Lavendou Bistro Provençal has just picked up its Wine Spectator Award of Excellence again, and the number worth sitting with is the streak behind it. This is the eleventh year in a row the North Dallas restaurant has earned the recognition, a run stretching back to 2015 that puts it in a small club of DFW restaurants that keep their wine programs sharp enough to earn the award annually rather than occasionally.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Most people drive past Gilgamesh Restaurant & Bakery without a second thought. It sits in a shopping center on Terrace Drive in Richardson, the kind of address that doesn’t announce itself. That’s a mistake worth correcting, because what’s happening inside that kitchen is some of the most authentic Iraqi cooking in the Dallas area.
The menu is rooted in Mesopotamian tradition — the kind of food that gets passed down through generations, not invented for a trend. Bread baked fresh daily comes to the table first, and it sets the tone for everything that follows.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Tony Street had been in the restaurant business his whole life — his family’s legacy, not a career he chose so much as one he grew up inside. Jab Street came up differently, learning her craft over ten years as a chef at Toys Café before bringing that background to Dallas. What they shared was an obsession with Thai food done right, and eventually that shared obsession became a restaurant. Family Thais Asian Bistro opened in 2019 at 208 N. Market Street in the West End, ten tables, counter service, and has been the best Thai restaurant in Dallas ever since.
Continue readingFiled under Crave, Steven Doyle
Chinese-Mexican fusion sounds like a joke until you understand where it comes from. In the late 1800s, Chinese laborers working on the railroads and in the mines of northern Mexico put down roots rather than returning home. Over generations they built communities — in Mexicali, in Sonora, in Baja California — and their food blended with the Mexican cooking around them in ways that produced something completely its own. Birria and dim sum. Chile heat and wok smoke. Tacos with fillings nobody in either tradition had tried before. It’s a genuine culinary history, and most people in Texas have never encountered it.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
New York’s food writers have been saying it for a year: Lisbon is the next great dining city to influence American restaurants. Not a prediction — a present-tense statement. The pintxos bars and conservas counters and wine-forward tascas that built Lisbon’s reputation are showing up in Manhattan, in Brooklyn, in the neighborhoods where food-obsessed people pay attention to what’s coming next. The question for Dallas isn’t whether Portuguese food is having a moment. It’s why nobody here has moved on it yet.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Malai Kitchen, a staple in the Dallas dining scene, is set to open their fourth location inside Preston Center Shopping Center at 6130 Luther Lane, Dallas, TX 75225 (former Bartaco space) on Tuesday, November 2. The restaurant will be open seven days a week for lunch, dinner and weekend brunch.
Husband and wife duo, Yasmin and Braden Wages, who own and operate Malai Kitchen, are known for their modern take on Thai and Vietnamese cuisine.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
by Steven Doyle
Well, you went and did it. You did the beer before liquor and now have never been sicker. Or perhaps too many sulfites from that red wine you blasted through last night. Or you simply just drank too much and now are suffering an epic hangover. We get it. No, we really get it and have a cure for that. We have a few hangover relief tricks, plus a list of some really good local foods that will help ease the pain of the season.
First, let’s seriously look at how you might prevent that hangover to begin with. And we do not mean abstinence. That cannot possibly be any fun. Continue reading
Filed under Steven Doyle
Six and a half years after opening their Southeast Asian restaurant in
the heart of Uptown Dallas, Braden and Yasmin Wages will open the doors to their third location in Fort Worth’s The Shops at Clearfork on Monday, October 9, 2017.
“We’re excited to bring our modern take on Thai and Vietnamese cuisine and refined service to Fort Worth’s burgeoning food scene,” says Braden. “We are proud and feel very fortunate to be included in the lineup of luxury destinations in The Shops at Clearfork.” Continue reading
Filed under Crave, Steven Doyle
