News You Can Eat

Sweets and treats rule this round of Dallas restaurant news

Sweet Daze will fulfill all your sugar cravings.

Photo courtesy of Sweet Daze

Dallas restaurant action is so sweet right now. There are doughnuts, ice cream, cupcakes, and novel new frozen treats. There's also a healthy place or two, some new cocktails, and even some pizza buzz. But this round of news is all about the sugar and spice.

Here's what's happening in Dallas dining:

Roti Modern Mediterranean opens in Uptown Dallas on June 16, with a customizable build-your-own menu of wraps, pita sandwiches, salads, and rice plates. Roti was founded in Chicago; this is the first location in Texas.

Norma's Cafe opens its fifth location, this one in Plano, at 605 W. 15th St. off Central Expressway. This location is a modernized update of the Oak Cliff original, similar to the locations in North Dallas, Frisco, and Park Lane. New to Norma's, the Plano location includes a private dining room that can be reserved for business meetings and special events.

Truck Yard's Ice Cream window is open for business. The menu includes bomb pops, ice cream sandwiches, fudgesicles, chocolate-covered tacos, and other pre-packaged quiescently frozen confections.

Side Dough, the takeout spot next door to Eno's Pizza Tavern in Bishop Arts, is now open, selling Eno's menu for delivery (with a $4.95 fee) or free pick-up, plus beer and wine to-go.

Sweet Daze, the doughnut and ice cream shop at 581 W. Campbell Rd. in Richardson from the team behind OMG Tacos, is in soft opening mode, with amazingly photogenic treats including unicorn and galaxy doughnuts and black ice cream.

Raising Cane's opens two new branches in the fall, at 2503 W. Mockingbird Ln. in Dallas, and at 1110 E. Northwest Hwy. in Garland. That will make 43 Raising Cane's restaurants in Dallas selling chicken fingers, crinkle-cut fries, coleslaw, and Texas toast.

Slater's 50/50, a burger restaurant with a fixation on bacon, opens on Greenville Avenue in June. This is the brand's first franchise. The menu has bacon cocktails, bacon ketchup, bacon milkshakes, bacon cheese fries, a bacon brownie, fried bacon mac 'n cheese balls, Dr. Pepper-glazed wings, carne asada fries, and a mint Guinness milkshake. Has bacon peaked?

I-CE NY, the first Thai-style rolled ice cream concept in Dallas, is opening its second location at Firewheel Market, at SH-78 and SH-190. Its lineup includes seven ice cream base flavors, 20 mix-in ingredients, and more than 32 toppings. The concept began in 2011 in Thailand under the brand I-TIM-PAD. The first United States store opened in in 2015 in New York, where it became I-CE NY. The first branch in the Dallas area opened in Carrollton; another will open in Houston.

Fuzzy's Taco Shop is opening a location at 10910 N. Central Expwy., at the intersection of Royal Lane on the southeast corner.

Oak in the Design District has new menus and new decor. Dishes include blackened scallop with chorizo rice and seared hamachi with green apple. It's also installed a wood-burning grill. A sushi bar and lounge have been added, and the interior has been updated with brass chandeliers.

Pinstack in Plano has new menu items, which will also be offered at the Las Colinas branch when it opens in summer 2017. New dishes include pretzels, honey sriracha chicken stir-fry with jasmine rice, flatbreads, and for dessert, the 7-10 Split.

Bisous Bisous Pátisserie in West Village brings back the pizza cruffin for June. It has Luscher’s Italian sausage, pepperoni, marinara sauce, and mozzarella stuffed and rolled inside croissant dough and baked muffin-style.

Max's Wine Dive has new dishes for summer including spicy coconut quail wings, seared salmon, Caprese salad, and St. Louis spare ribs with loaded cowboy potatoes and poblano cream corn.

Sprinkles has two new cupcakes for June: red velvet and pineapple upside-down cupcake, with caramelized pineapple filling and pineapple frosting.

Nékter Juice Bar in University Park is the only branch in the area to serve Skoop, a dairy-free frozen confection made with cashew milk, honey, and agave nectar, in two flavors, chocolate and vanilla. Too bad it includes honey, since that rules it out for most vegans, which you would think would be the primary audience for an item like this. The University Park branch doesn't actually have the item yet; the store got the machine but it's missing a part. So it won't be available for another week, they say.

Razzoo's Cajun Cafe is offering 32-ounce mason jar cocktails made with juices, sweet wine, and liquor. Flavors include watermelon crawler, peach mambo, and something they call "box wine boogie" with sweet red wine, lemon vodka, pomegranate schnapps, lemon, pineapple, and orange slice. Sounds delightful, and just think, you get 32 ounces.

Pōk the Raw Bar, the West Village poke restaurant, has a new "Matcha X Watermelon" drink with matcha and fresh watermelon juice.

Ocean Prime Dallas has new seasonal items on its lounge menu that include sliders, blackened fish tacos, short rib Gouda tater tots, shrimp cocktail wraps, and baked oysters.

Tricky Fish, the Southern-influenced restaurant in Richardson’s CityLine, is serving brunch on both Saturdays and Sundays. New dishes include Andouille hash and eggs, a Benedict with Andouille sausage, fried shrimp and oyster grits, praline pancakes, and bananas Foster monkey bread.

