Where to Eat

Where to eat in Dallas right now: 10 restaurants for a healthy January

Salad from Sister — almost too pretty to eat?

Duro Hospitality

The tradition when it comes to January dining is eating healthy, to atone for the excesses of the year-end holiday revelry. That said, there are many ideas about what healthy dining is. (Sorry people, but it ain't KETO.)

According to the just-released "Best Diets" list from U.S. News & World Report, an annual survey of the most beneficial diets as ranked by nutrition professionals, the best diets in order are: the Mediterranean diet which emphasizes fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, & seeds; the DASH Diet — which also emphasizes fruits, vegetables, and whole grains plus low salt — which came in second; and the "semi-vegetarian diet" which came in third.

At the same time, a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture says that beans and legumes are the healthiest source of protein, and recommends we ramp up our bean consumption (predictably, this was protested by the meat folks).

Using this as inspiration, we've compiled these 10 restaurants which range from Mediterranean buffets to vegan spots to restaurants offering special veg-centric menus.

Here's our list for where to eat:

Banh Mi Station
Vietnamese sandwich shop opened at Sylvan Thirty in 2019, and persevered not only through a banh mi trend but also the pandemic, remaining a rare consistent presence at Sylvan Thirty, along with Cibo Divino. They do classic banh mi sandwiches, which on their own are prettty healthy, but they also have an entire vegan selection with some really cool items like Tempeh Fries featuring grilled paprika tempeh, peanuts, cilantro, and vegan aioli; Edamame Falafel, piled on sliced avocado; and a Buffalo "Un-Chicken" sandwich. Ingredients are fresh, prices are low, and they even have a vegan chocolate cheese cake.

Beyond the Bun
Cute new sandwich shop just opened inside an antique mall in Lewisville at 1165 S. Stemmons Fwy, where it's serving artisanal sandwiches — roast beef, Buffalo chicken, a BLTA — but all plant-based. Current offerings include an Italian Cuban sandwich with ham, provolone, Dijon, and dill pickles on focaccia bread; Buffalo Chicken with fried chicken, buffalo sauce, bleu cheese, and ranch on a sub-style brioche bun; and a sandwich with turkey, ham, Swiss cheese, dill pickle aioli, lettuce, & tomato on white bread. They are using meats and cheese imported from The Herbivorous Butcher, the acclaimed vegan butcher shop based in Minneapolis, and all breads are made in-house.

Blue Sushi
Small sushi chain with three locations — Uptown, Preston Hollow Village, and Fort Worth — has not only good regular sushi but is also well known for its extensive selection of vegan sushi rolls with ingredients and sauces that seem like they can't possibly be vegan. All locations have vegan offerings — but Preston Hollow has the most with items such as a tuna tower made with plant-based tuna; tempura asparagus with vegan cream cheese; barbecue eggplant "eel" with avocado; and the eden roll with tempura sweet potato and edamame hummus. The rolls are so creative and decadent that they attract non-vegans, too.

Banh Mi Station Banh Mi Station

DiMassi's Mediterranean Buffet
Anything from Houston is good news for Dallas and that includes this chain which has been serving Mediterranean and Lebanese cuisine since 1996. It's a self-serve style buffet with hummus, vegan dolmas, lentil soup, tabouleh salad, fattoush, falafel, chickpea salad, but also some traditional items like an arugula salad in addition to strictly middle Eastern dishes. It was originally founded by the DiMassi family but is currently run by Sam Khader, a graduate of The Conrad Hilton Hotel & Restaurant Management program at the University of Houston who has expanded across Texas and beyond, including two locations in California. You can find six in DFW: Richardson, Allen, Plano, Fort Worth, Grapevine, and Irving, with another coming soon to Mesquite.

D'Vegan
Vietnamese restaurant located in a shopping center on the border of Lake Highlands and Garland has been a favorite for Dallas' vegan community since it opened in 2015. They have a huge menu that does vegan versions of Vietnamese and Asian food: spring rolls, noodles, lemongrass tofu, pad Thai, pho, pot stickers — but also burgers & fries, a BLT, a vegan chicken sandwich, a BBQ tortilla wrap. It's a trip. There are numerous soups including Bún Riêu, a tomato tofu noodle soup with vermicelli noodles, tomatoes, mushroom, cilantro, and onion. It's all at bargain prices which makes it easier to overlook the food-court setting.

