Super Bowl XLV: Dining in Dallas

So your coming to the D/FW Metroplex for the big game and you want to taste a little bit of the local cuisine? Not surprisingly, Tex-Mex heavily defines the local flavor and there are a ton of restaurants that offer both Tex-Mex and traditional Mexican foods, but how do you know which ones to try? Let’s start with a few of my favorites:

Mia’s Tex-Mex – 4322 Lemmon Ave., Dallas, TX 75219

A perfect place to taste some of Dallas’ best Tex-Mex and take in a little local football history. Rumor has it, this was Tom Landry’s favorite restaurant in town and, ironically, it’s the same restaurant where Jerry Jones had a “secret” meeting with Jimmy Johnson before firing Landry and hiring Johnson. On the outside, the little yellow building doesn’t look like much, but once inside, the walls are covered with signed photos of Dallas sports legends. Be sure and try the brisket tacos, you will not be disappointed. Mia’s also gave rise to the next two establishments on my list.

Taco Diner – 4011 Villanova St., Dallas, TX 75225 and 3699 McKinney Ave. Dallas, TX 75204

Mi Cocina – 77 Highland Park Village Dallas, TX 75205 and 3699 McKinney Ave. Dallas, TX 75204

Taco Diner and Mi Cocina are both offsprings of Mia’s. Both have several locations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, but for the purpose of this piece we will focus on the two nearest to downtown Dallas. Taco Diner focuses mainly on traditional Mexican tacos (don’t expect ground beef and crispy taco shells here), but they feature some traditional favorites as well, including fajitas. Mi Cocina has a little bit broader menu, but the recipes are almost identical to Taco Diner.

If the weather is nice, you have to go to the West Village (McKinney Ave.) location and dine on the patio. Here, Taco Diner and Mi Cocina are positioned directly across from one another and you can watch people dinning at both spots and watch the “beautiful people” of Dallas take in some shopping.

If you’re looking for a more family-friendly atmosphere,  the Mi Cocina in Highland Park Village and the Taco Diner in Preston Center (Villanova St.) are where you will want to go.You’ll still probably be able to spot a few local or national celebrities.

Chuy’s - 4544 McKinney Ave. Dallas, TX 75205

What makes Chuy’s unique is their strong reliance on green chilies, including their amazing green chilie salsa. Almost every dish features some unique sauce or item prepared with green chilies, and as such, you can expect a little bit extra flavor. As with all of the Tex-Mex restaurants covered, margaritas are the drink of choice, but they also feature a wide selection of Mexican and Texas beers that will surely bring out the flavor. Bring some extra money and take home a souvenir t-shirt with you.

Dallas offers a lot more than merely Tex-Mex food, we also offer some fine Italian restaurants as well.

Gordo’s - 8220 Westchester Dallas, TX 75225

If you’re an out-of-towner, Gordo’s might be hard for you to find, as it nestled in what appears to be a back alley of a local shopping center, but don’t let that keep you from sampling the food. Gordo’s features the best traditional Italian plates in town, at a very reasonable price. I personally recommend the shrimp scampi sauteed in lemon butter Chardonnay sauce, served over capilini. In the mood for something lighter? Try their Greek or Mediterranean Salads. Be sure and ask for a wine list, as they offer several well-priced wines to compliment every meal on the menu.

Campisi’s Egyptian Lounge – 5610 E. Mockingbird Ln. Dallas, TX 75206

There are several Campisi’s locations sprinkled throughout the Metroplex, but there is only one Campisi’s Egyptian Lounge and it’s the one you will want to sample. Don’t let the name fool you, Campisi’s is all about Italian cuisine. The Mockingbird location features a Tuesday night spaghetti special that is extremely popular, especially among the college kids from nearby SMU. The spaghetti is good, but my personal choice at Campisi’s is their pizza.

Snuffers – 8411 Preston Rd.  Dallas, TX 75225

What’s that you say? You’re in town for a football game and want some football food?

If hamburgers and hot dogs are what you want, check out Snuffer’s, which offers traditional American favorites served in a sports bar atmosphere. Snuffers is known for their cheedar fries. In order to get the full Snuffers experience, be sure to get them fully loaded with bacon, chives and jalapenos.

