globalguy

My vote.....ADAIR'S in Deep Ellum. They cook'em on an old fashioned steel griddle. Don't be in a hurry though. Adair's is not a fast food joint, as it takes 20 minutes to cook the thick patty. Any place that serves cold Pearl beer and a burger with a whole jalapeno on top rates A+ by me.

Dudrop

GLOBALGUY,
Ditto on your recommedations, will add that anyone going to Avila's try their house specialty, Spinach Enchiladas and Javier's
Shrimp Barra Navidad.

tfjim

Coming into town next week and eating at:

Sunday - Fogo de Chao
Monday - Oceanaire Seafood Room (Westin)
Tuesday - Star Canyon

How did we do as far as choices?

swag

Well, if you eat at Fogo on Sunday, you may not be hungry until Tuesday...

techgirl

Very well... I haven't been to Oceanaire yet, but I keep hearing great things about it... and Star Canyon has been a (by reputation) "destination restaurant" since it opened in the early 90s.

tfjim

Ok, so a short recap on our dining experiences. Just to let you know, our company held it's annual (beer) sales convention in Dallas this year. The main body in attendance is our collection of wholesalers from around the country. Imagine a few thousand millionaires in one city and you get the picture.

Sunday: Fogo de Chao (pronounced 'Fogo de Show)
Well this place lived up to its billing as a place to gorge yourself on meat. I took advantage, and I'm not a large guy at all. It was a 3 hour eating extravaganza of all meat products. I tried everything and decided I liked the house specialty beef the best. The chicken and pork offerings were a bit too 'smokey' for my tastes.

Monday: Oceanaire (in the Westin hotel)

The highlight of the trip. Eating out on my company's dime is usually an extravagant affair, so I'm surprised to say that this place is probably the best restaurant I've eaten at during the last 2-3 years. No exaggeration. In terms of food, service, and atmosphere it was top-notch. The appetizers were great, entree of Chilean sea bass was phenomenal, dessert was totally over the top (two desserts per table of six was too much). The service was simply head and shoulders above anything I've had recently. To cap it all off the decor was fantastic and the atmosphere even on a Monday night was electric.

Tuesday: Star Canyon (as mentioned above, an old standby)

I would consider this pick something of a compromise. We had a group (9) dinner at 5:30pm in order to finish in time for the private John Mellencamp & Sheryl Crow concert being staged for our convention. We've been there before and the location is good for downtown convenience. Obviously, the early arrival meant we were well cared for. Our meals were all quite good, though the menu seemed a bit limited and 'old'.

***************

So, all in all a great dining trip. Dallas as a convention city is not all that great. Any change of locale whatsoever requires jumping in a cab for a minimum 15-20 minute drive. Thankfully there are lots of cabs around (some don't smell so great). However, the restaurants are simply fantastic. I think you have an incredible pool of serving talent to draw from. And the patrons are an obviously sophisticated bunch.

Some other locations that colleagues visited and had nice reviews include: Abacus, Bob's, The Palm.

techgirl

My sorority alum group held a wine tasting at this venue last night.

Wow!

An impressive selection of unusual wines... many that I've enjoyed on my international travels and a few neat domestics too. The majority of the wines in the store (and all of those on the walls) are $15 or less per bottle.

The wines in the store are all grouped by "taste" rather than by varietal. All have a store written description highlighted and "useful" pairing suggestions (like "tastes great with Thai take-out" or "serve with bbq").

I was thrilled to find this place and I will definitely return to purchase wine soon.

They have a tasting bar with selections rotating daily. Single glasses are $4 to $4.50 and flights (red or white) are $8 to $10. On Saturdays, they have a guest chef in during the afternoons to demo cooking and discuss wine pairings.

I'm hooked... and may have to post a FT wine tasting night there soon!

SVWineGuy

As a California wine lover who travels to the Dallas area regularly, I am always interested in finding places that serve a variety of good, and not too expensive, wines.

Your post caught my attention, but it doesn't identify the place you are talking about. Please elaborate on it, and any others you care to share.

Thanks.

techgirl

Best Cellars is located on Knox Street (one block over (west) from Restoration Hardware.

I don't have any additional information (phone/specific address/hours) but I CAN tell you what we tasted:

- Reserve Saint-Channelle NV
- Red Hill Reisling 2001 (New Zealand)
- Santa Julia Viognier 2001 (Argentina)
- Terra Sana Rouge 1999 (South of France)
- Castas de Santar Dao 2000 (Portugal)
- Bonny Doon Framboise

Six glasses (healthy pours - more generous than a normal flight) over two hours made for a FUN party.

The store probably had about 200 wines total... and of those, over 150 were $15 or less (many $10 or less). The assortment was not your "usual" heavily marketed wine list and had several treasures I've found at off-the-beaten-path vineyards.