Fadi's
Small Mediterranean chain is named for its wunderkind Houston-based chef Fadi Dimassi, a native of Lebanon whose family first founded the DiMassi's chain before branching off with Fadi's in 1997. Lebanese food is the best and Fadi's has set a standard with its kebabs, wraps, vegetables, sides, and breads, with signature dishes like eggplant with pomegranate molasses. While the restaurant is a buffet, it's not self-serve, which helps keep the riff-raff from messing with the food. They also cook certain items to order. And they also serve wine. Fadi's remains small and dotingly family-run, with seven locations in Houston and two in DFW: in Dallas at Knox and US-75, and a location in Frisco.

Kalachandji's
Kalachandji's is Dallas' longest running vegetarian restaurant and a one-of-a-kind treasure, serving homey dishes from India via a generous buffet with rice, steamed veggies, curry, vegetable fritters, entrées such as lasagna and jambalaya, black bean curry, and the incomparable cinnamon-swirl bread they bake in-house. Their location — at a Krishna temple in East Dallas — adds to the charm, with a courtyard patio in the center of the restaurant that is a true oasis. They diligently post their menu online every day and they're also a great deal — $15 at lunch, $18 at dinner.

Sister
Italian-ish restaurant on Greenville Avenue from Dallas-based Duro Hospitality (The Charles, Bar Charles, El Carlos Elegante, Café Duro, Casa Duro) is a neighborhood trattoria serving wood-fired meats and fish, house-made pastas, and Mediterranean inspired cuisine. Like all of Duro's concepts, it has a robust selection of vegetarian items, offered in a casual "no big deal" way, just a part of what they do, employing subtly decadent chef touches to spotlight the ingredients to their best advantage. Dishes like shishito peppers & onion, served in big chunks but tender, with tiny pear-shaped tomatoes and roughly-chopped almonds, laid across a base of tzatziki, so you can swipe your fork through for a creamy touch.

TLC mushroom scallops TLC Cafe vegan scallops TLC Cafe

TLC Cafe
Most mainstream restaurants now feature vegan dishes on their menu, but it's often a token dish. At TLC Cafe in Richardson, everything is vegan, from chicken pesto lasagna to Buffalo cauliflower to pulled pork mac & cheese. TLC chef Troy Gardner has been doing vegan food in Dallas for nearly 20 years; you don't find this degree of expertise with the cuisine often, and especially in DFW. The restaurant issues seasonal menus, and the winter edition is rich with hearty pastas and stick-to-your-rib comfort foods. Ir's all vegan, so you can indulge away.

Tribal All Day Cafe
Oak Cliff cafe does a modern take on "health food" that makes it cool again. Their menu features avocado toasts, bowls, wraps, tacos, juices, with lots of items that are also secretly vegan and gluten-free. Their loaded nachos with black beans and vegan queso are a standout; you can add vegan sausage made from walnuts and mushroom — two ingredients on trend right now. The owners also own fine-dining restaurant Written By the Seasons in Oak Cliff, which just opened a second location in the Quad in Uptown Dallas.

where-to-eat

Additives News

Texas must put warning labels on some foods, but new law has errors

Man reading a label while grocery shopping in a supermarket aisle

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A new Texas law promoting the Trump administration's “Make America Healthy Again” agenda requires first-ever warning labels on foods like chips and candies that contain dyes and additives not allowed in other countries.

It could have far-reaching effects on the nation's food supply, but a review of the legislation shows it also misrepresents the status of some ingredients that would trigger the action.

The law signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on June 22 requires foods made with any of more than 40 dyes or additives to have labels starting in 2027 saying they contain ingredients “not recommended for human consumption” in Australia, Canada, the European Union or the U.K. But a review shows that nearly a dozen of the targeted additives are either authorized in the cited regions — or already restricted in the U.S.

The law, which will send the food industry scrambling to respond, is laudable in its intent, but could lead to incorrect citations and potential legal challenges, a consumer advocacy group said.

