News You Can Eat

This Dallas restaurant news has tons of tempting dishes to check out

Basque-style cheesecake at Bulla Gastrobar.

Bulla Gastrobar

January can be a sleepy time in the Dallas restaurant scene but 2023 has been an exception, and this roundup of restaurant news is proof. Most of what's here is about new dishes and new seasonal menus, but there's also news about chef appointments and celebrity chefs on TV.

Here's what's happening in Dallas dining news, collated from press releases, emails, and online sites:

Loro Asian Smokehouse & Bar has launched two ramen specials for February, served Tuesdays-Wednesdays after 4 pm: Smoked Brisket Ramen or Grilled Prawn Ramen, both featuring Balinese curry, sun noodles, ajitama egg, green onion, and sesame, both $18.

Bulla Gastrobar, the Spanish-style restaurant located in Legacy West, has launched a new Winter menu featuring clams with pork belly, Galician soup, braised short ribs with house-made potato chips, braised lamb with patatas panaderas, pear fiocchi pear-filled pasta, with honey blue cheese sauce, cauliflower with bechamel sauce, and Basque-style creamy cheesecake with blueberry compote.

Ford’s Garage, the restaurant inspired by the heritage of the Ford Motor Company, has a new limited-edition comfort-food menu featuring seasonal dishes with a twist including Philly Cheeseburger, a half-pound black Angus patty with caramelized onions, red bell pepper, Pepperjack cheese, beer cheese, and apple-bacon jam; 10-oz bone-in pork chop with apple slices, bacon jam, and rum glaze, with two sides; and Belgian waffle bites with caramel sauce.

Mendocino Farms has rolled out a new limited-time menu featuring a Countryside Cobb with Romaine, spinach, red onion, bacon, asparagus, green onion, pickled peppadew peppers, Gruyere cheese, and boiled egg; Chicken Parm Dip sandwich with chicken, Mendo’s krispies, mozzarella, Grana Padano cheese, pomodoro sauce, basil, and Calabrian chili aioli on a sesame roll; plus new sides including Beets & Farro, Spicy Dijon Potato Salad, Creamy Potato Leek Soup, and Vegan Chili. At all five area locations: Preston Hollow, Addison, Plano, West Village, and Downtown Dallas.

Mod Pizza has added oven-baked wings, available in six- or 12-piece portions in five recipes: Original, BBQ Hot Honey, Buffalo, Sri-Rancha, and Parmesan Garlic Rosemary. The wings join other recent menu innovations that include a plant-based Italian Sausage, a new salad menu, and a series of seasonal, limited-edition No Name Cakes. A spokesperson says that wings have been in their culinary pipeline for a while, and they'll have more new items throughout 2023.

Dickey’s Barbecue Pit has a spicy new limited-edition Atomic Barbecue Chicken Sandwich, a collaboration with its virtual Wing Boss concept, featuring smoked chicken breast, pickles, onions, and a fusion of Wing Boss’ Atomic sauce and Dickey’s Sweet Barbecue sauce. It'll be available February 6-April 30.

Fuzzy's Taco Shop has brought back two favorite tacos: The Spicy Chimi Fajita Taco features a flour tortilla with garlic sauce, cheese, fajita beef or chicken, pico de gallo, and spicy chimichurri sauce made with parsley, cilantro, jalapeños, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, and salt. The Saucy Brisket Poblano Taco has shredded brisket, Butt Burnin’ sauce blended with Dr. Pepper and topped with poblano peppers, red onion, avocado, garlic sauce, feta, and cilantro on a warm flour tortilla.

Dunkin' has a new winter lineup featuring the Brownie Batter Dougnut, Brown Butter Toffee Latte, Stuffed Biscuit Bites, and Bacon Avocado Tomato Sandwich.

DQ restaurants in Texas are offering a deal on their Texas T-Brand Tacos, consisting of crunchy corn shells filled with beef, shredded cheese, lettuce, tomato, and taco sauce, three for $5 through the end of February.

