Green Everywhere

Where to eat in Dallas right now: 10 restaurants with best salads

We have the best salads in Dallas right here.

Photo courtesy of North Italia

This being summer, and summer being the time when you theoretically eat fresher and lighter, one's thoughts turn to salads. At least, this one's thoughts do. If you search on the worldwide web for Best Salads in Dallas, you get this list and that, and they all seem to have one thing in common: They come topped with meat. How in the world when you think of a salad do you end up with meat?

Forget the other best salad lists. This is your list of the 10 best real salads in DFW:

Al Biernat's, hearts of palm
Steakhouses have some of the best salads around, and Al Biernat's is no exception. They have nine salad options including the popular favorite, the Al's Salad, with hearts of palm, avocado, shrimp, and crab. It's a stunner of a salad, but for our purposes, which is a salad not heaped with meat, go for the junior version: the hearts of palm salad, with mixed greens, bell pepper, and crunchy hazelnuts tossed in a hazelnut vinaigrette. Soon you'll be able to order it not only at the original location on Oak Lawn Avenue but also the second branch opening in North Dallas.

Blatt Beer + Table, kale-Caesar
Everyone has a kale salad, making it hard to stand out. But the kale-Caesar at this elevated gastropub at Preston Hollow Village stands out. It has Boston lettuce, baby kale, shaved fennel, Grana Padano cheese, and brioche-herb croutons, but what really gives it the pop is the fresh citrus twist in its citrus-Caesar dressing.

Knife Dallas, Teresa salad
For starters, this salad at John Tesar's edgy steakhouse at the Highland Dallas hotel has a really cool name. But that's not what makes this salad so special. It's a bold, ballsy heap of watercress, tempered by bits of Belgian endive, candied walnut, and goat cheese — simple but sophisticated, and the best salad in Dallas.

La Ventana, ensalada fresca
Salads are not what you would expect at this upscale taqueria chain and El Fenix sibling, but its ensalada fresca would prove you wrong. It has mixed greens, iceberg lettuce, tomato, candied peanuts, avocado, fresco cheese, with a charred cilantro vinaigrette, with the option to add shredded pork, brisket, or their other meats. But who needs it.

North Italia, Tuscan kale salad
New Italian eatery at Legacy West is part of the Fox Restaurant Concepts family, along with salad-serving restaurants such as True Food Kitchen and Flower Child. But it beats its siblings with its Tuscan kale salad, with an assortment of flavorful embellishments that makes you forget there's kale: crispy pancetta, charred grape, apple, and pistachio in a Parmesan vinaigrette.

Pie Tap Pizza Workshop, Sweet salad
Nascient Dallas pizza chain with two branches on Henderson Avenue and in the Design District has notably great pizza, but there's more to life and dinner than pizza. There's the sweet salad with kale, radicchio, apple, radish, pearled barley, candied pecans, and goat cheese, tossed in a pomegranate vinaigrette.

Rise No. 1, Rise No. 1 salad
While Rise specializes in souffles, it has one great salad that is as dear and delicate as everything else at this darling Dallas chain. It consists of baby greens, with blue cheese, roasted pecans, and Granny Smith apples, tossed in a pecan vinaigrette. Others do salads with these ingredients, but Rise just does them right.

Snappy Salads, Bam-Bam salad
The Bam-Bam used to be a special but recently got bumped up to regular menu status. No wonder, with its combination of baby spinach, baby arugula, lettuce mix, red cabbage, quinoa, red onion, dried cherries, and chopped almonds, in a housemade Sweet Parsley dressing. It officially comes with pulled chicken, if you must. Check it out at their new location downtown.

T Room, Green Goddess salad
The T Room is one of the city's top 5 ladies-who-lunch spots and you know that means salad. (Sorry to resort to stereotypes.) The winner is the Green Goddess salad with Romaine lettuce, hearts of palm, artichoke, tomato, and Parmesan chees tossed in a house-made green goddess dressing. Divine.

Taverna, beet salad
Beet salads sort of peaked in 2015 (to be replaced by kale, duh), but Alberto Lombardi's Italian mini-chain keeps the flame burning with an exceptional version that has roasted beets, mache, spinach, toasted hazelnuts, goat cheese, in a honey Champagne dressing.

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Lindsey Wilson and Jessica Baldwin contributed to this story.

Revolving Doors

12 restaurants in Dallas that have either just opened or just closed

Harumama

Harumama Noodles & Buns

In the inevitable ebb and flow of Dallas restaurants, openings and closings are part of the deal — often coming at the end of the year, when restaurateurs, like the rest of us, take stock of the future.

When there is more than one opening and closure, it becomes difficult to keep track. For this reason, there are lists.

Here's a roundup of Dallas restaurant openings and closures, with the bad news first.

CLOSURES

Terra Mediterranean
Mediterranean favorite in Plano closed on December 8, almost four years to the day they opened. When restaurateur brothers Jalal Chanaa and Adam Shanaa opened it at the The Shops at Willow Bend, it was the third location of Terra, following the original in Fort Worth and another in Irving. Both of those locations have since closed, although they're planning to reopen Fort Worth soon. Meanwhile, the brothers are advising Dallas fans to head to Ali Baba, their other restaurant in Richardson, which they say has the same menu.

