, but the Dallas area has a mind-boggling number of sushi bars. Sadly, the great majority of them offer experiences that are so watered down for local tastes that they don't even feel like eating in sushi bars.

02/17/2010

Restaurant review: Rick's Chophouse

Rex C. Curry / special contributor

The Buttermilk Fried Chicken at Rick's Chophouse in McKinney.

The buttermilk fried chicken, which takes the chef three days to prepare (brining; buttermilk bath; seasoning, flouring and frying) merits a trip to the Collin County seat, even if you live as far south as Cedar Hill.
Been there? Write your own review on GuideLive.com
Rick's Chophouse: Official site | Facebook | Follow Chef Paul Petersen on Twitter

Restaurant review: Holy Grail Pub
PLANO – The Holy Grail Pub doesn't look like something you'd hope to find at the end of a long quest, whether you arrive saddle-sore after dismounting from your faithful steed or merely a little traffic-addled after tooling up the Tollway in the doughty Civic. You enter through an unprepossessing storefront in an unprepossessing strip mall plunked down in a bare and barren stretch of north Plano moonscape.

Table Talk: Guerrilla restaurants
Guerrillas in our midst – Like elves in the night, Il Cane Rosso's crew steals into Chocolate Angel Too, transforming the tearoom-by-day into a wild, after-hours pizza party. OK, it's not so wild. But it is a deliciously different take on dining. Other cities have seen guerrilla restaurants come and go, but they're a fun, new twist here in Dallas.

Find Chicago hot dogs and sandwiches in the Dallas area
Two new delis near downtown are each touting Chicago-style sandwiches and hot dogs.

02/10/2010

Restaurant review: Bella Bar and Restaurant

Rex C. Curry / special contributor

The spaghetti and meatballs at Bella Bar and Restaurant.

As decent as most of the dishes were, it's hard to imagine making a point of going to a restaurant with such a generic menu unless, maybe, you live just around the corner.
Been there? Write your own review on GuideLive.com
Bella Bar and Restaurant: Official site | Facebook | Twitter

Where to score a good meal during NBA All-Star Weekend

Elizabeth M. Claffey / special contributor

The Shrimp and Grits dish at Hattie's restaurant in Dallas.

Anyone who wants to eat before or after the game Sunday can take comfort in the thought that the Arlington area is home to what must be the densest concentration of chain restaurants known to man. And for the rest of the weekend, here are some great places to dine like a seasoned Dallasite.
See our Top 100 restaurants
Find all area restaurants on GuideLive.com
More restaurant news

02/08/2010

Ten chefs to watch for the next delicious thing

Oscar Durand, Jim Mahoney / staff photos

Left to right: Molly McCook, of Ellerbe Fine Foods, and Nathan Tate and Randall Copeland, of Ava, are some of Leslie Brenner's 10 chefs to watch.

In the past six months, restaurants have been opening at an escargot's pace. But now, promising signs that the economy might be turning around could mean a boon for the Dallas dining scene.
Table Talk: Trends for 2010 | Chefs dish on eggs

02/09/2010

Dallas restaurants will be busy with NBA, Valentine's Day customers
It's quite a fancy problem Dallas restaurateurs find themselves in for the coming weekend: How to accommodate so many customers?

02/03/2010

Restaurant review: Saint-Emilion

Mona Reeder / Staff Photographer

Saint-Emilion is a French restaurant in Fort Worth where variations de crabe is a favorite appetizer.

A French restaurant that doesn't serve France's most popular aperitif, pastis, isn't terribly French, but at Saint-Emilion a request for Ricard is fulfilled unblinkingly, and the anise-flavored drink is served correctly (in a tall glass with a water back). Could this be the only restaurant in the D-FW area that gets it right?
Visit Saint-Emilion's official Web site

Table Talk: Dallas chefs dish on eggs
Get some chefs talking about eggs, and they turn as soppy as an over-easy yolk.

01/27/2010

Restaurant review: Woodfire Kirby's

Mona Reeder / Staff Photographer

Hickory smoked ribeye steak at Kirby's Woodfire on Greenville Avenue in Dallas, which was recently remodeled and made adjustments to its menu.

At a time when self-reinvention has become the formula for survival, how reassuring that a place with so much history has done a good job remaking itself. Kirby's gives dishes all over the menu the wood-smoke treatment, and that's a big part of what makes it so appealing.
Woodfire Kirby's: Official site | Facebook | Twitter

Restaurant review: Twisted Root Burger Co.
It's hard to walk into Twisted Root, the raucous burger joint in Deep Ellum, without thinking that it would be a really great place to bring your middle- school nephews – especially if they enjoy a couple of nice cold beers. Those would be root beers, of course, a house-made specialty here.

01/20/2010

Restaurant review: Screen Door

David Woo / Staff Photographer

BBQ marrow bones, sweet onion jam, grilled Anadama bread at the Screen Door in downtown Dallas.

Last fall, the Dallas food world was thrown for a loop by a management coup d'etat at Screen Door, the gracious Southern restaurant in One Arts Plaza. Things have settled down enough that it now feels much like it did before the coup.
Screen Door: Official site | Facebook | Twitter
Best in DFW: Screen Door's Sazerac cocktail makes the list

Table Talk: Eight is enough?
Call it the amazing shrinking protein portion. In dining rooms all around town, restaurateurs are downsizing your meat.

01/13/2010

Restaurant review: Ocean Prime

John F. Rhodes / Staff Photographer

The signature appetizer at Ocean Prime, Colossal Shrimp Saute in Tabasco Cream Sauce.

At Ocean Prime, the steak part of the equation is probably as good as it needs to be. The atmosphere's right. Service seems to be a work in progress. But the cocktails are lamentable, and the seafood's a disaster.
Ocean Prime: Official site | Facebook | Twitter
Related: Mr. Dallas gives props to Ocean Prime's bar

Restaurant review: Farnatchi Gourmet Oven
Starting with its odd name, Farnatchi Gourmet Oven piqued my curiosity – not in a good way. Was it a family name? A made-up name? What did it mean? Then there was the storefront window advertising "PIZZA CALZONE PASTA," often a tip-off to a cheesy pizza joint. And the Knox Park Village strip center, book-ended by Mattress Firm and Pei Wei Asian Diner, is hardly the place you'd expect to find a cozy neighborhood cafe.

01/14/2010

Food Network admits 'Iron Chef America' vegetables were not from White House garden
At the beginning of the two-hour special, the chefs were shown picking sweet potatoes, broccoli, fennel and tomatillos from the White House garden. Then the chefs were seen walking into Kitchen Stadium, produce in hand. One problem: The show is filmed in New York City.

01/11/2010

Valentine's Day will be busier than usual in Dallas this year

Larry Crowe/AP file photo

A Mocha Banana Cream Pie. Can anyone get enough chocolate on Valentine's Day?

The NBA All-Star Game will be played at Arlington on Feb. 14, and Dallas is the official host city. Expect more traffic, jacked-up prices and booked restuarants this Valentine's Day weekend. Make your reservations now, and try a new spot.
Official site for NBA All Star 2010 weekend

01/06/2010

Restaurant review: Dish

Kye R. Lee / Staff Photographer

Fran's Texas Free Range Roasted Chicken at Dish.

At what other sceney spot-du-moment can you get a steak for $17? That steak may be a workaday flat-iron rather than a dry-aged prime New York strip, but it's flavorful, well-seasoned, perfectly cooked – and it comes with a big cone full of excellent frites.
Dish's official Web site
Eats blog: Leslie Brenner's 10 chefs to watch

Restaurant review: Bistro B
I have a longstanding rule for dining out: Avoid restaurants that feature bright, colorful photographs of their food, either on the menu or, worse, on signs or placards. The virtue of this rule, of course, is that it will help you avoid the worst tourist traps, the sorts of places that seem to believe their customers are contemptible nincompoops who won't know what minestrone or shish kebab is without a picture.

Table Talk: Trends for 2010

01/04/2010

Masaryk Modern Mexican Kitchen in Addison closes

Ben Torres / Special Contributor

A plate of Salmon in Banana Leaves made with citrus, mango-lemongrass, mojo, pepita pesto mash and microgreens from Masaryk Modern Mexican Kitchen.

Chef-owner Gabriel DeLeon wrote in an e-mail that he felt the restaurant's financial failure was a result of the recession, a bad location (in Addison Circle) and lack of support from local residents.
Eats blog: Share your thoughts on Masaryk's closing
Best in DFW: See why it was one of the best new restaurants of 2009

12/29/2009

Best in DFW: Best new restaurants

File photos

Tres Leches (top) and chefs sharpening knives at Samar Restaurant, one of 2009's best new restaurants.

When the economy hit the skids, plans were scrapped, concepts were changed and the pace of Dallas-area restaurant openings slowed to a crawl, but a number of new restaurants debuted and stood out.
Related: Food critic Leslie Brenner's favorite dishes of '09
Slideshows: The food, scene at Samar and the rest of the best
Eats blog: Share your favorite new eateries of the past year.
See a map of the restaurant locations on GuideLive.com

12/30/2009

Restaurant review: Mi Piaci

David Woo/Staff Photographer

Osso Buco alla Milanese at Mi Piaci.

Mi Piaci is big-hearted in a homey sort of way, its portions unstinting if pricey. But rustic doesn't mean clumsy. And everything about the way it presents itself signals you to expect something much better.

Web sites: Official site | Facebook page

01/05/2010

Dallas Chop House debuts on Main Street
Location, location, location. Downtown's glitzy new steak haven, DALLAS CHOP HOUSE , boasts prime cuts and prime real estate. The restaurant anchors the Main Street-St. Paul corner of the Philip Johnson-designed Comerica Bank building, and has a sleek glass lounge overlooking the new Main Street Garden. The vibe? Contemporary with

12/23/2009

Make dining plans for the holidays

Evans Caglage/The Dallas Morning News

Smoked turkey with sausage and grits dressing, salad greens with ranch dressing, and mango-cranberry salsa.

Whether you end up burning the turkey or ham once again or will be spending the holidays alone, find restaurants staying open to serve you.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day options
New Year's Eve dinners and parties
See restaurant critic Leslie Brenner's favorite dishes of 2009

Restaurant review: India West

John F. Rhodes/Staff photographer, The Dallas Morning News

An appetizer portion of "Tandoori Shrimp" at India West Restaurant in Addison.

The trappings may be royal, but the curries are at best ordinary – the stuff of steam tables and all-you-can-eat buffets.

Web sites: Official site | Facebook

Table Talk: Free bread, water not a sure thing
It used to be a given at nicer restaurants: You sat down, and bread and water appeared on the table. No charge. Ever. These days, that's not such a sure thing.

12/18/2009

Year in Review: Food critic Leslie Brenner's favorite dishes of 2009

From Fort Worth Avenue in Oak Cliff to Magnolia Avenue in Fort Worth, from trendy addresses on Henderson to tony hideaways in Oak Lawn, from the polished prairies of Plano to the rangy strip malls of Richardson, it's been quite the delicious year.
More: Year in Review coverage

12/16/2009

Restaurant review: Jasper's

Courtney Perry/Staff Photographer

The smoked Gulf crab chile relleno with roasted corn, black beans and jicama-tortilla slaw at Jasper's.

Jasper's dishes are well-conceived and well-executed, and flavor takes its rightful place center stage. The cooking may not be innovative or daring, but it's confident and bold, with flair to spare.
Visit Jasper's Web site
Become a fan of the restaurant on Facebook
Follow owner Kent Rathburn (@chef911) on Twitter, and watch video of him cooking on YouTube

Restaurant review: Dr. Bell's BBQ
It is a perilous exercise to look upon any barbecue and declare it good. But at the risk of putting myself on the receiving end of sectarian wrath, I will declare that the barbecue at Dr. Bell's BBQ is indeed good. Not great, and not even uniformly good. But pretty darn good, especially for Dallas, a town not known for the excellence of its 'cue. (Pardon me now while I duck.)

12/09/2009

Restaurant review: Samar by Stephan Pyles

Mona Reeder/Staff Photographer

Cerdo Asado con Manzanas on the menu at Samar is a grilled pork tenderloin with apples, saffron, and vanilla.

The flavors of Spain, the Eastern Mediterranean and India are brought together beautifully and seamlessly at Stephan Pyles' new Arts District restaurant, Samar.
Visit Samar's Web site
Become a fan of the restaurant on Facebook
Follow @chefpyles on Twitter

Restaurant review: Casa Blanca Sabor

12/11/2009

Group behind Oak Cliff's Smoke plans 'guerrilla' restaurant to benefit charities
When Christopher Jeffers' new restaurant opens in mid-January (if all goes according to plan), the Oak Cliff restaurateur won't have to worry about diners defecting when the place is no longer hot.

12/09/2009

Table Talk: It's a go for the Green Room
The Green Room should never have closed. The beloved Deep Ellum restaurant was collateral damage in a lawsuit that bedeviled the Gypsy Tea Room, which was joined to the restaurant at the corporate hip.

12/10/2009

Central Texas barbecue road trip: 5 smokin' meals in 28 hours

DAVID GUZMAN/DMN

Our six-man crew covered nearly 600 miles and ate at five places, four of them ranked among the state's best.
Photos: Central Texas BBQ Tour
More food stories

12/02/2009

Restaurant review: Loft 610

Nan Coulter/Contributor

Chef Tre Wilcox works the line in the kitchen at Loft 610 restaurant in Plano.

If a huge, empty, nightclublike restaurant in far north Plano seems like an odd perch for a cooking star with a large and devoted Top Chef following and a five-star review from this newspaper's previous restaurant critic in his pocket, well, it is.

Visit Loft 610's Web site
Become a fan of the restaurant on Facebook

11/25/2009

Restaurant review: Bailey's Prime Plus

Louis DeLuca/Staff Photographer

The King Crabcake, pan-fried with tarragon lemon butter, available at Bailey's Prime Plus restaurant.

In a handsome dining room with 25-foot ceilings, a row of real-looking trees and a long reflecting pool running down the center, well-heeled diners are partying like it's 1986. Or 1928.
Visit the Bailey's Prime Plus Web site
Become a fan of the restaurant on Facebook

12/01/2009

Dallas gets a sugar rush as new bakeries, yogurt shops make the scene
Dallas is experiencing a sugar rush with the arrival of multiple new indie bakeries, frozen yogurt shops and one confectioner.

New chef Bruno Davaillon gives Mansion a French twist; Tre Wilcox in the kitchen at Loft 610
The Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek has gained a French accent with new exec chef Bruno Davaillon, fresh from Alain Ducasse's Mix in Las Vegas. Davaillon tells us he hates labeling his cuisine, but characterizes the developing menu as modern French – "on the lighter side, careful with the butter." Sacrilege?

Tim McEneny's new supper club Dish opens on Cedar Springs
Two facts reveal just how far Dallas entertainment guru Tim McEneny (Dragonfly, Obar, Lift Lounge) went to set the scene at his new Dish restaurant and lounge: The entry's chain-link mesh curtain, crafted by a Lord of the Rings costume designer, is one of only two in the country. (The other belongs to Donald Trump.) And the mood-altering (in a good way) LED lighting system was designed and installed by the same team that lit the AT&T Performing Arts Center's Wyly Theatre.

What's new in Dallas nightlife? Bar Celine at Park, a Plano Sambuca, and Deux at Mockingbird Station
The velvet rope has finally lifted at Park's sultry new back lounge, Bar Celine, named for owner Donald Chick's writer-wife, Celine Gumbiner. One step inside and you'll see why Henderson's hot crowd is already laying claim.

