All stories about "Dallas"

The NY Times' Frank Bruni has finished his coast-to-coast tour of new restaurants and is reporting back with his findings. Excluding New York, which Bruni doesn't include because it's his regular beat, cities with restaurants that rated include Washington DC, New Orleans, San Francisco, Dallas, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, Boston, Seattle, and Napa, CA. The restaurants are all new (opened at least after January 1, 2006) and, apparently, all delicious. [NY Times]

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Boston
• Brix: A wine shop in the South End featuring $75 wine six-packs and a private tasting room.
• Concepts: Browse limited edition sneakers, skateboards, snowboards, and apparel at this new Cambridge shop, then head downstairs to admire your purchases in a VIP lounge.
• Grezzo: There's 100% organic, raw, vegan food and fine dining atmosphere aplenty in this new North End eatery.

When in Dallas, watch your wallet; or, at least around especially "flirty" women. It seems "well-dressed men at posh Dallas hotels and bars are being targeted by a ring" of women who flirt with, and may even drug, their prospective targets. Victims have lost wallets as well as electronics to the thieves, believed to be former prostitutes. That would explain why one man "lost his wallet while in his car with his pants around his ankles." The W Hotel is named a particular hunting ground. [AP]

• Café Circa: New restaurant featuring island-inspired fare and live performances opens downtown.
• Cuerno: New midtown restaurant by the owners of neighboring Beleza serves food and drink with a Spanish flair.

So it turns out that the San Francisco Zoo enclosure containing Tatiana the killer tiger may not have been quite as secure as originally described. The alleged 20-foot-high wall is actually only 12.5 feet tall, which also puts it 4 feet below the "industry standard" of the zoological-industrial complex. And regarding speculation that the attack victims taunted or provoked the tiger, the half-brother of slain Carlos Sousa Jr. claims "I can't see him taunting any animal or anyone." Investigators are hampered by the surviving victims reported belligerence, not to mention that they initially lied to Sousa's father about their collective trip to the zoo.

Las Vegas
• CatHouse: Restaurant (courtesy of chef Kerry Simon), lounge, and performance space inspired by a European bordello has its grand opening this weekend.
• The Palazzo: The long-awaited hotel and casino on the Strip opened this past week, unveiling 1,000 rooms in time for New Year's Eve.

On Saturday night, an unidentified female passenger on an American Airlines flight from Orlando to Dallas tried to open an exit door over a wing while the plane was in the air. She was subdued by the flight crew, and the plane diverted to Houston in order to turn her over to authorities. On Sunday she was taken to a Houston hospital for a psychiatric evaluation; no word yet on whether she's nuts, suicidal, both, or just incensed at having to pay $5 for that turkey & cheese ciabatta.

American Airlines jet forced to land when woman tries to open exit door [Dallas Morning News]

Last week I was fortunate enough to be treated to lunch at the Zodiac Room, the original Neiman Marcus Department Store restaurant, located on the sixth floor of Neiman's downtown Dallas flagship store, where the luxury chain was founded and is still headquartered. The Zodiac Room is over 50 years old now, and I was chagrined to learn that Neiman Marcus itself will be 100 years old this month and is planning all sorts of fancy shindigs to celebrate. The flagship is dolled up to the nines right now, in its classic mid-century style. I fully expected to find Mad Men's Don Draper and Rachel Menken engaged in a hot make-out session in the midst of the first floor cosmetics department. More after the jump.

I generally read the "alt-weekly" Dallas Observer just for the back-of-book advertising, so I can plan my weekend at that currently cheapest strip bar happy hour (actually, Robert Wilonsky of the Observer's Unfair Park Blog is a great writer). However, this past week, an article, "The Best Little Icehouse In Texas," actually caught my eye. Andrea Grimes, a happy-go-lucky young thing, wrote a very entertaining piece on Fuel City, a Dallas gas station on steroids, located just three blocks from where BBQ grill propane tank mortar bombs were pummeling nonplussed Dallasites just over a month ago; only in Texas, folks.