Good Eats – 3888 Oak Lawn Ave. #101  Dallas, TX 75219

If you want to taste some authentic Texas food, stroll into Good Eats. Many critics, including myself, consider their Chicken Fried Steak to be the best in town, but not everything on the menu is deep fried. In fact, I prefer many of their grilled items, including their grilled catfish, mesquite grilled  chicken and Cajun grilled chicken. As with most restaurants in town, you’ll want to begin with some chips & salsa.

You might be thinking to yourself, since this is Texas, shouldn’t their be some BBQ joints profiled? Dallas has some good BBQ restaurants, like Dickey’s and Sonny Bryan’s, but I would stop short of calling them great. If you really want some great BBQ, you will need to venture way outside the city limits into more rural areas. If that’s your thing, allow yourself about an hour and half travel time and go East on I-20. Once you enter the Piney Woods, you will discover some of the best BBQ in the world, including my personal favorite, Bodacious.

Next up, let’s take a look at the downtown and Uptown areas of Dallas, including where to go and how to get around.

Is the economy really this bad?

I love pancakes! Indeed, they are my favorite breakfast food. While I usually refrain from buying pancakes at a fast-food restaurant, I was running late for work yesterday and really craving pancakes. I had no choice but to stop at a McDonald’s I pass on my walk from the parking garage to my office.

Out of respect to my health and my animal rights’ friends, I rarely eat at McDonald’s, but I do visit this particular McDonald’s on an almost daily basis for coffee. As such, the staff is very familiar with me.

I proceeded to order my pancakes and coffee and noticed only one pack of syrup in the bag . Keep in mind, an order of pancakes at McDonald’s consists of three pancakes–one pack of syrup will not cut it.

I asked for a second packet and was told it would cost me 27 cents for an extra packet. I glared at the manager, then at the lone syrup packet in my bag. I noticed a tear in the packaging and brought it to the manager’s attention. She offered to replace the packet and then offered to give me a second packet for–get this–25 cents. A whole 2 cents savings!

Again, I glared at the manager and said, “that is not good enough.” Her expression was if I asked her to give me a New York strip. I reminded her that I was a loyal customer and that they would lose far money by refusing to give me the syrup since I would end my daily coffee patronage. Finally, she relented and gave me the second package of syrup.

Has it really come to this? Is the recession so deep that McDonald’s must charge 27 cents for syrup? Is this really going to drive their food costs up?

Top 5 Podcasts

Since getting my first iPod as a gift some four years ago, I’ve downloaded countless gigs of all forms of media. One of my favorite things to download is podcasts. Over the last few years, I’ve tried out hundreds of different podcasts, but have now narrowed it down to 15 or 20 that I listen to on a regular basis. I thought I would share with you my top 5 podcasts:

1.) Slate Culture Gabfest – This is a must listen if you want to stay current on all things related to culture. The shows regular panel consists of Dana Stevens, Julia Turner and Stephen Metcalf, though they are frequently joined by other members of the Slate.Com staff. The content leans towards the “high brow” and much of it involves material published in Northeast publications (i.e. New York Times, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, etc.), but it provides an inside look at what intellectual elitists all over the nation are talking about.  The most recent episode included a review of the controversial new Lee Daniels’ movie Precious, a review of the Ian McEwan novel Black Dogs to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and Jim Windolf’s recent Vanity Fair article on “cuteness.”

2.)  Slate Political Gabfest – Functions in pretty much the same fashion as the Culture Gabfest–three person panel discusses three issues–only involving politics instead of cultural issues. The normal panel consists of John Dickerson, Emily Bazelon and Slate managing editor, David Plotz. Be warned, the panel leans Left–far Left, but it’s entertaining and informative all the same.

3.) Anything You Ever Wanted to Know – This show is produced by KERA, Dallas’ local public radio station. The show airs each Friday afternoon, but I always listen to it via podcast. The show provides an open forum for listeners to submit questions, either on the phone or through e-mail, to be answered by other members of the listening audience and is moderated by Jeff Whittington. Over the past three years, I’ve learned some fascinating things from the show.

