The State Fair has packed up, the pumpkins are still out, and Dallas finally has weather that makes you want to leave the house. This weekend, October 23 through 25, brings Rachmaninoff at the Meyerson, a folk hero at the Majestic, a Texas songwriter in one of the city’s oldest dance halls, and three very good meals in between. Here’s how to spend it.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
The heat finally broke, the patios are full again, and nobody in Dallas has to sweat through a shirt just to sit outside with a cold one. This is the season the city waits all summer for. Round up a few friends, pick a spot, and let a Saturday afternoon stretch until somebody remembers they had plans.
Here are five places that do day drinking right, from Lower Greenville to Oak Cliff, with a little something for the beer people, the brunch people and the friend who only drinks mezcal.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Christmas has hundreds of songs. The Fourth of July has a few that can still shake a stadium. Texas Chicken Fried Steak Day, which lands on Monday, October 26 this year, has exactly one, and it came from a Dallas guy who figured the world might get along better over a plate of cream gravy.
The song is “Peace, Love & Chicken Fried Steak,” written by Jimmy Baldwin, a Dallas singer-songwriter who spends his days in advertising and his nights with a guitar. By the blessing of the State of Texas, it is the official song of the official holiday. Not many anthems can show paperwork.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Dallas has a habit of chasing the newest restaurant in town. Meanwhile, some of the best cooking in the city happens year after year in places that rarely make the hot lists. This column is for those restaurants.
We are starting with Off the Bone Barbeque, a family-run Dallas barbecue joint in the Cedars that has been smoking ribs out of an old gas station since 2008.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Somewhere in Dallas there is a booth you sat in at seven years old, feet dangling a good foot above the floor. Maybe it was Saturday lunch after a soccer game. Maybe it was a birthday dinner where an uncle complained about the tea. You have no idea what anyone talked about that day.
You remember the plate, though.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Every year on October 15, crabbers along Florida’s Gulf Coast and in the Keys start pulling traps, and within a few days Dallas starts asking the same question it asks every fall. Who has stone crab? This year the answer came quickly. Chamberlain’s Steak & Fish announced the claws were back on Monday, October 19, and the season is now well underway.
Most people around here know stone crab as a cold plate of cracked claws and a ramekin of mustard sauce at a steakhouse. A little background on where those claws come from makes the next order a smarter one.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Sit down at just about any Tex-Mex place in Dallas and a basket of warm chips hits the table before the server asks about drinks. There’s a bowl of salsa next to it. Nobody ordered either one, and nobody is going to put them on the check. Empty the basket and another one comes.
We take it for granted around here. The free basket hasn’t always been part of the deal, though, and the way it got here has more to do with the snack aisle than with tradition.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
For as long as Uchi has been in North Texas, getting in has meant a dinner reservation. That changes next month in Plano.
Uchiko Plano starts serving lunch on Friday, Nov. 6. It’s the first time any of Hai Hospitality’s Uchi restaurants in Dallas-Fort Worth, including Uchi and Uchibā Dallas, has opened its doors at midday. Lunch will run Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays only, from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
