Dallas Food Blog

When it comes to movie holidays, Thanksgiving usually takes a back seat to that overplayed holiday in December. The one with the elves. The one that rhymes with "isthmus." (Sort of.)

But why the second-class status, Thanksgiving? The holiday's got all the same potential for family chaos, waxing moral on the spirit of the holiday, and elaborate turkey disasters, without any of the reindeer and polar bears. The only animal you're going to see in a Thanksgiving movie is the one that's about to get eaten.

Our own best movie memories from Thanksgiving involve falling asleep on the couch during USA Network's Planet of the Apes marathon, but here are 10 films that get the holiday meal just right.

10. Grumpy Old Men

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Honestly, we haven't seen this movie in like 15 years, but something about Walter Matthau calling Jack Lemmon a dickhead on a cold Minnesota morning just screams Thanksgiving. There may or may not have been an actual turkey dinner in there, too, though we might be confusing it with the sequel, Grumpier Old Men.

Photos by Patrick Michels

The john at Neighborhood Services: Just like being back at home, if the kids ever remembered to refill the ice in the sink.

​Normally we roll out a Top 10 list in this space. But, quite honestly, we stalled somewhere around number six.

Yet bathrooms are surprisingly important. A clean, bright and polished space reassures guests of the entire operation's standards while a smudged, rusty room with splash marks all over the floor is enough to drive many people away.

There's no real need for anything fancy. On the other hand, some restaurateurs know the value when patrons return to their tables, flushed with excitement, and say to their friends "you won't believe the bathrooms in this place."

But, like I said, our list dribbled to a stop after we'd awarded sixth spot to Cowboy Chow, for their unisex space. The French Room and Charlie Palmer are impressive. Fuse and Rise No. 1 (how appropriate) are worthy of note. There there's...well, just too many nice but otherwise indistinguishable bathrooms to really shake out a full Top 10.

There are, however, five truly impressive Dallas restaurant bathrooms:

Patrick Michels

A year ago, you could smoke in Adair's. Now there's no excuse for not getting a burger.

​Defining a dive is never easy. It's open to debate, for example, whether a dive bar should serve more than bags of chips or bowls of stale nuts.

Therefore, creating this list involved a bit of craftsmanship. We decided to exclude taquerias, barbecue joints and established Mexican destinations such as Ojeda's and Avila's. We didn't know what to make of Mai's, so we scratched it and all the storefront Vietnamese spots, too. Then we discounted anything with the word "Diner" in its name--a whole different category, you understand. And, lastly, we barred Allgood Cafe and other far-too-clean spaces.

Yet, as you will see, we included a few spots that aren't rightly dives but serve better food than their surroundings would normally promise.

We admit up front there may be flaws in this approach. With all that in mind, we present the top ten food dives:

10. Midway Point
How long has this place been around? Quite a while, and they're still serving thick burgers, meaty sandwiches and such. Since Dallas became a smoke free city, you can also smell all that sizzling, beefy grease. (12801 Midway)

9. Adair's
This Deep Ellum joint is almost legendary. Because of its stature and line up of live entertainment, it is hard to commit it to dive status. Then again, there are those filthy, hand scribbled walls and the ever popular burgers. (2624 Commerce)

​How long has the Hershey's bar occupied grocery shelves? It's just a sheath of inferior chocolate, but you can pick one up just about anywhere. Meanwhile, far more interesting treats disappear from the shelves.

The way we eat and our taste in foods is subject to whims, nudged by marketing campaigns, altered by factors such as availability and health standards. When fast food restaurants began popping up, for example, the drive-in fell out of favor.

Some of this is easy to explain, of course. Chop suey houses faded from the American landscape when more authentic dishes became readily available. Sometimes, however, the disappearance of an item makes no sense at all.

Either way, there are times when we all stop, look back, and think "I used to love those things."

