Dallas Blog

It shouldn't be this easy, right? I've pinned this entire column, too many times, on a long-winded kvetch about how many questions I have to ask--and how resentful I suspect the various wait staffers must feel--every time I go out to eat. So when I found out that not only does Chipotle disclose all of the ingredients to almost all of its burrito fixings online, but also that you can order online, I was flabbergasted at my own dispensability.

They don't need me! I thought frantically. The veg-heads of Dallas can easily deduce which beans are vegan-friendly (the black beans)! They can arrange their own combinations of vegan guacamole, veggies and various types of salsa! They can order their food online, too, eliminating the need for a middleman (or middle-woman) to tell them whether the service is good (it's fine) or the guy behind the counter is even attractive (he is).

You know those people who are disgustingly picky about where in a restaurant they sit? Those people who, no matter where a host or hostess puts them, want to sit somewhere else, and are willing to pull the strings and smile ingratiatingly enough to get themselves moved? And who then, once comfortably seated in their table of choice, complain about the air conditioner and cajole the server into turning it down?

Horrible people. And I'm undoubtedly, incorrigibly one of them.

This was exactly what transpired at Sushi Zushi one quiet weeknight recently. The restaurant--a dark, high-ceilinged, aggressively modern affair with club music pulsating throughout--was near empty, yet the hostess seated us next to an occupied table. It wasn't just "next to," either. It was New-York-next-to: the kind of dinner where, as in many a Manhattan bistro, you can tell exactly which date (second) the two people next to you are on and whether they like spicy food (absolutely not; too bad you recommended the vindaloo!).

My righteous indignation at having to sit so close to one of three other pairs of diners got the best of me, and my companion and I weaseled our way into a quiet little spot that looked out on the bamboo-lined patio. Here's where I should've just taken what I'd been given and been happy with it, but the air conditioning was blasting down as if it meant to cryogenically preserve us. And so I was forced to complain yet again...Alas.

My first introduction to a cucumber sandwich was sometime back in the mid-1990s, when I was a young teenager on some kind of church or tennis trip to the Deep South. Somewhere between Georgia and Louisiana, which might be Alabama, I remember stopping in a tiny town where the air hung thick around the ancient, mossy trees and reverberated with the incessant buzz of overzealous cicadas. In a little yellow cottage with a wrap-around porch, there was an old lady serving cold lemonade and cucumber sandwiches that reversed any preconceived notions I'd had about the South, restaurants in people's houses, or cucumbers as a respectable sandwich filling.

Several weeks ago, in Dallas, I experienced my first twinge of déjà vu, a sudden throwback to that Deep South summer at Crooked Tree Coffeehouse.

The shop is housed inside a charming old cottage, just a block from the McKinney Avenue trolley, with soothing music, lots and lots of power outlets, and an astoundingly friendly staff that doesn't hew to the sometimes snobbish ethic of Uptown. What's more, they serve good coffee. Oh yeah--and vegan cinnamon rolls.

This week, Veggie Girl braved the crowds of plastically enhanced Women Who Lunch to try out Houston's. Rumored to have one of the best house-made veggie burgers in Dallas, Houston's is part of the Hillstone Restaurant quasi-chain that includes R + D, across the street in Preston Center, and a few others scattered from Manhattan to Palm Beach.

I knew, in other words, that it wouldn't be cheap, but I was determined to try the veggie burger.

The servers at Houston's wear all black, with black aprons, and have their hair neatly swept back, creating a sort of clean-lined, Catholic orphanage look, and the bar is invariably populated with blond women (my friend Eduardo's "Find the Fake Blonde" game wouldn't be much fun here) with carefully sculpted bodies and fishlike lips.

("Now I know why I need biggg lips," e-mailed my lunch companion after we went our separate ways. "It is to keep the food in mouth. Hee...")

The quality of people watching is therefore quite high, and our server placed us at a table strategically positioned at the far end of the bar, where we could see everyone and they wouldn't notice us--indicating she either knew our intentions or that we just didn't look as good as the rest of the clientele. Either way, though, service was prompt and polite. And when we explained the parameters of veganism, our server happily brought us a whole grilled artichoke without butter--perfectly delicious, if a bit messy--followed by a vast vegetable plate (no parmesan cheese on the veggies) and a veggie burger with French fries (fried in canola oil).

A real hole in the wall.

Sure, I love the high life. But I'm kind of a sucker for the hole-in-the-wall, too. In fact, it's really just the middling places--the Golden Corral's of the world--that bug me. It's the Groucho Marx effect.

You know: "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member."

Anyway, in search of good, cheap Thai food and banking on the chance that there'd be something for a vegan there, I ventured recently to Toy's Café on Lemmon, a 20-year-old (who knew?) bona fide hole-in-the-wall squeezed in between a Laundromat and a place that advertises "good Indian food" on one side and a seedy-looking flower shop on the other.

Did I just write seedy flower shop? Geez.

It was 2 p.m.--a short half-hour before Toy's stops serving lunch (and believe me, they WILL NOT let you in at 2:30; we've tried)--and uncrowded, but the hostess greeted me enthusiastically and took some time to chat about the menu. Graciously, she enumerated the ingredients of the brown sauce (lemon juice, sugar, red curry, basil, soy) and the peanut sauce (mostly just peanut butter and coconut milk, from what I understood), and then explained that for $7.95 I could get a lunch special with a meal of my choice (noodles or a stir fry), brown rice, a fried roll and a salad or soup of the day. Today's was coconut (tom-kha), so I chose the salad and asked her which of the vegetable stir fries (there are 12; most of the noodle dishes come with eggs, but you can order them without) was best.

