This Week in Gluttony

These are the 9 best food and drink events in Dallas this week

Tulum is hosting a special dinner that'll spotlight a collaboration between two acclaimed chefs.

Photo courtesy of Tulum

This weekly roundup of dining events around Dallas is an exciting run-up the week before Thanksgiving. There's a cool star chef dinner, plus dinners featuring pairings with whiskey, tequila, and beer. There's also lots of art. Maybe everyone's getting geared up in anticipation of Thanksgiving. (Speaking of, we have a list of restaurants that are hosting Thanksgiving dining-in, as well as a list of restaurants offering Thankgiving to-go.)

Thursday, November 18

Tulum X Shinsei Dinner
"Infused with Tulum: A Chef Collaboration Series" is a new quarterly event series at Tulum, the upscale Mexican restaurant on Oak Lawn Avenue. This first installment features 2021 Tastemaker Awards Chef of the Year nominee Jose Meza with Chef Shuji "Elvis" Sugawara of Shinsei Restaurant, who together will bring a fusion of flavors extending beyond traditional Mexican and pan-Asian cuisine. The evening includes a five-course dinner with special dishes not found on the menu of either restaurant. Limited seating between 6-9 pm. Tickets are $100. Make reservation by emailing Tulum@thetulumexperience.com.

Nelson's Green Brier Whiskey Dinner at Knife Steakhouse Plano
Knife Steakhouse Plano has partnered with Nelson's Green Brier Distillery to host a whiskey and Belle Meade Bourbon pairing dinner. The evening will feature a cocktail reception followed by a four-course tasting menu paired with Nelson’s Green Brier Whiskey and bourbon. The meal begins with a mushroom risotto & duck confit paired with Nelson’s Green Brier Original Sour Mash Tennessee Whiskey. The third course combines braised beef cheek with polenta & mushrooms with Belle Meade Reserve Bourbon. Dessert includes an original cocktail using Louisa's Caramel Coffee Pecan Liqueur with a pecan tart. The reception starts at 6 pm sharp, in Knife Plano's private dining room. Tickets are $99 and reservations can be made online.

El Patio Mex-Tex Tequila Dinner Featuring Cincoro Tequila
Mexican/BBQ restaurant in Lewisville is hosting a three-course dinner created by chef Slvador Hernandez featuring the celebrity-backed tequila co-released by Michael Jordan. First course is citrus butter-poached sea bass on a fall green salad. The entree is braised short rib with roasted huitlacoche with corn tamale and a broccoflower medley. Dessert is a carpirotada, IE Mexican bread pudding with pistachio ice cream and Grand Marnier creme anglais. Tequilas poured will include the blanco, anejo, and reposado. Given what the tequilas cost, it's a pretty reasonable $95. Dinner starts at 7:30 pm. Call 972-410-2096 or email info@elpatiomextex.com.

"Let's Plant and Sip" at the Beeman Hotel
Show off your green spirit in an interactive workshop at the Beeman Hotel, in collaboration with Energy Gardens Terrarium, where you can design and plant your own succulent garden. The important part: The sipping. You do it with a glass of wine or Champagne. The workshop is from 7-9 pm. $40 gets you a glass of wine or champagne, one container and three succulents to take home. Tickets can be purchased online.

Friday, November 19

Community Beer Dinner at Virgin Dallas Hotel
Virgin is partnering with Community Beer Co. for a Community Beer Dinner, an intimate dining experience featuring five of their brews, served alongside chef-driven dishes from the Commons Club culinary team. The menu includes bacon mac & cheese bites, pork belly sope, zesty shrimp with smoked Gouda grits, quail with butter molasses glaze squash puree & puff sorghum, and panna cotta with snickerdoodle crumbs and caramel popcorn, paired with honey-citrus blonde, Mosaic IPA, and Snickerdoodle Ale. The Community Brewery team will guide the experience while sharing stories of their craft. It's $60 per person and runs from 7-9 pm. Make a reservation here.

Texas Ale Project Caucasian 2021 Release Party
Dallas Design District brewery introduces its latest limited release beer called The Caucasian. This White Russian Imperial Stout is brewed with Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans, Full City Rooster cold brewed coffee, and American Oak with a 9 percent ABV, perfect for winter. They'll also pour other year-round beers. It'll run from 3-10 pm at 1001 N. Riverfront Blvd. and entry is free, with food, live music, bowling (you're encouraged to wear your favorite bowling sweater). 214-965-0606.