11/25/2009

Table Talk: This space for rent
Times are tough out there in restaurant land. And hey – a revenue stream's a revenue stream.

11/18/2009

Restaurant review: Smoke

Matt Nager/Special Contributor

A ribs dish with pickles and four different sauces available from Smoke restaurant.

The first time I walked into Smoke, the new restaurant at the Belmont Hotel in Oak Cliff, I took a seat at the bar, ordered a cocktail, swung around on my stool, surveyed the dining room and thought, "Eureka. This is the Dallas restaurant of my dreams."
Visit Smoke's Web site

Is the Mansion's new chef hedging his best?
Dallas' food world has been aflutter since Bruno Davaillon stepped into his executive chef position at the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek on Nov. 2. But anyone who imagined that Davaillon would make a striking and immediate impression was mistaken: In putting his mark on the city's highest-profile dining room, the Mansion Restaurant, Davaillon is taking baby steps.

11/13/2009

Find restaurants cooking up Thanksgiving meals so you don't have to

Evans Caglage/Staff Photographer

Where and how will you enjoy Thanksgiving this year?

Whether you're unable to make it to grandma's house this year or fear burning the turkey once again, don't fret. Several eateries are either still taking catering orders or will be open this Thanksgiving.

11/11/2009

Restaurant review: Arcodoro and Pomodoro

Ben Torres/Special Contributor

Mediterranean octopus grilled from restaurant Arcodoro and Pomodoro.

If you're among the lucky folks who can swing by Stanley Korshak and pick up a Kiton cashmere houndstooth blazer ($6,295) or a pair of zebra-striped Christian Louboutin pumps ($895), you certainly won't need to ask the price of the pesce al sale – the fish of the day encrusted in salt – should you stop in for a bite at the newly installed restaurant at the Crescent Court.
Visit Arcodoro and Pomodoro's Web site

Restaurant review: Urban Crust
I don't know ... to me the words pizza and Plano don't automatically go together. But Urban Crust may change my mind. This 5-month-old restaurant in Plano's historic downtown is turning out some creditable pies, thanks to the large custom-made oven that is both its primary cooking implement and the centerpiece of its first-floor decor.

Table Talk: Honeycomb a staple at several area restaurants
It's chewy. It's waxy. It's sweet. It's honeycomb, a sort of a food-chew-toy hybrid for humans that's caught on with several area chefs – even if it does present diners with sort of a sticky dilemma.

11/09/2009

First Look: Bruno Davaillon, new executive chef at The Mansion

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Jeff Green/Special Contributor

Bruno Davaillon, the new executive chef at The Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek.

We all know that The Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek matters mightily to the social swirl of Big D. But does The Mansion Restaurant still matter to Dallas' foodiscenti? Maybe the answer is a resounding "yes." But if the answer is "not as much as it used to," what kind of splash will its new chef, Bruno Davaillon, have to make in order for it to matter once again?
Link: The Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek
Link: Become a fan of The Rosewood Mansion on Facebook

11/04/2009

Restaurant review: Stephan Pyles

Rex C. Curry/Special Contributor

One evening brings a magnificent parade of one brilliant dish after another. The service is top-flight. Another evening is an exercise in frustration, with inept service and a clunky tasting menu paired with lackluster wines served at the wrong temperature. That's Stephan Pyles, the 4-year-old restaurant that bears the name of its owner, where, bafflingly, unpredictability seems to be the norm.

Restaurant review: Sichuanese Cuisine
I can't think of a menu I've seen recently that has as many things on it that I want to eat as Sichuanese Cuisine's.

11/02/2009

Dallas' dining scene gets a taste for steakhouses and bbq

If there was any question about whether Dallas was all about beef or not, four new restaurants settle the discussion.

10/28/2009

Restaurant review: Hacienda on Henderson

Courtney Perry/DMN

The pechuga al carbon at Hacienda on Henderson

So I ate at Hacienda on Henderson and I was like, whatever. That's OK – the cocktail waitress was like, whatever, too. Slosh! Some of my husband's margarita went flying out of the glass as she plopped the drinks down on the table. No apology, no cleanup. Whatever.

Stephan Pyles fashions something new at Samar
With "inspirations" (as the menu calls them) from Spain, the Eastern Mediterranean and India, Stephan Pyles has carved out a dreamily exotic slice of world cooking to present at his new place, Samar. Felicitously wedged between the new AT&T Performing Arts Center and the art museums, it's just the spot to stop by for an early dinner before A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Wyly Theatre or for a light bite post- Otello at the Winspear Opera House.

Table talk: Old-fashioned skillet-fried chicken-fried steak makes a comeback
Only a year ago, authentic chicken- fried steak – cooked in a skillet, preferably cast iron – seemed to have gone extinct in Dallas. I know because I'm a fanatic about the real thing.

10/21/2009

Restaurant review: Ellerbe Fine Foods

Oscar Durand/DMN

Sautéed wild alaskan halibut

Taste the creamy corn soup she made with roasted poblano and sonora chiles, or her double-cut lamb chops, dusted lightly with curry powder, set atop Israeli couscous, and complemented by creamy, cool tzatziki, and you have to conclude that Molly McCook was born with the right name. That is to say that the chef at the 4-month-old Ellerbe Fine Foods in Fort Worth can really cook.

The Best in DFW: Service

David Woo/DMN

The best servers must be possessed of dozens of far-ranging skills. They need to know how to provide service so seamless we don't even have the impression they're there. Lots of restaurants in and around Dallas offer great service, from burger joints to bistros to white-tablecloth dining rooms. Here, in no particular order, are the places that really stand out.

10/16/2009

Diners dish about their restaurant peeves

MICHAEL HOGUE/Staff Illustration

As a seasoned diner, you've been through it all. You've listened, dumbfounded, as the opinionated fantasist held forth. She's the server who tells you her favorite dish — never mind that she hasn't had the opportunity to taste a single thing on the menu.

10/14/2009

Restaurant review: AMPM

Kobe meatloaf

Oscar Durand/DMN

If somebody is cooking something wonderful and there's no one there to taste it, does it still taste good? That's the conundrum at AMPM, a 3-month-old restaurant and lounge downtown in the Mosaic Building. The concept is ultrahip night-life spot by night, brunch-and-lunch spot by day. Several times a month, it's also a place for events.

Restaurant review: Carolina's Mexican Cuisine
If it worked once, it'll work twice. Right? That seems to be the idea behind Carolina's Mexican Cuisine.

10/07/2009

Restaurant review: Hibiscus

Rex C. Curry / Special to DMN

Roast Vegetables Au Jus at Hibiscus

When it comes to dining, Henderson Avenue is red-hot. Every night of the week, cars cram the valet stands on both sides of the street, from Hector's, the Porch, Tei Tei and Cuba Libre to the new hot spots Hacienda, Urbino Pizza e Pasta and Park.

Restaurant review: Love Shack So7
FORT WORTH – Last spring, President Obama drew howls of outrage from the cable-TV commentariat when he had the temerity to ask for mustard on a hamburger in Virginia. I'm with him on that: I like mustard on my burgers, too. Truth is, I like mustard on just about anything. Put enough Woeber's Hot & Spicy Sandwich Pal on an asphalt roofing shingle and I'll probably eat it.

Table talk: Making the rounds
Conveyor belt sushi has been around in Japan for more than 50 years; that country has thousands of kaiten-zushi restaurants. Now we have one, too.

10/05/2009

A taste of what Bruno Davaillon may bring to the Mansion
LAS VEGAS – A gleaming white dining room with glass bubbles cascading down from the soaring ceiling; a drop-dead view of the Strip: This is Alain Ducasse's Mix, where executive chef Bruno Davaillon has headed the kitchen for the past five years.

09/30/2009

Restaurant review: Geisha House

Rex C. Curry / Special to DMN

An assortment of hirame, tuna, yellowtail, salmon, uni and otoro at the Geisha House

First impressions are important. And at Geisha House, the new Japanese restaurant in Gables Villa Rosa on Cedar Springs, the first impressions are seductive. Pull into the circular drive of the tony residential complex, and a valet swoops in. A lovely, kimono-clad hostess holds open the heavy door by way of welcome. A striking floor-to-ceiling sake display along the wall announces a serious commitment to rice wine.

Restaurant review: Gregory's Bistro
If I had to boil hospitality down to its essence, it would be this: the ability to put diners at ease. It can be achieved in a roadside diner or a white-tablecloth restaurant. You can train people to refill water glasses, answer questions and replace silverware. But putting people at ease is like connecting with an audience: Some people can do it intuitively. Most of us can't.

09/23/2009

Restaurant review: Salum

Matt Nager / Special to DMN

Seared scallops at Salum

A modest, beautifully executed menu. An intimate dining room, stylish but not too, that buzzes with energy but invites conversation. A wait-staff that offers flawless service. That's Salum.

Table Talk: Corralling Texas tastes
Addison's Mediterranean Canary Cafe may not sound Go Texan, but chef-owner Mansour Gorji is absolutely gung-ho. He earned his Lone Star stripes in 2004 and 2005, when he won the Texas Steak Cook-off with his steak "primer," a marinade so good he bottled it.

09/21/2009

Dallas' Blythe Beck sizzles in 'The Naughty Kitchen'

Evans Caglage

Chef Blythe Beck

Reality TV loves Dallas and cooking shows, so it was only a matter of time before someone came up with a cooking show based in Dallas. The Naughty Kitchen With Chef Blythe Beck, premiering Tuesday on the Oxygen cable channel, turns the spotlight on the ever-boisterous Beck and Central 214, where she is executive chef.
TV listings
Restaurant review: Central 214
Best in DFW: Cocktails

09/22/2009

Eats blog: An end to tipping?

Roberto M. Sanchez/AL DIA

A patron leaves a tip at Restaurant y Taqueria Cristina in Dallas.

Restaurant Critic Leslie Brenner: A reader was kind enough to send me a compelling op-ed piece on restaurant service from Friday's New York Times that I had somehow missed. Written by Phoebe Damrosch, author of "Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter," it outlines many issues facing restaurant servers that diners might never think about.
Blog: Eats
More: Restaurants news and reviews

09/16/2009

Restaurant review: Hard Rock Cafe

REX C. CURRY/DMN

Jumbo appetizer platter

Two years after the original Dallas Hard Rock Cafe closed on McKinney Avenue, the Hard Rock is back – in Victory Park this time around. It's done one terrific job of reinventing itself as a modern, high-tech venue with sleek contemporary lines and rich woods that give it a tonier vibe than the Uptown original had.

09/18/2009

Cowboys Stadium concessions: Rating the stadium food
Fans expecting the traditional sports stadium samplings at Sunday's game – overly salted french fries, soggy nachos and lukewarm hot dogs – will be pleasantly surprised. With vegetarian nachos and upgraded hamburgers and hot dogs made with Kobe beef, Cowboys Stadium food offers some delicious options.

09/17/2009

New Mansion chef is Bruno Davaillon
The Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek has announced the appointment of a new executive chef: Bruno Davaillon. Davaillon will join the hotel staff Nov. 1, according to Stephanie Hutson, the Mansion's public relations manager.

09/16/2009

Restaurant review: Zinsky's Delicatessen and Catering Co.
The ranks of serious matzo ball mavens are split by a fierce sectarian divide. I am speaking, of course, of the schism between those of us who like our matzo balls light and ethereal, and those who prefer them firm and substantial. The version that bobs in the savory, chickeny broth at Zinsky's Delicatessen and Catering Co., an 8-week-old deli in Preston Royal Village, plays it right down the middle. These dumplings offer some resistance to the tooth, but are still airy and tender.

Get ready for game day with a guide to dining options near Cowboys Stadium
If you're not willing to pay for dinner at Jerry Jones' billion-dollar showplace, there's a big selection of nearby dining venues eager to feed you. Here, a handy guide to places within about five miles (most of them less) to get you through Sunday's regular-season home opener and the rest of the remaining home games, five of which fall on Sundays.

09/09/2009

Best in DFW: Taquerias

Matt Nager / Special to DMN

Carnitas tacos with rice and beans at Taquerias Pedrito's.

When I learned I'd be leaving Los Angeles and moving to Dallas, my first worry was, "Oh, no. What about tacos?" Of course I knew there are tacos aplenty in Texas. But I'm a taco addict, and LA has such great tacos – all over town. What if they turned out not to be so good in Big D? How would I live?
Photos: Best in DFW: Taquerias
Blog: Share your favorites

Restaurant review: Park

Nan Coulter /Special to DMN

Grilled spring harvest onions and romesco at Park.

Park, Donald Chick's swingy 2-month-old restaurant on Henderson Avenue, is like a bad boyfriend. It’s great-looking, hip and you want to love it, but is that really in your best interest?

09/08/2009

Share your KRLD Restaurant Week experience

KRLD Restaurant Week has come to a close, and we wnat to hear from you. Visit our Eats Blog and share your Restaurant Week experiences.

09/02/2009

Restaurant review: Main Street Chop and Fish House

Elizabeth M. Claffey/Special to DMN

The calamari dish at the Main Street Chop and Fish House in Colleyville

You're a waiter. A customer asks you a question about a dish and you don't know the answer. You: a) Say you don't know and leave it at that. b) Go ask the chef. c) Make something up. If you said c) Make something up, maybe you were my waiter at Main Street Chop and Fish House in Colleyville recently. An order of calamari fra diablo landed on the table, and the squid was rings only, no tentacles.

08/31/2009

Dallas chefs take part in Caesar salad competition

Nathan Hunsinger/DMN

Chef Tracy Miller (center) and the team from Local compete.

Top chefs in Dallas competed in the 18th Annual Caesar Salad Competition on Sunday by creating varying takes on the classic dish.
Eats blog: jW Foster of the Pyramid wins Caesar competition

09/02/2009

Table Talk: Middle Eastern hookah pipes are moving into foodie territory
Hookahs are so cool, they're hot. Since last fall, two new hookah lounges have opened in Richardson, and Urban Market downtown just added hookahs to its patio.

08/26/2009

Restaurant review: Bin 303

Ben Torres/Special to DMN

Grilled Gulf flounder with a poblano-shrimp topping and tomatillo sauce, served with summer vegetables

You've got to love the idea behind Bin 303. Breean Nugent and her husband, Mat Nugent -- he's a Culinary Institute of America-trained chef, she runs the front of the house -- fell in love with the historic craftsman house near Rockwall's main square, and spent 17 months renovating and outfitting it. The menu focuses on local and other Texas products (and bears a "Go Texan" stamp). But something gets lost in the execution.
Photos: Inside look: Bin 303

Restaurant review: Bliss Raw Cafe and Elixir Bar
Who would have thought you could sandwich a cafe between the DART rail and Greenville Avenue in a space so tiny it used to be a snow-cone stand? It seems incredible that anything more ambitious could take root in this awkward little patch, let alone thrive.

08/31/2009

Dallas chef's farm brings home slow food

COURTNEY PERRY/DMN

Food is the focus on Sundays at Hedda Dowd's Singletree Farm.

Supper is an all-day affair at Hedda Gioia Dowd's farm, a brisk walk from Lake Tawakoni. Slow food is embraced by the co-owner of Rise No. 1, an Inwood Village Restaurant. She deeply understands what nourishes body and soul.
Photos: At the farm
Reviews and details about Rise No. 1

08/27/2009

Urban Crust fires up downtown Plano
Urban Crust offers a mothwatering pizza with a thin, Italian flour crust and a chewy finish on the ends.

