Ask someone from Philadelphia what to eat and you’ll have an answer before you finish the question. Same in Buffalo. Same in Louisville. Ask someone in Dallas and you get a pause, then a list, then an argument.
That pause deserves a closer look. Dallas has fed the country more than it gets credit for, and it has never settled on the one plate it would put on its own flag. So let’s try.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
The bowl comes to the table almost empty. A neat little pile of smoked chicken, shredded cabbage, radish, avocado, cheddar and tortilla strips sits in the bottom, and then a server pours the broth over all of it right in front of you. It is a small bit of theater for a soup that has been part of Dallas dining for more than four decades. Dean’s Tortilla Soup at Fearing’s is one of the most famous bowls of soup in Texas, and it took a long road to get here.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Back in the early ’90s, the best thing at Mia’s Tex-Mex wasn’t on the menu. You had to know to ask for it, you had to come on a Wednesday, and you had to get there before it ran out.
Today it has a name, Butch’s Original Brisket Tacos, and it’s the dish Mia’s is known for all over Dallas.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
The cheese enchilada is the plate nobody brags about. Two corn tortillas, cheese, chili gravy. Nowhere to hide. You either have it or you don’t.
Tupinamba has it, and has had it longer than almost anybody in Dallas.
The cheese enchiladas come out on a plate hot enough that the cheese is still moving. The gravy is dark and beefy with none of the flat canned taste that ruins this dish all over town, and the tortillas hold instead of dissolving. That’s the test, and most kitchens fail it.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