Also, with Knox-Henderson being such a trendy upmarket neighborhood, the crowd was young and professional.

prncess674

While Thai Orchid is definitly not a 5 star dining establishment it is one of my favorite Thai Restaurants. I make a point to head over everytime I am in Dallas. It is in a strip mall on Restaurant Row in Addison but the prices are reasonable and the food is all very fresh and cooked to order.

http://www.torchid.com/

swag

Check out Marty's on Oak Lawn. They've got a unique licence that lets them both serve wine in-store as well as at retail. So the wine list is the entire store inventory, served at dinner with no mark up.

Review: http://www.guidelive.com/profile/103134/

techgirl

Marty's is great too... lots of range there (from bargain wines to rare vintages). I also enjoy popping into Tony's on Oak Lawn when I'm looking for a particular French or Italian wine - they are heavy on the European vineyards.

I went back to Best Cellars last night to meet up with a girlfriend before dinner... we split a bottle of an unusual sparkling muscat from Valencia, Spain before dinner. They waived my corkage fee since I also purchased a mixed case for home.

techgirl

Dined at Fishbowl on Knox Street last night.

Has never been a "favorite" of mine, but it was across the street from Best Cellars where we started and since I was looking to dine solely on sashimi, it would give my companion more options.

I think that the a la carte sushi and sashimi here is excessively priced, but that the chefs combo plates are a good value.

My companion had a tuna roll ($6) and a soft shell crab roll ($12). The tuna roll was spicy (there appeared to be a slight layer of wasabi between the tuna and rice) - and fresh looking. Her soft shell crab roll looked disappointing to me (I'm used to having them at places where the roll is served with large protruding pieces of the crab - and here it was clearly trimmed) - but she said the flavor was good. For $18, I was disappointed in the amount of food on her plate.

I ordered the chef's choice sashimi plate for $20 and was VERY pleased. Several varieties of sashimi (14 pieces total) including ahi, salmon, mackerel, squid, yellowtail, and snapper. The cuts were very generous and I was filled up nicely.

The service (we sat in the bar/lounge, not the dining room) was a bit disappointing. Our server seemed miffed that we would not be ordering their fancy $12 cocktails... and was slow to come around to fill water glasses (we had to ask). At the end of the meal, my companion paid cash and he never returned with her change (which was around $25 of the total bill) and copped attitude when she finally had to call him over to ask about it.

All in all, I think I will return for their Thursday night patio specials again (one of the best deals in Dallas with $1 Sake and $1 Sushi) or perhaps one of their dining prix fixe events, but not the best Uptown choice for sushi with so many other standouts nearby.

techgirl

Tonight was night one of Restaurant Week.

One of my girlfriends had been dying to hit the M Crowd's French eatery for some time (the M Crowd being a Dallas restaurant ownership group) so we headed to West Village to Paris Vendome.

Like much in the West Village, Paris Vendome is another neighborhood transported to metro Dallas. If it weren't for the valet out front, I could swear the patio was on a Parisian boulevard, not in a parking lot off McKinney. The interior is LA-meets-brasserie, but without the Disney-esque drama. In other words... very French, but not in-your-face.

The service, sadly, was typical Dallas. As we had a Restaurant Week reservation, the hostess only sat us with Restaurant Week paper menus. I asked to see a wine list and a regular menu - (as a former snooty colleague of mine once snipped at a waiter, "Its called upselling... you ought to try it").

Nothing on the Restaurant Week menu sounded wonderful... no wonder they didn't want to present the regular menu beside it... when we figured out we could get a better three courses for the same $30 (and get the same three wines paired for much less than the additional $25 they were charging for the pairings), we were both amused and annoyed. (Amused because we saw diners all around just ordering off the RW menu... and annoyed because the restaurant was clearly profitting from their ignorance.)

I had the escargot... and while the little critters themselves were good, the butter tasted slightly off. My girlfriend had a mixed green salad with lemon vinigrette. The baby greens were beautiful... and oh-so-simple.

We both decided to go with the "signature" dish of Paris Vendome... the PV burger. This would be the Dallas version of the $49 hamburger... ours is $16 and is stuffed with foie gras and braised shortribs and served with a cone of pomme frites. In a word, heavenly. I popped mine off the bun and enjoyed it with a knife and fork.

None of the desserts sounded that stellar after we had that delight, but against our better judgment, we ordered anyway. We both ended up ordering the double chocolate mousse with raspberry cream. I was not impressed and wished we had gone next door to Paciugo for gelato instead. The mousse was served with a fork (??!!) and came piped on a salad plate in a presentation that looked much like three turds with a pinkish puff in the middle. Three blueberries sat in small pools of raspberry sauce to form a triangle around the turds.

Service was painfully slow and relatively uninformed... our waiter seemed to have graduated from Chilis or Fridays within the last month. The atmosphere is odd too... everyone from folks in shorts on a shopping break to dressed up business folk entertaining clients. The restaurant needed some background filter... either slightly louder music or better white noise.

All in all, I would skip this place if offered the opportunity to dine there again... if one must dine at an M Crowd place, stick to one of their other venues. Chris Ward is completely out of his element with everyday French.

Sweet Willie

I can't picture this in my head. Do the foie gras and shortribs actually comprise the "burger" or are they stuffed into ground beef?