Cici's, known for its pizza buffet, has a new stuffed crust trio that includes the original, plus a bacon-stuffed crust, and the new grilled cheese stuffed crust.

Maggiano's, which recently launched a new brunch, is contributing $1 on every brunch item to Make-A-Wish, through August 2.

news-you-can-eat

Eco Warrior News

Dallas restaurants doing amazing little things for the environment

Southwest Airlines

Cute bamboo cup from Southwest Airlines

One unfortunate legacy left by the pandemic has been a huge increase in the use of plastics — setting back progress that was being made pre-pandemic.

Plastics are bad. They harm everything they touch: the environment, health, food security, and economies. But they're convenient, subsidized, and in some cases necessary.

Before the pandemic, a growing awareness had started to snowball regarding the negative impact of plastics, particularly plastic straws and single-use plastic containers — and it was significant enough to make the plastics industry very nervous.

"In the two years leading up to the pandemic, the public backlash against plastic was a major concern for industry leaders," says a story about plastics and the pandemic in The Guardian. "As a corporate executive remarked during an industry event early in 2019: 'We need to get the image of plastic in oceans out of the public’s mind. Otherwise, we could lose our social license to operate.'"

But then the pandemic came along, igniting mass hysteria about contagion, and suddenly, bans on single-use plastics that had been in the works were reversed in countries around the world: North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

“Overnight, plastics went from public enemy No. 1 to consumers asking for everything to have as much packaging as possible and to be single use," said one gleeful analyst for Shell Oil, who are a major plastics player.

The urgency of the plastics situation remains invisible to most people, lined up at the drive-thru for their coffee or Chick-Fil-A, piling up nearly 250 pounds of plastic waste every year. (That's what the average American amasses — more than any other country.)

But there are brave, pro-environment efforts being made by Dallas companies and organizations, big and small.

La Casita Bakeshop cup Revolutionary compostable cup at La Casita Bakeshop.Facebook

Dallas efforts
The Dallas restaurants and organizations listed below have taken steps to fight waste, even though it costs them money.

Plastic Free Lunch Day is November 22
Dallas ISD’s Food and Child Nutrition Services will participate in Plastic Free Lunch Day on November 22, to help reduce the amount of single-use plastic in school cafeterias.

Plastic Free Lunch Day was started by middle school students in Brooklyn. The initiative was such a success that it was adopted by all New York City public schools in 2022. The concept has since spread to public schools across the country — including Dallas ISD, which was the first in Texas to participate, when it joined up in 2022.

It creates an opportunity to educate students and the community on ways to positively impact the environment, including skipping plastic. Dallas school cafeterias will replace the plastic items they regularly use during lunch with biodegradable alternatives. (Plastic cutlery, cups, and straws will be available upon request for the crybabies.)

Southwest Airlines bamboo cup
Southwest Airlines Co., the Dallas-based airline, has introduced a new bamboo cup for inflight cold beverages, and a wood stir stick in place of a plastic stick. The airline expects the new items to reduce its inflight single-use plastics by more than 1.5 million pounds annually.

In July 2024, Southwest transitioned to a paper overwrap for its napkins made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled materials — fully eliminating plastic from this service item. The airline is making an effort to eliminate single-use plastics from inflight service by 2030.

La Casita Bakeshop compostable cups
La Casita Bakeshop, the award-winning bakery and cafe operation, recently debuted fabulous new cups that are 100 percent compostable, soil- and marine-biodegradable, breaking down naturally after 90 days. and are made from natural materials.

"We are always trying to find ways to be more environmentally friendly and this is a big way we can," they said in their post announcing the new cups. "We just want to be proud of our paper trail and being a restaurant it's hard to do that."

Smoothie King biodegrable cups
Smoothie King, the Dallas-based smoothie chain, previously used styrofoam cups, but began testing a biodegradable cup in 2019. They now offer it as the default choice. They're using Vio Foam, specially made cups that biodegrade 92 percent in four years. They'll still accommodate whiny selfish customers who insist on getting a plastic cup instead, but their Vio foam cup not only helps the environment, it also keeps their smoothies cold a little longer.

Kate Weiser Recycle Box Program
Kate Weiser, the Dallas chocolatier, sells its gorgeous eye-catching bon-bons in a variety of boxes, from 4 pieces all the way up to 35 pieces. (OK, they'll sell them individually, too, but who goes to a chocolate shop and buys a single chocolate?) They have a program where you can bring your empty box to the store and get a refill and get 5 percent off. (Weiser amusingly calls it a "secret hack.")

Dude Sweet Chocolate freezer packaging
Dude Sweet Chocolate, the Oak Cliff chocolatier, has a next-level campaign in which they will accept cold-ship packaging you've received in the mail and re-use it. Say, for example, that you ordered an 8-pack of ice cream pints from Double Rainbow in San Francisco, and it arrived in a box with freezer packs and a foil liner. You can drop that packaging off at Dude Sweet's factory location at 1340 Inwood Rd., and they'll re-use it in one way or another when they're doing shipments of their chocolate.

Note: Whether you're putting it in the blue bin or the gray bin, your plastic is not being recycled. The best course when it comes to plastic, especially single-use plastic, is to not use it at all.

sustainability