08/21/2009

KRLD Restaurant Week continues

Courtesy

KRLD Restaurant Week's main week is coming to an end, but it's not too late to snag a $35 three-course meal. A number of participating restaurants are extending the promotion for an extra week (August 24 through August 30) or two (August 24 through September 6). Find out which places are still in the game in our Restaurant Week package, which also has menus, online reservations, maps and more.
Eats blog: Tell us about your Restaurant Week experience

08/19/2009

Table Talk: Celebration owner hosts a farmers market in his parking lot

Courtney Perry/DMN

Ed Lowe is committed to using fresh, local produce in his restaurant.

The farmers market bug has bitten Celebration owner Ed Lowe so bad that he's started a market in his parking lot on Saturdays. Lowe says that when he opened it 38 years ago as a hippie-era leather shop and restaurant, he shopped the Dallas Farmers Market regularly, but stopped a few years later for convenience' sake. Then, he says, "We picked it up again three years ago, and we really intensified our efforts more each year since then."

08/23/2009

Letter responses to 'Elevating Dallas Dining'
Here's a sampling of responses to last Sunday's story by restaurant critic Leslie Brenner, assessing the Dallas dining scene and suggesting ways to make it great. Read her story online at dallasnews.com/restaurants. The letters have been edited for space.

08/19/2009

Restaurant review: Hattie's

Lara Solt/DMN

Fried oysters wrapped in bacon

Walk into Hattie's, the 7-year-old Southern restaurant in Oak Cliff's Bishop Arts District, and all the little annoyances of the day start to melt away. Is it the welcome, which is warm but not hurried? Is it the light in the dining room on a summer evening, playing off the pale yellow walls? Is it the hospitality, the easy "let us take care of you" attitude that so often goes missing in this city's restaurants?
Photos: Inside look: Hattie's

Restaurant review: Cafe Istanbul
Chef Erol Girgin's 6-month-old Cafe Istanbul outpost in the Shops at Legacy is decorated with so many nazars – the blue-and-white glass eye amulets used in Turkey to ward off the evil eye – that you'd think Girgin needed protection. But the customers digging into meze and kebabs don't look as though they wish the chef- owner any harm; on the contrary, they look happy as can be.

Rush Patisserie is back in business near Bishop Arts District in Oak Cliff
Rush Patisserie has reopened not far from the Bishop Arts District in Oak Cliff. To celebrate, the pastry shop is having a grand reopening event at 6 p.m. Thursday.

08/14/2009

Restaurant critic Leslie Brenner tells what it would take to make Dallas a great restaurant city

Staff illustration

The fall opening of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, housed in dramatic buildings by renowned architects, has the city all abuzz. But what of the culinary arts? Restaurants are theater, and despite the recession, nowhere is that kind of theater more alive than in Dallas. But if the city's dining scene is ever going to be considered among the best in the country, Dallas' chefs and restaurateurs have some work to do.
Eats blog: Read a replay of Leslie Brenner's chat about Dallas' dining scene

08/17/2009

Daniel Vaughan and Full Custom Gospel BBQ

KRLD Restaurant Week starts

Courtesy

This year's KRLD Restaurant Week -- when more than 130 restaurants will offer three-course prix fixe meals for $35 to raise funds for the North Texas Food Bank and Lena Pope Home -- continues through August 23. A number of participating restaurants are extending the promotion for an extra week (August 24 through August 30) or two (August 24 through September 6).
Eats blog: Tell us about your Restaurant Week experience

Alan Peppard: Shannon Wynne plans restaurant in Design District

EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer

Shannon Wynne with a glass of iced tea at his restaurant, Flying Fish in Preston Center.

Restaurateur Shannon Wynne has a record of building very cool establishments in counterintuitive locations. His former hotspots such as Nostromo, 8.0, Rocco and Rio were all built in locations that were sleepy in their day but soon became chic. Residents and business owners in the Design District should be pleased to know that he has just signed a lease at Oak Lawn and Hi Line, the area some are calling Lower Oak Lawn (or LOL).

08/12/2009

Restaurant review: Urbano Cafe

Ben Torres/Special to DMN

Prosciutto-wrapped fig bruschetta with Texas honeycomb

Hey, let's open a restaurant – we can do it right here on the block! Judy'll make the costumes, and hey, Mickey, you can cook! That's the feeling at Urbano Cafe, the modest place that Kristen and Mitch Kauffman opened in early June after shuttering their popular Uptown spot, Urbano Paninoteca.
Photos: Inside look: Urbano Cafe

Restaurant review: Chez Moi
Chez Moi in Frisco is such a study in contradictions that after three visits, I couldn't shake Charles Dickens' famous "best of times ... worst of times" line from my brain.

Preview weekend kicks off KRLD Restaurant Week

Courtesy

This year's KRLD Restaurant Week -- when more than 130 restaurants will offer three-course prix fixe meals for $35 to raise funds for the North Texas Food Bank and Lena Pope Home -- will be August 17 through August 23. But diners can get a head start this weekend during the Restaurant Week Preview. For $40, you'll get dinner, plus a specialty cocktail made with either 10 Cane Rum or Grand Marnier.
Eats blog: Discuss KRLD Restaurant Week

Stephan Pyles on his new restaurant, Dallas dining and the new celebrity chef

Carter Rose/Special to DMN

Stephan Pyles sets a new Arts District table next month with Samar.

Stephan Pyles seems impervious to heat. Whether standing in the kitchen of his namesake downtown restaurant or walking in triple-digit temperatures (the white coat helps) to his new Ross Avenue space three blocks away, he is Teflon tough. The renowned chef is readying his first new eatery in almost four years, Samar, for a scheduled debut next month.

08/05/2009

Restaurant review: Lola

Amanda Lucier/DMN

Poached shrimp salad with tomato gelée

At Lola, chef David Uygur understands what good cooking is about: finding the best ingredients of the moment and the place and treating them in a way that illuminates their very essence.
Photos: Inside look: Lola
Eats blog: Van Roberts to close Lola

Table Talk: Cadot and Stantic tell each other who's boss
It's hard to imagine chefs, egos puffed up like pommes soufflées, sharing top billing in a restaurant kitchen. But it's the latest thing in Dallas, where a handful are declaring themselves co-equals.

Chef Tim Byres and Bolsa owners revamp Hotel Belmont's Cliff Café

08/06/2009

Park opens on Henderson Ave.

Hot drive through: Burguesa Burger

Hot dive: Jack's Backyard

AmPm debuts to public July 15
Downtown has a sexy new see-and-be-scene now that the Mosaic building's AMPM has gone from private venue to public hot spot. Nightcaps in the disco-balled lounge are a given, but lunch and dinner are equally sparkling,

07/29/2009

The Best in DFW: Best Cocktails

Rex C. Curry/Special to DMN

The Screen Door's Darling Clemon-thyme

I can't say it was easy to choose the best. Some awfully good libations didn't quite make the cut. But when a cocktail was a winner, it was immediately crystal-clear. Bells went off. The band played. In many cases it turned out that the terrific cocktail wasn't the only great one in the place; one drink led to an even better one and it became hard to choose.
Blog: Tell us your favorites on Eats
Photos: See the best cocktail slide show

Restaurant review: J.S. Chen's Dimsum and BBQ

Sonya N. Hebert/DMN

Barbecue duck

If you think good dim sum means long waits, a cavernous room with all the charm of a banquet hall and brusque service, you haven't been to J.S. Chen's Dimsum and BBQ. The modest-size dining room, in a spiffy newish Asian shopping mall on Legacy Drive, has a touch of style. And the dim sum at J.S. Chen's isn't just good, it's excellent.
Photos: Inside look: J.S. Chen's Dimsum and BBQ

Restaurant review: Cobb Switch BBQ
Cobb Switch, named for a town in East Texas, is as cute as a strip-mall restaurant can be – from the outside, anyway. "Entering Cobb Switch City Limits," says a sign. "Pop. 210." It looks like a railway station, a theme that's continued inside, where you're greeted by an alluring smoky aroma.

07/24/2009

Vern's Kitchen in Deep Ellum closes after 40 years
This is an obituary for a restaurant. Vern’s Kitchen in Deep Ellum closed this week after 40-plus years of serving up lunch specials including pepper steak, baked short ribs, chicken fried steak and fried chicken.

07/22/2009

Restaurant review: Si Tapas and Spanish Cuisine

Ben Torres/Special to DMN

Ensalada de naranja con zanahoria: shaved carrots in a light citrus vinaigrette, with slices of orange

Tapeo, tapeas, tapea. In Spain, tapas are so popular that tapear (to eat tapas) is a verb. And by the number of restaurants that offer tapas in Dallas, it seems that tapeando has become a way of life here too.
Photos: Inside look: Sí Tapas and Spanish Cuisine

Restaurant review: Huck's Catfish
How far would you drive for what might be the lightest, flakiest, most beautifully cornmeal-dusted fried catfish you've ever put in your mouth? I'd drive 65 miles straight up U.S. 75 – to Huck's Catfish in Denison.

Three Dallas chefs share their best budget party fare

EVANS CAGLAGE/Staff Photographer

Looking for low-budget party fare? Chefs from Suze, Bella and Cafe on the Green give us their recommendations.
Recipes for party food, from the Morning News archives
Tips for entertaining on a budget
More money-saving ideas

07/21/2009

Tuskegee Airman serves up war stories at Allen cafe

Mark M. Hancock

Calvin Spann tells Reel Thing Catfish Cafe diners about his Tuskegee Airmen adventures.

As the newest employee of the Reel Thing Catfish Café, the 84-year-old World War II aviator spent a recent evening table-hopping and swapping war stories with members of the local VFW post.
Link: Reel Thing Catfish Cafe
Link: About the Tuskegee Airmen

07/15/2009

Restaurant review: Cadot

Jim Mahoney/DMN

Grand Marnier soufflé

It's a wonderful moment. The new French restaurant. Two chefs with serious pedigrees. A menu that offers some classic dishes. Reasonably priced Champagne. Main courses are about to come, and the world is full of promise. Where are we? Cadot, the new restaurant from Jean- Marie Cadot and Gaspar Stantic — two chefs, one French, one Swiss, both classically trained, with long histories in Dallas.
Photos: Inside look: Cadot

Restaurant review: Sushi on McKinney
Every sushi lover wants and needs a dependable neighborhood sushi bar. It needn't be the kind of place that flies fish in from Japan, but it should be the kind of place where you can satisfy that sushi jones without breaking the bank.

Table Talk: Sauce gastrique is the trend that's become an obsession
Chefs are still madly in love with the sauce that started daintily dotting Dallas plates a few years back. Now they're smearing, puddling and drizzling gastrique (gas-TREEK), the sweet-sour sauce in question, on fancy plates all over Dallas. Can we call it a pan-demic?

07/13/2009

Make reservations for KRLD Restaurant Week

Courtesy

This year's KRLD Restaurant Week -- when more than 130 restaurants will offer three-course prix fixe meals for $35 to raise funds for the North Texas Food Bank and Lena Pope Home -- will be August 17 through August 23. The list of participating restaurants has been revealed, plus how long they're running their specials, online menus, online reservations and more.
Eats blog: Discuss KRLD Restaurant Week

07/08/2009

Restaurant review: Adelmo's Ristorante

David Woo/DMN

Marinated garlic chicken with pasta

Ever since I interviewed Adelmo Banchetti on the phone about the renowned steak tartare he serves at his namesake restaurant, I've been curious about what (besides the chopping and careful blending of raw steak) goes on inside that handsome, brick-red-trimmed two-story building on Cole Avenue.
Photos: Inside look: Adelmo's

Restaurant review: Po-Bill's Cafe
If everything matched the glory that is meatloaf at Po-Bill's Cafe, success would be a slam dunk for this Deep Ellum soul-food restaurant.

07/13/2009

In Season: Celebration Restaurant opens farmers market
Between downtown Dallas and Coppell, there has been no farmers market for shoppers in the Park Cities and Love Field neighborhoods – until now. New this year, Celebration Restaurant has gotten off to a sturdy start with its Saturday market in the parking lot between the restaurant and Celebration Market.

07/08/2009

Where one restaurant closes, another often springs up

JIM MAHONEY/DMN

A.J. Duggal, owner of Kebab-N-Kurry Indian Restaurant in Richardson, is renovating a closed Mexican restaurant in Addison into an upscale Indian eatery.

While the economy has undercut eateries throughout North Texas, scores of restaurant operators are looking to take over abandoned spaces and give them another shot.
Blog: Eats

Frozen yogurt fad churns up new Dallas-area vendors

DMN File

Entrepreneurs are betting on yogurt to be the next cool, healthy treat.
Tell us: Is yogurt your cup of tea?
Blog: Eats

07/06/2009

Oceanaire Seafood files for bankruptcy but will keep Galleria Dallas site open
Oceanaire has shuttered locations in Philadelphia, Seattle, Charlotte, N.C., and Cincinnati but has kept a dozen locations open, according to its Web site.

Hard Rock Cafe stages Dallas encore at Victory Park

MELANIE BURFORD/DMN

Elvis Presley western wear and ZZ Top fuzzy guitars are featured items.
Video: Sneak peek
Victory recruits less-pricey hot spots
Get restaurant reviews
Link: Hard Rock Cafe

07/07/2009

Dallas' Mozzarella Co. puts gourmet spin on cottage cheese
Cottage cheese seems an unlikely quest for a top Dallas chef.

07/01/2009

Restaurant review: Craft Dallas

Courtney Perry/DMN

Halibut is among the dishes introduced by Jeff Harris.

Craft Dallas has a new chef, and he's turning out some of the most sophisticated cooking in town. And like Kevin Maxey, the chef de cuisine whom executive chef Tom Colicchio brought in to run Craft Dallas when it opened in 2006, 32-year-old Jeff Harris is a Texan.
Photos: Inside look: Craft Dallas

Restaurant review: Vapiano Dallas
The concept at Vapiano – upscale Italian fast food – is intriguing, but the reality disappoints. This German-owned chain has spread all over its native land and has outposts from Estonia to Dubai. It began its American expansion with several locations in the Washington, D.C., area and opened in Mockingbird Station about seven weeks ago.

Table Talk: With pressed sushi, Dallas gets a fresh taste of Japan
Pressed sushi originated centuries ago in Osaka, Japan, but in Dallas, it's the latest thing. The gorgeous striated sushi – made by layering rice and fish, pressing them in a box and slicing – is glamming up the menus at Lemongrass Asian Bistro , the resurrected Sushi on McKinney and Sharaku , the sake lounge just opened by the owner of Yutaka Sushi Bistro.

07/02/2009

Si Tapas restaurant is a fresh take from a familiar face
The charming State-Thomas cottage that was long home to Watel's has changed accents – from French to Spanish. SI TAPAS RESTAURANT AND BAR is the latest act from owner Ildefonso Jimenez. The affable restaurateur founded Café Madrid, ran Hola! on McKinney Avenue for eight years and even dabbled briefly in bubbles with Brüt: a Champagne Boutique at Hotel Palomar. Now, Jimenez has returned to his first love with small-plate Spanish cuisine.

Bishop Arts' Espumoso is a coffeehouse with Colombian flavor
Equal parts coffeehouse and smoothie bar, Espumoso Coffee & Juice Bar has a modern, laid-back Latin vibe. Along with the requisite coffee drinks, it offers savory empanadas and authentic Latin American desserts, as well as a few baked breakfast goods – and 16 flavors of Dreyer's ice cream.