So here are the 10 we miss the most:

10. Kellogg's Danish Go-Rounds
Like Pop-Tarts, these were boxed toaster pastries with fruit filling. But somehow they were so much better. Why? The shape was different--a kind of serpentine, lower intestines-ish swirl. The sugary glaze carried more sweetness your taste buds. And they just seemed more sophisticated. So naturally the company ditched these in favor of the more plebeian tart.

9. Home delivery of milk
Some places still offer the service. For the most part, however, home delivery is a thing of the past. We're not really sure if grocery shopping is more or less convenient than having someone drop off a gallon or two on a regular basis. Guess if you need something right away, the store is better. But there was something comfortable in the idea of a milkman, wasn't there? Or maybe that's just nostalgia talking.

Photos by Danny Fulgencio

Pouring number five, harsh and overbearing with supposed Scottish influences.

​We were inspired a year ago by the promotion of a holiday drink called the Nog-a-sake--an eggnog and sake creation playing on the bombing of Nagasaki--to come up with other inappropriate cocktails.

With Halloween just a few days away, it seemed appropriate to dust off these dreaded drinks, these goblets of ghastliness these...oh, forget it.

If, for the December celebrations, patrons at a local restaurant could toast incinerated bodies and other fun Atomic age memories, then what's to stop a Halloween nod to Union Carbide, Idi Amin or others worse? Hell, in real life people knock back Irish Car Bombs, a little tribute to "the troubles."

To test out our list, we visited the Windmill Lounge, pulling the old "can you mix these together, we want to see what it tastes like" trick. No way were we going to tell owner/bartender Louise Owens she was really making a Chernobylini. In the end, we tossed out some pretty frightening cocktails--the Contra Libre, for example, and the Lee Harvey Wallbanger.

But we settled on ten horrific drinks.

10. Osama bin Lager
Essentially this is a non-alcoholic beer followed by a B-52 chaser. No need to be literal on the lager part, as any alcohol-free brew will do. Just sip the beer, down the flaming shot and repeat until...well, the party never seems to end, does it? You will need non-alcoholic beer, Kahlua, Bailey's, Grand Marnier and some matches.

Patrick Michels

Because even with garlic sauce on one side and grape topping on the other, this fried butter love affair can only last so long.

​Every year, vendors on the state fair circuit push the limits of fried excess: chicken fried bacon, deep fried peanut butter cups and, of course, this year's famous fried butter.

The farther they push, however, the more we all realize how far out those limits really are. Despite years of experimentation with guacamole and Snickers bars, there's a universe of yet-to-be-fried foods waiting to be discovered.

Walking around this year's fair, we saw no fried green tea acai ice cream, no batter-crusted Tootsie Pops or Weight Watchers snacks. No one even dares fry up some sushi.

Still, we think it's possible to find the limit, both of excess and taste--if we deep fry the right foods:

10. Chewing Gum
OK, so it's not really food--but there are a lot of possibilities here. For example, fry cooks could dip fruit flavored gum into beignet batter or a pair an herbal dough with Wrigley's spearmint so you could freshen their breath while you eat. And the flavor lasts a long, long time.

We often wonder why anyone would decide to own a restaurant. Not only can profit margins be thin, they also rise and fall on whims. Hire an inept server? Customers at that table will never return.

It's a precarious business.

From the guest's point of view, however, there's no reason to reward a bad experience. We've all encountered an uninformed waiter fumbling through explanations of that night's specials, a manager who refused to correct some mistake, or watched staff members fawn over those at the next table while ignoring yours.

There are, of course, issues a restaurateur can't control--the vagaries of Dallas' alcohol laws, for instance, or that screaming baby at the next table. But of those they can, these are the most annoying:

10. Wait staff asking "How is everything" at all the wrong moments
You know they're just trying to be polite, just fulfilling an obligation set down by management. But they can also see that you've chomped down on close to half of that burger only moments earlier. With cheeks puffed out and eyes bulging, you're hoping to survive this bite without having to find out who in the dining room knows the Heimlich maneuver. That's when they descend, all chirpy and bright, to pop the question. Happens every time.

As a rule, high-end food photography is supposed to make you hungry. Give the food some soft light, frame it carefully and from just the right distance and it'll look even better on film than it does on your plate.

