Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, which means the whole weekend belongs to costumes, candy and the question every parent asks by mid-October: where are we going? Here is the family-friendly side of Halloween in Dallas-Fort Worth, with no jump scares, no chainsaws and nothing that will keep a five-year-old awake at 2 a.m.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Mole is the dish that separates a Mexican kitchen that is cooking from one that is trying. A true mole from scratch can take days. It can call for 30 ingredients or more. It cannot be rushed, it cannot be faked, and when it is done right, there is nothing else like it.
The word comes from the Nahuatl molli, which simply means sauce, but there is nothing simple about what lands on the plate. A mole is built in stages. Dried chiles are toasted, soaked and pureed. Nuts and seeds are ground. Spices are bloomed. Chocolate, fruit, bread or tortillas go in as thickeners. The whole thing is cooked low and slow until every ingredient loses itself in the others. What comes out is a sauce that changes with every bite, starting sweet or smoky, turning earthy, finishing with a slow heat that builds and fades. Most diners know mole poblano, the dark, brick-red sauce from Puebla that shows up on enchiladas across the country. That is one mole out of hundreds.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Every October, a handful of North Texas buildings stop pretending to be warehouses and meatpacking plants and go back to what they apparently always wanted to be, which is terrifying. Dallas-Fort Worth has one of the strongest haunted house scenes in the country, including the attraction USA Today readers just voted the best in America. If you want a real scare before Halloween, these are worth the drive.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Fort Worth finally has its Michelin star, and it went to a barbecue joint on Dick Price Road. Anyone who has stood in that line on a Saturday morning will tell you it was only a matter of time.
The 2026 Michelin Guide Texas arrived this morning with no ceremony and no red carpet, just a list posted online. North Texas came away with a modest but meaningful update. Here is what actually happened, straight from Michelin’s own selections, and what we make of it.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
On the southeast edge of Fort Worth, near Kennedale, on a stretch of Dick Price Road that most Dallasites could not find without a map, sits a small barbecue joint with a red wall, a few smokers and a line that starts forming well before the doors open. As of this week, it is also the first restaurant in Fort Worth history to earn a Michelin star.
Goldee’s Bar-B-Q had already been a two-time Bib Gourmand. On October 8 the inspectors bumped it up to one star, writing that it is absolutely worth the hours-long wait in the Texas sun.
Continue readingFiled under Crave, Steven Doyle
Monday, October 26, is Texas Chicken Fried Steak Day, and yes, it is official. In 2011 the Texas House of Representatives passed House Resolution 1419, sponsored by state Rep. Ralph Sheffield of Temple, recognizing the date. The push came from Dallas hospitality veteran Jeffrey Yarbrough and singer Jimmy Baldwin, who figured a state that has a holiday for nearly everything ought to have one for its signature plate. The resolution notes that restaurants were already celebrating the second annual observance that fall, so the tradition actually started in 2010.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Come Thursday morning, a lot of chefs in Dallas and Fort Worth will be hitting refresh on their email.
The Michelin Guide will release its third Texas selection on Thursday, October 8. This time there’s no ceremony. The last two years, Michelin threw a big night in Houston and chefs found out in front of a room full of their peers. This year the stars, Bib Gourmands and Recommended picks show up in a press release.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Ask a bartender who has worked a few closing shifts in an old building, and sooner or later you’ll hear about the door that swings shut by itself, or the footsteps upstairs after everyone has gone home.
Believe it or don’t. Either way, every stop below is open, pours a good drink and has a ghost story that has outlasted generations of staff. With Halloween coming, here’s where to have a drink with the dearly departed in Dallas and Fort Worth.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