Grimaldi's, the pizza chain, has launched a new Garden Ranch Salad with Romaine lettuce topped with red pepper, red onion, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, croutons, and ranch dressing.

Razzoo's Cajun Cafe has added new $9.99 lunch entrees all day Monday–Friday. featuring Cajun Fried Steak and Cajun Fried Chicken, both served with mashed potatoes and andouille cream gravy, and Andouille Sausage with Red Beans & Rice.

Freebirds World Burrito has added Hero tortillas, which contain 2g of carbs, designed for people who like burritos but are trying to lower their calories and carbs. It'll be a third tortilla option at Freebirds, the other two being flour and cayenne tortillas.

The State Fair of Texas is seeking applicants who'd like to become one of the nearly 90 concessionaires at the 2023 event. There's an application online or go to BigTex.com.

Hawthorn, the restaurant in the lobby floor of the AT&T building in downtown Dallas, now has executive chef Eric Spigner in the kitchen. Spigner has worked at Greenbrier Country Club, Pizzaiolo, and Nova in Dallas. Spigner was nominated for Rising Star Chef in CultureMap's 2019 Tastemaker Awards and also won on the Food Network Show Chopped.

Dallas celebrity chef Tiffany Derry will be a contestant in the fourth season of Guy Fieri's iconic culinary competition, Tournament of Champions, which returns on Sunday, February 19 at 7 pm on Food Network, where chefs from the East and West coast will face off in a bracket-style culinary competition.

Greenville Avenue Pizza Company owner Sammy Mandell helped set a Guinness Book of World Record. Mandell traveled to Tulsa to join World Pizza Champions in partnership with The University of Tulsa and set a new world record for World’s Largest Pizza Party to benefit Make-A-Wish Oklahoma at an event on January 21 that had a total of 3357 participants. The attempt is a charitable initiative of World Pizza Champions, as many members from around the country and world were in Tulsa to together author a cookbook.

Genghis Grill has a new restaurant prototype set to debut in spring 2023 that will be half the size of today's locations, with a goal to get customers in and out in under 15 minutes of placing an order, as well as a separate pick-up area for to-go and curbside parking spots.

Dallas-based Avocados From Mexico is making its "AvocadoGlow" brand color official through a partnership with PANTONE. The new color emulates the tones you see when you cut into a ripe avocado. They've launched a limited-edition Avocado Glow Collection that includes throw pillow, wallpaper, apron, oven mitts, coasters, a serving tray and a guacamole bowl.

Texas Food & Wine Alliance revealed its 2022 grant winners, giving away more than $107K in grants to 19 winners and one honorable mention statewide. Dallas-Fort Worth recipients included Cafe Momentum, Wicked Bold Chocolate, and Funkytown Food Project.

The FDA Modernization Act 2.0 was signed into law. This ends an 80-year-old requirement for animal testing in the development of new drugs and allows manufacturers and sponsors of a drug to use alternative testing methods to animal testing. Huge!

lists news-you-can-eat

Eco Warrior News

Dallas restaurants doing amazing little things for the environment

Southwest Airlines

Cute bamboo cup from Southwest Airlines

One unfortunate legacy left by the pandemic has been a huge increase in the use of plastics — setting back progress that was being made pre-pandemic.

Plastics are bad. They harm everything they touch: the environment, health, food security, and economies. But they're convenient, subsidized, and in some cases necessary.

Before the pandemic, a growing awareness had started to snowball regarding the negative impact of plastics, particularly plastic straws and single-use plastic containers — and it was significant enough to make the plastics industry very nervous.

"In the two years leading up to the pandemic, the public backlash against plastic was a major concern for industry leaders," says a story about plastics and the pandemic in The Guardian. "As a corporate executive remarked during an industry event early in 2019: 'We need to get the image of plastic in oceans out of the public’s mind. Otherwise, we could lose our social license to operate.'"