But then there's the strange alternate reality of album covers, where diesel #2 stands in for coffee, meat is decontextualized, and spaghetti is treated with a nauseating close-up. And that's all short of mentioning the worst thing music ever did to a great food: The Bacon Brothers.

With that in mind, here are our picks for the 10 best uses of food in album art:
​10. Jason & The Scorchers -- Clear Impetuous Morning
"How's about a high-octane refill, sugar?"

Photos by Patrick Michels

Fried food, sure, but why stop there?

​OK, so you gotta have a corn dog. And you'd kick yourself if you didn't try one of this year's fried novelties.

But the big event offers more than a line up of stick foods and wild creations. In amongst monotonous stalls selling Fletcher's dogs, bagged cotton candy and grease-crusted Snickers bars, there are those known for more credible fare.

With the exception of our number one choice (and number seven, but that doesn't really count), none of these would stand restaurant scrutiny. Of course, that's not what you visit Big Tex for, is it? Still, if you have a few coupons left after treating yourself to the fair food necessities, there are plenty of better-than-expected dishes to be found.

Here are the top ten.

10. Catfish Floyd's 2-piece basket
At least two Midway locations
You're weighing the decision: corn dogs or fried catfish. Then it hits you--not only is the lowly bottom dweller a true Southern dish, but you're also debating between fluffy farm raised fish and heavily processed, nitrate laden pig scraps. Yes, the 2-piece catch at Catfish Floyd's costs twice as much (16 coupons) as a corn dog. But you get two--and a clear conscience.

The restaurant scene in Monty Python's Meaning of Life.

​Hollywood has provided us with any number of memorable food-related moments. The explosive restaurant scene in Monty Python's Meaning of Life comes to mind, as does Woody Allen's attempt to drive a lobster from behind a fridge by scaring it with a bowl of clarified butter in Annie Hall. And who could forget Groucho Marx's soliloquy from Animal Crackers: "Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west, and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce, they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does."

In putting this list together, we first eliminated from contention any film specifically about food or restaurants--which means you won't find favorite lines from Ratatouille, Julie & Julia or Alive. Next we excluded alcohol-related bits, including our all-time favorite, Vivien Leigh's "a shot never did a Coke any harm" from A Streetcar Named Desire. Then we began a rigorous winnowing process.

Several great lines failed to make the cut, of course, such as Christopher Guest's Corky St. Clair (Waiting for Guffman) praising a Remains of the Day lunchbox and the famous "leave the gun, take the cannoli" from The Godfather. But we did settle on ten classics.

10. Duck Soup (Groucho Marx as Rufus T. Firefly, to Margaret Dumont)

"I can see you right now in the kitchen, bending over a hot stove. But I can't see the stove."

The setting: Groucho, the president of Fredonia but not an entirely wealthy (or scrupulous) man, is flirting with rich (and rather sizeable) widow Gloria Teasdale, played by Dumont. Groucho is ever the romantic: Can I ask for a lock of your hair? A lock of my hair? You're getting off lucky; I was going to ask for the whole wig.

Finally, he leans back and imagines he and the widow as a married couple. Then utters the top ten line.

Patrick Michels

Are you buying what he's selling? Or are you waiting for the cart?

​Seattle has ballpark sushi, San Francisco spawned a garlic fry renaissance, and the world can thank St. Louis' Gateway Grizzlies for the Krispy Kreme burger. But there was a time when Dallas ran on the cutting edge of sports food innovation this town invented ballpark nachos, while the rest of the country still sang about peanuts and Cracker Jack.

Now that stadium foodservice has grown up around the country, garlic fries, fancy hot dogs with German names and Dippin' Dots have become as standard as the once-novel nacho.

Where can you turn today for your mid-inning thrills? Read on for the most surprising (for better or worse) dining options in DFW sports...

Patrick Michels

There's plenty more where that came from.