Snider Plaza bakery puts a gourmet spin on homestyle favorites
There's so much more to Crème de la Cookie than the name conveys. Although the new Snider Plaza bakery does sell some great, home-style cookies – such as a spicy ginger variety with crystallized ginger bits – the filled cupcakes, gourmet Whoopie Pies and other rich confections are the showstoppers.

06/24/2009

Best in DFW: Places to Take Out-of-Towners

ELIZABETH M. CLAFFEY/Contributor

The shrimp and grits dish at Hattie's

They're coming to visit: moms, dads, sisters, brothers, best friends from college, former colleagues, Facebook pals. Sleeping arrangements are easily solved. But more important: Where do you take them to eat?
Photos: Best in DFW: Gastro-Tour
Blog: Share your comments and favorites

Restaurant review: Bailey's Prime Plus

G.J. McCARTHY/DMN

A 22-ounce bone-in cowboy cut ribeye steak

Ed Bailey, the man who put Austrian crystal chandeliers and Ralph Lauren wallpaper in some of the 60-plus McDonald's franchises he owned, has opened a steakhouse in Cedar Hill worthy of Kublai Khan.
Photos: Inside look: Bailey's Prime Plus

06/30/2009

How to make chilled summer soups from Nana, Salum and Craft restaurants

ALLISON V. SMITH/Special to DMN

Craft's Heirloom Tomato Soup

Three chefs take the heat out of summer with these D.I.Y. (we promise) cold soups.
Get more soup recipes

Dallas restaurant community struggling through tough times
Though there are some glimmers of good news, particularly for lower-priced restaurants, the Dallas restaurant community overall continues to slog through one of the worst economic environments in a generation.

06/17/2009

Restaurant review: Ava

John F. Rhodes/DMN

Ava's wood-roasted pork chop

There's so much to like about Ava, the charming restaurant Randall Copeland and Nathan Tate recently opened on this town's main drag. The dining room is airy and attractive. The waitstaff is warm and enthusiastic. And Copeland and Tate give much more than lip service to local produce and products.
Photos: Inside look: Ava

Restaurant review: Lemongrass Asian Bistro
For anyone who remembers East Wind in Deep Ellum, Lemongrass Asian Bistro will evoke a sense of déjà vu. If she's not in the kitchen, Tuyet Davis floats around the dining room greeting diners as if they were old friends. Some of them are – or at least longtime customers.

Make reservations now for Father's Day dining specials
Here's a roundup of possibilities for Father's Day dining. Reservations may be required or recommended. All events are this Sunday unless otherwise noted.

Local father-son pastry chefs have recipe for tight family bond

KYE R. LEE/DMN

Ruben Toraño, (right) has a moment with his father Rafael Toraño.

For Rafael and Ruben Toraño, there's an extra sweet quality to their father-son bond. Literally. They are both pastry chefs at Dallas restaurants
Video: Father and son share memories
Favorite recipes
Father's Day events
Moms blog: How does your father show his love?

06/10/2009

Restaurant review: Lazare

Louis DeLuca/DMN

Lazare's BLT flatbread

The review you're reading may already be obsolete. All restaurants evolve over time, but Lazare, which opened April 1 in West Village, has been evolving at warp speed.
Photos: Inside look: Lazare

Restaurant review: Cretia's
I'm constantly surprised at the sheer number of restaurants in Dallas, particularly Uptown. Amazingly, it seems there's always room for one more. Cretia's isn't exactly new; for years it was a neighborhood standby, in the space that has recently become Sushi on McKinney. Now it has reopened about three blocks north.

Table Talk: Couple launch a tiny takeout spot on the popularity of their stuffed jalapeños
Fran Chapman can take the heat. You'd think anyone with four small children might be too overwhelmed to open a restaurant. But in February, 40-year-old Chapman, at the prodding of her husband and co-owner, Randal, 39, opened Chapman Chile Kitchen, a charming little takeout spot on a grungy block in East Dallas, when her baby was only 5 months old.

Downtown hosts three-day CityArts Celebration of performing, visual, cultural and culinary arts
The annual flurry of festivals – there've been dozens in the past few weeks, focusing on everything from fine art to polka to dining – is coming to a close as the weather heats up. But if you've missed out on the festival frenzy, fear not: You've still got at least one last chance before it's broiling outside, and it's a biggie, the venerable CityArts Celebration in downtown Dallas, presented by TXU Energy.

06/09/2009

Dallas-area chefs get fresh with local produce

EVANS CAGLAGE/DMN

Five chefs share their favorite items, their best sources and tips for choosing and using the cream of the crop.
Find farmers markets
Farmers market shopping primer
Recipe: Fresh Tomato-Feta Salad

Dallas restaurateur Norman Brinker dies

DMN file

Norman Brinker (right) and executive chef Lex Berlin at the Addison Macaroni Grill in 1992.

Norman Brinker, the man who changed America's definition of dining out, died on vacation Tuesday. The chairman emeritus of Brinker International Inc. and its retired chief executive was 78.
Blog: Eats

06/03/2009

Restaurant review: Chamberlain's Steak and Chop House

Ben Torres/Special to DMN

Prime bone-in 22-ounce rib eye

Walking into a steakhouse instantly puts me in a good mood. There's such a sense of promise: a good, old-fashioned cocktail, a plush booth, a good bottle of red, the sizzle of steak. And I always wind up enjoying dinner, even if the steak isn't amazing. Walking into Chamberlain's Steak and Chop House was no exception.
Photos: Inside look: Chamberlain's

Restaurant review: Litos
When you live in the Southwest, it's not a leap to understand and embrace peasant home cooking from Mexico City. That's what's simmering at Litos, a modest restaurant sandwiched between a bakery and a martial-arts school on Oak Cliff's Hispanic main drag.

06/01/2009

Restaurateur defies recession with mucho mojo

COURTNEY PERRY/DMN

Gabriel DeLeon's Masaryk Modern Mexican Kitchen fulfills his dream of cooking his own food in his own restaurant.

05/29/2009

5 spots to nosh on hot summer nights in Dallas

CARTER ROSE/Special toDMN

Long summer nights have us in the mood for non-monogamous noshing. We made the rounds at 5 of the city's newest bite stops.

05/27/2009

Table Talk: New seasonal ingredients are 'exciting every time,' says York Street's Sharon Hage
Lots of chefs talk a good game about seasonality, but no one pays more attention to the produce of the moment than Sharon Hage , chef-owner of York Street. Coming into late spring, as the days get longer and warmer, I thought I'd check in and see what ingredients are inspiring her.

Restaurant review: Central 214

Courtney Perry/DMN

Crispy prosciutto-wrapped cheddar with apple barbecue sauce and avocado dip

I don't know if Blythe Beck is as naughty as her publicists say she is, but I do know this: The pink-jacketed, twinkly eyed chef knows how to fry. At the Hotel Palomar, where she rules the stoves at Central 214, Beck will chicken-fry anything that moves, and some things that don't. She chicken-fries oysters. She chicken-fries lobster. She chicken-fries Kobe beef. She even chicken-fries unsuspecting chunks of cheddar cheese, but not before wrapping them in prosciutto.
Photos: Inside look: Central 214

Restaurant review: Roaster's
Every city needs a decent New York-style deli or three. And now Dallas has a new one to add to its modest collection: Roaster's, an outpost of a small Florida chain called Roasters 'n' Toasters.

05/20/2009

Welcome to your new GuideLive.com!

Welcome to your new GuideLive.com! The Dallas Morning News is upgrading its signature entertainment portal this week with a state-of-the-art, "go, see and do" utility you won't want to leave home without.

Restaurant review: Masaryk Modern Mexican Kitchen and Tequila Lounge

Ben Torres/Special to DMN

Masaryk's pulled-pork relleno

Sometimes very good is good enough. That could be the case at Masaryk Modern Mexican Kitchen and Tequila Lounge, where chef Gabriel DeLeon makes a snappy ceviche in the form of terrific little "tostaditas." But glimmers of excellence at the 2-month-old Addison restaurant make me wish that DeLeon could take everything to the lofty level he sometimes achieves on the plate.

Restaurant review: Con Fusion
It's hard to resist the allure of Con Fusion, a low-slung bronze bungalow with thin, horizontal slats on the windows that make you want to peek inside. It's distinctly Asian; an oversize earthen jar at the entrance and bamboo accents set it apart from the surrounding taquerias.

05/13/2009

Table Talk: Newcomer discovers some idiosyncrasies in Big D dining
The few times in my life I've moved to a new city, I've been fascinated by what you find in that town's restaurants, what you don't find and what's taken for granted.

Restaurant review: Nick and Sam's Grill

Mona Reeder/DMN

Brisket burger and fries

Dallas' colorists and plastic surgeons are doing some very, very fine work. And they must be a busy lot, if the beautifully sculpted, honey-blond, overflow crowd that seems to live at Nick and Sam's Grill is any indication. The Quadrangle-area spot is packed every evening – even a dismal, rainy Monday night.

05/08/2009

Red Mango frozen yogurt chain moving headquarters to Dallas
The move is expected to be completed by July, one year after Red Mango got a $12 million cash infusion from Dallas-based CIC Advantage Holdings.

05/19/2009

Restaurant review: Lumi Empanada and Dumpling Kitchen

Sonya N. Hebert/DMN

Chinese five-spice duck and leek dumplings

It's the unlikeliest of fusions, Brazilian and Vietnamese, perpetrated by the unlikeliest of restaurateurs: Susie Bui, whose last job was as a marketing coordinator for Brink's Home Security. But somehow, despite her lack of experience and the craziness of the concept, Bui has managed to pull it off with panache and a serious sense of style and fun.

05/06/2009

Restaurant review: Citrus Bistro
In a cozy little restaurant in an unassuming shopping center on Royal Lane off Preston, a large Frenchman is quietly cooking some pretty good fish.

BYOB spots let you savor fabulous wine in style and save a pretty penny
Once upon a time, it was hard to find a restaurant outside of California that let diners bring their own wine. Yet more and more restaurants across the country are embracing BYOB policies, sometimes charging a corkage fee to open and serve the wine. And that includes plenty of wine-friendly spots in Dallas.

05/05/2009

Ocean Prime restaurant to open in Uptown this fall

Rosewood Corp.

The Ocean Prime restaurant – operated by Cameron Mitchell Restaurants of Columbus – will open this fall in the Rosewood Court building at Cedar Springs Road and Pearl Street.

05/01/2009

3 chefs share their favorite local-food finds for spring

CHRISTOPHER WYNN/DMN

Nonna chef Julian Barsotti picks fresh greens with Tom Spicer in the garden behind Spicer's F.M. 1410 market.

Check out greens from the F.M. 1410 market's garden, handcrafted European-style cheeses and Zip Code Honey.

05/05/2009

Restaurant scores: Health inspection results for area establishments
These North Texas municipalities post online results of restaurant health inspections.

04/29/2009

Restaurant review: The Old Warsaw

Rex C. Curry/Special to DMN

Beef Wellington

The Old Warsaw. It conjured visions of roast duck and spaetzle and violins, of damask and crystal and deep, brocaded banquettes. The Old Warsaw. It sounded like a wonderful place that had been around forever, one that a newcomer to Dallas who loves old-fashioned dining rooms and tuxedoed waiters simply had to experience.

Restaurant review: Off the Bone
For Off the Bone, let's just get right down to it: meat and sauce. Sauce and meat. The tiny barbecue joint in a repurposed gas station, south of the Jack Evans Police Headquarters building near downtown, is a carnivore's nirvana.

Table Talk: Vernon Morales will head the kitchen at Jean Michel's this fall
A frisson of excitement swept Dallas food-loving circles last month with the announcement of Jean-Michel Sakouhi's plans to open a new restaurant, Jean Michel's, at downtown's Mercantile Place this fall.

Make your reservations now for Mother's Day dining
Here's a roundup of possibilities for Mother's Day dining. Reservations may be required or recommended. All events are May 10 unless otherwise noted.

Restaurateur switching from burgers to steak

JAKE STEVENS/DMN

Ed Bailey is opening Bailey's Prime Plus in the Uptown Village shopping center in Cedar Hill.

Edward C. "Ed" Bailey is selling off his McDonald's properties and plunging full-time into full-service. The owner of four local Patrizio casual dining restaurants launches his career as a prime beef purveyor on Wednesday with the opening of Bailey's Prime Plus in Cedar Hill.

04/24/2009

Food Network star Paula Deen kept it casual at her Plano appearance
PLANO – The title of one of Paula Deen's cookbooks, It Ain't All About the Cookin' , turns out to be an understatement: It's about everything and anything. Paula Deen is no shrinking magnolia.

04/22/2009

Restaurant review: Rathbun's Blue Plate Kitchen

Louis DeLuca / DMN

Wood-smoked rotisserie prime rib

The lights go out, then flicker; the dining room slowly fills with smoke. It's a power outage. The stoves are working, the wood fire keeps burning, but the kitchen fans and vents don't work, nor do many of the lights. It could be a disaster for a busy restaurant, but at Rathbun's Blue Plate Kitchen on a recent weeknight, the staff manages to keep the high-style Texas comfort food and jazzy drinks coming.

Restaurant review: Hully and Mo

04/29/2009

Critic's Notebook: Restaurants that put Asian flavors in the spotlight are hotter than ever

Lara Solt / DMN

Vietnamese and Brazilian tastes star at Lumi Empanada and Dumpling Kitchen.

Dallas, in case you haven't noticed, is crazy for Asian fusion -- the melding of Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Indian cooking in various permutations. Haven't we gotten our fill? Apparently not: A whole new crop of fusion restaurants has opened in the past few months, one for every budget and style.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: The Zodiac
As far as sweeping generalizations go, I've never been a big fan of department-store dining. There's a reason you won't find me lunching in Ikea's Swedish cafeteria, and it's not an irrational fear of lingonberries. But of course, Neiman Marcus is not your typical retail establishment, and the storied Zodiac restaurant in its downtown flagship is far from your typical in-store eatery.

Restaurant review: Ziziki's
Travis Walk is an area where restaurant turnover is rampant (Il Sole and Samba Room are two former neighbors that have closed recently), so it's always reassuring to return to the familiar comforts of Ziziki's.

07/13/2009

Restaurant review: Zenna
Zenna's going to seem like déjà vu for anyone who's lingered over tuna tartare or tom kha gai soup at Nandina on Lower Greenville. That's because the same team that started, and then departed, Nandina is behind this new venture.

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: Zen Sushi
Mrs. Paul would probably faint. Charlie the Tuna wouldn't be happy, either. Michelle Carpenter, on the other hand, seems quite content. Ms. Carpenter, the chef and owner of Zen Sushi in Oak Cliff, is carving a long, thin knife through a brick of bigeye tuna that glistens like the inside of a ruby-red grapefruit.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Zander's House
While Tran Bui, one of the five siblings who runs Zander's House, uncorks a bottle of wine at the table, I ask her the all-important question: "What do Vietnamese people come in here to eat?" She gives me the once-over with joking mock suspicion, and then starts pointing out menu items.

Restaurant review: Yutaka Sushi Bistro
From our table at Yutaka Sushi Bistro, we watch orders of the restaurant's ever-changing, whim-of-the-chef dish known as Japanese Antipasto being assembled behind the sushi bar.

