Say Cheese

Dip into the best queso in Dallas-Fort Worth

It goes without saying that there is no bad queso. With this cheesy Tex-Mex dip, the badder the better. We're not talking about authentic dishes such as queso fundido that use actual cheese — this is the melted orange stuff, be it Velveeta or the creamy Land 'O' Lakes Extra Melt that many restaurants use.

We're in queso land, along with Austin and San Antonio, and it's always evolving. With newcomers bubbling up, yesterday's favorites can feel thin and bland today. For that reason, it's time to take stock of queso in 2017.

The current great quesos in Dallas-Fort Worth fall into four categories, as follows:

Classic Dallas queso
While there is something pure and direct about a minimalist queso that simply gilds your chip, like gold plating with melted cheese, there's also solid gold in the queso that's studded with things. Things like meat — and for that we refer to the famed Bob Armstrong Dip at Matt's Rancho Martinez, which ladles on seasoned taco beef along with guacamole and sour cream, so that you may enjoy the multipronged tastes atop one tortilla chip.

Bob's fancier cousin, the Smoked Bob, features brisket and sausage; with accompanying flour tortillas, it's almost a meal in itself.

Many others do their own versions — Chuy's, Manny's, Bandito's, Braindead Brewing — but Matt's is the gold standard.

Green chili queso
These days, we have not one but two fabulous green chili quesos, both brought to us via restaurant chains from Austin. Thanks, Austin!

The one that gets the most lavish praise is Torchy's Tacos Green Chili Queso, which comes with guacamole, cilantro, hot sauce, and a sprinkling of queso fresco.

Torchy's queso has a few things in its favor. One is the guacamole itself, with its firm texture and lime-cilantro flavor. Another is the way it's positioned: It's suspended in the center of the queso, like a prize waiting to be discovered. Lastly, there's the diablo sauce, a drizzle of bright heat. All mixed together, it's creamy, fresh, and hot.

The second green chili queso is a sleeper. It's at Hopdoddy Burger Bar, where it can be ordered as a side dip for the Kennebec hand-cut French fries. The fries are a little thicker than McDonald's; OK, they could be thicker. But let us not digress, as they are good fries.

Hopdoddy's queso has subtle heat from the chiles — it's also visually pleasing in that you can see little bits floating throughout. Maybe what really makes it stand out is the surprise element: You don't expect queso on the menu here, and you might not have thought of pairing it with fries.

Vegan queso
It says something about what a massive trend vegan has become that Dallas has at least three vegan queso options, all of which are good, "even if you aren't vegan," as the saying goes.

Spiral Diner is the benchmark, no surprise since Spiral is our award-winning vegan diner chain. Spiral's queso has the proper yellow color, salty cheesy flavor, and creamy consistency, whether you get it with chips or, the better option, as part of the hugely popular nachos.

This month, Spiral is also doing a broccoli cheese soup, which is like a cousin of the queso, but with broccoli stirred in.

The surprising vegan queso is at HG Sply Co., the Greenville Avenue restaurant that does "bowls" and Paleo food. Surprising in how good it is. Chef Danyele McPherson has crafted a dairy-free queso that's creamy and spicy, with a big Torchy's-style spoonful of guacamole in the middle. It's served with tortilla chips whose extra thickness and inconsistent shapes let you know they're made in-house.

Extreme queso
There are different kinds of extreme here.

At the gastropub Mash'd, it's about extreme ingredients. Its queso folds in roasted garlic, Abita beer, andouille sausage, and pickled pepper relish. The tortilla chips are crunchy with air holes and come dusted with chile seasoning.

Extreme cuisine is what Velvet Taco is going for with its red curry queso, a refreshing fusion between Tex-Mex and Thai. The queso includes red curry paste and coconut milk, which add color and creaminess, and a subtly exotic flavor. They toss a little pickled onion on top and serve it with blue tortilla chips, to really hammer home the gourmet vibe.

