A great Asian restaurant in Fort Worth closed, but there's brunch and beer everywhere. Here's our latest sampler of restaurant news:
In sad news, the excellent indie Asian restaurant Mijo's Fusion closed in January. Located on Fort Worth's trendy Magnolia Avenue, the restaurant was a true gem, serving a unique combination of Asian, Mexican and vegetarian food. Chef-owner Connie Sheen served standards like tacos, but more intriguing were the dishes in which she combined ingredients you'd never imagine, like zucchini stuffed with short rib.
Kent & Co., an unusual hybrid of its own combining wine bar with an automotive theme that opened in mid-2014, took over the space. Sheen had just revamped the menu, adding new options such as a chicken salad sandwich, and expanding the vegan and vegetarian selection.
Snuffer's is changing its Addison location from Midway Road to 4180 Belt Line Rd. It'll share the site with a new branch of its sibling concept, Taqueria La Ventana.
Chef John Tesar's steakhouse, Knife, is serving brunch and specialty cocktails every Sunday from 10 am until 2 pm. The menu includes short rib Benedict with braised short rib, toasted English muffin and hollandaise; crispy pork belly hash with poached egg and roasted potatoes; waffles with bacon, strawberries and bananas; steak and eggs made with 44 Farms flat iron; and French toast made with brioche.
After a two-year brunch sabbatical, The Mercury in North Dallas is back with a new Sunday brunch menu that runs from 11 am to 3 pm. Dishes include smoked salmon, eggs Benedict, French toast, crab meat hash with chipotle hollandaise and fried chicken skins with honey hot sauce. According to chef Chris Ward, they'll also offer Creole dishes such as grillades and grits and shrimp Creole. There are appetizers, salads and entrées ranging from $14-$23, and bottomless mimosas for $16. You can view the full menu online.
Bowling alley/restaurant Bowl & Barrel has some new menu items, including sandwiches such as steak and blue cheese on baguette and a chicken apple club on sourdough with avocado, green apples and bacon; both come with choice of fries or quinoa salad. Other dishes include fish and chips and chicken salad with cabbage, kale, ghost pepper peanuts, fruit chutney, jicama, green apple and curry vinaigrette.
West Village Asian restaurant Malai Kitchen is now serving beer flights, allowing patrons to sample all three of its house-brewed beers in one sitting. Flights include a 5-ounce pour of the light Vietnamese lager, Thai-P-A and the seasonal rotator; for this month, that's a Belgian Tripel. At $8, it's a steal. The restaurant began brewing its own beer in 2014.
Hibiscus restaurant is spotlighting "natural wines" made with minimal chemical and technological intervention. Wine director John Dal Canton is a big proponent of a genre you don't see much in Texas, made by brands such as Donkey & the Goat out of the San Francisco Bay Area. In regular wine, up to 58 additives are legal; natural wines have few to none, which decreases toxicity and the likelihood of hangovers.
Pastries by Joe the Baker are now available at Bolsa Mercado, with a rotating selection of croissants, muffins, cookies, brownies, cakes, tarts and French macarons.
Speaking of chef John Tesar, he's co-writing a cookbook with Josh Ozersky. Called Knife: Modern Steak and All American Meats, it'll be published in 2017 by Flatiron Books/Macmillan, ushered via Dallas super-agent David Hale Smith of Inkwell Management.
Ozersky is editor-at-large at Esquire and founder of Meatopia, the original "meat festival." He was founding editor of New York Magazine's food blog, Grub Street, and a winner of the James Beard Award. Photos will be done by Dallas photographer Kevin Marple. In addition to exploring meat, the book will take a trip inside the mind of one of the most distinctive and acclaimed chefs in the world.
The dates have been announced for the 18th annual DFW Restaurant Week: August 10-16, 2015.
John Tesar is doing a cookbook on meat.