Restaurant review: York Street
In restaurant jargon, "local" and "seasonal" have now been bandied about so vigorously that they've lost much of their, well, flavor. When asparagus is available year-round and Kobe beef can be easily shipped from Japan, who's really following that credo closely? Sharon Hage is obviously doing her darnedest.

Restaurant review: Yao Fuzi Cuisine
Sometimes the restaurant industry can be heartbreakingly unjust. Take, for instance, Yao Fuzi Cuisine, which serves some of the most exhilarating regional Chinese food I've tasted in this country. So where are its customers?

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: Woodlands Grill
Much like Fallingwater, the Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece on which it is modeled, Woodlands Grill is stunning at first glance. And also like the celebrated American architect's most famous residential creation, upon further inspection it has a few cracks in the foundation.

Restaurant review: Village Burger Bar
For a burger joint to survive in trendy West Village, it's got to be a fashionable place. Village Burger Bar, which opened 2 1/2 years ago, is both casual and hip. Customers order at a register and can walk to their table (a communal table, if they so desire) clutching an imported draft beer or a watermelon mojito. In the evenings, techno music bumps from the speakers.

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: Villa-O
When it comes to pasta, are you still scarred by the brief but persistently destructive terror of the low-carb craze? Do you sometimes want nothing more than to scarf a big bowl of saucy noodles, only to hear an unsolicited voice in your head strongly suggest scrambled eggs with cheese and sausage instead? A visit to Villa-O is one way to welcome pasta back into your heart and diet.

Restaurant review: Victor Tango's
In a natural progression from the country's tapas-bar frenzy of the '90s, we've moved into an era when small plates have grown more substantial and complex, and once-humble bartenders have reinvented themselves as mad-genius mixologists.

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: Veracruz Cafe
Talk to Oak Cliff foodies, and Veracruz Cafe in the ever-evolving Bishop Arts District is one of the restaurants they most frequently cite with pride. But folks who brag about it also often issue a vehement disclaimer: "They don't take reservations, so go early or late. It's tiny."

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Veracruz Cafe
Who knew that Mexico was this close? Veracruz Cafe, a sibling to the popular Bishop Arts District eatery of the same name, has opened in the new Ranch at Cedar Hill development (restaurants and shops; no cattle). The first clue that this is not your father's Tex-Mex is a sign outside that touts "Mesoamerican, Mayan, Huasteco and Aztec cuisine." The second clue may well be the dramatic decor.

Restaurant review: Twisted Root Burger Co.
How many culinary-school grads does it take to dish up a hamburger, fries and a shake? At Deep Ellum's Twisted Root Burger Co., the answer is three, and that's no joke.

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: Truluck's
If you ever want to have an understanding of what it takes to get a crab leg from the depths of the ocean to your dinner plate, settle in with a few episodes of Deadliest Catch, the Discovery Channel's compelling look at the dangerous career of a crab fisherman. If, however, you'd rather gain a less-harrowing, more hands-on appreciation of the expensive, sweet-fleshed delicacy, put down the clicker and head out to the newest location of Truluck's.

Restaurant review: Truluck's
If you're willing to work for your supper, Truluck's Seafood Steak Crabhouse pays handsomely. Sure, you can eat a work-free meal if you're after a good steak or an even better piece of fish. But the mother lode at Truluck's is the crab, stone crab in particular.

Restaurant review: TruFire Kitchen and Bar
It's not often that you need a reservation at a neighborhood pizza and pasta joint where most entrees are $15 or less. But when we arrived at TruFire Kitchen and Bar on a recent Friday night, there wasn't a spare table to be found. No problem, we thought, we'll just wait at the bar.

04/14/2009

Restaurant review: Trece Mexican Kitchen and Tequila Lounge
The brilliance of Trece is attention to detail. Black wenge wood tables are set simply with bright orange bowls piled with blackish-green-skinned avocados. Servers wearing pumpkin, ebony, green and parchment striped shirts peel and mash the avocados when preparing guacamole tableside.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Tramontana
After nearly eight years, chef-owner James Neel and the Tramontana team execute "bistro" so well that it appears effortless. This follows from the chef's low-key manner, his high-comfort cuisine, the room's urbane charm and a staff that treats diners like real guests. But forget pretentious. Tucked away on a Preston Center side street and named for a Mediterranean wind, Tramontana is its own little world.

Restaurant review: Trader Vic's
Where exactly does the line blur between camp and class? When does time-capsule kitsch segue into appreciable artfulness? How has a retro groovy concept suddenly achieved status as cutting-edge cool? And why, oh why, can't the taste buds detect the obscene amounts of alcohol in those fruity cocktails profuse with rum?

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: Tom Tom Asian Grill and Sushi Bar
Tom Tom Asian Grill and Sushi Bar remains one of the anchoring crowd-pullers of the West Village dining scene. And though the Asian fusion menu has constantly evolved since the restaurant opened in 2002, regulars might not have even noticed other subtle changes of late.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Tillman's Roadhouse
Would you believe people are waiting two hours just to get a table to eat chicken-fried steak and Frito pie? In Oak Cliff? Believe it. In 1992, chef Ricky Tillman opened Tillman's Corner, serving casual New American fare in a quirky little storefront in the Bishop Arts District. Mr. Tillman died in 1997, but his namesake restaurant lived on under the direction of his wife, Sara.

Restaurant review: Teppo Yakitori and Sushi Bar
Three of us stare for a moment at the medium-size teacup our server has placed on the table. Its contents look murky. A slick of bronze-colored broth conceals barely discernible ingredients. We exchange goading looks, then simultaneously dig in with our spoons.

06/15/2009

Restaurant review: Temptation Cuisine
There was the word, on a recent discussion thread of the Chowhound.com page devoted to Texas. A word for which, in the pursuit of fascinating ethnic eats, I am ever vigilant: Himalayan. That mountain system stretches across a vast swath of South Asia, but, within a restaurant context, the Himalayan designation is usually a tip-off for Nepalese cooking.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Tei Tei Robata Bar
Revisiting Tei Tei Robata Bar is a little like going to a high-school reunion and checking out those Most Likely to Succeed from your high-school class. Are they as cute and smart and energetic as you remember?

Restaurant review: Tei An
Courage may be the most vital element in the advancement of any city's dining scene. A chef or restaurateur needs locomotive audacity to introduce a public to truer tastes, culture-specific cooking techniques and ways of thinking about food that breach comfort zones – particularly in a finer-dining environment. Teiichi Sakurai earns my vote as Dallas' most courageous chef-owner.

Restaurant review: Suze
Is anyone out there conducting research on how some restaurants blatantly defy a recession? If so, Suze awaits case study. At 7 p.m. on a Tuesday evening, Suze's dining room resembles a typical neighborhood spot early in the week: sparsely patronized. A sneaked glance at the hostess's computer screen reveals only three reservations on the books.

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: Sushi Star
A friend who often asks me for restaurant advice recently cornered me with what seemed to be an oxymoronic appeal: Recommend a relatively inexpensive, not-too-trendy Japanese eatery for people who don't eat sushi. Despite its name, Sushi Star may be just what she's looking for.

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: Sushi Sake
"Ooh, this is cool," text-messages a filmmaker friend with an eye for detail as he arrives at Sushi Sake five minutes ahead of me. Yes. One of the splendors of Japanese architecture and design is how it seems to reset the senses to neutral.

Restaurant review: Sushi Robata
With refreshing disregard for recession gloom, sushi chef Hiroyoshi Mori opened Sushi Robata in a Far North Dallas strip mall five months ago. A wave of followers had his back.

Restaurant review: The Sushi Bar
Wedged into an acute angle bordering the towering High Five interchange in North Dallas, the Clarion Park Central Hotel looks like an unlikely spot for trendy Asian fusion dining. The banner outside that advertises dollar sushi might color one's expectations, as well.

Restaurant review: Sushi Axiom
You know you've reached a nexus of the tangled new Henderson Avenue web for trendy young professionals when you drive up to the storefront strip that includes Sushi Axiom.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Stephan Pyles
Stephan Pyles is a restaurant that lavishly addresses the senses. The exterior of the building, a stark midcentury-modern construct by renowned architect George Dahl, sets up urbane contrast: The clean, acute lines and the tinted entrance doors make the spatter of rich colors and textures inside only register more profoundly.

Restaurant review: Steel
Steel is not a place to show up without reservations, even on what might typically be considered a slower night for trendy restaurants. Case in point: On a recent Sunday, just before 7 p.m., we asked a well-dressed host at Steel's front stand for a table for two.

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: Spiral Diner
The eyes of the vegetarian at our table beamed like those of a toddler poised to shred the wrapping paper off a present. We were at the new Oak Cliff location of Fort Worth-based Spiral Diner, and she could order absolutely anything off the vegan (as in, zero animal products) menu she wanted. Four pages of choices!

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: Soley!
Some restaurateurs are whirlwinds of polish and self-assurance when they approach tables in their restaurants, but chef-owner José Vasconcelos' demeanor projects a shyness that belies the exuberance (tacked-on exclamation point and all) reflected in the name of his new venture, Soley!

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: The Social House
With just one word, the Social House sets expectations high. It's writ on the sign outside this Uptown newcomer and touted on the menu: gastropub.

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: Snuffer's
Two staples: a half-pound burger of grilled ground chuck served up in a toasted bun, and the Snufferita, a mighty marg with a nice sweet-tart balance, a shot of brandy and enough heft to make drinking one count as exercise.

Restaurant review: Snuffer's
When it comes to the cult of Snuffer's, either you're in or you're out. If you're in, you consider the eatery's messy, juicy burgers among the best in the city, and you'll gladly trade a svelte waistline and the good graces of your cardiologist for a basket of loaded cheddar fries.

Restaurant review: Snuffer's
Fortysomethings who dated at the Greenville Avenue original 20 years ago are finding this incarnation just right for the kiddos – and even for grandparents.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Shinsei
What happens to a hot spot when its chef, basking in the glory bestowed upon her by a run on Top Chef, leaves the restaurant? When it happened last summer at Shinsei, the stylish Japanese fusion spot Lynae Fearing and Tracy Rathbun opened three years ago, they didn't miss a beat.

Restaurant review: Sevy's Grill
Good neighborhood restaurants usually have a few attributes in common: well-prepared food, modest prices and a friendly, casual vibe. But when the neighborhood in question is the Park Cities, the equation changes a little, and your regular Tuesday-night haunt can sport entrees nudging the $30 mark and a valet stand clogged with one Mercedes-Benz after another.

06/15/2009

Restaurant review: The Second Floor
Power chefs as restaurant consultants can sometimes make for befuddling public perceptions. How large or small a role does the chef, whose name obviously boosts cachet, play in the operation of the restaurant being advised? Was hatching the concept the extent of the involvement, or is there ongoing supervision of the menu and the success of its implementation?

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: Sea Breeze Fish Market and Grill
Lobster rolls, hot dog buns filled to overflowing with chunks of lobster in a mayo-based dressing, are as common along coastal Maine as barbecue is in Texas. You can find them in every fish house and roadside stand. Begin moving inland, though, and the regional comfort food vanishes as lobster becomes scarce and expensive.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Screen Door
Eddie "Lucky" Campbell scuttles around other staffers behind the bar at Screen Door, grabbing bottles, shaking and stirring prismatic liquors and placing drinks in front of other customers before turning his slow smile on us.

06/12/2009

Restaurant review: Scarlet Ibis
For a diner in landlocked Dallas, unfamiliarity with the cuisine of the Caribbean is understandable. For someone working in a Caribbean restaurant, it's not nearly as excusable. Thus, the first major problem I experienced on a recent lunch visit to Scarlet Ibis.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Salum
Every time is showtime for chef Abraham Salum at his namesake restaurant. That goes for the guests as well. Strategically located on the fringe of haute Highland Park and just up the road from hip Uptown, Salum is the current hot spot for the Foodie 50. That's the mythical microcosm of Dallas' fantasy Fickle 500 social butterflies and trend trackers.

06/12/2009

Restaurant review: Sala
Doug Brown had the prescience to recently give those who work or live in the vicinity of downtown a worthy new entrant into the genre. Earlier this year, the chef re-evaluated the direction of his midscale comfort food restaurant, Amuse, which resided on the edge of downtown across from the South Side on Lamar lofts.

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: Sake Toro
Sexy Mama's Roll. XXX. Double D. If these were the clues to a category on The $100,000 Pyramid, my first guess might be "cheesy cocktails" – or perhaps "things found in a strip club" – but they're actually among the chef's specials at Sake Toro, a slick little Japanese restaurant tucked away in Frisco Square.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Saint-Emilion
It takes a certain je ne sais quoi to make a reprimand seem charming, but if anyone can do it, it's Saint-Emilion's courtly proprietor, Bernard Tronche. And so it goes that when a traffic snarl caused us to arrive nearly 20 minutes late for our reservation, we were greeted warmly at the door, then escorted to our table, where a printed missive sitting there very politely reminded us that since the restaurant doesn't have a bar in which to wait, staffers try to be "very punctual on our reservations' times and ... appreciate the same consideration from our customers." Color me chagrined.

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: S and D Oyster Co.
In the rush to discover the next big thing, we sometimes overlook places that long ago got it right and are still quietly working their groove. A handful of these restaurants eventually go on to transcend time and circumstance, evoking the same sense of place that is the hallmark of great cafes from New York to Paris.

07/13/2009

Restaurant review: Ruth's Chris Steak House
If you tend to evaluate a steakhouse based entirely on the quality of its meats, you will probably not be disappointed with Ruth's Chris, particularly if you order the stunning porterhouse for two.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Roy's
Given the vast ethnic pedigrees that shaped the culture of Hawaii, it's no wonder that the festive amalgam of foods associated with the islands is often referred to as the original fusion cuisine.

Restaurant review: Royal Thai
A blond woman in business garb shoots through Royal Thai's door at 12:15 p.m. on a Friday but stops dead in the restaurant's cramped foyer when she spies the crowd inside. A throng emanates from the hostess stand in stagnated semicircles that reach to the small bar across the room. The woman disappears into the swarm, and then rushes almost immediately back out the door, muttering choice words under her breath.

04/15/2009

Restaurant review: Royal China
At Royal China, you can almost trace the evolution of Chinese dining in Dallas. The Preston-Royal restaurant has been in the same location and run by the same family for 35 years.

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: The Rose Tattoo Grille and Wine
At the close of my first visit to Rose Tattoo, I was dreading my requisite follow-up dinner. After my second trip, I was wishing I had time to return for a third.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: RJ Mexican Cuisine
In the very heart of the West End is an ambitious new place that takes us back to the time, some 20 years ago, when the area was first getting gentrified. Several restaurants of some culinary ambition opened back then, but over the years the trend has been toward franchises and watering holes.

Restaurant review: Rise no. 1
The redheaded hostess at Rise No. 1 returns to her stand next to the restaurant's handsomely weathered door and notices the disappointed expression on my face. She just gave away the last available four-top to another party because the entirety of our group had yet to arrive. She offers no pity, though – only practical advice.

Restaurant review: Reata
After being blown out of the sky by a Texas tornado, the restaurant Reata finally fell to Earth in good form. Location and altitude aren't the only changes since the spring 2000 tornado made a hollow shell of the Fort Worth skyscraper once crowned by top-floor Reata.

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: Ra Sushi
Perhaps the home page of Ra Sushi's Web site best explains the appeal of the restaurant: "There's never a dull moment in the Ra. The music is pumping, the mood is upbeat and the atmosphere is as stimulating as a big bite of wasabi."