Yummies
Despite the confusingly quirky name, this Allen restaurant was a fast food halal restaurant featuring halal beef patties prepared fresh in-store every day, plus pita sandwiches, shawarma, and fajitas. They'd been open for seven years including enduring the pandemic, and locals liked their burgers. But they closed at the end of November.

Whistle Britches
Fried chicken & biscuits concept from chef Omar Flores quietly closed its location at 6110 Frankford Rd. in November. Queries about the what and why are going unanswered, but a recording on the location's phone says both that #1 the closure is temporary and also #2 a new concept will go in its place. This was the location featured in Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, so closing it seems like a shoot-yourself-in-the-foot kind of move, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. There are still two remaining locations open, in Plano and Southlake.

Mixtitos Kitchen
Mexican-fusion restaurant in East Dallas finally closed after two years of chef-owner Jose Luis Rodriguez bemoaning a lack of interest in his unusual menu of American, Mexican, and French dishes. He earned oodles of idiotic media attention, but the menu was a tough sell in a space that was previously home to La Acapulqueña, which served cheap Mexican food and margaritas in that space for 33 years. Changing the menu or paying his rent apparently never crossed his mind.

Barley & Board
Denton brewpub is closing after nearly 10 years. According to a post from the owners, the lease was up and they opted not to renew. B&B brought a level of cosmopolitan cool to Denton, combined with an easygoing vibe that made it a fresh addition when it was opened by a hospitality supergroup in 2015. Alas, they got pummeled by the pandemic; one chef said that "things were never the same after COVID." In 2021, they pared down the menu, yet still remained a big magnet, bringing lots if revenue into the Square. A second location — which opened at Grandscape in 2018 — closed in November. Denton will close on January 6.

Taco Cabana in Murphy
The Taco Cabana location at 104 FM 544 in Murphy has permanently closed. A Taco Cabana representative said that the location was not doing enough business. People of Murphy, it's on you. Fortunately, the chain has 18 other Dallas-area locations. Support your neighborhood Taco Cabana!

Harumama cutesy bunsHarumama

OPENINGS

Rodeo Cold
Yee-haw dive bar in old east Dallas at 3826 Ross Ave., in the former Eastbound & Down space, is now open. Rodeo Cold is a sibling of Green Light Social, the Austin-born nightlife venue which opened off Good Latimer Freeway in 2021 from owners Robert Dummond and Ian Fletcher, who've partnered with Ian’s brother Eric Fletcher. Their vision is a bar with a late '70s/early '80s vibe plus a little Texas Western color thrown in, and a basic menu with American classics such as steak fingers with gravy, Texas chili, burgers, hot dogs, Frito pies, and nothing-too-fancy ready-to-drink cocktails.

MiYa Chinese
Chinese restaurant that just opened in Casa Linda Plaza in the former Pei Wei space, is the brainchild of David Romano, an industry veteran, with visionary Jia Huang, who grew up in China and has 10-plus years of experience in restaurant operations in America. They're doing classic Chinese take-out like beef with broccoli and orange chicken, plus hand-pulled noodle dishes such as Sichuan Dan Dan with cucumber, carrot, and sesame Dan Dan sauce ranging in price from $14 to $18. The space is nice but the music — pop stuff like "You're the One That I Want" by Olivia Newton-John piped in extra-loud — is iffy.

Be Home Soon
Casa Linda Plaza is en fuego right now and here's yet another opening: a place with rock-star cred that opened in mid-November. Be Home Soon is from Madison King, a onetime Dallas musician-turned-chef who envisions a warm, comfortable restaurant with a full bar and menu she describes as "home cooking, no matter where you're from." They're open for lunch and dinner with fun appetizers, soups, salads, sandwiches, and blue plate specials like meatloaf for dinner.

Kafi BBQ
This one jumps the gun a little because it isn't quite open yet — but it's days away. Kafi is an unusual BBQ restaurant specializing in halal Wagyu beef, and it will open at 8140 N. MacArthur Blvd. #100 in Valley Ranch on December 14. It's from Salahodeen Abdul-Kafi, a tech engineer and amateur chef who started bringing his BBQ to events at his mosque, where he would sell out very quickly. The menu will include $15 Wagyu brisket sandwiches, brisket on a stick, Iraqi kebab-inspired sausage, and combo plates.

Harumama Noodles + Buns
Small San Diego-based chain with five locations in California is known for "cute" steamed buns decorated to look chicks, pigs, cows, pandas, etc. They've opened a location in Carrollton — their first in Texas — at 1060 W. Frankford Rd. Beyond its twee appeal and Instagram value, the restaurant has a big menu featuring ramen, poke, bao buns, crab wontons, fried rice, potstickers, eggrolls, and salads.

Russo's New York Pizzeria - Frisco
Longtime pizza chain based in Houston which serves New York-style pizza has opened a new location in Frisco at 3420 Main St. #200, in a small new center near Teal Parkway. In addition to full pies, they offer pizza by the slice.

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