Chicken Moto, the new Korean chicken place from the Bbb Bop folks, is also doing some edgy cuisine stuff with its kimchi queso, an innovative dish combining the classic Velveeta with Korea's signature fermented cabbage. They fold kimchi into the cheese until it gets pulverized, then pile a kimchi "salsa" on top. The kimchi adds an appealing sour note that counterpoints perfectly with the cheese. Forget tortilla chips; this one comes with taro chips.

Velvet Taco's queso comes topped with pickled onions.

Velvet Taco

Velvet Taco's queso comes topped with pickled onions.

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Closure News

The original Dick's Last Resort in Dallas closes after 40 years

Dick's Last Resort

A venerable destination in the downtown Dallas area has closed: Dick's Last Resort, the notoriously saucy restaurant and bar at 2211 Lamar St., has closed permanently, after 40 years.

According to a representative from the Nashville-based chain, the final day for the Dallas location was November 30.

"Business at that location had been declining, and they were facing an increase in rent, so they made a decision to close," the representative said.

Dick's Last Resort was founded right here in Dallas in 1985 as a winking, impudent good-time spot with good bar food and cold beer, at a time when leg warmers and mullets were the rage.

The concept was hatched by bon vivant "Buffalo George" Toomer and Richard "Dick" Chase, centered on a saga about a bad boy named Dick whose big-league plans had failed and who pivoted to open a laid-back bar full of attitude and dick jokes. The restaurant featured gruff staffers and a Southern-style menu in a rowdy roadhouse environment.

It became a huge success, with customers coming eagerly to be insulted, get pelted with napkins and straws, and wear paper hats with crude comments and insults written in a sharpie such as "I've nailed more wood than HGTV." That atmosphere made it a popular destination for bachelorette parties and other group events, and it was a big tourist draw at its then-location in the West End. (It relocated to its current location close to American Airlines Center in 2005.)

Although the food took a backseat to the atmosphere, the menu — written on the wall — featured ribs, chicken, wings, and burgers, served casually in paper and buckets. In its heyday and for many years, it remained lodged on the TABC Top 10 list for beer sales in Dallas.

Chase was ousted for embezzling by the financial backers, who went on to grow the concept into a national chain, with locations in Boston, Chicago, and London. Those are now closed, but there are currently a dozen Dick's across the southeast in Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, as well as Las Vegas and a longtime location in San Antonio on the Riverwalk.

Dallas restaurateur Mike McRae, who currently owns restaurants such as Dodie's Cajun Diner in Rockwall, Stan's Blue Note, and McRae's Bistro in East Dallas, worked for Dick's for 23 years and owned the Dallas location for 12 years.

"I was hired as their general manager 18 months after it opened," McRae says. "Richard Chase was kind of a hothead. He would fire people on the drop of a pin. We had a pink plastic flamingo with a light inside behind the bar, and he was adamant that the light be on all the time. He once fired a GM because the light was off."

Dick's was owned by Steven Schiff, a Dallas entrepreneur who was in real estate and oil, but had no experience in the restaurant industry.

"Steve talked to Norman Brinker and said, 'I've got this place but I don't want to be in the restaurant business — how do I sell this?'" McRae says. "Norman said, 'You need to open two more locations in different cities.' So we opened the location in San Antonio and a third in downtown Chicago. Both were wildly successful — way more than Dallas. These places were netting over $1 million in yearly profits, which was a lot of money back then. We opened one in London, Boston, San Diego, Myrtle Beach, they were in major cities all over the U.S."

McRae eventually became director of operations and they kept it running until 2009 when they sold the company to its current ownership group based in Nashville. McRae bought the Dallas location in 2010, later joined by his partner Gabe Nicolella; they owned it for 12 years before selling it back to the corporate owners in 2021.

"We did some crazy things in those days, like creating a fake restroom with a pair of tennis shoes visible and a tape recording of farting sounds," McRae says. "We only hired people who had been class clowns, who couldn't get jobs anywhere else. We served food in buckets and the placemats were torn-off butcher paper — things you couldn't get away with now."

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