06/12/2009

Restaurant review: Pyramid Restaurant and Bar
It is time, at last, for the fine-dining restaurants of Dallas to retire their most stratospherically priced entrees. Steakhouses don't count: They live, thrive and die by their own precepts. But the chefs and managers of the town's other high-end establishments need to finally take an honest, steely look at their main courses that sell for $40 or more (and some would argue for $30 or more) and determine whether they truly convey value to the customer.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: The Porch
Trendy restaurants of Victory Park, meet the Porch: your foremost competition for the current attention of local hipsters. During every visit to this two-month-old venture, friends I brought inevitably began hugging, shaking hands with or waving across the room at someone they knew.

06/17/2009

Restaurant review: Pho Delavie
If you generally judge a restaurant by its unique dishes and house specials, you might seriously underestimate Pho Delavie. This cheery Vietnamese restaurant has been open for about a year. It sits among a cluster of ever-changing dining establishments just inside the Collin County border, though still in Dallas.

06/15/2009

Restaurant review: Petra Essence of Mexico
For those whose restaurant proclivities tend toward the upscale (food snobs, you know who you are), there are plenty of red flags to be found at Petra Essence of Mexico.

04/15/2009

Restaurant review: The Place at Perry's
Perry's, the 7-year-old Routh Street steakhouse, has changed its name to The Place at Perry's. My guess is that patrons won't care much: I'll bet they'll keep calling it Perry's, and keep coming back. For me, the name change seemed like just the occasion to see what (The Place at) Perry's is all about.

07/13/2009

Restaurant review: Patrizio
It's easy to get swept up in Patrizio's charms, where frosted sconces and overhead lights bathe the Italianate room in a glow as soft as candlelight.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Pappas Bros. Steakhouse
Simple, bite-size seafood appetizers. Generous salads punctuated by rich, piquant dressings. A hunky piece of pedigreed beef alive with juice and char. Starchy, family-portion side dishes. And, finally, dairy-laden desserts so ruthlessly colossal that they seem more monuments to overboard extravagance than tantalizing finales. These are the seemingly preordained cornerstones of the American steakhouse menu.

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: Ozona Grill and Bar
Dallas has little in common with West Texas, yet plenty of city folks yearn for the unending sky, dazzling light and fresh (if dusty) air of our state's farther reaches. Six years ago, the original management invoked the spirit of Ozona – the Crockett County seat of 3,500 folks, about an hour southwest of San Angelo – and called this spot Ozona Westex Bar & Grill. The sprawling, multilevel complex of dining rooms, patios and bars has many niches and nooks.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Olivella's
Life can turn brambly and unpredictable when a person chooses to merge passions with professional ambitions. Just ask Charlie Green. After selling software and medical supplies for years, he found himself waiting tables for the first time six weeks ago – in his own restaurant.

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: Old Hickory Steakhouse
What does it say about a steakhouse when it takes the cheese man to make you happy? On two recent visits to Old Hickory in the Gaylord Texan Resort, the highlight of both meals was the appearance of the maître fromager and his rolling cart of artisan cheeses.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Oceanaire Seafood Room
Arctic char. Golden corvina. Nairagi marlin. Unless you're a fishmonger by trade or a serious seafood aficionado, chances are that at least a few of the fresh fish offerings at Oceanaire will be unfamiliar. They're flown in from around the world (Iceland, Panama and Hawaii, to name just a few far-flung locales) and printed twice daily on the ever-changing menu.

06/12/2009

Restaurant review: Normandie Alliance
It's a long way from the pastoral beauty of Normandy to a blocky Far North Dallas strip mall, but the latter is where you will find classically trained chef Gilles Perrette dishing up authentic French fare in a bare-boned cafe named for the former.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Nonna Tata
It takes but one visit to Nonna Tata to memorize the rules of the house. The cramped restaurant, with 21 seats inside and five or so tables outside, takes no reservations. If you arrive at the height of the lunch or dinner hour, you will most likely find the place packed to capacity. A staffer will take your name and cellphone number and call you when your turn comes up.

Restaurant review: Nonna
All chefs have stories about the influences, epiphanies and practicalities that drew them into their grueling chosen profession. But Julian Barsotti, who recently opened a quietly wondrous restaurant in Highland Park called Nonna, makes his culinary calling sound downright hereditary.

Restaurant review: Nobu
Is Nobu the hot spot that Dallas forgot? On a recent Tuesday night, it sure felt that way. Two patrons occupied seats at the theatrically long sushi bar, and the chefs behind the overmanned counter all but twiddled their thumbs. Only four or five tables in the dining room were filled, though the waitstaff admirably seemed to neither under- nor over-attend to customers.

07/13/2009

Restaurant review: Nicola's
It's easy to see why crowds flock to Nicola's in the Shops at Legacy since it moved from Galleria Dallas nearly three years ago. The food is very good and the atmosphere exciting. But the size of the place and the bustle of both patrons and staff sometimes make you feel as if you're grabbing a meal in a department store rather than settling in for serious dining.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Nick and Sam's
The folks behind Nick and Sam's clearly strive to offer each guest star treatment. They appear to succeed consistently: Discerning Uptown and Highland Park crowds cram this place nightly.

Restaurant review: Newport's Seafood and Steaks
Hard to believe, but it's been 20 years since Newport's set up shop in the West End. When the seafood spot opened in 1983, very few restaurants in land-locked Dallas specialized in fish. Now, of course, seafood dishes are mainstream, and Newport's continues to hold its own with its casual- and business-dressed clientele.

Restaurant review: Neighborhood Services
The look, at once steely and gracious, reaches beyond mere pride. It reveals the many-pronged burden of accountability: You call the shots; you absorb the punches. You bear responsibility for a business and employees, but you still carry in your heart the elemental purpose and pleasure of the restaurant industry: feeding people well and treating them hospitably. Nick Badovinus recently acquired that look in his eyes.

Restaurant review: Nana
Pan-roasted pheasant breast – "kind of like a banana split"? This eyebrow-raising description appeared on the menu during the last of three recent visits to Nana in the Hilton Anatole. It detailed the first part of a pheasant entree served in two separate courses. The cost for this potential showstopper was $30, one of the lowest-priced main courses available. Clearly, executive chef Anthony Bombaci was baiting open-minded diners to follow him on an adventure.

06/15/2009

Restaurant review: Nam Hua Vietnamese Cuisine
A group of friends meeting me for a first dinner at Nam Hua hovered outside the restaurant's entrance. They'd already stuck their heads in the door. "It's smoky in there," they said, frowning. We contemplated trying another Vietnamese spot in the same strip mall, named Saigon Plaza.

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: Morton's, the Steakhouse
Think of Morton's, the Steakhouse, as your rich, eccentric uncle from out of town: older though still stylish, repeating the same family stories and oblivious to some odd quirks and tics that keep him from being your favorite relative. Yet you can't help but love him.

Restaurant review: Mistra
"I don't care what your mother said." The man's voice, coming strong and firm from underneath the brim of his cowboy hat, was unequivocal as he leaned forward and smacked his palm against the table. "I'm not paying $40 for a steak. Order something else."

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Mirabelle
Everyone can have an off night, even Joseph Maher, the executive chef and owner of Mirabelle. Through the years I've had many rapturous meals at this cozy Far North Dallas restaurant, which made it particularly distressing when a recent dinner went somewhat awry.

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: The Mint
Nikky Phinyawatana has two unusual gifts as a restaurateur. First, she knows how to operate the kinds of places that attract the most stylish clientele as regulars. But even more impressive, she somehow creates environments wherein these image-conscious individuals feel uninhibited enough to order heaping plates of fried rice and pad Thai.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Mignon
There are a few moments each night, just after evening has set in, when the patio at Mignon can feel bewitchingly Parisian. If only for a moment. Then your senses catch the roar of suburban traffic on Preston Road, and you remember again that the body of water in question hardly expresses the romance of the Seine. It's a man-made pond.

Restaurant review: Mi Piaci
When this venerable North Dallas restaurant changed hands in early 2004, it didn't undergo any drastic transformation in vision: Brian Black, who now owns the eatery with his wife, Sonia, took over from his mother, Mi Piaci founder Janet Cobb. The Blacks, who also own Il Sole in Travis Walk, are savvy restaurateurs who know not to mess with success.

Restaurant review: The Mercury Grill
Is Mercury Grill in retrograde? After two disparate meals, I'm left contemplating what cosmic forces may be throwing this stalwart Preston-Forest mainstay off its intended orbit. Renowned executive chef-partner Chris Ward, who was under serious consideration to be the lead White House toque in 2005, manned the restaurant's semi-open kitchen during both recent visits. But the quality in food differed dramatically, as did the service.

07/13/2009

Restaurant review: Medina Oven and Bar
Medina Oven and Bar may tout itself as a Moroccan restaurant, but its outlook owes more to Victory Park's geography than to that of its North African culinary homeland.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Maximo
Take a couple of juicy, sophisticated Mexican cocktails and some tortilla chips dusted with red chile. Add an ingenious, creamy pale-green salsa made from nothing but puréed roasted jalapeños, olive oil and a touch of salt. Sprinkle in a little Mexican music, summon the guacamolero to grind up some tangy, chunky guacamole tableside, and you've got the makings of a great evening. Right?

06/15/2009

Restaurant review: Matt's Rancho Martinez
It's a little scary the way some people can power through an order of Bob Armstrong dip at Matt's Rancho Martinez. The Texas native at our table literally held a warm chip poised for attack while I stirred together the dip's ingredients: bright yellow chile con queso, chunks of ground beef, a vigorous dollop of sour cream and a finishing spoonful of guacamole. Then he fell into a rhythmic, athletic trance - scoop, munch, reach for another chip; scoop, munch, reach for another chip - while still keeping up his end of the conversation.

07/13/2009

Restaurant review: Marrakesh Cafe
No belly dancers. Hoorah. In this country's Moroccan restaurants, the emphasis of the meal is often on the entertainment: undulating women jiggling tambourines and balancing scabbards on various body parts. Fetching though that may be, the food served at these places tends to suffer second-class status, usually as a snow bank of bland couscous and a haphazardly spiced stew.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Mansion Restaurant at Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek
It takes a formidable mix of skills to pull off the reinvention of an iconic fine-dining restaurant: audacity, teamwork, a respect for the past that also anticipates the future, a concrete trust in the talents on hand to bedazzle old and new customers alike once the dusts of change have settled.

Restaurant review: Maguire's Regional Cuisine
First, in 1999, there was Maguire's Regional Cuisine, which spawned the more casual M Grill and Tap in Uptown, which morphed into Maguire's Uptown Grille. Two weeks ago, owner Mark Maguire shuttered Uptown Grille, saying he would focus his attention on some new, soon-to-be-announced projects. With Maguire's Regional Cuisine left childless, it seemed like a good time to revisit the restaurant on the crowded, carnivorous east side of the Dallas North Tollway.

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: Maestro's
Maestro's takes its name from the Eisemann Center next door. Sadly, what comes out of the kitchen here is neither masterly nor artful.

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: Love Shack
If requesting a concoction called the "double Dirty Love burger" sounds like a ribald proposition, it is. Consuming this unwieldy brute, the signature dish at the Love Shack in Fort Worth's Stockyards, can be an indecorous undertaking.

Restaurant review: Los Cucos Mexican Cafe
We had been seated in Los Cucos' bustling dining room for 30 minutes when the wheels finally came off. It was a packed Friday night, and we had already waited nearly an hour for a table.

06/17/2009

Restaurant review: Loft 610
When I saw Loft 610's submoniker – "Urban Restaurant and Lounge" – my eyes started rolling. The place, part of the shops at Granite Park, sits on a vast, open expanse at the cusp of Plano and Frisco.

Restaurant review: Lochrann's Irish Pub and Eatery
Lochrann's has all the things you'd expect to find in a traditional Irish pub: Gaelic signage, a troubadour crooning tunes from the Emerald Isle, hearty Guinness stew and perfectly poured pints.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Local
Welcome to the domain of Tracy Miller, Local's chef and owner. For more than four years, Ms. Miller has orchestrated such clean-flavored culinary enticements with dedicated independence.

Restaurant review: Little Katana
In big part, Little Katana charms because of its diminutive size. Small and intimate, the 2-month-old restaurant crams a lot into a compact space.

Restaurant review: Lavendou
Pascal Cayet's Far North Dallas eatery, Lavendou, is thoroughly French. Here, chef Jean-Marie Cadot puts the focus on cuisine from the south of France, where olive oil and fresh herbs flavor nearly every dish.

Restaurant review: Lanny's Alta Cocina Mexicana
I don't mean to incite discord between the cities, but Dallasites need to hatch a scheme to lure chef Lanny Lancarte II away from Fort Worth. At his 2 ½-year-old restaurant, Lanny's Alta Cocina Mexicana, Mr. Lancarte serves individualistic food that merges energetic New American cooking with the cuisine of Mexico's upper cultural echelons. It's a compelling perspective that the Dallas dining scene lacks.

Restaurant review: The Landmark Restaurant
The quandary faced by Jeff Moschetti as executive chef for the Landmark Restaurant comes through clearly on his menu. It's a shining example of the age-old struggle faced by creative chefs in hotels: How do you successfully balance a mix of unadventurous yet well-prepared dishes for conservative palates alongside more audacious ideas that better reflect one's broader-minded talents?

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: Lambert's
In every aspect, Lambert's epitomizes a model Cowtown restaurant. Which isn't to say that this joint project of Lou Lambert and Grady Spears, two chefs with deep-seated roots in Fort Worth's dining scene, plays to clichés. Its food, service and atmosphere all draw from a melding of the funky and the urbane, which reflect the town with sincerity and affection.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: La Duni Latin Kitchen and Baking Studio
My La Duni dessert obsession began, appropriately, with cuatro leches cake, the restaurant's most famous creation. Beige and cream whirls of billowing meringue encased what tasted at its essence to be good old American poundcake. But soaked with complexly sweet milk sauce and dotted with thick, smoky caramel, the finished assemblage clearly evoked the intricacies of Latin American cooking.

Restaurant review: La Duni Latin Cafe
My La Duni dessert obsession began, appropriately, with cuatro leches cake, the restaurant's most famous creation. Beige and cream whirls of billowing meringue encased what tasted at its essence to be good old American poundcake. But soaked with complexly sweet milk sauce and dotted with thick, smoky caramel, the finished assemblage clearly evoked the intricacies of Latin American cooking.

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: La Cubanita
The lechon asado at La Cubanita typifies exactly what it is about Cuban cooking that stokes the spirit. A solid hunk of slow-roasted pork shoulder arrives capped with a plank of crisped skin as shiny as peanut brittle. Crack off a sliver and crunch down. That's the prize of this dish, the lacquered skin's shattering texture. Now flake off a bit of meat underneath: lean and moist, rustic and complex in its flavor.

Restaurant review: L and L Hawaiian Barbecue
"You know, I think this would be better if it were made with Spam." It's not the kind of thing I expected to hear coming from the mouth of my dining partner, a man more inclined to tuck into a slab of foie gras than canned pink mystery meat.

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: Kirin Court
If your idea of Chinese fare centers around the home delivery of paper cartons stuffed with gelatinous mounds of beef and broccoli or buffet steam tables filled with tired-looking pans of sweet-and-sour something or other, hold on to your chopsticks.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Kenny's Wood Fired Grill
Step inside Kenny's Wood Fired Grill, where a raucous crowd has already established the atmosphere: loud, energetic and seemingly well-fed. By nightfall, the small bar area is tightly packed three and four deep with people waiting for a table in the dining room or one of the seven seats at a chef's counter that separates a diminutive kitchen from the larger dining room.