Saturday, November 20

19th Annual Cedars Open Studios at Canvas Hotel
Check out an exclusive exhibition of works from some of Dallas' most loved artists while sipping on specialty cocktails from Canvas Hotel including a Lavender in Motion, and for the spice lovers, a Mango Jalapeno Margarita. The hotel reception is free and is part of Cedars Open Studios, a neighborhood-wide tour from 11 am-6 pm, with free performances and activities, including live music and painting demos.

Boba and Doughnut Tasting at TeaLatte Bar
Sample mochi chewy doughnuts while you sip on a boba flight from TeaLatte Bar at 7001 S. Custer Rd. in McKinney. Tating includes a flight of four 8-oz drinks, mochi doughnut samples, one regular size drink, and a goodie bag with treats from local bakers Classic Macaron, EJ Sweets, Meraki Baked, Cauly's Cakes, and Marshell's Sweets, plus boba-themed gifts. $30. 12 pm. Go to thebobatomytea.eventbrite.com for tickets.

Monday, November 22

Farm to Fork Showcase at The Ranch
Las Colinas restaurant celebrates its 13-year relationship with local vendors at its annual Farm to Fork showcase, with a complimentary farmers market-style tasting event featuring many of the partners that helped put the restaurant on the map. Guests are welcome to meet the farmers, growers, and ranchers while enjoying complimentary food and beverage samples. For some reason, they're also doing a petting zoo, which means transporting a bunch of hapless baby sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, rabbits, and piglets to an event that will also have live music. Come on guys, is it really necessary to trot out the animals to serve as props in a stressful, noisy show-and-tell?

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Ice Cream News

Kwality Ice Cream shop to bring creamy exotic desserts to Frisco

Kwality

Kwality Ice Cream

An ice cream chain with an Indian flair is dipping into Dallas-Fort Worth: Called Kwality Ice Cream, it's a concept founded in New Jersey that specializes in traditional Indian ice cream and cold drinks, and it's opening a location in Frisco, at 13089 Main St. #500, in a new shopping center.

According to franchisee Raju Vikey, the shop will open sometime in 2025. It joins two DFW locations already open: Irving at 8600 N. Macarthur Blvd., and Euless, at 1060 N. Main St. at Harwood Crossing shopping center, which opened in April.

Kwality Ice Cream was founded by food scientist Dr. Kanti Parekh and his son Anand, in New Jersey in 2003. It has expanded with 38 locations in 14 states including Pennsylvania, Florida, and Texas, where there are three locations in Houston and one in Austin.

“The idea was to create a South Asian-specific ice cream, which is more known for fruits and nuts,” Anand says. “As a Ph.D. in food and nutrition, my father’s background and expertise were in flavor. He used that to create very unique flavors and top notes to give a really good mouth feel and experience.”

They have close to 50 ice cream flavors with classics like cookies & cream, chocolate supreme, and butter pecan; but South Asian and Indian flavors dominate the menu with exotic options like green guava, lychee, and Nuttie Tuttie Fruitee, a berry-flavored ice cream with nuts and candied fruit.

There is also kulfi, a frozen dessert that's like ice cream but with less added air so it has a stiffer, creamier texture. It's served in slices and comes in popular Indian flavors like pistachio, mango, and rose.

Other novel frozen treats include cassata, an ice cream cake with three flavors of ice cream layered over sponge cake.

As with many Asian desserts, they're often less sweet than American-style confections. Wild inventions include the mawa rabdi cup, with ice cream, rice noodles, basil seeds, and rose syrup, topped with nuts and candied fruit; and Thandai ice cream, a staple at Indian festivals, consisting of almonds, fennel seeds, poppy seeds, watermelon seeds, rose petals, pepper, cardamom, saffron, milk, and sugar.

Rabdi is like a pudding, believed to have originated during the 1600s. Kwality makes it following the traditional method of slow-cooking milk until it thickens and reduces, enhancing its sweetness and creaminess, then adding ingredients like cardamom, saffron, and pistachios.

Pints of ice cream and frozen desserts range from $8-$11, and cassata ice cream cake slices are $7.

ice cream openings desserts