The esteemed magazine that is Time looks at Dallas, Texas, this week, to report that not only do faggots actually live here, but there might be lots more faggots than anyone thinks. We're talking eastern-most West Hollywood adjacent, or as I like to call it, "Little Sodom on the Prairie." This poofer piece is the product of Dallas's upcoming June mayoral runoff election, in which one of the last two standing candidates is a fudge-packer, albeit a money-laden fudge-packer who may have some baggage that doesn't include women's lingerie. But never mind that. This being Texas, the other candidate, also money-laden, carries just as much baggage, and who knows, maybe his baggage does include select pieces from Victoria's Secret. We can only hope. Come with us now as we briefly peruse Time's Big Dandy, now oddly poised to become the largest American city yet to fall victim to the Gays' hidden agenda.

Sushiyama is in the middle of a Dallas strip mall, next to some kind of Irish bar that looks not entirely unshady. Open till 2 a.m. every day, Sushiyama meets both of the requirements for a sushi restaurant: (1) late night out-of-town Japanese diners and (2) Japanese karaoke. The latter happens on weekend nights, but gratifyingly, the shiny machine is kept running all the time to entertain and amaze patrons. The menu is wide-ranging and the sushi is some of the best in Dallas -- although they broke our hearts by not having baby scallops the night that we visited. Meals end up being around $20 a person. Show up on Wednesdays for the $10 bento box special, which as you can see from the picture above is, as the kids say, a shitton of food.

Sushiyama Japanese Restaurant [Yelp]

-- Omri Ceren

[Photo: Fashion Bigot]

Previously: Trader Vic's Reborn, Star Chefs Does Dallas, Dallas Museum of Art, It's Easy To Make (Myspace) Friends When You're From Dallas, Top Picks: Classy Dallas

No, not the original in San Francisco or the other one in Los Angeles. This is Trader Vic's Dallas in the Hotel Palomar, returning as a kitsch-zombie version of its former self. Can tiki-fixated diners expect the same "stuffed animals in each room, cutesy themes, and shitty service" as in days of yore, according to a reminiscing tipster? There are many Trader Vic's-es worldwide now, and all all clearly stiff parodies of what was originally a sincerely naive bit of 1960s cultural effluvia. But if you're in Dallas and need your dose of Polynesian polyglot in an iced coconut glass, you're in luck.

The new Trader Vic's is the tiki talk of the town [Dallas Morning News]

-- Chris Mohney

Mimi Swartz wrote a piece on the Dallas "renaissance" for a recent issue of the New York Times' magazine T Style. According to Swartz, the city is taking itself loosening up, caring less about formality and pretension, and building a lot of stuff. The skyline is peppered with cranes as construction begins on a slew of new hotels and cultural centers designed by the likes of Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas, and Santiago Calatrava. Swartz claims Dallas is no longer the place of "big brassy blondes" or "stuffy, post-oil bust guilt." Too bad about the brassy busts, but after the jump, we present the article's best o' nouveaux Dallas.

The triumphantly named "Victory Media Network" is in fact a collection of gigantic high-res video screens plastered across Victory Park, a mixed-use development next to Dallas's American Airlines Center. Yes, the screens will be partly used to show short films and animation and art and even movies, but "about half" will be "underwritten by corporate sponsors." Them there's what we call advertising, despite VMN's dislike of obvious parallels to the visual pollution of Times Square. But never fear, the artsy selections will "enthrall, entertain and even provoke onlookers." Provoke them into buying a Humvee, maybe.

Digital gallery in Dallas broadcasts art [AP]

-- Chris Mohney

Dallas is perhaps best known for football teams and their slutty, albeit fictional, cheerleaders. But the place is no culinary backwater. In a recemt issue of StarChefs, EIC Antoinette Bruno tours Dallas' kitchens and the culinary cowboys, chef sheriffs, pastry posses, food service desperadoes, and vegetable vigilantes who man the line.

Check out her picks for restaurants and chefs to watch after the jump.