06/10/2009

Restaurant review: Kenichi
Our gung-ho server at Kenichi swaggers up to our table. "Hey there," he starts. "Have you been in before? No? Well, welcome! You're in for a great night. Take a look at the menu, but just to let you know: If you like, I can design a great meal for you that incorporates a little bit of every aspect of the menu. It's one of my favorite things to do, so say the word. Now: Can I start you out with some cocktails? Or some sushi or sashimi?"

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: Kelly's Eastside
In macho mode, red-blooded Texas men generally crave one of three things: barbecue, chicken-fried steak or a big, juicy burger. You can hardly do better than Kelly's Eastside for any of them.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Keiichi
Double-checking our directions for assurance, two of us swing into a dark parking lot that seems oversized for the restaurant it serves. An eerie greenish light illuminates the building's entrance. Its wood-paneled exterior looks dated and not particularly welcoming. The front windows display a blur of indistinct activity inside. Is this the right place? Was the tip about an incredible sushi bar all the way up in Denton a joke or a rotten piece of advice?

Restaurant review: Kavala Mediterranean Grill
Whatever the alchemy might be that entices the folks of Oak Cliff, Kavala Mediterranean Grill has it. Though it's about a mile up the street from Oak Cliff's epicurean epicenter, the Bishop Arts District, customers congest Kavala's limited parking lot nightly.

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: Kathleen's Sky Diner
Great food isn't usually the first thing that pops into one's mind when it comes to air travel, so it might seem a little strange that Kathleen Ellington recently retooled her longtime Park Cities eatery, Kathleen's Art Cafe, with a quasi-aviation theme and a new name.

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: Kalachandji's Palace and Restaurant
Kalachandji's is hardly the only vegetarian restaurant in Dallas, but it is the only one in a Hare Krishna temple. Located on an East Dallas street lined with charming prairie-style houses – most owned and restored by the church – the buffet restaurant is a hidden oasis from the daily grind.

Restaurant review: Jorge's Tex-Mex Cafe
On a pleasant Saturday evening, the scene at One Arts Plaza is enough to make even the least civic-minded among us buy into the dream of a revitalized downtown Dallas.

Restaurant review: Joe T. Garcia's Mexican Restaurant
The restaurant is a Fort Worth institution. Still run by the Garcia-LanCarte family, Joe T.'s serves consistent, no-frills Tex-Mex. And it remains one of the most popular restaurants in Fort Worth, judging from the packed parking lot and the line running out the door every weekend.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Jasper's
Jasper's is no picnic. Despite the contradictory subtitle "Gourmet Backyard Cuisine," nothing about this restaurant is as simple as a basket of cold fried chicken, a tub of deli potato salad and a can of mosquito spray. Fact is, Jasper's is first-class – with some minor glitches in service and consistency.

07/13/2009

Restaurant review: Jasmine Thai Cuisine
People crowd into Jasmine Thai Cuisine's tiny space on weekend evenings and at weekday lunchtimes. When we showed up without a reservation, a server kindly squeezed us into the one empty table, though it took a while before menus and drinks caught up with us.

06/12/2009

Restaurant review: Hotel St. Germain
Hotel St. Germain has been, for almost two decades, Dallas' most quixotic haven for romantic dining. The restaurant attached to the seven-room bed-and-breakfast oozes quiet intimacy.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Hibiscus
Few restaurants have been more breathlessly awaited or gushed over than Hibiscus, the latest Tristan Simon-Nick Badovinus collaboration.

04/24/2009

Restaurant review: Hibashi Teppan Grill and Sushi Bar
Pyrophobics, beware: You'll want to plan your visit to Hibashi Teppan Grill and Sushi Bar very carefully. If you tread cautiously through the menu, you should be able to easily sidestep any flame-ups at the hibachi grill and avoid such fiery show-stoppers as the flaming Pink Panther roll. But when the bump-chicka-bump of the techno music starts up, be as far away as possible from the bar. That's when the bartender puts on the nightly flair show, a highflying spectacle of juggling bottles, precariously balanced glassware and rivers of blazing spirits.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Hector's on Henderson
Deep-fried avocado: genius or overkill? In the hands of Blythe Beck, the executive chef at Hector's on Henderson, it's a little bit of both. Her creation, called simply the Avocado, is as much a dare as it is an appetizer: How many calories, from how many different sources, can one compact dish contain?

Restaurant review: Hattie's
This quintessential New Southern bistro nestled in the Bishop Arts District strikes just the right balance with food, hospitality and comfort.

04/23/2009

Restaurant review: Grimaldi's Pizzeria
How do you bring Brooklyn to Dallas' far-reaching northern suburbs? With some difficulty. Grimaldi's Pizzeria is an offshoot of the hallowed original underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Now the proprietors keep trying to clone this shrine of Neapolitan-style pies, with outposts in Arizona and Nevada as well as Texas.

Restaurant review: Grimaldi's
The West Village location of this chain, based on the original Brooklyn legend of the same name, has inspired some animated debate among local pizza lovers, but we feel this is a very good example of the Naples-via-New York school of pizza making.

06/12/2009

Restaurant review: Grill on the Alley
The area around Galleria Dallas has become something of a jinx for imported upscale restaurant concepts. Two such ventures, BLT Steak and SushiSamba, recently closed after startlingly short-lived runs. Grill on the Alley muddles that theory, though. Walk in around 12:30 p.m. on any given weekday and you'll see where the North Dallas power brokers gather to confab and refuel.

07/13/2009

Restaurant review: Gregory's Restaurant
A wobbly line exists on restaurant menus (and in the cooking world in general) between dishes that have achieved timeless status and dishes compiled from once-trendy ingredients that need to be rotated far off the playbill.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: The Grape
The Grape reveals its standing as a neighborhood institution through scores of physical details both enduring and endearing.

Restaurant review: Grady's
Grady Spears knows his way around the ranch, as they say. Spears made a name for himself as the founding chef of Reata, one of the city's big-deal restaurants from 1996 until a tornado devastated it in 2000. (Reata soon rebuilt and remains open, but without Spears as its chef.) Now, with a namesake restaurant on the edge of a leafy Fort Worth neighborhood, Spears is back on the scene.

Restaurant review: Grace
What a difference great service can make. One Saturday night at Grace, a New American restaurant in downtown Fort Worth, exemplary service and uneven food in a handsome, sophisticated dining room add up to a wonderful evening. Another night, a harried, in-over-his-head server delivers plate after plate of ill-conceived (and very expensive) food. T

06/15/2009

Restaurant review: Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant
A dozen years ago, you couldn't fling an empty can of Lone Star without hitting an area brewpub. Yegua Creek. Hubcap. Copper Tank. Rock Bottom. TwoRows. Even established eateries such as Humperdink's and Hoffbrau jumped on the brewery bandwagon, adding giant brewing tanks to their mix of all-American cuisine and casual atmosphere.

04/23/2009

Restaurant review: GoGo Burger
If you want to get a room full of burger devotees buzzing, mention one little phrase: In-N-Out. The 60-year-old California-based chain inspires a particularly fervent brand of loyalty with its limited menu of fast-food burgers, fries and shakes. And despite frequent expansion rumors, the privately held company currently has no plans to enter our market anytime soon.

Restaurant review: Go Fish Ocean Club
The ownership remains unchanged and the name is almost the same, but the new incarnation of Go Fish seems more a complete reinvention than an evolution.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Fuse
Cowboy boots are the fashion statement for fall, and ethnic looks remain hot. So why not enjoy a bit of both at downtown's newest hot spot, Fuse, where the cuisine theme is Tex-Asian?

04/23/2009

Restaurant review: Fruia's Tre Amici
Trendy dining owns an important place in the amusing activity we call "going out." Often, nothing will do like dishing with friends over lamb lollipops in a wine bar.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: The French Room
Myriad words can describe the transformations in American fine dining over the last half-century, but, in discussing the French Room, let's grab two from the top of the alphabet: accessible and adventurous.

04/23/2009

Restaurant review: Fred's Texas Cafe
Fred's folksy interior (glowing beer signs, gold vinyl booths, posters and fliers overlapping and covering every inch of wall space) understates how seriously the staff takes its burgers. The standard is a half-pounder fashioned from Texas-raised ground beef.

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: Flavors Indian Cuisine
Three of us order a banquet's worth of food at Flavors Indian Cuisine to begin to grasp the scope of the restaurant's extra-lengthy menu, but the first dish the chile head at the table reaches for is a murky number called mirchi ka salan.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Five Sixty
Five Sixty, Wolfgang Puck's new Asian fusion restaurant atop Reunion Tower, brings to mind a movie whose huge budget makes the studio nervous, but when it opens it's a huge hit – and every penny's right up there on the screen.

06/15/2009

Restaurant review: Five Guys Burgers and Fries
Local hamburger enthusiasts unfamiliar with the Eastern seaboard juggernaut Five Guys Burgers and Fries might think this recent import a rip-off of our homegrown Mooyah mini-chain.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Fireside Pies
I have seen the future of pizza, and it works. It's not served in a box by an unshaven deliveryman, and it's certainly not frozen. It comes from a place where a prominent open kitchen buzzes with activity around wood-burning brick ovens, their gaping mouths full of crusty flatbreads, roasted meats and sausages, even fruit pies.

Restaurant review: Fireside Pies
Here's what you need to know about Fireside Pies: Really good pizza. Really fun atmosphere. Really smart service. End of story. Not really.

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: Firefly
Firefly pins its mission on its sleeve, or, more accurately, its Web site: to bring California-style Asian fusion cuisine to Texas. The core is modern Vietnamese, with threads of Chinese, Thai, Korean and Japanese running through it.

04/23/2009

Restaurant review: Ferrari's Italian Villa
Ferrari's Italian Villa in Grapevine, an offshoot of the long-standing original in Addison, celebrates the known and loved. It's all here: Caesar salad, lasagna, spaghetti Bolognese, steak pizziola, stuffed bone-in veal chop. Time to loosen the belt a couple of notches.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Ferrari's Italian Villa
For upscale Italian cuisine, Ferrari's consistently delivers. The restaurant has been an Addison stalwart for a dozen years, serving well-executed dishes from owner Francesco Secchi's native Sardinia.

Restaurant review: Fedora
Dallas has a strange relationship with Italian food. To be sure, some well-regarded stalwarts have managed to maintain both a customer base and an admirable level of quality.

Restaurant review: Fearing's
How does a celebrity chef unshackle himself from flattering but limiting perceptions to reinvent his future? And how, in the process, can he captivate a fresh culinary audience without alienating a generation of longtime devotees? Take a gander at the crowd at Fearing's in the Ritz-Carlton Dallas for some insight into those meaty questions.

04/23/2009

Restaurant review: Escondido
Escondido's combination dinner No. 1 may be the ultimate vehicle through which to seduce the uninitiated into the raptures of old-school Tex-Mex.

Restaurant review: Eno's Pizza Tavern
To say that Eno's is a tavern serving pizza expresses the fundamentals but doesn't color in the larger picture. Chef-owner Matt Spillers and his crew care in extra, important ways.

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: El Tumi Latin Restaurant
There's a fun, inherent element of surprise to Peruvian cuisine: Through the centuries, the country's indigenous culture has absorbed key ingredients and techniques from the Spanish conquerors as well as Chinese, Japanese, Italian and African influences.

04/23/2009

Restaurant review: El Ranchito
The mariachi band at El Ranchito is returning from a break and has set its serenading sights on a family of four newly ensconced in a corner booth. It's showtime, amigos.

Restaurant review: Dream Cafe
It's been a tough year for local dining and retail establishments, but you might not know it from visiting the once-again-hot Village on the Parkway.

Restaurant review: Dream Cafe
In so many ways, Dream Cafe is an appealing destination. Its sprouty, global cuisine lets you be naughty or nice, and you can show up with your kids, your date, your mom – even a hangover – and feel pretty much at home.

06/15/2009

Restaurant review: Dragonfly
Weekends at Dragonfly in Hotel ZaZa, in case you haven't swung by in a while, are still quite the scene. The evenings begin placidly enough in the summer.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: DiTerra's Urban Italian
The casual surroundings on funky lowest Greenville Avenue don't prepare you for what's in store at DiTerra's Urban Italian: a very personal and superbly executed take on Italian food.

Restaurant review: Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steak House
Near the bar at Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steak House in Far North Dallas, the crowd waiting for tables spills into the foyer. It's loud, but nobody seems to mind. Groups of men down cocktails, their shirt collars loosened, their silk ties tucked neatly between two shirt buttons. The older ones talk about flipping apartment complexes or buying Cowboys skyboxes, while the younger ones talk sports.

Restaurant review: Daniele Osteria
As you walk into the subterranean space that houses Daniele Osteria, it takes a few minutes to adjust your eyes to the dim light. Minimalist sconces and mirrors line one wall of the narrow dining room, which opens toward the back to encompass a brick-walled wine cellar. Up front is a full bar and, beyond it, a dainty patio nearly hidden from passers-by a few feet up on bustling Oak Lawn Avenue. The decor is done up in restful earth tones, except for a riotous mosaic of color on the vibrant dinnerware.

Restaurant review: Dallas Fish Market
It takes a special, nimble breed of restaurant to thrive in downtown Dallas. The currents of customer traffic shift so dramatically between day and night that an operation needs to pinpoint when and with what aim it intends to serve its mercurial clientele. Kudos – and good luck – to any upstart brave enough to strive beyond the big-box culinary concepts.

Restaurant review: Dali Wine Bar and Cellar
Rudy Mikula stands in front of our table at Dali, his mere physicality dismantling any lingering stereotypes of sommeliers as pompous, unapproachable snobs.

04/23/2009

Restaurant review: Dakota's
Slower on weekdays, busier on weekends: That's the dominant paradigm of the restaurant business. But by quirk of location (and customer base), Dakota's in downtown thoroughly subverts that pattern.

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: Cyclone Anaya's
How does a family reinvigorate one financially troubled mom-and-pop Tex-Mex joint into a growing dominion of multimillion-dollar ventures that serve glammed-up margaritas and enchiladas in splashy surroundings?

07/13/2009

Restaurant review: Cru, A Wine Bar
Even if Crú's wining and dining were only mediocre, its ambience would still be a people magnet. In the same way that Alice Waters' Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., and, closer to home, Sevy's Grill in Dallas envelop diners in a warm, amber glow, so Crú wraps its patrons in cozy, shimmering light, much of it from the dozens of votive candles nestled in wooden wine cubicles lining one wall.

06/15/2009

Restaurant review: Crêperie du Château
It's been five years since the whole "freedom fries" debacle, and apparently all is forgiven. Americans have put anti-French sentiment behind them, as evidenced by Crêperie du Château, a small, airy cafe tucked away in a bottom corner of a McKinney Avenue office building.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Cowboy Chow
For Jason Boso, 2008 should have been a great year. Last summer the chef and restaurateur launched his second Deep Ellum eatery, Cowboy Chow, just down the street from his popular Twisted Root Burger Co., and he was working on opening branches of both in Roanoke and a Cowboy Chow in Richardson. Then in September he was critically injured when the Vespa scooter he was riding was struck by a Hummer, landing him in the hospital for nearly two months.

