• Home
  • popular
  • Events
  • Submit New Event
  • Subscribe
  • About
  • News
  • Restaurants + Bars
  • City Life
  • Entertainment
  • Travel
  • Real Estate
  • Arts
  • Society
  • Home + Design
  • Fashion + Beauty
  • Innovation
  • Sports
  • Charity Guide
  • children
  • education
  • health
  • veterans
  • SOCIAL SERVICES
  • ARTS + CULTURE
  • animals
  • lgbtq
  • New Charity
  • Series
  • Delivery Limited
  • DTX Giveaway 2012
  • DTX Ski Magic
  • dtx woodford reserve manhattans
  • Your Home in the Sky
  • DTX Best of 2013
  • DTX Trailblazers
  • Tastemakers Dallas 2017
  • Healthy Perspectives
  • Neighborhood Eats 2015
  • The Art of Making Whiskey
  • DTX International Film Festival
  • DTX Tatum Brown
  • Tastemaker Awards 2016 Dallas
  • DTX McCurley 2014
  • DTX Cars in Lifestyle
  • DTX Beyond presents Party Perfect
  • DTX Texas Health Resources
  • DART 2018
  • Alexan Central
  • State Fair 2018
  • Formula 1 Giveaway
  • Zatar
  • CityLine
  • Vision Veritas
  • Okay to Say
  • Hearts on the Trinity
  • DFW Auto Show 2015
  • Northpark 50
  • Anteks Curated
  • Red Bull Cliff Diving
  • Maggie Louise Confections Dallas
  • Gaia
  • Red Bull Global Rally Cross
  • NorthPark Holiday 2015
  • Ethan's View Dallas
  • DTX City Centre 2013
  • Galleria Dallas
  • Briggs Freeman Sotheby's International Realty Luxury Homes in Dallas Texas
  • DTX Island Time
  • Simpson Property Group SkyHouse
  • DIFFA
  • Lotus Shop
  • Holiday Pop Up Shop Dallas
  • Clothes Circuit
  • DTX Tastemakers 2014
  • Elite Dental
  • Elan City Lights
  • Dallas Charity Guide
  • DTX Music Scene 2013
  • One Arts Party at the Plaza
  • J.R. Ewing
  • AMLI Design District Vibrant Living
  • Crest at Oak Park
  • Braun Enterprises Dallas
  • NorthPark
  • Victory Park
  • DTX Common Desk
  • DTX Osborne Advisors
  • DTX Comforts of Home 2012
  • DFW Showcase Tour of Homes
  • DTX Neighborhood Eats
  • DTX Comforts of Home 2013
  • DTX Auto Awards
  • Cottonwood Art Festival 2017
  • Nasher Store
  • Guardian of The Glenlivet
  • Zyn22
  • Dallas Rx
  • Yellow Rose Gala
  • Opendoor
  • DTX Sun and Ski
  • Crow Collection
  • DTX Tastes of the Season
  • Skye of Turtle Creek Dallas
  • Cottonwood Art Festival
  • DTX Charity Challenge
  • DTX Culture Motive
  • DTX Good Eats 2012
  • DTX_15Winks
  • St. Bernard Sports
  • Jose
  • DTX SMU 2014
  • DTX Up to Speed
  • st bernard
  • Ardan West Village
  • DTX New York Fashion Week spring 2016
  • Taste the Difference
  • Parktoberfest 2016
  • Bob's Steak and Chop House
  • DTX Smart Luxury
  • DTX Earth Day
  • DTX_Gaylord_Promoted_Series
  • IIDA Lavish
  • Huffhines Art Trails 2017
  • Red Bull Flying Bach Dallas
  • Y+A Real Estate
  • Beauty Basics
  • DTX Pet of the Week
  • Long Cove
  • Charity Challenge 2014
  • Legacy West
  • Wildflower
  • Stillwater Capital
  • Tulum
  • DTX Texas Traveler
  • Dallas DART
  • Soldiers' Angels
  • Alexan Riveredge
  • Ebby Halliday Realtors
  • Zephyr Gin
  • Sixty Five Hundred Scene
  • Christy Berry
  • Entertainment Destination
  • Dallas Art Fair 2015
  • St. Bernard Sports Duck Head
  • Jameson DTX
  • Alara Uptown Dallas
  • Cottonwood Art Festival fall 2017
  • DTX Tastemakers 2015
  • Cottonwood Arts Festival
  • The Taylor
  • Decks in the Park
  • Alexan Henderson
  • Gallery at Turtle Creek
  • Omni Hotel DTX
  • Red on the Runway
  • Whole Foods Dallas 2018
  • Artizone Essential Eats
  • Galleria Dallas Runway Revue
  • State Fair 2016 Promoted
  • Trigger's Toys Ultimate Cocktail Experience
  • Dean's Texas Cuisine
  • Real Weddings Dallas
  • Real Housewives of Dallas
  • Jan Barboglio
  • Wildflower Arts and Music Festival
  • Hearts for Hounds
  • Okay to Say Dallas
  • Indochino Dallas
  • Old Forester Dallas
  • Dallas Apartment Locators
  • Dallas Summer Musicals
  • PSW Real Estate Dallas
  • Paintzen
  • DTX Dave Perry-Miller
  • DTX Reliant
  • Get in the Spirit
  • Bachendorf's
  • Holiday Wonder
  • Village on the Parkway
  • City Lifestyle
  • opportunity knox villa-o restaurant
  • Nasher Summer Sale
  • Simpson Property Group
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2017 Dallas
  • Carlisle & Vine
  • DTX New Beginnings
  • Get in the Game
  • Red Bull Air Race
  • Dallas DanceFest
  • 2015 Dallas Stylemaker
  • Youth With Faces
  • Energy Ogre
  • DTX Renewable You
  • Galleria Dallas Decadence
  • Bella MD
  • Tractorbeam
  • Young Texans Against Cancer
  • Fresh Start Dallas
  • Dallas Farmers Market
  • Soldier's Angels Dallas
  • Shipt
  • Elite Dental
  • Texas Restaurant Association 2017
  • State Fair 2017
  • Scottish Rite
  • Brooklyn Brewery
  • DTX_Stylemakers
  • Alexan Crossings
  • Ascent Victory Park
  • Top Texans Under 30 Dallas
  • Discover Downtown Dallas
  • San Luis Resort Dallas
  • Greystar The Collection
  • FIG Finale
  • Greystar M Line Tower
  • Lincoln Motor Company
  • The Shelby
  • Jonathan Goldwater Events
  • Windrose Tower
  • Gift Guide 2016
  • State Fair of Texas 2016
  • Choctaw Dallas
  • TodayTix Dallas promoted
  • Whole Foods
  • Unbranded 2014
  • Frisco Square
  • Unbranded 2016
  • Circuit of the Americas 2018
  • The Katy
  • Snap Kitchen
  • Partners Card
  • Omni Hotels Dallas
  • Landmark on Lovers
  • Harwood Herd
  • Galveston.com Dallas
  • Holiday Happenings Dallas 2018
  • TenantBase
  • Cottonwood Art Festival 2018
  • Hawkins-Welwood Homes
  • The Inner Circle Dallas
  • Eating in Season Dallas
  • ATTPAC Behind the Curtain
  • TodayTix Dallas
  • The Alexan
  • Toyota Music Factory
  • Nosh Box Eatery
  • Wildflower 2018
  • Society Style Dallas 2018
  • Texas Scottish Rite Hospital 2018
  • 5 Mockingbird
  • 4110 Fairmount
  • Visit Taos
  • Allegro Addison
  • Dallas Tastemakers 2018
  • The Village apartments
  • City of Burleson Dallas

