The cinnamon roll at The Mecca was roughly the size of a dinner plate, and people still bring it up more than a decade after the restaurant closed. It shut down in 2014. It’s been gone long enough now that anyone under thirty has to take the size of that roll on faith.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Shakshuka is eggs poached in a simmering pan of tomatoes, peppers, onion, and garlic, spiced with cumin, paprika, and enough cayenne or harissa for real bite. The name comes from Arabic and roughly means “mixture” — about as literal as a dish name gets. The sauce cooks down slow until it holds its shape, then the eggs go in whole, cracked into wells carved out of the sauce, and the pan finishes under a lid or in the oven until the whites set and the yolks stay loose enough to burst at the first touch of a fork.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
The Zodiac Room opened on the sixth floor of the downtown Neiman Marcus flagship in April 1953, designed by New York decorator Eleanor LeMaire around a celestial theme, with signs of the zodiac worked into both the main dining room and the terrace. Stanley Marcus wanted a restaurant that would give out-of-town shoppers a reason to stay downtown longer, and for more than seven decades it did exactly that. On September 30, when the downtown store closes for good, the room closes with it. It’s a room CraveDFW has written about before, back when its future still seemed settled.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
The corny dog was born at the State Fair of Texas in 1942, when Neil and Carl Fletcher figured out how to get a hot dog on a stick into hot oil without it falling apart. Eighty-four years later, a member of that same family just won one of the fair’s biggest honors by taking the family’s own invention apart and putting it back together as dessert.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
The Pizzeria Testa building on Greenville Avenue has sat with new owners for over a year now, and what’s coming next is finally close enough to talk about.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Charles Olalia just left one of Dallas’s most storied kitchens, and the story of how he got there in the first place is most of the reason this move matters.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
The building at 1208 W. Magnolia Ave. spent years as Cat City Grill. It’s now home to Mary Perez’s Enchiladas ¡Olé! and her barbecue spinoff, Holy Cue, sharing one kitchen and one dining room for the first time.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Henderson Avenue has a new bar with a twang, and it landed in exactly the right spot.
Stay Darlin’ opened this summer at 2929 N. Henderson Ave., in the old Sissy’s Southern Kitchen space, right where Tecovas, McKinney Hat Company, and Rancher Hat Bar have all set up shop within a block of each other. Put a boot store on three corners of an intersection and eventually somebody opens a bar to match. Stay Darlin’ is that bar.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