​5. Dr Pepper Park
Bob Evans Teddy Express Tent
The all-you-can-eat-seat trend has spread across the Majors, so the Rangers' baseball buffet in the $34 Upper Home Run Porch is pretty much par for the course. Sure, you might not see a hell of a lot on the field, but your mind will be so clogged with nitrates, you'll won't make out much of anything past your own gut.

But being turned away from a dining area in the minors is a wholly different experience. Minor league baseball should be an escape from the drumbeat of Major League trends, a place to spin around a baseball bat and race between innings, to drink until the mascot starts to look like something found in nature, then relieve yourself in a room of troughs and concrete, not porcelain.

So the all-you-can-eat tickets at Frisco RoughRiders games come as a bit of a surprise. In true minor league, though, the buffet line's a mix of premium hot dogs (almost certainly gone before you get there) and the filler tube-steaks meant to take up space in the later innings. Get there early, though, and you've got a Major League experience with a AAA view of the game.

Patrick Michels

Do you know this bacon? If not, read on...

​When we found out about a National Bacon Day, some of us fell into a near fugue state. Finally--a nation fixed on celebrating, oh, labor and presidents and fat elves and the greeting card/chocolates industry found something worthwhile to honor.

No need to rhapsodize about bacon. Nature's most perfect food translates into almost any culinary language (speck, pancetta, Canadian) and takes to just about any form of curing, from air dried to applewood smoked. Fans can join bacon of the month clubs or the Royal Bacon Society. There's even turkey bacon for those not allowed to eat the real stuff.

And the federal bacon holiday? Well, unfortunately it falls on Saturday this year. As celebrity spokesperson and hog meat advocate Homer Simpson says, "mmm..."--eh, you've heard it a thousand times.

So, drawing on the best bacon-related dishes served in Dallas restaurants, we present the top 10 ways bacon makes any dish better. You can...

austrini, via Flickr

Allen at its most scenic

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Take a look at that grid of little boxes. Just like East Dallas, really--with newer homes and fewer trees. And no backyard chicken farming.

Just this afternoon we received a note from Brian Rudolph, urging us to visit his Holy Grail Pub (an Old Monk spin-off), located somewhere in the 'burbs. "I know that it is a long hike from inside the loop," he wrote apologetically. Clearly he expected some sort of negative grunt in response.

Oh, well--urban provincialism exists in just about every city. We're not really certain why. Something in human nature causes us to deem one territory (usually, though not always, our own) as cool and others as white bread, homogeneous, soulless pockets of fast food loving dullard slime.

Dallas defines itself in narrow bands, such as Uptown, The Village and more broadly, Inside The Loop. Those who live in such places scoff at anything a few miles north, calling it "Oklahoma." Thus we've often been told there's nothing worthwhile in Plano. No reason to drive to Irving. Nothing at all in Carrollton--although that used to be true.

But the rest of it? Well, here are ten reasons to reconsider...
 
10. A willingness to travel
Well, perhaps willingness isn't the right word. Folks who live in the 'burbs travel by necessity to jobs, soccer practice, restaurants, or whatever. Hell, most probably drive a few miles just to have a nice walk in the park. But this very mobility gives residents of the city's nether regions a better sense of what's available in and around Dallas than those trapped inside the loop.

Patrick Michels

Estavan Galindo of Hattie's prepares for the Restaurant Week onslaught.

​Several days into the annual charity event and we've finally had a chance to poke through some menus.

Now, we weren't looking for the best item or the most original. What we want from KRLD Restaurant Week--aside from a cheap three or four course dinner--is something that jumps from the list and causes one of those "that's interesting, I'll have to try it" reactions.

With more than 100 kitchens participating, there were plenty of candidates. We considered the confit pork belly at Abacus, an entree of Kobe meatloaf prepared by Roy's or even Tramontana's grilled pear salad. Eventually, however, we decided on the following:


10. Turtle soup (Randy's Steakhouse)
It's just a dish you don't see very often, especially in the rarified steak palace world. Of course, Randy's is in Frisco and can slum it a bit. For this year's Restaurant Week menu, they follow a New Orleans recipe, so expect some Cajun or Creole seasoning.

