 | | Laredo Jalapeno Festival
Tuesday, March 15 @ 06:50:46 PST by Scott |  
If you’ve never spent Presidents Day weekend in Laredo, you’re missing out. Nearly a month of special events and festivities culminate with that weekend’s large parade in commemoration of George Washington’s birthday and the annual Jalapeno Festival. The hotels are booked up well in advance, as I’ve learned the hard way in previous years. This year, we headed to Laredo with a hotel reservation and an appetite. On to the food...
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An Evening at the Tasting Room at Lola
Monday, March 07 @ 09:10:36 PST by Scott | 
In early June of 2003 I sat down for my first dinner at the Tasting Room. It was still fairly new and there were no local print reviews to go on. But on the strength of an enthusiastic Chowhound report from Doc, ExtraMSG (who was from Portland) and I decided to give it a try. My expectations were low. I was totally blown away. Since that early visit, I’ve been back a number of times and have yet to have a bad meal there. I recently had the chance to sample a menu Chef David Uygur had built around wines from Piedmont. It was, as always, fantastic. On to the food...
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Another Weekend in the Valley
Monday, February 28 @ 08:40:41 PST by Scott | 
A recent birding trip to the Valley wasn’t as productive as I’d hoped. So, two weeks later, I hopped in the car and headed back down. Some of the food I had on the first trip was so exceptional that I returned for more. But I also visited a couple of new places. On to the food...
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Dinner Event at Aurora
Tuesday, February 15 @ 10:00:08 PST by Scott | 
About a year and a half ago, Dallas’s itinerant chef-genius, Avner Samuel, settled into an unassuming strip mall on Oak Lawn to open his latest restaurant, Aurora. The opening was quiet and soft, but word of mouth and favorable print reviews soon had the place hopping. Aurora’s pricing hovers at the top of the Dallas fine dining market; but so do Samuel’s careful, well-crafted dishes. A group of DallasFood friends recently gathered there to check out Samuel’s winter menu. On to the food...
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Birds and Barbecue in the Lower Rio Grande Valley
Thursday, February 10 @ 13:54:28 PST by Scott | 
Green-breasted Mango, Rose-throated Becard, Elegant Trogon, Gray-crowned Yellowthroat, Crimson-collared Grosbeak, White-throated Robin, Blue Mockingbird, and Golden-crowned Warbler. Each of these birds appears so infrequently in Texas that, when one does, it’s a major event for naturalists and birders. And, in some strange alignment of circumstance, all of the abovementioned birds have been appearing regularly in the Lower Rio Grande Valley during the past month, along with several other uncommon vagrants. This quiet avian invasion has drawn binocular and camera-wielding visitors from all over the country. And that was the primary reason I made a recent trip to the Valley. Of course, I had other motives, as well. Barbecue. Cabrito al pastor. Barbacoa. On to the food...
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Pastry Tasting at DoughMonkey
Monday, February 07 @ 08:23:17 PST by Scott | 
Every January there’s talk about the best restaurant openings of the preceding year. But such discussions often neglect specialty shops that liven up the local food scene. And Rhonda Ruckman’s pastries at DoughMonkey, in Snider Plaza, should not be neglected. A small group of food-lovers recently gathered on a Saturday morning to sample the wares and chat with the talented Ms. Ruckman. On to the food...
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DFW Quest for 'Cue (Part 8)
Monday, January 31 @ 07:49:18 PST by Scott | 
After a brief sabbatical, the search continues. This report takes us to East Dallas for Porkies Bar-B-Q and Raymond’s Pit Bar-B-Q Cafeteria, then out to Tioga, Texas, for Clark’s Outpost. (Yes, those are capers in the photo above.) On to the food...
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A Quick Trip to Llano
Monday, January 24 @ 07:39:06 PST by Scott | 
There’s nothing quick about a trip to Llano, Texas (pop. 3,300). Far off the major interstates, Llano isn’t “on the way” to anything but rolling hills, white-tailed deer, bluebonnets, buzzards, and barbecue--cowboy-style barbecue, cooked in steel pits directly over hot mesquite coals. As I crawled out of bed at 4:45 AM on Saturday morning, my wife informed me that “sensible people” sleep in on the weekends. “Sensible people” obviously haven’t been to Cooper’s. On to the food...
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Crawfish Étouffée in Dallas
Monday, January 17 @ 07:01:08 PST by Scott | 
For a few months, I had planned to travel to New Orleans the first weekend of January to visit a friend who was presenting a paper at the Southern Political Science Association conference. Due to subsequent developments it became impossible to justify the trip. That was disappointing, in that I wasn’t able to spend time with him and hear his paper (on a topic of interest to me). But I was also looking forward to getting there and back. In addition to the natural beauty along the way, the road trip would have given me another opportunity to pass through Cajun Country and enjoy its culinary treasures. Rather than crying over spilt milk, I decided to take a closer look at the Dallas options. On to the food...
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Stuck inside of Dallas with the Memphis Blues Again
Monday, January 10 @ 07:55:12 PST by Scott | 
With no last-minute airfare bargains in sight, my wife and I decided to make a road trip during the three-day New Year’s weekend. She wanted to leave Texas. And, since we’d already made road trips to Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas earlier in the year, we settled on Memphis. So late Thursday afternoon, we hopped in the car, loaded the CD changer with Elvis (starting with the Sun Sessions and classic early RCA albums and ending with the career resurrection of From Elvis in Memphis and Elvis Country (I’m 10,000 Years Old)), and began the pilgrimage to the home of the King. On to the food...
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133 Stories (14 Pages, 10 Per Page)
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