But then the pandemic came along, igniting mass hysteria about contagion, and suddenly, bans on single-use plastics that had been in the works were reversed in countries around the world: North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

“Overnight, plastics went from public enemy No. 1 to consumers asking for everything to have as much packaging as possible and to be single use," said one gleeful analyst for Shell Oil, who are a major plastics player.

The urgency of the plastics situation remains invisible to most people, lined up at the drive-thru for their coffee or Chick-Fil-A, piling up nearly 250 pounds of plastic waste every year. (That's what the average American amasses — more than any other country.)

But there are brave, pro-environment efforts being made by Dallas companies and organizations, big and small.

La Casita Bakeshop cup Revolutionary compostable cup at La Casita Bakeshop.Facebook

Dallas efforts
The Dallas restaurants and organizations listed below have taken steps to fight waste, even though it costs them money.

Plastic Free Lunch Day is November 22
Dallas ISD’s Food and Child Nutrition Services will participate in Plastic Free Lunch Day on November 22, to help reduce the amount of single-use plastic in school cafeterias.

Plastic Free Lunch Day was started by middle school students in Brooklyn. The initiative was such a success that it was adopted by all New York City public schools in 2022. The concept has since spread to public schools across the country — including Dallas ISD, which was the first in Texas to participate, when it joined up in 2022.

It creates an opportunity to educate students and the community on ways to positively impact the environment, including skipping plastic. Dallas school cafeterias will replace the plastic items they regularly use during lunch with biodegradable alternatives. (Plastic cutlery, cups, and straws will be available upon request for the crybabies.)

Southwest Airlines bamboo cup
Southwest Airlines Co., the Dallas-based airline, has introduced a new bamboo cup for inflight cold beverages, and a wood stir stick in place of a plastic stick. The airline expects the new items to reduce its inflight single-use plastics by more than 1.5 million pounds annually.

In July 2024, Southwest transitioned to a paper overwrap for its napkins made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled materials — fully eliminating plastic from this service item. The airline is making an effort to eliminate single-use plastics from inflight service by 2030.

La Casita Bakeshop compostable cups
La Casita Bakeshop, the award-winning bakery and cafe operation, recently debuted fabulous new cups that are 100 percent compostable, soil- and marine-biodegradable, breaking down naturally after 90 days. and are made from natural materials.

"We are always trying to find ways to be more environmentally friendly and this is a big way we can," they said in their post announcing the new cups. "We just want to be proud of our paper trail and being a restaurant it's hard to do that."

Smoothie King biodegrable cups
Smoothie King, the Dallas-based smoothie chain, previously used styrofoam cups, but began testing a biodegradable cup in 2019. They now offer it as the default choice. They're using Vio Foam, specially made cups that biodegrade 92 percent in four years. They'll still accommodate whiny selfish customers who insist on getting a plastic cup instead, but their Vio foam cup not only helps the environment, it also keeps their smoothies cold a little longer.

Kate Weiser Recycle Box Program
Kate Weiser, the Dallas chocolatier, sells its gorgeous eye-catching bon-bons in a variety of boxes, from 4 pieces all the way up to 35 pieces. (OK, they'll sell them individually, too, but who goes to a chocolate shop and buys a single chocolate?) They have a program where you can bring your empty box to the store and get a refill and get 5 percent off. (Weiser amusingly calls it a "secret hack.")

Dude Sweet Chocolate freezer packaging
Dude Sweet Chocolate, the Oak Cliff chocolatier, has a next-level campaign in which they will accept cold-ship packaging you've received in the mail and re-use it. Say, for example, that you ordered an 8-pack of ice cream pints from Double Rainbow in San Francisco, and it arrived in a box with freezer packs and a foil liner. You can drop that packaging off at Dude Sweet's factory location at 1340 Inwood Rd., and they'll re-use it in one way or another when they're doing shipments of their chocolate.

Note: Whether you're putting it in the blue bin or the gray bin, your plastic is not being recycled. The best course when it comes to plastic, especially single-use plastic, is to not use it at all.

sustainability