by Steven Doyle
Texas Chili Festival is a celebration of autumn that combines music and chili. The event will feature different North Texas chefs competing as they feature their culinary takes on the “Bowl o’ Red” traditions. Chili will be available for purchase, along with other food options, and participating chili Chef’s will provide 1 oz sampling portions while supplies last. Continue reading
by Steven Doyle
Pop Diner is this new and over-the-top 24-hour diner in Uptown Dallas. One of the last tenants to fill the Borders Books location the diner serves breakfast and diner fare all through the day and in the dark stretches of the morning hours. The owner, Nik Gjonaj, is originally from Detroit where he owns a successful chain of steakhouses called Luca’s Chophouse. Detroit is where his roots are, but he now divides his time between Texas and Michigan.
Detroit has their own style of cuisine that is a different take on many items we serve in Dallas, such as the hot dog. The Michigan dog is a definite style of dog you find primarily in that state, but seldom referred to it as such. That term is used by other states to describe the steamed dog, steamed bun and a rich beefy sauce. A coney if you with chile con carne. Continue reading
Filed under Chili, Steven Doyle, Uptown
by Steven Doyle
Recently the guys at Goodfriend Beer Garden and Burger House updated their menu adding new starters, sandwiches and burgers. The fresh new take on the elevated bar food has not gone unnoticed and the items we have sampled were incredible.
Chefs Jeana Johnson and Colleen O’Hare, who are actually owners of the neighboring Good 2 Go Taco, are the geniuses behind the food at Goodfriend. It is in their kitchen all the food is created and passed through to the wait staff for delivery. This symbiosis is genius and we all benefit from the skills of the chefs. Continue reading
Filed under Burgers, Chili, Hunt for a Bowl of red, Steven Doyle
by Steven Doyle
Last week we began a short series that explored chili in the DFW area. We began with Jack’s Southern Comfort Food located on lowest Greenville Avenue where we found some pretty tremendous chili. We are hoping to uncover more bowls as we continue our search. We have had many really interesting suggestions, and we plan to hit them all up to see if Dallas is really a chili town.
That being said, we loaded up the crave wagon and aimed it towards Grapevine where the legacy of chili resides. Tolbert’s Restaurant is now owned by Frank X. Tolbert’s daughter, Kathleen Tolbert Ryan who also runs the big chili festival in Terlingua, which I am mighty happy to make that pilgrimage each year in November. Continue reading
Filed under Chili, fun with food, Hunt for a Bowl of red, Steven Doyle
by Steven Doyle
It’s the right of passage for seasons; merging Summer into Fall in a spicy mélange set in a bowl of stewed meat. Chili gives us pause to celebrate, and many do as 8,000 people have qualified internationally to cook at one of two cook offs set in the desert near the Mexican border in Terlingua, Texas.
I wrote up the history of the cook off last week, detailing the highlights that produced the legendary event set in the Chihuahua desert. We just celebrated Terlingua’s 46th cook off in grand style with near perfect weather. The final night a gale-force wind swooped in, but otherwise you couldn’t ask for better weather. Continue reading
by Steven Doyle
The first weekend in November over 10,000 people, fondly referred to as chili-heads, converge onto the tiny former mining town in the Texas desert called Terlingua. Each year at this time the town with a population of no more than a few dozen play host to two of the largest chili cook-offs in the world. That’s right, two.
It all first began in 1967 and organized by Texas historian and chili aficionado Wick Fowler and car manufacturer Carroll Shelby as a means to settle a storied feud between two journalists; namely Frank X. Tolbert who wrote for the Dallas Morning News, and a gentleman by the name of H. Allen Smith who wrote a scathing article in Holiday Magazine entitled “Nobody Knows More About Chili Than I Do”. Continue reading
Filed under Chili, Steven Doyle, Terlingua, Texas