    All-American Cheese

    Upscale Dallas restaurants embrace creamy nostalgic favorite in hot dining trend

    Teresa Gubbins
    Mar 10, 2015 | 9:06 am

    A novel ingredient is showing up on the menus at many of Dallas' hottest restaurants, such as Remedy, Knife, Proof + Pantry and Dallas Grilled Cheese Co. The ingredient is creamy and lush. It brings a sinful decadence while simultaneously evoking powerful memories of childhood.

    It's a garish orange, and it comes in squares. You got it: The trend in Dallas dining right now is American cheese.

    At Knife, chef John Tesar's groundbreaking steakhouse at the Highland Dallas hotel, American cheese stars in the renowned Ozersky burger, where its subtle firmness slowly yields, a textural counterpoint to the meat.

    "What makes American cheese special is that when it melts, it becomes perfectly and evenly viscous," says Esquire restaurant editor Josh Ozersky.

    On chef Kyle McLelland's $15 Pantry burger at Proof + Pantry, it's a strangely beautiful slice of geometry beneath the frilly green lettuce. At Remedy, it's a soft cream that oozes over the bologna in chef Danyele McPherson's fried bologna sandwich; it also cloaks her crisp fried fish sandwich. At Dallas Grilled Cheese Co., it's the resolute center between two slices of grilled white bread.

    On the scale of gourmet foods — with say, black radishes at 10, with 10 being best — American cheese would have previously come in at 1, consigned to the realm of fast-food restaurants and greasy spoons. But chefs have reembraced an ingredient that ultimately performs in a way that other ingredients can't.

    American cheese was pointedly not on the menu when chef Jason Boso launched the first branch of his gourmet burger concept Twisted Root Burger Co. in 2005.

    "My attitude was that I wasn't going to have it," Boso says. "I would say, 'That's not cheese, it's processed bullshit.' But people would get mad it wasn't on the menu. So many people asked for it that I had to add it as an option."

    More cheesy than you think
    If anyone can make a case for American cheese, it's Philadelphia author and noted junk-food expert Carolyn Wyman, who wrote Better Than Homemade, a history of processed foods like Twinkies and Velveeta, and 2009's The Great Philly Cheesesteak Book.