"You like spicy?" she asked. I nodded.

The question is not how Olivella's does the simple Italian thing so well, but why more restaurants don't. Is it so difficult, really, to buy fresh, healthy ingredients, and then to keep the food simple enough to let their flavors come through? Apparently so, or more places would do it.

Olivella's is tucked behind the row of shops that line Hillcrest Avenue across from SMU. There's a narrow swath of patio with tiny tables and wrought-iron chairs, but 8 p.m. was still too hot for comfort, so we opted instead for a little spot by the window, just behind the big, wooden community table that takes up most of the room.

Simplicity seems to be the guiding ideal behind Olivella's, from the décor to the menu and wine list. The house merlot ($5) was nothing special, but the sangria was inventive--more like chilled mulled wine spiced with cloves and cinnamon than the overly sweet fruit-cup many places serve. (It's worth noting that there's a happy hour steal here: Pitchers of sangria, usually $25, are only $8 from 2-5 p.m. on weekdays...if you can sneak away at 2 p.m.) The vegetarian options at Olivella's are ample. And while eating vegan's a bit harder, the pizza crust is egg- and dairy-free (most of the menu is mostly pizza, with a few sandwiches, salads and pastas), as is the sauce.

Two days after the Morning News gave Lazare a scathing one-star review, I went to see for myself. I had actually meant to go somewhere else, but Lazare was closer.

Having read the review, I wasn't expecting much. And the menu didn't bode well for a vegan meal. Most things had cheese or meat--there was even a bacon-infused vinaigrette, which is probably exciting to some people , but I am not one of those.

Our server confirmed my suspicions. When I told him my dining companion and I were both vegan and asked what we could eat, he stopped and thought very hard...and finally told us to dispense with the menu altogether.

"It'll be better if the chef just makes you something from scratch," he said. We hesitated, then acquiesced and meekly sipped our waters while we waited for this great unknown.

I didn't intend to research vegan dining at Avila's. I planned to enjoy some chips and salsa, maybe some water, and the scintillating conversation of my coworkers. But I'm learning that in the great adventure that is veganism in Dallas, nothing's ever as it seems.

Avila's is an old-time outpost of Mexican-with-Texan-influences food--home of the original brisket tacos, they'll proudly tell you--instead of the mundanely seasoned, over-cheesed enchiladas that too often pass for Tex-Mex. The salsa is hot, and the chips are crunchy and greaseless.

OK, chips and salsa would be bang on Tex-Mex.

Still, I was shocked when, on my way in, I heard a server loudly proclaim, "We use NO animal products in our..." but I couldn't hear the ending; the famous and ubiquitous Chip Guy had already marched us to a long, rectangular table in the back and was staring at us expectantly, waiting for drink orders. We ordered and he disappeared. Next came the server, who (inexplicably) laughed when she heard we'd had our drink orders taken and took them again. Chip Guy came back with bowls of chips and salsa, which he would refill with almost alarming gusto and frequency.

Veggie Girl finds vegan and vegetarian options at Dallas establishments of all kinds. The column appears Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I love a good storm. So when I woke up last Thursday to howling winds and sheets of furious rain, I resisted the urge to crawl back into bed and instead opted for staring raptly out my window, thrilled by the weather. As it turned out, that was the day's high point--until dinner, anyway.

Leaving for work was fine; I wrapped myself in a ski jacket and shot out of the house like a clown from a circus cannon, landing in my driver's seat intact but soaked anyway. It went downhill from there. Trees blocked the streets around my house; a series of detours eventually led me to a puddle that threatened to come in through the windows. On the side of the street-cum-river, two college-age kids in sandals and rain jackets were taking photos of the flood while I prayed for my survival.

Living in East Dallas means the power is out all the time--on windy/stormy/giant-flood-with-tornado times, but also on a sunny day with no wind. I knew going home was futile...and so went the day. I was afraid to go to work, because the puddles were lakes, and I couldn't seem to find a coffee shop that had power. So I sat in my car and felt sorry for myself (and wrote a chapter in my novel about a girl who got stuck in a flood on her birthday).

Ah, East Dallas! The home of myself, half the Observer staff, several part-feral chickens (I blame Schutze) and...York St.

Vegetarian penne with vodka sauce.

The first thing that drew me to Villa O was the exterior, where a line of nautically themed blue and white couches and rocking chairs wait invitingly for the odd passerby to recline and stay awhile. (This, of course, was before today's storm-of-biblical-proportions rolled in.) Assuming I couldn't eat the food, I'd only ever been there for drinks until this week, when a pasta craving coincided with my usual drive for the 6pm cocktail.

"Original, organic, oceanic," my friend recited as she read menu, invoking the restaurant's three eponymous O's. "This sounds like you." (Except for the oceanic, of course.) After ordering summery drinks--I branched out with the mojito, and she tried the "Sfuzzi," a frozen, girly-pink blend of Prosecco and white peach nectar--we sat back on our sofas and contemplated the meaning of long summer dresses while we perused the menu, which, I noticed with delight, actually had some vegan potential.