Yeah, yeah--pretty damn juvenile of us...not to mention downright sexist.

But, damn it, if Danica Patrick can embrace beauty as well as hard nose racing skill, then we're allowed the occasional foray into 'babe-licious' territory.

​Now, it wasn't an easy process. After much hemming and hawing, we had to pass up the quite cute Julia Lopez of Alo. We considered including Jill Bates (one of Fearing's crew) based on name--sounds a lot like Jail Bait--as well as looks. Ultimately, however, she was sliced. Could have included Katie Brown of George Catering and Robin Gill Lacy, formerly at Cliff Cafe, as well.

Instead, here are the hottest things standing in Dallas area kitchens:

Europeans have fresh, seasonal foods, universal health care and about 30 weeks of vacation each year. But we have milkshakes.

OK--so they serve a literal version: milk shaken with some flavoring. Ours involve ice cream, crammed into a glass and churned with a little milk (or, better yet, cream) into a thick, heavy mass. No fitting into Speedos after a couple of American shakes.

To us, the best shakes strike a difficult balance: thick enough to stand a spoon in but thin enough to draw through a straw, all the way to the bottom. They need only two ingredients, drawing flavor and mouth feel from the ice cream itself--although dressing the glass with whipped cream is just fine.

All photos by Patrick Michels

​Note that we're not claiming "top 10" this time. Instead, we sought out ten vanilla milkshakes, assigning points for quality of ice cream, the tricky thickness/thinness ratio, faux pas like the use of a mix, presentation, etc.

So, here are 10 Dallas milkshakes. The scores are based on 100 points and we present them worst to first.

10. Mooyah North Dallas (34 points)
Gawd. The taste of chemical mix and cheap ice cream. Even if they claim all-natural ingredients, the tinny-silt taste of mix crept in there somehow. Call it coppery, sludge like, whatever. We just call it a failure.

9. Jake's Addison (48 points)
They're not really shake experts here. In fact, the bartenders shoot you strange looks when you walk in during the NASCAR race and ask for one. Or maybe they've tried the shakes--aerated, artificial, slimy--hence the grimace.

8. Keller's Drive-In (49 points)
Gotta love museum pieces like Keller's. Keeping your car running on a blistering summer day while you eat--nothing better for the environment. Shake-wise they lose points for thickness, the concoction forming into unset concrete, impossible to pull through a straw. When you finally manage, you realize all that red-faced effort has been for a glob of low-quality ice cream. Great.

basheertome, via Flickr

​Bards and poets from Shakespeare to INXS have pointed out that words, wielded with force and intent, are weapons sharper than thorns on a rose. But what do we know? We prefer watching Shakespeare in movie form (My Own Private Idaho was his best work) and we've never liked INXS.

Still, the choice of one word over another can trigger completely different responses on the part of the reader. Gastro-pub, for example--is it pretentious or trendy or useless. We think the latter, though it didn't make our list.

With that in mind, here are the words (or phrases--we don't want to limit ourselves too much) we find either useless or downright irritating.

10. Traditional Caesar salad
Not that we don't want to use this phrase, mind you. It's just so hard to find a classic Caesar--you know, no chunks of grilled lobster, no toasted pepita, no organic quinoa, just a plain old salad with the original ingredients, nothing more.

​9. World-renowned chef Jamie Oliver
We think this is pretty much self-explanatory. As a young cook, he was hand-picked by a television producer for stardom because of his, um, sex-appeal--if you can believe that. At least that's how one story goes.

When we sat down and thought about this, so many names popped into mind that if they were diseases, we'd be riddled. There was a time when few people mentioned Joel Harloff (Dali Wine Bar) or Brian Luscher (The Grape), but those days are fading. Michael Zeve of Sevy's or Jeffery Hobbs at Suze are both highly accomplished second fiddles, so to speak. When's the last time you saw Randy Morgan of Dallas Fish Market mentioned anywhere. And who, for that matter, runs the kitchen at La Palapa Veracruza? We could bring up staff at Mia's, Mai's or...well, you see what we're dealing with. So we settled on chefs in the mid- to upscale market working in stand alone restaurants...with one exception we just couldn't resist.