    "American cheese is actually 80 percent real cheese," she says. "It's not as fake as you think." She says that American cheese is a "perfect example" of what processed food should do.

    "It's the very thing that Kraft started," she says. "Taking cheese — which is something smelly and difficult to deal with and spoils easily and is intense — and turning it into something approachable that lasts a long time. American cheese doesn't crumble.

    "Even the shape of it was designed to fit on a sandwich, so you don't have to cut it. Cheese has a lot of issues in its natural form; processing makes it better."

    Boso says he's come to appreciate the nostalgic value. That's also key for retro restaurants such as Remedy, the reimagined soda fountain on Greenville Avenue, where McPherson buys American cheese in 5-pound blocks, pre-sliced. Dallas Grilled Cheese Co., the upscale sandwich shop in Bishop Arts, features American cheese along with high-end curds such as Brie and Gruyere.

    Kraft baby Kraft
    But the game changer was Knife, whose menu features the $12 Ozersky burger, topped with American cheese — "Kraft, baby, Kraft," Tesar says — next to a $58 steak au poivre. The burger is named after Josh Ozersky, James Beard Award-winning writer and restaurant editor of Esquire magazine. He also is the author of several books, including The Hamburger: A History.

    Ozersky, who is writing a cookbook with Tesar titled Knife: Modern Steak and All American Meats, has been singing the praises of American cheese for at least a decade.

    "I understand the value of aged English cheddar and double Gloucester and raw cow's milk cheese, but none has the properties that American cheese has, which can be summed up in its supreme meltability," he says. "What makes American cheese special is that when it melts, it becomes perfectly and evenly viscous, different from nasty things like Velveeta that enter a liquid state.

    "When you use expensive farmhouse cheddars, one thing I find vile about them is that they break the way butter does," he says. "Half of it turns to grease, and half turns to milk solids."

    A self-proclaimed "hamburger fundamentalist," Ozersky says his favorite Dallas burger joint is Keller's Drive-In, where American cheese and a "squishy" bun serve as the burger's "alpha and omega."

    At Knife, his burger requires careful assembly, with the attention to detail you'd expect from a chef.

    "A lot of places focused on the bottom line give you one slice of cheese," Ozersky says. "I give you two, and have them carefully arranged in the shape of the Star of David, with the eight compass points, and then add them after the burger is off the grill. Go ahead and say you haven't been experiencing that with American cheese.

    "In reclaiming what have always been our signature foods, American cheese is central," he says.

    At Remedy, American cheese cloaks the crisp fried fish sandwich.

    Remedy food
      
    Photo courtesy of Remedy
    At Remedy, American cheese cloaks the crisp fried fish sandwich.
    unspecified
    news/restaurants-bars
    CULTUREMAP EMAILS ARE AWESOME
    Get Dallas intel delivered daily.

    Stir Fry News

    Mom-and-pop Asian chain from Austin makes Dallas debut in McKinney

    Raven Jordan
    May 12, 2025 | 6:40 pm
    Fire Bowl
    Fire Bowl
    Fire Bowl

    A small Asian chain from Austin has entered the Dallas market: Called Fire Bowl Cafe, it's a small chain that has opened its first DFW location in McKinney, at 4060 W. University Dr. #300, in a new shopping center west of US-75.

    Fire Bowl Cafe was founded by husband-and-wife Gigi Lee and Daniel Pao in 1996 with a focus on customizable bowls prepared in sizzling woks. They have four locations in Austin and one in Colorado.

    Bringing the concept to McKinney is Dallas-based hospitality group DLC Restaurant Holdings (Firo Pizza, Craft Pies Pizza, Desperados), according to a release.

    “We are thrilled to bring Fire Bowl Café to McKinney and introduce our unique dining experience to the wonderful community here,” says CEO Mike Daniel in a statement. “Our mission is to ensure that every customer leaves satisfied and happy, and we can’t wait to share our passion for fresh, customizable Asian cuisine with our new neighbors in North Texas."

    To give it local flavor, they've partnered with Julian Rodarte, who co-founded Beto & Son, the Mexican restaurant at Trinity Groves in west Dallas, and also served as Trinity Groves' CEO. He was briefly executive chef at COSM at Grandscape and is currently culinary director for Dee Lincoln Concepts.

    The menu has a Pei-Wei vibe, featuring a mashup of Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese cuisines, with favorites like edamame, spring rolls, crab rangoon, pad Thai, pot stickers, and lettuce wraps.

    There are noodle and rice bowls, topped with vegetables and choice of protein; and a make-it-your-way stir-fry where you choose from proteins like chicken, beef, shrimp, or tofu, tossed in a wok with vegetables, then combine it with your choice of "carb" — noodles, brown or white rice — and a wide selection of sauces, from teriyaki to spicy peanut to classic Chinese.

    Prices are $12-$14. They do not currently serve alcohol, but have plans for it at a future date.

    openings
    news/restaurants-bars
    Loading...