Bonnie Shea spent years just trying to make sure her mother’s story didn’t disappear. Patty Lou Peters fronted an all-female western swing band called Patty Lou and the Texas Sweethearts back in the 1940s and 50s, back when female touring groups almost never existed. They piled into a convertible and drove routes stretching from Chicago to California, playing gigs along the way. Shea wanted people to know who her mother was. So she built her a restaurant.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Most people show up to the State Fair of Texas thinking about corny dogs and butter sculptures, and forget there’s an entire free music festival built into the ticket price. The Chevrolet Main Stage has been doing this for almost 30 years, and this year’s lineup is one of the more genre-scrambled ones the fair has put together in a while. Country one night, classic rock the next, then a Pink Floyd laser show, then a Norteño act, then a tribute band. Nobody’s pretending it’s curated for one kind of fan. It’s built for everybody who walks through the gate.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Behind a gas station and an auto shop on Lovers Lane, there’s a taco spot with no real sign, just a black wall with gold mortar marking where to walk in. It’s called Mi Rey Restaurant Bar, and it’s exactly the kind of place Dallas is full of and never talks about enough: family-owned, unfussy, and quietly excellent.
Inside, it’s a sports-bar kind of room, pool tables, a couple of TVs, casual seating, the sort of space built for a long lazy meal rather than a quick bite. The menu runs on the classics done right rather than anything trying to reinvent itself.
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There’s a restaurant style Dallas doesn’t make anymore, the kind with mismatched art on the walls, bottomless coffee that never seems to stop coming, and a crowd that ranges from college kids nursing a hangover to grandparents who’ve been coming since the place opened. Cafe Brazil is one of the last ones still doing it exactly right, and it’s been doing it since December 1991.
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This is the latest in our weekly Dish Explained series, where we take one dish from one culture and break down what it is, where it came from, and where to actually eat it in Dallas.
A month after it opened in April 2025, a restaurant in a Richardson strip mall got caught up in one of those TikTok moments that a small business can’t plan for. A video from a food account racked up nearly six million views, and suddenly people were driving across DFW for a dish most of them had never heard of. That dish is mandi, and once you understand what it actually is, the six million views make a lot more sense.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Francesco Farris was thirteen years old the first time he cooked for anyone other than his own family. It was New Year’s Eve, and he’d decided, the way only a thirteen-year-old can decide something like this, that he was going to make dinner for his friends. He remembered his mother’s simple pasta, just olive oil, garlic, and one long, thin chile pepper. He went to the market in Sardinia looking for that pepper. He couldn’t find one that size. So he grabbed ten of the small ones instead, figuring the math would work out.
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The State Fair of Texas runs September 25 through October 18 this year, and if you live here, it’s easy to treat it like an errand: drive in, eat a corny dog, drive home. But a fair weekend deserves better than that. Turn it into an actual staycation, and the whole thing changes shape. You get a night away from your own kitchen, a dinner worth dressing up for, and a full day at Fair Park with nowhere else to be.
Here’s how to build the weekend.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Burrito Bellas just opened on McKinney Avenue, and it’s doing something Uptown hasn’t quite seen before: putting Mexican and Italian food in the same burrito instead of picking a lane.
Shawn Horne is behind it, a longtime figure in Dallas dining with a resume that runs through Star Canyon, Aquaknox, and the Green Room. The idea is straightforward once you hear it. Take the comfort of a burrito and build it around the flavors of a classic Italian dish instead of the usual fillings. That gets you a chicken parmesan burrito, a sausage and pepper burrito, and a spaghetti and meatball version wrapped in a tortilla instead of served on a plate, alongside more traditional burritos and quesadillas for anyone who wants to keep it simple.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