10. Mansour Gorji, Canary Café

OK, so he promotes himself shamelessly--his name still rarely comes up in conversation, and he's doing all that marketing without professional assistance (at least that we know about). Gorji specializes in Mediterranean cuisine, but won the Texas Steak Cookoff in Hico on two occasions. And he has been known to offer "world tour" dinners, allowing the Addison chef to show even greater range.

You probably remember the moment you first saw Jessica Simpson slink into a Pizza Hut and, quite seductively, feed some dorky tween an oh-so-cheesy popper while moaning the line "one of these days these bites are gonna pop right into you." Yeah, it was pre-the now post- Tony Romo and she might have been desperate--for the cash, if not a real boy toy.

Jacqueline Lambiase, a professor from Shefer School of Journalism at Texas Christian University and co-author for a series of books on advertising, notes that while sex has been used in advertising since the 1800s, the Jessica commercial spawned a "reincarnation" of food spots that use "sexual ads to grab people's attention." Take a look for yourself as we present the Top 10 smuttiest food ads around in print, on TV and on the web.

10. Jessica Simpson for Pizza Hut cheesy bites

The aforementioned ad could be seen as a kind of wet dream with food involved or the deflowering of a teenage boy by a more experienced women who happens to be wielding a pizza.

Alexa Schirtzinger

Hey Olivella's -- think this is good enough to land you on our list? Yeah, it is.

Dallas, as we've discovered over the past half-year, has a surprising wealth of options for vegans and vegetarians. And though its shining stars are usually the veg-only places--Spiral Diner, Kalachandji's, Veggie Garden and the like--that doesn't always leave room for vegans to bring along our good ol' meat-eating friends.

With that in mind, we've produced this list of places where the most red-blooded of meat eaters can enjoy meals alongside their vegetarian or vegan friends, where omnivores don't have to eat tofu and vegans can order something other than fries and a salad. Herewith, the top options--be they highbrow or lowbrow, costly or cheap--with something truly pleasing for everyone:

The Top 10 Vegan-Friendly Restaurants in Dallas

Programs on Food Network and Bravo and such have become a kind of obsession with some folks. But as current hot shows lose their sizzle and new stars emerge, will we remember Throwdown, Top Chef and the like?

Certain shows remain in our thoughts, however, popping to mind at odd moments. Others influenced generations either to cook or appreciate good food. And there were those that, through their week to week travels, opened our minds. To create this list, we had to dispense with some favorites. You'll find no Yan, no Madeleine Kamman (sorry).

So here is our list of the 10 best ever cooking shows.

Patrick Michels

Things could get ugly once Taco Diner gets a look at our number 9

Not gonna lie--it's rather a difficult task, placing these in an order we're completely happy with. Preferences for size, atmosphere and noise level of a patio can change rather abruptly, after all. And factors such as cloud cover dictate whether it's comfortable to sit outside of Social House or under State & Allen Lounge's roof.

So we tried to give fair shake to a range of different patio styles, from the Spartan to the raucous to the upscale and serene. With that in mind, we give you...

The Best Patios in Uptown

Patrick Michels

The suspense... does Primo's make our list? Um, yeah.

No matter where, when or what topic, a few readers always seem to interpret 'overrated' as 'gut-wrenchingly bad.'

But our list of the 10 most overrated restaurants in Dallas includes several we heartily recommend to visitors. And not a single one of them--with maybe one or two exceptions--would be considered sub par.

We consider 'overrated' to be the haven of venues like Twisted Root (good, but not national TV good) and Primo's (popular, but why?). So our list includes those restaurants receiving far more attention than seems justified, whether from the media or the dining public. That being said, we've put together the current top ten most overrated restaurants in Dallas -- a fitting way to cap off the work week, and you can check it out here.

Update: The above link has been fixed, so if you were denied earlier, you're all clear to walk through our top 10 now.