Restaurant review: Coast Global Seafood
These days, restaurants seem to be embracing one of two differing philosophies: Stay as local as possible, touting your ingredients' nearby provenance and seasonality as marks of honor, or go global, flying in your goodies from exotic locales around the world to ensure that what you're serving is the best to be found anywhere.

04/23/2009

Restaurant reviews: Coal Vines
Describing the proper way to make pizza is like taking a stand on the best religion. Zealots may stake their claim and defend it bravely, but wise souls just don't go there.

06/12/2009

Restaurant review: Clay Pit
When it was announced in June that chef Vijay Sadhu had joined 6-year-old Clay Pit as its executive chef, the incongruous matchup gave this Indian-food devotee pause.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: The Classic Cafe at Roanoke
From the outside, the house with the wrap-around porch looks quaintly picturesque but hardly remarkable. But only when you're comfortably seated in one of the multiple dining areas, being cosseted by the staff and having your taste buds indulged by one of chef Charles Youts' culinary creations, do you realize that the Classic Cafe is something special indeed.

Restaurant review: Cibus
"There are only two things to do in Dallas: shop and eat." That's what more than one Texan told me as I headed into town. Maybe it's an exaggeration. But if there's even a kernel of truth to it, Alberto Lombardi had a brilliant idea: He put his new Cibus Ristorante and Caffe in a mall, NorthPark Center.

Restaurant review: Charlie Palmer at the Joule
Charlie Palmer at the Joule could so easily have just been another imported steakhouse. The Joule hotel, forever in progress and looking to finally open by early June, resides downtown among a tight thicket of buildings with divergent architecture. A glitzy beef palace from a big-name, bicoastal chef would have played handily to the expense account audience.

06/15/2009

Restaurant review: Chang Jing
"Here is the hot sauce you requested," the gray-haired staffer announced to the table at Chang Jing. And before anyone had time to tell this guy we hadn't even ordered dinner yet, he appeared to stumble and then – splat! – a crimson slick erupted from the squirt bottle of hot sauce all over a friend's white shirt.

04/23/2009

Restaurant review: Chamberlain's Fish Market Grill
In the summer of 2001, red-meat virtuoso Richard Chamberlain broadened his horizons and opened an upscale seafood spot just down the road from his acclaimed Chamberlain's Steak and Chop House.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Cava
Fresh-faced Catalina Ocampo, half of the husband-wife team that owns Cava, could charm the wings off an angel. With a sunny disposition and enthusiasm to match, the Colombian native glides through the dining room, fussing over diners' needs and making people feel welcome.

04/23/2009

Restaurant review: Casa Milagro
Generally speaking, "healthy Tex-Mex" is about as big a culinary oxymoron as you're apt to find, but Richardson's Casa Milagro has added a few less-artery-clogging items to its traditional menu of fried this and queso-smothered that.

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: Caribbean Cafe
Completely blacked-out windows greet customers as they enter Caribbean Cafe's strip mall location. What's behind this tinted facade? Something illicit or exclusive or revolutionary? Nope, just the simplest of dining rooms.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: The Capital Grille
You can't open a newspaper or turn on the television without being confronted by the latest grim financial news, but inside the clubby interior of the Capital Grille, no one is panicked. Corks are deftly plucked from pricey bottles of cabernet, 5-pound lobsters are dispatched for a final rendezvous with a drawn-butter bath and well-heeled diners tear into their $40 steaks without a second thought.

04/23/2009

Restaurant review: Campania Pizza and More
It isn't easy finding Campania in Southlake Town Square the first time. And Google maps aren't much help. The address says Grand Avenue, but the restaurant actually brushes against a parking garage on a sliver of side street. A hostess is kind enough to come out onto the sidewalk and flag us in from the main drag. Thoughts of our driving challenges evaporate the moment we walk into Campania – before, actually.

Restaurant review: Campania Pizza and More
Anyone who has been to Italy knows that the cheesy gullet-greasers you typically get here are sad facsimiles of real pizza. Something was lost in translation when the pie crossed the Atlantic and entered mainstream America.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Cafe San Miguel
The Mexican restaurant renaissance marches on with Cafe San Miguel. This year has already produced an unprecedented number of Mexican spots with high aspirations. Add this East Dallas comer to the list.

06/17/2009

Restaurant review: Cafe R+D
If good things come to those who wait, the food at Cafe R+D should be stellar. On a duo of visits, the shortest wait time I experienced was 20 minutes, and that was on a Sunday at 6 p.m.

04/23/2009

Restaurant review: Cafe Pacific
Apparently, no one has told the regulars at Cafe Pacific that there's an economic downturn going on. The 28-year-old Highland Park Village favorite is perpetually crowded with well-dressed couples and multigenerational families who may think nothing of dropping three figures for dinner for two.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Cafe on the Green
The misleading moniker of Café on the Green conjures images of a small bistro with views of the Las Colinas golf course where the Byron Nelson golf tournament is played each spring. Quite the contrary. The elegantly appointed 142-seat restaurant serves as the main dining room for the Four Seasons Resort and Club.

04/23/2009

Restaurant reviews: Cafe Modern
Some diners might liken the new Café Modern to a work by famed pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. From a distance, it's a stunning, seamless endeavor. Upon closer inspection, things aren't exactly as they seem: The dots aren't connected. Unfortunately for the eatery, this artistic approach works better in the realm of comic-book-style paintings than in the culinary field.

Restaurant review: Cafe Madrid
At Cafe Madrid, it pays to think small. For almost two decades, the city's most illustrious Spanish restaurant has been dishing up tapas in its cozy, always-crowded Travis Street storefront. Now the Uptown institution has birthed a spinoff in Oak Cliff's Bishop Arts District.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Cafe Madrid
Dining with a group of friends at Cafe Madrid can be a risky proposition. On the one hand, being part of a larger party means you can order more small plates to split and sample. On the other, it significantly ups the odds that a favorite offering will be finished by a tablemate well before you've had your fill.

04/23/2009

Restaurant review: Cadillac Ranch
As a native Texan, I've about had it with stereotypes. The giant belt buckles and cowboy hats. The twangy accent that turns every word into a three- or four-syllable ordeal. The predilection for rhinestone bling and big hair. OK, so that last one might be mostly true, but it still raises my hackles when a big, brash joint like Cadillac Ranch moseys onto the scene and lays it on thicker than the haunches of a Dallas Cowboys lineman.

Restaurant review: Buzzbrews Kitchen
Despite the hypercaffeination promised in the name, Buzzbrews Kitchen is better-suited for relaxed, go-with-the-flow diners. From the self-serve coffee bar to the laid-back waitstaff, it's the kind of place that stymies high-maintenance types, which might explain why the solo visitors pecking away on their laptops seemed so much more content than the go-go business lunchers looking around in frustration for their servers.

Restaurant review: Buzzbrews
Go for all the marbles at Buzzbrews. And the fruit slushes. And the pancakes. Never mind that this retro diner overlooks North Central Expressway from a motel parking lot. There's far more here than the greasy-spoon breakfast fare typically found adjacent to a wayside overnight.

Restaurant review: Bread Winners
The news is out. Hardly a month after Bread Winners Cafe and Bakery opened its third location, in the Plano space that formerly housed Kathleen's Art Cafe, diners who show up for brunch late on a Saturday morning face a half-hour wait.

Restaurant review: Bread Winners
With the addition of dinner service some time ago, Bread Winners secured its niche in a small circle of restaurants I like to call personality cafes.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Bolsa
If you want to witness (and taste) the next evolution of Dallas' restaurant scene, behold the landscape in Oak Cliff. It's all about neighborhood dining. Glitzy, spend-it-if-you-have-it Dallas will never completely eschew its upscale sanctuaries, nor should it. But the future dwells in community-minded gathering spots, and Oak Cliff not only hatches such places, its residents nurture them.

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: Bolla
We have reached the pinnacle of an era, locally and nationally, when impressive new (or newly renovated) hotels must retain equally awe-inspiring, brand-worthy chefs to lead their restaurants.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Bob's Steak and Chop House
Filet, filet, filet. Rhymes with cliché. They tend toward bland, and they are everywhere. But perhaps you, like me, fear gristly, over-charred toughness of other poorly handled steaks and order filet on autopilot.

Restaurant review: Bob's Steak and Chop House
There's never been a better time to be a carnivore in the suburbs of northeastern Tarrant County. In recent years, high-end steakhouses have proliferated in the area like marbling on a corn-fed steer. Southlake has the always solid Kirby's, and J.R.'s offers Colleyville denizens a homegrown spot for prime beef. But it's Grapevine that's turning into the new boomtown for red-meat aficionados.

Restaurant review: Bob's Steak and Chop House
The tarnished, golden light inside Bob's Steak and Chop House looks so soft and thick that you feel you could reach out and swoosh it around. It's only 6 p.m. on a Saturday, and though families with tykes outnumber the adults-only tables among the early crowd, the air already feels charged with dark, carnivorous cravings, potent drinks and unbridled power.

Restaurant review: The Boardroom
About an hour into my first dinner at The Boardroom, I leaned across the table and asked my companion, "Do you think it's weird that a place this upscale sells beer by the pitcher?"

05/27/2009

Restaurant review: Blue Mesa
Blue Mesa strikes a chic urban chord. The decor is trendy but softened by warm yellows and reds. A flat screen TV hangs over the bar without dominating the room – much like the energized music pulsing in the background.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Blue Mesa
There are no desert vistas or operas alfresco, but Blue Mesa Grill has you covered for delicious Southwestern-inspired food.

05/27/2009

Restaurant review: Blue Mesa
Blue Mesa Grill's third area location, in an upstairs space in Lincoln Center next to NorthPark Mall, is a big risk.

Restaurant review: Blue Mesa
Sure, you can go to Blue Mesa's Web site and get the recipes for many of its popular dishes, but dining in or getting takeout is a lot easier.

Restaurant review: Blue Mesa
Sure, you can go to Blue Mesa's Web site and get the recipes for many of its popular dishes, but dining in or getting takeout is a lot easier.

05/15/2009

Restaurant review: Bistro Louise
Chef-owner Louise Lamensdorf bills her popular Fort Worth restaurant as serving "New American cuisine with a Mediterranean attitude," but don't think Mediterranean as in hummus, kebabs or baklava. Her sophisticated fare trades more from Western European shores, exemplified in such dishes as an artichoke galette, pan-seared duck breast and a traditional cheese course, offered as an appetizer or dessert.

07/13/2009

Restaurant review: Biscuits Cafe
Biscuits Cafe in Grapevine makes good on its name. The biscuits are pillowy, soft and golden. One bite, and you want to bury your face in the fleecelike layers, nuzzling your mug into the strawberry freezer jam the restaurant ships in from the Northwest.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Bijoux
The qualities that make Bijoux an extraordinary restaurant unfurl in subtle layers. Its beige exterior, on a prominent corner in the Inwood Village shopping center, reveals next to nothing. One-half of the windows are covered, and the other half gaze upon a narrow, curtained hallway that shields a view of the dining room. The restaurant's name gives little away: French, maybe?

06/16/2009

Restaurant review: Bengal Coast
Think of Bengal Coast as a South Asian version of P.F. Chang's China Bistro. Whether you find that statement to be a compliment or a condemnation depends on your feelings for the popular Arizona-based chain and its spunky, fast-casual spinoff, Pei Wei Asian Diner.

06/15/2009

Restaurant review: Bene Bene Ristorante
Even in American cities without long-standing Italian communities, the neighborhood Italian-American restaurant holds a certain place of honor. Maybe it's the influence of movies or television, or an extension of the tomato-cheese-wheat synergy we've come to adore so much from pizza, but these cravings seem to have become permanently bonded with our DNA.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Bella Restaurant and Bar
A white Lamborghini growls into the valet stand. Heads turn on the adjacent patio: Who's getting out? At the door, leggy blondes are stacking up at the hostess stand, one of them looking like Ziggy Stardust's girlfriend in a futuristic metallic skirt, another with an extravagantly plunging neckline. Across the room, a bartender shakes up a peach martini and pours it into a stainless-steel martini glass.

06/12/2009

Restaurant review: Babe's Chicken Dinner House
There's no mistaking Babe's Chicken Dinner House for fine dining. The seventh location of the growing home-cooking empire is kitschy and way over-the-top, from the giant spinning chicken on the roof of its barn-shaped structure to the boot-scootin' women who work the dining room, peppering their spiel with enough y'alls and darlin's to make a career truck-stop waitress proud.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Avila's Mexican Restaurant
Avila's Mexican Restaurant remains one of the best-kept secrets in Dallas. And its devoted fans would probably like to keep it that way. What brings people back is the Avilas' steadfast devotion to quality and freshness (not to mention the family recipes) and a setting that's more Deep Ellum than Little Mexico.

05/14/2009

Restaurant review: Aurora
A trio of servers gathers in Aurora's exposed kitchen, and then, like birds in migratory flight, they swoop single file into the dining room and encircle our table of three. They place covered bowls in front of us and, in sync, lift the lids off the dishes.

04/16/2009

Restaurant review: Asian Mint
Drive-up appeal won't persuade you to try Asian Mint. But maybe I can. Judging from the outside, this charming cafe and dessert-coffee bar could be just another neighborhood java joint, noodle house or bakery. The strip-center front belies what happens when you walk through the door, at least after dark.

Restaurant review: Arcodoro and Pomodoro
Uh-oh. Here it comes again. Our formally dressed server at Arcodoro and Pomodoro approaches the table holding a three-tiered, wrought-iron stand that displays the specials for the evening. One by one, with practiced caution, he removes a trio of dishes from the portable stand and places them on the table to exhibit their cooked contents.

Restaurant review: Amici Signature Italian
Chef-owner Bartolino Cocuzza, a tall, skinny Sicilian prone to chef attire such as flame-patterned pants, pads around the second-story dining room presenting his dishes with the gawkiness of a first date. Never mind that he has assembled one of the smoothest, most consistent serving staffs around.

Restaurant review: Amelia's Cocina Mexicana
When Amelia Contreras opened Tortillas Del Rancho y Restaurante in a nearly deserted Garland strip center, its name did not exactly roll off the tongue. After eating there the first time, I took to calling it "Amelia's" because the owner's name was so much easier to remember.

Restaurant review: Ama Lur
In the eyes of some, chef David Woodward's stockpot may be half-empty. But he's the kind of guy who sees it three-quarters full. When Ama Lur at the Gaylord Texan Resort opened, consulting chef Stephan Pyles got most of the ink and acclaim for the Latin tapas menu. Mr. Woodward, as the chef in charge of operations, got to do the daily work of putting out the food. It was Star Canyon-Las Vegas all over again.

Restaurant review: Aló Cenaduria and Piqueos
Cenaduria is a term used in Mexico to describe modest mom-and-pop restaurants (cena means supper or dinner in Spanish). It might seem deliberately ironic, then, that the word is part of the name for Aló Cenaduria and Piqueos in the Knox-Henderson area: This splashy newcomer appears about as modest as Britney Spears' latest comeback performance.

Restaurant review: Al Biernat's
Al Biernat knows. He knows how a successful restaurant sounds and feels. And he knows that filling the seats in his 10-year-old namesake restaurant on the edge of Highland Park is all wrapped up in handshakes, dependable service and a familiar menu.

Restaurant review: Abacus
It is the rare restaurant, in Dallas or any city, that achieves enduring popularity and critical praise but decides to pause at the crest of its success to regroup and make itself even better.

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