“I don’t know how the list of chemicals was constructed,” said Thomas Galligan, a scientist with the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “Warnings have to be accurate in order to be legal.”

The law, approved with wide bipartisan support, is part of a flurry of similar legislation this year by GOP-led statehouses as lawmakers align themselves with U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. Texas would be the first in the U.S. to use warning labels to target additives, rather than nutrients like sugar or saturated fat, to change American diets.

It will force food companies to decide whether to reformulate products to avoid the labels, add the newly required language, pull certain products from Texas shelves or oppose the measure in court.

It's unclear how the list of additives was created. Inquiries to the office of the bill's author, Republican state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, were not immediately returned.

Some of the targeted ingredients are allowed in all the named regions
Regulators in Australia, Canada, the EU, and the U.K. take a cautious approach to food additives: If a product's safety is uncertain, it can be banned or restricted until it is determined to be safe. By contrast, the U.S. generally allows products on the market unless there is clear risk of harm.

Three additives targeted by Texas — partially hydrogenated oils, Red Dye No. 4, and Red Dye No. 3 — are not approved or have been banned in food by U.S. regulators. Several of the other listed ingredients are allowed in all four of those regions, noted Galligan and representatives from the Consumer Brands Association, a food industry trade group.

Examples of those include:

Blue Dye No. 1
Blue Dye No. 2
butylated hydroxyanisole, or BHA
butylated hydroxytoluene, or BHT
diacetyl
interesterified soybean oil
lactylated fatty acid esters of glycerol and propylene glycol
potassium aluminum sulfate

In addition, the legislation contains regulatory loopholes that could prevent certain ingredients from being labeled at all, said Melanie Benesh, an analyst with the Environmental Working Group, an activist organization that focuses on toxic chemicals.

For example, the food additive azodicarbonamide, known as ADA and used as a bleaching agent in cereal flours, is included on the Texas list. But under the Federal Code of Regulations, it may safely be used in food under certain conditions. That federal regulation likely exempts ADA from the state labeling law, Benesh said.

“The law, as passed, may not end up having the impact that legislators intended,” Benesh said.

Nutrition experts welcome a look at food additives
Nutrition experts have long worried about the potential health effects of food additives, even as it remains unclear how much of a role processed foods have in driving chronic health disease.

Research has shown that requiring food label warnings can help steer consumers toward healthier choices and prompt industry to remove concerning ingredients. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed front-of-package labels that would flag levels of saturated fat, sugar and sodium.

“This represents a big win for Texas consumers and consumers overall,” said Brian Ronholm, director of food policy for Consumer Reports. “It’s a reflection of states not wanting to wait for the federal government to act.”

The law also creates a state nutrition advisory committee, boosts physical education and nutrition curriculum requirements in public and charter schools, and requires nutrition courses for college students and medical professionals doing continuing education.

States take on additives
Several states have been taking action to restrict dyes and additives in foods.

In 2023, California became the first state to ban some chemicals and dyes used in candies, drinks and other foods because of health concerns. The state expanded on that last year by barring several additional dyes from food served in public schools.
Other laws passed this year include one in Arkansas banning two particular additives from food sold or manufactured in the state and a West Virginia law includes a statewide ban on seven dyes.

Lawmakers in several states have passed measures this year banning certain additives from food served or sold at public schools, according to an Associated Press analysis using the bill-tracking software Plural. That includes Texas, where the governor last month signed a bill banning foods with certain ingredients from being served in school lunches.

“It’s a pretty dizzying time to be watching what’s happening, because usually policies that are not very industry friendly are opposed, particularly in red states," said Christina Roberto, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Food and Nutrition Policy, “With RFK and the MAHA movement, it’s really turned things upside-down in some ways.”

At the federal level, Kennedy and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary have pledged to remove artificial dyes from foods and have pressured industry to take voluntary action. Some large food manufacturers have complied.

Health advocates have long called for the removal of artificial dyes from foods, citing mixed studies indicating they can cause neurobehavioral problems, including hyperactivity and attention issues, in some children.

The FDA previously has said that the approved dyes are safe and that “the totality of scientific evidence shows that most children have no adverse effects when consuming foods containing color additives.”

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