4.) The Writer’s Almanac Podcast – Hosted by Garrison Keillor, the show serves as a “this day in literary history” for lovers of words.  Normally, Keillor lists off several key events for each day and then will focus heavily on one birthday or event before reading a selected “poem of the day.” More than anything else, the show has introduced me to some great new poetry.

5.) NPR Playback – While the other podcasts I listed are released on a weekly or daily basies, the NPR Playback podcast is released on a monthly basis and features audio clips from the archives from 20 years prior. For example, the November podcast features audio from NPR segments from November 1984. I love being transported back to the 80′s and this podcast does just that.

Fascism will not cure obesity!

People use many adjectives to describe Los Angeles—“logical” is not one of them.  Of course, one rarely associates “logic” with fascism and fascism lies at the very core of Los Angelean culture. Environmental quacks, anti-smoking zealots, and personal health nuts, represent just a handful of power hungry, agenda driven, ideologues who seek to implement a “nanny” government.   With that said, it doesn’t surprise me when I see stories like the one concerning the city of Los Angeles’ recent moratorium on new fast food restaurants in the southern part of the city. 

 

The city’s argument lacks logical footing. Preventing new fast-food restaurants, potential sources of foods that lead to obesity, does not guarantee that people in the southern sector of the city will not eat fast food. What if they continue to dine at the pre-existing fast-food restaurants or choose to dine at fast-food restaurants built in other parts of the city or in neighboring communities where the moratorium has no power. Additionally, the city’s argument assumes that government, specifically a municipal government, has an obligation to deal with the physical health of citizens.

 

Stripped of its’ many layers, the argument serves as another illustration of how intrusive we have allowed our local governments to become, trampling on our personal liberties and disrupting the flow of economic markets. All across the United States, local governments have, in the name of personal health, fought to outlaw everything from trans fats to smoking in virtually every public space. Left alone, the market would alleviate these problems. With all the knowledge we now have concerning health and nutrition, many people are turning away from fast-food on their accord. Fast-food restaurants have responded by providing a “healthier” menu, relatively speaking. Eventually, market pressures will force fast-food restaurants to alter their menus even more or cause them to shut their doors for good.

 

Just like other fascist groups, the obesity lobby seeks to further their agenda. All of these groups share the same agenda, which is to transfer power from the individual to the community. What these obese people need, many of whom probably got fat off of the government’s dole, is not legislation, but self-discipline. Of course, with self-discipline comes self-reliance and the big government that gives so many Californians “happy pants” becomes less relevant to the general population and then the advocates would have to find real jobs.

 

Faced with the fear of working, social advocates do what they do best and create victims. In this case, the victims are the poor residents of South LA who, according to the social advocates, cannot make dietary decisions on their own. Ronald Reagan once said that the eight most frightening words in the English language are, “we’re the government and we’re here to help.” Allow this to serve as Exhibit A to Reagan’s maxim, as the only thing the Los Angeles ruling will help create is more obese residents in the southern sector.

 

Slainte!

Like many, I worked myself through college doing a variety of jobs, including “waiting tables.” Today, I read that one of my former employers would cease to exist as I once knew it (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/073008dnmetbennigans.140b9e44.html). That’s right, Bennigans, you’re favorite Irish themed casual dining experience locked its doors.

When I first read the story, I felt a little sentimental. I still have several vivid memories from the Bennigans where I worked, store #420, a perfect number for this particular store. Oh the stories I could tell. I ran across a letter I wrote to Metromedia, Inc., almost five years ago to the day, July 31, 2003. Reading through the letter, I feel like a prophet, or perhaps just Mr. Obvious.

In the letter, I outlined for the corporate office tales of outrageous food costs, outrageous liquor costs, inept and sometime absent management, illicit activities among many of the staff members and reminder of the store’s nefarious past. In the letter, I did not mention the story of the female hostess who tried to seduce five male servers, including myself, during one shift. The corporate office ignored my letter and it hardly shocked me to see the news today that Bennigans would cease to exist. At the same time, I can’t help but shed a small tear, if for nothing else the death of the Turkey O’Toole.  So tonight my brothers and sisters, have yourself a pint of Guiness, raise it to the roof and shout out the old Gaelic phrase, “Slainte,” in memory of Bennigans.